III.

GERMAN SOCIALISM IN AMERICA.

PART II.

IN a preceding paper we have considered the actual condition of the Socialist organization in this country. We now propose first to direct our attention to the great questions of Centralization and State Rights, which must ever play an important part in the consideration of Socialism in America.

On

Before the great Revolutionary epoch, the political forces of France were represented by a central government on one side and the people on the other. Between the Grand Monarque and the people there was a great gulf, until at last the homogeneity of the popular majority overturned the balance and constituted itself the supreme power to which centralization had led. the other hand, no dualism, such as had characterized the English Government since the Revolution of 1688, could have brought about such radical changes in the structure of any society. Far less is it at first sight easy to conceive how changes, so revolutionary in their character, could be wrought under a government swayed by such equally balanced forces as the founders of our Constitution would claim to have bequeathed us. But it is questionable whether these forces can be preserved in a balance sufficiently nice to guard our nation from reactionary evils. Centralization, on the one hand, leads to the sacrifice of personal effort. The strict observance of State rights, on the other, so tends to weaken the power of the central Government that in moments of popular commotion the Administration is powerless to act. A remarkable instance of this weakness and ambiguity of our constitutional laws occurred during the late strikes, when a dispute arose as to the power of jurisdiction vested respectively in the State and in the central Administrations. VOL. CXXVIII.-NO. 270.

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Much time was consumed in this discussion by telegraph, while the troops remained inactive. The same difficulties have been repeatedly encountered during the whole period of Southern reconstruction.

The extension of the suffrage may be considered the principal cause which gave rise to the earliest development of modern socialism. It conferred upon the working-classes a predominance of political power, and exposed the people to the promptings of self-seeking agitators such as Lassalle. Even in England, where, in Mr. Gladstone's words, " inequality lies imbedded in the very base of the social structure," the general clamor of the age has been yielded to, and, strangely enough, the suffrage was there, as in Germany, extended by the most conservative and bureaucratic of governments. It is from America, the nursery-ground of indiscriminate suffrage, that this most important and most operative of all modern social facts has spread its influence over the lands of the Old World. The political student of the future will note with interest the singular fact that universal suffrage should have found its most congenial home in two countries, the one governed by the most aristocratic, the other by the most democratic system of modern times. Nevertheless in their points of resemblance may be found the kindred causes which expose the American Union and the German Empire to identical dangers. And to these cognate influences may be partially attributed the origin of Socialism in both countries. It is, indeed, in the prevalence of bureaucratic principles in Berlin and Washington that we may seek and find many of the true sources of the modern evil. It is none the less remarkable that in both countries the very centralization which engenders Socialism forms, as we shall presently see, the most powerful bulwark against its spread.

In the struggle for national entity, the German people, by striving to provide the central Government with adequate means of insuring and compelling political unity, conjured down the storm which had been gathering and muttering since the days of 1848. The vast and unencumbered power of the imperial administration had a weakening effect upon the self-reliance of the people by imbuing many with a belief in the more effectual and universal application of the Federal forces. With us in America the late struggle for unity during the civil war lent many of the same characteristics to the Federal Government, and produced, though more silently, similar effects. The Government which arose at Washington after the rebellion was conspicuous for the concentration and responsibility of its powers, and that each fresh extension of the

principles of centralization put forth was a fresh check upon individualism can not be doubted. To this tendency must be attributed much of that reactionary receptiveness which has of late characterized the minds of our working-classes. For, while it can not be denied that protection, which Professor Fawcett regards as the main root of the whole evil in the United States, has carefully prepared our soil for the growth of Socialistic ideas, yet we are not inclined to believe that its influences have operated so powerfully as the champions of free trade in the Old World would have us suppose. To the foreign observer the shackles of protection in the United States must ever appear more confining and coercive than is revealed by a close study of our industrial and geographical development.

That the results of the civil war have brought about, and indeed compelled, many fresh extensions of the principles of centralization is a fact that can no more be denied than the increased reliance on state assistance resulting from these changes. Indeed, the powers which during the period of reconstruction have found their focus at Washington have by their acts far distanced any coercive measures ever adopted by the German Chancellor. The invasion of a State Legislature by Government troops would alone justify this assertion. For the last twelve years the dependence of our people upon the central Government has increased day by day. The power of patronage has grown apace, while bureaucratic principles have attained the highest development ever reached in this hemisphere. With each fresh extension of the principles of centralization confidence in individual effort has relaxed, giving place to state effort and state help. If there is anarchy in the South, the Government must suppress it. If a railway corporation is in difficulty, the Government can assist it. If the commercial interests of the country are paralyzed, Congress votes relief in the questionable form of "cheap money." If sickness, and suffering, and poverty prevail, the state can relieve them. If there is lack of work and widespread poverty, the Administration can bring relief. It is in this condition of mind that the Socialist refugees from Germany find certain classes in the United States, and it is due to these tendencies that it became possible to unfurl the red flag on our shores. But, although it is true that centralization in the United States and Germany has greatly contributed to the spread of reactionary principles, yet we repeat that wherever it has shown its face in either country this very concentration of power has saved society from the impending danger.

Thus, paradoxical as it may seem, centralization has proved itself at once the bane and the antidote of this Social epidemic. This fact is attested in Germany by the enforcement of the anti-Socialist bill, and in America by the employment of the Federal forces during the riots of 1877. So long, therefore, as elements subversive of the best interests of modern society continue to be fostered by certain portions of the community, so long will centralization, despite its attendant evils, maintain itself as the bulwark against the advancing foe. As such, its power must and will be extended before it can be curtailed. It may indeed be doubted whether the feeble forces now at the command of a national Administration would prove adequate against a well-organized and extensive uprising of the laboring classes; nor can the confused and undetermined condition of our laws respecting the autonomy of States tend to strengthen the hands of a Government already paralyzed by Congressional legislation.

None can fail to deplore the gulf which now separates capital and labor. While the intelligence of the country can not but lament the present complete separation of industrial interests, and must view with apprehension the aggregation of vast fortunes in the hands of the ambitious and unscrupulous, and while it should be the earnest aim of all to diminish the great sum of human misery, yet the most dispassionate must fail to see a remedy in the general upheaval of society for the furtherance of such mischievous and impracticable schemes as those advanced by German Socialism. There undoubtedly must come the time when, as Monsieur Louis Blanc once said to the writer, "the relations between governors and governed will find some final adjustment." Time, the great umpire, must decide this grave problem. In no wise, however, can the whole web of social life be unraveled and woven anew, nor can state management be ever brought to permanently and universally supersede individual effort. Such a system of servitude and restraint is alike impracticable and impossible. The actual movement has perhaps in it the seeds of successful and disastrous revolution calculated to destroy all law and liberty. Yet its outcome can never, in the opinion of the wisest economists, the most humane statesmen, and the first philanthropists be anything but chaos. Far from being akin to Socialism, coöperative associations have proved most effectual against the progress of revolutionary principles. This fact has been recognized by the most despotic rulers of the age. Prince Bismarck has on all occasions encouraged the formation of such societies, even so

far as to propose assistance from state funds, and by removing every obstacle which might impede the acquisition of capital for the establishment of the new industry. In the same manner the late Emperor of the French appointed a commission of distinguished economists and statesmen charged with the founding and encouragement of coöperative associations in France.

Experience has abundantly shown that this new industry may be brought to a perfection which will go far to insure the workman an industrial independence. The coöperative credit banks established with so much success in Germany by Herr Schultze-Delitsch, and opposed so violently by Ferdinand Lassalle, have tested the practical value of such combined organization. The number of these banks in Germany is now nearly a thousand, and such coöperative banking societies would furnish excellent substitutes for those inhuman institutions termed savings-banks in our own land. Each member of the bank is jointly and severally responsible for the debt of all. The security thus afforded is so complete that the sums annually advanced often exceed $100,000,000.

Equally encouraging and anti-Socialist in their character have been the cooperative stores organized with such success in England and other countries of the Old World. Modern industrial society has known no greater improvement, and none more likely to extend its beneficent influences over the whole surface of civilization. It is the first step pregnant with practical results which may tend to raise the poor to self-help, intelligence, and competency. The development and encouragement of such organizations in this country would without doubt do much to stay the spread of Socialism in the United States. Indeed, the aim of all capitalists should be to assist the progress of such associations, as being directly opposed to the organic dogmas of modern Socialism, as well as to the perpetration of such rascalities as have been recently practiced upon our people by the corrupt management of savings and other institutions.

In touching the subject of corruption in this country, it would in this article be out of place to yield to the temptation of investigating the grave charge that the American trustee is the most dishonest man ever placed upon this planet. We will not examine a question so foreign to our purpose and so distasteful to our people. More than sixty years ago Daniel Webster spoke the words of truth, if not of practice, when he said:

These, then, are the evils which threaten the duration of our Government, and against which all the well-meaning and all the wise men should