Open-air politics and the conversion of Governor Soothem

Contents

I. The Sacred Right of Conquest . i II. A Neglected Duty of the State 43

III. The Seat of Public Authority . 83

IV. Can the People Rule? . . .116

II A Neglected Duty Of The State

Long before sunrise all were astir in our hunting-camp. Jim Owens had built a fire but there were no other signs of breakfast. Pete, the cook, had returned, and was waiting for a conference ; and until his status was settled, poor Jim did not dare hang a kettle over the fire.

Volunteering as spokesman, — a position to which his experience in public life and his exalted station properly entitled him, — Governor Soothem undertook the task of adjusting matters with Pete; to whom he said : —

"Well, Pete, I see you are back. Are you ready to go to work?"

*' Not without conditions," was the prompt reply.

**What conditions?" asked the Governor. 43

"Well, you see, when I went away yesterday, I left word that I was looking for a better job; but when I got to Bangor I found the place I expected to have was taken, and I have come back. I did n't tell the real reason why I left. You fellers have been good to me, and it ain't for wages that I quit. I could n't quite bear to tell you, out here in the woods, but serious trouble was brewing."

**Why, how is this, Pete? You never said anything about any trouble. I don't understand," said the Governor.

''Well, you see, yesterday forenoon, a feller came along by here and asked if I had any 'C.C.C.' I told him no, and then I saw what a mistake I had made. He was an inspector of the 'C.C.C' Company."

"The 'C.C.C' Company? And what had he to do with you, anysvay?"

"Why, he was out to see if I was living up

to our contract. You understand we have a

contract with the 'C.C.C' Company. The

fact is, I should never have come out here without a fifty-cent can. I'm safe now, though. I've brought one out with me.*'

''Fifty-cent can? What are you talking about?" demanded the Governor, in perplexity, and fearing that Pete's visit to civilization had led him into a dramshop.

"It is this way, Governor. In the last strike we had with the hotels, the 'C.C.C.' people said if we 'd stand by them and agree to use the ' C.C.C.' exclusively, they 'd stand by us and advance us a month's wages to hold out with. We took their money, and agreed that we would never fry with anything but 'C.C.C.'"

"And who are 'we'?"

''Why, the Confederated Company of Complete Cooks, of course, of which I am a member."

"And what is this 'CCC you are talking about?" inquired the Professor.

"It's a patent artificial substitute for natural fats, such as pork, lard, butter, and oil, put up by the Consolidated Chemical 45

Compound Company, and called by us, for short, 'C.C.C.'," answered Pete.

"Can't we arbitrate this matter with you, Pete?'* asked the Governor blandly.

"No, sir; the matter is one of contract, over which I have no control. I must use the 'C.C.C' or boil the fish. You may have noticed that your game has always been either boiled or roasted. I have tried to accommodate you in that way," said Pete gravely.

"Is this a law you are talking about?" interrupted the General.

"It is one of the engagements of our society," replied Pete firmly, undismayed by the General's somewhat menacing attitude.

"Well, if that is all," roared the General, "get out of this camp, and tell your society to go to thunder! I'll do the cooking myself before I will have any of your miserable 'C.C.C about my food."

"But General," expostulated the Governor, "do not offend this man. You do not realize what the result may be for me. The next election — '*

"This is too much for human flesh to bear. I can go hungry, — I have done that before ; — or I can cook a breakfast, if I must; — I have done that before, too, a long time ago; — but I will be eternally — "

"But, perhaps his 'C.C.C is not so bad, after all ; they say they use it in many hotels, and—"

"Governor, I do not wish to quarrel with you, but if you insist on parleying with this man, I must leave this place. I will not be dictated to by a lot of — "

"I fear, my dear General, it will be very unfortunate for me if I am forced into an altercation with this great organization of our fellow citizens, who are certainly not beyond their rights in laying down the conditions of their profession. I, at least, wish to go on record as sustaining the obligation of a contract entered into freely, for which 47 a consideration has already been received. You do not fully comprehend, my dear General, the extreme embarrassment that would confront me if the * Daily Perambulator,* whose stock is principally owned by this powerful company, should send a reporter out here to investigate this incident, or should print the story which this man will probably tell if he is not retained.'*

"Retain him if you like. Governor, but I shall partake of nothing that comes from his hands. I will get my own breakfast, and after that we shall see.'*

And thus the matter was compromised. The General had his way, and the Governor was saved. Fish was excluded from our menu, and roast buck was ordered for supper, with the understanding that nothing should be fried, and that Jim Owens should in the course of the day manage to procure a can of condensed milk from a grocery, five miles away, upon which the General declared he preferred to make his evening meal, with a 48 dash of Old Kentucky Belle to give his bread and milk a flavor.

We had poor luck at hunting that day, our moral equilibrium having been upset by the controversy in the early morning. But in the evening, when the General had shown his independence by dining on bread and milk, and the rest of us our spirit of compromise by restricting ourselves to roast deer and boiled potatoes, the soft, conciliatory influence of a mellow pipe, or a good cigar, gradually gave us the sentiment of being once more almost human, as our ruflled feelings passed away.

Jim Owens, whose big heart was always touched by distress, had seemed to comprehend our need of extra cheer, and had built a fire that made us feel as if we were celebrating some important national fete.

I had feared that the conversation this evening would be unusually dull and depressing; and on account of my own youth and ignorance, I felt unable to encourage the 49 liveliness I was confident would be wanting. I was confirmed in this apprehension when, after a quarter of an hour of sodden silence, no one had ventured to make a single observation. The situation had become truly painful.

The little hope I treasured of a change of mood was pivoted on the habitual effusiveness of the General, upon whom it was a great mental and physical strain to remain long silent in the presence of others; and I felt a sudden access of joy when he finally burst out with, "I knew it would come to this. Here we are in the midst of complete anarchy! That infernal 'C.C.C Company has us all in its grasp. Not a man in this camp who is not in some way touched by its malign influence. Freedom? WTiy, it has perished utterly. .•\nd you, Governor, you, our old friend," — and his voice here quavered perceptibly, — "upon whose brilliant youth we all rested such expectations of reform and progress, you, whose mellifluous 50 accents have so often awakened in the public mind dreams of the millennium, in this emergency you flatten out like a pancake, and helplessly submit — the Governor of our State — to the dictation of a set of insolent brigands who want to force starvation upon us if we do not accept and swallow their cursed canned impudence ! And all this, here, under the open sky, in the primeval forest, where once the noble red man fought his enemies and lived his glad life of splendid liberty ! They penetrate even here with their preposterous 'C.C.C.'"

"My dear General," remarked the Governor, in an expostulatory tone," you do not realize that with the development of civilization there come certain evils along with its incalculable benefits. Men are no longer living a life of relative isolation. We are all related in a thousand new ways with our fellow men. The principle of association, on which all human civilization is based, has taken on many new forms. What is more 51 natural than that men of the same calling should seek to protect their common interests; that they should band themselves together for certain purposes, such as securing to themselves a proper remuneration, ameliorating the conditions of their existence ; and finally resisting those that oppose their uniting in this manner? You seem to blame me for my sympathy with the aims and purposes of these people who serve us, and without whose service life would be intolerable. How can I act otherwise, I, the chief magistrate of a great commonwealth? without their unions these working-people would be absolutely helpless, entirely defenseless, and at the mercy of employers wholly out of sympathy with their lowly lot in life. You would have thought nothing of it if, for spoiling a dinner, we had ordered Pete to leave the camp, and had driven him out homeless and penniless into the wilderness."

"Now, Governor, you are going too far," 52 retorted the General. "You know very well that I would not be so heartless as that. If Pete spoiled the dinner, I would not go beyond scolding him; just giving him a piece of my mind, in order to rescue him from his innate lethargy, and stimulate what little mentality there is in him; and I certainly would not turn him off in an inhuman fashion. I would only teach him what he ought to know, and make a good servant of him. You do me an injustice in thinking I do not know how to treat inferiors. All my orderlies have been strongly attached to me. The relation of master and servant is not only perfectly normal, it is Biblical; and St. Paul tells us how they should get on together. You can imagine what his views would have been on this 'C.C.C infamy.**

"There is one thing you overlook. General," remarked the Professor. "A radical transformation of society has occurred. When families lived apart, in the country, each household had its own industries and 53 its own personnel to carry them on. The relation of master and servant was direct, personal, and intimate. They came into daily contact, knew each others' virtues and failings, worshiped at the same altar, and when sickness and trouble came to the family of the servant the master looked after them, and in return those who served showed in many delicate attentions their sympathy with the sorrows of their employers. Good times and bad times were shared together. Nobody was left suddenly without service, and nobody was cast adrift without the necessaries of life, to become a homeless wanderer, thinking of suicide, perhaps, as the only way to rest and oblivion. Now all is changed. Men are massed together in cities. We live in a day of great organizations. I will not speak of the immense mills and factories, owned by corporations, managed by persons employed for that purpose, and controlled by boards or committees that meet once a month, where the owner and 54 ultimate employer and the operative never meet, never know of each other's life, — a situation from which the human heart is wholly eliminated and has no chance of entering into the sorrows, the privations, and the difficulties on both sides. But let me take an illustration in point. Here is a great hotel, twenty stories high. In it live a thousand people. In the basement, or just under the roof, is an enormous overheated kitchen. Here food is prepared for all these varied tastes by an army of cooks, from five o*clock in the morning until two or three o'clock at night. One of these cooks inadvertently burns a steak that would bring, if just right, three dollars on the table. The manager sends him out, without notice, without credentials. Where can he go, and what can he do? WTiy, he goes to his Union. His Union protects him, and asks to have him taken back. He is refused, and the whole gang marches out. They stay out. The 'C.C.C offers them aid. They accept 55 it. A foolish bargain is made, perhaps. It is an error, no doubt ; but do you think it should be treated as a crime?"

''This seems to me a little complicated," observed the General. **We are not running a hotel twenty stories high in this camp. We are just a quintette of quiet and respectable gentlemen here in the woods for an outing. We employ a cook, and he comes at us with a great organization at his back that dictates what we shall eat. If that is the result of popular rule, I am opposed to popular rule. It would be ridiculous if it were not such a piece of insolence!"

" But, you see, General, these rules have to be universal and must apply to all," remarked the Governor.

"Then these rules, made by a particular set of men, in their own interest, have the force of laws,'' retorted the General. *'This is not legislation by a majority, — which Heaven knows is often bad enough, it is legislation by a small minority." 56

**Yes, it is, undoubtedly, an imperium in imperio,'' said Dr. Bodley; "a government within a government, a government by a minority, as absolute as the decree of a Roman dictator or an irade of the Sultan, and without any constitutional limitations, without any kind of judicial provision, and — "

"Without any regard for varied circumstances!" exclaimed the General.

"I cannot exactly deny what you say," observed the Governor; "but I must still insist that the action of this society is not in any sense illegal, and it is not without reason. The Confederated Company of Complete Cooks might have been somewhat more considerate and have made a distinction between corporate and private service; but I suppose they were thinking only of a means of redressing what they considered their wrongs, and felt fully justified in their action. And you must not blame these people because, in their helplessness, they sought to protect themselves. They are not the only organi- 57 zation that does this. Great and powerful companies, with plenty of money to back their undertakings, control legislatures, and influence executive elections and judicial appointments in their own interest. They, too, make rules, or agreements, which have the force of legislative acts, so far as the people are concerned; but they do not usually touch us quite so personally as the case in question. If you condemn one, you must condemn all. We have innumerable imperia in imperio. Every form of monopoly has that effect. It creates a situation which is imperative. And what do you propose to do about it?'*

*' Whatever we do about it," said Dr. Bodley, *'it is useless, and even unjust, to blame any individual. Men are often the victims of their environment and of circumstances which are fatal to their good intentions. I have in my church both operatives and capitalists, and some of them are the finest, truest, noblest men I know. Human 58 intelligence varies greatly, but human instincts are practically uniform. Some men are more just, more generous, and more rational than others; but, when you come down to the quick, every human being will wince under the knife, and everything that lives will try to protect its life by any and all means.

"I recall how bitter the conflict was, two years ago, when we had the great street-car strike. Men in my congregation refused to meet in church, and stayed away. WTien I went to them about it, the president of the company said to me: 'These men are wild beasts. They have been burning our cars, tearing up our tracks, and shooting with intent to kill at our men brought from another city.' When I went to the men they said: 'These capitalists, who insist on eight per cent dividends on watered stock, expect us to run their cars day and night until we are nearly dead with fatigue ; and in constant terror lest, from sheer exhaustion, we may 59 run over women and children in the street, — and this for wages on which we cannot live.*

"I tried to mediate between these angry belligerents, whose warfare suspended traffic and menaced the city with anarchy; but though I enjoyed the respect and confidence of both sides, at first I could make no impression upon either. Never in the private wars of the Middle Ages was there more bitter hatred, nor a more implacable sentiment of scorn and contempt for any kind of authority. Each side felt sure it was right, and that war must be continued until one or the other was ready to cry for mercy."

"And what did the public authorities do? " inquired the Professor.

"For a week they did nothing. Then, after much property had been destroyed and several lives had been lost, the police undertook to act, but found themselves helpless. The Mayor telegraphed the Governor to send troops ; but the Governor, wishing as he said to avoid bloodshed, sent a military aide 60 to examine into the situation and report. In the mean time, I went to the houses of the men in my church and to that of the president of the company, and asked them to pray with me. Not one of them would comply ; but when I prayed for them in their presence, several, including the president, broke down and wept. The president called his directors together, but for two days he could not move them. The men I had influenced tried to check the others. I do not know what would have happened; but when a gang of strike-breakers was marching toward the car-sheds a volley was fired from the window of a tenement house, and little Nellie Lipinski, who was running across the street, fell dead in the middle of the way, struck in the back by a rifle-ball shot by her own father."

The Governor looked disturbed, but remained silent.

"That is the fruit of your popular rule,*' growled the General.

Aroused by this, the Governor looked resentfully at the General, and asked, *'\Vhat, then, would you do? Do you want a dictator to rule over you? If you cannot trust the people, whom can you trust? We are a self-governing people, and it is too late in the history of the world for anything but self-government. The Russians, the Turks, and now the Chinese are tending toward it. The people know what they want, and their will is ultimate. There is no use contesting it."

"I do not think such conflicts as I have described are in accordance with the will of the people, or in any way express that will,** interrupted Dr. Bodley. "They are attacks on life and property, growing out of what are felt to be unendurable wrongs. As I said, there is no use blaming men for acting as their sense of self-preservation compels them to act. There seems to be a deficiency in our system. There is something wanting to make it perfect, something apparently overlooked, and therefore not provided for.'* 62

" Not only the fact of a deficiency, but the nature of it is perfectly evident," remarked the Professor. "Our system of government was designed to protect individual rights and to control and repress individual violations of rights. Within its own proper sphere it has worked very satisfactorily; more satisfactorily, probably, than any other system would have worked. The system was not designed for a community in which great and powerful private corporate associations exist. When our Federal Government was devised there were no such entities in existence. They have been developed, and inevitably developed, as the concomitants of modern industrialism, — great railroad and manufacturing companies, and associations of workingmen aiming to protect themselves against the despotism of huge, impersonal organizations, in which the ordinary feelings of a human individual have no place. It is not that the men forming these great organizations are bad or inhuman. These associa- 63 tions are formed for economic ends, and they are so organized as to pursue, promote, and accomplish those ends. These corporations neither feel nor reason, they simply move, as they have been designed to move ; that is, to produce the greatest amount of gain. Individual men feel and reason; and if you can detach them momentarily, as Dr. Bodley tried to do in the great strike, from their places as mere cogs and wheels and pinions in the vast machine of which they form a part, you find them perfectly human, full of sympathy, and loyal to ideals of justice. It does not at all follow that our system is fundamentally wrong, or essentially imperfect. The General finds fault with 'popular rule.' Popular rule is not at fault because it does not any longer exist. It has been superseded by the conflict of interests. As long as that conflict lasts, trouble will endure. There is no rational man who is prepared in serious debate to defend the right of conquest, either interujational, political, or individual. It means, when analyzed and defined, the right of the stronger, physically or intellectually, to despoil the weaker; that is, to take away, without his consent and against his resistance, what rightly belongs to some one else."

"You are getting down now," said the Governor, "to the question of the right of property. People entertain different views on that subject. To my mind some possess altogether too much, and others altogether too little."

"On whal^^ basis would you settle that point, Governor?" inquired the Professor. "Would you have those who possess nothing, or but little, take what they please from those who, they think, possess too much? And if there is no right of property on the part of the one who already possesses, where does he who does not possess find a basis of right for demanding part of another's property? If there is no such thing as a right of property, does it not come back to a mere question of superior force? — that is, the right of conquest, or the mere power to take away?**

"Well, of course," replied the Governor, ''there is a right of property. When a man has earned a dollar, no one has a right to take it away from him by force or by fraud."

''But suppose he earns ten thousand dollars a year, and chooses to save the half of it for his old age, or any other sum he is able to earn, is it right to take it away from him, or any proportion of it that is not equable and necessary for public use?" asked Dr. Bodley.

" I think we do not need to go into details on this subject," answered the Governor. "But there is a great difference between private and corporate wealth.'*

*'How is that?** inquired the Doctor.

"Why, because strictly private wealth is acquired in a field of open, individual competition, — I mean now supposing that corporations did not exist, as they did not to any great extent when our government was 66 devised ; — while corporate wealth is in great measure acquired by the establishment of some kind of a monopoly. A railroad, for example, chartered and constructed between two cities, practically renders any other railroad between them impossible unless those cities grow to become very great and populous. Even then it may be difficult to get a charter for a new railroad if the old one exercises its influence with the Legislature and with the press against it. Thus that corporation becomes practically a monopoly, and can increase its stock periodically by distribution to the stockholders because the corporation has increased its earnings.**

" But," inquired Dr. Bodley, **if men have the skill and enterprise to do these things, do you not think, in all fairness, they ought to be well rewarded? They have to take in the start a great risk, and many such undertakings do not pay. When they do pay, is it fair to treat success as if it were a crime? By doing that you destroy the spirit of enter- 67 prise altogether, without which our whole population would relapse into the condition of a hopeless, stagnant peasantry."

''That is true," said the Professor. "Such a consequence would be most unfortunate. We cannot turn back the hand on the dial of our economic development. We live in an age of corporate industry. Internationally, it would be suicide for us to abolish or to cripple corporate development. We have won by it our place among the manufacturing and exporting nations. What we need to realize is that we have wholly new problems to solve, and that the ideals of old-fashioned individualistic democracy are no longer sufficient. We must find means justly, peacefully, and effectually to regulate our new economic existence. We should cheerfully face the facts of our new social environment and expand our ideas accordingly."

"Where shall we look for a remedy for existing and prospective evils if not to religion?" asked Dr. Bodley. 68

** Religion is an excellent motive power," replied the professor, "but it does not furnish, and it never has furnished, a complete solution for problems of government. Self-government, on which the Governor rightly insists, has to be worked out by us men, in godly fear and reverence, if you please, but also in terms of human comprehension and sympathy. Our appeal must be to the State. When you intervened in the great strike, religion did not settle it. Men whom you believed to be truly religious were on both sides. If the State had had a method of interfering, it might have been different ; I do not mean in the moment when the forces were actually arrayed against each other, but before they were brought into conflict. There is where the deficiency lies. We have developed powerful imperia in imperio, without having at the same time developed a means of regulating and controlling them by principles of justice. We are organized for dealing with individuals, but not for dealing with these new factors in our economic life. In fact, many of them would never have come into existence if it had not been that the State has neglected to prevent forms of injustice which have constituted reasons, or at least opportunities, for creating them."

I had taken all these notes very carefully, but not being much of a scholar, I had not fully understood some of the arguments.

*'May I venture to ask," I inquired, "just what an 'imperia in imperio' is?"

"The word imperium,'* responded the Professor, smiling, "is a Latin word which signifies ' supreme authority ' ; and the form imperia is the Latin plural of it. The expression imperia in imperio means 'supreme authorities within a supreme authority.' "

* ' But that is nonsense ! " I exclaimed . "Of a given set of authorities only one can be supreme, the others are subordinate."

"That is true," replied the Professor; "but when several authorities all claim to be supreme, the question which one really is so 70 has to be settled. Some of these organizations, either chartered by the State or purely voluntary associations, exercise powers which, so far, the State has not controlled, and does not know how to control. The State is the normal, authoritative, and universal institution of justice, based upon a Constitution, framed by the people, for the purpose of securing justice to all. When it is well organized and serves its intended purpose, all men and all combinations of men obey its laws and look to it, and to it alone, for the protection of their rights. When, on the contrary, it does not offer this protection, men arm themselves and unite their forces for their own protection ; or, if the danger is not immediate, they form societies to consider how and by what means they may best protect their rights. When these associations become more powerful than the State, they make laws of their own which the State does not sanction, or exercise such an influence as to obtain control of the State against the 71 interests of the people as a whole ; then they become imperia in imperio.'"

''Thank you, Professor," I said, **the explanation is very lucid. When these associations make rules which the State has not made and can enforce them, then the State has practically passed out of existence; or, to put it differently, the associations have taken the place of the State. Is that it?"

''That is what would happen if the process should go on uninterruptedly," replied the Professor.

"These people would then command the army and the navy, would they not?" asked the General.

"They have come very near to it, at times, already," answered the Professor.

" How is that? " snapped out the Governor.

"By their influence on politics," retorted the Professor. "These imperia have sometimes tried to obtain the help of our navy to aid them in collecting bad or fictitious debts which they claimed were owing to them in 72 foreign countries; and our militia has sometimes been rendered immobile when its presence might have prevented riots."