Rural versus urban, their conflict and its causes; a study of the conditions affecting their natural and artificial relations

Front matter

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Preface

npHE subject-matter of this volume was originally * contained in a series of letters written somewhat hastily by the author, in the spring of the present year, while on a health-seeking tour of the Mediterranean region, and while contemplating the tragic history of the many great nations that once flourished there. They were subsequently published in a local paper in Springfield, Ohio, and received considerable attention.

It may perhaps be needless to say that they were written under the disabilities of ill-health, and also under the embarrassments of insufficient data and statistical matter relating to the several subjects considered, which were not readily obtainable.

It might be further added that such statistical matter as relates to the United States being necessarily confined to a range fixed by the twelfth, or last (1900), census of the government, that pertaining to other countries was made to conform as far as possible therewith, in order that all comparisons might be on a full and equal basis.

VI Preface

Having been frequently solicited to put these letters into a more compact, permanent, and durable form, I have at last concluded to yield to this oft-repeated request. In thus submitting them, however, to the judgment and candor of the public, I do so with the feeUng that my labors will be fully justified and amply rewarded i£ they in any measvire contribute to even a partial solution of the many perplexing problems that, in common with other nations, now beset this great coimtry.

Contents

PAGB

Agriculture in Ancient and Modern Italy 33

Money, Manufacturing, and Foreign Commerce

II

'X'HOSE who have extensively travelled, espe- * ciaUy in the rural portions of Italy, cannot fail to be impressed by a marked characteristic of the country, almost from the Alps to the extreme southern part of the peninsula. Everywhere one sees rising some symmetrical hill, often of pyramidal form, the crest of which is crowned by a village or city in a more or less perfect condition, giving a charming setting to the entire picturesque countryside of this delightful peninsiila. This constitutes such a general peculiarity through the entire country as to cause the impression that it may once have been a dominant and prevailing characteristic, having for its origin some fimdamental cause arising out of the varied wants, of the early inhabitants that occupied the mountains and valleys of ancient Italy.

On closer study, one can discern visible purpose and design in what at first view seemed merely casual or fortuitous. Two special features mark

l6 the wide distribution of these hill cities. They are usually located on an eminence of commanding position and altitude, and of steepest acclivity, and always on the limited space of some sheer rock that may chance to surmotmt the rugged summit. This would justify the inference that the- location of these hill cities was primarily determined by defensive necessities. It can again be noted that with rare exceptions they are found in the vicinity of a more or less extended area of fertile land, and in greater frequency adjacent to the beautiful and rich valleys that traverse seaward with such charming effect throughout the entire peninsula. Moreover, there is sustained a close relation between the size and importance of the hill cities and the area of the available fertile lands they command.

In the state of mankind succeeding that wherein life is wholly sustained by the precarious fruits of the chase, the cultivation of land becomes their one sole piu-suit.

As in virtue of diversity in climate and other physical conditions that prevail even in extreme forms throughout the globe, man in his most primitive state was necessarily distributed in a multitude of more or less dissimilar races, tribes, or groups; for it must be considered that it is the influence of his environing, climatic, and other physical conditions that more than all else forms and shapes his specific ethnological character. We therefore find that differentiation of the human family into those special forms in direct correspondence with the degree, diversity, and extent of the peculiar surrovmding physical influences under which he existed, and out of which he developed.

We are, therefore, warranted in the belief that in those covmtries possessed of greatest material diversity, there would, in the earlier and simpler state of man, develop by natural process a larger number of special groups than in those countries where there prevail more uniform and homogeneous climatic and general physical conditions.

Thus it is easy to understand that a homogeneous people, such as the Turanian, occupying even the small Grecian territory with its extreme variety in physical composition, would in process of time dissolve into variant sections in harmony with the many local diversities, and assume special characteristics, which, while not widely dissimilar to the parent stock, were sufficiently discordant to cause an irreconcilable animosity and perpetual warfare long witnessed among the many Greek states that developed from a common progenitor.

In like manner, we can see how even a larger niimber of variant races and tribes might arise from some parent race, be it Siculi, Oscan, or Sabellian, that, as a common ancestor, may have occupied and peopled the larger and more diversified country of ancient Italy.

In considering the primitive agricultural state of man, it would be pleasant to contemplate it as one wherein each tiller of the soil, comprised in the race or tribe, dwelt in peace and londisturbed security upon the land he cultivated and which he was permitted to call his own. But when we reflect upon the many selfish passions that too often awaken the energies, control the mind, and debase the heart of man, we must recognize that this pleasing Arcadia becomes not only the merest Utopia, but essentially impossible.

Among the many ennobling qualities of heart and mind that endow the natural man and make for a higher, purer, and happier state, and by the exercise of which he gains strength, we find side by side also those of equal worth that, in their unguarded exercise and indulgence, tend towards a progressive degeneracy and a more enthralling mercenary spirit, thwarting in a measure our sweeter impulses and higher aspirations. The natural desire to acquire and accumulate, wisely implanted in us as a means of self-preservation, when duly directed and controlled, is the most powerful stimulus given to man for the furtherance of his well-being, as well as an incentive to promote his true welfare and progress. When given unrestrained indulgence, it steadily ripens into an enthralling avarice and greed, that withers the heart and corrodes the soul.

This innate tendency towards the perversion of a necessary and useful trait of otir nature is manifest from the savage with his needless store of wampum to the civilized millionaire with his surplus of weighted wealth; and from the child with its well-stiiffed pockets, filled with a shining though worthless hoard, to the money-maddened Croesus with his gorged lockers of burdensome wealth. Thus what is salutary in its influence when wisely limited and controlled, when relieved from prudent restraint develops into even a predatory nature, which in its last degeneracy impels to deeds of violence and conquest, to satiate what has become a ruling passion. Everywhere this is disclosed in the efforts of the individual for personal gain at the expense and at times ruin of another, and of nations to wrest through violence of war the coveted wealth of their neighbors.

The most powerful imptdse, no doubt, that moves a people is the desire to possess themselves of fertile lands. Nor can this be a cause for wonder, since it is the basic necessity of mankind. Moreover, in this vast and noble resource — the greatest possessed by man — there lies not only the potentiality of gratifying all his necessary wants and desires, but also, if need be, all forms of avarice and greed that may serve in a measure to appease this insatiate and sordid mania.

Despite all the claims of a possible attainment otherwise, to a general state of higher cidture, luxury, and ease, it remains a stubborn fact that all the necessities and desires of civilized mankind depend primarily for their supply and gratification upon the rather prosaic labor and energy directed to the soil, which of necessity must ever engage the far largest portion of the people. No matter how we may yearn for, or how needful we may deem to be, a higher culture and refinement for our happiness, we must face the commonplace fact that we have first to provide the means for our bodily wants and existence before we can consider the manner of it. As at present conditioned, man seems hopelessly fated to meet this prime necessity only by his unsentimental efforts and labor to wrest this means from the soil. It is upon this that all human activities directly rest. I believe you will agree with me that it is first in order that we create and preserve our senses before we consider the matter of gratifying them, for in their true order does not the demand of necessities come before that of luxuries?

Unfortunately, the human race has no fiulher arrived than yet to vulgarly and laboriously extract from the land the coarse equivalent of sentiment and culture, and it is thus that the man behind the counter in a city bazaar is not the man of prime importance, for he is preceded by the man behind the hoe in the country. Is it not evident, therefore, that the butcher and the baker are in advance of the artist and the tailor?

The important areas of fertUe lands in the valleys and on the mountain-sides were no doubt in primitive times the attractive force that drew the early races thither. Doubtless, in due time, by a natural process of segregation, these lands fell under the control of more or less defined groups, and possibly fragments of an anterior disintegrated race. In a congeries of resultant and contiguous tribes, widely extended, marked by dissimilar traits, a common racial affinity no longer exercising a pacific influence, each tribe, moved by a common and mutual avarice or a spirit of adventure, was ever ready to encroach upon the territory of another.

Thus, throughout this vast mosaic of militant tribes and races that covered Italy in early — even prehistoric — times, there existed a continuous state of suspended hostilities. Indeed, such accounts as have descended to us through the obscure medium of fable, legend, and tradition, of the early tribes that spread over Italy, are but records of incessant warfare among them. These communities or tribes arising spontaneously, or dissolved from whatever cause from a parent stock, adopted forms of government singularly similar in character further suggesting a remote and identical origin. They were aristocratic, often republican, and rarely of a kingly nature. The favorite form was to entrust the functions of government to a select council of elders, probably drawn from the body of the tribe, for age, wisdom, or experience, or perhaps for superior martial ability, so essential and justly admired among all primitive races.

The ingrained, aggressive spirit of all early agricultural and pastoral peoples, ever stimulated by either an internal pressure of poptdation or a desire to encroach upon near neighbors, or, as often occurred, a mere spirit of adventure and conquest, put upon them alike the necessity of a thorough defence against their mutual tendencies to violate their respective rights. As the most desirable and fertile lands lie in the valleys, and the less valued on the forest-covered hill and mountainside, it was therefore in the valleys that lay the point of contact and scenes of Conflict that ever existed between them, and in which their predatory warfare was mostly maintained and confined.

In the issue of a battle, however decisive or complete, there is left in the defeated party an unconquered remnant, which seeks in flight some haven of safety. Out of this possible necessity there grew the fortified hill-tops, the remains of which even to this day constitute for the traveller an attraction in rural Italy. It formed at once the most natural and effective protection not only of a defeated army, but also of the agrictdtural laborers that were driven from their fields by the invading enemy.

In this protective aegis of the cities over agricultiure in early times, might not we trace the rudiments of that patronizing and protective air so often assumed in these days by the inhabitants of the cities towards those of the covmtry?

How effective was this defence of even an insignificant community is shown by the fact that the great Hannibal, invincible on the plains of Italy, was forced to abandon his efforts against the little town of Foligno, secure within her protective walls upon the summit of a commanding hill. The city of Capua provides another notable instance of, or rather the want of, this protective power. It was located in the plains and was the capital of Campania, one of the most extensive and fertile sections of Italy. Possessed of much wealth and many resources, it fell an easy prey to the hardy mountaideers of Samnitun, and later imder the remorseless grasp of the Romans, who themselves were steadily repulsed for nearly two centuries by the same hill-dwelling Samnites.

Whatever may have been the original influences that caused the diffusion of the people throughout the limited area of lands occupied by them, there soon arose the necessity in peace, as well as in war, to provide ample means of security for the entire population against the many assaults and surprises from which they were ever in danger. No retreat could afford more complete protection than that of a summit of a ridge or hill enclosed within the compass of protecting walls. Thus it was that the apex of some chosen hill was encircled by a defending fortification or wall; and such is the force of custom growing out of a once fundamental necessity, that even to this day it is common to see hill towns enclosed by walls, and occupied by all the tillers of the soil in the adjacent valley, to which they retire at nightfall, and which vaguely marks the limits of the land once occupied by some tribe or community long since extinct.

This ancient though natural mode of protecting the rights and securing the safety of a rural people is not confined to special nations, but seems to have spontaneously, as if by an inherent necessity, arisen in all countries where rural occupations were paramount. Nor does this essential need seem to be confined to a mountainous country, for it is a feature reflected in the less effectively protecting auls, or groups of tents, scattered throughout the wide plains of Tartary.

Everjrwhere in Scotland and in Ireland are noted the numerous remains of strong and ample castles that in ancient times supplied in sudden and extreme emergencies a safe, though temporary, retreat for the meagre poptdation that under their shadow found some sectuity in the cultivation of the narrow border of land in the valley below.

It was this presence of a perpetual menace and imminence of war that caused the primitive tribes and races to divide their people into more or less defined classes, of the civil and military. The first was composed of all those incapable of bearing arms, and the second comprised all that were capable of rendering military service to the commimity. Yet in the early days of Rome, as well as in the other cities of Italy, this military class was not of an exclusive or fixed order, since the profession of arms was always joined with the pursmt of agriculture in times of peace, and it was usually in defence of their farms that in their earlier days they went to war.

This division of a nation into fixed orders of civil and military can arise from three causes only : where there has developed a spirit of adventure, conquest, and aggression; where there has grown up a permanent derangement of its internal, political, civil, and industrial forces; or, which is the more usual one, that of maintaining the security of an undidy extended circumference and border by an unwise expansion of the national domain against the assaults of circumjacent races.

It is an inherent necessity of a purely pastoral people that a separate military order be constantly maintained. The Tartar race was, perhaps, the most conspicuous example of this free distribution of its people into well-defined and exclusive military and civil classes. The entire able-bodied element of the race was consigned to the sole profession of arms, and it was left to the remaining section of the people to provide for the wants of the whole nation, including the military class. Being left to the exclusive exercise of arms and the kindred amusements of the chase, the military element naturally developed such proficiency in all the essentials of war, as to make them the most formidable and invincible warriors the world has yet seen.

In the city of Rome, after the passing of her purely defensive stage, the continued internal and external necessities caused a gradual change in her military system, from that of a transient and unpaid peasant soldiery, subject to the call of a consul, to that of a paid and permanent one under the command of a general. This became an ever-increasing menace to the institutions and liberties of the commonwealth, and ultimately brought the empire.

While inquiry as to the number and popvdation of the hill cities that were interspersed through the peninsula of Italy can bring but indefinite results from the slender historical data at command, it may, however, serve to form in some measure a definite idea, not only as to the number of cities, but as to the life-sustaining capacity of agriculture throughout the peninsula at the beginning of the Roman era.

In the middle of the sixth century B.C., at the time of the regijugium, or banishment of the last of the kings, the territory of Latium comprised less than 2000 square miles, or about equal to the area of the State of Delaware, whose population at present is 180,000. With Latium and its confederated states and cities, Rome had formed a league under the last of her ruling kings.

Now in referring to the attempt to restore the exiled king, the ancient historian definitely says that the thirty Latium cities seceded from the league, declaring war upon Rome in furtherance of the attempt to restore Tarquin to his throne. This, it will be seen, gives something over sixty square miles of territory as an average to the cities of that country. Applying this standard, there must have been at that time in the Italian territory south of the Apennines from six to eight hundred cities of the size equal to those in Latium, whatever that may have been.

In this connection it must be considered that the Roman domain embraced the rich valley of the Tiber, the fairest portion of the region, leaving as a residue the less fertile and more hilly portion of that territory.

As to the population of the respective cities of Latium, this must be left to inference drawn from the large armies she put into the field, and the long and stubborn resistance of her cities to the powerful assaults of Rome.

It must further be observed that at this time the states of this part of Italy had little, if any, foreign commerce or trade, and therefore for the support of their population they had to rely almost wholly on the products of domestic agriculture. Whatever their population may have been, there seems no good reason to believe that it was much inferior, if any, to that of the same territory to-day, or to that of any country of the same character that relies wholly upon its agriculture, and is not augmented by foreign intercourse and traffic.

In the division of labor and its products through the natural operation of internal productive forces in a community wholly agricultural and pastoral, such as existed in Italy at that or even pre-Roman times, though drawn together solely by protective necessities, the vastly greater part, as in nations of to-day, must be set down to the credit of its rural portion.

In the entire body of labor of the community of which the hill city was the centre, it may be assumed that there arose in due time such specialized forms in its total productive energies as would tend to yield the largest aggregate benefits to the whole body of the people. The articles necessary to the household and the operations in the field were no doubt produced by a small section of the labor of the cities, under the advantages of a rudely specialized adaptation of labor, together with that of the agriculturists themselves, in the intervals of leistire that often came to them from the many intermissions of their labor in the field.

Either or both of these productive methods insured the full and complete occupation of the time and energies of all the people, yielding the highest useful results of their collective labor. The full occupation of the whole community in useful pursuits preserved them against the tendency to vice that ever attends leisure and idleness, or a partially employed state, for it is truly said that it is idle hands that find evil things to do.

We are aware that you may reply that increased leisure gives increased opportunity for greater individual improvement and advancement. But are we really prepared, even in these times, to affirm that in the totality of leisure's benefits secured by the quick methods and short cuts of modem civilization, there is not akeady a greater admixture of evil than of good? For is it a fact, that leisure is more occupied these days with what is useful and beneficial than what is useless and even injiuious?

Ill

AGRICULTURE IN ANCIENT AND MODERN ITALY

nrmS natural division and distribution of labor * in primitive communities, undisturbed by artificial aid and extraneous influences, by directing the larger portion of its energies to the soil, enabled them to sustain from the same area of land a greater number of people than now, where the more improved methods are employed with their by-product of useless leisure and idleness. This view is sustained by observation in Italy to-day, as everywhere one can discover the wondrous products of the husbandmen, both as to their quantity as well as quality. And this, too, upon lands that have been tilled for thirty centuries, and also without those aids which in our own country are regarded as indispensable to the highest and best cultiu-e. In Italy, one rarely hears the merry clatter of the reaper or sees the glint of a steel ploughshare, for the sickle and the scythe almost universally perform their ancient function, and the furrow is turned by much the same plough

3 33 made and used by the hand of the great Cincinnatus. Indeed, a not inconsiderable part of the land is even now turned by the spade or the twopronged hoe of ancient usage ; and quite the same methods are practised that were so well sung by Hesiod and Virgil. Nor do the highest results of husbandry, such as in skilled China and other countries where primitive methods are in vogue, seem compatible with the disuse of methods and appliances long and well tried, and that are so roundly decried by the disciples of modern progress and reckless change.

But, you may ask, what of the marvellous increase in the products of agriculture witnessed in the world in the last half-century; does it not show the magic of modem science and art to increase the life-sustaining power of the soil? In answer, it may be said that we have merely ascribed to the direct influence of art and science the credit of what, in reality, indirectly arises out of the power of the railway and steamship to render available, for the uses of man, the long unavailable, storedup, and accumulated treasures of the soil in remote and hitherto inaccessible lands, which has been confounded with a greater advance in the art of husbandry. That the ancients were enabled to produce cereal crops by their simple

Agriculture in Ancient Italy 35

primitive methods and means that wotild stagger the modem agrictdturist, eqtdpped with his multiform mechanical miracle workers, is shown by the statement of Herodotus and Plinius, that in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, and in Syria, they produced crops of one hundred and fifty fold. Even in our own country and age, so richly endowed by nature and so bounteously aided by art, such results would be the despair of the husbandman.

In the comparative estimates we have made of the population that could be sustained in different times and coimtries, it is well to bear in mind that in virtue of the simpler and more frugal life of a primitive people, . such as those of ancient Italy, not only a larger proportion of the total labor of a community could be directed to the culture of the land, but a greater part of the products of the individual was left for the general sustenance than in the more complex, artificial, and luxurious life of modem times. Our contention is well sustained by the population of ancient Greece, especially of the Attic and Laconian states, though not so richly endowed as Italy, and where the high repute and condition of agricultural pursuits, even in the heroic age, became the constant theme of the great poet of Ascra.

In this connection, it must be taken into account that in ancient times Italy was held to be the most fortunate of countries in respect of its richness of soU, exuberance and variety of rural products, as well as its pleasing diversity of scenery and salubrious climate.

An ancient Greek historian says of Italy: "I look upon that coimtry as the best, which is the most self-sufficient, and generally stands least in need of foreign commodities. Now I am persuaded that Italy enjoys this vmiversal fertility, and plenty of everything useful beyond any other country in the world. For it contains a great deal of arable land, without wanting wood like a com country; on the other side, the soil is proper for all sorts of trees without being reduced to a scarcity of com, like a wood-land, or by yielding plenty of both, rendered unfit for pasture. Neither can it be said that it is rich in corn, wood, and pasture, yet unpleasant to live in; but abounds, as I may say, in all sorts of delights and advantages. To what country, watered not with rivers, but with rains from Hfeaveri, do the plains of Campania yield ; in which I have seen land that bears even three crops in a year, bringing successively to perfection the winter, stmimer, and autumnal grain? To what olive-grounds are

Agriculture in Ancient Italy 37

those of the Mesapii, the Daunii, the Sabines, and many others, inferior? To what vineyards, those of Tyxrhenia, Alba, and Falemus, where the soil is wonderfully kind to vines, and with the least labor produces plenty of the finest grapes? Besides the land that is cultivated, Italy abounds in pastures for sheep and goats; yet more extensive and more wonderful are those that are assigned to horses and neat cattle.

"There are mines of all sorts, plenty of wild beasts for hunting, and a variety of sea-fish; besides innumerable other things, some useful, and others worthy of admiration: but the most advantageous of all, is the happy temper of the air, suiting itself to every season; so that neither the formation of fruits, nor the constitution of animals, are in the least injtured by excessive cold or heat. It is no wonder, therefore, that the ancients looked upon this country as consecrated to Saturn, since they esteemed this god to be the giver and accomplisher of all happiness."

All this must lead to the behef that in far-off pre-Roman and perhaps pre-historic times, Italy had reached such a state of material prosperity, culture, and fulness of life, as to awaken the envy of the covetous and prosperous Greek. There seems good reason to suppose that the peninsula of Italy was permeated with the higher civilization of the nations less than a day's sail from her own shores, and whose argosies familiarly dotted the ocean even under the shadow of the Pillars of Hercules. In fact, many of the laws, customs, and manners of Rome were derived from the Latin cities which were themselves colonies of Lacedemonia. Is not the belief, therefore, fairly justified that in the peninsula of Italy, a population could, nay, did exist in early times, far in excess of what we in modem times believe to have been possible, and distributed in numerous, and somewhat dissimilar, tribes and communities?

The question thus arises as to whether Rome, even with the aid of the gods, grew out of the integration of crude primal tmits, or the gathering together of the scattered fragments of a once powerful, all-encompassing nation long gone to decay. Indeed, Rome herself supplies a close analogy in the completed cycle of her life; for, in the dissolution of her world-wide fabric of dominance, the earth was for centuries strewn with the debris of her scattered members, — the process of collecting, appropriating, and reconstructing of which is even yet going on among the nations.

Agriculture in Ancient Italy 39

Following this reflection, may we not even now discern in the great medley of incoherent tribes and races of Hindustan, the fragments of a once widespread and coherent Aryan power, that may again be formed into a homogeneous body, only in the fulness of time once more to dissolve into separate and warring elements? Similarly, might not the oft-repeated and unavailing attempts of Greece to affiliate her militant states have in fact been efforts to reunite the fragments of a once overshadowing Turanian power? In these and many like examples there is revealed faint glimpses of a ruthless evolution, the disintegrating and reintegrating forces of which carry all things infinitely onward through an ever-recurring series of endless change.