Edward Bellamy
Looking Backward
20001887
Preface
Historical Section Shawmut College Boston December 26 2000
Living as we do in the closing year of the twentieth century enjoying the
blessings of a social order at once so simple and logical that it seems but the
triumph of common sense it is no doubt difficult for those whose studies have
not been largely historical to realize that the present organization of society
is in its completeness less than a century old No historical fact is
however better established than that till nearly the end of the nineteenth
century it was the general belief that the ancient industrial system with all
its shocking social consequences was destined to last with possibly a little
patching to the end of time How strange and wellnigh incredible does it seem
that so prodigious a moral and material transformation as has taken place since
then could have been accomplished in so brief an interval The readiness with
which men accustom themselves as matters of course to improvements in their
condition which when anticipated seemed to leave nothing more to be desired
could not be more strikingly illustrated What reflection could be better
calculated to moderate the enthusiasm of reformers who count for their reward on
the lively gratitude of future ages
The object of this volume is to assist persons who while desiring to gain a
more definite idea of the social contrasts between the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries are daunted by the formal aspect of the histories which treat the
subject Warned by a teachers experience that learning is accounted a weariness
to the flesh the author has sought to alleviate the instructive quality of the
book by casting it in the form of a romantic narrative which he would be glad
to fancy not wholly devoid of interest on its own account
The reader to whom modern social institutions and their underlying
principles are matters of course may at times find Dr Leetes explanations of
them rather trite but it must be remembered that to Dr Leetes guest they
were not matters of course and that this book is written for the express
purpose of inducing the reader to forget for the nonce that they are so to him
One word more The almost universal theme of the writers and orators who have
celebrated this bimillennial epoch has been the future rather than the past not
the advance that has been made but the progress that shall be made ever onward
and upward till the race shall achieve its ineffable destiny This is well
wholly well but it seems to me that nowhere can we find more solid ground for
daring anticipations of human development during the next one thousand years
than by »Looking Backward« upon the progress of the last one hundred
That this volume may be so fortunate as to find readers whose interest in
the subject shall incline them to overlook the deficiencies of the treatment is
the hope in which the author steps aside and leaves Mr Julian West to speak for
himself
Chapter I
I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857 »What« you said
»eighteen fiftyseven That is an odd slip He means nineteen fiftyseven of
course« I beg pardon but there is no mistake It was about four in the
afternoon of December the 26th one day after Christmas in the year 1857 not
1957 that I first breathed the east wind of Boston which I assure the reader
was at that remote period marked by the same penetrating quality characterizing
it in the present year of grace 2000
These statements seem so absurd on their face especially when I add that I
am a young man apparently of about thirty years of age that no person can be
blamed for refusing to read another word of what promises to be a mere
imposition upon his credulity Nevertheless I earnestly assure the reader that
no imposition is intended and will undertake if he shall follow me a few
pages to entirely convince him of this If I may then provisionally assume
with the pledge of justifying the assumption that I know better than the reader
when I was born I will go on with my narrative As every schoolboy knows in
the latter part of the nineteenth century the civilization of today or
anything like it did not exist although the elements which were to develop it
were already in ferment Nothing had however occurred to modify the immemorial
division of society into the four classes or nations as they may be more fitly
called since the differences between them were far greater than those between
any nations nowadays of the rich and the poor the educated and the ignorant I
myself was rich and also educated and possessed therefore all the elements of
happiness enjoyed by the most fortunate in that age Living in luxury and
occupied only with the pursuit of the pleasures and refinements of life I
derived the means of my support from the labor of others rendering no sort of
service in return My parents and grandparents had lived in the same way and I
expected that my descendants if I had any would enjoy a like easy existence
But how could I live without service to the world you ask Why should the
world have supported in utter idleness one who was able to render service The
answer is that my greatgrandfather had accumulated a sum of money on which his
descendants had ever since lived The sum you will naturally infer must have
been very large not to have been exhausted in supporting three generations in
idleness This however was not the fact The sum had been originally by no
means large It was in fact much larger now that three generations had been
supported upon it in idleness than it was at first This mystery of use without
consumption of warmth without combustion seems like magic but was merely an
ingenious application of the art now happily lost but carried to great
perfection by your ancestors of shifting the burden of ones support on the
shoulders of others The man who had accomplished this and it was the end all
sought was said to live on the income of his investments To explain at this
point how the ancient methods of industry made this possible would delay us too
much I shall only stop now to say that interest on investments was a species of
tax in perpetuity upon the product of those engaged in industry which a person
possessing or inheriting money was able to levy It must not be supposed that an
arrangement which seems so unnatural and preposterous according to modern
notions was never criticised by your ancestors It had been the effort of
lawgivers and prophets from the earliest ages to abolish interest or at least
to limit it to the smallest possible rate All these efforts had however
failed as they necessarily must so long as the ancient social organizations
prevailed At the time of which I write the latter part of the nineteenth
century government had generally given up trying to regulate the subject at
all
By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the way
people lived together in those days and especially of the relations of the rich
and poor to one another perhaps I cannot do better than to compare society as
it then was to a prodigious coach which the masses of humanity were harnessed to
and dragged toilsomely along a very hilly and sandy road The driver was hunger
and permitted no lagging though the pace was necessarily very slow Despite the
difficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard a road the top was covered
with passengers who never got down even at the steepest ascents These seats on
top were very breezy and comfortable Well up out of the dust their occupants
could enjoy the scenery at their leisure or critically discuss the merits of
the straining team Naturally such places were in great demand and the
competition for them was keen every one seeking as the first end in life to
secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after him
By the rule of the coach a man could leave his seat to whom he wished but on
the other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any time be wholly
lost For all that they were so easy the seats were very insecure and at every
sudden jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and falling to the
ground where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help to
drag the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly It was naturally
regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose ones seat and the apprehension that
this might happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon the
happiness of those who rode
But did they think only of themselves you ask Was not their very luxury
rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of their brothers and
sisters in the harness and the knowledge that their own weight added to their
toil Had they no compassion for fellow beings from whom fortune only
distinguished them Oh yes commiseration was frequently expressed by those who
rode for those who had to pull the coach especially when the vehicle came to a
bad place in the road as it was constantly doing or to a particularly steep
hill At such times the desperate straining of the team their agonized leaping
and plunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger the many who fainted at the
rope and were trampled in the mire made a very distressing spectacle which
often called forth highly creditable displays of feeling on the top of the
coach At such times the passengers would call down encouragingly to the toilers
of the rope exhorting them to patience and holding out hopes of possible
compensation in another world for the hardness of their lot while others
contributed to buy salves and liniments for the crippled and injured It was
agreed that it was a great pity that the coach should be so hard to pull and
there was a sense of general relief when the specially bad piece of road was
gotten over This relief was not indeed wholly on account of the team for
there was always some danger at these bad places of a general overturn in which
all would lose their seats
It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the spectacle of the
misery of the toilers at the rope was to enhance the passengers sense of the
value of their seats upon the coach and to cause them to hold on to them more
desperately than before If the passengers could only have felt assured that
neither they nor their friends would ever fall from the top it is probable
that beyond contributing to the funds for liniments and bandages they would
have troubled themselves extremely little about those who dragged the coach
I am well aware that this will appear to the men and women of the twentieth
century an incredible inhumanity but there are two facts both very curious
which partly explain it In the first place it was firmly and sincerely
believed that there was no other way in which Society could get along except
the many pulled at the rope and the few rode and not only this but that no
very radical improvement even was possible either in the harness the coach
the roadway or the distribution of the toil It had always been as it was and
it always would be so It was a pity but it could not be helped and philosophy
forbade wasting compassion on what was beyond remedy
The other fact is yet more curious consisting in a singular hallucination
which those on the top of the coach generally shared that they were not exactly
like their brothers and sisters who pulled at the rope but of finer clay in
some way belonging to a higher order of beings who might justly expect to be
drawn This seems unaccountable but as I once rode on this very coach and
shared that very hallucination I ought to be believed The strangest thing
about the hallucination was that those who had but just climbed up from the
ground before they had outgrown the marks of the rope upon their hands began
to fall under its influence As for those whose parents and grandparents before
them had been so fortunate as to keep their seats on the top the conviction
they cherished of the essential difference between their sort of humanity and
the common article was absolute The effect of such a delusion in moderating
fellow feeling for the sufferings of the mass of men into a distant and
philosophical compassion is obvious To it I refer as the only extenuation I can
offer for the indifference which at the period I write of marked my own
attitude toward the misery of my brothers
In 1887 I came to my thirtieth year Although still unmarried I was engaged
to wed Edith Bartlett She like myself rode on the top of the coach That is
to say not to encumber ourselves further with an illustration which has I
hope served its purpose of giving the reader some general impression of how we
lived then her family was wealthy In that age when money alone commanded all
that was agreeable and refined in life it was enough for a woman to be rich to
have suitors but Edith Bartlett was beautiful and graceful also
My lady readers I am aware will protest at this »Handsome she might have
been« I hear them saying »but graceful never in the costumes which were the
fashion at that period when the head covering was a dizzy structure a foot
tall and the almost incredible extension of the skirt behind by means of
artificial contrivances more thoroughly dehumanized the form than any former
device of dressmakers Fancy any one graceful in such a costume« The point is
certainly well taken and I can only reply that while the ladies of the
twentieth century are lovely demonstrations of the effect of appropriate drapery
in accenting feminine graces my recollection of their greatgrandmothers
enables me to maintain that no deformity of costume can wholly disguise them
Our marriage only waited on the completion of the house which I was building
for our occupancy in one of the most desirable parts of the city that is to
say a part chiefly inhabited by the rich For it must be understood that the
comparative desirability of different parts of Boston for residence depended
then not on natural features but on the character of the neighboring
population Each class or nation lived by itself in quarters of its own A rich
man living among the poor an educated man among the uneducated was like one
living in isolation among a jealous and alien race When the house had been
begun its completion by the winter of 1886 had been expected The spring of the
following year found it however yet incomplete and my marriage still a thing
of the future The cause of a delay calculated to be particularly exasperating
to an ardent lover was a series of strikes that is to say concerted refusals
to work on the part of the bricklayers masons carpenters painters plumbers
and other trades concerned in house building What the specific causes of these
strikes were I do not remember Strikes had become so common at that period that
people had ceased to inquire into their particular grounds In one department of
industry or another they had been nearly incessant ever since the great
business crisis of 1873 In fact it had come to be the exceptional thing to see
any class of laborers pursue their avocation steadily for more than a few months
at a time
The reader who observes the dates alluded to will of course recognize in
these disturbances of industry the first and incoherent phase of the great
movement which ended in the establishment of the modern industrial system with
all its social consequences This is all so plain in the retrospect that a child
can understand it but not being prophets we of that day had no clear idea what
was happening to us What we did see was that industrially the country was in a
very queer way The relation between the workingman and the employer between
labor and capital appeared in some unaccountable manner to have become
dislocated The working classes had quite suddenly and very generally become
infected with a profound discontent with their condition and an idea that it
could be greatly bettered if they only knew how to go about it On every side
with one accord they preferred demands for higher pay shorter hours better
dwellings better educational advantages and a share in the refinements and
luxuries of life demands which it was impossible to see the way to granting
unless the world were to become a great deal richer than it then was Though
they knew something of what they wanted they knew nothing of how to accomplish
it and the eager enthusiasm with which they thronged about any one who seemed
likely to give them any light on the subject lent sudden reputation to many
wouldbe leaders some of whom had little enough light to give However
chimerical the aspirations of the laboring classes might be deemed the devotion
with which they supported one another in the strikes which were their chief
weapon and the sacrifices which they underwent to carry them out left no doubt
of their dead earnestness
As to the final outcome of the labor troubles which was the phrase by which
the movement I have described was most commonly referred to the opinions of the
people of my class differed according to individual temperament The sanguine
argued very forcibly that it was in the very nature of things impossible that
the new hopes of the workingmen could be satisfied simply because the world had
not the wherewithal to satisfy them It was only because the masses worked very
hard and lived on short commons that the race did not starve outright and no
considerable improvement in their condition was possible while the world as a
whole remained so poor It was not the capitalists whom the labouring men were
contending with these maintained but the ironbound environment of humanity
and it was merely a question of the thickness of their skulls when they would
discover the fact and make up their minds to endure what they could not cure
The less sanguine admitted all this Of course the workingmens aspirations
were impossible of fulfillment for natural reasons but there were grounds to
fear that they would not discover this fact until they had made a sad mess of
society They had the votes and the power to do so if they pleased and their
leaders meant they should Some of these desponding observers went so far as to
predict an impending social cataclysm Humanity they argued having climbed to
the top round of the ladder of civilization was about to take a header into
chaos after which it would doubtless pick itself up turn round and begin to
climb again Repeated experiences of this sort in historic and prehistoric times
possibly accounted for the puzzling bumps on the human cranium Human history
like all great movements was cyclical and returned to the point of beginning
The idea of indefinite progress in a right line was a chimera of the
imagination with no analogue in nature The parabola of a comet was perhaps a
yet better illustration of the career of humanity Tending upward and sunward
from the aphelion of barbarism the race attained the perihelion of civilization
only to plunge downward once more to its nether goal in the regions of chaos
This of course was an extreme opinion but I remember serious men among my
acquaintances who in discussing the signs of the times adopted a very similar
tone It was no doubt the common opinion of thoughtful men that society was
approaching a critical period which might result in great changes The labor
troubles their causes course and cure took lead of all other topics in the
public prints and in serious conversation
The nervous tension of the public mind could not have been more strikingly
illustrated than it was by the alarm resulting from the talk of a small band of
men who called themselves anarchists and proposed to terrify the American
people into adopting their ideas by threats of violence as if a mighty nation
which had but just put down a rebellion of half its own numbers in order to
maintain its political system were likely to adopt a new social system out of
fear
As one of the wealthy with a large stake in the existing order of things I
naturally shared the apprehensions of my class The particular grievance I had
against the working classes at the time of which I write on account of the
effect of their strikes in postponing my wedded bliss no doubt lent a special
animosity to my feeling toward them
Chapter II
The thirtieth day of May 1887 fell on a Monday It was one of the annual
holidays of the nation in the latter third of the nineteenth century being set
apart under the name of Decoration Day for doing honor to the memory of the
soldiers of the North who took part in the war for the preservation of the union
of the States The survivors of the war escorted by military and civic
processions and bands of music were wont on this occasion to visit the
cemeteries and lay wreaths of flowers upon the graves of their dead comrades
the ceremony being a very solemn and touching one The eldest brother of Edith
Bartlett had fallen in the war and on Decoration Day the family was in the
habit of making a visit to Mount Auburn where he lay
I had asked permission to make one of the party and on our return to the
city at nightfall remained to dine with the family of my betrothed In the
drawingroom after dinner I picked up an evening paper and read of a fresh
strike in the building trades which would probably still further delay the
completion of my unlucky house I remember distinctly how exasperated I was at
this and the objurgations as forcible as the presence of the ladies permitted
which I lavished upon workmen in general and these strikers in particular I
had abundant sympathy from those about me and the remarks made in the desultory
conversation which followed upon the unprincipled conduct of the labor
agitators were calculated to make those gentlemens ears tingle It was agreed
that affairs were going from bad to worse very fast and that there was no
telling what we should come to soon »The worst of it« I remember Mrs
Bartletts saying »is that the working classes all over the world seem to be
going crazy at once In Europe it is far worse even than here Im sure I should
not dare to live there at all I asked Mr Bartlett the other day where we
should emigrate to if all the terrible things took place which those socialists
threaten He said he did not know any place now where society could be called
stable except Greenland Patagonia and the Chinese Empire« »Those Chinamen
knew what they were about« somebody added »when they refused to let in our
western civilization They knew what it would lead to better than we did They
saw it was nothing but dynamite in disguise«
After this I remember drawing Edith apart and trying to persuade her that
it would be better to be married at once without waiting for the completion of
the house spending the time in travel till our home was ready for us She was
remarkably handsome that evening the mourning costume that she wore in
recognition of the day setting off to great advantage the purity of her
complexion I can see her even now with my minds eye just as she looked that
night When I took my leave she followed me into the hall and I kissed her
goodby as usual There was no circumstance out of the common to distinguish
this parting from previous occasions when we had bade each other goodby for a
night or a day There was absolutely no premonition in my mind or I am sure in
hers that this was more than an ordinary separation
Ah well
The hour at which I had left my betrothed was a rather early one for a
lover but the fact was no reflection on my devotion I was a confirmed sufferer
from insomnia and although otherwise perfectly well had been completely fagged
out that day from having slept scarcely at all the two previous nights Edith
knew this and had insisted on sending me home by nine oclock with strict
orders to go to bed at once
The house in which I lived had been occupied by three generations of the
family of which I was the only living representative in the direct line It was
a large ancient wooden mansion very elegant in an oldfashioned way within
but situated in a quarter that had long since become undesirable for residence
from its invasion by tenement houses and manufactories It was not a house to
which I could think of bringing a bride much less so dainty a one as Edith
Bartlett I had advertised it for sale and meanwhile merely used it for
sleeping purposes dining at my club One servant a faithful colored man by the
name of Sawyer lived with me and attended to my few wants One feature of the
house I expected to miss greatly when I should leave it and this was the
sleeping chamber which I had built under the foundations I could not have slept
in the city at all with its never ceasing nightly noises if I had been obliged
to use an upstairs chamber But to this subterranean room no murmur from the
upper world ever penetrated When I had entered it and closed the door I was
surrounded by the silence of the tomb In order to prevent the dampness of the
subsoil from penetrating the chamber the walls had been laid in hydraulic
cement and were very thick and the floor was likewise protected In order that
the room might serve also as a vault equally proof against violence and flames
for the storage of valuables I had roofed it with stone slabs hermetically
sealed and the outer door was of iron with a thick coating of asbestos A small
pipe communicating with a windmill on the top of the house insured the
renewal of air
It might seem that the tenant of such a chamber ought to be able to command
slumber but it was rare that I slept well even there two nights in
succession So accustomed was I to wakefulness that I minded little the loss of
one nights rest A second night however spent in my reading chair instead of
my bed tired me out and I never allowed myself to go longer than that without
slumber from fear of nervous disorder From this statement it will be inferred
that I had at my command some artificial means for inducing sleep in the last
resort and so in fact I had If after two sleepless nights I found myself on
the approach of the third without sensations of drowsiness I called in Dr
Pillsbury
He was a doctor by courtesy only what was called in those days an irregular
or quack doctor He called himself a Professor of Animal Magnetism I had come
across him in the course of some amateur investigations into the phenomena of
animal magnetism I dont think he knew anything about medicine but he was
certainly a remarkable mesmerist It was for the purpose of being put to sleep
by his manipulations that I used to send for him when I found a third night of
sleeplessness impending Let my nervous excitement or mental preoccupation be
however great Dr Pillsbury never failed after a short time to leave me in a
deep slumber which continued till I was aroused by a reversal of the
mesmerizing process The process for awaking the sleeper was much simpler than
that for putting him to sleep and for convenience I had made Dr Pillsbury
teach Sawyer how to do it
My faithful servant alone knew for what purpose Dr Pillsbury visited me or
that he did so at all Of course when Edith became my wife I should have to
tell her my secrets I had not hitherto told her this because there was
unquestionably a slight risk in the mesmeric sleep and I knew she would set her
face against my practice The risk of course was that it might become too
profound and pass into a trance beyond the mesmerizers power to break ending
in death Repeated experiments had fully convinced me that the risk was next to
nothing if reasonable precautions were exercised and of this I hoped though
doubtingly to convince Edith I went directly home after leaving her and at
once sent Sawyer to fetch Dr Pillsbury Meanwhile I sought my subterranean
sleeping chamber and exchanging my costume for a comfortable dressinggown sat
down to read the letters by the evening mail which Sawyer had laid on my reading
table
One of them was from the builder of my new house and confirmed what I had
inferred from the newspaper item The new strikes he said had postponed
indefinitely the completion of the contract as neither masters nor workmen
would concede the point at issue without a long struggle Caligula wished that
the Roman people had but one neck that he might cut it off and as I read this
letter I am afraid that for a moment I was capable of wishing the same thing
concerning the laboring classes of America The return of Sawyer with the doctor
interrupted my gloomy meditations
It appeared that he had with difficulty been able to secure his services as
he was preparing to leave the city that very night The doctor explained that
since he had seen me last he had learned of a fine professional opening in a
distant city and decided to take prompt advantage of it On my asking in some
panic what I was to do for some one to put me to sleep he gave me the names of
several mesmerizers in Boston who he averred had quite as great powers as he
Somewhat relieved on this point I instructed Sawyer to rouse me at nine
oclock next morning and lying down on the bed in my dressinggown assumed a
comfortable attitude and surrendered myself to the manipulations of the
mesmerizer Owing perhaps to my unusually nervous state I was slower than
common in losing consciousness but at length a delicious drowsiness stole over
me
Chapter III
»He is going to open his eyes He had better see but one of us at first«
»Promise me then that you will not tell him«
The first voice was a mans the second a womans and both spoke in
whispers
»I will see how he seems« replied the man
»No no promise me« persisted the other
»Let her have her way« whispered a third voice also a woman
»Well well I promise then« answered the man »Quick go He is coming
out of it«
There was a rustle of garments and I opened my eyes A fine looking man of
perhaps sixty was bending over me an expression of much benevolence mingled
with great curiosity upon his features He was an utter stranger I raised
myself on an elbow and looked around The room was empty I certainly had never
been in it before or one furnished like it I looked back at my companion He
smiled
»How do you feel« he inquired
»Where am I« I demanded
»You are in my house« was the reply
»How came I here«
»We will talk about that when you are stronger Meanwhile I beg you will
feel no anxiety You are among friends and in good hands How do you feel«
»A bit queerly« I replied »but I am well I suppose Will you tell me how
I came to be indebted to your hospitality What has happened to me How came I
here It was in my own house that I went to sleep«
»There will be time enough for explanations later« my unknown host replied
with a reassuring smile »It will be better to avoid agitating talk until you
are a little more yourself Will you oblige me by taking a couple of swallows of
this mixture It will do you good I am a physician«
I repelled the glass with my hand and sat up on the couch although with an
effort for my head was strangely light
»I insist upon knowing at once where I am and what you have been doing with
me« I said
»My dear sir« responded my companion »let me beg that you will not agitate
yourself I would rather you did not insist upon explanations so soon but if
you do I will try to satisfy you provided you will first take this draught
which will strengthen you somewhat«
I thereupon drank what he offered me Then he said »It is not so simple a
matter as you evidently suppose to tell you how you came here You can tell me
quite as much on that point as I can tell you You have just been roused from a
deep sleep or more properly trance So much I can tell you You say you were
in your own house when you fell into that sleep May I ask you when that was«
»When« I replied »when Why last evening of course at about ten
oclock I left my man Sawyer orders to call me at nine oclock What has become
of Sawyer«
»I cant precisely tell you that« replied my companion regarding me with a
curious expression »but I am sure that he is excusable for not being here And
now can you tell me a little more explicitly when it was that you fell into that
sleep the date I mean«
»Why last night of course I said so didnt I that is unless I have
overslept an entire day Great heavens that cannot be possible and yet I have
an odd sensation of having slept a long time It was Decoration Day that I went
to sleep«
»Decoration Day«
»Yes Monday the 30th«
»Pardon me the 30th of what«
»Why of this month of course unless I have slept into June but that
cant be«
»This month is September«
»September You dont mean that Ive slept since May God in heaven Why it
is incredible«
»We shall see« replied my companion »you say that it was May 30th when you
went to sleep«
»Yes«
»May I ask of what year«
I stared blankly at him incapable of speech for some moments
»Of what year« I feebly echoed at last
»Yes of what year if you please After you have told me that I shall be
able to tell you how long you have slept«
»It was the year 1887« I said
My companion insisted that I should take another draught from the glass and
felt my pulse
»My dear sir« he said »your manner indicates that you are a man of
culture which I am aware was by no means the matter of course in your day it
now is No doubt then you have yourself made the observation that nothing in
this world can be truly said to be more wonderful than anything else The causes
of all phenomena are equally adequate and the results equally matters of
course That you should be startled by what I shall tell you is to be expected
but I am confident that you will not permit it to affect your equanimity unduly
Your appearance is that of a young man of barely thirty and your bodily
condition seems not greatly different from that of one just roused from a
somewhat too long and profound sleep and yet this is the tenth day of September
in the year 2000 and you have slept exactly one hundred and thirteen years
three months and eleven days«
Feeling partially dazed I drank a cup of some sort of broth at my
companions suggestion and immediately afterward becoming very drowsy went
off into a deep sleep
When I awoke it was broad daylight in the room which had been lighted
artificially when I was awake before My mysterious host was sitting near He
was not looking at me when I opened my eyes and I had a good opportunity to
study him and meditate upon my extraordinary situation before he observed that
I was awake My giddiness was all gone and my mind perfectly clear The story
that I had been asleep one hundred and thirteen years which in my former weak
and bewildered condition I had accepted without question recurred to me now
only to be rejected as a preposterous attempt at an imposture the motive of
which it was impossible remotely to surmise
Something extraordinary had certainly happened to account for my waking up
in this strange house with this unknown companion but my fancy was utterly
impotent to suggest more than the wildest guess as to what that something might
have been Could it be that I was the victim of some sort of conspiracy It
looked so certainly and yet if human lineaments ever gave true evidence it
was certain that this man by my side with a face so refined and ingenuous was
no party to any scheme of crime or outrage Then it occurred to me to question
if I might not be the butt of some elaborate practical joke on the part of
friends who had somehow learned the secret of my underground chamber and taken
this means of impressing me with the peril of mesmeric experiments There were
great difficulties in the way of this theory Sawyer would never have betrayed
me nor had I any friends at all likely to undertake such an enterprise
nevertheless the supposition that I was the victim of a practical joke seemed on
the whole the only one tenable Half expecting to catch a glimpse of some
familiar face grinning from behind a chair or curtain I looked carefully about
the room When my eyes next rested on my companion he was looking at me
»You have had a fine nap of twelve hours« he said briskly »and I can see
that it has done you good You look much better Your color is good and your
eyes are bright How do you feel«
»I never felt better« I said sitting up
»You remember your first waking no doubt« he pursued »and your surprise
when I told you how long you had been asleep«
»You said I believe that I had slept one hundred and thirteen years«
»Exactly«
»You will admit« I said with an ironical smile »that the story was rather
an improbable one«
»Extraordinary I admit« he responded »but given the proper conditions
not improbable nor inconsistent with what we know of the trance state When
complete as in your case the vital functions are absolutely suspended and
there is no waste of the tissues No limit can be set to the possible duration
of a trance when the external conditions protect the body from physical injury
This trance of yours is indeed the longest of which there is any positive
record but there is no known reason wherefore had you not been discovered and
had the chamber in which we found you continued intact you might not have
remained in a state of suspended animation till at the end of indefinite ages
the gradual refrigeration of the earth had destroyed the bodily tissues and set
the spirit free«
I had to admit that if I were indeed the victim of a practical joke its
authors had chosen an admirable agent for carrying out their imposition The
impressive and even eloquent manner of this man would have lent dignity to an
argument that the moon was made of cheese The smile with which I had regarded
him as he advanced his trance hypothesis did not appear to confuse him in the
slightest degree
»Perhaps« I said »you will go on and favor me with some particulars as to
the circumstances under which you discovered this chamber of which you speak
and its contents I enjoy good fiction«
»In this case« was the grave reply »no fiction could be so strange as the
truth You must know that these many years I have been cherishing the idea of
building a laboratory in the large garden beside this house for the purpose of
chemical experiments for which I have a taste Last Thursday the excavation for
the cellar was at last begun It was completed by that night and Friday the
masons were to have come Thursday night we had a tremendous deluge of rain and
Friday morning I found my cellar a frogpond and the walls quite washed down My
daughter who had come out to view the disaster with me called my attention to
a corner of masonry laid bare by the crumbling away of one of the walls I
cleared a little earth from it and finding that it seemed part of a large
mass determined to investigate it The workmen I sent for unearthed an oblong
vault some eight feet below the surface and set in the corner of what had
evidently been the fundation walls of an ancient house A layer of ashes and
charcoal on the top of the vault showed that the house above had perished by
fire The vault itself was perfectly intact the cement being as good as when
first applied It had a door but this we could not force and found entrance by
removing one of the flagstones which formed the roof The air which came up was
stagnant but pure dry and not cold Descending with a lantern I found myself
in an apartment fitted up as a bedroom in the style of the nineteenth century
On the bed lay a young man That he was dead and must have been dead a century
was of course to be taken for granted but the extraordinary state of
preservation of the body struck me and the medical colleagues whom I had
summoned with amazement That the art of such embalming as this had ever been
known we should not have believed yet here seemed conclusive testimony that our
immediate ancestors had possessed it My medical colleagues whose curiosity was
highly excited were at once for undertaking experiments to test the nature of
the process employed but I withheld them My motive in so doing at least the
only motive I now need speak of was the recollection of something I once had
read about the extent to which your contemporaries had cultivated the subject of
animal magnetism It had occurred to me as just conceivable that you might be in
a trance and that the secret of your bodily integrity after so long a time was
not the craft of an embalmer but life So extremely fanciful did this idea
seem even to me that I did not risk the ridicule of my fellow physicians by
mentioning it but gave some other reason for postponing their experiments No
sooner however had they left me than I set on foot a systematic attempt at
resuscitation of which you know the result«
Had its theme been yet more incredible the circumstantiality of this
narrative as well as the impressive manner and personality of the narrator
might have staggered a listener and I had begun to feel very strangely when
as he closed I chanced to catch a glimpse of my reflection in a mirror hanging
on the wall of the room I rose and went up to it The face I saw was the face
to a hair and a line and not a day older than the one I had looked at as I tied
my cravat before going to Edith that Decoration Day which as this man would
have me believe was celebrated one hundred and thirteen years before At this
the colossal character of the fraud which was being attempted on me came over
me afresh Indignation mastered my mind as I realized the outrageous liberty
that had been taken
»You are probably surprised« said my companion »to see that although you
are a century older than when you lay down to sleep in that underground chamber
your appearance is unchanged That should not amaze you It is by virtue of the
total arrest of the vital functions that you have survived this great period of
time If your body could have undergone any change during your trance it would
long ago have suffered dissolution«
»Sir« I replied turning to him »what your motive can be in reciting to me
with a serious face this remarkable farrago I am utterly unable to guess but
you are surely yourself too intelligent to suppose that anybody but an imbecile
could be deceived by it Spare me any more of this elaborate nonsense and once
for all tell me whether you refuse to give me an intelligible account of where I
am and how I came here If so I shall proceed to ascertain my whereabouts for
myself whoever may hinder«
»You do not then believe that this is the year 2000«
»Do you really think it necessary to ask me that« I returned
»Very well« replied my extraordinary host »Since I cannot convince you
you shall convince yourself Are you strong enough to follow me upstairs«
»I am as strong as I ever was« I replied angrily »as I may have to prove
if this jest is carried much farther«
»I beg sir« was my companions response »that you will not allow yourself
to be too fully persuaded that you are the victim of a trick lest the reaction
when you are convinced of the truth of my statements should be too great«
The tone of concern mingled with commiseration with which he said this
and the entire absence of any sign of resentment at my hot words strangely
daunted me and I followed him from the room with an extraordinary mixture of
emotions He led the way up two flights of stairs and then up a shorter one
which landed us upon a belvedere on the housetop »Be pleased to look around
you« he said as we reached the platform »and tell me if this is the Boston of
the nineteenth century«
At my feet lay a great city Miles of broad streets shaded by trees and
lined with fine buildings for the most part not in continuous blocks but set in
larger or smaller inclosures stretched in every direction Every quarter
contained large open squares filled with trees among which statues glistened
and fountains flashed in the late afternoon sun Public buildings of a colossal
size and an architectural grandeur unparalleled in my day raised their stately
piles on every side Surely I had never seen this city nor one comparable to it
before Raising my eyes at last towards the horizon I looked westward That
blue ribbon winding away to the sunset was it not the sinuous Charles I looked
east Boston harbor stretched before me within its headlands not one of its
green islets missing
I knew then that I had been told the truth concerning the prodigious thing
which had befallen me
Chapter IV
I did not faint but the effort to realize my position made me very giddy and I
remember that my companion had to give me a strong arm as he conducted me from
the roof to a roomy apartment on the upper floor of the house where he insisted
on my drinking a glass or two of good wine and partaking of a light repast
»I think you are going to be all right now« he said cheerily »I should not
have taken so abrupt a means to convince you of your position if your course
while perfectly excusable under the circumstances had not rather obliged me to
do so I confess« he added laughing »I was a little apprehensive at one time
that I should undergo what I believe you used to call a knockdown in the
nineteenth century if I did not act rather promptly I remembered that the
Bostonians of your day were famous pugilists and thought best to lose no time
I take it you are now ready to acquit me of the charge of hoaxing you«
»If you had told me« I replied profoundly awed »that a thousand years
instead of a hundred had elapsed since I last looked on this city I should now
believe you«
»Only a century has passed« he answered »but many a millennium in the
worlds history has seen changes less extraordinary«
»And now« he added extending his hand with an air of irresistible
cordiality »let me give you a hearty welcome to the Boston of the twentieth
century and to this house My name is Leete Dr Leete they call me«
»My name« I said as I shook his hand »is Julian West«
»I am most happy in making your acquaintance Mr West« he responded
»Seeing that this house is built on the site of your own I hope you will find
it easy to make yourself at home in it«
After my refreshment Dr Leete offered me a bath and a change of clothing
of which I gladly availed myself
It did not appear that any very startling revolution in mens attire had
been among the great changes my host had spoken of for barring a few details
my new habiliments did not puzzle me at all
Physically I was now myself again But mentally how was it with me the
reader will doubtless wonder What were my intellectual sensations he may wish
to know on finding myself so suddenly dropped as it were into a new world In
reply let me ask him to suppose himself suddenly in the twinkling of an eye
transported from earth say to Paradise or Hades What does he fancy would be
his own experience Would his thoughts return at once to the earth he had just
left or would he after the first shock wellnigh forget his former life for a
while albeit to be remembered later in the interest excited by his new
surroundings All I can say is that if his experience were at all like mine in
the transition I am describing the latter hypothesis would prove the correct
one The impressions of amazement and curiosity which my new surroundings
produced occupied my mind after the first shock to the exclusion of all other
thoughts For the time the memory of my former life was as it were in
abeyance
No sooner did I find myself physically rehabilitated through the kind
offices of my host than I became eager to return to the housetop and
presently we were comfortably established there in easychairs with the city
beneath and around us After Dr Leete had responded to numerous questions on my
part as to the ancient landmarks I missed and the new ones which had replaced
them he asked me what point of the contrast between the new and the old city
struck me most forcibly
»To speak of small things before great« I responded »I really think that
the complete absence of chimneys and their smoke is the detail that first
impressed me«
»Ah« ejaculated my companion with an air of much interest »I had forgotten
the chimneys it is so long since they went out of use It is nearly a century
since the crude method of combustion on which you depended for heat became
obsolete«
»In general« I said »what impresses me most about the city is the material
prosperity on the part of the people which its magnificence implies«
»I would give a great deal for just one glimpse of the Boston of your day«
replied Dr Leete »No doubt as you imply the cities of that period were
rather shabby affairs If you had the taste to make them splendid which I would
not be so rude as to question the general poverty resulting from your
extraordinary industrial system would not have given you the means Moreover
the excessive individualism which then prevailed was inconsistent with much
public spirit What little wealth you had seems almost wholly to have been
lavished in private luxury Nowadays on the contrary there is no destination
of the surplus wealth so popular as the adornment of the city which all enjoy
in equal degree«
The sun had been setting as we returned to the housetop and as we talked
night descended upon the city
»It is growing dark« said Dr Leete »Let us descend into the house I want
to introduce my wife and daughter to you«
His words recalled to me the feminine voices which I had heard whispering
about me as I was coming back to conscious life and most curious to learn what
the ladies of the year 2000 were like I assented with alacrity to the
proposition The apartment in which we found the wife and daughter of my host
as well as the interior of the house was filled with a mellow light which I
knew must be artificial although I could not discover the source from which it
was diffused Mrs Leete was an exceptionally fine looking and well preserved
woman of about her husbands age while the daughter who was in the first blush
of womanhood was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen Her face was as
bewitching as deep blue eyes delicately tinted complexion and perfect features
could make it but even had her countenance lacked special charms the faultless
luxuriance of her figure would have given her place as a beauty among the women
of the nineteenth century Feminine softness and delicacy were in this lovely
creature deliciously combined with an appearance of health and abounding
physical vitality too often lacking in the maidens with whom alone I could
compare her It was a coincidence trifling in comparison with the general
strangeness of the situation but still striking that her name should be Edith
The evening that followed was certainly unique in the history of social
intercourse but to suppose that our conversation was peculiarly strained or
difficult would be a great mistake I believe indeed that it is under what may
be called unnatural in the sense of extraordinary circumstances that people
behave most naturally for the reason no doubt that such circumstances banish
artificiality I know at any rate that my intercourse that evening with these
representatives of another age and world was marked by an ingenuous sincerity
and frankness such as but rarely crown long acquaintance No doubt the exquisite
tact of my entertainers had much to do with this Of course there was nothing we
could talk of but the strange experience by virtue of which I was there but
they talked of it with an interest so naive and direct in its expression as to
relieve the subject to a great degree of the element of the weird and the
uncanny which might so easily have been overpowering One would have supposed
that they were quite in the habit of entertaining waifs from another century so
perfect was their tact
For my own part never do I remember the operations of my mind to have been
more alert and acute than that evening or my intellectual sensibilities more
keen Of course I do not mean that the consciousness of my amazing situation was
for a moment out of mind but its chief effect thus far was to produce a
feverish elation a sort of mental intoxication1
Edith Leete took little part in the conversation but when several times the
magnetism of her beauty drew my glance to her face I found her eyes fixed on me
with an absorbed intensity almost like fascination It was evident that I had
excited her interest to an extraordinary degree as was not astonishing
supposing her to be a girl of imagination Though I supposed curiosity was the
chief motive of her interest it could but affect me as it would not have done
had she been less beautiful
Dr Leete as well as the ladies seemed greatly interested in my account of
the circumstances under which I had gone to sleep in the underground chamber
All had suggestions to offer to account for my having been forgotten there and
the theory which we finally agreed on offers at least a plausible explanation
although whether it be in its details the true one nobody of course will ever
know The layer of ashes found above the chamber indicated that the house had
been burned down Let it be supposed that the conflagration had taken place the
night I fell asleep It only remains to assume that Sawyer lost his life in the
fire or by some accident connected with it and the rest follows naturally
enough No one but he and Dr Pillsbury either knew of the existence of the
chamber or that I was in it and Dr Pillsbury who had gone that night to New
Orleans had probably never heard of the fire at all The conclusion of my
friends and of the public must have been that I had perished in the flames An
excavation of the ruins unless thorough would not have disclosed the recess in
the foundation walls connecting with my chamber To be sure if the side had
been again built upon at least immediately such an excavation would have been
necessary but the troublous times and the undesirable character of the locality
might well have prevented rebuilding The size of the trees in the garden now
occupying the site indicated Dr Leete said that for more than half a century
at least it had been open ground
Chapter V
When in the course of the evening the ladies retired leaving Dr Leete and
myself alone he sounded me as to my disposition for sleep saying that if I
felt like it my bed was ready for me but if I was inclined to wakefulness
nothing would please him better than to bear me company »I am a late bird
myself« he said »and without suspicion of flattery I may say that a
companion more interesting than yourself could scarcely be imagined It is
decidedly not often that one has a chance to converse with a man of the
nineteenth century«
Now I had been looking forward all the evening with some dread to the time
when I should be alone on retiring for the night Surrounded by these most
friendly strangers stimulated and supported by their sympathetic interest I
had been able to keep my mental balance Even then however in pauses of the
conversation I had had glimpses vivid as lightning flashes of the horror of
strangeness that was waiting to be faced when I could no longer command
diversion I knew I could not sleep that night and as for lying awake and
thinking it argues no cowardice I am sure to confess that I was afraid of it
When in reply to my hosts question I frankly told him this he replied that
it would be strange if I did not feel just so but that I need have no anxiety
about sleeping whenever I wanted to go to bed he would give me a dose which
would insure me a sound nights sleep without fail Next morning no doubt I
would awake with the feeling of an old citizen
»Before I acquire that« I replied »I must know a little more about the
sort of Boston I have come back to You told me when we were upon the housetop
that though a century only had elapsed since I fell asleep it had been marked
by greater changes in the conditions of humanity than many a previous
millennium With the city before me I could well believe that but I am very
curious to know what some of the changes have been To make a beginning
somewhere for the subject is doubtless a large one what solution if any have
you found for the labor question It was the Sphinxs riddle of the nineteenth
century and when I dropped out the Sphinx was threatening to devour society
because the answer was not forthcoming It is well worth sleeping a hundred
years to learn what the right answer was if indeed you have found it yet«
»As no such thing as the labor question is known nowadays« replied Dr
Leete »and there is no way in which it could arise I suppose we may claim to
have solved it Society would indeed have fully deserved being devoured if it
had failed to answer a riddle so entirely simple In fact to speak by the book
it was not necessary for society to solve the riddle at all It may be said to
have solved itself The solution came as the result of a process of industrial
evolution which could not have terminated otherwise All that society had to do
was to recognize and coöperate with that evolution when its tendency had become
unmistakable«
»I can only say« I answered »that at the time I fell asleep no such
evolution had been recognized«
»It was in 1887 that you fell into this sleep I think you said«
»Yes May 30th 1887«
My companion regarded me musingly for some moments Then he observed »And
you tell me that even then there was no general recognition of the nature of the
crisis which society was nearing Of course I fully credit your statement The
singular blindness of your contemporaries to the signs of the times is a
phenomenon commented on by many of our historians but few facts of history are
more difficult for us to realize so obvious and unmistakable as we look back
seem the indications which must also have come under your eyes of the
transformation about to come to pass I should be interested Mr West if you
would give me a little more definite idea of the view which you and men of your
grade of intellect took of the state and prospects of society in 1887 You must
at least have realized that the widespread industrial and social troubles and
the underlying dissatisfaction of all classes with the inequalities of society
and the general misery of mankind were portents of great changes of some sort«
»We did indeed fully realize that« I replied »We felt that society was
dragging anchor and in danger of going adrift Whither it would drift nobody
could say but all feared the rocks«
»Nevertheless« said Dr Leete »the set of the current was perfectly
perceptible if you had but taken pains to observe it and it was not toward the
rocks but toward a deeper channel«
»We had a popular proverb« I replied »that hindsight is better than
foresight the force of which I shall now no doubt appreciate more fully than
ever All I can say is that the prospect was such when I went into that long
sleep that I should not have been surprised had I looked down from your
housetop today on a heap of charred and mossgrown ruins instead of this
glorious city«
Dr Leete had listened to me with close attention and nodded thoughtfully as
I finished speaking »What you have said« he observed »will be regarded as a
most valuble vindication of Storiot whose account of your era has been
generally thought exaggerated in its picture of the gloom and confusion of mens
minds That a period of transition like that should be full of excitement and
agitation was indeed to be looked for but seeing how plain was the tendency of
the forces in operation it was natural to believe that hope rather than fear
would have been the prevailing temper of the popular mind«
»You have not yet told me what was the answer to the riddle which you
found« I said »I am impatient to know by what contradiction of natural
sequence the peace and prosperity which you now seem to enjoy could have been
the outcome of an era like my own« »Excuse me« replied my host »but do you
smoke« It was not till our cigars were lighted and drawing well that he
resumed »Since you are in the humour to talk rather than to sleep as I
certainly am perhaps I cannot do better than to try to give you enough idea of
our modern industrial system to dissipate at least the impression that there is
any mystery about the process of its evolution The Bostonians of your day had
the reputation of being great askers of questions and I am going to show my
descent by asking you one to begin with What should you name as the most
prominent feature of the labor troubles of your day«
»Why the strikes of course« I replied
»Exactly but what made the strikes so formidable«
»The great labor organizations«
»And what was the motive of these great organizations«
»The workmen claimed they had to organize to get their rights from the big
corporations« I replied
»That is just it« said Dr Leete »the organization of labor and the
strikes were an effect merely of the concentration of capital in greater
masses than had ever been known before Before this concentration began while
as yet commerce and industry were conducted by innumerable petty concerns with
small capital instead of a small number of great concerns with vast capital
the individual workman was relatively important and independent in his relations
to the employer Moreover when a little capital or a new idea was enough to
start a man in business for himself workingmen were constantly becoming
employers and there was no hard and fast line between the two classes Labor
unions were needless then and general strikes out of the question But when the
era of small concerns with small capital was succeeded by that of the great
aggregations of capital all this was changed The individual laborer who had
been relatively important to the small employer was reduced to insignificance
and powerlessness over against the great corporation while at the same time the
way upward to the grade of employer was closed to him Selfdefense drove him to
union with his fellows
The records of the period show that the outcry against the concentration of
capital was furious Men believed that it threatened society with a form of
tyranny more abhorrent than it had ever endured They believed that the great
corporations were preparing for them the yoke of a baser servitude than had ever
been imposed on the race servitude not to men but to soulless machines
incapable of any motive but insatiable greed Looking back we cannot wonder at
their desperation for certainly humanity was never confronted with a fate more
sordid and hideous than would have been the era of corporate tyranny which they
anticipated
Meanwhile without being in the smallest degree checked by the clamor
against it the absorption of business by ever larger monopolies continued In
the United States there was not after the beginning of the last quarter of the
century any opportunity whatever for individual enterprise in any important
field of industry unless backed by a great capital During the last decade of
the century such small businesses as still remained were fastfailing survivals
of a past epoch or mere parasites on the great corporations or else existed in
fields too small to attract the great capitalists Small businesses as far as
they still remained were reduced to the condition of rats and mice living in
holes and corners and counting on evading notice for the enjoyment of
existence The railroads had gone on combining till a few great syndicates
controlled every rail in the land In manufactories every important staple was
controlled by a syndicate These syndicates pools trusts or whatever their
name fixed prices and crushed all competition except when combinations as vast
as themselves arose Then a struggle resulting in a still greater
consolidation ensued The great city bazar crushed its country rivals with
branch stores and in the city itself absorbed its smaller rivals till the
business of a whole quarter was concentrated under one roof with a hundred
former proprietors of shops serving as clerks Having no business of his own to
put his money in the small capitalist at the same time that he took service
under the corporation found no other investment for his money but its stocks
and bonds thus becoming doubly dependent upon it
The fact that the desperate popular opposition to the consolidation of
business in a few powerful hands had no effect to check it proves that there
must have been a strong economical reason for it The small capitalists with
their innumerable petty concerns had in fact yielded the field to the great
aggregations of capital because they belonged to a day of small things and were
totally incompetent to the demands of an age of steam and telegraphs and the
gigantic scale of its enterprises To restore the former order of things even
if possible would have involved returning to the day of stagecoaches
Oppressive and intolerable as was the régime of the great consolidations of
capital even its victims while they cursed it were forced to admit the
prodigious increase of efficiency which had been imparted to the national
industries the vast economies effected by concentration of management and unity
of organization and to confess that since the new system had taken the place of
the old the wealth of the world had increased at a rate before undreamed of To
be sure this vast increase had gone chiefly to make the rich richer increasing
the gap between them and the poor but the fact remained that as a means merely
of producing wealth capital had been proved efficient in proportion to its
consolidation The restoration of the old system with the subdivision of
capital if it were possible might indeed bring back a greater equality of
conditions with more individual dignity and freedom but it would be at the
price of general poverty and the arrest of material progress
Was there then no way of commanding the services of the mighty
wealthproducing principle of consolidated capital without bowing down to a
plutocracy like that of Carthage As soon as men began to ask themselves these
questions they found the answer ready for them The movement toward the conduct
of business by larger and larger aggregations of capital the tendency toward
monopolies which had been so desperately and vainly resisted was recognized at
last in its true significance as a process which only needed to complete its
logical evolution to open a golden future to humanity
Early in the last century the evolution was completed by the final
consolidation of the entire capital of the nation The industry and commerce of
the country ceasing to be conducted by a set of irresponsible corporations and
syndicates of private persons at their caprice and for their profit were
intrusted to a single syndicate representing the people to be conducted in the
common interest for the common profit The nation that is to say organized as
the one great business corporation in which all other corporations were
absorbed it became the one capitalist in the place of all other capitalists
the sole employer the final monopoly in which all previous and lesser
monopolies were swallowed up a monopoly in the profits and economies of which
all citizens shared The epoch of trusts had ended in The Great Trust In a
word the people of the United States concluded to assume the conduct of their
own business just as one hundred odd years before they had assumed the conduct
of their own government organizing now for industrial purposes on precisely the
same grounds that they had then organized for political purposes At last
strangely late in the worlds history the obvious fact was perceived that no
business is so essentially the public business as the industry and commerce on
which the peoples livelihood depends and that to entrust it to private persons
to be managed for private profit is a folly similar in kind though vastly
greater in magnitude to that of surrendering the functions of political
government to kings and nobles to be conducted for their personal
glorification«
»Such a stupendous change as you describe« said I »did not of course
take place without great bloodshed and terrible convulsions«
»On the contrary« replied Dr Leete »there was absolutely no violence The
change had been long foreseen Public opinion had become fully ripe for it and
the whole mass of the people was behind it There was no more possibility of
opposing it by force than by argument On the other hand the popular sentiment
toward the great corporations and those identified with them had ceased to be
one of bitterness as they came to realize their necessity as a link a
transition phase in the evolution of the true industrial system The most
violent foes of the great private monopolies were now forced to recognize how
invaluable and indispensable had been their office in educating the people up to
the point of assuming control of their own business Fifty years before the
consolidation of the industries of the country under national control would have
seemed a very daring experiment to the most sanguine But by a series of object
lessons seen and studied by all men the great corporations had taught the
people an entirely new set of ideas on this subject They had seen for many
years syndicates handling revenues greater than those of states and directing
the labors of hundreds of thousands of men with an efficiency and economy
unattainable in smaller operations It had come to be recognized as an axiom
that the larger the business the simpler the principles that can be applied to
it that as the machine is truer than the hand so the system which in a great
concern does the work of the masters eye in a small business turns out more
accurate results Thus it came about that thanks to the corporations
themselves when it was proposed that the nation should assume their functions
the suggestion implied nothing which seemed impracticable even to the timid To
be sure it was a step beyond any yet taken a broader generalization but the
very fact that the nation would be the sole corporation in the field would it
was seen relieve the undertaking of many difficulties with which the partial
monopolies had contended«
Chapter VI
Dr Leete ceased speaking and I remained silent endeavoring to form some
general conception of the changes in the arrangements of society implied in the
tremendous revolution which he had described
Finally I said »The idea of such an extension of the functions of
government is to say the least rather overwhelming«
»Extension« he repeated »where is the extension«
»In my day« I replied »it was considered that the proper functions of
government strictly speaking were limited to keeping the peace and defending
the people against the public enemy that is to the military and police
powers«
»And in heavens name who are the public enemies« exclaimed Dr Leete
»Are they France England Germany or hunger cold and nakedness In your day
governments were accustomed on the slightest international misunderstanding to
seize upon the bodies of citizens and deliver them over by hundreds of thousands
to death and mutilation wasting their treasures the while like water and all
this oftenest for no imaginable profit to the victims We have no wars now and
our governments no war powers but in order to protect every citizen against
hunger cold and nakedness and provide for all his physical and mental needs
the function is assumed of directing his industry for a term of years No Mr
West I am sure on reflection you will perceive that it was in your age not in
ours that the extension of the functions of governments was extraordinary Not
even for the best ends would men now allow their governments such powers as were
then used for the most maleficent«
»Leaving comparisons aside« I said »the demagoguery and corruption of our
public men would have been considered in my day insuperable objections to any
assumption by government of the charge of the national industries We should
have thought that no arrangement could be worse than to entrust the politicians
with control of the wealthproducing machinery of the country Its material
interests were quite too much the football of parties as it was«
»No doubt you were right« rejoined Dr Leete »but all that is changed now
We have no parties or politicians and as for demagoguery and corruption they
are words having only an historical significance«
»Human nature itself must have changed very much« I said
»Not at all« was Dr Leetes reply »but the conditions of human life have
changed and with them the motives of human action The organization of society
with you was such that officials were under a constant temptation to misuse
their power for the private profit of themselves or others Under such
circumstances it seems almost strange that you dared entrust them with any of
your affairs Nowadays on the contrary society is so constituted that there is
absolutely no way in which an official however illdisposed could possibly
make any profit for himself or any one else by a misuse of his power Let him be
as bad an official as you please he cannot be a corrupt one There is no motive
to be The social system no longer offers a premium on dishonesty But these are
matters which you can only understand as you come with time to know us
better«
»But you have not yet told me how you have settled the labor problem It is
the problem of capital which we have been discussing« I said »After the nation
had assumed conduct of the mills machinery railroads farms mines and
capital in general of the country the labor question still remained In
assuming the responsibilities of capital the nation had assumed the difficulties
of the capitalists position«
»The moment the nation assumed the responsibilities of capital those
difficulties vanished« replied Dr Leete »The national organization of labor
under one direction was the complete solution of what was in your day and under
your system justly regarded as the insoluble labor problem When the nation
became the sole employer all the citizens by virtue of their citizenship
became employees to be distributed according to the needs of industry«
»That is« I suggested »you have simply applied the principle of universal
military service as it was understood in our day to the labor question«
»Yes« said Dr Leete »that was something which followed as a matter of
course as soon as the nation had become the sole capitalist The people were
already accustomed to the idea that the obligation of every citizen not
physically disabled to contribute his military services to the defense of the
nation was equal and absolute That it was equally the duty of every citizen to
contribute his quota of industrial or intellectual services to the maintenance
of the nation was equally evident though it was not until the nation became the
employer of labor that citizens were able to render this sort of service with
any pretense either of universality or equity No organization of labor was
possible when the employing power was divided among hundreds or thousands of
individuals and corporations between which concert of any kind was neither
desired nor indeed feasible It constantly happened then that vast numbers who
desired to labor could find no opportunity and on the other hand those who
desired to evade a part or all of their debt could easily do so«
»Service now I suppose is compulsory upon all« I suggested
»It is rather a matter of course than of compulsion« replied Dr Leete »It
is regarded as so absolutely natural and reasonable that the idea of its being
compulsory has ceased to be thought of He would be thought to be an incredibly
contemptible person who should need compulsion in such a case Nevertheless to
speak of service being compulsory would be a weak way to state its absolute
inevitableness Our entire social order is so wholly based upon and deduced from
it that if it were conceivable that a man could escape it he would be left with
no possible way to provide for his existence He would have excluded himself
from the world cut himself off from his kind in a word committed suicide«
»Is the term of service in this industrial army for life«
»Oh no it both begins later and ends earlier than the average working
period in your day Your workshops were filled with children and old men but we
hold the period of youth sacred to education and the period of maturity when
the physical forces begin to flag equally sacred to ease and agreeable
relaxation The period of industrial service is twentyfour years beginning at
the close of the course of education at twentyone and terminating at
fortyfive After fortyfive while discharged from labor the citizen still
remains liable to special calls in case of emergencies causing a sudden great
increase in the demand for labor till he reaches the age of fiftyfive but
such calls are rarely in fact almost never made The fifteenth day of October
of every year is what we call Muster Day because those who have reached the age
of twentyone are then mustered into the industrial service and at the same
time those who after twentyfour years service have reached the age of
fortyfive are honorably mustered out It is the great day of the year with us
whence we reckon all other events our Olympiad save that it is annual«
Chapter VII
»It is after you have mustered your industrial army into service« I said »that
I should expect the chief difficulty to arise for there its analogy with a
military army must cease Soldiers have all the same thing and a very simple
thing to do namely to practice the manual of arms to march and stand guard
But the industrial army must learn and follow two or three hundred diverse
trades and avocations What administrative talent can be equal to determining
wisely what trade or business every individual in a great nation shall pursue«
»The administration has nothing to do with determining that point«
»Who does determine it then« I asked
»Every man for himself in accordance with his natural aptitude the utmost
pains being taken to enable him to find out what his natural aptitude really is
The principle on which our industrial army is organized is that a mans natural
endowments mental and physical determine what he can work at most profitably
to the nation and most satisfactorily to himself While the obligation of
service in some form is not to be evaded voluntary election subject only to
necessary regulation is depended on to determine the particular sort of service
every man is to render As an individuals satisfaction during his term of
service depends on his having an occupation to his taste parents and teachers
watch from early years for indications of special aptitudes in children A
thorough study of the National industrial system with the history and rudiments
of all the great trades is an essential part of our educational system While
manual training is not allowed to encroach on the general intellectual culture
to which our schools are devoted it is carried far enough to give our youth in
addition to their theoretical knowledge of the national industries mechanical
and agricultural a certain familiarity with their tools and methods Our
schools are constantly visiting our workshops and often are taken on long
excursions to inspect particular industrial enterprises In your day a man was
not ashamed to be grossly ignorant of all trades except his own but such
ignorance would not be consistent with our idea of placing every one in a
position to select intelligently the occupation for which he has most taste
Usually long before he is mustered into service a young man has found out the
pursuit he wants to follow has acquired a great deal of knowledge about it and
is waiting impatiently the time when he can enlist in its ranks«
»Surely« I said »it can hardly be that the number of volunteers for any
trade is exactly the number needed in that trade It must be generally either
under or over the demand«
»The supply of volunteers is always expected to fully equal the demand«
replied Dr Leete »It is the business of the administration to see that this is
the case The rate of volunteering for each trade is closely watched If there
be a noticeably greater excess of volunteers over men needed in any trade it is
inferred that the trade offers greater attractions than others On the other
hand if the number of volunteers for a trade tends to drop below the demand it
is inferred that it is thought more arduous It is the business of the
administration to seek constantly to equalize the attractions of the trades so
far as the conditions of labor in them are concerned so that all trades shall
be equally attractive to persons having natural tastes for them This is done by
making the hours of labor in different trades to differ according to their
arduousness The lighter trades prosecuted under the most agreeable
circumstances have in this way the longest hours while an arduous trade such
as mining has very short hours There is no theory no a priori rule by which
the respective attractiveness of industries is determined The administration
in taking burdens off one class of workers and adding them to other classes
simply follows the fluctuations of opinion among the workers themselves as
indicated by the rate of volunteering The principle is that no mans work ought
to be on the whole harder for him than any other mans for him the workers
themselves to be the judges There are no limits to the application of this
rule If any particular occupation is in itself so arduous or so oppressive
that in order to induce volunteers the days work in it had to be reduced to
ten minutes it would be done If even then no man was willing to do it it
would remain undone But of course in point of fact a moderate reduction in
the hours of labor or addition of other privileges suffices to secure all
needed volunteers for any occupation necessary to men If indeed the
unavoidable difficulties and dangers of such a necessary pursuit were so great
that no inducement of compensating advantages would overcome mens repugnance to
it the administration would only need to take it out of the common order of
occupations by declaring it extra hazardous and those who pursued it especially
worthy of the national gratitude to be overrun with volunteers Our young men
are very greedy of honor and do not let slip such opportunities Of course you
will see that dependance on the purely voluntary choice of avocations involves
the abolition in all of anything like unhygienic conditions or special peril to
life and limb Health and safety are conditions common to all industries The
nation does not maim and slaughter its workmen by thousands as did the private
capitalists and corporations of your day«
»When there are more who want to enter a particular trade than there is room
for how do you decide between the applicants« I inquired
»Preference is given to those who have acquired the most knowledge of the
trade they wish to follow No man however who through successive years remains
persistent in his desire to show what he can do at any particular trade is in
the end denied an opportunity Meanwhile if a man cannot at first win entrance
into the business he prefers he has usually one or more alternative
preferences pursuits for which he has some degree of aptitude although not the
highest Every one indeed is expected to study his aptitudes so as to have not
only a first choice as to occupation but a second or third so that if either
at the outset of his career or subsequently owing to the progress of invention
or changes in demand he is unable to follow his first vocation he can still
find reasonably congenial employment This principle of secondary choices as to
occupation is quite important in our system I should add in reference to the
counterpossibility of some sudden failure of volunteers in a particular trade
or some sudden necessity of an increased force that the administration while
depending on the voluntary system for filling up the trades as a rule holds
always in reserve the power to call for special volunteers or draft any force
needed from any quarter Generally however all needs of this sort can be met
by details from the class of unskilled or common laborers«
»How is this class of common laborers recruited« I asked »Surely nobody
voluntarily enters that«
»It is the grade to which all new recruits belong for the first three years
of their service It is not till after this period during which he is
assignable to any work at the discretion of his superiors that the young man is
allowed to elect a special avocation These three years of stringent discipline
none are exempt from and very glad our young men are to pass from this severe
school into the comparative liberty of the trades If a man were so stupid as to
have no choice as to occupation he would simply remain a common laborer but
such cases as you may suppose are not common«
»Having once elected and entered on a trade or occupation« I remarked »I
suppose he has to stick to it the rest of his life«
»Not necessarily« replied Dr Leete »while frequent and merely capricious
changes of occupation are not encouraged or even permitted every worker is
allowed of course under certain regulations and in accordance with the
exigencies of the service to volunteer for another industry which he thinks
would suit him better than his first choice In this case his application is
received just as if he were volunteering for the first time and on the same
terms Not only this but a worker may likewise under suitable regulations and
not too frequently obtain a transfer to an establishment of the same industry
in another part of the country which for any reason he may prefer Under your
system a discontented man could indeed leave his work at will but he left his
means of support at the same time and took his chances as to future livelihood
We find that the number of men who wish to abandon an accustomed occupation for
a new one and old friends and associations for strange ones is small It is
only the poorer sort of workmen who desire to change even as frequently as our
regulations permit Of course transfers or discharges when health demands them
are always given«
»As an industrial system I should think this might be extremely efficient«
I said »but I dont see that it makes any provision for the professional
classes the men who serve the nation with brains instead of hands Of course
you cant get along without the brainworkers How then are they selected from
those who are to serve as farmers and mechanics That must require a very
delicate sort of sifting process I should say«
»So it does« replied Dr Leete »the most delicate possible test is needed
here and so we leave the question whether a man shall be a brain or hand worker
entirely to him to settle At the end of the term of three years as a common
laborer which every man must serve it is for him to choose in accordance to
his natural tastes whether he will fit himself for an art or profession or be
a farmer or mechanic If he feels that he can do better work with his brains
than his muscles he finds every facility provided for testing the reality of
his supposed bent of cultivating it and if fit of pursuing it as his
avocation The schools of technology of medicine of art of music of
histrionics and of higher liberal learning are always open to aspirants without
condition«
»Are not the schools flooded with young men whose only motive is to avoid
work«
Dr Leete smiled a little grimly
»No one is at all likely to enter the professional schools for the purpose
of avoiding work I assure you« he said »They are intended for those with
special aptitude for the branches they teach and any one without it would find
it easier to do double hours at his trade than try to keep up with the classes
Of course many honestly mistake their vocation and finding themselves unequal
to the requirements of the schools drop out and return to the industrial
service no discredit attaches to such persons for the public policy is to
encourage all to develop suspected talents which only actual tests can prove the
reality of The professional and scientific schools of your day depended on the
patronage of their pupils for support and the practice appears to have been
common of giving diplomas to unfit persons who afterwards found their way into
the professions Our schools are national institutions and to have passed their
tests is a proof of special abilities not to be questioned
This opportunity for a professional training« the doctor continued
»remains open to every man till the age of thirty is reached after which
students are not received as there would remain too brief a period before the
age of discharge in which to serve the nation in their professions In your day
young men had to choose their professions very young and therefore in a large
proportion of instances wholly mistook their vocations It is recognized
nowadays that the natural aptitudes of some are later than those of others in
developing and therefore while the choice of profession may be made as early
as twentyfour it remains open for six years longer«
A question which had a dozen times before been on my lips now found
utterance a question which touched upon what in my time had been regarded the
most vital difficulty in the way of any final settlement of the industrial
problem »It is an extraordinary thing« I said »that you should not yet have
said a word about the method of adjusting wages Since the nation is the sole
employer the government must fix the rate of wages and determine just how much
everybody shall earn from the doctors to the diggers All I can say is that
this plan would never have worked with us and I dont see how it can now unless
human nature has changed In my day nobody was satisfied with his wages or
salary Even if he felt he received enough he was sure his neighbor had too
much which was as bad If the universal discontent on this subject instead of
being dissipated in curses and strikes directed against innumerable employers
could have been concentrated upon one and that the government the strongest
ever devised would not have seen two pay days«
Dr Leete laughed heartily
»Very true very true« he said »a general strike would most probably have
followed the first pay day and a strike directed against a government is a
revolution«
»How then do you avoid a revolution every pay day« I demanded »Has some
prodigious philosopher devised a new system of calculus satisfactory to all for
determining the exact and comparative value of all sorts of service whether by
brawn or brain by hand or voice by ear or eye Or has human nature itself
changed so that no man looks upon his own things but every man on the things of
his neighbor One or the other of these events must be the explanation«
»Neither one nor the other however is« was my hosts laughing response
»And now Mr West« he continued »you must remember that you are my patient as
well as my guest and permit me to prescribe sleep for you before we have any
more conversation It is after three oclock«
»The prescription is no doubt a wise one« I said »I only hope it can be
filled«
»I will see to that« the doctor replied and he did for he gave me a
wineglass of something or other which sent me to sleep as soon as my head
touched the pillow
Chapter VIII
When I awoke I felt greatly refreshed and lay a considerable time in a dozing
state enjoying the sensation of bodily comfort The experiences of the day
previous my waking to find myself in the year 2000 the sight of the new
Boston my host and his family and the wonderful things I had heard were a
blank in my memory I thought I was in my bedchamber at home and the
halfdreaming halfwaking fancies which passed before my mind related to the
incidents and experiences of my former life Dreamily I reviewed the incidents
of Decoration Day my trip in company with Edith and her parents to Mount
Auburn and my dining with them on our return to the city I recalled how
extremely well Edith had looked and from that fell to thinking of our marriage
but scarcely had my imagination begun to develop this delightful theme than my
waking dream was cut short by the recollection of the letter I had received the
night before from the builder announcing that the new strikes might postpone
indefinitely the completion of the new house The chagrin which this
recollection brought with it effectually roused me I remembered that I had an
appointment with the builder at eleven oclock to discuss the strike and
opening my eyes looked up at the clock at the foot of my bed to see what time
it was But no clock met my glance and what was more I instantly perceived
that I was not in my room Starting up on my couch I stared wildly round the
strange apartment
I think it must have been many seconds that I sat up thus in bed staring
about without being able to regain the clew to my personal identity I was no
more able to distinguish myself from pure being during those moments than we may
suppose a soul in the rough to be before it has received the earmarks the
individualizing touches which make it a person Strange that the sense of this
inability should be such anguish but so we are constituted There are no words
for the mental torture I endured during this helpless eyeless groping for
myself in a boundless void No other experience of the mind gives probably
anything like the sense of absolute intellectual arrest from the loss of a
mental fulcrum a starting point of thought which comes during such a momentary
obscuration of the sense of ones identity I trust I may never know what it is
again
I do not know how long this condition had lasted it seemed an
interminable time when like a flash the recollection of everything came
back to me I remembered who and where I was and how I had come here and that
these scenes as of the life of yesterday which had been passing before my mind
concerned a generation long long ago mouldered to dust Leaping from bed I
stood in the middle of the room clasping my temples with all my might between my
hands to keep them from bursting Then I fell prone on the couch and burying
my face in the pillow lay without motion The reaction which was inevitable
from the mental elation the fever of the intellect that had been the first
effect of my tremendous experience had arrived The emotional crisis which had
awaited the full realization of my actual position and all that it implied was
upon me and with set teeth and laboring chest gripping the bedstead with
frenzied strength I lay there and fought for my sanity In my mind all had
broken loose habits of feeling associations of thought ideas of persons and
things all had dissolved and lost coherence and were seething together in
apparently irretrievable chaos There were no rallying points nothing was left
stable There only remained the will and was any human will strong enough to
say to such a weltering sea »Peace be still« I dared not think Every effort
to reason upon what had befallen me and realize what it implied set up an
intolerable swimming of the brain The idea that I was two persons that my
identity was double began to fascinate me with its simple solution of my
experience
I knew that I was on the verge of losing my mental balance If I lay there
thinking I was doomed Diversion of some sort I must have at least the
diversion of physical exertion I sprang up and hastily dressing opened the
door of my room and went downstairs The hour was very early it being not yet
fairly light and I found no one in the lower part of the house There was a hat
in the hall and opening the front door which was fastened with a slightness
indicating that burglary was not among the perils of the modern Boston I found
myself on the street For two hours I walked or ran through the streets of the
city visiting most quarters of the peninsular part of the town None but an
antiquarian who knows something of the contrast which the Boston of today
offers to the Boston of the nineteenth century can begin to appreciate what a
series of bewildering surprises I underwent during that time Viewed from the
housetop the day before the city had indeed appeared strange to me but that
was only in its general aspect How complete the change had been I first
realized now that I walked the streets The few old landmarks which still
remained only intensified this effect for without them I might have imagined
myself in a foreign town A man may leave his native city in childhood and
return fifty years later perhaps to find it transformed in many features He
is astonished but he is not bewildered He is aware of a great lapse of time
and of changes likewise occurring in himself meanwhile He but dimly recalls the
city as he knew it when a child But remember that there was no sense of any
lapse of time with me So far as my consciousness was concerned it was but
yesterday but a few hours since I had walked these streets in which scarcely a
feature had escaped a complete metamorphosis The mental image of the old city
was so fresh and strong that it did not yield to the impression of the actual
city but contended with it so that it was first one and then the other which
seemed the more unreal There was nothing I saw which was not blurred in this
way like the faces of a composite photograph
Finally I stood again at the door of the house from which I had come out
My feet must have instinctively brought me back to the site of my old home for
I had no clear idea of returning thither It was no more homelike to me than any
other spot in this city of a strange generation nor were its inmates less
utterly and necessarily strangers than all the other men and women now on the
earth Had the door of the house been locked I should have been reminded by its
resistance that I had no object in entering and turned away but it yielded to
my hand and advancing with uncertain steps through the hall I entered one of
the apartments opening from it Throwing myself into a chair I covered my
burning eyeballs with my hands to shut out the horror of strangeness My mental
confusion was so intense as to produce actual nausea The anguish of those
moments during which my brain seemed melting or the abjectness of my sense of
helplessness how can I describe In my despair I groaned aloud I began to feel
that unless some help should come I was about to lose my mind And just then it
did come I heard the rustle of drapery and looked up Edith Leete was standing
before me Her beautiful face was full of the most poignant sympathy
»Oh what is the matter Mr West« she said »I was here when you came in
I saw how dreadfully distressed you looked and when I heard you groan I could
not keep silent What has happened to you Where have you been Cant I do
something for you«
Perhaps she involuntarily held out her hands in a gesture of compassion as
she spoke At any rate I had caught them in my own and was clinging to them with
an impulse as instinctive as that which prompts the drowning man to seize upon
and cling to the rope which is thrown him as he sinks for the last time As I
looked up into her compassionate face and her eyes moist with pity my brain
ceased to whirl The tender human sympathy which thrilled in the soft pressure
of her fingers had brought me the support I needed Its effect to calm and
soothe was like that of some wonderworking elixir
»God bless you« I said after a few moments »He must have sent you to me
just now I think I was in danger of going crazy if you had not come« At this
the tears came into her eyes
»Oh Mr West« she cried »How heartless you must have thought us How
could we leave you to yourself so long But it is over now is it not You are
better surely«
»Yes« I said »thanks to you If you will not go away quite yet I shall be
myself soon«
»Indeed I will not go away« she said with a little quiver of her face
more expressive of her sympathy than a volume of words »You must not think us
so heartless as we seemed in leaving you so by yourself I scarcely slept last
night for thinking how strange your waking would be this morning but father
said you would sleep till late He said that it would be better not to show too
much sympathy with you at first but to try to divert your thoughts and make you
feel that you were among friends«
»You have indeed made me feel that« I answered »But you see it is a good
deal of a jolt to drop a hundred years and although I did not seem to feel it
so much last night I have had very odd sensations this morning« While I held
her hands and kept my eyes on her face I could already even jest a little at my
plight
»No one thought of such a thing as your going out in the city alone so early
in the morning« she went on »Oh Mr West where have you been«
Then I told her of my mornings experience from my first waking till the
moment I had looked up to see her before me just as I have told it here She
was overcome by distressful pity during the recital and though I had released
one of her hands did not try to take from me the other seeing no doubt how
much good it did me to hold it »I can think a little what this feeling must
have been like« she said »It must have been terrible And to think you were
left alone to struggle with it Can you ever forgive us«
»But it is gone now You have driven it quite away for the present« I said
»You will not let it return again« she queried anxiously
»I cant quite say that« I replied »It might be too early to say that
considering how strange everything will still be to me«
»But you will not try to contend with it alone again at least« she
persisted »Promise that you will come to us and let us sympathize with you
and try to help you Perhaps we cant do much but it will surely be better than
to try to bear such feelings alone«
»I will come to you if you will let me« I said
»Oh yes yes I beg you will« she said eagerly
»I would do anything to help you that I could«
»All you need do is to be sorry for me as you seem to be now« I replied
»It is understood then« she said smiling with wet eyes »that you are to
come and tell me next time and not run all over Boston among strangers«
This assumption that we were not strangers seemed scarcely strange so near
within these few minutes had my trouble and her sympathetic tears brought us
»I will promise when you come to me« she added with an expression of
charming archness passing as she continued into one of enthusiasm »to seem
as sorry for you as you wish but you must not for a moment suppose that I am
really sorry for you at all or that I think you will long be sorry for
yourself I know as well as I know that the world now is heaven compared with
what it was in your day that the only feeling you will have after a little
while will be one of thankfulness to God that your life in that age was so
strangely cut off to be returned to you in this«
Chapter IX
Dr and Mrs Leete were evidently not a little startled to learn when they
presently appeared that I had been all over the city alone that morning and it
was apparent that they were agreeably surprised to see that I seemed so little
agitated after the experience
»Your stroll could scarcely have failed to be a very interesting one« said
Mrs Leete as we sat down to table soon after »You must have seen a good many
new things«
»I saw very little that was not new« I replied »But I think what surprised
me as much as anything was not to find any stores on Washington Street or any
banks on State What have you done with the merchants and bankers Hung them
all perhaps as the anarchists wanted to do in my day«
»Not so bad as that« replied Dr Leete »We have simply dispensed with
them Their functions are obsolete in the modern world«
»Who sells you things when you want to buy them« I inquired
»There is neither selling nor buying nowadays the distribution of goods is
effected in another way As to the bankers having no money we have no use for
those gentry«
»Miss Leete« said I turning to Edith »I am afraid that your father is
making sport of me I dont blame him for the temptation my innocence offers
must be extraordinary But really there are limits to my credulity as to
possible alterations in the social system«
»Father has no idea of jesting I am sure« she replied with a reassuring
smile
The conversation took another turn then the point of ladies fashions in
the nineteenth century being raised if I remember rightly by Mrs Leete and
it was not till after breakfast when the doctor had invited me up to the
housetop which appeared to be a favorite resort of his that he recurred to
the subject
»You were surprised« he said »at my saying that we got along without money
or trade but a moments reflection will show that trade existed and money was
needed in your day simply because the business of production was left in private
hands and that consequently they are superfluous now«
»I do not at once see how that follows« I replied
»It is very simple« said Dr Leete »When innumerable different and
independent persons produced the various things needful to life and comfort
endless exchanges between individuals were requisite in order that they might
supply themselves with what they desired These exchanges constituted trade and
money was essential as their medium But as soon as the nation became the sole
producer of all sorts of commodities there was no need of exchanges between
individuals that they might get what they required Everything was procurable
from one source and nothing could be procured anywhere else A system of direct
distribution from the national storehouses took the place of trade and for
this money was unnecessary«
»How is this distribution managed« I asked
»On the simplest possible plan« replied Dr Leete »A credit corresponding
to his share of the annual product of the nation is given to every citizen on
the public books at the beginning of each year and a credit card issued him
with which he procures at the public storehouses found in every community
whatever he desires whenever he desires it This arrangement you will see
totally obviates the necessity for business transactions of any sort between
individuals and consumers Perhaps you would like to see what our creditcards
are like
You observe« he pursued as I was curiously examining the piece of
pasteboard he gave me »that this card is issued for a certain number of
dollars We have kept the old word but not the substance The term as we use
it answers to no real thing but merely serves as an algebraical symbol for
comparing the values of products with one another For this purpose they are all
priced in dollars and cents just as in your day The value of what I procure on
this card is checked off by the clerk who pricks out of these tiers of squares
the price of what I order«
»If you wanted to buy something of your neighbor could you transfer part of
your credit to him as consideration« I inquired
»In the first place« replied Dr Leete »our neighbors have nothing to sell
us but in any event our credit would not be transferable being strictly
personal Before the nation could even think of honoring any such transfer as
you speak of it would be bound to inquire into all the circumstances of the
transaction so as to be able to guarantee its absolute equity It would have
been reason enough had there been no other for abolishing money that its
possession was no indication of rightful title to it In the hand of the man who
had stolen it or murdered for it it was as good as in those which had earned it
by industry People nowadays interchange gifts and favors out of friendship but
buying and selling is considered absolutely inconsistent with the mutual
benevolence and disinterestedness which should prevail between citizens and the
sense of community of interest which supports our social system According to
our ideas buying and selling is essentially antisocial in all its tendencies
It is an education in selfseeking at the expense of others and no society
whose citizens are trained in such a school can possibly rise above a very low
grade of civilization«
»What if you have to spend more than your card in any one year« I asked
»The provision is so ample that we are more likely not to spend it all«
replied Dr Leete »But if extraordinary expenses should exhaust it we can
obtain a limited advance on the next years credit though this practice is not
encouraged and a heavy discount is charged to check it Of course if a man
showed himself a reckless spendthrift he would receive his allowance monthly or
weekly instead of yearly or if necessary not be permitted to handle it all«
»If you dont spend your allowance I suppose it accumulates«
»That is also permitted to a certain extent when a special outlay is
anticipated But unless notice to the contrary is given it is presumed that the
citizen who does not fully expend his credit did not have occasion to do so and
the balance is turned into the general surplus«
»Such a system does not encourage saving habits on the part of citizens« I
said
»It is not intended to« was the reply »The nation is rich and does not
wish the people to deprive themselves of any good thing In your day men were
bound to lay up goods and money against coming failure of the means of support
and for their children This necessity made parsimony a virtue But now it would
have no such laudable object and having lost its utility it has ceased to be
regarded as a virtue No man any more has any care for the morrow either for
himself or his children for the nation guarantees the nurture education and
comfortable maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave«
»That is a sweeping guarantee« I said »What certainty can there be that
the value of a mans labor will recompense the nation for its outlay on him On
the whole society may be able to support all its members but some must earn
less than enough for their support and others more and that brings us back
once more to the wages question on which you have hitherto said nothing It was
at just this point if you remember that our talk ended last evening and I say
again as I did then that here I should suppose a national industrial system
like yours would find its main difficulty How I ask once more can you adjust
satisfactorily the comparative wages or remuneration of the multitude of
avocations so unlike and so incommensurable which are necessary for the
service of society In our day the market rate determined the price of labor of
all sorts as well as of goods The employer paid as little as he could and the
worker got as much It was not a pretty system ethically I admit but it did
at least furnish us a rough and ready formula for settling a question which
must be settled ten thousand times a day if the world was ever going to get
forward There seemed to us no other practicable way of doing it«
»Yes« replied Dr Leete »it was the only practicable way under a system
which made the interests of every individual antagonistic to those of every
other but it would have been a pity if humanity could never have devised a
better plan for yours was simply the application to the mutual relations of men
of the devils maxim Your necessity is my opportunity The reward of any
service depended not upon its difficulty danger or hardship for throughout
the world it seems that the most perilous severe and repulsive labor was done
by the worst paid classes but solely upon the strait of those who needed the
service«
»All that is conceded« I said »But with all its defects the plan of
settling prices by the market rate was a practical plan and I cannot conceive
what satisfactory substitute you can have devised for it The government being
the only possible employer there is of course no labor market or market rate
Wages of all sorts must be arbitrarily fixed by the government I cannot imagine
a more complex and delicate function than that must be or one however
performed more certain to breed universal dissatisfaction«
»I beg your pardon« replied Dr Leete »but I think you exaggerate the
difficulty Suppose a board of fairly sensible men were charged with settling
the wages for all sorts of trades under a system which like ours guaranteed
employment to all while permitting the choice of avocations Dont you see
that however unsatisfactory the first adjustment might be the mistakes would
soon correct themselves The favored trades would have too many volunteers and
those discriminated against would lack them till the errors were set right But
this is aside from the purpose for though this plan would I fancy be
practicable enough it is no part of our system«
»How then do you regulate wages« I once more asked
Dr Leete did not reply till after several moments of meditative silence »I
know of course« he finally said »enough of the old order of things to
understand just what you mean by that question and yet the present order is so
utterly different at this point that I am a little at loss how to answer you
best You ask me how we regulate wages I can only reply that there is no idea
in the modern social economy which at all corresponds with what was meant by
wages in your day«
»I suppose you mean that you have no money to pay wages in« said I »But
the credit given the worker at the government storehouse answers to his wages
with us How is the amount of the credit given respectively to the workers in
different lines determined By what title does the individual claim his
particular share What is the basis of allotment«
»His title« replied Dr Leete »is his humanity The basis of his claim is
the fact that he is a man«
»The fact that he is a man« I repeated incredulously »Do you possibly
mean that all have the same share«
»Most assuredly«
The readers of this book never having practically known any other
arrangement or perhaps very carefully considered the historical accounts of
former epochs in which a very different system prevailed cannot be expected to
appreciate the stupor of amazement into which Dr Leetes simple statement
plunged me
»You see« he said smiling »that it is not merely that we have no money to
pay wages in but as I said we have nothing at all answering to your idea of
wages«
By this time I had pulled myself together sufficiently to voice some of the
criticisms which man of the nineteenth century as I was came uppermost in my
mind upon this to me astounding arrangement »Some men do twice the work of
others« I exclaimed »Are the clever workmen content with a plan that ranks
them with the indifferent«
»We leave no possible ground for any complaint of injustice« replied Dr
Leete »by requiring precisely the same measure of service from all«
»How can you do that I should like to know when no two mens powers are
the same«
»Nothing could be simpler« was Dr Leetes reply »We require of each that
he shall make the same effort that is we demand of him the best service it is
in his power to give«
»And supposing all do the best they can« I answered »the amount of the
product resulting is twice greater from one man than from another«
»Very true« replied Dr Leete »but the amount of the resulting product has
nothing whatever to do with the question which is one of desert Desert is a
moral question and the amount of the product a material quantity It would be
an extraordinary sort of logic which should try to determine a moral question by
a material standard The amount of the effort alone is pertinent to the question
of desert All men who do their best do the same A mans endowments however
godlike merely fix the measure of his duty The man of great endowments who
does not do all he might though he may do more than a man of small endowments
who does his best is deemed a less deserving worker than the latter and dies a
debtor to his fellows The Creator sets mens tasks for them by the faculties he
gives them we simply exact their fulfillment«
»No doubt that is very fine philosophy« I said »nevertheless it seems hard
that the man who produces twice as much as another even if both do their best
should have only the same share«
»Does it indeed seem so to you« responded Dr Leete »Now do you know
that seems very curious to me The way it strikes people nowadays is that a man
who can produce twice as much as another with the same effort instead of being
rewarded for doing so ought to be punished if he does not do so In the
nineteenth century when a horse pulled a heavier load than a goat I suppose
you rewarded him Now we should have whipped him soundly if he had not on the
ground that being much stronger he ought to It is singular how ethical
standards change« The doctor said this with such a twinkle in his eye that I
was obliged to laugh
»I suppose« I said »that the real reason that we rewarded men for their
endowments while we considered those of horses and goats merely as fixing the
service to be severally required of them was that the animals not being
reasoning beings naturally did the best they could whereas men could only be
induced to do so by rewarding them according to the amount of their product
That brings me to ask why unless human nature has mightily changed in a hundred
years you are not under the same necessity«
»We are« replied Dr Leete »I dont think there has been any change in
human nature in that respect since your day It is still so constituted that
special incentives in the form of prizes and advantages to be gained are
requisite to call out the best endeavors of the average man in any direction«
»But what inducement« I asked »can a man have to put forth his best
endeavors when however much or little he accomplishes his income remains the
same High characters may be moved by devotion to the common welfare under such
a system but does not the average man tend to rest back on his oar reasoning
that it is of no use to make a special effort since the effort will not
increase his income nor its withholding diminish it«
»Does it then really seem to you« answered my companion »that human nature
is insensible to any motives save fear of want and love of luxury that you
should expect security and equality of livelihood to leave them without possible
incentives to effort Your contemporaries did not really think so though they
might fancy they did When it was a question of the grandest class of efforts
the most absolute selfdevotion they depended on quite other incentives Not
higher wages but honor and the hope of mens gratitude patriotism and the
inspiration of duty were the motives which they set before their soldiers when
it was a question of dying for the nation and never was there an age of the
world when those motives did not call out what is best and noblest in men And
not only this but when you come to analyze the love of money which was the
general impulse to effort in your day you find that the dread of want and
desire of luxury was but one of several motives which the pursuit of money
represented the others and with many the more influential being desire of
power of social position and reputation for ability and success So you see
that though we have abolished poverty and the fear of it and inordinate luxury
with the hope of it we have not touched the greater part of the motives which
underlay the love of money in former times or any of those which prompted the
supremer sorts of effort The coarser motives which no longer move us have
been replaced by higher motives wholly unknown to the mere wage earners of your
age Now that industry of whatever sort is no longer selfservice but service
of the nation patriotism passion for humanity impel the worker as in your day
they did the soldier The army of industry is an army not alone by virtue of
its perfect organization but by reason also of the ardor of selfdevotion which
animates its members
But as you used to supplement the motives of patriotism with the love of
glory in order to stimulate the valor of your soldiers so do we Based as our
industrial system is on the principle of requiring the same unit of effort from
every man that is the best he can do you will see that the means by which we
spur the workers to do their best must be a very essential part of our scheme
With us diligence in the national service is the sole and certain way to public
repute social distinction and official power The value of a mans services to
society fixes his rank in it Compared with the effect of our social
arrangements in impelling men to be zealous in business we deem the
objectlessons of biting poverty and wanton luxury on which you depended a
device as weak and uncertain as it was barbaric The lust of honor even in your
sordid day notoriously impelled men to more desperate effort than the love of
money could«
»I should be extremely interested« I said »to learn something of what
these social arrangements are«
»The scheme in its details« replied the doctor »is of course very
elaborate for it underlies the entire organization of our industrial army but
a few words will give you a general idea of it«
At this moment our talk was charmingly interrupted by the emergence upon the
aerial platform where we sat of Edith Leete She was dressed for the street and
had come to speak to her father about some commission she was to do for him
»By the way Edith« he exclaimed as she was about to leave us to
ourselves »I wonder if Mr West would not be interested in visiting the store
with you I have been telling him something about our system of distribution
and perhaps he might like to see it in practical operation«
»My daughter« he added turning to me »is an indefatigable shopper and
can tell you more about the stores than I can«
The proposition was naturally very agreeable to me and Edith being good
enough to say that she should be glad to have my company we left the house
together
Chapter X
»If I am going to explain our way of shopping to you« said my companion as we
walked along the street »you must explain your way to me I have never been
able to understand it from all I have read on the subject For example when you
had such a vast number of shops each with its different assortment how could a
lady ever settle upon any purchase till she had visited all the shops for
until she had she could not know what there was to choose from«
»It was as you suppose that was the only way she could know« I replied
»Father calls me an indefatigable shopper but I should soon be a very
fatigued one if I had to do as they did« was Ediths laughing comment
»The loss of time in going from shop to shop was indeed a waste which the
busy bitterly complained of« I said »but as for the ladies of the idle class
though they complained also I think the system was really a godsend by
furnishing a device to kill time«
»But say there were a thousand shops in a city hundreds perhaps of the
same sort how could even the idlest find time to make their rounds«
»They really could not visit all of course« I replied »Those who did a
great deal of buying learned in time where they might expect to find what they
wanted This class had made a science of the specialties of the shops and
bought at advantage always getting the most and best for the least money It
required however long experience to acquire this knowledge Those who were too
busy or bought too little to gain it took their chances and were generally
unfortunate getting the least and worst for the most money It was the merest
chance if persons not experienced in shopping received the value of their
money«
»But why did you put up with such a shockingly inconvenient arrangement when
you saw its faults so plainly« Edith asked me
»It was like all our social arrangements« I replied »You can see their
faults scarcely more plainly than we did but we saw no remedy for them«
»Here we are at the store of our ward« said Edith as we turned in at the
great portal of one of the magnificent public buildings I had observed in my
morning walk There was nothing in the exterior aspect of the edifice to suggest
a store to a representative of the nineteenth century There was no display of
goods in the great windows or any device to advertise wares or attract custom
Nor was there any sort of sign or legend on the front of the building to
indicate the character of the business carried on there but instead above the
portal standing out from the front of the building a majestic lifesize group
of statuary the central figure of which was a female ideal of Plenty with her
cornucopia Judging from the composition of the throng passing in and out about
the same proportion of the sexes among shoppers obtained as in the nineteenth
century As we entered Edith said that there was one of these great
distributing establishments in each ward of the city so that no residence was
more than five or ten minutes walk from one of them It was the first interior
of a twentiethcentury public building that I had ever beheld and the spectacle
naturally impressed me deeply I was in a vast hall full of light received not
alone from the windows on all sides but from the dome the point of which was a
hundred feet above Beneath it in the centre of the hall a magnificent
fountain played cooling the atmosphere to a delicious freshness with its spray
The walls and ceiling were frescoed in mellow tints calculated to soften
without absorbing the light which flooded the interior Around the fountain was
a space occupied with chairs and sofas on which many persons were seated
conversing Legends on the walls all about the hall indicated to what classes of
commodities the counters below were devoted Edith directed her steps towards
one of these where samples of muslin of a bewildering variety were displayed
and proceeded to inspect them
»Where is the clerk« I asked for there was no one behind the counter and
no one seemed coming to attend to the customer
»I have no need of the clerk yet« said Edith »I have not made my
selection«
»It was the principal business of clerks to help people to make their
selections in my day« I replied
»What To tell people what they wanted«
»Yes and oftener to induce them to buy what they didnt want«
»But did not ladies find that very impertinent« Edith asked wonderingly
»What concern could it possibly be to the clerks whether people bought or not«
»It was their sole concern« I answered »They were hired for the purpose of
getting rid of the goods and were expected to do their utmost short of the use
of force to compass that end«
»Ah yes How stupid I am to forget« said Edith »The storekeeper and his
clerks depended for their livelihood on selling the goods in your day Of course
that is all different now The goods are the nations They are here for those
who want them and it is the business of the clerks to wait on people and take
their orders but it is not the interest of the clerk or the nation to dispose
of a yard or a pound of anything to anybody who does not want it« She smiled as
she added »How exceedingly odd it must have seemed to have clerks trying to
induce one to take what one did not want or was doubtful about«
»But even a twentiethcentury clerk might make himself useful in giving you
information about the goods though he did not tease you to buy them« I
suggested
»No« said Edith »that is not the business of the clerk These printed
cards for which the government authorities are responsible give us all the
information we can possibly need«
I saw then that there was fastened to each sample a card containing in
succinct form a complete statement of the make and materials of the goods and
all its qualities as well as price leaving absolutely no point to hang a
question on
»The clerk has then nothing to say about the goods he sells« I said
»Nothing at all It is not necessary that he should know or profess to know
anything about them Courtesy and accuracy in taking orders are all that are
required of him«
»What a prodigious amount of lying that simple arrangement saves« I
ejaculated
»Do you mean that all the clerks misrepresented their goods in your day«
Edith asked
»God forbid that I should say so« I replied »for there were many who did
not and they were entitled to especial credit for when ones livelihood and
that of his wife and babies depended on the amount of goods he could dispose of
the temptation to deceive the customer or let him deceive himself was
wellnigh overwhelming But Miss Leete I am distracting you from your task with
my talk«
»Not at all I have made my selections« With that she touched a button and
in a moment a clerk appeared He took down her order on a tablet with a pencil
which made two copies of which he gave one to her and enclosing the
counterpart in a small receptacle dropped it into a transmitting tube
»The duplicate of the order« said Edith as she turned away from the
counter after the clerk had punched the value of her purchase out of the credit
card she gave him »is given to the purchaser so that any mistakes in filling
it can be easily traced and rectified«
»You were very quick about your selections« I said »May I ask how you knew
that you might not have found something to suit you better in some of the other
stores But probably you are required to buy in your own district«
»Oh no« she replied »We buy where we please though naturally most often
near home But I should have gained nothing by visiting other stores The
assortment in all is exactly the same representing as it does in each case
samples of all the varieties produced or imported by the United States That is
why one can decide quickly and never need visit two stores«
»And is this merely a sample store I see no clerks cutting off goods or
marking bundles«
»All our stores are sample stores except as to a few classes of articles
The goods with these exceptions are all at the great central warehouse of the
city to which they are shipped directly from the producers We order from the
sample and the printed statement of texture make and qualities The orders are
sent to the warehouse and the goods distributed from there«
»That must be a tremendous saving of handling« I said »By our system the
manufacturer sold to the wholesaler the wholesaler to the retailer and the
retailer to the consumer and the goods had to be handled each time You avoid
one handling of the goods and eliminate the retailer altogether with his big
profit and the army of clerks it goes to support Why Miss Leete this store is
merely the order department of a wholesale house with no more than a
wholesalers complement of clerks Under our system of handling the goods
persuading the customer to buy them cutting them off and packing them ten
clerks would not do what one does here The saving must be enormous«
»I suppose so« said Edith »but of course we have never known any other
way But Mr West you must not fail to ask father to take you to the central
warehouse some day where they receive the orders from the different sample
houses all over the city and parcel out and send the goods to their
destinations He took me there not long ago and it was a wonderful sight The
system is certainly perfect for example over yonder in that sort of cage is
the dispatching clerk The orders as they are taken by the different
departments in the store are sent by transmitters to him His assistants sort
them and enclose each class in a carrierbox by itself The dispatching clerk
has a dozen pneumatic transmitters before him answering to the general classes
of goods each communicating with the corresponding department at the warehouse
He drops the box of orders into the tube it calls for and in a few moments
later it drops on the proper desk in the warehouse together with all the orders
of the same sort from the other sample stores The orders are read off
recorded and sent to be filled like lightning The filling I thought the most
interesting part Bales of cloth are placed on spindles and turned by machinery
and the cutter who also has a machine works right through one bale after
another till exhausted when another man takes his place and it is the same
with those who fill the orders in any other staple The packages are then
delivered by larger tubes to the city districts and thence distributed to the
houses You may understand how quickly it is all done when I tell you that my
order will probably be at home sooner than I could have carried it from here«
»How do you manage in the thinly settled rural districts« I asked
»The system is the same« Edith explained »the village sample shops are
connected by transmitters with the central county warehouse which may be twenty
miles away The transmission is so swift though that the time lost on the way
is trifling But to save expense in many counties one set of tubes connect
several villages with the warehouse and then there is time lost waiting for one
another Sometimes it is two or three hours before goods ordered are received
It was so where I was staying last summer and I found it quite inconvenient«2
»There must be many other respects also no doubt in which the country
stores are inferior to the city stores« I suggested
»No« Edith answered »they are otherwise precisely as good The sample shop
of the smallest village just like this one gives you your choice of all the
varieties of goods the nation has for the county warehouse draws on the same
source as the city warehouse«
As we walked home I commented on the great variety in the size and cost of
the houses »How is it« I asked »that this difference is consistent with the
fact that all citizens have the same income«
»Because« Edith explained »although the income is the same personal taste
determines how the individual shall spend it Some like fine horses others
like myself prefer pretty clothes and still others want an elaborate table
The rents which the nation receives for these houses vary according to size
elegance and location so that everybody can find something to suit The larger
houses are usually occupied by large families in which there are several to
contribute to the rent while small families like ours find smaller houses
more convenient and economical It is a matter of taste and convenience wholly
I have read that in old times people often kept up establishments and did other
things which they could not afford for ostentation to make people think them
richer than they were Was it really so Mr West«
»I shall have to admit that it was« I replied
»Well you see it could not be so nowadays for everybodys income is
known and it is known that what is spent one way must be saved another«
Chapter XI
When we arrived home Dr Leete had not yet returned and Mrs Leete was not
visible »Are you fond of music Mr West« Edith asked
I assured her that it was half of life according to my notion
»I ought to apologize for inquiring« she said »It is not a question that
we ask one another nowadays but I have read that in your day even among the
cultured class there were some who did not care for music«
»You must remember in excuse« I said »that we had some rather absurd
kinds of music«
»Yes« she said »I know that I am afraid I should not have fancied it all
myself Would you like to hear some of ours now Mr West«
»Nothing would delight me so much as to listen to you« I said
»To me« she exclaimed laughing »Did you think I was going to play or sing
to you«
»I hoped so certainly« I replied
Seeing that I was a little abashed she subdued her merriment and explained
»Of course we all sing nowadays as a matter of course in the training of the
voice and some learn to play instruments for their private amusement but the
professional music is so much grander and more perfect than any performance of
ours and so easily commanded when we wish to hear it that we dont think of
calling our singing or playing music at all All the really fine singers and
players are in the musical service and the rest of us hold our peace for the
main part But would you really like to hear some music«
I assured her once more that I would
»Come then into the music room« she said and I followed her into an
apartment finished without hangings in wood with a floor of polished wood I
was prepared for new devices in musical instruments but I saw nothing in the
room which by any stretch of imagination could be conceived as such It was
evident that my puzzled appearance was affording intense amusement to Edith
»Please look at todays music« she said handing me a card »and tell me
what you would prefer It is now five oclock you will remember«
The card bore the date September 12 2000 and contained the longest
programme of music I had ever seen It was as various as it was long including
a most extraordinary range of vocal and instrumental solos duets quartettes
and various orchestral combinations I remained bewildered by the prodigious
list until Ediths pink fingertip indicated a particular section of it where
several selections were bracketed with the words 5 PM against them then I
observed that this prodigious programme was an allday one divided into
twentyfour sections answering to the hours There were but a few pieces of
music in the 5 PM section and I indicated an organ piece as my preference
»I am so glad you like the organ« said she »I think there is scarcely any
music that suits my mood oftener«
She made me sit down comfortably and crossing the room so far as I could
see merely touched one or two screws and at once the room was filled with the
music of a grand organ anthem filled not flooded for by some means the
volume of melody had been perfectly graduated to the size of the apartment I
listened scarcely breathing to the close Such music so perfectly rendered I
had never expected to hear
»Grand« I cried as the last great wave of sound broke and ebbed away into
silence »Bach must be at the keys of that organ but where is the organ«
»Wait a moment please« said Edith »I want to have you listen to this
waltz before you ask any questions I think it is perfectly charming« and as
she spoke the sound of violins filled the room with the witchery of a summer
night When this had also ceased she said »There is nothing in the least
mysterious about the music as you seem to imagine It is not made by fairies or
genii but by good honest and exceedingly clever human hands We have simply
carried the idea of laborsaving by coöperation into our musical service as into
everything else There are a number of music rooms in the city perfectly
adapted acoustically to the different sorts of music These halls are connected
by telephone with all the houses of the city whose people care to pay the small
fee and there are none you may be sure who do not The corps of musicians
attached to each hall is so large that although no individual performer or
group of performers has more than a brief part each days programme lasts
through the twentyfour hours There are on that card for today as you will
see if you observe closely distinct programmes of four of these concerts each
of a different order of music from the others being now simultaneously
performed and any one of the four pieces now going on that you prefer yon can
hear by merely pressing the button which will connect your housewire with the
hall where it is being rendered The programmes are so coördinated that the
pieces at any one time simultaneously proceeding in the different halls usually
offer a choice not only between instrumental and vocal and between different
sorts of instruments but also between different motives from grave to gay so
that all tastes and moods can be suited«
»It appears to me Miss Leete« I said »that if we could have devised an
arrangement for providing everybody with music in their homes perfect in
quality unlimited in quantity suited to every mood and beginning and ceasing
at will we should have considered the limit of human felicity already attained
and ceased to strive for further improvements«
»I am sure I never could imagine how those among you who depended at all on
music managed to endure the oldfashioned system for providing it« replied
Edith »Music really worth hearing must have been I suppose wholly out of the
reach of the masses and attainable by the most favoured only occasionally at
great trouble prodigious expense and then for brief periods arbitrarily fixed
by somebody else and in connection with all sorts of undesirable circumstances
Your concerts for instance and operas How perfectly exasperating it must have
been for the sake of a piece or two of music that suited you to have to sit
for hours listening to what you did not care for Now at a dinner one can skip
the courses one does not care for Who would ever dine however hungry if
required to eat everything brought on the table and I am sure ones hearing is
quite as sensitive as ones taste I suppose it was these difficulties in the
way of commanding really good music which made you endure so much playing and
singing in your homes by people who had only the rudiments of the art«
»Yes« I replied »it was that sort of music or none for most of us«
»Ah well« Edith sighed »when one really considers it is not so strange
that people in those days so often did not care for music I dare say I should
have detested it too«
»Did I understand you rightly« I inquired »that this musical programme
covers the entire twentyfour hours It seems to on this card certainly but
who is there to listen to music between say midnight and morning«
»Oh many« Edith replied »Our people keep all hours but if the music were
provided from midnight to morning for no others it still would be for the
sleepless the sick and the dying All our bedchambers have a telephone
attachment at the head of the bed by which any person who may be sleepless can
command music at pleasure of the sort suited to the mood«
»Is there such an arrangement in the room assigned to me«
»Why certainly and how stupid how very stupid of me not to think to tell
you of that last night Father will show you about the adjustment before you go
to bed tonight however and with the receiver at your ear I am quite sure you
will be able to snap your fingers at all sorts of uncanny feelings if they
trouble you again«
That evening Dr Leete asked us about our visit to the store and in the
course of the desultory comparison of the ways of the nineteenth century and the
twentieth which followed something raised the question of inheritance »I
suppose« I said »the inheritance of property is not now allowed«
»On the contrary« replied Dr Leete »there is no interference with it In
fact you will find Mr West as you come to know us that there is far less
interference of any sort with personal liberty nowadays than you were accustomed
to We require indeed by law that every man shall serve the nation for a fixed
period instead of leaving him his choice as you did between working
stealing or starving With the exception of this fundamental law which is
indeed merely a codification of the law of nature the edict of Eden by
which it is made equal in its pressure on men our system depends in no
particular upon legislation but is entirely voluntary the logical outcome of
the operation of human nature under rational conditions This question of
inheritance illustrates just that point The fact that the nation is the sole
capitalist and landowner of course restricts the individuals possessions to
his annual credit and what personal and household belongings he may have
procured with it His credit like an annuity in your day ceases on his death
with the allowance of a fixed sum for funeral expenses His other possessions he
leaves as he pleases«
»What is to prevent in course of time such accumulations of valuable goods
and chattels in the hands of individuals as might seriously interfere with
equality in the circumstances of citizens« I asked
»That matter arranges itself very simply« was the reply »Under the present
organization of society accumulations of personal property are merely burden
some the moment they exceed what adds to the real comfort In your day if a man
had a house crammed full with gold and silver plate rare china expensive
furniture and such things he was considered rich for these things represented
money and could at any time be turned into it Nowadays a man whom the legacies
of a hundred relatives simultaneously dying should place in a similar
position would be considered very unlucky The articles not being salable
would be of no value to him except for their actual use or the enjoyment of
their beauty On the other hand his income remaining the same he would have to
deplete his credit to hire houses to store the goods in and still further to
pay for the service of those who took care of them You may be very sure that
such a man would lose no time in scattering among his friends possessions which
only made him the poorer and that none of those friends would accept more of
them than they could easily spare room for and time to attend to You see then
that to prohibit the inheritance of personal property with a view to prevent
great accumulations would be a superfluous precaution for the nation The
individual citizen can be trusted to see that he is not overburdened So careful
is he in this respect that the relatives usually waive claim to most of the
effects of deceased friends reserving only particular objects The nation takes
charge of the resigned chattels and turns such as are of value into the common
stock once more«
»You spoke of paying for service to take care of your houses« said I »that
suggests a question I have several times been on the point of asking How have
you disposed of the problem of domestic service Who are willing to be domestic
servants in a community where all are social equals Our ladies found it hard
enough to find such even when there was little pretense of social equality«
»It is precisely because we are all social equals whose equality nothing can
compromise and because service is honorable in a society whose fundamental
principle is that all in turn shall serve the rest that we could easily provide
a corps of domestic servants such as you never dreamed of if we needed them«
replied Dr Leete »But we do not need them«
»Who does your housework then« I asked
»There is none to do« said Mrs Leete to whom I had addressed this
question »Our washing is all done at public laundries at excessively cheap
rates and our cooking at public kitchens The making and repairing of all we
wear are done outside in public shops Electricity of course takes the place
of all fires and lighting We choose houses no larger than we need and furnish
them so as to involve the minimum of trouble to keep them in order We have no
use for domestic servants«
»The fact« said Dr Leete »that you had in the poorer classes a boundless
supply of serfs on whom you could impose all sorts of painful and disagreeable
tasks made you indifferent to devices to avoid the necessity for them But now
that we all have to do in turn whatever work is done for society every
individual in the nation has the same interest and a personal one in devices
for lightening the burden This fact has given a prodigious impulse to
laborsaving inventions in all sorts of industry of which the combination of
the maximum of trouble in household arrangements was one of the earliest
results
In case of special emergencies in the household« pursued Dr Leete »such
as extensive cleaning or renovation or sickness in the family we can always
secure assistance from the industrial force«
»But how do you recompense these assistants since you have no money«
»We do not pay them of course but the nation for them Their services can
be obtained by application at the proper bureau and their value is pricked off
the credit card of the applicant«
»What a paradise for womankind the world must be now« I exclaimed »In my
day even wealth and unlimited servants did not enfranchise their possessors
from household cares while the women of the merely welltodo and poorer
classes lived and died martyrs to them«
»Yes« said Mrs Leete »I have read something of that enough to convince
me that badly off as the men too were in your day they were more fortunate
than their mothers and wives«
»The broad shoulders of the nation« said Dr Leete »bear now like a
feather the burden that broke the backs of the women of your day Their misery
came with all your other miseries from that incapacity for coöperation which
followed from the individualism on which your social system was founded from
your inability to perceive that you could make ten times more profit out of your
fellow men by uniting with them than by contending with them The wonder is not
that you did not live more comfortably but that you were able to live together
at all who were all confessedly bent on making one another your servants and
securing possession of one anothers goods«
»There there father if yon are so vehement Mr West will think you are
scolding him« laughingly interposed Edith
»When you want a doctor« I asked »do you simply apply to the proper bureau
and take any one that may be sent«
»That rule would not work well in the case of physicians« replied Dr
Leete »The good a physician can do a patient depends largely on his
acquaintance with his constitutional tendencies and condition The patient must
be able therefore to call in a particular doctor and he does so just as
patients did in your day The only difference is that instead of collecting his
fee for himself the doctor collects it for the nation by pricking off the
amount according to a regular scale for medical attendance from the patients
credit card«
»I can imagine« I said »that if the fee is always the same and a doctor
may not turn away patients as I suppose he may not the good doctors are called
constantly and the poor doctors left in idleness«
»In the first place if you will overlook the apparent conceit of the remark
from a retired physician« replied Dr Leete with a smile »we have no poor
doctors Anybody who pleases to get a little smattering of medical terms is not
now at liberty to practice on the bodies of citizens as in your day None but
students who have passed the severe tests of the schools and clearly proved
their vocation are permitted to practice Then too you will observe that
there is nowadays no attempt of doctors to build up their practice at the
expense of other doctors There would be no motive for that For the rest the
doctor has to render regular reports of his work to the medical bureau and if
he is not reasonably well employed work is found for him«
Chapter XII
The questions which I needed to ask before I could acquire even an outline
acquaintance with the institutions of the twentieth century being endless and
Dr Leetes goodnature appearing equally so we sat up talking for several
hours after the ladies left us Reminding my host of the point at which our talk
had broken off that morning I expressed my curiosity to learn how the
organization of the industrial army was made to afford a sufficient stimulus to
diligence in the lack of any anxiety on the workers part as to his livelihood
»You must understand in the first place« replied the doctor »that the
supply of incentives to effort is but one of the objects sought in the
organization we have adopted for the army The other and equally important is
to secure for the fileleaders and captains of the force and the great officers
of the nation men of proven abilities who are pledged by their own careers to
hold their followers up to their highest standard of performance and permit no
lagging With a view to these two ends the industrial army is organized First
comes the unclassified grade of common laborers men of all work to which all
recruits during their first three years belong This grade is a sort of school
and a very strict one in which the young men are taught habits of obedience
subordination and devotion to duty While the miscellaneous nature of the work
done by this force prevents the systematic grading of the workers which is
afterwards possible yet individual records are kept and excellence receives
distinction corresponding with the penalties that negligence incurs It is not
however policy with us to permit youthful recklessness or indiscretion when
not deeply culpable to handicap the future careers of young men and all who
have passed through the unclassified grade without serious disgrace have an
equal opportunity to choose the life employment they have most liking for
Having selected this they enter upon it as apprentices The length of the
apprenticeship naturally differs in different occupations At the end of it the
apprentice becomes a full workman and a member of his trade or guild Now not
only are the individual records of the apprentices for ability and industry
strictly kept and excellence distinguished by suitable distinctions but upon
the average of his record during apprenticeship the standing given the
apprentice among the full workmen depends
While the internal organizations of different industries mechanical and
agricultural differ according to their peculiar conditions they agree in a
general division of their workers into first second and third grades
according to ability and these grades are in many cases subdivided into first
and second classes According to his standing as an apprentice a young man is
assigned his place as a first second or third grade worker Of course only
young men of unusual ability pass directly from apprenticeship into the first
grade of the workers The most fall into the lower grades working up as they
grow more experienced at the periodical regradings These regradings take place
in each industry at intervals corresponding with the length of the
apprenticeship to that industry so that merit never need wait long to rise nor
can any rest on past achievements unless they would drop into a lower rank One
of the notable advantages of a high grading is the privilege it gives the worker
in electing which of the various branches or processes of his industry he will
follow as his specialty Of course it is not intended that any of these
processes shall be disproportionately arduous but there is often much
difference between them and the privilege of election is accordingly highly
prized So far as possible indeed the preferences even of the poorest workmen
are considered in assigning them their line of work because not only their
happiness but their usefulness is thus enhanced While however the wish of the
lower grade man is consulted so far as the exigencies of the service permit he
is considered only after the upper grade men have been provided for and often
he has to put up with second or third choice or even with an arbitrary
assignment when help is needed This privilege of election attends every
regrading and when a man loses his grade he also risks having to exchange the
sort of work he likes for some other less to his taste The results of each
regrading giving the standing of every man in his industry are gazetted in the
public prints and those who have won promotion since the last regrading receive
the nations thanks and are publicly invested with the badge of their new rank«
»What may this badge be« I asked
»Every industry has its emblematic device« replied Dr Leete »and this in
the shape of a metallic badge so small that you might not see it unless you knew
where to look is all the insignia which the men of the army wear except where
public convenience demands a distinctive uniform This badge is the same in form
for all grades of industry but while the badge of the third grade is iron that
of the second grade is silver and that of the first is gilt
Apart from the grand incentive to endeavor afforded by the fact that the
high places in the nation are open only to the highest class men and that rank
in the army constitutes the only mode of social distinction for the vast
majority who are not aspirants in art literature and the professions various
incitements of a minor but perhaps equally effective sort are provided in the
form of special privileges and immunities in the way of discipline which the
superior class men enjoy These while intended to be as little as possible
invidious to the less successful have the effect of keeping constantly before
every mans mind the great desirability of attaining the grade next above his
own
It is obviously important that not only the good but also the indifferent
and poor workmen should be able to cherish the ambition of rising Indeed the
number of the latter being so much greater it is even more essential that the
ranking system should not operate to discourage them than that it should
stimulate the others It is to this end that the grades are divided into
classes The grades as well as the classes being made numerically equal at each
regrading there is not at any time counting out the officers and the
unclassified and apprentice grades over oneninth of the industrial army in the
lowest class and most of this number are recent apprentices all of whom expect
to rise Those who remain during the entire term of service in the lowest class
are but a trifling fraction of the industrial army and likely to be as
deficient in sensibility to their position as in ability to better it
It is not even necessary that a worker should win promotion to a higher
grade to have at least a taste of glory While promotion requires a general
excellence of record as a worker honorable mention and various sorts of prizes
are awarded for excellence less than sufficient for promotion and also for
special feats and single performances in the various industries There are many
minor distinctions of standing not only within the grades but within the
classes each of which acts as a spur to the efforts of a group It is intended
that no form of merit shall wholly fail of recognition
As for actual neglect of work positively bad work or other overt
remissness on the part of men incapable of generous motives the discipline of
the industrial army is far too strict to allow anything whatever of the sort A
man able to do duty and persistently refusing is sentenced to solitary
imprisonment on bread and water till he consents
The lowest grade of the officers of the industrial army that of assistant
foremen or lieutenants is appointed out of men who have held their place for
two years in the first class of the first grade Where this leaves too large a
range of choice only the first group of this class are eligible No one thus
comes to the point of commanding men until he is about thirty years old After a
man becomes an officer his rating of course no longer depends on the efficiency
of his own work but on that of his men The foremen are appointed from among
the assistant foremen by the same exercise of discretion limited to a small
eligible class In the appointments to the still higher grades another principle
is introduced which it would take too much time to explain now
Of course such a system of grading as I have described would have been
impracticable applied to the small industrial concerns of your day in some of
which there were hardly enough employees to have left one apiece for the
classes You must remember that under the national organization of labor all
industries are carried on by great bodies of men many of your farms or shops
being combined as one It is also owing solely to the vast scale on which each
industry is organized with coördinate establishments in every part of the
country that we are able by exchanges and transfers to fit every man so nearly
with the sort of work he can do best
And now Mr West I will leave it to you on the bare outline of its
features which I have given if those who need special incentives to do their
best are likely to lack them under our system Does it not seem to you that men
who found themselves obliged whether they wished or not to work would under
such a system be strongly impelled to do their best«
I replied that it seemed to me the incentives offered were if any objection
were to be made too strong that the pace set for the young men was too hot
and such indeed I would add with deference still remains my opinion now that
by longer residence among you I have become better acquainted with the whole
subject
Dr Leete however desired me to reflect and I am ready to say that it is
perhaps a sufficient reply to my objection that the workers livelihood is in
no way dependent on his ranking and anxiety for that never embitters his
disappointments that the working hours are short the vacations regular and
that all emulation ceases at fortyfive with the attainment of middle life
»There are two or three other points I ought to refer to« he added »to
prevent your getting mistaken impressions In the first place you must
understand that this system of preferment given the more efficient workers over
the less so in no way contravenes the fundamental idea of our social system
that all who do their best are equally deserving whether that best be great or
small I have shown that the system is arranged to encourage the weaker as well
as the stronger with the hope of rising while the fact that the stronger are
selected for the leaders is in no way a reflection upon the weaker but in the
interest of the common weal
Do not imagine either because emulation is given free play as an incentive
under our system that we deem it a motive likely to appeal to the nobler sort
of men or worthy of them Such as these find their motives within not without
and measure their duty by their own endowments not by those of others So long
as their achievement is proportioned to their powers they would consider it
preposterous to expect praise or blame because it chanced to be great or small
To such natures emulation appears philosophically absurd and despicable in a
moral aspect by its substitution of envy for admiration and exultation for
regret in ones attitude toward the successes and the failures of others
But all men even in the last year of the twentieth century are not of this
high order and the incentives to endeavor requisite for those who are not must
be of a sort adapted to their inferior natures For these then emulation of
the keenest edge is provided as a constant spur Those who need this motive will
feel it Those who are above its influence do not need it
I should not fail to mention« resumed the doctor »that for those too
deficient in mental or bodily strength to be fairly graded with the main body of
workers we have a separate grade unconnected with the others a sort of
invalid corps the members of which are provided with a light class of tasks
fitted to their strength All our sick in mind and body all our deaf and dumb
and lame and blind and crippled and even our insane belong to this invalid
corps and bear its insignia The strongest often do nearly a mans work the
feeblest of course nothing but none who can do anything are willing quite to
give up In their lucid intervals even our insane are eager to do what they
can«
»That is a pretty idea of the invalid corps« I said »Even a barbarian from
the nineteenth century can appreciate that It is a very graceful way of
disguising charity and must be grateful to the feelings of its recipients«
»Charity« repeated Dr Leete »Did you suppose that we consider the
incapable class we are talking of objects of charity«
»Why naturally« I said »inasmuch as they are incapable of selfsupport«
But here the doctor took me up quickly
»Who is capable of selfsupport« he demanded »There is no such thing in a
civilized society as selfsupport In a state of society so barbarous as not
even to know family coöperation each individual may possibly support himself
though even then for a part of his life only but from the moment that men begin
to live together and constitute even the rudest sort of society selfsupport
becomes impossible As men grow more civilized and the subdivision of
occupations and services is carried out a complex mutual dependence becomes the
universal rule Every man however solitary may seem his occupation is a member
of a vast industrial partnership as large as the nation as large as humanity
The necessity of mutual dependence should imply the duty and guarantee of mutual
support and that it did not in your day constituted the essential cruelty and
unreason of your system«
»That may all be so« I replied »but it does not touch the case of those
who are unable to contribute anything to the product of industry«
»Surely I told you this morning at least I thought I did« replied Dr
Leete »that the right of a man to maintenance at the nations table depends on
the fact that he is a man and not on the amount of health and strength he may
have so long as he does his best«
»You said so« I answered »but I supposed the rule applied only to the
workers of different ability Does it also hold of those who can do nothing at
all«
»Are they not also men«
»I am to understand then that the lame the blind the sick and the
impotent are as well off as the most efficient and have the same income«
»Certainly« was the reply
»The idea of charity on such a scale« I answered »would have made our most
enthusiastic philanthropists gasp«
»If you had a sick brother at home« replied Dr Leete »unable to work
would you feed him on less dainty food and lodge and clothe him more poorly
than yourself More likely far you would give him the preference nor would you
think of calling it charity Would not the word in that connection fill you
with indignation«
»Of course« I replied »but the cases are not parallel There is a sense
no doubt in which all men are brothers but this general sort of brotherhood is
not to be compared except for rhetorical purposes to the brotherhood of blood
either as to its sentiment or its obligations«
»There speaks the nineteenth century« exclaimed Dr Leete »Ah Mr West
there is no doubt as to the length of time that you slept If I were to give
you in one sentence a key to what may seem the mysteries of our civilization
as compared with that of your age I should say that it is the fact that the
solidarity of the race and the brotherhood of man which to you were but fine
phrases are to our thinking and feeling ties as real and as vital as physical
fraternity
But even setting that consideration aside I do not see why it so surprises
you that those who cannot work are conceded the full right to live on the
produce of those who can Even in your day the duty of military service for the
protection of the nation to which our industrial service corresponds while
obligatory on those able to discharge it did not operate to deprive of the
privileges of citizenship those who were unable They stayed at home and were
protected by those who fought and nobody questioned their right to be or
thought less of them So now the requirement of industrial service from those
able to render it does not operate to deprive of the privileges of citizenship
which now implies the citizens maintenance him who cannot work The worker is
not a citizen because he works but works because he is a citizen As you
recognize the duty of the strong to fight for the weak we now that fighting is
gone by recognize his duty to work for him
A solution which leaves an unaccountedfor residuum is no solution at all
and our solution of the problem of human society would have been none at all had
it left the lame the sick and the blind outside with the beasts to fare as
they might Better far have left the strong and well unprovided for than these
burdened ones toward whom every heart must yearn and for whom ease of mind and
body should be provided if for no others Therefore it is as I told you this
morning that the title of every man woman and child to the means of existence
rests on no basis less plain broad and simple than the fact that they are
fellows of one race members of one human family The only coin current is the
image of God and that is good for all we have
I think there is no feature of the civilization of your epoch so repugnant
to modern ideas as the neglect with which you treated your dependent classes
Even if you had no pity no feeling of brotherhood how was it that you did not
see that you were robbing the incapable class of their plain right in leaving
them unprovided for«
»I dont quite follow you there« I said »I admit the claim of this class
to our pity but how could they who produced nothing claim a share of the
product as a right«
»How happened it« was Dr Leetes reply »that your workers were able to
produce more than so many savages would have done Was it not wholly on account
of their heritage of the past knowledge and achievements of the race the
machinery of society thousands of years in contriving found by you readymade
to your hand How did you come to be possessors of this knowledge and this
machinery which represent nine parts to one contributed by yourself in the
value of your product You inherited it did you not And were not these others
these unfortunate and crippled brothers whom you cast out joint inheritors
coheirs with you What did you do with their share Did you not rob them when
you put them off with crusts who were entitled to sit with the heirs and did
you not add insult to robbery when you called the crusts charity
Ah Mr West« Dr Leete continued as I did not respond »what I do not
understand is setting aside all considerations either of justice or brotherly
feeling toward the crippled and defective how the workers of your day could
have had any heart for their work knowing that their children or
grandchildren if unfortunate would be deprived of the comforts and even
necessities of life It is a mystery how men with children could favor a system
under which they were rewarded beyond those less endowed with bodily strength or
mental power For by the same discrimination by which the father profited the
son for whom he would give his life being perchance weaker than others might
be reduced to crusts and beggary How men dared leave children behind them I
have never been able to understand«
NOTE Although in his talk on the previous evening Dr Leete had emphasized
the pains taken to enable every man to ascertain and follow his natural bent in
choosing an occupation it was not till I learned that the workers income is
the same in all occupations that I realized how absolutely he may be counted on
to do so and thus by selecting the harness which sets most lightly on himself
find that in which he can pull best The failure of my age in any systematic or
effective way to develop and utilize the natural aptitudes of men for the
industries and intellectual avocations was one of the great wastes as well as
one of the most common causes of unhappiness in that time The vast majority of
my contemporaries though nominally free to do so never really chose their
occupations at all but were forced by circumstances into work for which they
were relatively inefficient because not naturally fitted for it The rich in
this respect had little advantage over the poor The latter indeed being
generally deprived of education had no opportunity even to ascertain the
natural aptitudes they might have and on account of their poverty were unable
to develop them by cultivation even when ascertained The liberal and technical
professions except by favorable accident were shut to them to their own great
loss and that of the nation On the other hand the welltodo although they
could command education and opportunity were scarcely less hampered by social
prejudice which forbade them to pursue manual avocations even when adapted to
them and destined them whether fit or unfit to the professions thus wasting
many an excellent handicraftsman Mercenary considerations tempting men to
pursue moneymaking occupations for which they were unfit instead of less
remunerative employments for which they were fit were responsible for another
vast perversion of talent All these things now are changed Equal education and
opportunity must needs bring to light whatever aptitudes a man has and neither
social prejudices nor mercenary considerations hamper him in the choice of his
life work
Chapter XIII
As Edith had promised he should do Dr Leete accompanied me to my bedroom when
I retired to instruct me as to the adjustment of the musical telephone He
showed how by turning a screw the volume of the music could be made to fill
the room or die away to an echo so faint and far that one could scarcely be
sure whether he heard or imagined it If of two persons side by side one
desired to listen to music and the other to sleep it could be made audible to
one and inaudible to another
»I should strongly advise you to sleep if you can to night Mr West in
preference to listening to the finest tunes in the world« the doctor said
after explaining these points »In the trying experience you are just now
passing through sleep is a nerve tonic for which there is no substitute«
Mindful of what had happened to me that very morning I promised to heed his
counsel
»Very well« he said »then I will set the telephone at eight oclock«
»What do you mean« I asked
He explained that by a clockwork combination a person could arrange to be
awakened at any hour by the music
It began to appear as has since fully proved to be the case that I had
left my tendency to insomnia behind me with the other discomforts of existence
in the nineteenth century for though I took no sleeping draught this time yet
as the night before I had no sooner touched the pillow than I was asleep
I dreamed that I sat on the throne of the Abencerrages in the banqueting
hall of the Alhambra feasting my lords and generals who next day were to
follow the crescent against the Christian dogs of Spain The air cooled by the
spray of fountains was heavy with the scent of flowers A band of Nautch girls
roundlimbed and lusciouslipped danced with voluptuous grace to the music of
brazen and stringed instruments Looking up to the latticed galleries one
caught a gleam now and then from the eye of some beauty of the royal harem
looking down upon the assembled flower of Moorish chivalry Louder and louder
clashed the cymbals wilder and wilder grew the strain till the blood of the
desert race could no longer resist the martial delirium and the swart nobles
leaped to their feet a thousand scimetars were bared and the cry »Allah il
Allah« shook the hall and awoke me to find it broad daylight and the room
tingling with the electric music of the »Turkish Reveille«
At the breakfasttable when I told my host of my mornings experience I
learned that it was not a mere chance that the piece of music which awakened me
was a reveille The airs played at one of the halls during the waking hours of
the morning were always of an inspiring type
»By the way« I said »I have not thought to ask you anything about the
state of Europe Have the societies of the Old World also been remodeled«
»Yes« replied Dr Leete »the great nations of Europe as well as Australia
Mexico and parts of South America are now organized industrially like the
United States which was the pioneer of the evolution The peaceful relations of
these nations are assured by a loose form of federal union of worldwide extent
An international council regulates the mutual intercourse and commerce of the
members of the union and their joint policy toward the more backward races
which are gradually being educated up to civilized institutions Complete
autonomy within its own limits is enjoyed by every nation«
»How do you carry on commerce without money« I said »In trading with other
nations you must use some sort of money although you dispense with it in the
internal affairs of the nation«
»Oh no money is as superfluous in our foreign as in our internal
relations When foreign commerce was conducted by private enterprise money was
necessary to adjust it on account of the multifarious complexity of the
transactions but nowadays it is a function of the nations as units There are
thus only a dozen or so merchants in the world and their business being
supervised by the international council a simple system of book accounts serves
perfectly to regulate their dealings Customs duties of every sort are of course
superfluous A nation simply does not import what its government does not think
requisite for the general interest Each nation has a bureau of foreign
exchange which manages its trading For example the American bureau
estimating such and such quantities of French goods necessary to America for a
given year sends the order to the French bureau which in turn sends its order
to our bureau The same is done mutually by all the nations«
»But how are the prices of foreign goods settled since there is no
competition«
»The price at which one nation supplies another with goods« replied Dr
Leete »must be that at which it supplies its own citizens So you see there is
no danger of misunderstanding Of course no nation is theoretically bound to
supply another with the product of its own labor but it is for the interest of
all to exchange some commodities If a nation is regularly supplying another
with certain goods notice is required from either side of any important change
in the relation«
»But what if a nation having a monopoly of some natural product should
refuse to supply it to the others or to one of them«
»Such a case has never occurred and could not without doing the refusing
party vastly more harm than the others« replied Dr Leete »In the first place
no favoritism could be legally shown The law requires that each nation shall
deal with the others in all respects on exactly the same footing Such a
course as you suggest would cut off the nation adopting it from the remainder of
the earth for all purposes whatever The contingency is one that need not give
us much anxiety«
»But« said I »supposing a nation having a natural monopoly in some
product of which it exports more than it consumes should put the price away up
and thus without cutting off the supply make a profit out of its neighbors
necessities Its own citizens would of course have to pay the higher price on
that commodity but as a body would make more out of foreigners than they would
be out of pocket themselves«
»When you come to know how prices of all commodities are determined
nowadays you will perceive how impossible it is that they could be altered
except with reference to the amount or arduousness of the work required
respectively to produce them« was Dr Leetes reply »This principle is an
international as well as a national guarantee but even without it the sense of
community of interest international as well as national and the conviction of
the folly of selfishness are too deep nowadays to render possible such a piece
of sharp practice as you apprehend You must understand that we all look forward
to an eventual unification of the world as one nation That no doubt will be
the ultimate form of society and will realize certain economic advantages over
the present federal system of autonomous nations Meanwhile however the
present system works so nearly perfectly that we are quite content to leave to
posterity the completion of the scheme There are indeed some who hold that it
never will be completed on the ground that the federal plan is not merely a
provisional solution of the problem of human society but the best ultimate
solution«
»How do you manage« I asked »when the books of any two nations do not
balance Supposing we import more from France than we export to her«
»At the end of each year« replied the doctor »the books of every nation
are examined If France is found in our debt probably we are in the debt of
some nation which owes France and so on with all the nations The balances that
remain after the accounts have been cleared by the international council should
not be large under our system Whatever they may be the council requires them
to be settled every few years and may require their settlement at any time if
they are getting too large for it is not intended that any nation shall run
largely in debt to another lest feelings unfavorable to amity should be
engendered To guard further against this the international council inspects
the commodities interchanged by the nations to see that they are of perfect
quality«
»But what are the balances finally settled with seeing that you have no
money«
»In national staples a basis of agreement as to what staples shall be
accepted and in what proportions for settlement of accounts being a
preliminary to trade relations«
»Emigration is another point I want to ask you about« said I »With every
nation organized as a close industrial partnership monopolizing all means of
production in the country the emigrant even if he were permitted to land
would starve I suppose there is no emigration nowadays«
»On the contrary there is constant emigration by which I suppose you mean
removal to foreign countries for permanent residence« replied Dr Leete »It is
arranged on a simple international arrangement of indemnities For example if a
man at twentyone emigrates from England to America England loses all the
expense of his maintenance and education and America gets a workman for
nothing America accordingly makes England an allowance The same principle
varied to suit the case applies generally If the man is near the term of his
labor when he emigrates the country receiving him has the allowance As to
imbecile persons it is deemed best that each nation should be responsible for
its own and the emigration of such must be under full guarantees of support by
his own nation Subject to these regulations the right of any man to emigrate
at any time is unrestricted«
»But how about mere pleasure trips tours of observation How can a stranger
travel in a country whose people do not receive money and are themselves
supplied with the means of life on a basis not extended to him His own credit
card cannot of course be good in other lands How does he pay his way«
»An American credit card« replied Dr Leete »is just as good in Europe as
American gold used to be and on precisely the same condition namely that it
be exchanged into the currency of the country you are traveling in An American
in Berlin takes his credit card to the local office of the international
council and receives in exchange for the whole or part of it a German credit
card the amount being charged against the United States in favor of Germany on
the international account«
»Perhaps Mr West would like to dine at the Elephant today« said Edith as we
left the table
»That is the name we give to the general dininghouse of our ward«
explained her father »Not only is our cooking done at the public kitchens as I
told you last night but the service and quality of the meals are much more
satisfactory if taken at the dininghouse The two minor meals of the day are
usually taken at home as not worth the trouble of going out but it is general
to go out to dine We have not done so since you have been with us from a
notion that it would be better to wait till you had become a little more
familiar with our ways What do you think Shall we take dinner at the
dininghouse today«
I said that I should be very much pleased to do so
Not long after Edith came to me smiling and said
»Last night as I was thinking what I could do to make you feel at home
until you came to be a little more used to us and our ways an idea occurred to
me What would you say if I were to introduce you to some very nice people of
your own times whom I am sure you used to be well acquainted with«
I replied rather vaguely that it would certainly be very agreeable but I
did not see how she was going to manage it
»Come with me« was her smiling reply »and see if I am not as good as my
word«
My susceptibility to surprise had been pretty well exhausted by the numerous
shocks it had received but it was with some wonderment that I followed her into
a room which I had not before entered It was a small cosy apartment walled
with cases filled with books
»Here are your friends« said Edith indicating one of the cases and as my
eye glanced over the names on the backs of the volumes Shakespeare Milton
Wordsworth Shelley Tennyson Defoe Dickens Thackeray Hugo Hawthorne
Irving and a score of other great writers of my time and all time I understood
her meaning She had indeed made good her promise in a sense compared with which
its literal fulfillment would have been a disappointment She had introduced me
to a circle of friends whom the century that had elapsed since last I communed
with them had aged as little as it had myself Their spirit was as high their
wit as keen their laughter and their tears as contagious as when their speech
had whiled away the hours of a former century Lonely I was not and could not be
more with this goodly companionship however wide the gulf of years that gaped
between me and my old life
»You are glad I brought you here« exclaimed Edith radiant as she read in
my face the success of her experiment »It was a good idea was it not Mr
West How stupid in me not to think of it before I will leave you now with your
old friends for I know there will be no company for you like them just now but
remember you must not let old friends make you quite forget new ones« and with
that smiling caution she left me
Attracted by the most familiar of the names before me I laid my hand on a
volume of Dickens and sat down to read He had been my prime favorite among the
bookwriters of the century I mean the nineteenth century and a week had
rarely passed in my old life during which I had not taken up some volume of his
works to while away an idle hour Any volume with which I had been familiar
would have produced an extraordinary impression read under my present
circumstances but my exceptional familiarity with Dickens and his consequent
power to call up the associations of my former life gave to his writings an
effect no others could have had to intensify by force of contrast my
appreciation of the strangeness of my present environment However new and
astonishing ones surroundings the tendency is to become a part of them so soon
that almost from the first the power to see them objectively and fully measure
their strangeness is lost That power already dulled in my case the pages of
Dickens restored by carrying me back through their associations to the
standpoint of my former life With a clearness which I had not been able before
to attain I saw now the past and present like contrasting pictures side by
side
The genius of the great novelist of the nineteenth century like that of
Homer might indeed defy time but the setting of his pathetic tales the misery
of the poor the wrongs of power the pitiless cruelty of the system of society
had passed away as utterly as Circe and the sirens Charybdis and Cyclops
During the hour or two that I sat there with Dickens open before me I did
not actually read more than a couple of pages Every paragraph every phrase
brought up some new aspect of the worldtransformation which had taken place
and led my thoughts on long and widely ramifying excursions As meditating thus
in Dr Leetes library I gradually attained a more clear and coherent idea of
the prodigious spectacle which I had been so strangely enabled to view I was
filled with a deepening wonder at the seeming capriciousness of the fate that
had given to one who so little deserved it or seemed in any way set apart for
it the power alone among his contemporaries to stand upon the earth in this
latter day I had neither foreseen the new world nor toiled for it as many
about me had done regardless of the scorn of fools or the misconstruction of the
good Surely it would have been more in accordance with the fitness of things
had one of those prophetic and strenuous souls been enabled to see the travail
of his soul and be satisfied he for example a thousand times rather than I
who having beheld in a vision the world I looked on sang of it in words that
again and again during these last wondrous days had rung in my mind
For I dipt into the future far as human eye could see
Saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be
Till the wardrum throbbed no longer and the battleflags were furled
In the Parliament of man the federation of the world
Then the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe
And the kindly earth shall slumber lapt in universal law
For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs
And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns
What though in his old age he momentarily lost faith in his own prediction as
prophets in their hours of depression and doubt generally do the words had
remained eternal testimony to the seership of a poets heart the insight that
is given to faith
I was still in the library when some hours later Dr Leete sought me there
»Edith told me of her idea« he said »and I thought it an excellent one I had
a little curiosity what writer yon would first turn to Ah Dickens You admired
him then That is where we moderns agree with you Judged by our standards he
overtops all the writers of his age not because his literary genius was
highest but because his great heart beat for the poor because he made the
cause of the victims of society his own and devoted his pen to exposing its
cruelties and shams No man of his time did so much as he to turn mens minds to
the wrong and wretchedness of the old order of things and open their eyes to
the necessity of the great change that was coming although he himself did not
clearly foresee it«
Chapter XIV
A heavy rainstorm came up during the day and I had concluded that the condition
of the streets would be such that my hosts would have to give up the idea of
going out to dinner although the dininghall I had understood to be quite near
I was much surprised when at the dinner hour the ladies appeared prepared to go
out but without either rubbers or umbrellas
The mystery was explained when we found ourselves on the street for a
continuous waterproof covering had been let down so as to inclose the sidewalk
and turn it into a well lighted and perfectly dry corridor which was filled
with a stream of ladies and gentlemen dressed for dinner At the corners the
entire open space was similarly roofed in Edith Leete with whom I walked
seemed much interested in learning what appeared to be entirely new to her that
in the stormy weather the streets of the Boston of my day had been impassable
except to persons protected by umbrellas boots and heavy clothing »Were
sidewalk coverings not used at all« she asked They were used I explained but
in a scattered and utterly unsystematic way being private enterprises She said
to me that at the present time all the streets were provided against inclement
weather in the manner I saw the apparatus being rolled out of the way when it
was unnecessary She intimated that it would be considered an extraordinary
imbecility to permit the weather to have any effect on the social movements of
the people
Dr Leete who was walking ahead overhearing something of our talk turned
to say that the difference between the age of individualism and that of concert
was well characterized by the fact that in the nineteenth century when it
rained the people of Boston put up three hundred thousand umbrellas over as
many heads and in the twentieth century they put up one umbrella over all the
heads
As we walked on Edith said »The private umbrella is fathers favorite
figure to illustrate the old way when everybody lived for himself and his
family There is a nineteenth century painting at the Art Gallery representing a
crowd of people in the rain each one holding his umbrella over himself and his
wife and giving his neighbors the drippings which he claims must have been
meant by the artist as a satire on his times«
We now entered a large building into which a stream of people was pouring I
could not see the front owing to the awning but if in correspondence with the
interior which was even finer than the store I visited the day before it would
have been magnificent My companion said that at the sculptured group over the
entrance was especially admired Going up a grand staircase we walked some
distance along a broad corridor with many doors opening upon it At one of
these which bore my hosts name we turned in and I found myself in an elegant
diningroom containing a table for four Windows opened on a courtyard where a
fountain played to a great height and music made the air electric
»You seem at home here« I said as we seated ourselves at table and Dr
Leete touched an annunciator
»This is in fact a part of our house slightly detached from the rest« he
replied »Every family in the ward has a room set apart in this great building
for its permanent and exclusive use for a small annual rental For transient
guests and individuals there is accommodation on another floor If we expect to
dine here we put in our orders the night before selecting anything in market
according to the daily reports in the papers The meal is as expensive or as
simple as we please though of course everything is vastly cheaper as well as
better than it would be if prepared at home There is actually nothing which our
people take more interest in than the perfection of the catering and cooking
done for them and I admit that we are a little vain of the success that has
been attained by this branch of the service Ah my dear Mr West though other
aspects of your civilization were more tragical I can imagine that none could
have been more depressing than the poor dinners you had to eat that is all of
you who had not great wealth«
»You would have found none of us disposed to disagree with you on that
point« I said
The waiter a finelooking young fellow wearing a slightly distinctive
uniform now made his appearance I observed him closely as it was the first
time I had been able to study particularly the bearing of one of the enlisted
members of the industrial army This young man I knew from what I had been
told must be highly educated and the equal socially and in all respects of
those he served But it was perfectly evident that to neither side was the
situation in the slightest degree embarrassing Dr Leete addressed the young
man in a tone devoid of course as any gentlemans would be of
superciliousness but at the same time not in any way deprecatory while the
manner of the young man was simply that of a person intent on discharging
correctly the task he was engaged in equally without familiarity or
obsequiousness It was in fact the manner of a soldier on duty but without
the military stiffness As the youth left the room I said »I cannot get over
my wonder at seeing a young man like that serving so contentedly in a menial
position«
»What is that word menial I never heard it« said Edith
»It is obsolete now« remarked her father »If I understand it rightly it
applied to persons who performed particularly disagreeable and unpleasant tasks
for others and carried with it an implication of contempt Was it not so Mr
West«
»That is about it« I said »Personal service such as waiting on tables
was considered menial and held in such contempt in my day that persons of
culture and refinement would suffer hardship before condescending to it«
»What a strangely artificial idea« exclaimed Mrs Leete wonderingly
»And yet these services had to be rendered« said Edith
»Of course« I replied »But we imposed them on the poor and those who had
no alternative but starvation«
»And increased the burden you imposed on them by adding your contempt«
remarked Dr Leete
»I dont think I clearly understand« said Edith »Do you mean that you
permitted people to do things for you which you despised them for doing or that
you accepted services from them which you would have been unwilling to render
them You cant surely mean that Mr West«
I was obliged to tell her that the fact was just as she had stated Dr
Leete however came to my relief
»To understand why Edith is surprised« he said »you must know that
nowadays it is an axiom of ethics that to accept a service from another which we
would be unwilling to return in kind if need were is like borrowing with the
intention of not repaying while to enforce such a service by taking advantage
of the poverty or necessity of a person would be an outrage like forcible
robbery It is the worst thing about any system which divides men or allows
them to be divided into classes and castes that it weakens the sense of a
common humanity Unequal distribution of wealth and still more effectually
unequal opportunities of education and culture divided society in your day into
classes which in many respects regarded each other as distinct races There is
not after all such a difference as might appear between our ways of looking at
this question of service Ladies and gentlemen of the cultured class in your day
would no more have permitted persons of their own class to render them services
they would scorn to return than we would permit anybody to do so The poor and
the uncultured however they looked upon as of another kind from themselves
The equal wealth and equal opportunities of culture which all persons now enjoy
have simply made us all members of one class which corresponds to the most
fortunate class with you Until this equality of condition had come to pass the
idea of the solidarity of humanity the brotherhood of all men could never have
become the real conviction and practical principle of action it is nowadays In
your day the same phrases were indeed used but they were phrases merely«
»Do the waiters also volunteer«
»No« replied Dr Leete »The waiters are young men in the unclassified
grade of the industrial army who are assignable to all sorts of miscellaneous
occupations not requiring special skill Waiting on table is one of these and
every young recruit is given a taste of it I myself served as a waiter for
several months in this very dininghouse some forty years ago Once more you
must remember that there is recognized no sort of difference between the dignity
of the different sorts of work required by the nation The individual is never
regarded nor regards himself as the servant of those he serves nor is he in
any way dependent upon them It is always the nation which he is serving No
difference is recognized between a waiters functions and those of any other
worker The fact that his is a personal service is indifferent from our point of
view So is a doctors I should as soon expect our waiter today to look down
on me because I served him as a doctor as think of looking down on him because
he serves me as a waiter«
After dinner my entertainers conducted me about the building of which the
extent the magnificent architecture and richness of embellishment astonished
me It seemed that it was not merely a dininghall but likewise a great
pleasurehouse and social rendezvous of the quarter and no appliance of
entertainment or recreation seemed lacking
»You find illustrated here« said Dr Leete when I had expressed my
admiration »what I said to you in our first conversation when you were looking
out over the city as to the splendor of our public and common life as compared
with the simplicity of our private and home life and the contrast which in
this respect the twentieth bears to the nineteenth century To save ourselves
useless burdens we have as little gear about us at home as is consistent with
comfort but the social side of our life is ornate and luxurious beyond anything
the world ever knew before All the industrial and professional guilds have
clubhouses as extensive as this as well as country mountain and seaside
houses for sport and rest in vacations«
NOTE In the latter part of the nineteenth century it became a practice of needy
young men at some of the colleges of the country to earn a little money for
their term bills by serving as waiters on tables at hotels during the long
summer vacation It was claimed in reply to critics who expressed the
prejudices of the time in asserting that persons voluntarily following such an
occupation could not be gentlemen that they were entitled to praise for
vindicating by their example the dignity of all honest and necessary labor
The use of this argument illustrates a common confusion in thought on the part
of my former contemporaries The business of waiting on tables was in no more
need of defense than most of the other ways of getting a living in that day but
to talk of dignity attaching to labor of any sort under the system then
prevailing was absurd There is no way in which selling labor for the highest
price it will fetch is more dignified than selling goods for what can be got
Both were commercial transactions to be judged by the commercial standard By
setting a price in money on his service the worker accepted the money measure
for it and renounced all clear claim to be judged by any other The sordid
taint which this necessity imparted to the noblest and the highest sorts of
service was bitterly resented by generous souls but there was no evading it
There was no exemption however transcendent the quality of ones service from
the necessity of haggling for its price in the marketplace The physician must
sell his healing and the apostle his preaching like the rest The prophet who
had guessed the meaning of God must dicker for the price of the revelation and
the poet hawk his visions in printers row If I were asked the name the most
distinguishing felicity of this age as compared to that in which I first saw
the light I should say that to me it seems to consist in the dignity you have
given to labor by refusing to set a price upon it and abolishing the
marketplace forever By requiring of every man his best you have made God his
taskmaster and by making honor the sole reward of achievement you have
imparted to all service the distinction peculiar in my day to the soldiers
Chapter XV
When in the course of our tour of inspection we came to the library we
succumbed to the temptation of the luxurious leather chairs with which it was
furnished and sat down in one of the booklined alcoves to rest and chat
awhile3
»Edith tells me that you have been in the library all the morning« said
Mrs Leete »Do you know it seems to me Mr West that you are the most
enviable of mortals«
»I should like to know just why« I replied
»Because the books of the last hundred years will be new to you« she
answered »You will have so much of the most absorbing literature to read as to
leave you scarcely time for meals these five years to come Ah what would I
give if I had not already read Berrians novels«
»Or Nesmyths mamma« added Edith
»Yes or Oates poems or Past and Present or In the Beginning or oh
I could name a dozen books each worth a year of ones life« declared Mrs
Leete enthusiastically
»I judge then that there has been some notable literature produced in this
century«
»Yes« said Dr Leete »It has been an era of unexampled intellectual
splendor Probably humanity never before passed through a moral and material
evolution at once so vast in its scope and brief in its time of accomplishment
as that from the old order to the new in the early part of this century When
men came to realize the greatness of the felicity which had befallen them and
that the change through which they had passed was not merely an improvement in
details of their condition but the rise of the race to a new plane of existence
with an illimitable vista of progress their minds were affected in all their
faculties with a stimulus of which the outburst of the mediæval renaissance
offers a suggestion but faint indeed There ensued an era of mechanical
invention scientific discovery art musical and literary productiveness to
which no previous age of the world offers anything comparable«
»By the way« said I »talking of literature how are books published now
Is that also done by the nation«
»Certainly«
»But how do you manage it Does the government publish everything that is
brought it as a matter of course at the public expense or does it exercise a
censorship and print only what it approves«
»Neither way The printing department has no censorial powers It is bound
to print all that is offered it but prints it only on condition that the author
defray the first cost out of his credit He must pay for the privilege of the
public ear and if he has any message worth hearing we consider that he will be
glad to do it Of course if incomes were unequal as in the old times this
rule would enable only the rich to be authors but the resources of citizens
being equal it merely measures the strength of the authors motive The cost of
an edition of an average book can be saved out of a years credit by the
practice of economy and some sacrifices The book on being published is placed
on sale by the nation«
»The author receiving a royalty on the sales as with us I suppose« I
suggested
»Not as with you certainly« replied Dr Leete »but nevertheless in one
way The price of every book is made up of the cost of its publication with a
royalty for the author The author fixes this royalty at any figure he pleases
Of course if he puts it unreasonably high it is his own loss for the book will
not sell The amount of this royalty is set to his credit and he is discharged
from other service to the nation for so long a period as this credit at the rate
of allowance for the support of citizens shall suffice to support him If his
book be moderately successful he has thus a furlough for several months a
year two or three years and if he in the mean time produces other successful
work the remission of service is extended so far as the sale of that may
justify An author of much acceptance succeeds in supporting himself by his pen
during the entire period of service and the degree of any writers literary
ability as determined by the popular voice is thus the measure of the
opportunity given him to devote his time to literature In this respect the
outcome of our system is not very dissimilar to that of yours but there are two
notable differences In the first place the universally high level of education
nowadays gives the popular verdict a conclusiveness on the real merit of
literary work which in your day it was as far as possible from having In the
second place there is no such thing now as favoritism of any sort to interfere
with the recognition of true merit Every author has precisely the same
facilities for bringing his work before the popular tribunal To judge from the
complaints of the writers of your day this absolute equality of opportunity
would have been greately prized«
»In the recognition of merit in other fields of original genius such as
music art invention design« I said »I suppose you follow a similar
principle«
»Yes« he replied »although the details differ In art for example as in
literature the people are the sole judges They vote upon the acceptance of
statues and paintings for the public buildings and their favorable verdict
carries with it in the artists remission from other tasks to devote himself to
his vocation On copies of his work disposed of he also derives the same
advantages as the author on sales of his books In all these lines of original
genius the plan pursued is the same to offer a free field to aspirants and
as soon as exceptional talent is recognized to release it from all trammels and
let it have free course The remission of other service in these cases is not
intended as a gift or reward but as the means of obtaining more and higher
service Of course there are various literary art and scientific institutes to
which membership comes to the famous and is greatly prized The highest of all
honors in the nation higher than the presidency which calls merely for good
sense and devotion to duty is the red ribbon awarded by the vote of the people
to the great authors artists engineers physicians and inventors of the
generation Not over a certain number wear it at any one time though every
bright young fellow in the country loses innumerable nights sleep dreaming of
it I even did myself«
»Just as if mamma and I would have thought any more of you with it«
exclaimed Edith »not that it is nt of course a very fine thing to have«
»You had no choice my dear but to take your father as you found him and
make the best of him« Dr Leete replied »but as for your mother there she
would never have had me if I had not assured her that I was bound to get the red
ribbon or at least the blue«
On this extravagance Mrs Leetes only comment was a smile
»How about periodicals and newspaper« I said »I wont deny that your book
publishing system is a considerable improvement on ours both as to its tendency
to encourage a real literary vocation and quite as important to discourage
mere scribblers but I dont see how it can be made to apply to magazines and
newspapers It is very well to make a man pay for publishing a book because the
expense will be only occasional but no man could afford the expense of
publishing a newspaper every day in the year It took the deep pockets of our
private capitalists to do that and often exhausted even them before the returns
came in If you have newspapers at all they must I fancy be published by the
government at the public expense with government editors reflecting government
opinions Now if your system is so perfect that there is never anything to
criticise in the conduct of affairs this arrangement may answer Otherwise I
should think the lack of an independent unofficial medium for the expression of
public opinion would have most unfortunate results Confess Dr Leete that a
free newspaper press with all that it implies was a redeeming incident of the
old system when capital was in private hands and that you have to set off the
loss of that against your gains in other respects«
»I am afraid I cant give you even that consolation« replied Dr Leete
laughing »In the first place Mr West the newspaper press is by no means the
only or as we look at it the best vehicle for serious criticism of public
affairs To us the judgments of your newspapers on such themes seem generally
to have been crude and flippant as well as deeply tinctured with prejudice and
bitterness In so far as they may be taken as expressing public opinion they
give un unfavorable impression of the popular intelligence while so far as they
may have formed public opinion the nation was not to be felicitated Nowadays
when a citizen desires to make a serious impression upon the public mind as to
any aspect of public affairs he comes out with a book or pamphlet published as
other books are But this is not because we lack newspapers and magazines or
that they lack the most absolute freedom The newspaper press is organised so as
to be a more perfect expression of public opinion than it possibly could be in
your day when private capital controlled and managed it primarily as a
moneymaking business and secondarily only as a mouthpiece for the people«
»But« said I »if the government prints the papers at the public expense
how can it fail to control their policy Who appoints the editors if not the
government«
»The government does not pay the expense of the papers nor appoint their
editors nor in any way exert the slightest influence on their policy« replied
Dr Leete »The people who take the paper pay the expense of its publication
choose its editor and remove him when unsatisfactory You will scarcely say I
think that such a newspaper press is not a free organ of popular opinion«
»Decidedly I shall not« I replied »but how is it practicable«
»Nothing could be simpler Supposing some of my neighbors or myself think we
ought to have a newspaper reflecting our opinions and devoted especially to our
locality trade or profession We go about among the people till we get the
names of such a number that their annual subscriptions will meet the cost of the
paper which is little or big according to the largeness of its constituency
The amount of the subscriptions marked off the credits of the citizens
guarantees the nation against loss in publishing the paper its business you
understand being that of a publisher purely with no option to refuse the duty
required The subscribers to the paper now elect somebody as editor who if he
accepts the office is discharged from other service during his incumbency
Instead of paying a salary to him as in your day the subscribers pay the
nation an indemnity equal to the cost of his support for taking him away from
the general service He manages the paper just as one of your editors did
except that he has no countingroom to obey or interests of private capital as
against the public good to defend At the end of the first year the subscribers
for the next either reëlect the former editor or choose any one else to his
place An able editor of course keeps his place indefinitely As the
subscription list enlarges the funds of the paper increase and it is improved
by the securing of more and better contributors just as your papers were«
»How is the staff of contributors recompensed since they cannot be paid in
money«
»The editor settles with them the price of their wares The amount is
transferred to their individual credit from the guarantee credit of the paper
and a remission of service is granted the contributor for a length of time
corresponding to the amount credited him just as to other authors As to
magazines the system is the same Those interested in the prospectus of a new
periodical pledge enough subscriptions to run it for a year select their
editor who recompenses his contributors just as in the other case the printing
bureau furnishing the necessary force and material for publication as a matter
of course When an editors services are no longer desired if he cannot earn
the right to his time by other literary work he simply resumes his place in the
industrial army I should add that though ordinarily the editor is elected only
at the end of the year and as a rule is continued in office for a term of
years in case of any sudden change he should give to the tone of the paper
provision is made for taking the sense of the subscribers as to his removal at
any time«
»However earnestly a man may long for leisure for purposes of study or
meditation« I remarked »he cannot get out of the harness if I understand you
rightly except in these two ways you have mentioned He must either by
literary artistic or inventive productiveness indemnify the nation for the
loss of his services or must get a sufficient number of other people to
contribute to such an indemnity«
»It is most certain« replied Dr Leete »that no ablebodied man nowadays
can evade his share of work and live on the toil of others whether he calls
himself by the fine name of student or confesses to being simply lazy At the
same time our system is elastic enough to give free play to every instinct of
human nature which does not aim at dominating others or living on the fruit of
others labor There is not only the remission by indemnification but the
remission by abnegation Any man in his thirtythird year his term of service
being then half done can obtain an honorable discharge from the army provided
he accepts for the rest of his life one half the rate of maintenance other
citizens receive It is quite possible to live on this amount though one must
forego the luxuries and elegancies of life with some perhaps of its
comforts«
When the ladies retired that evening Edith brought me a book and said
»If you should be wakeful tonight Mr West you might be interested in
looking over this story by Berrian It is considered his masterpiece and will
at least give you an idea what the stories nowadays are like«
I sat up in my room that night reading »Penthesilia« till it grew gray in
the east and did not lay it down till I had finished it And yet let no admirer
of the great romancer of the twentieth century resent my saying that at the
first reading what most impressed me was not so much what was in the book as
what was left out of it The storywriters of my day would have deemed the
making of bricks without straw a light task compared with the construction of a
romance from which should be excluded all effects drawn from the contrasts of
wealth and poverty education and ignorance coarseness and refinement high and
low all motives drawn from social pride and ambition the desire of being
richer or the fear of being poorer together with sordid anxieties of any sort
for ones self or others a romance in which there should indeed be love
galore but love unfretted by artificial barriers created by differences of
station or possessions owning no other law but that of the heart The reading
of »Penthesilia« was of more value than almost any amount of explanation would
have been in giving me something like a general impression of the social aspect
of the twentieth century The information Dr Leete had imparted was indeed
extensive as to facts but they had affected my mind as so many separate
impressions which I had as yet succeeded but imperfectly in making cohere
Berrian put them together for me in a picture
Chapter XVI
Next morning I rose somewhat before the breakfast hour As I descended the
stairs Edith stepped into the hall from the room which had been the scene of
the morning interview between us described some chapters back
»Ah« she exclaimed with a charmingly arch expression »you thought to slip
out unbeknown for another of those solitary morning rambles which have such nice
effects on you But you see I am up too early for you this time You are fairly
caught«
»You discredit the efficacy of your own cure« I said »by supposing that
such a ramble would now be attended with bad consequences«
»I am very glad to hear that« she said »I was in here arranging some
flowers for the breakfast table when I heard you come down and fancied I
detected something surreptitious in your step on the stairs«
»You did me injustice« I replied »I had no idea of going out at all«
Despite her effort to convey an impression that my interception was purely
accidental I had at the time a dim suspicion of what I afterwards learned to be
the fact namely that this sweet creature in pursuance of her selfassumed
guardianship over me had risen for the last two or three mornings at an
unheardof hour to insure against the possibility of my wandering off alone in
case I should be affected as on the former occasion Receiving permission to
assist her in making up the breakfast bouquet I followed her into the room from
which she had emerged
»Are you sure« she asked »that you are quite done with those terrible
sensations you had that morning«
»I cant say that I do not have times of feeling decidedly queer« I
replied »moments when my personal identity seems an open question It would be
too much to expect after my experience that I should not have such sensations
occasionally but as for being carried entirely off my feet as I was on the
point of being that morning I think the danger is past«
»I shall never forget how you looked that morning« she said
»If you had merely saved my life« I continued »I might perhaps find
words to express my gratitude but it was my reason you saved and there are no
words that would not belittle my debt to you« I spoke with emotion and her
eyes grew suddenly moist
»It is too much to believe all this« she said »but it is very delightful
to hear you say it What I did was very little I was very much distressed for
you I know Father never thinks anything ought to astonish us when it can be
explained scientifically as I suppose this long sleep of yours can be but even
to fancy myself in your place makes my head swim I know that I could not have
borne it at all«
»That would depend« I replied »on whether an angel came to support you
with her sympathy in the crisis of your condition as one came to me« If my
face at all expressed the feelings I had a right to have toward this sweet and
lovely young girl who had played so angelic a rôle toward me its expression
must have been very worshipful just then The expression or the words or both
together caused her now to drop her eyes with a charming blush
»For the matter of that« I said »if your experience has not been as
startling as mine it must have been rather overwhelming to see a man belonging
to a strange century and apparently a hundred years dead raised to life«
»It seemed indeed strange beyond any describing at first« she said »but
when we began to put ourselves in your place and realize how much stranger it
must seem to you I fancy we forgot our own feelings a good deal at least I
know I did It seemed then not so much astounding as interesting and touching
beyond anything ever heard of before«
»But does it not come over you as astounding to sit at table with me seeing
who I am«
»You must remember that you do not seem so strange to us as we must to you«
she answered »We belong to a future of which you could not form an idea a
generation of which you knew nothing until you saw us But you belong to a
generation of which our forefathers were a part We know all about it the names
of many of its members are household words with us We have made a study of your
ways of living and thinking nothing you say or do surprises us while we say
and do nothing which does not seem strange to you So you see Mr West that if
you feel that you can in time get accustomed to us you must not be surprised
that from the first we have scarcely found you strange at all«
»I had not thought of it in that way« I replied »There is indeed much in
what you say One can look back a thousand years easier than forward fifty A
century is not so very long a retrospect I might have known your
greatgrandparents Possibly I did Did they live in Boston«
»I believe so«
»You are not sure then«
»Yes« she replied »Now I think they did«
»I had a very large circle of acquaintances in the city« I said »It is not
unlikely that I knew or knew of some of them Perhaps I may have known them
well Wouldnt it be interesting if I should chance to be able to tell you all
about your greatgrandfather for instance«
»Very interesting«
»Do you know your genealogy well enough to tell me who your forbears were in
the Boston of my day«
»Oh yes«
»Perhaps then you will some time tell me what some of their names were«
She was engrossed in arranging a troublesome spray of green and did not
reply at once Steps upon the stairway indicated that the other members of the
family were descending
»Perhaps some time« she said
After breakfast Dr Leete suggested taking me to inspect the central
werehouse and observe actually in operation the machinery of distribution which
Edith had described to me As we walked away from the house I said »It is now
several days that I have been living in your household on a most extraordinary
footing or rather on none at all I have not spoken of this aspect of my
position before because there were so many other aspects yet more extraordinary
But now that I am beginning a little to feel my feet under me and to realize
that however I came here I am here and must make the best of it I must speak
to you on this point«
»As for your being a guest in my house« replied Dr Leete »I pray you not
to begin to be uneasy on that point for I mean to keep you a long time yet
With all your modesty you can but realize that such a guest as yourself is an
acquisition not willingly to be parted with«
»Thanks doctor« I said »It would be absurd certainly for me to affect
any oversensitiveness about accepting the temporary hospitality of one to whom I
owe it that I am not still awaiting the end of the world in a living tomb But
if I am to be a permanent citizen of this century I must have some standing in
it Now in my time a person more or less entering the world however he got in
would not be noticed in the unorganized throng of men and might make a place
for himself anywhere he chose if he were strong enough But nowadays everybody
is a part of a system with a distinct place and function I am outside the
system and dont see how I can get in there seems no way to get in except to
be born in or to come in as an emigrant from some other system«
Dr Leete laughed heartily
»I admit« he said »that our system is defective in lacking provision for
cases like yours but you see nobody anticipated additions to the world except
by the usual process You need however have no fear that we shall be unable to
provide both a place and occupation for you in due time You have as yet been
brought in contact only with the members of my family but you must not suppose
that I have kept your secret On the contrary your case even before your
resuscitation and vastly more since has excited the profoundest interest in the
nation In view of your precarious nervous condition it was thought best that I
should take exclusive charge of you at first and that you should through me
and my family receive some general idea of the sort of world you had come back
to before you began to make the acquaintance generally of its inhabitants As to
finding a function for you in society there was no hesitation as to what that
would be Few of us have it in our power to confer so great a service on the
nation as you will be able to when you leave my roof which however you must
not think of doing for a good time yet«
»What can I possibly do« I asked »Perhaps you imagine I have some trade
or art or special skill I assure you I have none whatever I never earned a
dollar in my life or did an hours work I am strong and might be a common
laborer but nothing more«
»If that were the most efficient service you were able to render the nation
you would find that avocation considered quite as respectable as any other«
replied Dr Leete »but you can do something else better You are easily the
master of all our historians on questions relating to the social condition of
the latter part of the nineteenth century to us one of the most absorbingly
interesting periods of history and whenever in due time you have sufficiently
familiarized yourself with our institutions and are willing to teach us
something concerning those of your day you will find an historical lectureship
in one of our colleges awaiting you«
»Very good very good indeed« I said much relieved by so practical a
suggestion on a point which had begun to trouble me »If your people are really
so much interested in the nineteenth century there will indeed be an occupation
readymade for me I dont think there is anything else that I could possibly
earn my salt at but I certainly may claim without conceit to have some special
qualifications for such a post as you describe«
Chapter XVII
I found the processes at the warehouse quite as interesting as Edith had
described them and became even enthusiastic over the truly remarkable
illustration which is seen there of the prodigiously multiplied efficiency which
perfect organization can give to labor It is like a gigantic mill into the
hopper of which goods are being constantly poured by the trainload and
shipload to issue at the other end in packages of pounds and ounces yards and
inches pints and gallons corresponding to the infinitely complex personal
needs of half a million people Dr Leete with the assistance of data furnished
by me as to the way goods were sold in my day figured out some astounding
results in the way of the economies effected by the modern system
As we set out homeward I said »After what I have seen today together
with what you have told me and what I learned under Miss Leetes tutelage at
the sample store I have a tolerably clear idea of your system of distribution
and how it enables you to dispense with a circulating medium But I should like
very much to know something more about your system of production You have told
me in general how your industrial army is levied and organized but who directs
its efforts What supreme authority determines what shall be done in every
department so that enough of everything is produced and yet no labor wasted It
seems to me that this must be a wonderfully complex and difficult function
requiring very unusual endowments«
»Does it indeed seem so to you« responded Dr Leete »I assure you that it
is nothing of the kind but on the other hand so simple and depending on
principles so obvious and easily applied that the functionaries at Washington
to whom it is trusted require to be nothing more than men of fair abilities to
discharge it to the entire satisfaction of the nation The machine which they
direct is indeed a vast one but so logical in its principles and direct and
simple in its workings that it all but runs itself and nobody but a fool could
derange it as I think you will agree after a few words of explanation Since
you already have a pretty good idea of the working of the distributive system
let us begin at that end Even in your day statisticians were able to tell you
the number of yards of cotton velvet woolen the number of barrels of flour
potatoes butter number of pairs of shoes hats and umbrellas annually
consumed by the nation Owing to the fact that production was in private hands
and that there was no way of getting statistics of actual distribution these
figures were not exact but they were nearly so Now that every pin which is
given out from a national warehouse is recorded of course the figures of
consumption for any week month or year in the possession of the department of
distribution at the end of that period are precise On these figures allowing
for tendencies to increase or decrease and for any special causes likely to
affect demand the estimates say for a year ahead are based These estimates
with a proper margin for security having been accepted by the general
administration the responsibility of the distributive department ceases until
the goods are delivered to it I speak of the estimates being furnished for an
entire year ahead but in reality they cover that much time only in case of the
great staples for which the demand can be calculated on as steady In the great
majority of smaller industries for the product of which popular taste
fluctuates and novelty is frequently required production is kept barely ahead
of consumption the distributive department furnishing frequent estimates based
on the weekly state of demand
Now the entire field of productive and constructive industry is divided into
ten great departments each representing a group of allied industries each
particular industry being in turn represented by a subordinate bureau which has
a complete record of the plant and force under its control of the present
product and means of increasing it The estimates of the distributive
department after adoption by the administration are sent as mandates to the
ten great departments which allot them to the subordinate bureaus representing
the particular industries and these set the men at work Each bureau is
responsible for the task given it and this responsibility is enforced by
departmental oversight and that of the administration nor does the distributive
department accept the product without its own inspection while even if in the
hands of the consumer an article turns out unfit the system enables the fault
to be traced back to the original workman The production of the commodities for
actual public consumption does not of course require by any means all the
national force of workers After the necessary contingents have been detailed
for the various industries the amount of labor left for other employment is
expended in creating fixed capital such as buildings machinery engineering
works and so forth«
»One point occurs to me« I said »on which I should think there might be
dissatisfaction Where there is no opportunity for private enterprise how is
there any assurance that the claims of small minorities of the people to have
articles produced for which there is no wide demand will be respected An
official decree at any moment may deprive them of the means of gratifying some
special taste merely because the majority does not share it«
»That would be tyranny indeed« replied Dr Leete »and you may be very sure
that it does not happen with us to whom liberty is as dear as equality or
fraternity As you come to know our system better you will see that our
officials are in fact and not merely in name the agents and servants of the
people The administration has no power to stop the production of any commodity
for which there continues to be a demand Suppose the demand for any article
declines to such a point that its production becomes very costly The price has
to be raised in proportion of course but as long as the consumer cares to pay
it the production goes on Again suppose an article not before produced is
demanded If the administration doubts the reality of the demand a popular
petition guaranteeing a certain basis of consumption compels it to produce the
desired article A government or a majority which should undertake to tell the
people or a minority what they were to eat drink or wear as I believe
governments in America did in your day would be regarded as a curious
anachronism indeed Possibly you had reasons for tolerating these infringements
of personal independence but we should not think them endurable I am glad you
raised this point for it has given me a chance to show you how much more direct
and efficient is the control over production exercised by the individual citizen
now than it was in your day when what you called private initiative prevailed
though it should have been called capitalist initiative for the average private
citizen had little enough share in it«
»You speak of raising the price of costly articles« I said »How can prices
be regulated in a country where there is no competition between buyers or
sellers«
»Just as they were with you« replied Dr Leete »You think that needs
explaining« he added as I looked incredulous »but the explanation need not be
long the cost of the labor which produced it was recognized as the legitimate
basis of the price of an article in your day and so it is in ours In your day
it was the difference in wages that made the difference in the cost of labor
now it is the relative number of hours constituting a days work in different
trades the maintenance of the worker being equal in all cases The cost of a
mans work in a trade so difficult that in order to attract volunteers the hours
have to be fixed at four a day is twice as great as that in a trade where the
men work eight hours The result as to the cost of labor you see is just the
same as if the man working four hours were paid under your system twice the
wages the other gets This calculation applied to the labor employed in the
various processes of a manufactured article gives its price relatively to other
articles Besides the cost of production and transportation the factor of
scarcity affects the prices of some commodities As regards the great staples of
life of which an abundance can always be secured scarcity is eliminated as a
factor There is always a large surplus kept on hand from which any fluctuations
of demand or supply can be corrected even in most cases of bad crops The
prices of the staples grow less year by year but rarely if ever rise There
are however certain classes of articles permanently and others temporarily
unequal to the demand as for example fresh fish or dairy products in the
latter category and the products of high skill and rare materials in the other
All that can be done here is to equalize the inconvenience of the scarcity This
is done by temporarily raising the price if the scarcity be temporary or fixing
it high if it be permanent High prices in your day meant restriction of the
articles affected to the rich but nowadays when the means of all are the same
the effect is only that those to whom the articles seem most desirable are the
ones who purchase them Of course the nation as any other caterer for the
public needs must be is frequently left with small lots of goods on its hands
by changes in taste unseasonable weather and various other causes These it
has to dispose of at a sacrifice just as merchants often did in your day
charging up the loss to the expenses of the business Owing however to the
vast body of consumers to which such lots can be simultaneously offered there
is rarely any difficulty in getting rid of them at trifling loss I have given
you now some general notion of our system of production as well as
distribution Do you find it as complex as you expected«
I admitted that nothing could be much simpler
»I am sure« said Dr Leete »that it is within the truth to say that the
head of one of the myriad private businesses of your day who had to maintain
sleepless vigilance against the fluctuations of the market the machinations of
his rivals and the failure of his debtors had a far more trying task than the
group of men at Washington who nowadays direct the industries of the entire
nation All this merely shows my dear fellow how much easier it is to do
things the right way than the wrong It is easier for a general up in a balloon
with perfect survey of the field to manoeuvre a million men to victory than for
a sergeant to manage a platoon in a thicket«
»The general of this army including the flower of the manhood of the
nation must be the foremost man in the country really greater even than the
President of the United States« I said
»He is the President of the United States« replied Dr Leete »or rather
the most important function of the presidency is the headship of the industrial
army«
»How is he chosen« I asked
»I explained to you before« replied Dr Leete »when I was describing the
force of the motive of emulation among all grades of the industrial army that
the line of promotion for the meritorious lies through three grades to the
officers grade and thence up through the lieutenancies to the captaincy or
foremanship and superintendency or colonels rank Next with an intervening
grade in some of the larger trades come the general of the guild under whose
immediate control all the operations of the trade are conducted This officer is
at the head of the national bureau representing his trade and is responsible
for its work to the administration The general of his guild holds a splendid
position and one which amply satisfies the ambition of most men but above his
rank which may be compared to follow the military analogies familiar to you
to that of a general of division or majorgeneral is that of the chiefs of the
ten great department or groups of allied traces The chiefs of these ten grand
divisions of the industrial army may be compared to your commanders of army
corps or lieutenantgenerals each having from a dozen to a score of generals
of separate guilds reporting to him Above these ten great officers who form
his council is the generalinchief who is the President of the United States
The generalinchief of the industrial army must have passed through all the
grades below him from the common laborers up Let us see how he rises As I
have told you it is simply by the excellence of his record as a worker that one
rises through the grades of the privates and becomes a candidate for a
lieutenancy Through the lieutenancies he rises to the colonelcy or
superintendents position by appointment from above strictly limited to the
candidates of the best records The general of the guild appoints to the ranks
under him but he himself is not appointed but chosen by suffrage«
»By suffrage« I exclaimed »Is not that ruinous to the discipline of the
guild by tempting the candidates to intrigue for the support of the workers
under them«
»So it would be no doubt« replied Dr Leete »if the workers had any
suffrage to exercise or anything to say about the choice But they have
nothing Just here comes in a peculiarity of our system The general of the
guild is chosen from among the superintendents by vote of the honorary members
of the guild that is of those who have served their time in the guild and
received their discharge As you know at the age of fortyfive we are mustered
out of the army of industry and have the residue of life for the pursuit of our
own improvement or recreation Of course however the associations of our
active lifetime retain a powerful hold on us The companionships we formed then
remain our companionships till the end of life We always continue honorary
members of our former guilds and retain the keenest and most jealous interest
in their welfare and repute in the hands of the following generation In the
clubs maintained by the honorary members of the several guilds in which we meet
socially there are no topics of conversation so common as those which relate to
these matters and the young aspirants for guild leadership who can pass the
criticism of us old fellows are likely to be pretty well equipped Recognizing
this fact the nation entrusts to the honorary members of each guild the
election of its general and I venture to claim that no previous form of society
could have developed a body of electors so ideally adapted to their office as
regards absolute impartiality knowledge of the special qualifications and
record of candidates solicitude for the best result and complete absence of
selfinterest
Each of the ten lieutenantgenerals or heads of departments is himself
elected from among the generals of the guilds grouped as a department by vote
of the honorary members of the guilds thus grouped Of course there is a
tendency on the part of each guild to vote for its own general but no guild of
any group has nearly enough votes to elect a man not supported by most of the
others I assure you that these elections are exceedingly lively«
»The President I suppose is selected from among the ten heads of the
great departments« I suggested
»Precisely but the heads of departments are not eligible to the presidency
till they have been a certain number of years out of office It is rarely that a
man passes through all the grades to the headship of a department much before he
is forty and at the end of a five years term he is usually fortyfive If
more he still serves through his term and if less he is nevertheless
discharged from the industrial army at its termination It would not do for him
to return to the ranks The interval before he is a candidate for the presidency
is intended to give time for him to recognize fully that he has returned into
the general mass of the nation and is identified with it rather than with the
industrial army Moreover it is expected that he will employ this period in
studying the general condition of the army instead of that of the special group
of guilds of which he was the head From among the former heads of departments
who may be eligible at the time the President is elected by vote of all the men
of the nation who are not connected with the industrial army«
»The army is not allowed to vote for President«
»Certainly not That would be perilous to its discipline which it is the
business of the President to maintain as the representative of the nation at
large His right hand for this purpose is the inspectorate a highly important
department of our system to the inspectorate come all complaints or information
as to defects in goods insolence or inefficiency of officials or dereliction
of any sort in the public service The inspectorate however does not wait for
complaints Not only is it on the alert to catch and sift every rumor of a fault
in the service but it is its business by systematic and constant oversight and
inspection of every branch of the army to find out what is going wrong before
anybody else does The President is usually not far from fifty when elected and
serves five years forming an honorable exception to the rule of retirement at
fortyfive At the end of his term of office a national Congress is called to
receive his report and approve or condemn it If it is approved Congress
usually elects him to represent the nation for five years more in the
international council Congress I should also say passes on the reports of the
outgoing heads of departments and a disapproval renders any one of them
ineligible for President But it is rare indeed that the nation has occasion
for other sentiments than those of gratitude toward its high officers As to
their ability to have risen from the ranks by tests so various and severe to
their positions is proof in itself of extraordinary qualities while as to
faithfulness our social system leaves them absolutely without any other motive
than that of winning the esteem of their fellow citizens Corruption is
impossible in a society where there is neither poverty to be bribed nor wealth
to bribe while as to demagoguery or intrigue for office the conditions of
promotion render them out of the question«
»One point I do not quite understand« I said »Are the members of the
liberal professions eligible to the presidency and if so how are they ranked
with those who pursue the industries proper«
»They have no ranking with them« replied Dr Leete »The members of the
technical professions such as engineers and architects have a ranking with the
constructive guilds but the members of the liberal professions the doctors and
teachers as well as the artists and men of letters who obtain remissions of
industrial service do not belong to the industrial army On this ground they
vote for the President but are not eligible to his office One of its main
duties being the control and discipline of the industrial army it is essential
that the President should have passed through all its grades to understand his
business«
»That is reasonable« I said »but if the doctors and teachers do not know
enough of industry to be President neither I should think can the President
know enough of medicine and education to control those departments«
»No more does he« was the reply »Except in the general way that he is
responsible for the enforcement of the laws as to all classes the President has
nothing to do with the faculties of medicine and education which are controlled
by boards of regents of their own in which the President is exofficio
chairman and has the casting vote These regents who of course are
responsible to Congress are chosen by the honorary members of the guilds of
education and medicine the retired teachers and doctors of the country«
»Do you know« I said »the method of electing officials by votes of the
retired members of the guilds is nothing more than the application on a national
scale of the plan of government by alumni which we used to a slight extent
occasionally in the management of our higher educational institutions«
»Did you indeed« exclaimed Dr Leete with animation »That is quite new
to me and I fancy will be to most of us and of much interest as well There
has been great discussion as to the germ of the idea and we fancied that there
was for once something new under the sun Well well In your higher educational
institutions that is interesting indeed You must tell me more of that«
»Truly there is very little more to tell than I have told already« I
replied »If we had the germ of your idea it was but as a germ«
Chapter XVIII
That evening I sat up for some time after the ladies had retired talking with
Dr Leete about the effect of the plan of exempting men from further service to
the nation after the age of fortyfive a point brought up by his account of the
part taken by the retired citizens in the government
»At fortyfive« said I »a man still has ten years of good manual labor in
him and twice ten years of good intellectual service To be superannuated at
that age and laid on the shelf must be regarded rather as a hardship than a
favor by men of energetic dispositions«
»My dear Mr West« exclaimed Dr Leete beaming upon me »you cannot have
any idea of the piquancy your nineteenth century ideas have for us of this day
the rare quaintness of their effect Know O child of another race and yet the
same that the labor we have to render as our part in securing for the nation
the means of a comfortable physical existence is by no means regarded as the
most important the most interesting or the most dignified employment of our
powers We look upon it as a necessary duty to be discharged before we can fully
devote ourselves to the higher exercise of our faculties the intellectual and
spiritual enjoyments and pursuits which alone mean life Everything possible is
indeed done by the just distribution of burdens and by all manner of special
attractions and incentives to relieve our labor of irksomeness and except in a
comparative sense it is not usually irksome and is often inspiring But it is
not our labor but the higher and larger activities which the performance of our
task will leave us free to enter upon that are considered the main business of
existence
Of course not all nor the majority have those scientific artistic
literary or scholarly interests which make leisure the one thing valuable to
their possessors Many look upon the last half of life chiefly as a period for
enjoyment of other sorts for travel for social relaxation in the company of
their lifetime friends a time for the cultivation of all manner of personal
idiosyncrasies and special tastes and the pursuit of every imaginable form of
recreation in a word a time for the leisurely and unperturbed appreciation of
the good things of the world which they have helped to create But whatever the
differences between our individual tastes as to the use we shall put our leisure
to we all agree in looking forward to the date of our discharge as the time
when we shall first enter upon the full enjoyment of our birthright the period
when we shall first really attain our majority and become enfranchised from
discipline and control with the fee of our lives vested in ourselves As eager
boys in your day anticipated twentyone so men nowadays look forward to
fortyfive At twentyone we become men but at fortyfive we renew youth
Middle age and what you would have called old age are considered rather than
youth the enviable time of life Thanks to the better conditions of existence
nowadays and above all the freedom of every one from care old age approaches
many years later and has an aspect far more benign than in past times Persons
of average constitution usually live to eightyfive or ninety and at fortyfive
we are physically and mentally younger I fancy than you were at thirtyfive
It is a strange reflection that at fortyfive when we are just entering upon
the most enjoyable period of life you already began to think of growing old and
to look backward With you it was the forenoon with us it is the afternoon
which is the brighter half of life«
After this I remember that our talk branched into the subject of popular
sports and recreations at the present time as compared with those of the
nineteenth century
»In one respect« said Dr Leete »there is a marked difference The
professional sportsmen which were such a curious feature of your day we have
nothing answering to nor are the prizes for which our athletes contend money
prizes as with you Our contests are always for glory only The generous
rivalry existing between the various guilds and the loyalty of each worker to
his own afford a constant stimulation to all sorts of games and matches by sea
and land in which the young men take scarcely more interest than the honorary
guildsmen who have served their time The guild yacht races off Marblehead take
place next week and you will be able to judge for yourself of the popular
enthusiasm which such events nowadays call out as compared with your day The
demand for panem et circenses preferred by the Roman populace is recognized
nowadays as a wholly reasonable one If bread is the first necessity of life
recreation is a close second and the nation caters for both Americans of the
nineteenth century were as unfortunate in lacking an adequate provision for the
one sort of need as for the other Even if the people of that period had enjoyed
larger leisure they would I fancy have often been at a loss how to pass it
agreeably We are never in that predicament«
Chapter XIX
In the course of an early morning constitutional I visited Charlestown Among
the changes too numerous to attempt to indicate which mark the lapse of a
century in that quarter I particularly noted the total disappearance of the old
state prison
»That went before my day but I remember hearing about it« said Dr Leete
when I alluded to the fact at the breakfast table »We have no jails nowadays
All cases of atavism are treated in the hospitals«
»Of atavism« I exclaimed staring
»Why yes« replied Dr Leete »The idea of dealing punitively with those
unfortunates was given up at least fifty years ago and I think more«
»I dont quite understand you« I said »Atavism in my day was a word
applied to the cases of persons in whom some trait of a remote ancestor recurred
in a noticeable manner Am I to understand that crime is nowadays looked upon as
the recurrence of an ancestral trait«
»I beg your pardon« said Dr Leete with a smile half humorous half
deprecating »but since you have so explicitly asked the question I am forced
to say that the fact is precisely that«
After what I had already learned of the moral contrasts between the
nineteenth and the twentieth centuries it was doubtless absurd in me to begin
to develop sensitiveness on the subject and probably if Dr Leete had not
spoken with that apologetic air and Mrs Leete and Edith shown a corresponding
embarrassment I should not have flushed as I was conscious I did
»I was not in much danger of being vain of my generation before« I said
»but really«
»This is your generation Mr West« interposed Edith »It is the one in
which you are living you know and it is only because we are alive now that we
call it ours«
»Thank you I will try to think of it so« I said and as my eyes met hers
their expression quite cured my senseless sensitiveness »After all« I said
with a laugh »I was brought up a Calvinist and ought not to be startled to
hear crime spoken of as an ancestral trait«
»In point of fact« said Dr Leete »our use of the word is no reflection at
all on your generation if begging Ediths pardon we may call it yours so far
as seeming to imply that we think ourselves apart from our circumstances
better than you were In your day fully nineteen twentieths of the crime using
the word broadly to include all sorts of misdemeanors resulted from the
inequality in the possessions of individuals want tempted the poor lust of
greater gains or the desire to preserve former gains tempted the welltodo
Directly or indirectly the desire for money which then meant every good thing
was the motive of all this crime the taproot of a vast poison growth which the
machinery of law courts and police could barely prevent from choking your
civilization outright When we made the nation the sole trustee of the wealth of
the people and guaranteed to all abundant maintenance on the one hand
abolishing want and on the other checking the accumulation of riches we cut
this root and the poison tree that overshadowed your society withered like
Jonahs gourd in a day As for the comparatively small class of violent crimes
against persons unconnected with any idea of gain they were almost wholly
confined even in your day to the ignorant and bestial and in these days when
education and good manners are not the monopoly of a few but universal such
atrocities are scarcely ever heard of You now see why the word atavism is used
for crime It is because nearly all forms of crime known to you are motiveless
now and when they appear can only be explained as the outcropping of ancestral
traits You used to call persons who stole evidently without any rational
motive kleptomaniacs and when the case was clear deemed it absurd to punish
them as thieves Your attitude toward the genuine kleptomaniac is precisely ours
toward the victim of atavism an attitude of compassion and firm but gentle
restraint«
»Your courts must have an easy time of it« I observed »With no private
property to speak of no disputes between citizens over business relations no
real estate to divide or debts to collect there must be absolutely no civil
business at all for them and with no offenses against property and mighty few
of any sort to provide criminal cases I should think you might almost do
without judges and lawyers altogether«
»We do without the lawyers certainly« was Dr Leetes reply »It would not
seem reasonable to us in a case where the only interest of the nation is to
find out the truth that persons should take part in the proceedings who had an
acknowledged motive to color it«
»But who defends the accused«
»If he is a criminal he needs no defense for he pleads guilty in most
instances« replied Dr Leete »The plea of the accused is not a mere formality
with us as with you It is usually the end of the case«
»You dont mean that the man who pleads not guilty is thereupon discharged«
»No I do not mean that He is not accused on light grounds and if he
denies his guilt must still be tried But trials are few for in most cases the
guilty man pleads guilty When he makes a false plea and is clearly proved
guilty his penalty is doubled Falsehood is however so despised among us that
few offenders would lie to save themselves«
»That is the most astounding thing you have yet told me« I exclaimed »If
lying has gone out of fashion this is indeed the new heavens and the new earth
wherein dwelleth righteousness which the prophet foretold«
»Such is in fact the belief of some persons nowadays« was the doctors
answer »They hold that we have entered upon the millennium and the theory from
their point of view does not lack plausibility But as to your astonishment at
finding that the world has outgrown lying there is really no ground for it
Falsehood even in your day was not common between gentlemen and ladies social
equals The lie of fear was the refuge of cowardice and the lie of fraud the
device of the cheat The inequalities of men and the lust of acquisition offered
a constant premium on lying at that time Yet even then the man who neither
feared another nor desired to defraud him scorned falsehood Because we are now
all social equals and no man either has anything to fear from another or can
gain anything by deceiving him the contempt of falsehood is so universal that
it is rarely as I told you that even a criminal in other respects will be
found willing to lie When however a plea of not guilty is returned the judge
appoints two colleagues to state the opposite sides of the case How far these
men are from being like your hired advocates and prosecutors determined to
acquit or convict may appear from the fact that unless both agree that the
verdict found is just the case is tried over while anything like bias in the
tone of either of the judges stating the case would be a shocking scandal«
»Do I understand« I said »that it is a judge who states each side of the
case as well as a judge who hears it«
»Certainly The judges take turns in serving on the bench and at the bar
and are expected to maintain the judicial temper equally whether in stating or
deciding a case The system is indeed in effect that of trial by three judges
occupying different points of view as to the case When they agree upon a
verdict we believe it to be as near to absolute truth as men well can come«
»You have given up the jury system then«
»It was well enough as a corrective in the days of hired advocates and a
bench sometimes venal and often with a tenure that made it dependent but is
needless now No conceivable motive but justice could actuate our judges«
»How are these magistrates selected«
»They are an honorable exception to the rule which discharges all men from
service at the age of fortyfive The President of the nation appoints the
necessary judges year by year from the class reaching that age The number
appointed is of course exceedingly few and the honor so high that it is held
an offset to the additional term of service which follows and though a judges
appointment may be declined it rarely is The term is five years without
eligibility to reappointment The members of the Supreme Court which is the
guardian of the constitution are selected from among the lower judges When a
vacancy in that court occurs those of the lower judges whose terms expire that
year select as their last official act the one of their colleagues left on
the bench whom they deem fittest to fill it«
»There being no legal profession to serve as a school for judges« I said
»they must of course come directly from the law school to the bench«
»We have no such things as law schools« replied the doctor smiling »The
law as a special science is obsolete It was a system of casuistry which the
elaborate artificiality of the old order of society absolutely required to
interpret it but only a few of the plainest and simplest legal maxims have any
application to the existing state of the world Everything touching the
relations of men to one another is now simpler beyond any comparison than in
your day We should have no sort of use for the hairsplitting experts who
presided and argued in your courts Yon must not imagine however that we have
any disrespect for those ancient worthies because we have no use for them On
the contrary we entertain an unfeigned respect amounting almost to awe for
the men who alone understood and were able to expound the interminable
complexity of the rights of property and the relations of commercial and
personal dependence involved in your system What indeed could possibly give a
more powerful impression of the intricacy and artificiality of that system than
the fact that it was necessary to set apart from other pursuits the cream of the
intellect of every generation in order to provide a body of pundits able to
make it even vaguely intelligible to those whose fates it determined The
treatises of your great lawyers the works of Blackstone and Chitty of Story
and Parsons stand in our museums side by side with the tomes of Duns Scotus
and his fellow scholastics as curious monuments of intellectual subtlety
devoted to subjects equally remote from the interests of modern men Our judges
are simply widely informed judicious and discreet men of ripe years
I should not fail to speak of one important function of the minor judges«
added Dr Leete »This is to adjudicate all cases where a private of the
industrial army makes a complaint of unfairness against an officer All such
questions are heard and settled without appeal by a single judge three judges
being required only in graver cases The efficiency of industry requires the
strictest discipline in the army of labor but the claim of the workman to just
and considerate treatment is backed by the whole power of the nation The
officer commands and the private obeys but no officer is so high that he would
dare display an overbearing manner toward a workman of the lowest class As for
churlishness or rudeness by an official of any sort in his relations to the
public not one among minor offenses is more sure of a prompt penalty than this
Not only justice but civility is enforced by our judges in all sorts of
intercourse No value of service is accepted as a setoff to boorish or
offensive manners«
It occurred to me as Dr Leete was speaking that in all his talk I had
heard much of the nation and nothing of the state governments Had the
organization of the nation as an industrial unit done away with the states I
asked
»Necessarily« he replied »The state governments would have interfered with
the control and discipline of the industrial army which of course required to
be central and uniform Even if the state governments had not become
inconvenient for other reasons they were rendered superfluous by the prodigious
simplification in the task of government since your day Almost the sole
function of the administration now is that of directing the industries of the
country Most of the purposes for which governments formerly existed no longer
remain to be subserved We have no army or navy and no military organization
We have no departments of state or treasury no excise or revenue services no
taxes or tax collectors The only function proper of government as known to
you which still remains is the judiciary and police system I have already
explained to you how simple is our judicial system as compared with your huge
and complex machine Of course the same absence of crime and temptation to it
which make the duties of judges so light reduces the number and duties of the
police to a minimum«
»But with no state legislatures and Congress meeting only once in five
years how do you get your legislation done«
»We have no legislation« replied Dr Leete »that is next to none It is
rarely that Congress even when it meets considers any new laws of consequence
and then it only has power to commend them to the following Congress lest
anything be done hastily If you will consider a moment Mr West you will see
that we have nothing to make laws about The fundamental principles on which our
society is founded settle for all time the strifes and misunderstandings which
in your day called for legislation
Fully ninetynine hundredths of the laws of that time concerned the
definition and protection of private property and the relations of buyers and
sellers There is neither private property beyond personal belongings now nor
buying and selling and therefore the occasion of nearly all the legislation
formerly necessary has passed away Formerly society was a pyramid poised on
its apex All the gravitations of human nature were constantly tending to topple
it over and it could be maintained upright or rather upwrong if you will
pardon the feeble witticism by an elaborate system of constantly renewed props
and buttresses and guyropes in the form of laws A central Congress and forty
state legislatures turning out some twenty thousand laws a year could not make
new props fast enough to take the place of those which were constantly breaking
down or becoming ineffectual through some shifting of the strain Now society
rests on its base and is in as little need of artificial supports as the
everlasting hills«
»But you have at least municipal governments besides the one central
authority«
»Certainly and they have important and extensive functions in looking out
for the public comfort and recreation and the improvement and embellishment of
the villages and cities«
»But having no control over the labor of their people or means of hiring
it how can they do anything«
»Every town or city is conceded the right to retain for its own public
works a certain proportion of the quota of labor its citizens contribute to the
nation This proportion being assigned it as so much credit can be applied in
any way desired«
Chapter XX
That afternoon Edith casually inquired if I had yet revisited the underground
chamber in the garden in which I had been found
»Not yet« I replied »To be frank I have shrunk thus for from doing so
lest the visit might revive old associations rather too strongly for my mental
equilibrium«
»Ah yes« she said »I can imagine that you have done well to stay away I
ought to have thought of that«
»No« I said »I am glad you spoke of it The danger if there was any
existed only during the first day or two Thanks to you chiefly and always I
feel my footing now so firm in this new world that if you will go with me to
keep the ghosts off I should really like to visit the place this afternoon«
Edith demurred at first but finding that I was in earnest consented to
accompany me The rampart of earth thrown up from the excavation was visible
among the trees from the house and a few steps brought us to the spot All
remained as it was at the point when work was interrupted by the discovery of
the tenant of the chamber save that the door had been opened and the slab from
the roof replaced Descending the sloping sides of the excavation we went in at
the door and stood within the dimlylighted room
Everything was just as I had beheld it last on that evening one hundred and
thirteen years previous just before closing my eyes for that long sleep I
stood for some time silently looking about me I saw that my companion was
furtively regarding me with an expression of awed and sympathetic curiosity I
put out my hand to her and she placed hers in it the soft fingers responding
with a reassuring pressure to my clasp Finally she whispered »Had we not
better go out now You must not try yourself too far Oh how strange it must be
to you«
»On the contrary« I replied »it does not seem strange that is the
strangest part of it«
»Not strange« she echoed
»Even so« I replied »The emotions with which you evidently credit me and
which I anticipated would attend this visit I simply do not feel I realize all
that these surroundings suggest but without the agitation I expected You cant
be nearly as much surprised at this as I am myself Ever since that terrible
morning when you came to my help I have tried to avoid thinking of my former
life just as I have avoided coming here for fear of the agitating effects I
am for all the world like a man who has permitted an injured limb to lie
motionless under the impression that it is exquisitely sensitive and on trying
to move it finds that it is paralyzed«
»Do you mean your memory is gone«
»Not at all I remember everything connected with my former life but with a
total lack of keen sensation I remember it for clearness as if it had been but
a day since then but my feelings about what I remember are as faint as if to my
consciousness as well as in fact a hundred years had intervened Perhaps it is
possible to explain this too The effect of change in surroundings is like that
of lapse of time in making the past seem remote When I first woke from that
trance my former life appeared as yesterday but now since I have learned to
know my new surroundings and to realize the prodigious changes that have
transformed the world I no longer find it hard but very easy to realize that
I have slept a century Can you conceive of such a thing as living a hundred
years in four days It really seems to me that I have done just that and that
it is this experience which has given so remote and unreal an appearance to my
former life Can you see how such a thing might be«
»I can conceive it« replied Edith meditatively »and I think we ought all
to be thankful that it is so for it will save you much suffering I am sure«
»Imagine« I said in an effort to explain as much to myself as to her the
strangeness of my mental condition »that a man first heard of a bereavement
many many years half a lifetime perhaps after the event occurred I fancy his
feeling would be perhaps something as mine is When I think of my friends in the
world of that former day and the sorrow they must have felt for me it is with
a pensive pity rather than keen anguish as of a sorrow long long ago ended«
»You have told us nothing yet of your friends« said Edith »Had you many to
mourn you«
»Thank God I had very few relatives none nearer than cousins« I replied
»But there was one not a relative but dearer to me than any kin of blood She
had your name She was to have been my wife soon Ah me«
»Ah me« sighed the Edith by my side »Think of the heartache she must have
had«
Something in the deep feeling of this gentle girl touched a chord in my
benumbed heart My eyes before so dry were flooded with the tears that had
till now refused to come When I had regained my composure I saw that she too
had been weeping freely
»God bless your tender heart« I said »Would you like to see her picture«
A small locket with Edith Bartletts picture secured about my neck with a
gold chain had lain upon my breast all through that long sleep and removing
this I opened and gave it to my companion She took it with eagerness and after
poring long over the sweet face touched the picture with her lips
»I know that she was good and lovely enough to well deserve your tears« she
said »but remember her heartache was over long ago and she has been in heaven
for nearly a century«
It was indeed so Whatever her sorrow had once been for nearly a century
she had ceased to weep and my sudden passion spent my own tears dried away I
had loved her very dearly in my other life but it was a hundred years ago I do
not know but some may find in this confession evidence of lack of feeling but I
think perhaps that none can have had an experience sufficiently like mine to
enable them to judge me As we were about to leave the chamber my eye rested
upon the great iron safe which stood in one corner Calling my companions
attention to it I said
»This was my strong room as well as my sleeping room In the safe yonder are
several thousand dollars in gold and any amount of securities If I had known
when I went to sleep that night just how long my nap would be I should still
have thought that the gold was a safe provision for my needs in any country or
any century however distant That a time would ever come when it would lose its
purchasing power I should have considered the wildest of fancies Nevertheless
here I wake up to find myself among a people of whom a cartload of gold will
not procure a loaf of bread«
As might be expected I did not succeed in impressing Edith that there was
anything remarkable in this fact »Why in the world should it« she merely
asked
Chapter XXI
It had been suggested by Dr Leete that we should devote the next morning to an
inspection of the schools and colleges of the city with some attempt on his own
part at an explanation of the educational system of the twentieth century
»You will see« said he as we set out after breakfast »many very important
differences between our methods of education and yours but the main difference
is that nowadays all persons equally have those opportunities of higher
education which in your day only an infinitesimal portion of the population
enjoyed We should think we had gained nothing worth speaking of in equalizing
the physical comfort of men without this educational equality«
»The cost must be very great« I said
»If it took half the revenue of the nation nobody would grudge it« replied
Dr Leete »nor even if it took it all save a bare pittance But in truth the
expense of educating ten thousand youth is not ten nor five times that of
educating one thousand The principle which makes all operations on a large
scale proportionally cheaper than on a small scale holds as to education also«
»College education was terribly expensive in my day« said I
»If I have not been misinformed by our historians« Dr Leete answered »it
was not college education but college dissipation and extravagance which cost so
highly The actual expense of your colleges appears to have been very low and
would have been far lower if their patronage had been greater The higher
education nowadays is as cheap as the lower as all grades of teachers like all
other workers receive the same support We have simply added to the common
school system of compulsory education in vogue in Massachusetts a hundred years
ago a half dozen higher grades carrying the youth to the age of twentyone and
giving him what you used to call the education of a gentleman instead of
turning him loose at fourteen or fifteen with no mental equipment beyond
reading writing and the multiplication table«
»Setting aside the actual cost of these additional years of education« I
replied »we should not have thought we could afford the loss of time from
industrial pursuits Boys of the poorer classes usually went to work at sixteen
or younger and knew their trade at twenty«
»We should not concede you any gain even in material product by that plan«
Dr Leete replied »The greater efficiency which education gives to all sorts of
labor except the rudest makes up in a short period for the time lost in
acquiring it«
»We should also have been afraid« said I »that a high education while it
adapted men to the professions would set them against manual labor of all
sorts«
»That was the effect of high education in your day I have read« replied
the doctor »and it was no wonder for manual labor meant association with a
rude coarse and ignorant class of people There is no such class now It was
inevitable that such a feeling should exist then for the further reason that
all men receiving a high education were understood to be destined for the
professions or for wealthy leisure and such an education in one neither rich
nor professional was a proof of disappointed aspirations an evidence of
failure a badge of inferiority rather than superiority Nowadays of course
when the highest education is deemed necessary to fit a man merely to live
without any reference to the sort of work he may do its possession conveys no
such implication«
»After all« I remarked »no amount of education can cure natural dulness or
make up for original mental deficiencies Unless the average natural mental
capacity of men is much above its level in my day a high education must be
pretty nearly thrown away on a large element of the population We used to hold
that a certain amount of susceptibility to educational influences is required to
make a mind worth cultivating just as a certain natural fertility in soil is
required if it is to repay tilling«
»Ah« said Dr Leete »I am glad you used that illustration for it is just
the one I would have chosen to set forth the modern view of education You say
that land so poor that the product will not repay the labor of tilling is not
cultivated Nevertheless much land that does not begin to repay tilling by its
product was cultivated in your day and is in ours I refer to gardens parks
lawns and in general to pieces of land so situated that were they left to
grow up to weeds and briers they would be eyesores and inconveniencies to all
about They are therefore tilled and though their product is little there is
yet no land that in a wider sense better repays cultivation So it is with the
men and women with whom we mingle in the relations of society whose voices are
always in our ears whose behavior in innumerable ways affects our enjoyment
who are in fact as much conditions of our lives as the air we breathe or any
of the physical elements on which we depend If indeed we could not afford to
educate everybody we should choose the coarsest and dullest by nature rather
than the brightest to receive what education we could give The naturally
refined and intellectual can better dispense with aids to culture than those
less fortunate in natural endowments
To borrow a phrase which was often used in your day we should not consider
life worth living if we had to be surrounded by a population of ignorant
boorish coarse wholly uncultivated men and women as was the plight of the few
educated in your day Is a man satisfied merely because he is perfumed himself
to mingle with a malodorous crowd Could he take more than a very limited
satisfaction even in a palatial apartment if the windows on all four sides
opened into stable yards And yet just that was the situation of those
considered most fortunate as to culture and refinement in your day I know that
the poor rind ignorant envied the rich and cultured then but to us the latter
living as they did surrounded by squalor and brutishness seem little better
off than the former The cultured man in your age was like one up to the neck in
a nauseous bog solacing himself with a smelling bottle You see perhaps now
how we look at this question of universal high education No single thing is so
important to every man as to have for neighbors intelligent companionable
persons There is nothing therefore which the nation can do for him that will
enhance so much his own happiness as to educate his neighbors When it fails to
do so the value of his own education to him is reduced by half and many of the
tastes he has cultivated are made positive sources of pain
To educate some to the highest degree and leave the mass wholly
uncultivated as you did made the gap between them almost like that between
different natural species which have no means of communication What could be
more inhuman than this consequence of a partial enjoyment of education Its
universal and equal enjoyment leaves indeed the differences between men as to
natural endowments as marked as in a state of nature but the level of the
lowest is vastly raised Brutishness is eliminated All have some inkling of the
humanities some appreciation of the things of the mind and an admiration for
the still higher culture they have fallen short of They have become capable of
receiving and imparting in various degrees but all in some measure the
pleasures and inspirations of a refined social life The cultured society of the
nineteenth century what did it consist of but here and there a few
microscopic oases in a vast unbroken wilderness The proportion of individuals
capable of intellectual sympathies or refined intercourse to the mass of their
contemporaries used to be so infinitesimal as to be in any broad view of
humanity scarcely worth mentioning One generation of the world today
represents a greater volume of intellectual life than any five centuries ever
did before
There is still another point I should mention in stating the grounds on
which nothing less than the universality of the best education could now be
tolerated« continued Dr Leete »and that is the interest of the coming
generation in having educated parents To put the matter in a nutshell there
are three main grounds on which our educational system rests first the right
of every man to the completest education the nation can give him on his own
account as necessary to his enjoyment of himself second the right of his
fellowcitizens to have him educated as necessary to their enjoyment of his
society third the right of the unborn to be guaranteed an intelligent and
refined parentage«
I shall not describe in detail what I saw in the schools that day Having
taken but slight interest in educational matters in my former life I could
offer few comparisons of interest Next to the fact of the universality of the
higher as well as the lower education I was most struck with the prominence
given to physical culture and the fact that proficiency in athletic feats and
games as well as in scholarship had a place in the rating of the youth
»The faculty of education« Dr Leete explained »is held to the same
responsibility for the bodies as for the minds of its charges The highest
possible physical as well as mental development of every one is the double
object of a curriculum which lasts from the age of six to that of twentyone«
The magnificent health of the young people in the schools impressed me
strongly My previous observations not only of the notable personal endowments
of the family of my host but of the people I had seen in my walks abroad had
already suggested the idea that there must have been something like a general
improvement in the physical standard of the race since my day and now as I
compared these stalwart young men and fresh vigorous maidens with the young
people I had seen in the schools of the nineteenth century I was moved to
impart my thought to Dr Leete He listened with great interest to what I said
»Your testimony on this point« he declared »is invaluable We believe that
there has been such an improvement as you speak of but of course it could only
be a matter of theory with us It is an incident of your unique position that
you alone in the world of today can speak with authority on this point Your
opinion when you state it publicly will I assure you make a profound
sensation For the rest it would be strange certainly if the race did not show
an improvement In your day riches debauched one class with idleness of mind
and body while poverty sapped the vitality of the masses by overwork bad food
and pestilent homes The labor required of children and the burdens laid on
women enfeebled the very springs of life Instead of these maleficent
circumstances all now enjoy the most favorable conditions of physical life the
young are carefully nurtured and studiously cared for the labor which is
required of all is limited to the period of greatest bodily vigor and is never
excessive care for ones self and ones family anxiety as to livelihood the
strain of a ceaseless battle for life all these influences which once did so
much to wreck the minds and bodies of men and women are known no more
Certainly an improvement of the species ought to follow such a change In
certain specific respects we know indeed that the improvement has taken place
Insanity for instance which in the nineteenth century was so terribly common a
product of your insane mode of life has almost disappeared with its
alternative suicide«
Chapter XXII
We had made an appointment to meet the ladies at the dininghall for dinner
after which having some engagement they left us sitting at table there
discussing our wine and cigars with a multitude of other matters
»Doctor« said I in the course of our talk »morally speaking your social
system is one which I should be insensate not to admire in comparison with any
previously in vogue in the world and especially with that of my own most
unhappy century If I were to fall into a mesmeric sleep tonight as lasting as
that other and meanwhile the course of time were to take a turn backward
instead of forward and I were to wake up again in the nineteenth century when
I had told my friends what I had seen they would every one admit that your
world was a paradise of order equity and felicity But they were a very
practical people my contemporaries and after expressing their admiration for
the moral beauty and material splendor of the system they would presently begin
to cipher and ask how you got the money to make everybody so happy for
certainly to support the whole nation at a rate of comfort and even luxury
such as I see around me must involve vastly greater wealth than the nation
produced in my day Now while I could explain to them pretty nearly everything
else of the main features of your system I should quite fail to answer this
question and failing there they would tell me for they were very close
cipherers that I had been dreaming nor would they ever believe anything else
In my day I know that the total annual product of the nation although it might
have been divided with absolute equality would not have come to more than three
or four hundred dollars per head not very much more than enough to supply the
necessities of life with few or any of its comforts How is it that you have so
much more«
»That is a very pertinent question Mr West« replied Dr Leete »and I
should not blame your friends in the case you supposed if they declared your
story all moonshine failing a satisfactory reply to it It is a question which
I cannot answer exhaustively at any one sitting and as for the exact statistics
to bear out my general statements I shall have to refer you for them to books
in my library but it would certainly be a pity to leave you to be put to
confusion by your old acquaintances in case of the contingency you speak of
for lack of a few suggestions
Let us begin with a number of small items wherein we economize wealth as
compared with you We have no national state county or municipal debts or
payments on their account We have no sort of military or naval expenditures for
men or materials no army navy or militia We have no revenue service no
swarm of tax assessors and collectors As regards our judiciary police
sheriffs and jailers the force which Massachusetts alone kept on foot in your
day far more than suffices for the nation now We have no criminal class preying
upon the wealth of society as you had The number of persons more or less
absolutely lost to the working force through physical disability of the lame
sick and debilitated which constituted such a burden on the ablebodied in
your day now that all live under conditions of health and comfort has shrunk
to scarcely perceptible proportions and with every generation is becoming more
completely eliminated
Another item wherein we save is the disuse of money and the thousand
occupations connected with financial operations of all sorts whereby an army of
men was formerly taken away from useful employments Also consider that the
waste of the very rich in your day on inordinate personal luxury has ceased
though indeed this item might easily be overestimated Again consider that
there are no idlers now rich or poor no drones
A very important cause of former poverty was the vast waste of labor and
materials which resulted from domestic washing and cooking and the performing
separately of innumerable other tasks to which we apply the coöperative plan
A larger economy than any of these yes of all together is effected by
the organization of our distributing system by which the work done once by the
merchants traders storekeepers with their various grades of jobbers
wholesalers retailers agents commercial travelers and middlemen of all
sorts with an excessive waste of energy in needless transportation and
interminable handlings is performed by onetenth the number of hands and an
unnecessary turn of not one wheel Something of what our distributing system is
like you know Our statisticians calculate that one eightieth part of our
workers suffices for all the processes of distribution which in your day
required one eighth of the population so much being withdrawn from the force
engaged in productive labour«
»I begin to see« I said »where you get your greater wealth«
»I beg your pardon« replied Dr Leete »but you scarcely do as yet The
economies I have mentioned thus far in the aggregate considering the labor
they would save directly and indirectly through saving of material might
possibly be equivalent to the addition to your annual production of wealth of
onehalf its former total These items arc however scarcely worth mentioning
in comparison with other prodigious wastes now saved which resulted inevitably
from leaving the industries of the nation to private enterprise However great
the economies your contemporaries might have devised in the consumption of
products and however marvelous the progress of mechanical invention they could
never have raised themselves out of the slough of poverty so long as they held
to that system
No mode more wasteful for utilizing human energy could be devised and for
the credit of the human intellect it should be remembered that the system never
was devised but was merely a survival from the rude ages when the lack of
social organization made any sort of coöperation impossible«
»I will readily admit« I said »that our industrial system was ethically
very bad but as a mere wealthmaking machine apart from moral aspects it
seemed to us admirable«
»As I said« responded the doctor »the subject is too large to discuss at
length now but if you are really interested to know the main criticisms which
we moderns make on your industrial system as compared with our own I can touch
briefly on some of them
The wastes which resulted from leaving the conduct of industry to
irresponsible individuals wholly without mutual understanding or concert were
mainly four first the waste by mistaken undertakings second the waste from
the competition and mutual hostility of those engaged in industry third the
waste by periodical gluts and crises with the consequent interuptions of
industry fourth the waste from idle capital and labor at all limes Any one of
these four great leaks were all the others stopped would suffice to make the
difference between wealth and poverty on the part of a nation
Take the waste by mistaken undertakings to begin with In your day the
production and distribution of commodities being without concert or
organization there was no means of knowing just what demand there was for any
class of products or what was the rate of supply Therefore any enterprise by
a private capitalist was always a doubtful experiment The projector having no
general view of the field of industry and consumption such as our government
has could never be sure either what the people wanted or what arrangements
other capitalists were making to supply them In view of this we are not
surprised to learn that the chances were considered several to one in favor of
the failure of any given business enterprise and that it was common for persons
who at last succeeded in making a hit to have failed repeatedly If a shoemaker
for every pair of shoes he succeeded in completing spoiled the leather of four
or five pair besides losing the time spent on them he would stand about the
same chance of getting rich as your contemporaries did with their system of
private enterprise and its average of four or five failures to one success
The next of the great wastes was that from competition The field of
industry was a battlefield as wide as the world in which the workers wasted in
assailing one another energies which if expended in concerted effort as
today would have enriched all As for mercy or quarter in this warfare there
was absolutely no suggestion of it To deliberately enter a field of business
and destroy the enterprises of those who had occupied it previously in order to
plant ones own enterprise on their ruins was an achievement which never failed
to command popular admiration Nor is there any stretch of fancy in comparing
this sort of struggle with actual warfare so far as concerns the mental agony
and physical suffering which attended the struggle and the misery which
overwhelmed the defeated and those dependent on them Now nothing about your age
is at first sight more astounding to a man of modern times than the fact that
men engaged in the same industry instead of fraternizing as comrades and
colaborers to a common end should have regarded each other as rivals and
enemies to be throttled and overthrown This certainly seems like sheer madness
a scene from bedlam But more closely regarded it is seen to be no such thing
Your contemporaries with their mutual throatcutting knew very well what they
were at The producers of the nineteenth century were not like ours working
together for the maintenance of the community but each solely for his own
maintenance at the expense of the community If in working to this end he at
the same time increased the aggregate wealth that was merely incidental It was
just as feasible and as common to increase ones private hoard by practices
injurious to the general welfare Ones worst enemies were necessarily those of
his own trade for under your plan of making private profit the motive of
production a scarcity of the article he produced was what each particular
producer desired It was for his interest that no more of it should be produced
than he himself could produce To secure this consummation as far as
circumstances permitted by killing off and discouraging those engaged in his
line of industry was his constant effort When he had killed off all he could
his policy was to combine with those he could not kill and convert their mutual
warfare into a warfare upon the public at large by cornering the market as I
believe you used to call it and putting up prices to the highest point people
would stand before going without the goods The day dream of the nineteenth
century producer was to gain absolute control of the supply of some necessity of
life so that he might keep the public at the verge of starvation and always
command famine prices for what he supplied This Mr West is what was called
in the nineteenth century a system of production I will leave it to you if it
does not seem in some of its aspects a great deal more like a system for
preventing production Some time when we have plenty of leisure I am going to
ask you to sit down with me and try to make me comprehend as I never yet could
though I have studied the matter a great deal how such shrewd fellows as your
contemporaries appear to have been in many respects ever came to entrust the
business of providing for the community to a class whose interest it was to
starve it I assure you that the wonder with us is not that the world did not
get rich under such a system but that it did not perish outright from want
This wonder increases as we go on to consider some of the other prodigious
wastes that characterized it
Apart from the waste of labor and capital by misdirected industry and that
from the constant bloodletting of your industrial warfare your system was
liable to periodical convulsions overwhelming alike the wise and unwise the
successful cutthroat as well as his victim I refer to the business crises at
intervals of five to ten years which wrecked the industries of the nation
prostrating all weak enterprises and crippling the strongest and were followed
by long periods often of many years of socalled dull times during which the
capitalists slowly regathered their dissipated strength while the laboring
classes starved and rioted Then would ensue another brief season of prosperity
followed in turn by another crisis and the ensuing years of exhaustion As
commerce developed making the nations mutually dependent these crises became
worldwide while the obstinacy of the ensuing state of collapse increased with
the area affected by the convulsions and the consequent lack of rallying
centres In proportion as the industries of the world multiplied and became
complex and the volume of capital involved was increased these business
cataclysms became more frequent till in the latter part of the nineteenth
century there were two years of bad times to one of good and the system of
industry never before so extended or so imposing seemed in danger of
collapsing by its own weight After endless discussions your economists appear
by that time to have settled down to the despairing conclusion that there was no
more possibility of preventing or controlling these crises than if they had been
drouths or hurricanes It only remained to endure them as necessary evils and
when they had passed over to build up again the shattered structure of industry
as dwellers in an earthquake country keep on rebuilding their cities on the same
site
So far as considering the causes of the trouble inherent in their industrial
system your contemporaries were certainly correct They were in its very basis
and must needs become more and more maleficent as the business fabric grew in
size and complexity One of these causes was the lack of any common control of
the different industries and the consequent impossibility of their orderly and
coördinate development It inevitably resulted from this lack that they were
continually getting out of step with one another and out of relation with the
demand
Of the latter there was no criterion such as organized distribution gives
us and the first notice that it had been exceeded in any group of industries
was a crash of prices bankruptcy of producers stoppage of production
reduction of wages or discharge of workmen This process was constantly going
on in many industries even in what were called good times but a crisis took
place only when the industries affected were extensive The markets then were
glutted with goods of which nobody wanted beyond a sufficiency at any price
The wages and profits of those making the glutted classes of goods being reduced
or wholly stopped their purchasing power as consumers of other classes of
goods of which there was no natural glut was taken away and as a
consequence goods of which there was no natural glut became artificially
glutted till their prices also were broken down and their makers thrown out of
work and deprived of income The crisis was by this time fairly under way and
nothing could check it till a nations ransom had been wasted
A cause also inherent in your system which often produced and always
terribly aggravated crises was the machinery of money and credit Money was
essential when production was in many private hands and buying and selling was
necessary to secure what one wanted It was however open to the obvious
objection of substituting for food clothing and other things a merely
conventional representative of them The confusion of mind which this favored
between goods and their representative led the way to the credit system and its
prodigious illusions Already accustomed to accept money for commodities the
people next accepted promises for money and ceased to look at all behind the
representative for the thing represented Money was a sign of real commodities
but credit was but the sign of a sign There was a natural limit to gold and
silver that is money proper but none to credit and the result was that the
volume of credit that is the promises of money ceased to bear any
ascertainable proportion to the money still less to the commodities actually
in existence Under such a system frequent and periodical crises were
necessitated by a law as absolute as that which brings to the ground a structure
overhanging its centre of gravity It was one of your fictions that the
government and the banks authorized by it alone issued money but everybody who
gave a dollars credit issued money to that extent which was as good as any to
swell the circulation till the next crises The great extension of the credit
system was a characteristic of the latter part of the nineteenth century and
accounts largely for the almost incessant business crises which marked that
period Perilous as credit was you could not dispense with its use for
lacking any national or other public organization of the capital of the country
it was the only means you had for concentrating and directing it upon industrial
enterprises It was in this way a most potent means for exaggerating the chief
peril of the private enterprise system of industry by enabling particular
industries to absorb disproportionate amounts of the disposable capital of the
country and thus prepare disaster Business enterprises were always vastly in
debt for advances of credit both to one another and to the banks and
capitalists and the prompt withdrawal of this credit at the first sign of a
crisis was generally the precipitating cause of it
It was the misfortune of your contemporaries that they had to cement their
business fabric with a material which an accident might at any moment turn into
an explosive They were in the plight of a man building a house with dynamite
for mortar for credit can be compared with nothing else
If you would see how needless were these convulsions of business which I
have been speaking of and how entirely they resulted from leaving industry to
private and unorganized management just consider the working of our system
Overproduction in special lines which was the great hobgoblin of your day is
impossible now for by the connection between distribution and production supply
is geared to demand like an engine to the governor which regulates its speed
Even suppose by an error of judgment an excessive production of some commodity
The consequent slackening or cessation of production in that line throws nobody
out of employment The suspended workers are at once found occupation in some
other department of the vast workshop and lose only the time spent in changing
while as for the glut the business of the nation is large enough to carry any
amount of product manufactured in excess of demand till the latter overtakes it
In such a case of overproduction as I have supposed there is not with us as
with you any complex machinery to get out of order and magnify a thousand times
the original mistake Of course having not even money we still less have
credit All estimates deal directly with the real things the flour iron wood
wool and labor of which money and credit were for you the very misleading
representatives In our calculations of cost there can be no mistakes Out of
the annual product the amount necessary for the support of the people is taken
and the requisite labor to produce the next years consumption provided for The
residue of the material and labor represents what can be safely expended in
improvements If the crops are bad the surplus for that year is less than
usual that is all Except for slight occasional effects of such natural causes
there are no fluctuations of business the material prosperity of the nation
flows on uninterruptedly from generation to generation like an ever broadening
and deepening river
Your business crises Mr West« continued the doctor »like either of the
great wastes I mentioned before were enough alone to have kept your noses to
the grindstone forever but I have still to speak of one other great cause of
your poverty and that was the idleness of a great part of your capital and
labor With us it is the business of the administration to keep in constant
employment every ounce of available capital and labor in the country In your
day there was no general control of either capital or labor and a large part of
both failed to find employment Capital you used to say is naturally timid
and it would certainly have been reckless if it had not been timid in an epoch
when there was a large preponderance of probability that any particular business
venture would end in failure There was no time when if security could have
been guaranteed it the amount of capital devoted to productive industry could
not have been greatly increased The proportion of it so employed underwent
constant extraordinary fluctuations according to the greater or less feeling of
uncertainty as to the stability of the industrial situation so that the output
of the national industries greatly varied in different years But for the same
reason that the amount of capital employed at times of special insecurity was
far less than at times of somewhat greater security a very large proportion was
never employed at all because the hazard of business was always very great in
the best of times
It should be also noted that the great amount of capital always seeking
employment where tolerable safety could be insured terribly embittered the
competition between capitalists when a promising opening presented itself The
idleness of capital the result of its timidity of course meant the idleness of
labor in corresponding degree Moreover every change in the adjustments of
business every slightest alteration in the condition of commerce or
manufactures not to speak of the innumerable business failures that took place
yearly even in the best of times were constantly throwing a multitude of men
out of employment for periods of weeks or months or even years A great number
of these seekers after employment were constantly traversing the country
becoming in time professional vagabonds then criminals Give us work was the
cry of an army of the unemployed at nearly all seasons and in seasons of
dullness in business this army swelled to a host so vast and desperate as to
threaten the stability of the government Could there conceivably be a more
conclusive demonstration of the imbecility of the system of private enterprise
as a method for enriching a nation than the fact that in an age of such general
poverty and want of everything capitalists had to throttle one another to find
a safe chance to invest their capital and workmen rioted and burned because they
could find no work to do
Now Mr West« continued Dr Leete »I want you to bear in mind that these
points of which I have been speaking indicate only negatively the advantages of
the national organization of industry by showing certain fatal defects and
prodigious imbecilities of the systems of private enterprise which are not found
in it These alone you must admit would pretty well explain why the nation is
so much richer than in your day But the larger half of our advantage over you
the positive side of it I have yet barely spoken of Supposing the system of
private enterprise in industry were without any of the great leaks I have
mentioned that there were no waste on account of misdirected effort growing out
of mistakes as to the demand and inability to command a general view of the
industrial field Suppose also there were no neutralizing and duplicating of
effort from competition Suppose also there were no waste from business panics
and crisis through bankruptcy and long interruptions of industry and also none
from the idleness of capital and labor Supposing these evils which are
essential to the conduct of industry by capital in private hands could all be
miraculously prevented and the system yet retained even then the superiority
of the results attained by the modern industrial system of national control
would remain overwhelming
You used to have some pretty large textile manufacturing establishments
even in your day although not comparable with ours No doubt you have visited
these great mills in your time covering acres of ground employing thousands of
hands and combining under one roof under one control the hundred distinct
processes between say the cotton bale and the bale of glossy calicoes You
have admired the vast economy of labor as of mechanical force resulting from the
perfect interworking with the rest of every wheel and every hand No doubt you
have reflected how much less the same force of workers employed in that factory
would accomplish if they were scattered each man working independently Would
you think it an exaggeration to say that the utmost product of those workers
working thus apart however amicable their relations might be was increased not
merely by a percentage but many fold when their efforts were organized under
one control Well now Mr West the organization of the industry of the nation
under a single control so that all its processes interlock has multiplied the
total product over the utmost that could be done under the former system even
leaving out of account the four great wastes mentioned in the same proportion
that the product of those millworkers was increased by coöperation The
effectiveness of the working force of a nation under the myriadheaded
leadership of private capital even if the leaders were not mutual enemies as
compared with that which it attains under a single head may be likened to the
military efficiency of a mob or a horde of barbarians with a thousand petty
chiefs as compared with that of a disciplined army under one general such a
fighting machine for example as the German army in the time of von Moltke«
»After what you have told me« I said »I do not so much wonder that the
nation is richer now than then but that you are not all Croesuses«
»Well« replied Dr Leete »we are pretty well off The rate at which we
live is as luxurious as we could wish The rivalry of ostentation which in your
day led to extravagance in no way conducive to comfort finds no place of
course in a society of people absolutely equal in resources and our ambition
stops at the surroundings which minister to the enjoyment of life We might
indeed have much larger incomes individually if we chose so to use the
surplus of our product but we prefer to expend it upon public works and
pleasures in which all share upon public halls and buildings art galleries
bridges statuary means of transit and the conveniences of our cities great
musical and theatrical exhibitions and in providing on a vast scale for the
recreations of the people You have not begun to see how we live yet Mr West
At home we have comfort but the splendor of our life is on its social side
that which we share with our fellows When you know more of it you will see
where the money goes as you used to say and I think you will agree that we do
well so to expend it«
»I suppose« observed Dr Leete as we strolled homeward from the dining
hall »that no reflection would have cut the men of your wealthworshiping
century more keenly than the suggestion that they did not know how to make
money Nevertheless that is just the verdict history has passed on them Their
system of unorganized and antagonistic industries was as absurd economically as
it was morally abominable Selfishness was their only science and in industrial
production selfishness is suicide Competition which is the instinct of
selfishness is another word for dissipation of energy while combination is the
secret of efficient production and not till the idea of increasing the
individual hoard gives place to the idea of increasing the common stock can
industrial combination be realized and the acquisition of wealth really begin
Even if the principle of share and share alike for all men were not the only
humane and rational basis for a society we should still enforce it as
economically expedient seeing that until the disintegrating influence of
selfseeking is suppressed no true concert of industry is possible«
Chapter XXIII
That evening as I sat with Edith in the music room listening to some pieces in
the programme of that day which had attracted my notice I took advantage of an
interval in the music to say »I have a question to ask you which I fear is
rather indiscreet«
»I am quite sure it is not that« she replied encouragingly
»I am in the position of an eavesdropper« I continued »who having
overheard a little of a matter not intended for him though seeming to concern
him has the impudence to come to the speaker for the rest«
»An eavesdropper« she repeated looking puzzled
»Yes« I said »but an excusable one as I think you will admit«
»This is very mysterious« she replied
»Yes« said I »so mysterious that often I have doubted whether I really
overheard at all what I am going to ask you about or only dreamed it I want
you to tell me The matter is this When I was coming out of that sleep of a
century the first impression of which I was conscious was of voices talking
around me voices that afterwards I recognized as your fathers your mothers
and your own First I remember your fathers voice saying He is going to open
his eyes He had better see but one person at first Then you said if I did not
dream it all Promise me then that you will not tell him Your father seemed
to hesitate about promising but you insisted and your mother interposing he
finally promised and when I opened my eyes I saw only him«
I had been quite serious when I said that I was not sure that I had not
dreamed the conversation I fancied I had overheard so incomprehensible was it
that these people should know anything of me a contemporary of their
greatgrandparents which I did not know myself But when I saw the effect of my
words upon Edith I knew that it was no dream but another mystery and a more
puzzling one than any I had before encountered For from the moment that the
drift of my question became apparent she showed indications of the most acute
embarrassment Her eyes always so frank and direct in expression had dropped
in a panic before mine while her face crimsoned from neck to forehead
»Pardon me« I said as soon as I had recovered from bewilderment at the
extraordinary effect of my words »It seems then that I was not dreaming
There is some secret something about me which you are withholding from me
Really does not it seem a little hard that a person in my position should not
be given all the information possible concerning himself«
»It does not concern you that is not directly It is not about you
exactly« she replied scarcely audibly
»But it concerns me in some way« I persisted »It must be something that
would interest me«
»I dont know even that« she replied venturing a momentary glance at my
face furiously blushing and yet with a quaint smile flickering about her lips
which betrayed a certain perception of humor in the situation despite its
embarrassment »I am not sure that it would even interest you«
»Your father would have told me« I insisted with an accent of reproach
»It was you who forbade him He thought I ought to know«
She did not reply She was so entirely charming in her confusion that I was
now prompted as much by the desire to prolong the situation as by my original
curiosity to importune her further
»Am I never to know Will you never tell me« I said
»It depends« she answered after a long pause
»On what« I persisted
»Ah you ask too much« she replied Then raising to mine a face which
inscrutable eyes flushed cheeks and smiling lips combined to render perfectly
bewitching she added »What should you think if I said that it depended on
yourself«
»On myself« I echoed »How can that possibly be«
»Mr West we are losing some charming music« was her only reply to this
and turning to the telephone at a touch of her finger she set the air to
swaying to the rhythm of an adagio After that she took good care that the music
should leave no opportunity for conversation She kept her face averted from me
and pretended to be absorbed in the airs but that it was a mere pretense the
crimson tide standing at flood in her checks sufficiently betrayed
When at length she suggested that I might have heard all I cared to for
that time and we rose to leave the room she came straight up to me and said
without raising her eyes »Mr West you say I have been good to you I have not
been particularly so but if you think I have I want you to promise me that you
will not try again to make me tell you this thing you have asked tonight and
that you will not try to find it out from any one else my father or mother
for instance«
To such an appeal there was but one reply possible »Forgive me for
distressing you Of course I will promise« I said »I would never have asked
you if I had fancied it could distress you But do you blame me for being
curious«
»I do not blame you at all«
»And some time« I added »if I do not tease you you may tell me of your
own accord May I not hope so«
»Perhaps« she murmured
»Only perhaps«
Looking up she read my face with a quick deep glance »Yes« she said »I
think I may tell you some time« and so our conversation ended for she gave
me no chance to say anything more
That night I dont think even Dr Pillsbury could have put me to sleep till
toward morning at least Mysteries had been my accustomed food for days now but
none had before confronted me at once so mysterious and so fascinating as this
the solution of which Edith Leete had forbidden me even to seek It was a double
mystery How in the first place was it conceivable that she should know any
secret about me a stranger from a strange age In the second place even if she
should know such a secret how account for the agitating effect which the
knowledge of it seemed to have upon her There are puzzles so difficult that one
cannot even get so far as a conjecture as to the solution and this seemed one
of them I am usually of too practical a turn to waste time on such conundrums
but the difficulty of a riddle embodied in a beautiful young girl does not
detract from its fascination In general no doubt maidens blushes may be
safely assumed to tell the same tale to young men in all ages and races but to
give that interpretation to Ediths crimson checks would considering my
position and the length of time I had known her and still more the fact that
this mystery dated from before I had known her at all be a piece of utter
fatuity And yet she was an angel and I should not have been a young man if
reason and common sense had been able quite to banish a roseate tinge from my
dreams that night
Chapter XXIV
In the morning I went down stairs early in the hope of seeing Edith alone In
this however I was disappointed Not finding her in the house I sought her in
the garden but she was not there In the course of my wanderings I visited the
underground chamber and sat down there to rest Upon the reading table in the
chamber several periodicals and newspapers lay and thinking that Dr Leete
might be interested in glancing over a Boston daily of 1887 I brought one of
the papers with me into the house when I came
At breakfast I met Edith She blushed as she greeted me but was perfectly
selfpossessed As we sat at table Dr Leete amused himself with looking over
the paper I had brought in There was in it as in all the newspapers of that
date a great deal about the labor troubles strikes lockouts boycotts the
programmes of labor parties and the wild threats of the anarchists
»By the way« said I as the doctor read aloud to us some of these items
»what part did the followers of the red flag take in the establishment of the
new order of things They were making considerable noise the last thing that I
knew«
»They had nothing to do with it except to hinder it of course« replied Dr
Leete »They did that very effectually while they lasted for their talk so
disgusted people as to deprive the best considered projects for social reform of
a hearing The subsidizing of those fellows was one of the shrewdest moves of
the opponents of reform«
»Subsidizing them« I exclaimed in astonishment
»Certainly« replied Dr Leete »No historical authority nowadays doubts
that they were paid by the great monopolies to wave the red flag and talk about
burning sacking and blowing people up in order by alarming the timid to
head off any real reforms What astonishes me most is that you should have
fallen into the trap so unsuspectingly«
»What are your grounds for believing that the red flag party was
subsidized« I inquired
»Why simply because they must have seen that their course made a thousand
enemies of their professed cause to one friend Not to suppose that they were
hired for the work is to credit them with an inconceivable folly4 In the United
States of all countries no party could intelligently expect to carry its point
without first winning over to its ideas a majority of the nation as the
national party eventually did«
»The national party« I exclaimed »That must have arisen after my day I
suppose it was one of the labor parties«
»Oh no« replied the doctor »The labor parties as such never could have
accomplished anything on a large or permanent scale For purposes of national
scope their basis as merely class organizations was too narrow It was not till
a rearrangement of the industrial and social system on a higher ethical basis
and for the more efficient production of wealth was recognised as the interest
not of one class but equally of all classes of rich and poor cultured and
ignorant old and young weak and strong men and women that there was any
prospect that it would be achieved Then the national party arose to carry it
out by political methods It probably took that name because its aim was to
nationalize the functions of production and distribution Indeed it could not
well have had any other name for its purpose was to realize the idea of the
nation with a grandeur and completeness never before conceived not as an
association of men for certain merely political functions affecting their
happiness only remotely and superficially but as a family a vital union a
common life a mighty heaventouching tree whose leaves are its people fed from
its veins and feeding it in turn The most patriotic of all possible parties
it sought to justify patriotism and raise it from an instinct to a rational
devotion by making the native land truly a father land a father who kept the
people alive and was not merely an idol for which they were expected in die«
Chapter XXV
The personality of Edith Leete had naturally impressed me strongly ever since I
had come in so strange a manner to be an inmate of her fathers house and it
was to be expected that after what had happened the night previous I should be
more than ever preoccupied with thoughts of her From the first I had been
struck with the air of serene frankness and ingenuous directness more like that
of a noble and innocent boy than any girl I had ever known which characterized
her I was curious to know how far this charming quality might be peculiar to
herself and how far possibly a result of alterations in the social position of
women which might have taken place since my time Finding an opportunity that
day when alone with Dr Leete I turned the conversation in that direction
»I suppose« I said »that women nowadays having been relieved of the
burden of housework have no employment but the cultivation of their charms and
graces«
»So far as we men are concerned« replied Dr Leete »we should consider
that they amply paid their way to use one of your forms of expression if they
confined themselves to that expression but you may be very sure that they have
quite too much spirit to consent to be mere beneficiaries of society even as a
return for ornamenting it They did indeed welcome their riddance from
housework because that was not only exceptionally wearing in itself but also
wasteful in the extreme of energy as compared with the coöperative plan but
they accepted relief from that sort of work only that they might contribute in
other and more effectual as well as more agreeable ways to the common weal
Our women as well as our men are members of the industrial army and leave it
only when maternal duties claim them The result is that most women at one time
or another of their lives serve industrially some five or ten or fifteen years
while those who have no children fill out the full term«
»A woman does not then necessarily leave the industrial service on
marriage« I queried
»No more than a man« replied the doctor »Why on earth should she Married
women have no housekeeping responsibilities now you know and a husband is not
a baby that he should be cared for«
»It was thought one of the most grievous features of our civilization that
we required so much toil from women« I said »but it seems to me you get more
out of them than we did«
Dr Leete laughed »Indeed we do just as we do out of our men Yet the
women of this age are very happy and those of the nineteenth century unless
contemporary references greatly mislead us were very miserable The reason that
women nowadays are so much more efficient colaborers with the men and at the
same time are so happy is that in regard to their work as well as mens we
follow the principle of providing every one the kind of occupation he or she is
best adapted to Women being inferior in strength to men and further
disqualified industrially in special ways the kinds of occupation reserved for
them and the conditions under which they pursue them have reference to these
facts The heavier sorts of work are everywhere reserved for men the lighter
occupations for women Under no circumstances is a woman permitted to follow any
employment not perfectly adapted both as to kind and degree of labor to her
sex Moreover the hours of womens work are considerably shorter than those of
mens more frequent vacations are granted and the most careful provision is
made for rest when needed The men of this day so well appreciate that they owe
to the beauty and grace of women the chief zest of their lives and their main
incentive to effort that they permit them to work at all only because it is
fully understood that a certain regular requirement of labor of a sort adapted
to their powers is well for body and mind during the period of maximum
physical vigor We believe that the magnificent health which distinguishes our
women from those of your day who seem to have been so generally sickly is
owing largely to the fact that all alike are furnished with healthful and
inspiriting occupation«
»I understood you« I said »that the women workers belong to the army of
industry but how can they be under the same system of ranking and discipline
with the men when the conditions of their labor are so different«
»They are under an entirely different discipline« replied Dr Leete »and
constitute rather an allied force than an integral part of the army of the men
They have a woman generalinchief and are under exclusively feminine régime
This general as also the higher officers is chosen by the body of women who
have passed the time of service in correspondence with the manner in which the
chiefs of the masculine army and the President of the nation are elected The
general of the womens army sits in the cabinet of the President and has a veto
on measures respecting womens work pending appeals to Congress I should have
said in speaking of the judiciary that we have women on the bench appointed
by the general of the women as well as men Causes in which both parties are
women are determined by women judges and where a man and a woman are parties to
a case a judge of either sex must consent to the verdict«
»Womanhood seems to be organized as a sort of imperium in imperio in your
system« I said
»To some extent« Dr Leete replied »but the inner imperium is one from
which you will admit there is not likely to be much danger to the nation The
lack of some such recognition of the distinct individuality of the sexes was one
of the innumerable defects of your society The passional attraction between men
and women has too often prevented a perception of the profound differences which
make the members of each sex in many things strange to the other and capable of
sympathy only with their own It is in giving full play to the differences of
sex rather than in seeking to obliterate them as was apparently the effort of
some reformers in your day that the enjoyment of each by itself and the
piquancy which each has for the other are alike enhanced In your day there was
no career for women except in an unnatural rivalry with men We have given them
a world of their own with its emulations ambitions and careers and I assure
you they are very happy in it It seems to us that women were more than any
other class the victims of your civilization There is something which even at
this distance of time penetrates one with pathos in the spectacle of their
ennuied undeveloped lives stunted at marriage their narrow horizon bounded
so often physically by the four walls of home and morally by a petty circle
of personal interests I speak now not of the poorer classes who were
generally worked to death but also of the welltodo and rich From the great
sorrows as well as the petty frets of life they had no refuge in the breezy
outdoor world of human affairs nor any interests save those of the family Such
an existence would have softened mens brains or driven them mad All that is
changed today No woman is heard nowadays wishing she were a man nor parents
desiring boy rather than girl children Our girls are as full of ambition for
their careers as our boys Marriage when it comes does not mean incarceration
for them nor does it separate them in any way from the larger interests of
society the bustling life of the world Only when maternity fills a womans
mind with new interests does she withdraw from the world for a time Afterwards
and at any time she may return to her place among her comrades nor need she
ever lose touch with them Women are a very happy race nowadays as compared
with what they ever were before in the worlds history and their power of
giving happiness to men has been of course increased in proportion«
»I should imagine it possible« I said »that the interest which girls take
in their careers as members of the industrial army and candidates for its
distinctions might have an effect to deter them from marriage«
Dr Leete smiled »Have no anxiety on that score Mr West« he replied
»The Creator took very good care that whatever other modifications the
dispositions of men and women might with time take on their attraction for each
other should remain constant The mere fact that in an age like yours when the
struggle for existence must have left people little time for other thoughts and
the future was so uncertain that to assume parental responsibilities must have
often seemed like a criminal risk there was even then marrying and giving in
marriage should be conclusive on this point As for love nowadays one of our
authors says that the vacuum left in the minds of men and women by the absence
of care for ones livelihood has been entirely taken up by the tender passion
That however I beg you to believe is something of an exaggeration For the
rest so far is marriage from being an interference with a womans career that
the higher positions in the feminine army of industry are intrusted only to
women who have been both wives and mothers as they alone fully represent their
sex«
»Are credit cards issued to the women just as to the men«
»Certainly«
»The credits of the women I suppose are for smaller sums owing to the
frequent suspension of their labor on account of family responsibilities«
»Smaller« exclaimed Dr Leete »oh no The maintenance of all our people
is the same There are no exceptions to that rule but if any difference were
made on account of the interruptions you speak of it would be by making the
womans credit larger not smaller Can you think of any service constituting a
stronger claim on the nations gratitude than bearing and nursing the nations
children According to our view none deserve so well of the world as good
parents There is no task so unselfish so necessarily without return though
the heart is well rewarded as the nurture of the children who are to make the
world for one another when we are gone«
»It would seem to follow from what you have said that wives are in no way
dependent on their husbands for maintenance«
»Of course they are not« replied Dr Leete »nor children on their parents
either that is for means of support though of course they are for the offices
of affection The childs labor when he grows up will go to increase the
common stork not his parents who will be dead and therefore he is properly
nurtured out of the common stock The account of every person man woman and
child you must understand is always with the nation directly and never
through any intermediary except of course that parents to a certain extent
act for children as their guardians You see that it is by virtue of the
relation of individuals to the nation of their membership in it that they are
entitled to support and this title is in no way connected with or affected by
their relations to other individuals who are fellow members of the nation with
them That any person should be dependent for the means of support upon another
would be shocking to the moral sense as well as indefensible on any rational
social theory What would become of personal liberty and dignity under such an
arrangement I am aware that you called yourselves free in the nineteenth
century The meaning of the word could not then however have been at all what
it is at present or you certainly would not have applied it to a society of
which nearly every member was in a position of galling personal dependence upon
others as to the very means of life the poor upon the rich or employed upon
employer women upon men children upon parents Instead of distributing the
product of the nation directly to its members which would seem the most natural
and obvious method it would actually appear that you had given your minds to
devising a plan of hand to hand distribution involving the maximum of personal
humiliation to all clashes of recipients
As regards the dependence of women upon men for support which then was
usual of course natural attraction in case of marriages of love may often have
made it endurable though for spirited women I should fancy it must always have
remained humiliating What then must it have been in the innumerable cases
where women with or without the form of marriage had to sell themselves to men
to get their living Even your contemporaries callous as they were to most of
the revolting aspects of their society seem to have had an idea that this was
not quite as it should be but it was still only for pitys sake that they
deplored the lot of the women It did not occur to them that it was robbery as
well as cruelty when men seized for themselves the whole product of the world
and left women to beg and wheedle for their share Why but bless me Mr West
I am really running on at a remarkable rate just as if the robbery the sorrow
and the shame which those poor women endured were not over a century since or
as if you were responsible for what you no doubt deplored as much as I do«
»I must bear my share of responsibility for the world as it then was« I
replied »All I can say in extenuation is that until the nation was ripe for the
present system of organized production and distribution no radical improvement
in the position of woman was possible The root of her disability as you say
was her personal dependence upon man for her livelihood and I can imagine no
other mode of social organization than that you have adopted which would have
set men free of one another I suppose by the way that so entire a change in
the position of women cannot have taken place without affecting in marked ways
the social relations of the sexes That will be a very interesting study for
me«
»The change you will observe« said Dr Leete »will chiefly be I think
the entire frankness and unconstraint which now characterizes those relations
as compared with the artificiality which seems to have marked them in your time
The sexes now meet with the ease of perfect equals suitor to each other for
nothing but love In your time the fact that women were dependent for support on
men made the woman in reality the one chiefly benefited by marriage This fact
so far as we can judge from contemporary records appears to have been coarsely
enough recognized among the lower classes while among the more polished it was
glossed over by a system of elaborate conventionalities which aimed to carry the
precisely opposite meaning namely that the man was the party chiefly
benefited To keep up this convention it was essential that he should always
seem the suitor Nothing was therefore considered more shocking to the
proprieties than that a woman should betray a fondness for a man before he had
indicated a desire to marry her Why we actually have in our libraries books
by authors of your day written for no other purpose than to discuss the
question whether under any conceivable circumstances a woman might without
discredit to her sex reveal an unsolicited love All this seems exquisitely
absurd to us and yet we know that given your circumstances the problem might
have a serious side When for a woman to proffer her love to a man was in effect
to invite him to assume the burden of her support it is easy to see that pride
and delicacy might well have cheeked the promptings of the heart When you go
out into our society Mr West you must be prepared to be often
crossquestioned on this point by our young people who are naturally much
interested in this aspect of oldfashioned manners«5
»And so the girls of the twentieth century tell their love«
»If they choose« replied Dr Leete »There is no more pretense of a
concealment of feeling on their part than on the part of their lovers Coquetry
would be as much despised in a girl as in a man Affected coldness which in
your day rarely deceived a lover would deceive him wholly now for no one
thinks of practicing it«
»One result which must follow from the independence of women I can see for
myself« I said »There can be no marriages now except those of inclination«
»That is a matter of course« replied Dr Leete
»Think of a world in which there are nothing but matches of pure love Ah
me Dr Leete how far you are from being able to understand what an astonishing
phenomenon such a world seems to a man of the nineteenth century«
»I can however to some extent imagine it« replied the doctor »But the
fact you celebrate that there are nothing but love matches means even more
perhaps than you probably at first realize It means that for the first time in
human history the principle of sexual selection with its tendency to preserve
and transmit the better types of the race and let the inferior types drop out
has unhindered operation The necessities of poverty the need of having a home
no longer tempt women to accept as the fathers of their children men whom they
neither can love nor respect Wealth and rank no longer divert attention from
personal qualities Gold no longer gilds the straitened forehead of the fool
The gifts of person mind and disposition beauty wit eloquence kindness
generosity geniality courage are sure of transmission to posterity Every
generation is sifted through a little finer mesh than the last The attributes
that human nature admires are preserved those that repel it are left behind
There are of course a great many women who with love must mingle admiration
and seek to wed greatly but these not the less obey the same law for to wed
greatly now is not to marry men of fortune or title but those who have risen
above their fellows by the solidity or brilliance of their services to humanity
These form nowadays the only aristocracy with which alliance is distinction
You were speaking a day or two ago of the physical superiority of our
people to your contemporaries Perhaps more important than any of the causes I
mentioned then as tending to race purification has been the effect of
untrammeled sexual selection upon the quality of two or three successive
generations I believe that when you have made a fuller study of our people you
will find in them not only a physical but a mental and moral improvement It
would be strange if it were not so for not only is one of the great laws of
nature now freely working out the salvation of the race but a profound moral
sentiment has come to its support Individualism which in your day was the
animating idea of society not only was fatal to any vital sentiment of
brotherhood and common interest among living men but equally to any realization
of the responsibility of the living for the generation to follow Today this
sense of responsibility practically unrecognized in all previous ages has
become one of the great ethical ideas of the race reinforcing with an intense
conviction of duty the natural impulse to seek in marriage the best and noblest
of the other sex The result is that not all the encouragements and incentives
of every sort which we have provided to develop industry talent genius
excellence of whatever kind are comparable in their effect on our young men
with the fact that our women sit aloft as judges of the race and reserve
themselves to reward the winners Of all the whips and spurs and baits and
prizes there is none like the thought of the radiant faces which the laggards
will find averted
Celibates nowadays are almost invariably men who have failed to acquit
themselves creditably in the work of life The woman must be a courageous one
with a very evil sort of courage too whom pity for one of these unfortunates
should lead to defy the opinion of her generation for otherwise she is free
so far as to accept him for a husband I should add that more exacting and
difficult to resist than any other element in that opinion she would find the
sentiment of her own sex Our women have risen to the full height of their
responsibility as the wardens of the world to come to whose keeping the keys of
the future are confided Their feeling of duty in this respect amounts to a
sense of religious consecration It is a cult in which they educate their
daughters from childhood«
After going to my room that night I sat up late to read a romance of
Berrian handed me by Dr Leete the plot of which turned on a situation
suggested by his last words concerning the modern view of parental
responsibility A similar situation would almost certainly have been treated by
a nineteenth century romancist so as to excite the morbid sympathy of the reader
with the sentimental selfishness of the lovers and his resentment toward the
unwritten law which they outraged I need not describe for who has not read
»Ruth Elton« how different is the course which Berrian takes and with what
tremendous effect he enforces the principle which he states »Over the unborn
our power is that of God and our responsibility like His toward us As we
acquit ourselves toward them so let Him deal with us«
Chapter XXVI
I think if a person were ever excusable for losing track of the days of the
week the circumstances excused me Indeed if I had been told that the method
of reckoning time had been wholly changed and the days were now counted in lots
of five ten or fifteen instead of seven I should have been in no way
surprised after what I had already heard and seen of the twentieth century The
first time that any inquiry as to the days of the week occurred to me was the
morning following the conversation related in the last chapter At the breakfast
table Dr Leete asked me if I would care to hear a sermon
»Is it Sunday then« I exclaimed
»Yes« he replied »It was on Friday you see when we made the lucky
discovery of the buried chamber to which we owe your society this morning It
was on Saturday morning soon after midnight that you first awoke and Sunday
afternoon when you awoke the second time with faculties fully regained«
»So you still have Sundays and sermons« I said »We had prophets who
foretold that long before this time the world would have dispensed with both I
am very curious to know how the ecclesiastical systems fit in with the rest of
your social arrangements I suppose you have a sort of national church with
official clergymen«
Dr Leete laughed and Mrs Leete and Edith seemed greatly amused
»Why Mr West« Edith said »what odd people you must think us You were
quite done with national religious establishments in the nineteenth century and
did you fancy we had gone back to them«
»But how can voluntary churches and an unofficial clerical profession be
reconciled with national ownership of all buildings and the industrial service
required of all men« I answered
»The religious practices of the people have naturally changed considerably
in a century« replied Dr Leete »but supposing them to have remained
unchanged our social system would accommodate them perfectly The nation
supplies any person or number of persons with buildings on guarantee of the
rent and they remain tenants while they pay it As for the clergymen if a
number of persons wish the services of an individual for any particular end of
their own apart from the general service of the nation they can always secure
it with that individuals own consent of course just as we secure the service
of our editors by contributing from their creditcards an indemnity to the
nation for the loss of his services in general industry This idemnity paid the
nation for the individual answers to the salary in your day paid to the
individual himself and the various applications of this principle leave private
initiative full play in all details to which national control is not applicable
Now as to hearing a sermon today if you wish to do so you can either go to a
church to hear it or stay at home«
»How am I to hear it if I stay at home«
»Simply by accompanying us to the music room at the proper hour and
selecting an easy chair There are some who still prefer to hear sermons in
church but most of our preaching like our musical performances is not in
public but delivered in acoustically prepared chambers connected by wire with
subscribers houses If you prefer to go to a church I shall be glad to
accompany you but I really dont believe you are likely to hear anywhere a
better discourse than you will at home I see by the paper that Mr Barton is to
preach this morning and he preaches only by telephone and to audiences often
reaching 150000«
»The novelty of the experience of hearing a sermon under such circumstances
would incline me to be one of Mr Bartons hearers if for no other reason« I
said
An hour or two later as I sat reading in the library Edith came for me
and I followed her to the music room where Dr and Mrs Leete were waiting We
had not more than seated ourselves comfortably when the tinkle of a bell was
heard and a few moments after the voice of a man at the pitch of ordinary
conversation addressed us with an effect of proceeding from an invisible
person in the room This was what the voice said
Mr Bartons Sermon
»We have had among us during the past week a critic from the
nineteenth century a living representative of the epoch of our great
grandparents It would be strange if a fact so extraordinary had not
somewhat strongly affected our imaginations Perhaps most of us have
been stimulated to some effort to realize the society of a century ago
and figure to ourselves what it must have been like to live then In
inviting you now to consider certain reflections upon this subject which
have occurred to me I presume that I shall rather follow than divert
the course of your own thoughts«
Edith whispered something to her father at this point to which he nodded assent
and turned to me
»Mr West« he said »Edith suggests that you may find it slightly
embarrassing to listen to a discourse on the lines Mr Barton is laying down
and if so you need not be cheated out of a sermon She will connect us with Mr
Sweetsers speaking room if you say so and I can still promise you a very good
discourse«
»No no« I said »Believe me I would much rather hear what Mr Barton has
to say«
»As you please« replied my host
When her father spoke to me Edith had touched a screw and the voice of Mr
Barton had ceased abruptly Now at another touch the room was once more filled
with the earnest sympathetic tones which had already impressed me most
favorably
»I venture to assume that one effect has been common with us as a result of this
effort at retrospection and that it has been to leave us more than ever amazed
at the stupendous change which one brief century has made in the material and
moral conditions of humanity
Still as regards the contrast between the poverty of the nation and the
world in the nineteenth century and their wealth now it is not greater
possibly than had been before seen in human history perhaps not greater for
example than that between the poverty of this country during the earliest
colonial period of the seventeenth century and the relatively great wealth it
had attained at the close of the nineteenth or between the England of William
the Conqueror and that of Victoria Although the aggregate riches of a nation
did not then as now afford any accurate criterion of the masses of its people
yet instances like these afford partial parallels for the merely material side
of the contrast between the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries It is when
we contemplate the moral aspect of that contrast that we find ourselves in the
presence of a phenomenon for which history offers no precedent however far back
we may cast our eye One might almost be excused who should exclaim Here
surely is something like a miracle Nevertheless when we give over idle
wonder and begin to examine the seeming prodigy critically we find it no
prodigy at all much less a miracle It is not necessary to suppose a moral new
birth of humanity or a wholesale destruction of the wicked and survival of the
good to account for the fact before us It finds its simple and obvious
explanation in the reaction of a changed environment upon human nature It means
merely that a form of society which was founded on the pseudo selfinterest of
selfishness and appealed solely to the antisocial and brutal side of human
nature has been replaced by institutions based on the true selfinterest of a
rational unselfishness and appealing to the social and generous instincts of
men
My friends if you would see men again the beasts of prey they seemed in the
nineteenth century all you have to do is to restore the old social and
industrial system which taught them to view their natural prey in their
fellowmen and find their gain in the loss of others No doubt it seems to you
that no necessity however dire would have tempted you to subsist on what
superior skill or strength enabled you to wrest from others equally needy But
suppose it were not merely your own life that you were responsible for I know
well that there must have been many a man among our ancestors who if it had
been merely a question of his own life would sooner have given it up than
nourished it by bread snatched from others But this he was not permitted to do
He had dear lives dependent on him Men loved women in those days as now God
knows how they dared be fathers but they had babies as sweet no doubt to them
as ours to us whom they must feed clothe educate The gentlest creatures are
fierce when they have young to provide for and in that wolfish society the
struggle for bread borrowed a peculiar desperation from the tenderest
sentiments For the sake of those dependent on him a man might not choose but
must plunge into the foul fight cheat overreach supplant defraud buy
below worth and sell above break down the business by which his neighbor fed
his young ones tempt men to buy what they ought not and to sell what they
should not grind his laborers sweat his debtors cozen his creditors Though a
man sought it carefully with tears it was hard to find a way in which he could
earn a living and provide for his family except by pressing in before some
weaker rival and taking the food from his mouth Even the ministers of religion
were not exempt from this cruel necessity While they warned their flocks
against the love of money regard for their families compelled them to keep an
outlook for the pecuniary prizes of their calling Poor fellows theirs was
indeed a trying business preaching to men a generosity and unselfishness which
they and everybody knew would in the existing state of the world reduce to
poverty those who should practice them laying down laws of conduct which the
law of selfpreservation compelled men to break Looking on the inhuman
spectacle of society these worthy men bitterly bemoaned the depravity of human
nature as if angelic nature would not have been debauched in such a devils
school Ah my friends believe me it is not now in this happy age that
humanity is proving the divinity within it It was rather in those evil days
when not even the fight for life with one another the struggle for mere
existence in which mercy was folly could wholly banish generosity and kindness
from the earth
It is not hard to understand the desperation with which men and women who
under other conditions would have been full of gentleness and ruth fought and
tore each other in the scramble for gold when we realize what it meant to miss
it what poverty was in that day For the body it was hunger and thirst torment
by heat and frost in sickness neglect in health unremitting toil for the
moral nature it meant oppression contempt and the patient endurance of
indignity brutish associations from infancy the loss of all the innocence of
childhood the grace of womanhood the dignity of manhood for the mind it meant
the death of ignorance the torpor of all those faculties which distinguish us
from brutes the reduction of life to a round of bodily functions
Ah my friends if such a fate as this were offered you and your children as
the only alternative of success in the accumulation of wealth how long do you
fancy would you be in sinking to the moral level of your ancestors
Some two or three centuries ago an act of barbarity was committed in India
which though the number of lives destroyed was but a few score was attended by
such peculiar horrors that its memory is likely to be perpetual A number of
English prisoners were shut up in a room containing not enough air to supply
onetenth their number The unfortunates were gallant men devoted comrades in
service but as the agonies of suffocation began to take hold on them they
forgot all else and became involved in a hideous struggle each one for
himself and against all others to force a way to one of the small apertures of
the prison at which alone it was possible to get a breath of air It was a
struggle in which men became beasts and the recital of its horrors by the few
survivors so shocked our forefathers that for a century later we find it a stock
reference in their literature as a typical illustration of the extreme
possibilities of human misery as shocking in its moral as its physical aspect
They could scarcely have anticipated that to us the Black Hole of Calcutta with
its press of maddened men tearing and trampling one another in the struggle to
win a place at the breathing holes would seem a striking type of the society of
their age It lacked something of being a complete type however for in the
Calcutta Black Hole there were no tender women no little children and old men
and women no cripples They were at least all men strong to bear who
suffered
When we reflect that the ancient order of which I have been speaking was
prevalent up to the end of the nineteenth century while to us the new order
which succeeded it already seems antique even our parents having known no
other we cannot fail to be astounded at the suddenness with which a transition
so profound beyond all previous experience of the race must have been effected
Some observation of the state of mens minds during the last quarter of the
nineteenth century will however in great measure dissipate this astonishment
Though general intelligence in the modern sense could not be said to exist in
any community at that time yet as compared with previous generations the one
then on the stage was intelligent The inevitable consequence of even this
comparative degree of intelligence had been a perception of the evils of
society such as had never before been general It is quite true that these
evils had been even worse much worse in previous ages It was the increased
intelligence of the masses which made the difference as the dawn reveals the
squalor of surroundings which in the darkness may have seemed tolerable The
keynote of the literature of the period was one of compassion for the poor and
unfortunate and indignant outcry against the failure of the social machinery to
ameliorate the miseries of men It is plain from these outbursts that the moral
hideousness of the spectacle about them was at least by flashes fully realized
by the best of the men of that time and that the lives of some of the more
sensitive and generous hearted of them were rendered wellnigh unendurable by
the intensity of their sympathies
Although the idea of the vital unity of the family of mankind the reality
of human brotherhood was very far from being apprehended by them as the moral
axiom it seems to us yet it is a mistake to suppose that there was no feeling
at all corresponding to it I could read you passages of great beauty from some
of their writers which show that the conception was clearly attained by a few
and no doubt vaguely by many more Moreover it must not be forgotten that the
nineteenth century was in name Christian and the fact that the entire
commercial and industrial frame of society was the embodiment of the
antiChristian spirit must have had some weight though I admit it was strangely
little with the nominal followers of Jesus Christ
When we inquire why it did not have more why in general long after a vast
majority of men had agreed as to the crying abuses of the existing social
arrangement they still tolerated it or contented themselves with talking of
petty reforms in it we come upon an extraordinary fact It was the sincere
belief of even the best of men at that epoch that the only stable elements in
human nature on which a social system could be safely founded were its worst
propensities They had been taught and believed that greed and selfseeking were
all that held mankind together and that all human associations would fall to
pieces if anything were done to blunt the edge of these motives or curb their
operation In a word they believed even those who longed to believe otherwise
the exact reverse of what seems to us selfevident they believed that is
that the antisocial qualities of men and not their social qualities were what
furnished the cohesive force of society It seemed reasonable to them that men
lived together solely for the purpose of overreaching and oppressing one
another and of being overreaching and oppressed and that while a society that
gave full scope to these propensities could stand there would be little chance
for one based on the idea of coöperation for the benefit of all It seems absurd
to expect any one to believe that convictions like these were ever seriously
entertained by men but that they were not only entertained by our
greatgrandfathers but were responsible for the long delay in doing away with
the ancient order after a conviction of its intolerable abuses had become
general is as well established as any fact in history can be Just here you
will find the explanation of the profound pessimism of the literature of the
last quarter of the nineteenth century the note of melancholy in its poetry
and the cynicism of its humor
Feeling that the condition of the race was unendurable they had no clear
hope of anything better They believed that the evolution of humanity had
resulted in leading it into a cul de sac and that there was no way of getting
forward The frame of mens minds at this time is strikingly illustrated by
treatises which have come down to us and may even now be consulted in our
libraries by the curious in which laborious arguments are pursued to prove that
despite the evil plight of men life was still by some slight preponderance of
considerations probably better worth living than leaving Despising themselves
they despised their Creator There was a general decay of religious belief Pale
and watery gleams from skies thickly veiled by doubt and dread alone lighted
up the chaos of earth That men should doubt Him whose breath is in their
nostrils or dread the hands that moulded them seems to us indeed a pitiable
insanity but we must remember that children who are brave by day have sometimes
foolish fears at night The dawn has come since then It is very easy to believe
in that fatherhood of God in the twentieth century
Briefly as must needs be in a discourse of this character I have adverted
to some of the causes which had prepared mens minds for the change from the old
to the new order as well as some causes of the conservatism of despair which
for a while held it back after the time was ripe To wonder at the rapidity with
which the change was completed after its possibility was first entertained is to
forget the intoxicating effect of hope upon minds long accustomed to despair
The sunburst after so long and dark a night must needs have had a dazzling
effect From the moment men allowed themselves to believe that humanity after
all had not been meant for a dwarf that its squat stature was not the measure
of its possible growth but that it stood upon the verge of an avatar of
limitless development the reaction must needs have been overwhelming It is
evident that nothing was able to stand against the enthusiasm which the new
faith inspired
Here at last men must have felt was a cause compared with which the
grandest of historic causes had been trivial It was doubtless because it could
have commanded millions of martyrs that none were needed The change of a
dynasty in a petty kingdom of the old world often cost more lives than did the
revolution which set the feet of the human race at last in the right way
Doubtless it ill beseems one to whom the boon of life in our resplendent age
has been vouchsafed to wish his destiny other and yet I have often thought that
I would fain exchange my share in this serene and golden day for a place in that
stormy epoch of transition when heroes burst the barred gate of the future and
revealed to the kindling gaze of a hopeless race in place of the blank wall
that had closed its path a vista of progress whose end for very excess of
light still dazzles us Ah my friends who will say that to have lived then
when the weakest influence was a lever to whose touch the centuries trembled
was not worth a share even in this era of fruition
You know the story of that last greatest and most bloodless of
revolutions In the time of one generation men laid aside the social traditions
and practices of barbarians and assumed a social order worthy of rational and
human beings Ceasing to be predatory in their habits they became coworkers
and found in fraternity at once the science of wealth and happiness What
shall I eat and drink and wherewithal shall I be clothed stated as a problem
beginning and ending in self had been an anxious and an endless one But when
once it was conceived not from the individual but the fraternal standpoint
What shall we eat and drink and wherewithal shall we be clothed its
difficulties vanished
Poverty with servitude had been the result for the mass of humanity of
attempting to solve the problem of maintenance from the individual standpoint
but no sooner had the nation become the sole capitalist and employer than not
alone did plenty replace poverty but the last vestige of the serfdom of man to
man disappeared from earth Human slavery so often vainly scotched at last was
killed The means of subsistence no longer doled out by men to women by
employer to employed by rich to poor was distributed from a common stock as
among children at the fathers table It was impossible for a man any longer to
use his fellowmen as tools for his own profit His esteem was the only sort of
gain he could thenceforth make out of him There was no more either arrogance or
servility in the relations of human beings to one another For the first time
since the creation every man stood up straight before God The fear of want and
the lust of gain became extinct motives when abundance was assured to all and
immoderate possessions made impossible of attainment There were no more beggars
nor almoners Equity left charity without an occupation The ten commandments
became wellnigh obsolete in a world where there was no temptation to theft no
occasion to lie either for fear or favor no room for envy where all were equal
and little provocation to violence where men were disarmed of power to injure
one another Humanitys ancient dream of liberty equality fraternity mocked
by so many ages at last was realized
As in the old society the generous the just the tenderhearted had been
placed at a disadvantage by the possession of those qualities so in the new
society the coldhearted the greedy and selfseeking found themselves out of
joint with the world Now that the conditions of life for the first time ceased
to operate as a forcing process to develop the brutal qualities of human nature
and the premium which had heretofore encouraged selfishness was not only
removed but placed upon unselfishness it was for the first time possible to
see what unperverted human nature really was like The depraved tendencies
which had previously overgrown and obscured the better to so large an extent
now withered like cellar fungi in the open air and the nobler qualities showed
a sudden luxuriance which turned cynics into panegyrists and for the first time
in human history tempted mankind to fall in love with itself Soon was fully
revealed what the divines and philosophers of the old world never would have
believed that human nature in its essential qualities is good not bad that
men by their natural intention and structure are generous not selfish pitiful
not cruel sympathetic not arrogant godlike in aspirations instinct with
divinest impulses of tenderness and selfsacrifice images of God indeed not
the travesties upon Him they had seemed The constant pressure through
numberless generations of conditions of life which might have perverted angels
had not been able to essentially alter the natural nobility of the stock and
these conditions once removed like a bent tree it had sprung back to its
normal uprightness
To put the whole matter in the nutshell of a parable let me compare
humanity in the olden time to a rosebush planted in a swamp watered with black
bogwater breathing miasmatic fogs by day and chilled with poison dews at
night Innumerable generations of gardeners had done their best to make it
bloom but beyond an occasional halfopened bud with a worm at the heart their
efforts had been unsuccessful Many indeed claimed that the bush was no
rosebush at all but a noxious shrub fit only to be uprooted and burned The
gardeners for the most part however held that the bush belonged to the rose
family but had some ineradicable taint about it which prevented the buds from
coming out and accounted for its generally sickly condition There were a few
indeed who maintained that the stock was good enough that the trouble was in
the bog and that under more favorable conditions the plant might be expected to
do better But these persons were not regular gardeners and being condemned by
the latter as mere theorists and day dreamers were for the most part so
regarded by the people Moreover urged some eminent moral philosophers even
conceding for the sake of the argument that the bush might possibly do better
elsewhere it was a more valuable discipline for the buds to try to bloom in a
bog than it would be under more favorable conditions The buds that succeeded in
opening might indeed be very rare and the flowers pale and scentless but they
represented far more moral effort than if they had bloomed spontaneously in a
garden
The regular gardeners and the moral philosophers had their way The bush
remained rooted in the bog and the old course of treatment went on Continually
new varieties of forcing mixtures were applied to the roots and more recipes
than could be numbered each declared by its advocates the best and only
suitable preparation were used to kill the vermin and remove the mildew This
went on a very long time Occasionally some one claimed to observe a slight
improvement in the appearance of the bush but there were quite as many who
declared that it did not look so well as it used to On the whole there could
not be said to be any marked change Finally during a period of general
despondency as to the prospects of the bush where it was the idea of
transplanting it was again mooted and this time found favor Let us try it was
the general voice Perhaps it may thrive better elsewhere and here it is
certainly doubtful if it be worth cultivating longer So it came about that the
rosebush of humanity was transplanted and set in sweet warm dry earth where
the sun bathed it the stars wooed it and the south wind caressed it Then it
appeared that it was indeed a rosebush The vermin and the mildew disappeared
and the bush was covered with most beautiful red roses whose fragrance filled
the world
It is a pledge of the destiny appointed for us that the Creator has set in
our hearts an infinite standard of achievement judged by which our past
attainments seem always insignificant and the goal never nearer Had our
forefathers conceived a state of society in which men should live together like
brethren dwelling in unity without strifes or envying violence or
overreaching and where at the price of a degree of labor not greater than
health demands in their chosen occupations they should be wholly freed from
care for the morrow and left with no more concern for their livelihood than
trees which are watered by unfailing streams had they conceived such a
condition I say it would have seemed to them nothing less than paradise They
would have confounded it with their idea of heaven nor dreamed that there could
possibly lie further beyond anything to be desired or striven for
But how is it with us who stand on this height which they gazed up to
Already we have wellnigh forgotten except when it is especially called to our
minds by some occasion like the present that it was not always with men as it
is now It is a strain on our imaginations to conceive the social arrangements
of our immediate ancestors We find them grotesque The solution of the problem
of physical maintenance so as to banish care and crime so far from seeming to
us an ultimate attainment appears but as a preliminary to anything like real
human progress We have but relieved ourselves of an impertinent and needless
harassment which hindered our ancestors from undertaking the real ends of
existence We are merely stripped for the race no more We are like a child
which has just learned to stand upright and to walk It is a great event from
the childs point of view when he first walks Perhaps he fancies that there
can be little beyond that achievement but a year later he has forgotten that he
could not always walk His horizon did but widen when he rose and enlarge as he
moved A great event indeed in one sense was his first step but only as a
beginning not as the end His true career was but then first entered on The
enfranchisement of humanity in the last century from mental and physical
absorption in working and scheming for the more bodily necessities may be
regarded as a species of second birth of the race without which its first birth
to an existence that was but a burden would forever have remained unjustified
but whereby it is now abundantly vindicated Since then humanity has entered on
a new phase of spiritual development an evolution of higher faculties the very
existence of which in human nature our ancestors scarcely suspected In place of
the dreary hopelessness of the nineteenth century its profound pessimism as to
the future of humanity the animating idea of the present age is an enthusiastic
conception of the opportunities of our earthly existence and the unbounded
possibilities of human nature The betterment of mankind from generation to
generation physically mentally morally is recognized as the one great object
supremely worthy of effort and of sacrifice We believe the race for the first
time to have entered on the realization of Gods ideal of it and each
generation must now be a step upward
Do you ask what we look for when unnumbered generations shall have passed
away I answer the way stretches far before us but the end is lost in light
For twofold is the return of man to God who is our home the return of the
individual by the way of death and the return of the race by the fulfilment of
the evolution when the divine secret hidden in the germ shall be perfectly
unfolded With a tear for the dark past turn we then to the dazzling future
and veiling our eyes press forward The long and weary winter of the race is
ended Its summer has begun Humanity has burst the chrysalis The heavens are
before it«
Chapter XXVII
I never could tell just why but Sunday afternoon during my old life had been a
time when I was peculiarly subject to melancholy when the color unaccountably
faded out of all the aspects of life and everything appeared pathetically
uninteresting The hours which in general were wont to bear me easily on their
wings lost the power of flight and toward the close of the day drooping quite
to earth had fairly to be dragged along by main strength Perhaps it was partly
owing to the established association of ideas that despite the utter change in
my circumstances I fell into a state of profound depression on the afternoon of
this my first Sunday in the twentieth century
It was not however on the present occasion a depression without specific
cause the mere vague melancholy I have spoken of but a sentiment suggested and
certainly quite justified by my position The sermon of Mr Barton with its
constant implication of the vast moral gap between the century to which I
belonged and that in which I found myself had had an effect strongly to
accentuate my sense of loneliness in it Considerately and philosophically as he
had spoken his words could scarcely have failed to leave upon my mind a strong
impression of the mingled pity curiosity and aversion which I as a
representative of an abhorred epoch must excite in all around me
The extraordinary kindness with which I had been treated by Dr Leete and
his family and especially the goodness of Edith had hitherto prevented my
fully realizing that their real sentiment toward me must necessarily be that of
the whole generation to which they belonged The recognition of this as
regarded Dr Leete and his amiable wife however painful I might have endured
but the conviction that Edith must share their feeling was more than I could
bear
The crushing effect with which this belated perception of a fact so obvious
came to me opened my eyes fully to something which perhaps the reader has
already suspected I loved Edith
Was it strange that I did The affecting occasion on which our intimacy had
begun when her hands had drawn me out of the whirlpool of madness the fact
that her sympathy was the vital breath which had set me up in this new life and
enabled me to support it my habit of looking to her as the mediator between me
and the world around in a sense that even her father was not these were
circumstances that had predetermined a result which her remarkable loveliness of
person and disposition would alone have accounted for It was quite inevitable
that she should have come to seem to me in a sense quite different from the
usual experience of lovers the only woman in this world Now that I had become
suddenly sensible of the fatuity of the hopes I had begun to cherish I suffered
not merely what another lover might but in addition a desolate loneliness an
utter forlornness such as no other lover however unhappy could have felt
My hosts evidently saw that I was depressed in spirits and did their best
to divert me Edith especially I could see was distressed for me but
according to the usual perversity of lovers having once been so mad as to dream
of receiving something more from her there was no longer any virtue for me in a
kindness that I knew was only sympathy
Toward nightfall after secluding myself in my room most of the afternoon I
went into the garden to walk about The day was overcast with an autumnal
flavor in the warm still air Finding myself near the excavation I entered the
subterranean chamber and sat down there »This« I muttered to myself »is the
only home I have Let me stay here and not go forth any more« Seeking aid from
the familiar surroundings I endeavored to find a sad sort of consolation in
reviving the past and summoning up the forms and faces that were about me in my
former life It was in vain There was no longer any life in them For nearly
one hundred years the stars had been looking down on Edith Bartletts grave and
the graves of all my generation
The past was dead crushed beneath a centurys weight and from the present
I was shut out There was no place for me anywhere I was neither dead nor
properly alive
»Forgive me for following you«
I looked up Edith stood in the door of the subterranean room regarding me
smilingly but with eyes full of sympathetic distress
»Send me away if I am intruding on you« she said »but we saw that you were
out of spirits and you know you promised to let me know if that were so You
have not kept your word«
I rose and came to the door trying to smile but making I fancy rather
sorry work of it for the sight of her loveliness brought home to me the more
poignantly the cause of my wretchedness
»I was feeling a little lonely that is all« I said »Has it never occurred
to you that my position is so much more utterly alone than any human beings
ever was before that a new word is really needed to describe it«
»Oh you must not talk that way you must not let yourself feel that way
you must not« she exclaimed with moistened eyes »Are we not your friends
It is your own fault if you will not let us be You need not be lonely«
»You are good to me beyond my power of understanding« I said »but dont
you suppose that I know it is pity merely sweet pity but pity only I should
be a fool not to know that I cannot seem to you as other men of your own
generation do but as some strange uncanny being a stranded creature of an
unknown sea whose forlornness touches your compassion despite its
grotesqueness I have been so foolish you were so kind as to almost forget
that this must needs be so and to fancy I might in time become naturalized as
we used to say in this age so as to feel like one of you and to seem to you
like the other men about you But Mr Bartons sermon taught me how vain such a
fancy is how great the gulf between us must seem to you«
»Oh that miserable sermon« she exclaimed fairly crying now in her
sympathy »I wanted you not to hear it What does he know of you He has read in
old musty books about your times that is all What do you care about him to
let yourself be vexed by anything he said Isnt it anything to you that we who
know you feel differently Dont you care more about what we think of you than
what he does who never saw you Oh Mr West you dont know you cant think
how it makes me feel to see you so forlorn I cant have it so What can I say
to you How can I convince you how different our feeling for you is from what
you think«
As before in that other crisis of my fate when she had come to me she
extended her hands towards me in a gesture of helpfulness and as then I
caught and held them in my own her bosom heaved with strong emotion and little
tremors in the fingers which I clasped emphasized the depth of her feeling In
her face pity contended in a sort of divine spite against the obstacles which
reduced it to impotence Womanly compassion surely never wore a guise more
lovely
Such beauty and such goodness quite melted me and it seemed that the only
fitting response I could make was to tell her just the truth Of course I had
not a spark of hope but on the other hand I had no fear that she would be
angry She was too pitiful for that So I said presently »It is very ungrateful
in me not to be satisfied with such kindness as you have shown me and are
showing me now But are you so blind as not to see why they are not enough to
make me happy Dont you see that it is because I have been mad enough to love
you«
At my last words she blushed deeply and her eyes fell before mine but she
made no effort to withdraw her hands from my clasp For some moments she stood
so panting a little Then blushing deeper than ever but with a dazzling smile
she looked up
»Are you sure it is not you who are blind« she said
That was all but it was enough for it told me that unaccountable
incredible as it was this radiant daughter of a golden age had bestowed upon me
not alone her pity but her love Still I half believed I must be under some
blissful hallucination even as I clasped her in my arms »If I am beside
myself« I cried »let me remain so«
»It is I whom you must think beside myself« she panted escaping from my
arms when I had barely tasted the sweetness of her lips »Oh oh what must you
think of me almost to throw myself in the arms of one I have known but a week I
did not mean that you should find it out so soon but I was so sorry for you I
forgot what I was saying No no you must not touch me again till you know who
I am After that sir you shall apologize to me very humbly for thinking as I
know you do that I have been over quick to fall in love with you After you
know who I am you will be bound to confess that it was nothing less than my
duty to fall in love with you at first sight and that no girl of proper feeling
in my place could do otherwise«
As may be supposed I would have been quite content to waive explanations
but Edith was resolute that there should be no more kisses until she had been
vindicated from all suspicion of precipitancy in the bestowal of her affections
and I was fain to follow the lovely enigma into the house Having come where her
mother was she blushingly whispered something in her ear and ran away leaving
us together
It then appeared that strange as my experience had been I was now first to
know what was perhaps its strangest feature From Mrs Leete I learned that
Edith was the greatgranddaughter of no other than my lost love Edith Bartlett
After mourning me for fourteen years she had made a marriage of esteem and
left a son who had been Mrs Leetes father Mrs Leete had never seen her
grandmother but had heard much of her and when her daughter was born gave
her the name of Edith This fact might have tended to increase the interest
which the girl took as she grew up in all that concerned her ancestress and
especially the tragic story of the supposed death of the lover whose wife she
expected to be in the conflagration of his house It was a tale well calculated
to touch the sympathy of a romantic girl and the fact that the blood of the
unfortunate heroine was in her own veins naturally heightened Ediths interest
in it A portrait of Edith Bartlett and some of her papers including a packet
of my own letters were among the family heirlooms The picture represented a
very beautiful young woman about whom it was easy to imagine all manner of
tender and romantic things My letters gave Edith some material for forming a
distinct idea of my personality and both together sufficed to make the sad old
story very real to her She used to tell her parents half jestingly that she
would never marry till she found a lover like Julian West and there were none
such nowadays
Now all this of course was merely the daydreaming of a girl whose mind
had never been taken up by a love affair of her own and would have had no
serious consequence but for the discovery that morning of the buried vault in
her fathers garden and the revelation of the identity of its inmate For when
the apparently lifeless form had been borne into the house the face in the
locket found upon the breast was instantly recognized as that of Edith Bartlett
and by that fact taken in connection with the other circumstances they knew
that I was no other than Julian West Even had there been no thought as at
first there was not of my resuscitation Mrs Leete said she believed that this
event would have affected her daughter in a critical and lifelong manner The
presumption of some subtle ordering of destiny involving her fate with mine
would under all circumstances have possessed an irresistible fascination for
almost any woman
Whether when I came back to life a few hours afterward and from the first
seemed to turn to her with a peculiar dependence and to find a special solace in
her company she had been too quick in giving her love at the first sign of
mine I could now her mother said judge for myself If I thought so I must
remember that this after all was the twentieth and not the nineteenth century
and love was no doubt now quicker in growth as well as franker in utterance
than then
From Mrs Leete I went to Edith When I found her it was first of all to
take her by both hands and stand a long time in rapt contemplation of her face
As I gazed the memory of that other Edith which had been affected as with a
benumbing shock by the tremendous experience that had parted us revived and my
heart was dissolved with tender and pitiful emotions but also very blissful
ones For she who brought to me so poignantly the sense of my loss was to make
that loss good It was as if from her eyes Edith Bartlett looked into mine and
smiled consolation to me My fate was not alone the strangest but the most
fortunate that ever befell a man A double miracle had been wrought for me I
had not been stranded upon the shore of this strange world to find myself alone
and companionless My love whom I had dreamed lost had been reëmbodied for my
consolation When at last in an ecstasy of gratitude and tenderness I folded
the lovely girl in my arms the two Ediths were blended in my thought nor have
they ever since been clearly distinguished I was not long in finding that on
Ediths part there was a corresponding confusion of identities Never surely
was there between freshly united lovers a stranger talk than ours that
afternoon She seemed more anxious to have me speak of Edith Bartlett than of
herself of how I had loved her than how I loved herself rewarding my fond
words concerning another woman with tears and tender smiles and pressures of the
hand
»You must not love me too much for myself« she said »I shall be very
jealous for her I shall not let you forget her I am going to tell you
something which you may think strange Do you not believe that spirits sometimes
come back to the world to fulfill some work that lay near their hearts What if
I were to tell you that I have sometimes thought that her spirit lives in me
that Edith Bartlett not Edith Leete is my real name I cannot know it of
course none of us can know who we really are but I can feel it Can you wonder
that I have such a feeling seeing how my life was affected by her and by you
even before you came So you see you need not trouble to love me at all if only
you are true to her I shall not be likely to be jealous«
Dr Leete had gone out that afternoon and I did not have an interview with
him till later He was not apparently wholly unprepared for the intelligence I
conveyed and shook my hand heartily
»Under any ordinary circumstances Mr West I should say that this step had
been taken on rather short acquaintance but these are decidedly not ordinary
circumstances In fairness perhaps I ought to tell you« he added smilingly
»that while I cheerfully consent to the proposed arrangement you must not feel
too much indebted to me as I judge my consent is a mere formality From the
moment the secret of the locket was out it had to be I fancy Why bless me
if Edith had not been there to redeem her greatgrandmothers pledge I really
apprehend that Mrs Leetes loyalty to me would have suffered a severe strain«
That evening the garden was bathed in moonlight and till midnight Edith and
I wandered to and fro there trying to grow accustomed to our happiness
»What should I have done if you had not cared for me« she exclaimed »I was
afraid you were not going to What should I have done then when I felt I was
consecrated to you As soon as you came back to life I was as sure as if she
had told me that I was to be to you what she could not be but that could only
be if you would let me Oh how I wanted to tell you that morning when you felt
so terribly strange among us who I was but dared not open my lips about that
or let father or mother«
»That must have been what you would not let your father tell me« I
exclaimed referring to the conversation I had overheard as I came out of my
trance
»Of course it was« Edith laughed »Did you only just guess that Father
being only a man thought that it would make you feel among friends to tell you
who we were He did not think of me at all But mother knew what I meant and so
I had my way I could never have looked you in the face if you had known who I
was It would have been forcing myself on you quite too boldly I am afraid you
think I did that today as it was I am sure I did not mean to for I know
girls were expected to hide their feelings in your day and I was dreadfully
afraid of shocking you Ah me how hard it must have been for them to have
always had to conceal their love like a fault Why did they think it such a
shame to love any one till they had been given permission It is so odd to think
of waiting for permission to fall in love Was it because men in those days were
angry when girls loved them That is not the way women would feel I am sure or
men either I think now I dont understand it at all That will be one of the
curious things about the women of those days that you will have to explain to
me I dont believe Edith Bartlett was so foolish as the others«
After sundry ineffectual attempts at parting she finally insisted that we
must say good night I was about to imprint upon her lips the positively last
kiss when she said with an indescribable archness
»One thing troubles me Are you sure that you quite forgive Edith Bartlett
for marrying any one else The books that have come down to us make out lovers
of your time more jealous than fond and that is what makes me ask It would be
a great relief to me if I could feel sure that you were not in the least jealous
of my greatgrandfather for marrying your sweetheart May I tell my
greatgrandmothers picture when I go to my room that you quite forgive her for
proving false to you«
Will the reader believe it this coquettish quip whether the speaker
herself had any idea of it or not actually touched and with the touching cured
a preposterous ache of something like jealousy which I had been vaguely
conscious of ever since Mrs Leete had told me of Edith Bartletts marriage
Even while I had been holding Edith Bartletts greatgranddaughter in my arms I
had not till this moment so illogical are some of our feelings distinctly
realized that but for that marriage I could not have done so The absurdity of
this frame of mind could only be equalled by the abruptness with which it
dissolved as Ediths roguish query cleared the fog from my perceptions I
laughed as I kissed her
»You may assure her of my entire forgiveness« I said »although if it had
been any man but your greatgrandfather whom she married it would have been a
very different matter«
On reaching my chamber that night I did not open the musical telephone that
I might be lulled to sleep with soothing tunes as had become my habit For once
my thoughts made better music than even twentieth century orchestras discourse
and it held me enchanted till well toward morning when I fell asleep
Chapter XXVIII
»Its a little after the time you told me to wake you sir You did not come out
of it as quick as common sir«
The voice was the voice of my man Sawyer I started bolt upright in bed and
stared around I was in my underground chamber The mellow light of the lamp
which always burned in the room when I occupied it illumined the familiar walls
and furnishings By my bedside with the glass of sherry in his hand which Dr
Pillsbury prescribed on first rousing from a mesmeric sleep by way of awakening
the torpid physical functions stood Sawyer
»Better take this right off sir« he said as I stared blankly at him »You
look kind of flushed like sir and you need it«
I tossed off the liquor and began to realize what had happened to me It
was of course very plain All that about the twentieth century had been a
dream I had but dreamed of that enlightened and carefree race of men and their
ingeniously simple institutions of the glorious new Boston with its domes and
pinnacles its gardens and fountains and its universal reign of comfort The
amiable family which I had learned to know so well my genial host and Mentor
Dr Leete his wife and their daughter the second and more beauteous Edith my
betrothed these too had been but figments of a vision
For a considerable time I remained in the attitude in which this conviction had
come over me sitting up in bed gazing at vacancy absorbed in recalling the
scenes and incidents of my fantastic experience Sawyer alarmed at my looks
was meanwhile anxiously inquiring what was the matter with me Roused at length
by his importunities to a recognition of my surroundings I pulled myself
together with an effort and assured the faithful fellow that I was all right »I
have had an extraordinary dream thats all Sawyer« I said »a
mostextraordinarydream«
I dressed in a mechanical way feeling lightheaded and oddly uncertain of
myself and sat down to the coffee and rolls which Sawyer was in the habit of
providing for my refreshment before I left the house The morning newspaper lay
by the plate I took it up and my eye fell on the date May 31 1887 I had
known of course from the moment I opened my eyes that my long and detailed
experience in another century had been a dream and yet it was startling to have
it so conclusively demonstrated that the world was but a few hours older than
when I had lain down to sleep
Glancing at the table of contents at the head of the paper which reviewed the
news of the morning I read the following summary
»Foreign Affairs The impending war between France and Germany The
French Chambers asked for new military credits to meet Germanys
increase of her army Probability that all Europe will be involved in
case of war Great suffering among the unemployed in London They
demand work Monster demonstration to be made The authorities uneasy
Great strikes in Belgium The government preparing to repress outbreaks
Shocking facts in regard to the employment of girls in Belgium coal
mines Wholesale evictions in Ireland
Home Affairs The epidemic of fraud unchecked Embezzlement of
half a million in New York Misappropriation of a trust fund by
executors Orphans left penniless Clever system of thefts by a bank
teller 50000 gone The coal barons decide to advance the price of
coal and reduce production Speculators engineering a great wheat
corner at Chicago A clique forcing up the price of coffee Enormous
landgrabs of Western syndicates Revelations of shocking corruption
among Chicago officials Systematic bribery The trials of the Boodle
aldermen to go on at New York Large failures of business houses
Fears of a business crisis A large grist of burglaries and larcenies
A woman murdered in cold blood for her money at New Haven A
householder shot by a burglar in this city last night A man shoots
himself in Worcester because he could not get work A large family left
destitute An aged couple in New Jersey commit suicide rather than go
to the poor house Pitiable destitution among the women wageworkers
in the great cities Startling growth of illiteracy in Massachusetts
More insane asylums wanted Decoration Day addresses Professor
Browns oration on the moral grandeur of nineteenth century
civilization«
It was indeed the nineteenth century to which I had awaked there could be no
kind of doubt about that Its complete microcosm this summary of the days news
had presented even to that last unmistakable touch of fatuous selfcomplacency
Coming after such a damning indictment of the age as that one days chronicle of
worldwide bloodshed greed and tyranny was a bit of cynicism worthy of
Mephistopheles and yet of all whose eyes it had met this morning I was
perhaps the only one who perceived the cynicism and but yesterday I should
have perceived it no more than the others That strange dream it was which had
made all the difference For I know not how long I forgot my surroundings after
this and was again in fancy moving in that vivid dreamworld in that glorious
city with its homes of simple comfort and its gorgeous public palaces Around
me were again faces unmarred by arrogance or servility by envy or greed by
anxious care or feverish ambition and stately forms of men and women who had
never known fear of a fellow man or depended on his favor but always in the
words of that sermon which still rang in my ears had »stood up straight before
God«
With a profound sigh and a sense of irreparable loss not the less poignant
that it was a loss of what had never really been I roused at last from my
reverie and soon after left the house
A dozen times between my door and Washington Street I had to stop and pull
myself together such power had been in that vision of the Boston of the future
to make the real Boston strange The squalor and malodorousness of the town
struck me from the moment I stood upon the street as facts I had never before
observed But yesterday moreover it had seemed quite a matter of course that
some of my fellowcitizens should wear silks and others rags that some should
look well fed and others hungry Now on the contrary the glaring disparities in
the dress and condition of the men and women who brushed each other on the
sidewalks shocked me at every step and yet more the entire indifference which
the prosperous showed to the plight of the unfortunate Were these human beings
who could behold the wretchedness of their fellows without so much as a change
of countenance And yet all the while I knew well that it was I who had
changed and not my contemporaries I had dreamed of a city whose people fared
all alike as children of one family and were one anothers keepers in all
things
Another feature of the real Boston which assumed the extraordinary effect
of strangeness that marks familiar things seen in a new light was the
prevalence of advertising There had been no personal advertising in the Boston
of the twentieth century because there was no need of any but here the walls
of the buildings the windows the broadsides of the newspapers in every hand
the very pavements everything in fact in sight save the sky were covered with
the appeals of individuals who sought under innumerable pretexts to attract
the contributions of others to their support However the wording might vary
the tenor of all these appeals was the same
»Help John Jones Never mind the rest They are frauds I John Jones am
the right one Buy of me Employ me Visit me Hear me John Jones Look at me
Make no mistake John Jones is the man and nobody else Let the rest starve but
for Gods sake remember John Jones«
Whether the pathos or the moral repulsiveness of the spectacle most
impressed me so suddenly become a stranger in my own city I know not Wretched
men I was moved to cry who because they will not learn to be helpers of one
another are doomed to be beggars of one another from the least to the greatest
This horrible babel of shameless selfassertion and mutual depreciation this
stunning clamor of conflicting boasts appeals and adjurations this stupendous
system of brazen beggary what was it all but the necessity of a society in
which the opportunity to serve the world according to his gifts instead of
being secured to every man as the first object of social organization had to be
fought for
I reached Washington Street at the busiest point and there I stood and
laughed aloud to the scandal of the passersby For my life I could not have
helped it with such a mad humor was I moved at sight of the interminable rows
of stores on either side up and down the street so far as I could see scores
of them to make the spectacle more utterly preposterous within a stones throw
devoted to selling the same sort of goods Stores stores stores miles of
stores ten thousand stores to distribute the goods needed by this one city
which in my dream had been supplied with all things from a single warehouse as
they were ordered through one great store in every quarter where the buyer
without waste of time or labor found under one roof the worlds assortment in
whatever line he desired There the labor of distribution had been so slight as
to add but a scarcely perceptible fraction to the cost of commodities to the
user The cost of production was virtually all he paid But here the mere
distribution of the goods their handling alone added a fourth a third a half
and more to the cost All these ten thousand plants must be paid for their
rent their staffs of superintendence their platoons of salesmen their ten
thousand sets of accountants jobbers and business dependents with all they
spent in advertising themselves and fighting one another and the consumers must
do the paying What a famous process for beggaring a nation
Were these serious men I saw about me or children who did their business
on such a plan Could they be reasoning beings who did not see the folly which
when the product is made and ready for use wastes so much of it in getting it
to the user If people eat with a spoon that leaks half its contents between
bowl and lip are they not likely to go hungry
I had passed through Washington Street thousands of times before and viewed
the ways of those who sold merchandise but my curiosity concerning them was as
if I had never gone by their way before I took wondering note of the show
windows of the stores filled with goods arranged with a wealth of pains and
artistic device to attract the eye I saw the throngs of ladies looking in and
the proprietors eagerly watching the effect of the bait I went within and noted
the hawkeyed floorwalker watching for business overlooking the clerks
keeping them up to their task of inducing the customers to buy buy buy for
money if they had it for credit if they had it not to buy what they wanted
not more than they wanted what they could not afford At times I momentarily
lost the clue and was confused by the sight Why this effort to induce people to
buy Surely that had nothing to do with the legitimate business of distributing
products to those who needed them Surely it was the sheerest waste to force
upon people what they did not want but what might be useful to another The
nation was so much the poorer for every such achievement What were these clerks
thinking of Then I would remember that they were not acting as distributors
like those in the store I had visited in the dream Boston They were not serving
the public interest but their immediate personal interest and it was nothing
to them what the ultimate effect of their course on the general prosperity might
be if but they increased their own hoard for these goods were their own and
the more they sold and the more they got for them the greater their gain The
more wasteful the people were the more articles they did not want which they
could be induced to buy the better for these sellers To encourage prodigality
was the express aim of the ten thousand stores of Boston
Nor were these storekeepers and clerks a whit worse men than any others in
Boston They must earn a living and support their families and how were they to
find a trade to do it by which did not necessitate placing their individual
interests before those of others and that of all They could not be asked to
starve while they waited for an order of things such as I had seen in my dream
in which the interest of each and that of all were identical But God in
heaven what wonder under such a system as this about me what wonder that the
city was so shabby and the people so meanly dressed and so many of them ragged
and hungry
Some time after this it was that I drifted over into South Boston and found
myself among the manufacturing establishments I had been in this quarter of the
city a hundred times before just as I had been on Washington Street but here
as well as there I now first perceived the true significance of what I
witnessed Formerly I had taken pride in the fact that by actual count Boston
had some four thousand independent manufacturing establishments but in this
very multiplicity and independence I recognized now the secret of the
insignificant total product of their industry
If Washington Street had been like a lane in Bedlam this was a spectacle as
much more melancholy as production is a more vital function than distribution
For not only were these four thousand establishments not working in concert and
for that reason alone operating at prodigious disadvantage but as if this did
not involve a sufficiently disastrous loss of power they were using their
utmost skill to frustrate one anothers effort praying by night and working by
day for the destruction of one anothers enterprises
The roar and rattle of wheels and hammers resounding from every side was not
the hum of a peaceful industry but the clangor of swords wielded by foemen
These mills and shops were so many forts each under its own flag its guns
trained on the mills and shops about it and its sappers busy below undermining
them
Within each one of these forts the strictest organization of industry was
insisted on the separate gangs worked under a single central authority No
interference and no duplicating of work were permitted Each had his allotted
task and none were idle By what hiatus in the logical faculty by what lost
link of reasoning account then for the failure to recognize the necessity of
applying the same principle to the organization of the national industries as a
whole to see that if lack of organization could impair the efficiency of a
shop it must have effects as much more disastrous in disabling the industries
of the nation at large as the latter are vaster in volume and more complex in
the relationship of their parts
People would be prompt enough to ridicule an army in which there were
neither companies battalions regiments brigades divisions or army corps
no unit of organization in fact larger than the corporals squad with no
officer higher than a corporal and all the corporals equal in authority And
yet just such an army were the manufacturing industries of nineteenth century
Boston an army of four thousand independent squads led by four thousand
independent corporals each with a separate plan of campaign
Knots of idle men were to be seen here and there on every side some idle
because they could find no work at any price others because they could not get
what they thought a fair price
I accosted some of the latter and they told me their grievances It was
very little comfort I could give them »I am sorry for you« I said »You get
little enough certainly and yet the wonder to me is not that industries
conducted as these are do not pay you living wages but that they are able to
pay you any wages at all«
Making my way back again after this to the peninsular city toward three
oclock I stood on State Street staring as if I had never seen them before at
the banks and brokers offices and other financial institutions of which there
had been in the State Street of my vision no vestige Business men confidential
clerks and errand boys were thronging in and out of the banks for it wanted
but a few minutes of the closing hour Opposite me was the bank where I did
business and presently I crossed the street and going in with the crowd
stood in a recess of the wall looking on at the army of clerks handling money
and the cues of depositors at the tellers windows An old gentleman whom I
knew a director of the bank passing me and observing my contemplative
attitude stopped a moment
»Interesting sight isnt it Mr West« he said »Wonderful piece of
mechanism I find it so myself I like sometimes to stand and look on at it just
as you are doing Its a poem sir a poem thats what I call it Did you ever
think Mr West that the bank is the heart of the business system From it and
to it in endless flux and reflux the life blood goes It is flowing in now It
will flow out again in the morning« and pleased with his little conceit the
old man passed on smiling
Yesterday I should have considered the simile apt enough but since then I
had visited a world incomparably more affluent than this in which money was
unknown and without conceivable use I had learned that it had a use in the
world around me only because the work of producing the nations livelihood
instead of being regarded as the most strictly public and common of all
concerns and as such conducted by the nation was abandoned to the haphazard
efforts of individuals This original mistake necessitated endless exchanges to
bring about any sort of general distribution of products These exchanges money
effected how equitably might be seen in a walk from the tenement house
districts to the Back Bay at the cost of an army of men taken from productive
labor to manage it with constant ruinous breakdowns of its machinery and a
generally debauching influence on mankind which had justified its description
from ancient time as the »root of all evil«
Alas for the poor old bank director with his poem He had mistaken the
throbbing of an abscess for the beating of the heart What he called »a
wonderful piece of mechanism« was an imperfect device to remedy an unnecessary
defect the clumsy crutch of a selfmade cripple
After the banks had closed I wandered aimlessly about the business quarter
for an hour or two and later sat a while on one of the benches of the Common
finding an interest merely in watching the throngs that passed such as one has
in studying the populace of a foreign city so strange since yesterday had my
fellow citizens and their ways become to me For thirty years I had lived among
them and yet I seemed to have never noted before how drawn and anxious were
their faces of the rich as of the poor the refined acute faces of the
educated as well as the dull masks of the ignorant And well it might be so for
I saw now as never before I had seen so plainly that each as he walked
constantly turned to catch the whispers of a spectre at his ear the spectre of
Uncertainty »Do your work never so well« the spectre was whispering »rise
early and toil till late rob cunningly or serve faithfully you shall never
know security Rich you may be now and still come to poverty at last Leave
never so much wealth to your children you cannot buy the assurance that your
son may not be the servant of your servant or that your daughter will not have
to sell herself for bread«
A man passing by thrust an advertising card in my hand which set forth the
merits of some new scheme of life insurance The incidents reminded me of the
only device pathetic in its admission of the universal need it so poorly
supplied which offered these tired and hunted men and women even a partial
protection from uncertainty By this means those already welltodo I
remembered might purchase a precarious confidence that after their death their
loved ones would not for a while at least be trampled under the feet of men
But this was all and this was only for those who could pay well for it What
idea was possible to these wretched dwellers in the land Ishmael where every
mans hand was against each and the hand of each against every other of true
life insurance as I had seen it among the people of that dream land each of
whom by virtue merely of his membership in the national family was guaranteed
against need of any sort by a policy underwritten by one hundred million fellow
countrymen
Some time after this it was that I recall a glimpse of myself standing on
the steps of a building on Tremont Street looking at a military parade A
regiment was passing It was the first sight in that dreary day which had
inspired me with any other emotions than wondering pity and amazement Here at
last were order and reason an exhibition of what intelligent coöperation can
accomplish The people who stood looking on with kindling faces could it be
that the sight had for them no more than but a spectacular interest Could they
fail to see that it was their perfect concert of action their organization
under one control which made these men the tremendous engine they were able to
vanquish a mob ten times as numerous Seeing this so plainly could they fail to
compare the scientific manner in which the nation went to war with the
unscientific manner in which it went to work Would they not query since what
time the killing of men had been a task so much more important than feeding and
clothing them that a trained army should be deemed alone adequate to the
former while the latter was left to a mob
It was now toward nightfall and the streets were thronged with the workers
from the stores the shops and mills Carried along with the stronger part of
the current I found myself as it began to grow dark in the midst of a scene
of squalor and human degradation such as only the South Cove tenement district
could present I had seen the mad wasting of human labor here I saw in direst
shape the want that waste had bred
From the black doorways and windows of the rookeries on every side came
gusts of fetid air The streets and alleys reeked with the effluvia of a slave
ships betweendecks As I passed I had glimpses within of pale babies gasping
out their lives amid sultry stenches of hopelessfaced women deformed by
hardship retaining of womanhood no trait save weakness while from the windows
leered girls with brows of brass Like the starving bands of mongrel curs that
infest the streets of Moslem towns swarms of halfclad brutalized children
filled the air with shrieks and curses as they fought and tumbled among the
garbage that littered the courtyards
There was nothing in all this that was new to me Often had I passed through
this part of the city and witnessed its sights with feelings of disgust mingled
with a certain philosophical wonder at the extremities mortals will endure and
still cling to life But not alone as regarded the economical follies of this
age but equally as touched its moral abominations scales had fallen from my
eyes since that vision of another century No more did I look upon the woful
dwellers in this Inferno with a callous curiosity as creatures scarcely human I
saw in them my brothers and sisters my parents my children flesh of my flesh
blood of my blood The festering mass of human wretchedness about me offended
not now my senses merely but pierced my heart like a knife so that I could not
repress sighs and groans I not only saw but felt in my body all that I saw
Presently too as I observed the wretched beings about me more closely I
perceived that they were all quite dead Their bodies were so many living
sepulchres On each brutal brow was plainly written the hic jacet of a soul dead
within
As I looked horror struck from one deaths head to another I was affected
by a singular hallucination Like a wavering translucent spirit face
superimposed upon each of these brutish masks I saw the ideal the possible face
that would have been the actual if mind and soul had lived It was not till I
was aware of these ghostly faces and of the reproach that could not be gainsaid
which was in their eyes that the full piteousness of the ruin that had been
wrought was revealed to me I was moved with contrition as with a strong agony
for I had been one of those who had endured that these things should be I had
been one of those who well knowing that they were had not desired to hear or
be compelled to think much of them but had gone on as if they were not seeking
my own pleasure and profit Therefore now I found upon my garments the blood of
this great multitude of strangled souls of my brothers The voice of their blood
cried out against me from the ground Every stone of the reeking pavements
every brick of the pestilential rookeries found a tongue and called after me as
I fled What hast thou done with thy brother Abel
I have no clear recollection of anything after this till I found myself
standing on the carved stone steps of the magnificent home of my betrothed in
Commonwealth avenue Amid the tumult of my thoughts that day I had scarcely
once thought of her but now obeying some unconscious impulse my feet had found
the familiar way to her door I was told that the family were at dinner but
word was sent out that I should join them at table Besides the family I found
several guests present all known to me The table glittered with plate and
costly china The ladies were sumptuously dressed and wore the jewels of queens
The scene was one of costly elegance and lavish luxury The company was in
excellent spirits and there was plentiful laughter and a running fire of jests
To me it was as if in wandering through the place of doom my blood turned
to tears by its sights and my spirit attuned to sorrow pity and despair I
had happened in some glade upon a merry party of roisterers I sat in silence
until Edith began to rally me upon my sombre looks What ailed me The others
presently joined in the playful assault and I became a target for quips and
jests Where had I been and what had I seen to make such a dull fellow of me
»I have been in Golgotha« at last I answered »I have seen Humanity hanging
on a cross Do none of you know what sights the sun and stars look down on in
this city that you can think and talk of anything else Do you not know that
close to your doors a great multitude of men and women flesh of your flesh
live lives that are one agony from birth to death Listen their dwellings are
so near that if you hush your laughter you will hear their grievous voices the
piteous crying of the little ones that suckle poverty the hoarse curses of men
sodden in misery turned halfway back to brutes the chaffering of an army of
women selling themselves for bread With what have you stopped your ears that
you do not hear these doleful sounds For me I can hear nothing else«
Silence followed my words A passion of pity had shaken me as I spoke but
when I looked around upon the company I saw that far from being stirred as I
was their faces expressed a cold and hard astonishment mingled in Ediths with
extreme mortification in her fathers with anger The ladies were exchanging
scandalized looks while one of the gentlemen had put up his eyeglass and was
studying me with an air of scientific curiosity When I saw that things which
were to me so intolerable moved them not at all that words that melted my heart
to speak had only offended them with the speaker I was at first stunned and
then overcome with a desperate sickness and faintness at the heart What hope
was there for the wretched for the world if thoughtful men and tender women
were not moved by things like these Then I bethought myself that it must be
because I had not spoken aright No doubt I had put the case badly They were
angry because they thought I was berating them when God knew I was merely
thinking of the horror of the fact without any attempt to assign the
responsibility for it
I restrained my passion and tried to speak calmly and logically that I
might correct this impression I told them that I had not meant to accuse them
as if they or the rich in general were responsible for the misery of the
world True indeed it was that the superfluity which they wasted would
otherwise bestowed relieve much bitter suffering These costly viands these
rich wines these gorgeous fabrics and glistening jewels represented the ransom
of many lives They were verily not without the guiltiness of those who waste in
a land stricken with famine Nevertheless all the waste of all the rich were
it saved would go but a little way to cure the poverty of the world There was
so little to divide that even if the rich went share and share with the poor
there would be but a common fare of crusts albeit made very sweet then by
brotherly love
The folly of men not their hardheartedness was the great cause of the
worlds poverty It was not the crime of man nor of any class of men that made
the race so miserable but a hideous ghastly mistake a colossal
worlddarkening blunder And then I showed them how four fifths of the labor of
men was utterly wasted by the mutual warfare the lack of organization and
concert among the workers Seeking to make the matter very plain I instanced
the case of arid lands where the soil yielded the means of life only by careful
use of the watercourses for irrigation I showed how in such countries it was
counted the most important function of the government to see that the water was
not wasted by the selfishness or ignorance of individuals since otherwise there
would be famine To this end its use was strictly regulated and systematized
and individuals of their mere caprice were not permitted to dam it or divert it
or in any way to tamper with it
The labor of men I explained was the fertilizing stream which alone
rendered earth habitable It was but a scanty stream at best and its use
required to be regulated by a system which expended every drop to the best
advantage if the world were to be supported in abundance But how far from any
system was the actual practice Every man wasted the precious fluid as he
wished animated only by the equal motives of saving his own crop and spoiling
his neighbors that his might sell the better What with greed and what with
spite some fields were flooded while others were parched and half the water ran
wholly to waste In such a land though a few by strength or cunning might win
the means of luxury the lot of the great mass must be poverty and of the weak
and ignorant bitter want and perennial famine
Let but the faminestricken nation assume the function it had neglected and
regulate for the common good the course of the lifegiving stream and the earth
would bloom like one garden and none of its children lack any good thing I
described the physical felicity mental enlightenment and moral elevation which
would then attend the lives of all men With fervency I spoke of that new world
blessed with plenty purified by justice and sweetened by brotherly kindness
the world of which I had indeed but dreamed but which might so easily be made
real But when I had expected now surely the faces round me to light up with
emotions akin to mine they grew ever more dark angry and scornful Instead of
enthusiasm the ladies showed only aversion and dread while the men interrupted
me with shouts of reprobation and contempt »Madman« »Pestilent fellow«
»Fanatic« »Enemy of society« were some of their cries and the one who had
before taken his eyeglass to me exclaimed »He says we are to have no more poor
Ha ha«
»Put the fellow out« exclaimed the father of my betrothed and at the
signal the men sprang from their chairs and advanced upon me
It seemed to me that my heart would burst with the anguish of finding that
what was to me so plain and so allimportant was to them meaningless and that I
was powerless to make it other So hot had been my heart that I had thought to
melt an iceberg with its glow only to find at last the overmastering chill
seizing my own vitals It was not enmity that I felt toward them as they
thronged me but pity only for them and for the world
Although despairing I could not give over Still I strove with them Tears
poured from my eyes In my vehemence I became inarticulate I panted I sobbed
I groaned and immediately afterward found myself sitting upright in bed in my
room in Dr Leetes house and the morning sun shining through the open window
into my eyes I was gasping The tears were streaming down my face and I
quivered in every nerve
As with an escaped convict who dreams that he has been recaptured and
brought back to his dark and reeking dungeon and opens his eyes to see the
heavens vault spread above him so it was with me as I realized that my return
to the nineteenth century had been the dream and my presence in the twentieth
was the reality
The cruel sights which I had witnessed in my vision and could so well
confirm from the experience of my former life though they had alas once been
and must in the retrospect to the end of time move the compassionate to tears
were God be thanked forever gone by Long ago oppressor and oppressed prophet
and scorner had been dust For generations rich and poor had been forgotten
words
But in that moment while yet I mused with unspeakable thankfulness upon the
greatness of the worlds salvation and my privilege in beholding it there
suddenly pierced me like a knife a pang of shame remorse and wondering
selfreproach that bowed my head upon my breast and made me wish the grave had
hid me with my fellows from the sun For I had been a man of that former time
What had I done to help on the deliverance whereat I now presumed to rejoice I
who had lived in those cruel insensate days what had I done to bring them to
an end I had been every whit as indifferent to the wretchedness of my brothers
as cynically incredulous of better things as besotted a worshipper of Chaos and
Old Night as any of my fellows So far as my personal influence went it had
been exerted rather to hinder than to help forward the enfranchisement of the
race which was even then preparing What right had I to hail a salvation which
reproached me to rejoice in a day whose dawning I had mocked
»Better for you better for you« a voice within me rang »had this evil
dream been the reality and this fair reality the dream better your part
pleading for crucified humanity with a scoffing generation than here drinking
of wells you digged not and eating of trees whose husbandmen you stoned« and
my spirit answered »Better truly«
When at length I raised my bowed head and looked forth from the window
Edith fresh as the morning had come into the garden and was gathering flowers
I hastened to descend to her Kneeling before her with my face in the dust I
confessed with tears how little was my worth to breathe the air of this golden
century and how infinitely less to wear upon my breast its consummate flower
Fortunate is he who with a case so desperate as mine finds a judge so
merciful
Postscript
The Rate of the Worlds Progress
To the Editor of the Boston Transcript
The Transcript of March 30 1888 contained a review of Looking Backward in
response to which I beg to be allowed a word The description to which the book
is devoted of the radically new social and industrial institutions and
arrangements supposed to be enjoyed by the people of the United States in the
twentieth century is not objected to as depicting a degree of human felicity
and moral development necessarily unattainable by the race provided time enough
had been allowed for its evolution from the present chaotic state of society In
failing to allow this the reviewer thinks that the author has made an absurd
mistake which seriously detracts from the value of the book as a work of
realistic imagination Instead of placing the realization of the ideal social
state a scant fifty years ahead it is suggested that he should have made his
figure seventyfive centuries There is certainly a large discrepancy between
seventyfive centuries and fifty years and if the reviewer is correct in his
estimate of the probable rate of human progress the outlook of the world is
decidedly discouraging But is he right I think not
Looking Backward although in form a fanciful romance is intended in all
seriousness as a forecast in accordance with the principles of evolution of
the next stage in the industrial and social development of humanity especially
in this country and no part of it is believed by the author to be better
supported by the indications of probability than the implied prediction that the
dawn of the new era is already near at hand and that the full day will swiftly
follow Does this seem at first thought incredible in view of the vastness of
the changes presupposed What is the teaching of history but that great
national transformations while ages in unnoticed preparation when once
inaugurated are accomplished with a rapidity and resistless momentum
proportioned to their magnitude not limited by it
In 1759 when Quebec fell the might of England in America seemed
irresistible and the vassalage of the colonies assured Nevertheless thirty
years later the first President of the American Republic was inaugurated In
1849 after Novara Italian prospects appeared as hopeless as at any time since
the Middle Ages yet only fifteen years after Victor Emmanuel was crowned King
of United Italy In 1864 the fulfillment of the thousandyear dream of German
unity was apparently as far off as ever Seven years later it had been realized
and William had assumed at Versailles the Crown of Barbarossa In 1832 the
original Antislavery Society was formed in Boston by a few socalled
visionaries Thirtyeight years later in 1870 the society disbanded its
programme fully carried out
These precedents do not of course prove that any such industrial and
social transformation as is outlined in Looking Backward is impending but they
do show that when the moral and economical conditions for it are ripe it may
be expected to go forward with great rapidity On no other stage are the scenes
shifted with a swiftness so like magic as on the great stage of history when
once the hour strikes The question is not then how extensive the
sceneshifting must be to set the stage for the new fraternal civilization but
whether there are any special indications that a social transformation is at
hand The causes that have been bringing it ever nearer have been at work from
immemorial time To the stream of tendency setting toward an ultimate
realization of a form of society which while vastly more efficient for material
prosperity should also satisfy and not outrage the moral instincts every sigh
of poverty every tear of pity every humane impulse every generous enthusiasm
every true religious feeling every act by which men have given effect to their
mutual sympathy by drawing more closely together for any purpose have
contributed from the beginnings of civilization That this long stream of
influence ever widening and deepening is at last about to sweep away the
barriers it has so long sapped is at least one obvious interpretation of the
present universal ferment of mens minds as to the imperfections of present
social arrangements Not only are the toilers of the world engaged in something
like a worldwide insurrection but true and humane men and women of every
degree are in a mood of exasperation verging on absolute revolt against
social conditions that reduce life to a brutal struggle for existence mock
every dictate of ethics and religion and render wellnigh futile the efforts of
philanthropy
As an iceberg floating southward from the frozen North is gradually
undermined by warmer seas and become at last unstable churns the sea to yeast
for miles around by the mighty rockings that portend its overturn so the
barbaric industrial and social system which has come down to us from savage
antiquity undermined by the modern humane spirit riddled by the criticism of
economic science is shaking the world with convulsions that presage its
collapse
All thoughtful men agree that the present aspect of society is portentous of
great changes The only question is whether they will be for the better or the
worse Those who believe in mans essential nobleness lean to the former view
those who believe in his essential baseness to the latter For my part I hold
to the former opinion Looking Backward was written in the belief that the
Golden Age lies before us and not behind us and is not far away Our children
will surely see it and we too who are already men and women if we deserve it
by our faith and by our works
EDWARD BELLAMY
Notes
1 In accounting for this state of mind it must be remembered that except for
the topic of our conversations there was in my surroundings next to nothing to
suggest what had befallen me Within a block of my home in the old Boston I
could have found social circles vastly more foreign to me The speech of the
Bostonians of the twentieth century differs even less from that of their
cultured ancestors of the nineteenth than did that of the latter from the
language of Washington and Franklin while the differences between the style of
dress and furniture of the two epochs are not more marked than I have known
fashion to make in the time of one generation
2 I am informed since the above is in type that this lack of perfection in the
distributing service of some of the country districts is to be remedied and
that soon every village will have its own set of tubes
3 I cannot sufficiently celebrate the glorious liberty that reigns in the public
libraries of the twentieth century as compared with the intolerable management
of those of the nineteenth century in which the books were jealousy railed away
from the people and obtainable only at an expenditure of time and red tape
calculated to discourage any ordinary taste for literature
4 I fully admit the difficulty of accounting for the course of the anarchists on
any other theory than that they were subsidized by the capitalists but at the
same time there is no doubt that the theory is wholly erroneous It certainly
was not held at the time by any one though it may seem so obvious in the
retrospect
5 I may say that Dr Leetes warning has been fully justified by my experience
The amount and intensity of amusement which the young people of this day and
the young women especially are able to extract from what they are pleased to
call the oddities of courtship in the nineteenth century appear unlimited