BOOK XVII
_The New Day_
The deliverance of humanity and the triumph of labor enfranchised; passages from Utopias new and old, and the raptures of poets and prophets contemplating "the good time coming."
As a Strong Bird on Pinions Free
BY WALT WHITMAN
(See pages 174, 268, 578, 726)
Beautiful World of new, superber Birth, that rises to my eyes, Like a limitless golden cloud, filling the western sky.... Thou Wonder World, yet undefined, unformed--neither do I define thee; How can I pierce the impenetrable blank of the future? I feel thy ominous greatness, evil as well as good; I watch thee, advancing, absorbing the present, transcending the past; I see thy light lighting and thy shadow shadowing, as if the entire globe; But I do not undertake to define thee--hardly to comprehend thee; I but thee name--thee prophesy--as now!
The Kingdom of Man
BY E. RAY LANKESTER
(English scientist, professor in the University of London, born 1847)
The new knowledge of Cature, the newly-ascertained capacity of man for a control of Nature so thorough as to be almost unlimited, has not as yet had an opportunity of showing what it can do. No power has called on man to arise and enter upon the possession of this kingdom--the "Kingdom of Man" foreseen by Francis Bacon and pictured by him to an admiring but incredulous age with all the fervor and picturesque detail of which he was capable. And yet at this moment the mechanical difficulties, the want of assurance and of exact knowledge, which necessarily prevented Bacon's schemes from taking practical shape, have been removed. The will to possess this vast territory is alone wanting.
The weariness which is so largely expressed today in regard to human effort is greatly due to the fact that we have exhausted old sources of inspiration, and have not yet learned to believe in the new. It is time for man to take up whole-heartedly the Kingdom of Nature which it is his destiny to rule. New hope, new life will, when he does this, be infused into every line of human activity. To a community which believes in the destiny of man as the controller of Nature and has consciously entered upon its fulfilment, there can be none of the weariness and even despair which comes from an exclusive worship of the past. There can be only encouragement in every victory gained, hope and the realization of hope.
On a Steamship
BY UPTON SINCLAIR
(See pages 43, 143, 194, 274, 403, 776, 803)
All night, without the gates of slumber lying, I listen to the joy of falling water, And to the throbbing of an iron heart.
In ages past, men went upon the sea, Waiting the pleasure of the chainless winds: But now the course is laid, the billows part; Mankind has spoken: "Let the ship go there!"
I am grown haggard and forlorn, from dreams That haunt me, of the time that is to be, When man shall cease from wantonness and strife, And lay his law upon the course of things. Then shall he live no more on sufferance, An accident, the prey of powers blind; The untamed giants of nature shall bow down-- The tides, the tempest and the lightning cease From mockery and destruction, and be turned Unto the making of the soul of man.
BY THOMAS CARLYLE
(See pages 31, 74, 133, 488, 553, 652)
We must some day, at last and forever, cross the line between Nonsense and Common Sense. And on that day we shall pass from Class Paternalism, originally derived from fetish fiction in times of universal ignorance, to Human Brotherhood in accordance with the nature of things and our growing knowledge of it; from Political Government to Industrial Administration; from Competition in Individualism to Individuality in Co-operation; from War and Despotism, in any form, to Peace and Liberty.
The Revolution
BY RICHARD WAGNER
(See pages 236, 747)
Aye, we behold it, the old world crumbling; a new will rise therefrom; for the lofty goddess Reason comes rustling on the wings of storm, her stately head ringed round with lightnings, a sword in her right hand, a torch in her left. Her eye is stern, is punitive, is cold; and yet what warmth of purest love, what wealth of happiness streams forth toward him who dares to look with steadfast gazing into that eye! Rustling she comes, the ever-rejuvenating mother of mankind; destroying and fulfilling, she fares across the earth; before her soughs the storm, and shakes so fiercely at man's handiwork that vast clouds of dust eclipse the sky, and where her mighty foot is set, there falls in ruins what an idle whim had built for aeons; the hem of her robe sweeps its last remains away. But in her wake there opens out a never-dreamt paradise of happiness, illumined by kindly sunbeams; and where her foot had trodden down, spring fragrant flowers from the soul, and jubilant songs of freed mankind fill the air, scarce silent from the din of battle.
In Memoriam
BY ALFRED TENNYSON
(See pages 77, 486, 652)
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying clouds, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind, For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind....
Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the common love of good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease; Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, Ring in the Christ that is to be.
BY ISAIAH
They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
Makar's Dream
BY VLADAMIR G. KOROLENKO
(Contemporary Russian novelist. In this short story a drunken old peasant is taken in a dream before the Taion, or god of the forest, to be judged for his many sins. The sins are piled upon a wooden scale-pan and the virtues upon a golden one--but alas, the virtues rise high into the air. Thereupon old Makar, driven to despair, breaks out into protest so eloquent that the judge is puzzled)
The scales trembled again ... the old Taion was lost in thought.
"How is this?" said he. "There are good people still living on the earth. Their eyes are bright, and their faces shine, and their robes are spotless.... Their hearts are as tender as good soil; they receive the good seed, and bring forth beautiful fruit and the perfume is sweet in my nostrils. Look at yourself!"
All eyes were turned towards Makar, who felt ashamed of his appearance. He knew that his eyes were not bright, and his face begrimed, his hair and beard matted and tangled, and his clothes torn. True, he had been thinking of buying a pair of boots before his death, in order to appear at the judgment seat as behooves an honest peasant. But he had always spent the money on drink, and now he stood before the Taion in ragged shoes, like the last of the Yakouts.... He would gladly have sunk under the ground.
"Thy face is dark," went on the Taion. "Thy eyes are not bright, and thy clothes are torn. And thy heart is overgrown with weeds and thorns. That is the reason why I love mine own that are pure and good and holy, and turn my face away from such as you are."
Makar's heart was ready to break. He felt ashamed of his existence. He hung his head, but suddenly lifted it and began to speak again.
Who were those just and good men the Taion was speaking about? If he meant those who were living in fine palaces on the earth at the same time as Makar did, he knew them well enough. Their eyes were bright because they had not shed as many tears as he had, and their faces shone because they were bathed in perfume, and their clean garments had been wrought by other people's hands. Did he not see that he too had been born like the others, with bright, open eyes, in which heaven and earth were reflected as in a mirror, and with a pure heart which was ready to take in all that was beautiful in the world. And if he longed now to hide his wretched self under the ground, it was no fault of his ... he did not know whose fault it was ... all he knew was that all the patience had died in his heart.
If Makar had seen the effect which his speech had produced on the old Taion, and that every word he said fell on the golden scale like a weight of lead, his rebellious heart would have been soothed. But he saw nothing, because he was full of blind despair.
He thought of his past life, which had been so hard. How had he been able to bear it so long? He had borne it because the star of hope had shone through the darkness. And now the star had vanished, and the hope was dead.... Darkness fell on his soul, and a storm rose in it like the storm-wind which flies across the steppe in the dead of night. He forgot where he was, before whom he stood--forgot everything except his anger.
But the old Taion said to him: "Wait, poor man! You are no longer on earth. There is justice for you here."
And Makar trembled. He realized that they pitied him; his heart was softened; and, as he thought of his wretched life, he burst into tears, weeping over himself. The old Taion wept too, and so did the old father Ivan. Tears flowed from the eyes of the young serving-men, and they wiped them with their wide sleeves.
And the scales trembled, and the wooden scale rose higher and higher!
The Desire of Nations
BY EDWIN MARKHAM
(See pages 27, 199)
Earth will go back to her lost youth, And life grow deep and wonderful as truth, When the wise King out of the nearing Heaven comes To break the spell of long millenniums-- To build with song again The broken hope of men-- To hush and heroize the world, Beneath the flag of brotherhood unfurled. And He will come some day; Already is His star upon the way! He comes, O world, He comes! But not with bugle-cry nor roll of doubling drums....
And when He comes into the world gone wrong, He will rebuild her beauty with a song. To every heart He will its own dream be: One moon has many phantoms in the sea. Out of the North the norns will cry to men: "Baldur the Beautiful has come again!" The flutes of Greece will whisper from the dead: "Apollo has unveiled his sunbright head!" The stones of Thebes and Memphis will find voice: "Osiris comes: O tribes of Time, rejoice!" And social architects who build the State, Serving the Dream at citadel and gate, Will hail Him coming through the labor-hum. And glad quick cries will go from man to man: "Lo, he has come, our Christ the Artisan, The King who loved the lilies, He has come!"
The Great Change
BY GEORGE D. HERRON
(See pages 730, 792, 799, 832)
Whatever definitions we use, or if we use none at all, we cannot escape the sense of the passion and the peril, the joy and the travail of the tremendous and transcendent change we are inwardly and outwardly undergoing. We are already appreciably transfigured by it, and soon shall the news of it be upon pentecostal tongues, and in music such as man has never heard, and in common deeds diviner than divinest dreams. In a little while, in a few decades, in one or two or four hundred years, the change will have been precipitated, the promise will have been fulfilled, and all things will have passed into the keeping of the expanded soul. Another, and different race of men, splendid alike in strength and gentleness, will walk the earth and climb its sky, bearing down the soul's constrictions and frontiers, even unto the ramparts around the throne of life. Man shall sit upon the throne; he shall hold the keys of his kingdom; he shall make his universe his home, the house of his heart's desire, shaping it according to the will that love has begotten within him, and founding it upon the truth wherewith love has made him free.
My Utopian Self
(_From "A Modern Utopia"_)
BY H. G. WELLS
(A vision of the future world which combines the insight of the poet with the precision of the scientist. In this brief but poignant passage the spiritual side of the problem is touched upon)
It falls to few of us to interview our better selves. My Utopian self is, of course, my better self--according to my best endeavors--and I must confess myself fully alive to the difficulties of the situation. When I came to this Utopia I had no thought of any such intimate self-examination.
The whole fabric of that other universe sways for a moment as I come into his room, into his clear and ordered work-room. I am trembling. A figure rather taller than myself stands against the light.
He comes toward me, and I, as I advance to meet him, stumble against a chair. Then, still without a word, we are clasping hands.
I stand now so that the light falls upon him, and I can see his face better. He is a little taller than I, younger looking and sounder looking; he has missed an illness or so, and there is no scar over his eye. His training has been subtly finer then mine; he has made himself a better face than mine.... These things I might have counted upon. I can fancy he winces with a twinge of sympathetic understanding at my manifest inferiority. Indeed, I come, trailing clouds of earthly confusion and weakness; I bear upon me all the defects of my world. He wears, I see, that white tunic with the purple band that I have already begun to consider the proper Utopian clothing for grave men, and his face is clean shaven. We forgot to speak at first in the intensity of our mutual inspection....
I think of the confessions I have just made to him, the strange admissions both to him and myself. I have stirred up the stagnation of my own emotional life, the pride that has slumbered, the hopes and disappointments that have not troubled me for years. There are things that happened to me in my adolescence that no discipline of reason will ever bring to a just proportion for me, the first humiliations I was made to suffer, the waste of all the fine irrevocable loyalties and passions of my youth. The dull base caste of my little personal tragi-comedy--I have ostensibly forgiven, I have for the most part forgotten--and yet when I recall them I hate each actor still. Whenever it comes into my mind--I do my best to prevent it--there it is, and these detestable people blot out the stars for me.
I have told all that story to my double, and he has listened with understanding eyes. But for a little while those squalid memories will not sink back into the deeps.
BY ISAIAH
The ransomed of the Lord shall return: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Incentives
BY CHARLES FOURIER
(See page 202)
Up to the present time politicians and philosophers have not dreamed of rendering industry attractive; to enchain the mass to labor, they have discovered no other means, after slavery, than the fear of want and starvation; if, however, industry is the destiny which is assigned to us by the creator, how can we think that he would wish to force us to it by violence, and that he has no notion how to put in play some more noble lever, some incentive capable of transforming its occupations into pleasures?
For Lyric Labor
BY ELIZABETH WADDELL
(Apropos of a remark, attributed to an Italian girl of the Garment Workers' Union, "It wouldn't be so bad if they would only let us sing at our work")
Child of the Renaissance, and little sister Of Ariosto and of Raphael, If any hush the song within your bosom, By all your lyric land, he does not well!
One day a traveller from our songless country, Passing at morning through Saint Mark's great Square, Marvelled, from workmen on the campanile, To hear a song arising on the air.
Marvelled to see those stones of Venice rising To Labor's matin chant intoned so clear, As the great towers builded by Amphion Rose to the lyre's strong throbbing, tier on tier.
Give us, O Child, the gifts we lack full sorely-- Give us your heritage of art and song, The soul that in your fathers grew, sun-nourished, Soaring above its poverty and wrong.
Of singing vintagers and laughing reapers Teach us your happy, sunland way, nor we In blind greed longer lay a stern proscription Upon your song, O Heart of Italy!
Free and serene, in his reward unstinted, The workman's hand shall mould his rhythmic thought; How candid to the keen-eyed gods' appraisal Shall be the work of Song's great ardor wrought--
When our young land, reborn in Beauty's image, Unto the Morn of Prophecy shall come, And every tower be raised with mirth and music, And every harvest brought with singing home.
BY ISAIAH
The Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives. They shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities.
The Perfect City
(_From "The Republic"_)
BY PLATO
(Greek philosopher, B. C. 429-347. His "Republic" is the first, and perhaps the most famous, of all efforts to portray an ideal Society. The argument is in the form of a discussion between Socrates and some of his friends and pupils)
First, then (said Socrates), let us consider in what manner those who dwell in the city shall be supported. Is there any other way than by making bread and wine, and clothes and shoes, and building houses? They will be nourished, partly with barley, making meal of it, and partly with wheat, making loaves, boiling part, and toasting part, putting fine loaves and cakes over a fire of stubble, or over dried leaves, and resting themselves on couches strewed with smilax and myrtle leaves. They and their children will feast, drinking wine, and crowned, and singing to the Gods; and they will pleasantly live together, begetting children not beyond their substance, guarding against poverty or war.
Glauco, replying, said: You make the men to feast, as it appears, without meats.
You say true, said I: for I forget that they need have meats likewise. They shall have salt and olives and cheese, and they shall boil bulbous roots and herbs of the field; and we set before them desserts of figs and vetches and beans; and they toast at the fire myrtle berries and the berries of the beech-tree, drinking in moderation. Thus passing their life in peace and health, and dying, as is likely, in old age, they will leave to their children another such life.
If you had been making, Socrates, said he, a city of hogs, what else would have fed them but these things?
But how should we do, Glauco, said I?
What is usually done, said he. They must, as I imagine, have their beds and tables, and meats and desserts, as we now have, if they are not to be miserable.
Be it so, said I: I understand you. We consider, it seems, not only how a city may exist, but a luxurious city; and perhaps it is not amiss; for in considering such a one, we may probably see how justice and injustice have their origin in cities. The true city seems to me to be such as we have described, like one who is healthy; but if you prefer that we likewise consider a city that is corpulent, nothing hinders it. For these things will not, it seems, please some, nor this sort of life satisfy them; but there shall be beds and tables and all other furniture, seasonings, ointments, and perfumes, mistresses, and confections: and various kinds of these. And we must no longer consider as alone necessary what we mentioned at the first, houses and clothes and shoes, but painting, too, and all the curious arts must be set agoing, and carving, and gold, and ivory; and all these things must be got, must they not?
Yes, said he.
Must not the city, then, be larger? For that healthy one is no longer sufficient, but is already full of luxury, and of a crowd of such as are in no way necessary to cities; such as all kinds of sportsmen, and the imitative artists, many of them imitating in figures, and colors; and others in music; and poets too, and their ministers, rhapsodists, actors, dancers, undertakers, workmen of all sorts of instruments, and what hath reference to female ornament, as well as other things. We shall need likewise many more servants. Do you not think they will need pedagogues, and nurses, and tutors, hair-dressers, barbers, victuallers too, and cooks? And further still, we shall want swineherds likewise; of these there were none in the other city (for there needed not); but in this we shall want these, and many other sorts of herds likewise, if any eat the several animals, shall we not?
Why not?
Shall we not, then, in this manner of life be much more in need of physicians than formerly?
Much more.
And the country, which was then sufficient to support the inhabitants, will, instead of being sufficient, become too little; or how shall we say?
Just so, said he.
Must we not then encroach upon the neighboring country, if we want to have sufficient for plough and pasture, and they in like manner upon us, if they likewise suffer themselves to accumulate wealth to infinity, going beyond the boundaries of necessaries?
There is great necessity for it, Socrates.
Shall we afterwards fight, Glauco, or how shall we do?
We shall certainly, said he.
We say nothing, said I, whether war does any evil or any good, but this much only: _that we have found the origin of war, from which most especially arise the greatest mischiefs to states, both private and public_.
Utopia
BY SIR THOMAS MORE
(The word "Utopia" means "No Place." It was first used in this book, and has come to be a general name for pictures of a future society. The book was written in Latin, and first published in Belgium in 1516. The translation here quoted was published in England in 1551)
Every Cytie is devided into foure equall partes or quarters. In the myddes of every quarter there is a market place of all maner of things. Thether the workes of every familie be brought into certeyne houses. And everye kynde of thing is layde up severall in bernes or store houses. From hence the father of everye familye, or every householder fetchethe whatsoever he and his have neade of, and carieth it away with him without money, without exchaunge, without any gage, pawne, or pledge. For whye shoulde any thing be denyed unto him? Seynge there is abundance of all things, and that it is not to bee feared, leste anye man wyll aske more then he neadeth. For whie should it be thoughte that that man woulde aske more then anough, which is sewer never to lacke? Certeynely in all kyndes of lyving creatures either feare of lacke dothe cause covetousnes and ravyne, or in man only pryde, which counteth it a glorious thinge to pass and excel other in the superfluous and vayne ostentation of thinges. The whyche kynde of vice amonge the Utopians can have no place.
Nowe I have declared and described unto you, as truelye as I coulde the fourme and ordre of that common wealth, which verely in my judgment is not only the beste, but also that which alone of good right maye claime and take upon it the name of a commonwealth or publique weale. For in other places they speake stil of the common wealth. But every man procureth his owne private gaine. Here where nothinge is private, the commen affaires bee earnestlye loked upon.... For there nothinge is distributed after a nyggyshe sorte, neither there is anye poore man or beggar. And thoughe no man have anye thinge, yet everye man is ryche. For what can be more ryche, than to lyve joyfully and merely, without al griefe and pensifenes: not caring for his owne lyving, nor vexed or troubled with his wifes importunate complayntes, nor dreadynge povertie to his sonne, nor sorrowyng for his doughters dowrey?
The Soul of Man Under Socialism
BY OSCAR WILDE
(See page 155)
The fact is, that civilization requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends.
FROM THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS
(See page 477)
Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.
Cities, Old and New
(_From "In the Days of the Comet"_)
BY H. G. WELLS
(See pages 519, 675, 712, 830, 844)
Where is that old world now? Where is London, that somber city of smoke and drifting darkness, full of the deep roar and haunting music of disorder, with its oily, shining, mud-rimmed, barge-crowded river, its black pinnacles, and blackened dome, its sad wildernesses of smut-grayed houses, its myriads of draggled prostitutes, its millions of hurrying clerks? The very leaves upon its trees were foul with greasy black defilements. Where is the lime-white Paris, with its green and disciplined foliage, its hard unflinching tastefulness, its smartly organized viciousness, and the myriads of workers, noisily shod, streaming over the bridges in the gray cold light of dawn? Where is New York, the high city of clangor and infuriated energy, wind swept and competition swept, its huge buildings jostling one another and straining ever upward for a place in the sky, the fallen pitilessly overshadowed? Where are its lurking corners of heavy and costly luxury, the shameful bludgeoning bribing vice of its ill ruled underways, and all the gaunt extravagant ugliness of its strenuous life?...
All these vast cities have given way and gone, even as my native Potteries and the Black Country have gone, and the lives that were caught, crippled, starved, and maimed amidst their labyrinths, their forgotten and neglected maladjustments, and their vast, inhuman, ill-conceived industrial machinery have escaped--to life. Those cities of growth and accident are altogether gone, never a chimney smokes about our world today, and the sound of the weeping of children who toiled and hungered, the dull despair of overburdened women, the noise of brute quarrels in alleys, all shameful pleasures and all the ugly grossness of wealthy pride have gone with them, with the utter change of our lives. As I look back into the past I see a vast exultant dust of house-breaking and removal rise up into the clear air; I live again the Year of Tents, the Years of Scaffolding, and like the triumph of a new theme in a piece of music--the great cities of our new days arise.
Caesar and Cleopatra
BY G. BERNARD SHAW
(See pages 193, 212, 263, 402, 760, 798)
(_The Romans have set fire to the Library of Alexandria_)
THEODOTUS:--What is burning there is the memory of mankind.
CAESAR:--A shameful memory. Let it burn.
THEODOTUS (_wildly_):--Will you destroy the past?
CAESAR:--Ay, and build the future with its ruins.
BY ALFRED TENNYSON
(See pages 77, 486, 652, 838)
The old order changeth, yielding place to new And God fulfils Himself in many ways, Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
A Festival in Utopia
(_From "News from Nowhere"_)
BY WILLIAM MORRIS
(See page 793)
"Once a year, on May-day, we hold a solemn feast in those easterly communes of London to commemorate the Clearing of Misery, as it is called. On that day we have music and dancing, and merry games and happy feasting on the site of some of the worst of the old slums, the traditional memory of which we have kept. On that occasion the custom is for the prettiest girls to sing some of the old revolutionary songs, and those which were the groans of discontent, once so hopeless, on the very spots where those terrible crimes of class-murder were committed day by day for so many years. To a man like me, who has studied the past so diligently, it is a curious and touching sight to see some beautiful girl, daintily clad, and crowned with flowers from the neighboring meadows, standing among the happy people, on some mound where of old time stood the wretched apology for a house,--a den in which men and women lived packed among the filth like pilchards in a cask; lived in such a way that they could only have endured it, as I said just now, by being degraded out of humanity. To hear the terrible words of threatening and lamentation coming from her sweet and beautiful lips, and she unconscious of their real meaning; to hear her singing Hood's 'Song of the Shirt,' and think all the time she does not understand what it is all about--a tragedy grown inconceivable to her and her listeners. Think of that if you can, and of how glorious life is grown!"
"Indeed," said I, "it is difficult for me to think of it."
The Utopian City
(_From "A Modern Utopia"_)
BY H. G. WELLS
(See pages 519, 675, 712, 830, 844, 853)
Here will be one of the great meeting places of mankind. Here--I speak of Utopian London--will be the traditional centre of one of the great races in the commonality of the World State--and here will be its social and intellectual exchange. There will be a mighty University here, with thousands of professors and tens of thousands of advanced students, and here great journals of thought and speculation, mature and splendid books of philosophy and science, and a glorious fabric of literature will be woven and shaped, and with a teeming leisureliness, put forth. Here will be stupendous libraries, and a mighty organization of museums. About these centres will cluster a great swarm of people, and close at hand will be another centre,--for I who am an Englishman must needs stipulate that Westminster shall still be a seat of world Empire, one of several seats, if you will--where the ruling council of the world assembles. Then the arts will cluster round this city, as gold gathers about wisdom, and here Englishmen will weave into wonderful prose and beautiful rhythms and subtly atmospheric forms, the intricate, austere and courageous imagination of our race.
One will come into this place as one comes into a noble mansion. They will have flung great arches and domes of glass above the wider spaces of the town, the slender beauty of the perfect metal-work far overhead will be softened to a fairy-like unsubstantiality by the mild London air. It will be the London air we know, clear of filth and all impurity, the same air that gives our October days their unspeakable clarity and makes every London twilight mysteriously beautiful. We shall go along avenues of architecture that will be emancipated from the last memories of the squat temple boxes of the Greek, the buxom curvatures of Rome; the Goth in us will have taken to steel and countless new materials as kindly as once he took to stone. The gay and swiftly moving platforms of the public ways will go past on either hand, carrying sporadic groups of people, and very speedily we shall find ourselves in a sort of central space, rich with palms and flowering bushes and statuary. We shall look along an avenue of trees, down a wide gorge between the cliffs of crowded hotels that are still glowing with internal lights, to where the shining morning river streams dawnlit out to sea.
The Utopia of Syndicalism
(_From "Syndicalism and the Co-operative Commonwealth"_)
BY ÉMILE PATAUD AND ÉMILE POUGET
(Two of the most prominent leaders of the revolutionary trade unions of France have in this story, published in 1912, portrayed the overthrow of the capitalist state by the method of the general strike, and the form of society which they anticipate from the "direct action" of the workers).
_The Trade Union Congress_
Delegates came from all parts of France. They came from all trades, from all professions. In the enormous hall in which the Congress was held, peasants, teachers, fishermen, doctors, postmen, masons, sat beside market-gardeners, miners and metal-workers. An epitome of the whole of society was there.
It was a stirring scene, this assembly, where were gathered together the most energetic and most enthusiastic of the combatants for the Revolution, who, inaugurating a new era, were about to disentangle and sum up the aspirations of the people; to point out the road along which they were resolved to march.
The old militants, who had seen so many Congresses; who had fought rough fights, and known the bitterness of struggles against the employers and the State; who in their hours of anxiety and doubt had despaired of ever seeing their hopes materialize, were radiant with joy. Their bold thoughts of past years were taking shape, they lived their dream! A happy moment it was, when old comrades greeted each other. They met, their hands held out; and trembling, and deeply moved, they embraced each other--transfigured, radiant.
The new delegates, out of their element at first, in the midst of this fever of life, were soon caught by the atmosphere of enthusiasm. Many of them were the product of events. Before the Revolution, they were ignorant of their own capacities; and if it had not come to shake them out of their torpor, they would have continued to vegetate; passive, indifferent, hesitating. Thanks to it, their inner powers were revealed to themselves; and now, overflowing with passion, energy, and enthusiasm, they vibrated with an immense force.
_The Distribution of Wealth_
In the first place, a resolution was taken which there was no need to discuss, or even to explain--it was so logical and inevitable: the charging the community with the care of the children, the sick, and the aged. This was a question of principle which had the advantage of demonstrating, to those who still retained prejudices with regard to the new régime, how little the future was going to be like the past....
Two tendencies were shown; one, that of pure Communism, which advocated complete liberty in consumption, without any restriction; the other, inspired with Communist ideas, but finding their strict application premature, and advocating a compromise.
The latter view predominated. It was therefore agreed as follows:--
That every human being, whatever his social function might be, had a right to an equal remuneration, which would be divided into two parts: the one for the satisfaction of ordinary needs; the other for the needs of luxury. The remuneration would be obtained, with regard to the first, by a permanent Trade Union card; and with regard to the second, by a book of consumers' "notes."
The first class included all kinds of commodities, all food products, clothing, all that would be in such abundance that the consumption of it need not be restricted; each one would have the right to draw from the common stock, according to his needs, without any other formality than having to present his card in the shops and depots, to those in charge of distribution.
In the second class would be placed products of various kinds, which, being in too small a quantity to allow of their being put at the free disposition of all, retained a purchase value, liable to vary according to their greater or less rarity, and greater or less demand. The price of these products was calculated according to the former monetary method, and the quantity of work necessary to produce them would be one of the elements in fixing their value; they would be delivered on the payment of "consumers' notes," the mechanism of whose use recalled that of the cheque.
It was, however, agreed that in proportion as the products of this second class became abundant enough to attain to the level necessary for free consumption, they should enter into the first class; and ceasing to be considered as objects of luxury, they should be, without rationing, placed at the disposal of all.
By this arrangement society approached, automatically, more and more towards pure Communism.
The New Nationalism
BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
(Ex-president of the United States, born 1858)
Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and for his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.
Looking Backward
BY EDWARD BELLAMY
(A story of the experience of a man who goes to sleep and wakes up a hundred years later. See page 85)
"How do you regulate wages?" I asked.
Dr. Leete did not reply till after several moments of meditative silence. "I know, of course," he finally said, "enough of the old order of things to understand just what you mean by that question; and yet the present order is so utterly different at this point that I am a little at a loss how to answer you best. You ask me how we regulate wages: I can only reply that there is no idea in the modern social economy which at all corresponds with what was meant by wages in your day."
"I suppose you mean that you have no money to pay wages in," said I. "But the credit given the worker at the Government storehouse answers to his wages with us. How is the amount of credit given respectively to the workers in different lines determined? By what title does the individual claim his
## particular share? What is the basis of allotment?"
"His title," replied Dr. Leete, "is his humanity. The basis of his claim is the fact that he is a man."
"The fact that he is a man!" I repeated, incredulously. "Do you possibly mean that all have the same share?"
"Most assuredly." ...
"But what inducement," I asked, "can a man have to put forth his best endeavors when, however much or little he accomplishes, his income remains the same? High characters may be moved by devotion to the common welfare under such a system, but does not the average man tend to rest back on his oar, reasoning that it is of no use to make a special effort, since the effort will not increase his income, nor its withholding diminish it?"
"Does it then really seem to you," answered my companion, "that human nature is insensible to any motives save fear of want and love of luxury, that you should expect security and equality of livelihood to leave them without possible incentives to effort? Your contemporaries did not really think so, though they might fancy they did. When it was a question of the grandest class of efforts, the most absolute self-devotion, they depended on quite other incentives. Not higher wages, but honor and hope of men's gratitude, patriotism and the inspiration of duty, were the motives which they set before their soldiers when it was a question of dying for the nation; and never was there an age of the world when these motives did not call out what is best and noblest in men. And not only this, but when you come to analyze the love of money which was the general impulse to effort in your day, you find that the dread of want and desire of luxury were two of several motives which the pursuit of money represented; the others, and with many the more influential, being desire of power, of social position and reputation for ability and success. So you see that though we have abolished poverty and the fear of it, and inordinate luxury with the hope of it, we have not touched the greater part of the motives which underlay the love of money in former times, or any of those which prompted the supremer sorts of effort. The coarser motives, which no longer move us, have been replaced by high motives wholly unknown to the mere wage earners of your age. Now that industry of any sort is no longer self-service, but service of the nation, patriotism, passion for humanity, impel the workers as in your day they did the soldier. The army of industry is an army, not alone by virtue of its perfect organization, but by reason also of the ardor of self-devotion which animates its members.
"But as you used to supplement the motives of patriotism with the love of glory, in order to stimulate the value of your soldiers, so do we. Based as our industrial system is on the principle of requiring the same unit of effort from every man, that is the best he can do, you will see that the means by which we spur the workers to do their best must be a very essential part of our scheme. With us, diligence in the national service is, the sole and certain way to public repute, social distinction, and official power. The value of a man's services in society fixes his rank in it. Compared with the effect of our social arrangements in impelling men to be zealous in business, we deem the object-lessons of biting poverty and wanton luxury on which you depended a device as weak and uncertain as it was barbaric."
Liberty in Utopia
(_From "A Modern Utopia"_)
BY H. G. WELLS
(See pages 519, 675, 712, 830, 844, 853, 856)
The idea of individual liberty is one that has grown in importance and grows with every development of modern thought. To the classical Utopists freedom was relatively trivial. Clearly they considered virtue and happiness as entirely separable from liberty, and as being altogether more important things. But the modern view, with its deepening insistence upon individuality and upon the significance of its uniqueness, steadily intensifies the value of freedom, until at last we begin to see liberty as the very substance of life, that indeed it is life, and that only the dead things, the choiceless things, live in absolute obedience to law. To have free play for one's individuality is, in the modern view, the subjective triumph of existence, as survival in creative work and offspring is its objective triumph....
A Utopia such as this present one, written on the opening of the Twentieth Century, and after the most exhaustive discussion--nearly a century long--between Communistic and Socialistic ideas on the one hand, and Individualism on the other, emerges upon a sort of effectual conclusion to these controversies.... In the very days when our political and economic order is becoming steadily more Socialistic, our ideals of intercourse turn more and more to a fuller recognition of the claims of individuality. The State is to be progressive, it is no longer to be static, and this alters the general condition of the Utopian problem profoundly; we have to provide not only for food and clothing, for order and health, but for initiative. The factor that leads the World State on from one phase of development to the next is the interplay of individualities; to speak teleologically, the world exists for the sake of and through initiative, and individuality is the method of initiative.... The State is for Individuals, the law is for freedoms, the world is for experiment, experience and change: these are the fundamental beliefs upon which modern Utopia must go.
FROM THE EPISTLE OF JAMES
Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he not being a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.
The Social Revolution and After
BY KARL KAUTSKY
(German Socialist editor, generally recognized as the intellectual leader of the modern Social-democratic movement in his country)
Freedom of education and of scientific investigation from the fetters of capitalist dominion; freedom of the individual from the oppression of exclusive, exhaustive physical labor; displacement of capitalist industry in the intellectual production of society by the free unions--along this road proceeds the tendency of the proletarian régime....
Regulation of social chaos and liberation of the individual--these are the two historical tasks that capitalism has placed before society. They appear to be contradictory, but they are simultaneously soluble because each of them belongs to a different sphere of social life. Undoubtedly whoever should seek to rule both spheres in the same manner would find himself involved in insoluble contradictions....
_Communism in material production, anarchism in intellectual._ This is the type of the Socialist productive system which will arise from the dominion of the proletariat.
The Understanding of Nature
(_From "Studies in Socialism"_)
BY JEAN LEON JAURÈS
(See page 589)
When Socialism has triumphed, when conditions of peace have succeeded to conditions of combat, when all men have their share of property in the immense human capital, and their share of initiative and of the exercise of free-will in the immense human activity, then all men will know the fulness of pride and joy; and they will feel that they are co-operators in the universal civilization, even if their immediate contribution is only the humblest manual labor; and this labor, more noble and more fraternal in character, will be so regulated that the laborers shall always reserve for themselves some leisure hours for reflection and for a cultivation of the sense of life.
They will have a better understanding of the hidden meaning of life, whose mysterious aim is the harmony of all consciences, of all forces, and of all liberties. They will understand history better and will love it, because it will be their history, since they are the heirs of the whole human race. Finally, they will understand the universe better; because, when they see conscience and spirit triumphing in humanity, they will be quick to feel that this universe which has given birth to humanity cannot be fundamentally brutal and blind; that there is spirit everywhere, soul everywhere, and that the universe itself is simply an immense confused aspiration toward order, beauty, freedom, and goodness. Their point of view will be changed; they will look with new eyes not only at their brother men, but at the earth and the sky, rocks and trees, animals, flowers, and stars.
The Future of Art
(_From "Collectivism and Industrial Evolution"_)
BY ÉMILE VANDERVELDE
(Belgian Socialist leader, since the war a member of the Cabinet)
Many a time it has been said that art under all its forms is only the mirror, more or less distorted, yet always faithful, of society. Today it reflects the discouragements of a dying _bourgeoisie_, the torments, the anguish, and also the hopes of a proletariat which lives and grows in the midst of suffering. Tomorrow, it will reflect the calm and peace of happy generations which, escaped from the mire of poverty, will have founded through their own efforts the sovereignty of labor and the reign of brotherhood.
Art After the Revolution
(_From "Syndicalism and the Co-operative Commonwealth"_)
BY ÉMILE PATAUD AND ÉMILE POUGET
(See page 857)
Life was now to take its revenge. The human being was no longer riveted to the chain of wages; his aim in life passed beyond the mere struggle for a living. Industry was no longer his master, but his servant. Freed from all hindrances, he would be able to develop without constraint.
And there was no need to fear that the level of art would be lowered as it became universalized. Far from this, it would gain in extent and depth. Its domain would be unlimited. It would enter into all production. It would not restrict itself to painting large canvasses, to sculpturing marble, to moulding bronze. There would be art in everything.
And we should no longer see great artists stifled by misery, lost in the quicksands of indifference, as was too often the case formerly.
Punishment in Utopia
(_From "A Modern Utopia"_)
BY H. G. WELLS
(See pages 519, 675, 712, 830, 844, 853, 856, 863)
You see the big convict steamship standing in to the Island of Incurable Cheats. The crew are respectfully at their quarters, ready to lend a hand overboard, but wide awake, and the captain is hospitably on the bridge to bid his guests good-bye and keep an eye on the movables. The new citizens for this particular Alsatia, each no doubt with his personal belongings securely packed and at hand, crowd the deck and study the nearing coast. Bright, keen faces would be there, and we, were we by any chance to find ourselves beside the captain, might recognize the double of this great earthly magnate or that, Petticoat Lane and Park Lane cheek by jowl. The landing part of the jetty is clear of people, only a government man or so stands there to receive the boat and prevent a rush; but beyond the gates a number of engagingly smart-looking individuals loiter speculatively. One figures a remarkable building labeled Custom House, an interesting fiscal revival this population has made, and beyond, crowding up the hill, the painted walls of a number of comfortable inns clamor loudly. One or two inhabitants in reduced circumstances would act as hotel touts, there are several hotel omnibuses and a Bureau de Change, certainly a Bureau de Change. And a small house with a large board, aimed point-blank seaward, declares itself a Gratis Information Office, and next to it rises the graceful dome of a small Casino. Beyond, great hoardings proclaim the advantages of many island specialities, a hustling commerce, and the opening of a Public Lottery. There is a large cheap-looking barrack, the school of Commercial Science for gentlemen of inadequate training....
Altogether a very go-ahead looking little port it would be, and though this disembarkation would have none of the flow of hilarious good fellowship that would throw a halo of genial noise about the Islands of Drink, it is doubtful if the new arrivals would feel anything very tragic in the moment. Here at last was scope for adventure after their hearts.
This sounds more fantastic than it is. But what else is there to do, unless you kill? You must seclude, but why should you torment? All modern prisons are places of torture by restraint, and the habitual criminal plays the part of a damaged mouse at the mercy of the cat of our law. He has his little painful run, and back he comes again to a state more horrible even than destitution. There are no Alsatias left in the world. For my own