THE REAL PROBLEMS OF DEMOCRACY. 9 



and free institutions. It adds thousands upon thousands to the 

 constantly growing army of tax eaters that are impoverishing the 

 people still striving against heavy odds to gain an honest liveli- 

 hood. It places in the hands of the political despots now ruling 

 the country, without the responsibility that the most odious mon- 

 arclis have to bear, a revenue and an army of mercenaries that 

 make more and more difficult emancipation from their shackles. 

 It is doing more than anything else except the post-office depart- 

 ment to teach people that there is no connection between merit and 

 benefit; that they have the right to look to the State rather than 

 to themselves for maintenance; tliat they are under no obligations 

 to see that they do not take from others, in the form of salaries 

 not earned nor intended to be earned, what does not belong to 

 them. In the face of this wholesale destruction of fellow-feeling 

 such as occurred in France under the old regime and is occurring 

 to-day in Italy and Spain, and the inculcation of the ethics of mili- 

 tant activities, such as may be observed in these countries as well 

 as elsewhere in Europe, is it any wonder that the mind-stuffing that 

 goes on in the public schools has no more effect upon the morals 

 of the American people than the creeds and prayers of the medi- 

 aeval ecclesiastics that joined in wars and the spoliation of oppressed 

 populations throughout Europe? 



Since the path that all people under popular government as 

 well as under forms more despotic are pursuing so energetically 

 and hopefully leads to the certain destruction of the foundations 

 of civilization, what is the path that social science points out? 

 What must they do to prevent the extinction of the priceless ac- 

 quisition of fellow-feeling, now vanishing so rapidly before the 

 most unselfish efforts to promote it? The supposition is that the 

 social teachings of the philosophy of evolution have no answer to 

 these questions. Believing that they inculcate the hideous laissez- 

 faire doctrine of " each for himself and the devil take the hind- 

 most," so characteristic of human relations among all classes of peo- 

 ple in this country, the victims of this supposition have repudiated 

 them. But I propose to show tliat tliey are the only teachings that 

 give the slightest promise of social amelioration. Although they 

 are ignorantly stigmatized as indi^'idualistic, and therefore neces- 

 sarily selfish and inconsiderate of the welfare of others, they are in 

 reality socialistic in the best sense of the word — that is, they enjoin 

 voluntary, not coercive, co-operation, and insure the noblest hu- 

 manity and the most perfect civilization, moral as well as material, 

 that can be attained. 



Why a society organized upon the individualistic instead of 

 the socialistic basis will realize ev^ry achievement admits of easv 



