“I not give you a clear account of the present of in my

country,” the Altrurian began, “without telling you something of our

conditions the time of our Evolution. It to be the law of all

life that nothing can come to without and to make

an end. It must be in it can be in

incorruption. The truth itself must to our it can

live to our souls; the Son of Man must upon the we can

know the Son, of God.

“It was so with His message to the world, which we in the old

time as an by the Christians, who loved one

another and who had all common. The away upon our

heathen us with the of this Christian republic, and

he a of peace and good-will among us in its

likeness. That perished, just as its perished, or

seemed to perish; and long of and economic succeeded,

when every man’s hand was against his neighbor, and might was the rule

that got itself called right. Religion to be the of this

world, and the promise of the next. We into the

valley of the shadow, and for we again

into the light.

“The were and indistinct, but men themselves

about the points here and there, and, when these and

dispersed into gleams, still men themselves about each of

them. There a of better, indeed, than that darkness,

but full of and and greed, in which the weak to

the strong, and them in the and in the camp, and the strong

in turn gave the weak protection against the other strong. It was a juggle

in which the weak did not see that their safety was, after all, from

themselves; but it was an image of peace, false and fitful, and it

endured for a time. It for a limited time, if we measure by the

life of the race; it for an unlimited time if we measure by the

lives of the men who were and died while it endured.

“But that disorder, and and stupid, which it

sometimes itself as order, did at last pass away. Here and there

one of the the rest; then the and

fewer, and in their turn they all to a lord, and

throughout the land there was one rule, as it was called then, or one

misrule, as we should call it now. This rule, or this misrule, continued

for more; and again, in the of the race, men and

struggled, and died without the of things.

“Then the time came when the long was with the of a

future in which all men were the law, and not one man, or any less number

of men than all.

“The of rose, and the tumbled, and the

sceptre was broken, and the rolled away into that of the

past. We that had to us, and that liberty,

equality, and were ours. We not see what should again

alienate us from one another, or how one again oppress

another. With a free and no we we should on

together, and there would be peace and for all. We had the republic

again after so many now, and the republic, as we it in our dim

annals, was and happiness. All but a very few, who

prophesied of our freedom, were in a of

hope. Men’s minds and men’s hands were to an activity

unheard of before. Invention invention; our and seas

became the of where the steam-sped the woof

of enterprise to and with celerity; to save labor

multiplied themselves as if they had been procreative forces, and of

every were produced with and cheapness. Money

seemed to from the ground; ‘rose like an exhalation,’

as your Milton says.

“At we did not know that they were the of the pits

of hell, and that the love of money, which was with us,

was the earth with the of men. It was long we came to

realize that in the of our were those who the fires

with their lives, and that our from which we our were the

graves of those who had died to the free light and air, without finding

the of death. We did not see that the for saving labor were

monsters that and children, and men at the bidding

of the power which no man must touch.

“That is, we we must not touch it, for it called itself prosperity

and and the public good, and it said that it gave bread, and it

impudently the what would of them if

it took away their means of themselves out in its service. It

demanded of the and impunity, the right

to do its will and it would, without question from the

people who were the final law. It had its way, and under its we

became the people under the sun. The Accumulation, as we called

this power, we to call it by its true name, its

own with of twenty, of a hundred, of a thousand cent., and to

satisfy its need, to produce the labor that its machines, there

came into a of men who their for its

service, and little ones were its almost from their cradles.

Then the too great, and the law, the voice of the people, so

long silent, was in of those who had no helper. The

Accumulation came under for the time, and no longer

work its twenty hours a day to life and from its

machinery and in that them and morality. The

time of a hundred and a thousand cent. passed; but still the

Accumulation and impunity, and, in of its

conviction of the it had practised, it itself the only

means of and progress. It to give out that it was

timid, though its history was full of the and crimes, and

it to itself if it were or crossed; and

again it had its way, and we to more and more. The land was

filled with where the rich their in palaces, and

the in tenements. The country was of its life

and force, to the of and industry. The whole land

was together with a network of iron that the factories

and to the and mines, and the with the

enterprise that the of men.

“Then, all at once, when its work perfect and its sure,

the Accumulation was with of the always at its

heart. It had out for a free and no favor, for

unrestricted competition; but, in truth, it had as

a monopoly. Whenever and had play there had been

nothing but to the enterprises, till one rose over the

rest. Then there was for that one.

“The Accumulation to act upon its new consciousness. The iron roads

united; the peace, each under a single

leadership. Monopoly, not competition, was to be the means

of the and of the Accumulation to mankind.

But, as before, there was alternately a and of things, and

it often that when men through the streets

the were full of that the farmers

toiled from till to grow, and the the with

the that the had his life into at his loom. Then

followed, with a and succession, a time of famine, when money

could not the super-abundance that vanished, none how or why.

“The money itself from time to time, and into the

vaults of the Accumulation, for no than that for which it

poured itself out at other times. Our was that the people--that is

to say, the government of the people--made the people’s money, but, as a

matter of fact, the Accumulation it and it and juggled

with it; and now you saw it, and now you did not see it. The government

made gold coins, but the people had nothing but the paper money that the

Accumulation made. But there was or plenty, the failures

went on with a that nothing check, while our larger

economic life in a series of shocks, which we called

financial panics, by long of and recuperation.

“There was no law in our economy, but as the Accumulation had cared

for the nature of law, it did not trouble itself for its name in our order

of things. It had always the law it needed for its own use, first

through the at the polls in the more days, and then, as

civilization advanced, in the and the courts. But the

corruption of these methods was when the of

consolidation came, and the for and and

decisions more stringent. Then we had such a of--”

“Look here!” a sharp, voice across the rich, full pipe of

the Altrurian, and we all looked there. The voice came from an

old farmer, himself up, with his hands in his pockets and

his toward the speaker. “When are you goin’ to to

Altrury? We know all about Ameriky.”

He sat again, and it was a moment the on. Then a

yell of and a of up from the lower

classes, in which, I am sorry to say, my friend the banker joined, so far

as the was concerned. “Good! That’s it! First-rate!” came from a

hundred throats.

“Isn’t it a perfect shame?” Mrs. Makely demanded. “I think some of you

gentlemen ought to say something. What will Mr. Homos think of our

civilization if we let such go unrebuked?”

She was the banker and myself, and her made

him laugh more and more. “Oh, it him right,” he said. “Don’t you

see that he is with his own petard? Let him alone. He’s in the hands

of his friends.”

The Altrurian waited for the to die away, and then he said, gently:

“I don’t understand.”

The old farmer himself to his again. “It’s like this: I paid

my dolla’ to about a country where there wa’n’t no co’perations nor

no monop’lies no buyin’ up cou’ts; and I ain’t agoin’ to have no

allegory my throat, of a true history, noways. I know

all about how it is _here_. Fi’st, their line through your backya’d,

and then kill off your cattle, and keep kerryin’ on it up from cou’t to

cou’t, till there ain’t or on ‘em left--”

“Oh, set down, set down! Let the man go on! He’ll make it all right with

you,” one of the called out; but the farmer his

ground, and I him through the laughing and keep saying

something, from time to time, about not wanting to pay no dolla’ for no

talk about co’perations and monop’lies that we had right under our own

noses the whole while, and, you might say, in your very bread-troughs;

till, at last, I saw Reuben Camp make his way toward him, and, after an

energetic expostulation, turn to him again.

Then he out, “I it’s all right,” and out of sight

in the group he had from. I his wife him there, and

all but him in public.

“I should be very sorry,” the Altrurian proceeded, “to have any one

believe that I have not been you a _bona fide_ account of

conditions in my country the Evolution, when we took the name

of Altruria in our great, peaceful against the Accumulation. As

for you any or of your own conditions, I will

simply say that I do not know them well to do so intelligently.

But, they are, God that the which you to

recognize should go so as the of which we

finally reached. I will not trouble you with details; in fact, I have been

afraid that I had already of our too abstractly; but,

since your own you the means of my meaning, I

will go on as before.

“You will me when I that the Accumulation had not

erected itself into the with us unopposed. The working-men,

who most from its had early to themselves

against it, with the of self-preservation, by trade

and art by art, and then in and of the and

arts, until they themselves in one union, which

included all the working-men, their or their did

not on the of the Accumulation. This and generous

association of the weak for the of the did not accomplish

itself till the of the Accumulation had the

monopolies to one monopoly, till the had the weaker

among its members, and the agent at the of our affairs,

in but name, our ruler. We had so long the

delusion of each man for himself that we had all to be

taken from us. The Accumulation owned the land as well as the under

it and the shops over it; the Accumulation owned the and the ships

that the seas, and the fish that in their depths; it owned

transportation and distribution, and the and that were to

be to and fro; and, by a logic and inexorable, the

Accumulation _was_, and we were _not_.

“But the Accumulation, too, had something. It had it so

easy to and that it did not trouble itself about

the polls. It left us the suffrage, and let us ourselves with the

periodical election of the political images which it and

moulded to any shape and at its pleasure. The Accumulation knew

that it was the sovereignty, figure-head we called president or

governor or mayor: we had other names for these officials, but I use their

analogues for the of clearness, and I my good friend over there

will not think I am still talking about America.”

“No,” the old farmer called back, without rising, “we hain’t got there

quite yit.”

“No hurry,” said a trainman. “All in good time. Go on!” he called to the

Altrurian.

The Altrurian resumed:

“There had been, from the beginning, an almost between

the Accumulation and the proletariate. The Accumulation always said that

it was the best friend of the proletariate, and it denounced, through the

press which it controlled, the proletarian who that it was

the enemy of the proletariate, and who up and of

all sorts, for higher and hours. But the friend of the

proletariate, occasion served, the proletariate like a

deadly enemy. In of overproduction, as it was called, it locked

the out or them off, and left their families to starve, or

ran light work and the of public for at

all. It every to wages; it had laws passed to forbid

or the in their strikes; and the them of

conspiracy, and the to their hurt, in cases where there

had been no of them, among the legislators. God

forbid that you should come to such a pass in America; but, if you

ever should, God that you may your way out as as we did

at last, when had in but name among us, and

justice had a mockery.

“The Accumulation had so smoothly, so lightly, in all its steps

to the power, and had at last so the uprisings

of the proletariate, that it one thing: it the and

neglected suffrage. The ballot, it had been so easy to its

effect, had been left in the people’s hands; and when, at last, the

leaders of the proletariate to strikes, or any of

resistance to the Accumulation that be into the likeness

of against the government, and to them to attack

it in the political way, the that the Accumulation out of

existence came and over the land. It appeared in

the country, a from the ground; then it in the

villages; then it to a in the cities. I cannot to

trace its course; but suddenly, one day, when the Accumulation’s of

a power too gross, it was voted out of that power. You will

perhaps be to know that it was with the that the

rebellion against the Accumulation began, and the government was forced,

by the majority which the proletariate sent to our

parliament, to assume a which the Accumulation had impudently

usurped. Then the of smaller and more perishable wares--”

“Yes,” a voice called--“express business. Go on!”

“Was a of the post-office,” the Altrurian on.

“Then all was taken into the hands of the political

government, which had always been of great in its

administration, but which itself pure with

the Accumulation. The common of necessarily followed, with

an of lands to any one who to live by the land;

but not a of the land was to private hands for the purposes

of selfish or the of any other from the landscape. As

all had been into the of the Accumulation, and the

manufacture of they used and the production of that

they ate was in the of the Accumulation, its transfer to the

government was the work of a single in the statute.

“The Accumulation, which had the of with

contempt, to its too late. When it to the

suffrage from the proletariate, at the election where it attempted

to make against them, it was under, as your picturesque

phrase is. The Accumulation had no voters, the men at its head

and the to it by and ignorance. It seemed, at

one moment, as if it would offer an to the popular will,

but, happily, that moment of passed. Our Evolution was

accomplished without a of bloodshed, and the great political

brotherhood, the of Altruria, was founded.

“I wish that I had time to go into a study of some of the phases

of the from a in which the people _upon_

each other to one in which they _for_ each other. There is a famous

passage in the message of our Altrurian president which

compares the new with that of a spirit

released to the life this and from all the selfish cares

and of the flesh. But I shall give a clear

notion of the of the among us when I say that half

a decade after the of the old plutocratic one of the chief

directors of the Accumulation publicly his to God

that the Accumulation had passed away forever. You will the

importance of such an in the some of

your slave-holders have since the Civil War, that they would not have

slavery for any consideration.

“But now, after this preamble, which has been so much longer than I meant

it to be, how shall I give you a just of the

existing Altruria, the from which I come?”

“Yes,” came the of the old farmer again, “that’s what we are here

fur. I wouldn’t give a copper to know all you through beforehand.

It’s too like what we have been through ourselves, as as heard

from.”

A of up from most of the crowd, but the Altrurian did

not to see any fun in it.

“Well,” he resumed, “I will tell you, as well as I can, what Altruria is

like; but, in the place, you will have to out of your minds all

images of with which your has them. For a

time the of the old Accumulation for our social habitation,

and we in the old and after the life

had gone out of them--that is, we to live in cities,

and we to up for the to corrupt, and we on

in making things, we had the of

making them to sell. For a while we the old things, which

pretended to be useful and were than the useless

things. I will give you an from the trades, which you will

all understand. The proletariate, in the and monopolistic

time, used to make a of shoes for the proletariate, or the of

the proletariate, which looked like shoes of the best quality. It

took just as much work to make these shoes as to make the best shoes;

but they were through and through. They out in a week, and the

people called them, they were fresh for every Sunday--”

“Sat’d’y-night shoes,” the old farmer. “I know ‘em. My buy

‘em. Half-dolla’ a pai’, and not wo’th the money.”

“Well,” said the Altrurian, “they were a and a in every way,

and under the new it was not possible, when public attention

was called to the fact, to continue the they embodied. As soon

as the Saturday-night shoes itself to the public conscience,

an began, and it was that the of the

Saturday-night shoe our and the work

that was done.

“Then an took place. We renounced, in the most solemn

convocation of the whole economy, the of the Saturday-night

shoe, and those who had their in producing shoes--”

“Yes,” said the professor, from his seat near us and the

speaker, “I shall be very to know what of the and

industrious who were out of by this explosion

of economic virtue.”

“Why,” the Altrurian replied, “they were set to work making shoes;

and, as it took no more time to make a pair of shoes which a

year than it took to make a pair of shoes that a week,

the amount of labor in was at once reduced.”

“Yes,” said the professor, “I that. What of the

shoemakers?”

“They joined the army of other who had been employed,

directly or indirectly, in the of wares. These

shoemakers--lasters, button-holers, binders, and so on--no longer wore

themselves out over their machines. One hour where twelve hours

were needed before, and the were to the happy labor of

the fields, where no one with us killingly, from till dusk, but

does only as much work as is needed to keep the in health. We had a

continent to and beautify; we had to and to

modify, a whole of to readjust, and the public works

gave to the from the soul-destroying

service of shams. I can give you a of the of the

improvements and through, or still in of

accomplishment. But a single one will, perhaps, a sufficient

illustration. Our coast, from its to the pole, had

always from a winter of rigor; but our president

conceived the plan of off a peninsula, which the equatorial

current from making in to our shores; and the work was in his term,

though the entire strip, twenty miles in and ninety-three in length,

was not the end of the Altrurian decade. Since that

time the whole region of our has the of

your Mediterranean countries.

“It was not only the makers of who were to

these useful and labors, but those who had themselves in

contriving and and were set free to the public

employment. The of these and was as

great as that of the shams--”

Here I some words, for the over and to me:

“He has got _that_ out of William Morris. Depend upon it, the man is a

humbug. He is not an Altrurian at all.”

I that my me; but I the to be

silent, and again gave the Altrurian--if he was an Altrurian--my whole

attention.