“you have given me your ideas and objections in regard to the present state of affairs”, i commenced my next conversation with mr. forest, “you have expressed, occasionally, your conviction that the organization of society at the end of the last century needed reformation. will you, now, kindly state how you would have reformed the evils of my time?”
mr. forest smiled. “i do not pretend to be a reformer who can perfect mankind or even all human institutions. please do not forget that we are all cooking with water. what many people style the social question is insolvable. the variety established by nature will always be felt. you can never create conformity. we will always have smart and stupid, industrious and lazy people. the clever women and men will not submit to an equal distribution of the product of labor, nor feel satisfied under such a state of legal robbery. and if the results of labor are distributed according to the ability of the workers the people earning less than others will always grumble. it is, therefore, impossible to make all men content with their lot, no matter how you may distribute the earnings of the working force. but the fact that it is impossible to make everybody absolutely happy does96 not release us from the obligation to use our best efforts toward improving the lot of mankind”.
“i understand your position. but let me hear what reforms you would have inaugurated or proposed, if you had lived at the close of the last century”.
“the society of your day suffered chiefly”, said mr. forest, “from unsystematized production, the monopolies that made possible the amassing of immense fortunes at the expense of the people, and the want of intelligence on the part of the workers who would either submit to these extortions or strike, instead of forming mutual producing associations. another great evil was the injustice of your taxation. in all the fields of human activity the workers produced values without a clear knowledge of what was really required. there was, generally, such a surplus of the products of farming that the farmers had to sell everything so cheap that they could hardly earn a living. some factories worked day and night until the markets were overstocked with goods. then these goods were sold at any price obtainable, sometimes below cost. numerous bankruptcies followed, the factories had to stop their work, and the manufacturers as well as the working women and men had to suffer from a term of idleness until the surplus of goods was exhausted. then a feverish activity commenced again”.
“how would you have remedied this evil?” i asked.
“a national bureau of statistics should have ascertained both the average yearly consumption and the97 capacity of the different trades and their plants for the production of the necessities of life”.
“should the government have given to each trade an order for the work to be done during the year?” i queried, “and how should the trades have divided such an order among the members so that all would be satisfied?”
“the national government should simply have ascertained the amount of the yearly consumption of the various articles, the capacity of the respective trades for furnishing such articles, and should then have left the regulation of production to the members of each trade. such an arrangement would have given each trade a clear idea of its task. the chosen representatives of each trade could have subdivided the work. a heavy overproduction would easily have been prevented, while competition both among the factories and the individual members would have been maintained, thus securing the best kind of work, while under the present system of production we are suffering from a want both of quantity and quality”.
“but if any trade should have produced more goods than needed”, i objected.
“that would have been its own fault, and it would, as a matter of course, have had to stand the consequences”, mr. forest replied.
“but, suppose, the members of a certain trade had formed a trust, thereby forcing the people to pay exorbitant prices for the products of their guilds?” i objected again.
98 “a national law should have protected the people against an attempted robbery of this kind, threatening all guilty parties with confiscation of all their property and with the operation of all the plants by men hired by the administration, until the plants could be sold to operators. the importation of the respective goods from other countries would cover the deficiency until all the plants were again in full operation”.
“but how would you have stopped the frequent strikes of our days?” i asked.
“by encouraging the workman to start mutual producing associations”, mr. forest answered. “i have mentioned already how mutual producing associations could easily have been started. a dozen tailors or shoemakers could have rented lofts with steam power, purchased a few sewing and other machines and sold their products directly to other workmen, thus securing the profits of the manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer and workman, or in other words all the profit that was in the labor of the members of the association. there was no law in your time to forbid such enterprises or to prevent all other workmen from buying their boots, shoes, clothing, furniture and all other articles from such associations solely. as soon as the manufacturers noticed that all the laborers were commencing to deal with mutual associations they would gladly have sold their plants at a very fair price, and yet cheaper than a new association could have procured them. i imagine there was very little pleasure in conducting a factory or any99 other business having many employees in 1887, judging from the frequent strikes that made it almost impossible for many business men to figure on prices six months ahead, or to close contracts. therefore, the owners of factories would, i fancy, have sold their plants at very fair prices. and the workmen could not have done a smarter thing than to cause the former manufacturers to remain with them as business managers at a fair salary. this would have secured a smooth running of the concern. under such an arrangement the workers would have become the owners of the business concerns, paying for them in installments, they would have secured full pay for their work, and the former owner would have disposed of all his former cares, receiving a fair compensation for his plant and his services”.
“i think that most of the manufacturers and businessmen of my days were so worried by the constantly increased demands of their employees, that they would have gladly sold their property”, i remarked, “but what would have become of the wholesale and retail dealers?”
“they could have sold their goods and have either joined the producing associations as salesmen or gone into another business”, mr. forest replied. “and in a similar way the workmen of your time could have organized one trade after another, until the entire manufacturing industry had been based on large guilds, the latter consisting mostly of mutual producing societies”.
100 “but our workmen preferred to avoid the responsibility, care and risk of business enterprises. they would rather have worked for wages and, occasionally tried to increase them, sometimes by striking and preventing other laborers taking the places of the strikers”, i said. “you are aware of this state of affairs?”
“yes”, forest answered, “and it must have been a sad spectacle to see intelligent men who could just as well have been independent, remain journeymen, trying to bulldoze their employer to pay them more than he volunteered, and to intimidate other workers from performing duties at a rate of wages that would have satisfied them. the fact that your workingmen did not possess sufficient enterprise, mental discipline and independence, to establish mutual producing associations, has driven humanity into communism. that this damnable form of society is a failure is a matter of course. when humanity was at so low a standard that shoemakers had not spunk or smartness enough to start and run the shoeshops on a co-operative basis, and tailors could not manage tailorshops on a similar plan, it was simply impossible to make successful an organization which had the power to regulate all production and all consumption. but the principle of mutual productive associations is, in my opinion, the one best adapted for the solution of the labor question, because it secures for the members of the associations the pay for the full real value of their labor and keeps alive competition, the strongest factor in101 securing the progress of mankind. but whether we shall ever reach this solution of the labor question seems doubtful”.
“i am inclined to believe in your plan”, i admitted, “so far as laborers engaged in manufacturing establishments are concerned. but how would you have organized the work on the farms, the employment of professional man, railroad officials and laborers, employees on streetcars, merchants and bankers and their clerks and those who follow many other avocations?”
“let us go slowly”, mr. forest answered with a smile. “let us first look into the agrarian question. reformers of society have always met the greatest difficulty when they came across the farmers. under communistic rule the country people have but very little love for the soil they are tilling because they know it is not theirs, that their toiling does not benefit them, and they feel that the city people are favored at their expense. if i had been asked at the end of the last century how i would treat the land question i would have advocated a law ordaining that no farmer should have more than forty acres of land. if any farmer had more at the time of the passing of the bill he could keep it during his lifetime, but he would be compelled to dispose of it in his last will, so that a single person should not receive more than forty acres. on a forty acre piece a farmer can make a fair living, and although the farmers were by no means prosperous in your days, yet there was still a fair prospect for the increase of102 the value of land by reason of the increase of the population, augmented as it was by immigration”.
“but how would you have proposed to stop overproduction by the farming population through which the agricultural interests were suffering in 1887?” i inquired.
“the national bureau of statistics would have served the farmers just as well as the rest of the people. the farmers should have formed state associations and should have laid out plans for the production according to the capacity of the farms. and, after ascertaining that their capacity of production was far ahead of consumption, they should have used the surplus of land for the production of new things that could, perhaps, find a market, or they could have saved their labor by not producing more goods than they could sell in supplying the real demands of the market, thus working less.”
“under your plan every person would not have had a right to land”, i remarked.
“yes, everybody would, who could pay the price the owner demanded for it”, mr. forest said. “not everybody can own a farm. did you own one?”
“i did not”.
“very well. under your communistic system nobody owns a piece of ground large enough to put a stick into”.
“how would you have regulated the professional services?”
103 “by passing laws establishing rates to be charged for professional services. and the laws i would have simplified by doing away with the abominable confusion resulting from the innumerable decisions forming precedents. for a long time i did not believe it until i found positive statements to the effect that a trading nation like the americans, at the end of the nineteenth century, had neither a national criminal law, nor a national commerce law. this fact and the confusion caused by the conflicting precedent decisions that could always be quoted by either of the contesting lawyers in a suit must have made the united states, in your days, a paradise for swindlers and for lawyers who cared not so much for the upholding of the law, as for a retainer”.
“such were the charges frequently made against the law and lawyers in my days”, i said. “but now tell me what you would have done with the railroad and telegraph employees, with—”
“let us stop right here”, mr. forest interrupted. “i would have purchased all the railroads and all the telegraph lines of the country at a fair price. i would have issued united states bonds to pay for them. i would have used the income of the roads and lines to pay running expenses and the interest on the bonds issued, and the surplus in the united states treasury i would have applied to paying off the bonds”.
“but would not this proposition of yours, if carried into effect, have brought about the same horrors you declare the concentration of power in the hands104 of the administration has brought down on humanity of the twentieth century?” i asked.
“no. for that the officers would not be numerous enough”, mr. forest replied; “and i remember distinctly, that in your days civil service reform had been instituted, to a certain extent, in the appointment of federal officers. i have read conflicting opinions about it. some writers claimed a frequent change of the officers to be a fundamental principle of republican institutions. others ridiculed this notion. every man of common sense would keep a man who knew and performed the duties of his position well. and the nation should simply do the same regardless of the party affiliations of the employee, thus securing a good public service. i remember that letter carriers and other employees of the postoffice department could not be removed without cause. now, if this principle had been applied to all the clerical and subordinate officers, if all the railroad and telegraph officials, when the nation took charge of these institutions, had been retained at the salaries they were receiving at that time, so long as they did their work well, then there would have been no trouble. uncle sam would have paid just as much, if not more, than the former corporations did, and by retaining the whole force he could have united the railroad and telegraph lines with the postal service after the fashion already prevailing, at that time, in germany”.
“that theory sounds very plausible, certainly”.
“it is very remarkable that such a smart and energetic people, trading as much as our forefathers did,105 should have allowed the principal means of commerce, the railroad and telegraph lines, to be in the hands of private corporations which, as a matter of course, managed them simply with a view of paying as large dividends as possible to the shareholders,—sometimes for “a wheel within a wheel”, for members of the inner circle. in the historical works of your time i frequently note expressions of astonishment and wrath because knights, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in europe, stopped merchants passing the roads below their castles, and demanded a part of the travellers’ goods as a toll, or the payment of a certain sum of money for which they agreed either to let the merchants travel in peace or to furnish them with protection for the rest of their journey. these knights had to risk their lives when they undertook to collect a toll from the merchants, for the latter not unfrequently showed fight; they knew how to handle a lance or a sword and they had their goods protected by armed men. more than one of the enterprising, toll-levying knights died on the highway, where he had tried to attach a share of the merchant’s earnings. but the gentlemen controlling the highways of traffic at the end of the last century could levy new tolls, whenever they pleased. all they had to do was to sit down in delmonico’s or some other good restaurant, and over a few bottles of champagne resolve to do so. there was no danger connected with this business of toll levying in your days, mr. west, except the danger of a headache when the champagne happened to be106 poor. it was a very remarkable state of affairs, and it is a striking proof of the general fairness and good nature of the railroad magnates of 1887 that they treated the people as well as they did. still, it was a ridiculous spectacle to see the principal highways of such a business people controlled by private corporations that virtually did precisely what they pleased”.
“the gas works, street railways and waterworks of cities you would have had managed by the city authorities, i suppose?” i said.
“indeed, that is what i would have done”, mr. forest replied. “but i would first have extended the power of the national administration over all the forest and mining lands then in the possession of the united states. if the national government had taken care of the remnants of the immense forests that once covered the larger part of this vast territory, we would not at present suffer from a lack of timber”.
“what would you have done with the bankers and merchants?”
“nothing”, mr. forest answered. “the different mutual productive associations would have needed men to manage such business affairs as were outside the management of the factory, attended to by the former manufacturer. for the workmen would soon have found out that it required more than the manual labor of the toilers to build up and run a large business establishment. and the owners of grocery stores would, if similar establishments had been started by consuming societies, have sold their stock on hand107 and secured places as managers or clerks of the new stores”.
“i suppose that under the system proposed by you all the old-fashioned stores would have been forced to close out”, i said, “because the different guilds would have purchased goods at wholesale and would have sold them to their members at a low cash price. the storekeepers that were not able to secure positions in the stores of the different guilds would have been forced to look out for some other employment;—a rather hard lot for many of them”.
“the change in the mode of production would not have been sudden”, mr. forest explained, “but would have been brought about gradually, thus giving the business people, perhaps thirty years time to let their children join guilds instead of becoming storekeepers and traders. and there is no reason why enterprising merchants who had a fine taste in selecting goods, should not have retained a large number of customers. it is not cheapness alone that attracts buyers, and in the country, where there were no factories, etc., close at hand, stores would have to be kept”.
“you said you would have passed laws preventing farmers owning more than forty acres of land”, i said, “would you have also limited the amount of city property to be owned by any one man?”
“the possession of one house ought to have satisfied every fair-minded man”, mr. forest continued. “nobody can deny that the accumulation of fortunes108 amounting to many millions in the hands of a few people, while hundreds of thousands could earn hardly more than a living, was a state of affairs which made this damnable communism possible”.
“but how would you have been able to prevent this?” i queried with some curiosity.
“by making the taxation of inherited property the principal assessment for the maintenance of the national, state and local governments as well as of the schools. i would have proposed a tax of one percent on all property inherited by a single person, amounting upward to $10,000. an inheritance amounting to $20,000 i would have taxed two percent, $30,000 three percent, $100,000 ten percent, $200,000 twenty percent, $500,000 fifty percent. if anybody left a fortune yielding a larger sum than $250,000 to each heir, the surplus should have been considered as an income to humanity, the national, state and local governments sharing therein in a just proportion”.
“would not such a law have acted as a check upon the ambition and the enterprise of the people?” i asked.
“if it had prevented people amassing immense fortunes it would have served a good purpose. it would not have lessened but protected competition”, mr. forest answered. “men possessing twenty or fifty millions of dollars and using them without regard for the rights of other people, were very dangerous. they were in a position to annihilate their competitors, and they frequently used their power unmercifully. thus109 by increasing their millions and by killing competition they were paving the way for communism. and was it not unfair that a man who had amassed by all manner of means such an enormous fortune could leave it to a son who would continue the work of killing competitors with smaller means? what could the most able man accomplish in an avocation, if he had against him a man who possessed, perhaps, very little ability, but who was unscrupulously using his millions to attain his ends? parents might leave their children enough to place their dear ones beyond the reach of want but they should not enable them to prevent the children of poorer parents having a fair show to get ahead in life”.
“you would have met with considerable resistance to such a proposition in my days”, i remarked.
“i fancy the millionaires would have objected”, mr. forest assented. “still, i think that such a law would have served the best interest of both the children of rich parents and humanity in general. nothing but a law of this kind could have stemmed the tide of communism and anarchy. a child inheriting $250,000 ought to be satisfied with his lot and ought to let the surplus go to the defraying of the expenses of the government. by sacrificing a part of their enormous fortunes, the heirs would have saved the rest, and would have weakened the communistic tendency of your days. and it appears more than doubtful to me whether the possession of such enormous properties110 made these wealthy people good, or even happy and contented”.
“if such a law had been passed in 1887 most of the millionaires would have converted their property into cash and emigrated to europe”, i objected.
“i suppose they would have done so”, mr. forest admitted. “but i am, nevertheless, convinced that a law of this kind would not only have been just but that it would have done a great deal to save humanity from communism. civilized countries would have been obliged to pass a similar law at the same time”.
“the temptation to avoid the consequences of the statute would have been very great”, i remarked. “many people would have tried to evade the tax by declaring to the authorities a smaller amount of property than they really owned, or by presenting during their life time, a part of their fortune to their children”.
“any attempt at fraud should have been punished by a confiscation of all the property”, said mr. forest. “and as for gifts they could have been taxed at the same rate as inheritances from one percent up to fifty.—but such a law would have been necessary only during the first fifty or sixty years of a new order of things. as soon as mutual producing associations were in general operation, selling their goods directly from the factories to the consumers, and buying all the necessities of life and commodities, as far as possible, at wholesale, and selling them a little above cost price, there would have been little occasion for111 men to amass millions of dollars. the number of middlemen and traders would have largely decreased. everybody would have been compelled to do work of some kind and would have received a compensation according to both the quantity and quality of his performances”.
“but would not cliques like the one you are charging with having control of your government have taken possession of a mutual producing association, thus depriving the clever workers of a part of their earnings and paying the poorer men more for their work than they deserved?” i queried.
“in such a case the good men could have left an association, where they were cheated and joined another partnership. good laborers are always appreciated wherever competition rules. but the association, thus driving away their ablest members, would soon have been unable to compete with others. difficulties, therefore, could have been regulated without much trouble”.
“you must advocate, as a matter of course mutual insurance companies among the guilds for the protection of the members against accidents, sickness, infirmity and old age, and these mutual insurance companies would, perhaps, have also written life and fire policies?” i suggested.
“that would, indeed, have been a consequence of the whole system that would unite the few advantages of communism with the benefits of competition”, mr. forest answered.
112 “would you have encouraged immigration?” i asked. “at the end of the nineteenth century, many honest, liberal and fair-minded people, whom nobody could fairly class as know-nothings, were of the opinion that the united states had all the foreign elements the country could assimilate, and that the rest of the public lands should be preserved for the children of the people living in the union, in the year of our lord 1887. the objection against further immigration was largely due to the actions of the german and irish dynamiters”.
“i can imagine”, mr. forest answered, “that some of the customs and notions of the numerous immigrants of your time were objectionable to the native americans, and that the crimes of the anarchists, their crazy revolt against the laws of a country that had offered them hospitality, must naturally have created a deep emotion among the anglo-americans. but i think they had, nevertheless, many reasons for encouraging immigration, especially under your form of production. a strict execution of the laws of the country”, he continued, after a pause, “against all transgressors, native as well as transplanted, would have done the country good and have made all attempts to restrict immigration entirely unnecessary, all the more so, as the really objectionable foreigners could reach the united states via canada or mexico if they desired strongly to become inhabitants of the united states.”
“these arguments were frequently used in my time,” i remarked.
113 “the comparatively small harm done by immigrants was largely over-balanced by the many advantages the citizens of the united states obtained through the large influx of people from europe”, said mr. forest. “the very fact that hundreds of thousands of able-bodied people, whose rearing and education had cost the european countries millions of dollars, landed on american shores was a great gain to the united states. the very presence of these men and women increased the value of the lands or city lots where they settled, thus enriching the property owners. many of the immigrants were well trained laborers and mechanics, others artists and scholars. all these men and women were not familiar with the ways and means of their new country, many of them were unable to speak the english language, and they all had, therefore, to start in the very lowest places of american business life—thus naturally elevating all the inhabitants of the united states in a more or less degree, to higher positions in life. many of these people, coming from all parts of europe, were ably and well trained, and they became successful competitors of those, who were here before their arrival. but the constant stream of people from europe to the united states was, nevertheless, steadily enriching and elevating the american people, and all the blows aimed at immigration were, therefore, unwise, and the legislators who proposed such blows remind me of the man who intended to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs”.
114 “it is, of course, impossible to advance social theories to which everybody will agree”, mr. forest said in conclusion. “i maintain, however, that all such theories should be based on two fundamental principles. they should have as an aim the establishment of a state of society, where everybody should be protected against an undeserved poverty, where the brain-cancer, fear of an undeserved poverty, should be cured; and they should preserve competition, the power that is permanently spurring everybody to use his best efforts to elevate himself and humanity”.
