What I set out in the first chapter to do seems to me done. I essayed to show how the political "machine," its "ring," "boss," and "heeler," might be abolished, and how, consequently, the American plutocracy might be destroyed, and government simplified and contracted to the field of its natural operations. These ends achieved, a social revolution would be accomplished—a revolution without loss of a single life or destruction of a dollar's worth of property.
Whoever has read the foregoing chapters has seen these facts established:
(1) That much in proportion as the whole body of citizens take upon themselves the direction of public affairs, the possibilities for political and social parasitism disappear. The "machine" becomes without effective uses, the trade of the politician is rendered undesirable, and the privileges of the monopolist are withdrawn.
(2) That through the fundamental principles of democracy in practice—the Initiative and the Referendum—great bodies of people, with the agency of central committees, may formulate all necessary law and direct its execution.
(3) That the difference between a representative government and a democracy is radical. The difference lies in the location of the sovereignty of society. The citizens who assign the lawmaking power to officials surrender in a body their collective sovereignty. That sovereignty is then habitually employed by the lawgivers to their own advantage and to that of a twin governing class, the rich, and to the detriment of the citizenship in general and especially the poor. But when the sovereignty rests permanently with the citizenship, there evolves a government differing essentially from representative government. It is that of mere stewardship and the regulation indispensable to society.
The Social Forces Ready for Our Methods.
Now that our theory of social reform is fully substantiated by fact, our methods shown to be in harmony with popular sentiment, our idea of democratic government clearly defined, and our final aim political justice, there remains some consideration of early possible practical steps in line with these principles and of the probable trend of events afterward.
Having practical work in view, we may first take some account of the principal social forces which may be rallied in support of our methods:—
To begin with: Sincere men who have abandoned hope of legislative reform may be called to renewed effort. Many such men have come to regard politics as inseparable from corruption. They have witnessed the tediousness and unprofitableness of seeking relief through legislators, and time and again have they seenthe very officials elected to bring about reforms go over to the powers that exploit the masses. They have seen in the course of time the tricks of partisan legislators almost invariably win as against the wishes of the masses. They know that in politics there is little study of the public needs, but merely a practice of the ignoble arts of the professional politician. Here, however, the proposed social reorganization depends, not on representatives, but on the citizens themselves; and the means by which the citizens may fully carry out their purposes have been developed. A fact, too, of prime importance: Where heretofore in many localities the people have temporarily overthrown politician and plutocrat, only to be themselves defeated in the end, every point gained by the masses in direct legislation may be held permanently.
Further: Repeatedly, of late years, new parties have risen to demand justice in government and improvement in the economic situation. One such movement defeated but makes way for another. Proof, this, that the spirit of true reform is virile and the heart of the nation pure. The progress made, in numbers and organization, before the seeds of decay were sown in the United Labor party, the Union Labor party, the Greenback-Labor party, the People's party of 1884, and various third-party movements, testify to the readiness of earnest thousands to respond, even on the slightest promise of victory, to the call for radical reform. That in such movements the masses are incorruptible is shown in the fact that in every instance one of thechief causes of failure has been doubt in the integrity of leaders given to machine methods. But in direct legislation, machine leaders profit nothing for themselves, hold no reins of party, can sell no votes, and can command no rewards for workers.
Again: The vast organizations of the Knights of Labor and the trades-unions in the American Federation of Labor are evidence of the willingness and ability of wage-earners to cope practically with national problems. And at this point is to be observed a fact of capital significance to advocates of pure democracy. Whereas, in independent political movements, sooner or later a footing has been obtained by a machine, resulting in disintegration, in the trades organization, while political methods may occasionally corrupt leaders, the politician labor leader uniformly finds his fellow workmen turning their backs on him. The organized workers not only distrust the politician but detest political chicanery. Such would equally be the case did the wage-workers carry into the political field the direct power they exert in their unions. And in politics this never-failing, incorruptible power of the whole mass of organized wage-workers may be exerted by direct legislation. Therewith may be had politics without politicians. As direct legislation advances, the machine must retire.
Here, then, with immediate results in prospect from political action, lies encouragement of the highest degree—alike to the organized workers, to the men grown hopeless of political reform, and to the men inactive rebellion against the two great machine ridden parties.
Encouragement founded on reason is an inestimable practical result. Here, not only may rational hope for true reform be inspired; a lively certainty, based on ascertained fact, may be felt. All men of experience who have read these pages will have seen confirmed something of their own observations in direct legislation, and will have accepted as plainly logical sequences the developments of the institution in Switzerland. The New Englander will have learned how the purifying principles of his town meeting have been made capable of extension. The member of a labor organization will have observed how the simple democracy of his union or assembly may be transferred to the State. The "local optionist" will have recognized, working in broader and more varied fields, a well tried and satisfactory instrument. The college man will have recalled the fact that wherever has gone the Greek letter fraternity, there, in each society as a whole, and in each chapter with respect to every special act, have gone the Initiative and the Referendum. And every member of any body of equal associates must perceive that the first, natural circumstance to the continued existence of that body in its integrity must be that each individual may propose a measure and that the majority may accept or reject it; and this is the simple principle of direct legislation. Moreover, any mature man, east or west, in any locality, may recall how within his experience a community's vote has satisfactorily put vexatious questions at rest. With the recognition of every such fact, hope will rise and faith in the proposed methods be made more firm.
Abolition of the Lawmaking Monopoly.
To radical reformers further encouragement must come with continued reflection on the importance to them of direct legislation. In general, such reformers have failed to recognize that, before any project of social reconstruction can be followed out to the end, there stands a question antecedent to every other. It is the abolition of the lawmaking monopoly. Until that monopoly is ended, no law favorable to the masses can be secure. Direct legislation would destroy this parent of monopolies. It gone, then would follow the chiefer evils of governmental mechanism—class rule, ring rule, extravagance, jobbery, nepotism, the spoils system, every jot of the professional trading politician's influence. To effect these ends, all schools of political reformers might unite. For immediate purposes, help might come even from that host of conservatives who believe all will be well if officials are honest. Direct majority rule attained, inviting opportunities for radical work would soon lie open. How, may readily be seen.
The New England town collects its own taxes; it manages its local schools, roads, bridges, police, public lighting and water supply. In similar affairs the Swiss commune is autonomous. On the Pacific coast a tendency is to accord to places of 10,000 or 20,000 inhabitants their own charters. Throughout the country, in many instances, towns and counties settle for themselves questions of prohibition, license, and assessments; questions of help to corporations and of local public improvement. Thus in measure as the Referendum comes into play does the circumscription practicing it become a complete community. In other words, with direct legislation rises local self-government.
The Principles of Local Self-Government.
From even the conservative point of view, local self-government has many advantages. In this country, the glaring evils of the State, especially those forming obstacles to political improvement and social progress, come down from sources above the people. Under the existing centralization whole communities may protest against governmental abuses, be practically a unit in opposition to them, and yet be hopelessly subject to them. Such centralization is despotism. It forms as well the opportunity for the demagogue of to-day—for him who as suppliant for votes is a wheedler and as politician and lawgiver a trickster. Centralization confuses the voter, baffles the honest newspaper, foments partisanship, and cheats the masses of their will. On the other hand, to the extent that local independence is acquired, a democratic community minimizes every such evil. In naturally guarding itself against external interference, it seeks in its connection with other communities the least common political bonds. It is watchful of the home rule principle. Under its local self-government, government plainly becomes no more than the management of what are wholly public interests. The justice of lopping off from government all matters not the common affairs of the citizens then becomes apparent. The character of every man in the community being known, public duties are intrusted with men who truly represent the citizens. The mere demagogue is soon well known. Bribery becomes treachery to one's neighbor. The folly of partisanship is seen. Public issues, usually relating to but local matters, are for the most part plain questions. The press, no longer absorbed in vague, far-off politics, aids, not the politicians, but the citizens. Reasons, every one of these, for even the conservative to aid in establishing local self-government.
But the radical, looking further than the conservative, will see far greater opportunities. In local self-government with direct legislation, every possibility for his success that hope can suggest may be perceived. If not in one locality, then in another, whatever political projects are attainable within such limits by his school of philosophy may be converted by him and his co-workers from theory to fact. Thence on, if his philosophy is practicable, the field should naturally widen.
The political philosophy I would urge on my fellow-citizens is summed up in the neglected fundamental principle of this republic: Freedom and equal rights.The true point of view from which to see the need of the application of this principle is from the position of the unemployed, propertyless wage-worker. How local self-government and direct legislation might promptly invest this slave of society with his primary rights, and pave the way for further rights, may, step by step, be traced.
The Relation of Wages to Political Conditions.
The wages scale pivots on the strike. The employer's order for a reduction is his strike; to be effective, a reserve of the unemployed must be at his command. The wage-worker's demand for an increase is his strike; to be effective it must be backed up by the indispensableness of his services to the employer. Accordingly as the worker forces up the scale of wages, he is the more free, independent, and gainer of his product. To show the most direct way to the conditions in which workers may command steady work and raise their wages, this book is written. For the wages question equitably settled, the foundation for every remaining social reform is laid.
To-day, in the United States, in scores, nay, hundreds, of industrial communities the wage-working class is in the majority. The wage-workers commonly believe, what is true, that they are the victims of injustice. As yet, however, no project for restoring their rights has been successful. All the radical means suggested have been beyond their reach. But in so far as a single community may exercise equal rightsand self-government, through these means it may approximate to just social arrangements.
Any American city of 50,000 inhabitants may be taken as illustrative of all American industrial communities. In such a city, the economical and political conditions are typical. The immediate commercial interests of the buyers of labor, the employers, are opposed to those of the sellers of labor, the employed. To control the price of labor, each of these parties in the labor market resorts to whatever measures it finds within command. The employers in many branches of industry actually, and employers in general tacitly, combine against the labor organizations. On the wage-workers' side, these organizations are the sole means, except a few well-nigh futile laws, yet developed to raise wages and shorten the work day. In case of a strike, the employers, to assist the police in intimidating the strikers, may engage a force of armed so-called detectives. Simply, perhaps, for inviting non-unionists to cease work, the strikers are subject to imprisonment. Trial for conspiracy may follow arrest, the judges allied by class interests with the employers. The newspapers, careful not to offend advertisers, and looking to the well-to-do for the mass of their readers, may be inclined to exert an influence against the strikers. The solidarity of the wage-workers incomplete, even many of these may regard the fate of the strikers with indifference. In such situation, a strike of the wage-workers may be made to appear toall except those closely concerned as an assault on the bulwarks of society.
But what are the bulwarks of society directly arrayed against striking wage-workers? They are a ring of employers, a ring of officials enforcing class law made by compliant representatives at the bidding of shrewd employers, and a ring of public sentiment makers—largely professional men whose hopes lie with wealthy patrons. Behind these outer barriers, and seldom affected by even widespread strikes, lies the citadel in which dwell the monopolists.
Such, in outline, are the intermingled political and economic conditions common to all American industrial centres. But above every other fact, one salient fact appears: On the wage-workers falls the burthen of class law. On what, then, depends the wiping out of such law? Certainly on nothing else so much as on the force of the wage-workers themselves. To deprive their opponents of unjust legal advantages, and to invest themselves with just rights of which they have been deprived, is a task, outside their labor organizations, to be accomplished mainly by the wage-workers. It is their task as citizens—their political task. With direct legislation and local self-government, it is, in considerable degree, a feasible, even an easy, task. The labor organizations might supply the framework for a political party, as was done in New York city in 1886. Then, as was the case in that campaign, when the labor party polled 68,000 votes, even non-unionists might throw in the reinforcement oftheir otherwise hurtful strength. Success once in sight, the organized wage-workers would surely find citizens of other classes helping to swell their vote. And in the straightforward politics of direct legislation, the labor leaders who command the respect of their fellows might, without danger to their character and influence, go boldly to the front.
The Wage-Workers as a Political Majority.
Suppose that as far as possible our industrial city of 50,000 inhabitants should exercise self-government with direct legislation. Various classes seeking to reform common abuses, certain general reforms would immediately ensue. If the city should do what the Swiss have done, it would speedily rid its administration of unnecessary office-holders, reduce the salaries of its higher officials, and rescind outstanding franchise privileges. If the municipality should have power to determine its own methods of taxation, as is now in some respects the case in Massachusetts towns, and toward which end a movement has begun in New York, it would probably imitate the Swiss in progressively taxing the higher-priced real estate, inheritances, and incomes. If the wage-workers, a majority in a direct vote, should demand in all public work the short hour day, they would get it, perhaps, as in the Rockland town meeting, without question. Further, the wage-workers might vote anti-Pinkerton ordinances, compel during strikes the neutrality of the police, and place judges from their own ranks in at least the localcourts. These tasks partly under way, a change in prevailing social ideas would pass over the community. The press, echo, not of the widest spread sentiments, but of controlling public opinion, would open its columns to the wage-working class come to power. And, as is ever so when the wage-workers are aggressive and probably may be dominant, the social question would burn.
The Entire Span of Equal Rights.
The social question uppermost, the wage-workers—now in political ascendency, and bent on getting the full product of their labor—would seek further to improve their vantage ground. Sooner or later they would inevitably make issue of the most urgent, the most persistent, economic evil, local as well as general, the inequality of rights in the land. They would affirm that, were the land of the community in use suitable to the general needs, the unemployed would find work and the total of production be largely increased. They would point to the vacant lots in and about the city, held on speculation, commonly in American cities covering a greater area than the land improved, and denounce so unjust a system of land tenure. They could demonstrate that the price of the land represented for the most part but the power of the owners to wring from the producers of the city, merely for space on which to live and work, a considerable portion of their product. They could with reason declare that the withholding from use of the vacantland of the locality was the main cause of local poverty. And they would demand that legal advantages in the local vacant lands should forthwith cease.
In bringing to an end the local land monopoly, however, justice could be done the landholders. Unquestionably the fairest measure to them, and at the same time the most direct method of giving to city producers, if not free access to land, the next practicable thing to it, would be for the municipality to convert a part of the local vacant land into public property, and to open it in suitable plots to such citizens as should become occupiers. Sufficient land for this purpose might be acquired through eminent domain. The purchase money could be forthcoming from several sources—from progressive taxation in the direct forms already mentioned, from the city's income from franchises, and from the savings over the wastes of administration under present methods.
From the standpoint of equal rights there need be no difficulty in meeting the arguments certain to be brought against this proposed course—such sophistical arguments as that it is not the business of a government to take property from some citizens to give to others. If the unemployed, propertyless wage-worker has a right to live, he has the right to sustain life. To sustain life independently of other men's permission, access to natural resources is essential. This primary right being denied the wage-workers as a class, any or all of whom, if unemployed, might soon be propertyless, they might in justice proceed to enforce it. Toenforce it by means involving so little friction as those here proposed ought to win, not opposition, but approval.
Equal rights once conceded as just, this reasoning cannot be refuted. Discussed in economic literature since before the day of Adam Smith, it has withstood every form of assault. If it has not been acted on in the Old World, it is because the wage-workers there, ignorant and in general deprived of the right to vote, have been helpless; and if not in the New, because, first, until within recent years the free western lands, attracting the unemployed and helping to maintain wages, in a measure gave labor access to nature, and, secondly, since the practical exhaustion of the free public domain the industrial wage-workers have not perceived how, through politics, to carry out their convictions on the land question.
Our reasoning is further strengthened by law and custom in state and nation. In nearly every state, the constitution declares that the original and ultimate ownership of the land lies with all its people; and hence the method of administering the land is at all times an open public question. As to the nation at large, its settled policy and long-continued custom support the principle that all citizens have inalienable rights in the land. Instead of selling the national domain in quantities to suit purchasers, the government has held it open free to agricultural laborers, literally millions of men being thus given access to the soil. Moreover, in thirty-seven of the forty-fourstates, execution for debt cannot entirely deprive a man of his homestead, the value exempt in many of the states being thousands of dollars. Thus the general welfare has dictated the building up and the securing of a home for every laboring citizen.
In line, then, with established American principles is the proposition for municipal lands. And if municipalities have extended to capitalists privileges of many kinds, even granting them gratis sites for manufactories, and for terms of years exempting such real estate from taxation, why not accord to the wage-workers at least their primary natural rights? If any property be exempted from taxation, why not the homesite below a certain fixed value? And if, for the public benefit, municipalities provide parks, museums, and libraries, why not give each producer a homesite—a footing on the earth? He who has not this is deprived of the first right to do that by which he must live, namely, labor.
Effects of Municipal Land.
A city public domain, open to citizen occupiers under just stipulations, would in several directions have far-reaching results.
Should this domain be occupied by, say, one thousand families of a population of 50,000, an immediate result, affecting the whole city, would be a fall in rents. In fact, the mere existence of the public domain, with a probability that his tenants would remove to it, might cause a landlord to reduce his rents.Besides, the value of all land, in the city and about it, held on speculation, would fall. Save in instances of particular advantage, the price of unimproved residence lots would gravitate toward the cost, all things considered, of residence lots in the public domain. This, for these reasons: The corner in land would be broken. Home builders would pay a private owner no more for a lot than the cost of a similar one in the public area. As houses went up on the public domain, the chances of landholders to sell to builders would be diminished. Sellers of land, besides competing with the public land, would then compete with increased activity with one another. Finally, just taxation of their land, valueless as a speculation, would oblige landowners to sell it or to put it to good use.
Even should the growth of the city be rapid, the value of land in private hands could in general advance but little, if at all. With the actual demands of an increased population, the public domain might from time to time be enlarged; but not, it may reasonably be assumed, at a rate that would give rise to an upward tendency of prices in the face of the above-mentioned factors contributing to a downward tendency.
At this point it may be well to remember that, conditions of land purchase by the city being subject to the Referendum, the buying could hardly be accompanied by corrupt bargaining.
When the effect of the public land in depressing land values, in other words in enabling producers to retain the more of their product, was seen, private aswell as public agencies might aid in enlarging the scope of that effect. The philanthropic might transfer land to the municipality, preferring to help restore just social conditions rather than to aid in charities that leave the world with more poor than ever; the city might provide for a gradual conversion, in the course of time, of all the land within its limits to public control, first selecting, with the end in view, tracts of little market value, which, open to occupiers, would assist in keeping down the value of lands held privately.
But the more striking results of city public land would lie in another direction. The spontaneous efforts of each individual to increase and to secure the product of his labor would turn the current of production away from the monopolists and toward the producers. With a lot in the public domain, a wage-worker might soon live in his own cottage. As the settler often did in the West, to acquire a home he might first build two or four rooms as the rear, and, living in it, with later savings put up the front. A house and a vegetable garden, with the increased consequent thrift rarely in such situation lacking, would add a large fraction to his year's earnings. Pasture for a cow in suburban city land would add yet more. Then would this wage-earner, now his own landlord and in part a direct producer from the soil, withdraw his children from the labor market, where they compete for work perhaps with himself, and send them on to school.
What would now happen should the wage-workers of the city demand higher wages? It is hardly to be supposed that any industrial centre could reach the stage of radical reform contemplated at this point much in advance of others. When the labor organizations throughout the country take hold of direct legislation, and taste of its successes, they will nowhere halt. They will no more hesitate than does a conquering army. Learning what has been done in Switzerland, they will go the lengths of the Swiss radicals and, with more elbow room, further. Hence, when in one industrial centre the governing workers should seek better terms, similar demands from fellow laborers, as able to enforce them, would be heard elsewhere.
The employer of our typical city, even now often unable to find outside the unions the unemployed labor he must have, would then, should he attempt it, to a certainty fail. The thrifty wage-working householder, today a tenant fearful of loss of work, could then strike and stay out. The situation would resemble that in the West twenty years ago, when open land made the laborer his own master and wages double what they are now. Wages, then, would perforce be moved upward, and hours be shortened, and a long step be made toward that state of things in which two employers offer work to one employé. And, legal and social forces no longer irresistibly opposed to the wage-workers, thenceforth wages would advance. At every stage they would tend to the maximum possible under the improved conditions. In the end, under fully equalconditions, everywhere, for all classes, the producer would gather to himself the full product of his labor.
The average business man, too, of the city of our illustration, himself a producer—that is, a help to the consumer—would under the better conditions reap new opportunities. Far less than now would he fear failure through bad debts and hard times; through the wage-workers' larger earnings, he would obtain a larger volume of trade; he would otherwise naturally share in the generally increased production; and he would participate in the common benefits from the better local government.
But the disappearance of the local monopolist would be predestined. The owner of local franchises would already have gone. The local land monopolist would have seen his land values diminished. In every such case, the monopolist's loss would be the producer's gain. The aggregate annual earnings of all the city's producers (the wage-workers, the land-workers, and the men in productive business) would rise toward their natural just aggregate—all production. As between the various classes within the city, a condition approximating to justice in political and economic arrangements would now prevail.
What would thus be likely to happen in our typical city of 50,000 inhabitants would also, in greater or less degree, be possible in all industrial towns and cities. In every such place, self-government and direct legislation could solve the more pressing immediate phases of the labor question and create the localconditions favorable to remodeling, and as far as possible abolishing, the superstructure of government.
Wider Applications of These Principles and Methods.
The political and economic arrangements extending beyond the control of the municipalities would now, if they had not done so before, challenge attention. In taking up with reform in this wider field, the industrial wage-workers would come in contact with those farmers who are demanding radical reforms in state and nation. As the sure instrument for the citizenship of a state, direct legislation could again with confidence be employed. No serious opposition, in fact or reason, could be brought against it. That the mass of voters might prove too unwieldy for the method would be an assertion to be instantly refuted by Swiss statistics. In Zurich, the most radically democratic canton of Switzerland, the people number 339,000; the voters, 80,000. In Berne, which has the obligatory Referendum, the population is 539,000. And it must not be overlooked that the entire Swiss Confederation, with 600,000 voters, now has both Initiative and Referendum. Hence, in any state of the Union, direct legislation on general affairs may be regarded as immediately practicable, while in many of the smaller states the obligatory Referendum may be applied to particulars. And even in the most populous states, when special legislation should be cast aside, and local legislation left to the localities affected, complete directlegislation need be no more unmanageable than in the smallest.
United farmers, wage-workers, and other classes of citizens, in the light of these facts, might naturally demand direct legislation. Foreseeing that in time such union will be inevitable, what more natural for the producing classes in revolt than to unite today in voting, if not for other propositions, at least for direct legislation and home rule? These forces combined in any state, it seems improbable that certain political and economic measures now supported by farmer and wage-worker alike could long fail to become law. Already, under the principle that "rights should be equal to all and special privileges be had by none," farmers' and wage-workers' parties are making the following demands: That taxation be not used to build up one interest or class at the expense of another; that the public revenues be no more than necessary for government expenditures; that the agencies of transportation and communication be operated at the lowest cost of service; that no privileges in banking be permitted; that woman have the vote wherever justice gives it to man; that no force of police, marshals, or militiamen not commissioned by their home authorities be permitted anywhere to be employed; that monopoly in every form be abolished and the personal rights of every individual respected. These demands are all in agreement with the spirit of freedom. Along the lines they mark out, the future successes of the radical social reformers will most probably come. But if, in response to a call nowadays frequently heard, the many incipient parties should decide to unite on one or a few things, is it not clear that in natural order the first reforms needed are direct legislation and local self-government?
To a party logically following the principle of equal rights, the progress in Switzerland under direct legislation would form an invaluable guide. The Swiss methods of controlling the railroads and banks of issue, and of operating the telegraph and telephone services, deserve study and, to the extent that our institutions admit, imitation. The organization of the Swiss State and its subdivisions is simple and natural. The success of their executive councils may in this country assist in raising up the power of the people as against one man power. The fact that the cantons have no senates and that a second chamber is an obstacle to direct legislation may here hasten the abolition of these nurseries of aristocracy.
With the advance of progress under direct legislation, attention would doubtless be attracted in the United States, as it has been in Switzerland, to the nicer shades of justice to minorities and to the broader fields of internal improvement. As in the cantons of Ticino and Neuchâtel, our legislative bodies might be opened to minority representatives. As in the Swiss Confederation, the great forests might be declared forever the inheritance of the nation. What public lands yet remain in each state might be withheld from private ownership except on occupancy and use, andthe area might be so increased as to enable every producer desiring it to exercise the natural right of free access to the soil. Then the right to labor, now being demanded through the Initiative by the Swiss workingmen's party, might here be made an admitted fact. And as is now also being done in Switzerland, the public control might be extended to water powers and similar resources of nature.
Thus in state and nation might practicable radical reforms make their way. From the beginning, as has been seen, benefits would be widespread. It might not be long before the most crying social evils were at an end. Progressive taxation and abolition of monopoly privileges would cause the great private fortunes of the country to melt away, to add to the producers' earnings. On a part of the soil being made free of access, the land-hungry would withdraw from the cities, relieving the overstocked labor markets. Poverty of the able-bodied willing to work might soon be even more rare than in this country half a century ago, since methods of production at that time were comparatively primitive and the free land only in the West. If Switzerland, small in area, naturally a poor country, and with a dense population, has gone far toward banishing pauperism and plutocracy, what wealth for all might not be reckoned in America, so fertile, so broad, so sparsely populated!
And thus the stages are before us in the course of which the coming just society may gradually be established—that society in which the individual shallattain his highest liberty and development, and consequently his greatest happiness. As lovers of freedom even now foresee, in that perfect society each man will be master of himself; each will act on his own initiative and control the full product of his toil. In that society, the producer's product will not, as now, be diminished by interest, unearned profits, or monopoly rent of natural resources. Interest will tend to disappear because the products of labor in the hands of every producer will be abundant—so abundant that, instead of a borrower paying interest for a loan, a lender may at times pay, as for an accommodation, for having his products preserved. Unearned profits will tend to disappear because, no monopolies being in private hands, and free industry promoting voluntary coöperation, few opportunities will exist for such profits. Monopoly rent will disappear because, the natural right to labor on the resources of nature made a legal right, no man will be able to exact from another a toll for leave to labor. Whatever rent may arise from differences in the qualities of natural resources will be made a community fund, perhaps to be substituted for taxes or to be divided among the producers.
The natural political bond in such a society is plain. Wherein he interferes with no other man, every individual possessing faculty will be regarded as his own supreme sovereign. Free, because land is free, when he joins a community he will enter into social relations with its citizens by contract. He will legislate (form contracts) with the rest of his immediate community in person. Every community, in all that relates peculiarly to itself, will be self-governing. Where one community shall have natural political bonds with another, or in any respect form with several others a greater community, the circumscription affected will legislate through central committees and a direct vote of the citizenship. Executives and other officials will be but stewards. In a society so constituted, communities that reject the elements of political success will languish; free men will leave them. The communities that accept the elements of success, becoming examples through their prosperity, will be imitated; and thus the momentum of progress will be increased. Communities free, state boundaries as now known will be wiped out; and in the true light of rights in voting—the rights of associates in a contract to express their choice—few questions will affect wide territories. Rarely will any question be, in the sense the word is now used, national; the ballot-box may never unite the citizens of the Atlantic coast with those of the Pacific. Yet, in this decomposition of the State into its natural units—in this resolving of society into its constituent elements—may be laid the sole true, natural, lasting basis of the universal republic, the primary principle of which can be no other thing than freedom.
FOOTNOTES:[A]J.M. Vincent: "State and Federal Government in Switzerland."[B]Vincent.[C]For constitutional amendments only.[D]While the reports of the Secretary of State and "The History of the Referendum," by Th. Curti, will bear out many of the statements here made as to how the change from representative to direct legislation came about, the story as I give it has been written me by Herr Carl Bürkli, of Zurich, known in his canton as the "Father of the Referendum."[E]The facts relative to the operation of these two forms of the Referendum have been given me by Monsieur P. Jamin, of Geneva.[F]Vincent.[G]Vincent.[H]A vote, October 18, 1891, made note-issuing a federal monopoly.
[A]J.M. Vincent: "State and Federal Government in Switzerland."
[A]J.M. Vincent: "State and Federal Government in Switzerland."
[B]Vincent.
[B]Vincent.
[C]For constitutional amendments only.
[C]For constitutional amendments only.
[D]While the reports of the Secretary of State and "The History of the Referendum," by Th. Curti, will bear out many of the statements here made as to how the change from representative to direct legislation came about, the story as I give it has been written me by Herr Carl Bürkli, of Zurich, known in his canton as the "Father of the Referendum."
[D]While the reports of the Secretary of State and "The History of the Referendum," by Th. Curti, will bear out many of the statements here made as to how the change from representative to direct legislation came about, the story as I give it has been written me by Herr Carl Bürkli, of Zurich, known in his canton as the "Father of the Referendum."
[E]The facts relative to the operation of these two forms of the Referendum have been given me by Monsieur P. Jamin, of Geneva.
[E]The facts relative to the operation of these two forms of the Referendum have been given me by Monsieur P. Jamin, of Geneva.
[F]Vincent.
[F]Vincent.
[G]Vincent.
[G]Vincent.
[H]A vote, October 18, 1891, made note-issuing a federal monopoly.
[H]A vote, October 18, 1891, made note-issuing a federal monopoly.
AAargau,12,13Abolition of the lawmaking monopoly,100"A Concept of Political Justice",iAdams, Sir Francis Ottiwell ("The Swiss Confederation"),iiiAlcohol, State monopoly, Switzerland,59Appenzell,8,13,65Area of Switzerland,14,48"Arena",27Army, a democratic,41,42Assembly, Federal, Switzerland,22,35BBâle,12,13,61Banking, Switzerland,54Berne,10,12,13,61,115Bryce, James, "American Commonwealth",85Bürkli, Carl,16CCanton, organization of the,34Cantons (states), names of the twenty-two,13Cigar-Makers' Union,87,88Climate, Switzerland,48Communal lands,63,70Communal meeting, the,7,32,33subjects covered at,8organization,32Communes (townships) 2,706 in number,7Congress (Federal Assembly), Switzerland,22,35Congress, United States, at work,92Considérant, Victor,16Constitutions, revision of Swiss,23spirit of Swiss,31DDates—First Swiss Constitution,14Federal Referendum began,14Federal Initiative adopted,14cantonal Referendum began,14progress of cantonal Referendum,15French theorists' discussion of Referendum,14cantonal Referendum established in Zurich,16New England town meeting,80Debts, public, Switzerland,57Democracy vs. representative government,5Dicey, A.V.,28Diet,10,37Droz, Numa,19EElections, semi-annual,20Environment of the Swiss citizen,31Equal rights,107Executive councils, Swiss,36,37,40FFacts established by this book,95Fiske, John, on town meeting,80Freedom in Switzerland,57Freiburg,12GGarment Workers, United,88Geneva,12,13,61Glarus,12,13,65,66,67Grand Council,18,20,34Grisons,12,13,61HHighways, Switzerland,50IIlliteracy in Switzerland,27Immigration into Switzerland,70Initiative and Referendum in labor organizations,87Initiative, cantonal,11Federal,22not a simple petition,22what it is,10Instruction in Switzerland,27JJamin, P,17Jesuits expelled from Switzerland,58Judiciary, Swiss,40Jurors, Swiss, elected,40LLand and climate, Switzerland,47Land, tenure and distribution of, Switzerland,63,70Public,64,65Landsgemeinde,8,63Languages in Switzerland,13Legislation by representatives,92Legislators, pay of Swiss,35Legislatures in Switzerland,34Local self-government,101Lucerne,12,13MMachines kill third parties,98McCrackan, W.D.,27Military system, Swiss,42,43Moses, Prof. Bernard ("The Federal Government of Switzerland"),iiiMunicipal land,110NNelson, Henry Loomis, on the town meeting,79Neuchâtel,12,13,61New England town meeting,72OOberholtzer, Ellis P., on Referendum in the United States,82Objections to the optional Referendum,18Obligatory and optional Referendum,13,17Obligatory Referendum in Zurich,20One-man power unknown in Switzerland,34PParliamentary government abolished,30Political status in Switzerland,25Population, Switzerland, cantons, cities,13,14Post-office, Switzerland,49Poverty in Switzerland,68President of the Confederation,38Press, the Swiss,26Principles of a free society,25Proportional representation,117RRailroads, Switzerland,49Referendum, Federal, Switzerland,21,22in labor organizations,87instrument of the minority,22in the United States,72in various states, cities, etc.,82not the plébiscite,29obligatory,13, 17,20optional,13,17,18what it is,10Rittinghausen,16Rockland, Mass., town meeting,73Rotation in office a partisan idea,39,83SSalaries of Swiss officials,35,36,38Salvation Army, Switzerland,58Schaffhausen,12,13Schwyz,8,12,13,65Senates, no cantonal,34Soleure,12,13Stage routes, Switzerland,52State religions, Switzerland,33St. Gall,12,13,65,66Statistics as to Switzerland,13,14Summary of results of direct legislation in Switzerland,70Sunday, votings and communal meetings on,8Switzerland long undemocratic,60TTable—Population, languages, form of passing laws, year of entering Switzerland,13Tariff, protective, Switzerland,58Taxes, Switzerland,52Telegraph and telephone, Switzerland,50Thurgau,12,13Ticino,12,13,59,66,67Typographical Union,89UUnterwald,12,13,65,66Urgence,17Uri,12,13,65VValais,12,13,61,66Vaud,12,13,66Vincent, Prof. John Martin ("State and Federal Government ofSwitzerland"),iiireferences to,8,32,34,61Vote-buying,20WWage-workers in the majority,106Wages and political conditions,103"Westminster Review",28,45Winchester, Boyd ("The Swiss Republic"),ivreference to,63Wuarin, Louis,30ZZurich,13,16,20,21,61,65,115Zug,12,13