592 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



great advantages of Nature aud land. If, according to Mr. Thornton's 

 theory, employers do not compete for, but combine agains't labor, or, 

 if they do not compete forcibly enough. Nature does now, and must 

 for centuries to come, open her arms to the sons and daughters of toil. 

 It must be remembered that the thriity laborer is always a capitalist 

 here. The struggle is not betAveen labor and capital, want and plenty ; 

 it is between the employed with a little capital and the employer with 

 more. I throw out of the estimate the improvident and reckless; if 

 socialists or unionists have discovered a method which w- ill give these 

 classes an even chance, they have found a principle which Omnipo- 

 tence itself has never ventured to put in pi-actice. 



If these principles be true, one may ask. Why do we have strikes 

 or discontented laborers in America ? I answer, they are the diseases 

 of health ; inflammations come from turgid arteries as well as from 

 sluggish veins. Our abounding life has compelled an eager competi- 

 tion among employers. Employers have invariably tended to over- 

 production, as capitalists know to their cost. Strikes have hardly 

 ever advanced the price of labor ; they have never long increased its 

 exchange value, as I indicated above. There is very little commu- 

 nistic sentiment in the United States, but many socialistic theories of a 

 vague sort. That astute public servant, General Butler, would hardly 

 be found uttering such nonsense, if it were not wanted in the socio- 

 political market. The "glittering generality" of equality has par- 

 tially corrupted the good sense of the citizen ; only in part, but the 

 efi"ect is positive. Things are free, they say ; why not have a better 

 chance for all ? Not through comjnunism ; property is both new and 

 old here ; it is sacred as a treasure, arid dear as a newly-born babe in 

 Anglo-American eyes. Let there be new property ; give us all a new 

 chance ; the bird of freedom is so 'tarnally strong, why not roast-beef 

 and two dollars a day ? The American love of speculation tends ia 

 the same direction. 



Then there is another principle moving in harmony with this. In 

 great emergencies, when the state or social order is threatened, every 

 American citizen becomes great, and views the State as belonging to 

 all. In petty affaii-s, and every-day political matters, the average 

 citizen, small capitalist as well as laborer, views the State as be- 

 longing to the many considered apart from the few. " The rich have 

 enough ; let the poor of the State lean to us," they would say. This 

 blind instinct has entered into strikes and labor-struggles. 



The agitators felt that in some way the masses would win, the 

 constable's club would w^ait on the bayonets, and the militia would 

 sway with the voters for the poor and against the rich; therefore a 

 striker might knock a peaceful laborer on the head with impunity. 

 The common-weal feeling, the American union sentiment as Mr. Was- 

 Bon puts it, " the sovereignty of rational obligation," must stamp out 

 this atrocious delusion. I regard this issue of fact in the late Fall 



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