Socialism and American ideals Part 1

Socialism and American ideals.

by William Starr Myers.

PREFACE

The following essays originally appeared in the form of articles contributed at various times to the (daily) New York _Journal of Commerce and Commercial Bulletin_. Numerous requests have been received for a reprinting of them in more permanent form, and this little volume is the result.

I am deeply indebted to my friend Mr. John W. Dodsworth, of the _Journal of Commerce_, for his kind and generous permission to reprint these articles. Since numerous changes and modifications from the original form have been made the responsibility for these statements and the sentiments expressed rests entirely upon me.

I hope it is not necessary for me to say that this is not intended as an exhaustive study of the more or less widespread movement to advance paternalism in Government. My object is to lay before the people, in order that they may carefully consider them, the reasons for thinking that Socialism is in theory and practice absolutely opposed and contrary to the principles of Americanism, of democracy, and even of the Christian-Jewish religion itself.

WM. STARR MYERS.

Princeton, N.J.

November 28, 1918.

INTRODUCTION

MATERIALISM AND SOCIALISM

It was about a decade ago that Professor E.R.A. Seligman of Columbia University published his valuable work on the "Economic Interpretation of History," which gave a great impetus to the study, by historians, of the economic influences upon political and social development. Professor Seligman showed conclusively that one of the most potent forces in the growth of civilization has been man's reaction upon his material environment. Since that time the pendulum has swung so far in this direction that many students of history and economics would seem to think that all of life can be summed up in terms of materialism, that environment after all is the only important element in the advance of society, and that mankind is a rather negligible quant.i.ty. This is just as great a mistake as the former practice of ignoring economic influence, and even so great an authority as Professor Seligman would seem to tend in that direction.

On the other hand, Mr. George Louis Beer rightly claims that "the chief adherents of economic determinism are economists and Socialists, to whom the past is, for the most part, merely a mine for ill.u.s.trative material.

The latter, strangely enough, while explaining all past development by a theory that conceives man to be a mere self-regarding automaton, yet demand a reorganization of society that postulates a far less selfish average man than history has as yet evolved."[1]

Most thoughtful people of to-day know that the political and economic elements were just as strong as the religious one in the Protestant Reformation in Germany, but that fact by no means would lessen the value of the gains for intellectual and religious freedom that were won by Martin Luther. Again, bad economic conditions had as much, or more, to do with the outbreak of the French Revolution as did political and philosophical unrest. Also taxation, trade and currency squabbles had more to do with causing an American Revolution than did the idealistic principles later enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. And there was a broad economic basis for the differences in crops, transportation and the organization of labor which expressed themselves in a sectionalism which finally a.s.sumed the political aspect that caused the Civil War. Yet the student who would forget the spiritual element in our life, who would overlook the fact that man is a human being and not a mere animal, will wander far astray into unreal bypaths of cra.s.s materialism.

On the other hand, it would be hard to find an economic explanation for the emigration of the Pilgrim Fathers to Plymouth, for the Quaker agitation that supported John Woolman in his war upon slavery or for most of the Christian missionary enterprises of the present day. Also it would take a mental microscope to find the economic cause for the extermination of the Moriscos in Spain by Philip III. or the expulsion by Louis XIV. of the Huguenots from France. These two great crimes of history had important economic consequences, but the cause behind them was religious prejudice. Prof. James Franklin Jameson, of the Carnegie Inst.i.tution at Was.h.i.+ngton, rightly has stressed a study of the religious denominations in the United States, of the Baptist, Methodist and other "circuit riders" of the old Middle West, as one of the most fruitful sources for a fuller knowledge and understanding of the history and development of the American nation. Neither George Whitefield, Peter Cartwright, nor Phillips Brooks of a later day, can be explained in terms of economic interpretation.

This false and entirely materialistic conception of the development of society and civilization is a mistake not only of the learned, but of the pseudo-learned, of the men and women of more or less education whose mental development has not progressed beyond an appreciation of Bernard Shaw, Henrik Ibsen and H.G. Wells. Most of them are estimable people, but the difficulty is that they are so idealistic that, so to speak, they never have both feet upon the ground at the same time. This is especially true of our esteemed contemporaries, the Socialists. These cheerful servants of an idealistic mammon pride themselves upon completely ignoring human nature. A few years ago, at a London meeting of the "parlor Socialists" known as the Fabian Society which, by the way, was presided over by Bernard Shaw, an old man began to harangue the audience with the words, "Human nature being as it is--" At once his voice was drowned out by a chorus of jeers, cat-calls and laughter. He never made his address, for the audience was unwilling to hear anything about "human nature." No Socialists in general are willing to do so, for human nature, with the mental and spiritual sides of life, is just the element with which their fallacious creed cannot deal, and they know it.

But the human element must enter into business and trade in the problems of direction, management, even in the form of compet.i.tion itself, and cannot possibly be eradicated.

It is amusing to note that these same Socialists are busily occupied with pointing out what they consider to be the failures of government, as well as of "business and capitalism." Yet they do not realize that they are thus condemning their own system, for if the governments of the world have failed to do the work at present laid upon them, how can they ever undertake the gigantic additional political and capitalistic burden that Socialism would impose? Thomas Jefferson, the patron saint of the party that President Wilson now leads, always expressed a fear of "too much government." It would appear that the present Administration and the Democratic members of Congress have wandered far from their old beliefs, and if recent legislation is the result of it, their Socialistic experiments have not been much of a success.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: _The English-Speaking Peoples_, p. 203.]

SOCIALISM--IS IT AMERICAN?

I

ITS CONFLICT WITH THE IDEA OF EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY

One of the main difficulties in discussing Socialism is to find a working definition; for this political or social movement is based upon a system of a priori reasoning which often is vague and lacking in deductions from practical experience. Socialism also is unreal in its a.s.sumptions and impractical in its conclusions, so that a person finds it almost impossible to give a definition that will include within its scope all the Socialistic vagaries and explain all the suppositions based upon nonexistent facts. Bearing this difficulty in mind, perhaps the following will serve as a working definition for the purposes of the present discussion. Socialism is the collective owners.h.i.+p (exerted through the government, or society politically organized) of the means of production and distribution of all forms of wealth. This means wealth not alone in mere terms of money but in the economic sense of everything that is of use for the support or enjoyment of mankind. Of course "production and distribution" means the manufacture and transportation of all forms of this economic wealth.

Inevitably this system would imply the subst.i.tution of the judgment of the government, or of governmental officials, for individual judgment, and for individual emulation and compet.i.tion in all forms of human endeavor. Dr. David Jayne Hill recently has remarked that "if the tendency to monopolize and direct for its own purposes all human energies in channels of its own [i.e., the government's] devising were unrestrained, we should eventually have an official art, an official science and an official literature that would be like iron shackles to the human mind."[2] The Socialist probably would object that this statement is extreme, but at least it is logical, and if Socialism be reasonable it must be logical, and it must be both reasonable and logical if it is to be popularly accepted.

The above might be stated in another way by saying that Socialism means the subst.i.tution of governmental judgment for that of the individual and for individual ambition as well. This is one of the strongest arguments against Socialism. Individual ambition is not only justifiable but also an absolute necessity for the integrity and growth of the human mind.

Like everything else, ambition may be wrongly used or directed. It only goes to prove that the greater the value of anything the greater is the wrong when it is abused and not rightly used. In fact, proper ambition is the desire for greater opportunity for service according to the dictates of individual conscience and it lies at the basis of all religion and morality. Without ambition the individual mind goes to seed, so to speak,--there is no further growth or progress. This desire for greater service is the thing that produces patriotism, that causes men and women to work at the expense of personal interest for Liberty Loans, the Red Cross, Y.M.C.A., etc.

Professor Richard T. Ely well expresses the same thought by saying--"When we all come to make real genuine sacrifices for our country, sacrifices of which we are conscious, then we shall first begin to have the right kind of loyal love for our country. We shall never get that kind of love merely by pouring untold benefits upon the citizens."[3] Also, Edward Jenks, the brilliant British historian, says that--"A society which discourages individual compet.i.tion, which only acts indirectly upon the bulk of its members, which refuses to recruit its ranks with new blood, contains within itself the seeds of decay."[4]

The attempt by Socialism to subst.i.tute a governmental standard of happiness for individual desire and ambition is merely another attempt to legislate human mind and character. A government cannot make a man happy by law any more than it can make him moral or religious by the same means. All that law can do is to endeavor to place a man in such an environment that his moral or religious nature may be aroused and that his desire or ambition be encouraged. It was the inability to understand and realize this fact that caused the religious persecutions of past centuries when Catholics persecuted Protestants and Protestants persecuted Catholics, and both persecuted the Jews, and everybody thought that it was possible to legislate a man's belief and enforce it by the sanction of the law. Happiness, like religion, must have its impulse from within.

Furthermore, it is along this identical line of reasoning that Socialism is essentially un-American. The primary object of the government of the United States, the whole theory upon which our nation was formed, is not to give happiness to the individual. The Fathers of our country were too wise to attempt any such ridiculous undertaking.

The ideal or object of the United States is to give equality of opportunity for each individual to work out his or her own salvation in a political, a moral or an economic sense. In other words, to give equality of opportunity for each individual to work out or achieve his or her own happiness. That is the only possible way in which happiness can be gained. For this reason the American people believe in public schools and child labor laws and other forms of social, not Socialistic, legislation, in order to help less fortunate individuals to help themselves, and not to help them in spite of themselves. The former plan is in accordance with the needs of human nature and with American ideas and ideals; the latter is the essential basis of Socialism and inevitably pauperizes and atrophies human character.

There is as much difference between social legislation and Socialism as there is between the common-sense advancement of the ideas of peace and the selfish or cowardly brand of treason that is known as pacifism. In both Socialism and pacifism the essential idea is that the individual should mentally "lie down" and "let George do it." In contrast with this, the common sense way to gain peace is actively to restrain wrong in order that right may triumph. The United States recently has been engaged in just this kind of an undertaking. Also, man is a social animal as well as an individual being, so social consciousness or social responsibility consists in the common responsibility of society to see that each individual gets a "square deal" in the form of equal opportunity for advancement by self effort.

In fact, the American ideal is to restrain human initiative only to the extent that is necessary to give equality of opportunity to all, and that the government should act only on the principle of the greatest good of the greatest number. Hence Americans believe that Rousseau was right when he said that the individual gives up a small part of his personal liberty, or license, in order to receive back full civil liberty, which is much greater because it has a wider outlook and possibilities and is guaranteed through the support of society.

Furthermore, they believe that real liberty is freedom of individual action within the law as the expressed will of the people.

But everything depends upon the fact that the impulse to use this liberty must come from within, and not be commanded by a government from without. In the words of the Declaration of Independence, Americans believe "that all men are ... endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit [not the gift] of happiness." On this basis alone was this nation founded and has it prospered.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: _The Rebuilding of Europe_, p. 63.]

[Footnote 3: _The World War and Leaders.h.i.+p in a Democracy_, p. 111.]

[Footnote 4: _Law and Politics in the Middle Ages_, p. 306.]

II

WHY IT APPEALS TO OUR FOREIGN-BORN POPULATION

It is often remarked that a reading of the names of the members of the present Socialist party, or of those who advocate Socialism in the United States to-day, will disclose the fact that most of these names denote foreign or Continental European, as contrasted with American or British, origin. This can readily be understood when it is remembered that the governments of Continental Europe are theoretically on a different basis and of different origin from those of the United States and Great Britain or of those countries where the English Common Law prevails.

Whether in democratic France, Italy, Belgium or Norway, or in autocratic Germany or Austria-Hungary, the government is considered as in a sense coming down from above. It is believed, and taught, that government exists by divine right and that it has per se its own position and rightful place of domination. That it exists for itself, and not as a means to an end. But in Great Britain, the United States, and also in the British self-governing colonies, as compared with this, the whole order of things is upside down, so to speak. We believe that all governments arise from the people, that they should derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that they are merely an instrumentality to help the people to help themselves--to protect them in their inherent, inborn right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Also the government should act upon the principle of the greatest good of the greatest number as a test when there is any conflict between individual and social rights.

Of course it is now popularly understood that an autocracy like that of Germany until recently, was built up on the theory of the divine right of governments and of the princes who administered them. The const.i.tutions of the German states and especially of the Empire of Germany, were the gift or gifts of the German princes to the people and not the expression of the will of the people, as in the United States, or of the people as represented in Parliament, as in Great Britain. Thus the King of Prussia, who was also Emperor of Germany, was G.o.d's representative on earth and responsible to G.o.d alone for the administration of his office. He, as well as the various princes in their respective states, were above all earthly law, were laws unto themselves, and they and their serving (or servile) officials were to be obeyed without question. Disobedience to the "princes'" laws was not only treasonable but sacrilegious as well. This fact goes far to explain the atrocities committed with the consent of German public opinion.

William the d.a.m.ned and his bureaucracy were believed to be above all moral or human law, and from the earthly standpoint were infallible and irresponsible. Their orders must be obeyed without question.

As already stated, few people realize that while even the European democracies do not accept the bald theory of the divine right of kings but believe in the divine right of the people, yet somehow or other these divine rights come down to the people by the gift of the government, and are not inherent or inalienable, as our Declaration of Independence would say. This is well ill.u.s.trated by the principle of the freedom of the press, which is usually considered one of the greater guarantees of individual liberty. An examination of the provisions of various continental const.i.tutions shows that this freedom is given or guaranteed by the government or by these doc.u.ments themselves.