Socialism and success; some uninvited messages

Preface

A considerable part of the substance of the following pages has been published in periodicals. But excepting the " Retainers " chapter and the greater part of the "Reformers" chapter, the essays have been entirely recast and rewritten. Acknowledgment is due Success and The Independent for permission to reprint parts of "To the Seekers of Success"; to The Independent for permission to reprint "To the Retainers," and to the Journal of the American Social Science Association (1907) for like permission regarding the main part of " To the Reformers." " To Some Socialists" is rewritten from a number of controversial articles that have appeared in [5]

PREFACE

The Worker (New York) and the New York Daily Call The basis of "To Mr. John Smith, Workingman," is a pamphlet printed and circulated by the Socialist party o^ New York City some four years ago. " To the Skeptics and Doubters" has not before been printed.

W. J. G.

New York City, September 28, 1910.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. To the Seekers of Success ... 9 II. To the Reformers 45

III. To the Retainers 96

Chapter I

You hunt and strive for success. You that are religious pray for it, and you that are unreligious woo it and entreat it with a devotion that transcends the fervency of prayer. The teachers instruct you, the editors urge you, even the preachers exhort you, to go forward and win. They tell you not only that you should win, but that you can win. They tell you that no matter how fierce the strife, no matter what obstacles front you, no matter how many suitors throng the gates, you can, through courage and persistence and fortitude and abstinence and thrift, attain the goal. Some of them tell you that you can attain it by merely thinking it, provided only that you think hard enough and directly enough and constantly enough; that thoughts are material things, and that the flower-like idea of success, well cultivated, brings of itself the fruit of realization. Many roads lead to the goal. There is room at the top for everybody. Make haste, rest not, sleep not; but like a star in its course speed onward, and the victory is yours.

And what is it that the exhorters mean by success? One and all, this is what they mean : the attainment, or the state of attainment, of high place and rich rewards. No definition less material of aim or less opulent of promise would be thought by the instructors of the multitude to be worth while; nor, indeed, would any other satisfy the common desire or the common understanding. This is an age of material achievements, and the meaning of the word necessarily takes on the form and pressure of the age.

Never was the counsel to win success so loud-voiced and so insistent as now. Never was there such a multitude of counselors. The pursuit of success has been transformed into a sort of religion, and a horde of priests and oracles interpret its dogmas and disseminate its practical precepts. They tell you what things to do and what not to do. They tell you how to win the smile of the Success god when he is indulgent; how to gain his attention when he is listless or indifferent ; how to propitiate his anger when he frowns. The press pours forth a stream of volumes, revealing to you the hidden lore. They do not differ in degree greatly from the "past performance" sheets of the racing experts, or the dream-books from which our Ethiopian brothers learn how to invest in lottery or policy, or from those writings so deftly blending piety and Mammonism which fascinate the Christian Scientists. They interpret for you the signs, the portents, the mystic meanings of things, and they furnish you with the approved litanies and forms of service. No matter who or what you are, salvation is within your reach. The Suc- [ii]

cess god is merciful. You can, by easily learned rites and practices,

"Break your birth's invidious bar, And breast the blows of circumstance,"

wresting from a reluctant world the crown of triumph.

Under this incessant goad you strive and hasten, though often with drooping spirits and flagging strength. You seek to trip or to overbear those nearest you, that by eliminating your closest competitors you may multiply your chances. By all means which the law permits, and by many which it does not, you bear your part in the interminable struggle. Occasionally, some rebellious spirit, separating himself from the throng, and pausing by the roadside to watch the mad scramble, asks himself, "What is the use of all this? What, at best, are my real chances? Is this, in any event, the rightful activity of mankind, and is the goal which it seeks a reality or a delusion?" Ordinarily, he has no answer; or if he has, it is profitless, for the sound [l£]

of the tumult and the hope of victory impel him to engage again in the great battle.

You may have noted that the priests and oracles of success are not invariably examples of the efficacy of their own precepts. Though some of them go clothed in splendor, the greater number seem still to be waiting the fulfillment of their prayers and the reward of their devotional practices. You may have noted that the greater number of the followers seem also to have halted this side the earthly paradise. Effort there has been — aspiration and striving, the keeping of faith, the rigid observance of revealed precepts. Who is there that cannot picture the tragedy of the thousands of men and women, of boys and girls, who have toiled and dreamed and dared, who have renounced leisure and peace and pleasure and honor, in their devotion to the god of Success? They have failed, most of them; they have found circumstances so formidable that neither an ardent wishing them away nor an active battling against them has sensibly cleared the pathway. All the heroic effort of these aspiring beings has been expended on a vain quest. They are to-day, most of them, where they were when they started. The guide-books have been conned, the directions have been followed, the seekers have wearily trudged and striven along the indicated way. They have found it to be something else than a highway. Toll-places it has, where the toll of blood and tears and hopes and ethical principles is remorselessly taken up; but it has turned out to be not a turnpike, but an elongated treadmill, where every footing returns to its appointed place.

Perhaps the cult of success is yet too new and nebulous to justify us in expecting so much from it; perhaps its creed has yet to be rounded out and made a coherent whole; perhaps some of its precepts need revision, or at least adjustment to time and circumstance; perhaps its mahatmas and yogis are of varying degrees of adeptness and cannot with equal skill point the way and the manner; or perhaps its followers have dwelt too strongly upon the letter of the law rather than upon its spirit, and have thus failed in discipleship. Somewhere there is fault. The word of promise is broken to our ear as well as to our hope. What is it that the oracles of success specifically tell you? It would take something more than a five-foot shelf to contain all the recent volumes dedicated to the purpose of aiding you in breasting the blows of circumstance and in breaking the invidious bar of your birth. Let us begin with that fountain-head of the success religion — that "innocent corrupter of youth," Dr. Orison Swett Marden. There is something about that name which suggests the prayerful attitude of the seeker of success — something which suggests the morning offertory of the devotee to the opulent god. And what the name suggests his volumes reveal. The deity who could withstand the devotional entreaty, or betray the trustfulness, or disdain the fervent piety based upon the sense of favors to come, that everywhere wells up in these pages, would deserve to be ranked with the malignant gods of some cannibal tribe. Take such a volume as Peace, Power and Plenty. You are told therein that poverty is unnecessary, that the creator did not intend it; that "there is no providence which keeps a man in poverty, or in painful or distressing circumstances." You are told that "poverty itself is not so bad as the poverty thought. It is the conviction that we are poor and must remain so that is fatal." You are told that "if we can conquer inward poverty, we can soon conquer poverty of outward things, for, when we change the mental attitude, the physical changes to correspond."

The economic framework of society, the necessary divisions of labor, the enormous numerical preponderance (inevitable under the present system) of hard and ill-paid tasks, the mathematical impossibility that any considerable number of persons should escape therefrom — all this is serenely waved aside. Defects in the situation are admitted — great obstacles to preferment and distinction, but yet nothing that need greatly trouble the strong of soul and the resolved of heart. Listen :

" I do not overlook the heartless, grinding, grasping practices of many of the rich, or the unfair and cruel conditions brought about by unscrupulous political and financial schemers; but I wish to show the poor man that, notwithstanding all these things, multitudes of poor people do rise above their iron environment, and that there is hope for him. The mere fact that so many continue to rise, year after year, out of just such conditions as you may think are fatal to your advancement, ought to convince you that you also can conquer your environment."

So that, no matter whether you are a McKees Rocks mill-worker or a South Carolina factory operative, you can rise. "All our limitations," you are told, "are in our own minds. . . . We starve ourselves in the midst of plenty, because of our strangling thought. The opulent life stands ready to take us into its completeness, but our ignorance cuts us off." Then comes the individual counsel:

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"If you want success, abundance, you must think success, you must think abundance. Stoutly deny the power of adversity or poverty to keep you down. Constantly assert your superiority to your environment. Believe that you are to dominate your surroundings, that you are the master and not the slave of circumstances. Resolve with all the vigor you can muster that since there are plenty of good things in the world for everybody, you are going to have your share, without injuring anybody else or keeping others back. It was intended that you should have a competence, an abundance. It is your birthright. You are success organized, and constructed for happiness, and you should resolve to reach your divine destiny."

There are other oracles than Dr. Marden. Of course all the oracles do not tell you the same things. The virtues commended, the vices condemned, the methods approved by one, may be slighted by the next, and an emphasis put upon other factors. But one and all, they neglect to tell you the mathematical and logical chances. Like the agents of a great lottery, they appeal to

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your gambling instinct: they tell you of the big winning made by Brown or Snigglefritz, and they inspire you to believe that what these men have done you can duplicate. They are not even as fair as the lottery agent ; they do not tell you how many grand prizes there are, and how many secondary prizes and tertiary prizes, and so on down to the least reward that can possibly be considered a prize. Nor do they tell you the number of blanks. They inflame your imagination till it sees the whole world richly hung with prizes, and you a certain winner. Under even favored conditions of birth and training, with innate energy, native capacity and agreeableness of personality, there may still be enormous chances against you; in certain states and conditions of life not one of you in ten thousand can reasonably hope for a prize. Yet you suffer the Arabian Nights tale of fabulous riches within attainable grasp to possess you and to control your thoughts and actions.

They differ on many points, these oracles. But one and all they declare, with tireless iteration, that the chances of success are greater than ever before. Like most oracular utterances, the declaration is susceptible of a number of meanings. Do they mean, for instance, that there are more prizes to be won; or that with fewer prizes, or relatively the same number of prizes as before, some are richer prizes? Either or both propositions are true, according to the inspired oracle who happens to reply to you; and he will be echoed by any number of those successful ones who have attained the earthly paradise. Yet despite the oracles and the winners, there are grave reasons for doubt. That the numerical chances of success have increased is improbable, almost impossible; and though among the exceptional prizes some are richer, their number is smaller than the oracles assert or the devotees believe.

The matter of numerical chances of success is really one of statistics, if only the statistics could be had. It ought to be readily ascertainable, from authenticated figures, if the number of high places, with rich rewards attached, has increased in greater ratio than the proportion and number of subordinate places. Unfortunately, these figures, in an adequate measure of comprehensiveness and detail, are not to be had. Our government statistics are, in some respects, a blessing. To glean and prepare them furnishes work for a great number of men, and diffuses good wages among a large part of the population. But as valuable and accurate contributions to the sum of human knowledge, a word so favorable can not invariably be said of them. Yet occasionally they give forth gleams of real information, and from these one may bring light to bear on some puzzling problem. The census figures of 1900 on gainful occupations are helpful — at least, such of them as are gathered on schedules identical with those of 1890 — and enable us roughly to compare the proportion of chances. If these figures indicate anything, it is that the number of workers and aspirants has increased, along with a great increase in the number of subordinate places, and that the number of richly rewarded places has not kept the pace.

Despite the annual paean chanted by Secretary Wilson, there are few rich prizes in agriculture. Even if there were, the chances of success are dwindling. The independent or employing farmer increased by seven per cent., but the farm laborers by twenty-three per cent. There are of course no rich prizes in domestic and personal service, and here again is a growth in numbers. As for the professions, a liberal interpretation of the word success might allow some few instances of its attainment. A fortunate corporation lawyer, a popular historical novelist, a "yellow" journalist beating the drums and sounding the cymbals in his own honor, or a physician attached in personal service to a magnate, might each be considered as dwelling about the purlieus of the garden of success. But these are few indeed, and the host of briefless attorneys, jobless journalists and "unavailable" literary persons — all of them constantly increasing in numbers — bears witness to the fact that there is no numerical increase in the great opportunities in the professions.

It is in trade and transportation that you may get the most significant figures on the numerical chances. The increase in the number of mercantile underlings is, in some cases, enormous. Stenographers and typewriters have increased by two hundred and thirty-six per cent.; salesmen and saleswomen, one hundred and thirty-one per cent. ; packers, shippers, porters and helpers one hundred and thirty per cent.; bookkeepers and accountants, sixty per cent.; messengers and errand and office boys, forty per cent. On the other hand wholesale merchants have increased by thirty-six per cent., and retail merchants, by nineteen and five-tenths per cent. Those presumably affluent persons, the bankers and brokers, have increased one hundred and one per cent.; but since nearly all of this increase is of money and stock brokers, as distinguished from commercial brokers, and since it includes persons from every variety of the transient, "get-rich-quick"

and other unstable concerns, it indicates little more than the current rage for speculation and the eagerness of the metropolitan sharpers to accommodate a Barnumized public. The figures for officials of banks and companies are not comparable with those of 1890, owing to a difference in the schedules. As given, they show a large increase; but a proper discount, taken on the basis of fraudulent and parasitic companies in the market, would sensibly diminish their volume. Whatever the foregoing figures may be held to indicate regarding "room at the top," it is undeniable that they show a generous and growing spaciousness of room at the bottom. They give no warrant whatever for the promise of increased opportunities.

Indeed, this lesson is exactly what one learns in looking about the big mercantile concerns. Combination has proceeded almost steadily since 1897; and, though the growth of independent companies has, to a small extent, operated as an offset, the consequence, as a whole, has been a lessening of the number of secure and well-paid places. The future American Dickens, when he wants material for a story that in Francis Bacon's words "comes home to men's business and bosoms," may profitably seek out some of the individual tragedies that have resulted from any of these combinations. One instance in particular is that of the union of three enormously rich metropolitan companies in one of the textile branches some few years ago. Day after day, month after month, for three years, throughout the clerical and managerial forces of the three establishments, discharges from employment were steadily made until one man in every four was dismissed. These places have never been restored, and of the persons discharged not one in fifty, it is estimated, has ever succeeded in gaining an equally remunerative place.

Perhaps to the petty business man more than to any other is success a vision by day and a dream by night. It is only the exceptional retailer who does not see in his little store the potential beginning of a great mercantile Tiouse, and only the exceptional petty manufacturer who does not regard himself as a possible captain of industry. Yet every month and every day the great wheels of capitalism move onward like the car of Juggernaut. The little businesses are crushed, and an added wealth and power comes to the few. From him that hath not is taken away even the little that he hath. Yet in numbers, the oracles say, the little businesses persist. So, as to numbers, do the evanescent bubbles in a mountain stream persist. But the bubble of a moment ago is no more, even though its place has been taken by another. The little businesses form and then vanish. The temptation to "go into business for oneself" is always alluring. The pains and drudgery of wage-earning labor, the subordination and routine of salaried labor, are a known quantity; and so is the yearly recompense, at least in any trade or calling where employment is steady. But the possible revenues from a business enterprise are unknown, and the imagination runs free in picturing them. So, though failure and liquidation and bankruptcy attend the attempt, the horde of shopkeepers and petty manufacturers persists. There are no such strivers for success as these; they follow, in the main, the hallowed precepts of the oracles; and yet the earthly paradise is denied all but an infinitesimal few of them.

There is then the promise of richer rewards for the few. That the very rich — the gleaners of rent, interest and profit — have increased in numbers, both absolutely and relatively, seems evident from the census figures. There is a larger annual harvest from the labor of men's hands and the planning of men's brains; and there is a larger body of claimants for the surplus. That one result of combination has been the creation of a number of highly paid places is not to be doubted. But these are not many, and their creation has but coincided with the abolition of other well-paid places in the original companies that have entered into combination. Whether the salaries of these desirable places in the bosom of the trusts equal the salaries formerly paid by the original companies is a matter for dispute. In one corporation they will be greater, in another less, and the average no man knows. Outside of the trusts there are still highly paid places, and there are still opportunities for individual initiative. But there is one fact bearing upon this phase of the subject which is too often lost sight of. The present-day aspirant for success on his own initiative labors amid a different host of circumstances from those which surrounded the industrial magnate in his earlier days. Through the assiduous — and, as some think, pestilent — interference of legislatures and Congress, it has become impossible to do some of the things which in the past days were proper and even emulatory. The magnates of to-day laid the basis of their fortunes in a golden age when "liberty" was but slightly restricted — when a man could do what he willed not only with his own, but also with his neighbor's. The progress of civilization, according to Huxley, has been attended by a constant setting of limits to the fratricidal struggle; and our legislators, doubtless impressed with the idea that civilization here in America has not yet reached its zenith, have contributed a large share of these restrictions. The sprightly activities directed to the wiping out of competitors, which Mr. Lloyd recounts in his Wealth Against Commonwealth as usual twenty years ago, have had their day. With good counsel, large resources and a friendly or financially interested judge, the aspirant toward an industrial dukedom may yet, at certain times and in favored places, repeat some of the tactics then common. But, even so, there are limits, for the old order has changed, yielding place to a new one, and in general he must conduct his campaign according to the statutory restrictions. Even to the "arriving" magnate, therefore, the richer rewards are promised in vain. Prizes commensurate with those of the recent past are not to be had.

The assumption that in paid service superior intelligence and energy win greater relative reward than of old is at least unproved, and is for many reasons doubtful. What the oracles mean by this is that a Napoleon or an Alexander of industry can, within certain limits, set his own price for his services. But in industry, as well as in war and in statecraft, this has always been so, and there is nothing whatever novel about it. Whether it will continue to be so in the near future cannot be said. But no generalizations based upon such extraordinary exceptions will serve for the matter in hand. What the rapt youths clustering about the altar rail of success want to know is whether or not the much-vaunted "brains and hustle," of which we now hear so much, are more richly paid, relative to the results achieved, than of old. The assurances are many and positive; but they are based, for the most part, on the most superficial guesswork. The monopolies, though benevolent, are not prodigal; and outside the monopolies a sharp competition still reigns; the wage-earners, through their unions, demand an increased share of the returns; the leeches of rent, interest and depreciation are ever at work; and miscellaneous expenses and the cost of material (in most cases) are rising. Thus the keenest and most practical intelligence applied to an established business may be productive only of slight savings and a slight increase in sales. Where the added recompense to genius is to come from it is hard to determine. With the exceptional growth of a business, genius is sometimes increasingly rewarded, but the increase is almost certainly incommensurate with the results achieved.

It is the young men, say the oracles, who have all the chances. There is small doubt of this, and it may be conceded at once. As Nature's darling is the strong, so Capital's darling is the young. The combat grows fiercer — on the part of the independent companies against one another, and on the part of the monopolies against society — and only the young can bear the brunt of the struggle. The young are plastic and tractable, still capable of an adjustment to fit their surroundings. In them can be developed just that extra length or finer curve of beak or claw by which to gouge or eviscerate rivals, whereas the talons of the old have been dulled and worn away. Whatever, therefore, the future holds, is theirs. The middle-aged and the old are sent to the rear, while the youths are hurried to the front, inspired by the promise of infinite glories in a finite and not too remote future.

The oracles, it has already been said, always neglect to tell you the numerical chances. They do not deal with the hard facts of life. They are the founders of a new school of fiction — the materialist school. Let us examine their promises on the basis of a single industry and see how they work out. Let us take, for instance, the interstate railroads. Of the 1,458,244 employes in the United States (1908) how many can hope ever to be numbered among the 5,767 general officers? You are an employe, we shall say; and in mere numbers^ you have about one chance in 252 of reaching your goal. No matter how efficient you become, no matter what hours you give to study and plan and fit yourself for " higher" things, it is not likely that the number of general officers will be greatly increased. If you and all of your fellows became the executive equals of the 5,767 general officers, there would still be places for only one in 252 of you. Then, too, probably only about one-half of the general staff come up from the ranks — the other half coming from the sons and nephews and retainers of rich and influential men — and so your numerical chances are really not more than one in 500.

But the proportion of mere numbers is not enough. There are other factors to consider. In many of the branches of railroad service the qualities needed for efficiency are not the qualities needed in "higher" places. You may be an expert track-layer, a brave and skilful locomotive engineer. Your expertness in these lines fits you rather for continuance in your present work than for translation to other

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spheres, and you will find your special excellence a bar to advancement. Then, too, there are casualties to account for, and thus there is a further qualifying of the numerical chances. Suppose you are a trainman. Every year about one in eight of you is wounded; about one in 133 is killed. You have thus a much better chance of achieving wounds or death than of achieving success. Even if you happen to be employed in some of the safer branches of the industry, there may be numberless chances against you. You may have had to begin work as a boy and therefore to forego an education. Your mother-tongue may not be English, and that fact is a handicap of no mean importance. You may have few friends and be without the rare faculty of making them. Then, too, you may have ethical scruples against taking advantage of men and occasions, and in critical times the observance of these scruples will block your advancement. The oracles cannot help you ; the guide-books cannot give you light. The lure of success may draw you, but you will ultimately find it a vain lure.

Or perhaps you are not a railroad employe, but a factory worker in a mill town. From childhood you have been taught to do one thing only, and to do it over and over again. Perhaps you are fortunate above some of your fellows in that you have a "four-motion" job instead of a monotonous "three-motion" job. A right-hand movement left, a left-hand movement right, both hands up and then both hands down — and this over and over again, five hours in the morning, five hours in the afternoon, six days in the week, four and a fraction weeks in the month, and whatever number of months in the year your master chooses to employ you. Your every faculty has been hardened about this one task, unfitting you for any other. Your meager earnings just suffice to keep you and your dependents alive. You cannot move from your environment. Your life and the life of others depends upon the work-place to which you are attached. What other thought can you possibly have than the "poverty thought " ? Would it, if it were possible, avail you aught to have any other? What possible message can the oracles have for you? What possible degree of success is conceivably within your grasp ?

There is another thing the oracles neglect to tell you. In the vast and complex scheme of things, the "lower" places are just as necessary as the "higher" places. The 1,452,477 railroad men other than general officers are not employed through philanthropy. They are not employed by reason of the rich man's pleasure in paying wages to the poor man. They are employed because, upon a hard, unsentimental, cash basis, it takes that many men to do the work. It cannot be done by machinery nor by thought transference. It must be done by muscle and brain. No matter how efficient and masterful you become, these places would still have to be filled. You never heard, did you, that any of these places went begging? No matter how many men, according to the oracles, have scaled the walls of the earthly paradise, the common work has still to be done, and there is ever an eager army pleading for the chance to do it. How shall it be done if all listen to the oracles of success ?