December 13, 1901.] 



SCIENCE, 



917 



warfare. On the one side are the employers 

 of labor, on the other side the laborers ; on 

 the one side the people who receive divi- 

 dends, on the other the people who receive 

 wages. What is being fought over is the 

 proceeds of labor. We have built up our 

 economic civilization on the principle that 

 the relation between one man and another 

 should be dependent upon voluntary agree- 

 ment between them. But now it has come 

 to be a relation not between man and man, 

 but a relation between class and class. The 

 community founds itself upon the relation- 

 ship. More men are now employed by 

 single corporations than were working for 

 wages in the whole United States a hundred 

 years ago. Such is the present situation. 

 It is admitted on all sides that it is intoler- 

 able. Socialism is defined to be the owner- 

 ship and operation by the State of all coopera- 

 tive industries within its jurisdiction — the 

 industrial condition wherein the State is 

 the only employer of labor and the only 

 wage payer. 



The advocates of socialism in picturing 

 its blessings, assume that it is practicable — 

 an assumption that has not been subjected 

 to the test of trial. But great modern 

 combinations have come upon the scene — so 

 great and so extended that they approach 

 in the complexity of their activities and 

 the magnitude of their undertakings the 

 functions of government itself. A paid 

 servant only is watching other paid ser- 

 vants, and the eye of the master is almost 

 as remote from the hand of the servant as 

 it would be if the state itself were master. 

 The success of the modern industrial com- 

 binations would seem to indicate that the 

 state might succeed pretty well in oper- 

 ating its own industries. If socialism as 

 a practical proposition is thinkable to-day, 

 it is because these combinations have made 

 it so. For good or for evil, they will leave 

 us as a legacy the assurance that indus- 

 trial operations approaching in extent the 



operations of government itself can be suc- 

 cessfully inaugurated and profitably car- 

 ried on. As to the ultimate result, I 

 have no opinion whatever to express. As 

 to the immediate result, however, I have 

 a very decided opinion. I believe we 

 shall have, in the immediate future, not 

 state socialism, but a more socialistic state. 

 I agree that socialism must come if it is the 

 only way to secure industrial peace and pro- 

 tect the masses of the people, but it is far 

 from having been demonstrated yet that it is 

 the only way to do this, I am not prepared 

 to say that we have found another and better 

 way, but I have confidence enough in our 

 race's destiny to believe that we shall. 



* Economic Work of the United States 

 Geological Survey ' : L. F. Schmeckebibb, 

 Ph.D., United States Geological Survey, 

 Washington, D. C. 



The economic work of the United States 

 Geological Survey consists of work in eco- 

 nomic and mining geology, investigations 

 relating to water supply and irrigation, the 

 survey of forests reserves, the preparation of 

 a topographical map of the United States, 

 and the gathering of statistics relating to the 

 mineral production of the country. In the 

 field of mining geology the Survey works 

 upon the general principle that it should 

 endeavor to accomplish for the mining in- 

 dustry as a whole what the individual engi- 

 neer or mine owner could not succeed in 

 doing by his unaided exertions ; in short the 

 Survey undertakes to furnish the prospector 

 and mining engineer with an accurate basis 

 upon which their work may be founded. 

 The bydrographic work falls into three 

 general classes : (1) Work of a strictly en- 

 gineering character, having to do with the 

 measurement of surface streams and the 

 conservation of water supply through the 

 storage of flood water ; (2) examination of 

 the underground structure and the perme- 

 ability of the water-bearing rocks ; and 

 (3) general reconnaissances for the pur- 



