Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers
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When a man builds a house, the planning of sanitary arrangements
must first be attended to. After that begin the real life
and the real interests. That real life and those real interests
are not confined to the front yard or the back yard of the man
that owns the house. ----
So it will be some day with us who are now engaged in the
detailed organization of the little home which we call the earth.
We are fixing up our moral plumbing--fighting poverty, injustice,
and, above all, ignorance. We are fighting the meanness that
comes of competition and the greater meanness that is based upon
the dread of poverty in the future. Some of us are piling up
millions that we can never use, while others suffer for lack of
that which could be abundantly supplied.
All these little earthly questions that seem so big will be
settled in time.
But a few years in the sight of Time--a few hundred centuries,
perhaps, as we count them--and our earthly habitation will have
been made fit to live in. We shall have eliminated the
unfit--not by killing them off, but by educating them. We shall
have solved the question of poverty by solving the question of
production, and especially of distribution. We shall have
developed a citizenship capable of earnest work, of sobriety and
of moral decency, without the spur of want, imprisonment or the
scaffold as necessary adjuncts.
In time the human race will have solved its little problems
here--the problems that seem so vast to-day.
When that time comes we shall be like the man who has put his
house in order, and our thoughts will not be confined to this
little piece of ground. Then we shall appreciate the cosmic
wisdom which has divided our day into darkness and light--the
light for the enjoyment of the material beauties of our earthly
home; THE NIGHT FOR THE STUDY AND ENJOYMENT OF THE VAST,
MYSTERIOUS UNIVERSE SPREAD OUT AROUND US.
Everybody knows that the aged require less sleep than the young.
In the future, this will make old age what it ought to be, a
blessing, because it will give to the old more hours of the night
for contemplation of the Infinite and all its wonders.
Those of us who now think themselves very abstract when they
speculate on the North Pole, or when they discuss the possibility
of reclaiming the Desert of Sahara, will have their minds many
millions of miles away from this earth a great deal of the time.
We shall communicate, perhaps, with our sister-planet, Venus--the
planet most like ours in physical arrangement. We shall be
intensely interested in that world, where it is always night on
one side of the planet, and always day on the other.
We shall realize with deepest envy the fact that the constant,
terrific currents of air whirling around Venus, in consequence of
the extreme heat and the extreme cold on opposite sides of the
planet, have developed a race as far superior to us as the trout
in the swift-flowing brook is superior to the heavy-eyed catfish
in the bottom of the pond. ----
We shall humbly beg for information from the superior inhabitants
of other worlds, and perhaps wait with impatience for release
from duty here which shall take us to a higher planetary
existence. If we look backward at all, we shall consider our
present selves simply as refined cannibals, who lived upon the
labor and the suffering of our fellows instead of feeding upon
their bodies. ----
It may seem ridiculous to predict that the time will come when
the intelligent man's interests will be nearly all outside of the
earth on which he lives.
But to the savage of the Congo, squatted beside a decaying
hippopotamus, gorging himself with the meat, with not a thought
beyond that carcass or beyond the edge of the river, it would
seem preposterous to speak of men whose interests range out over
the entire world.
We look upon a man as very small to-day unless all knowledge
interests him, unless his mind roams daily all over the civilized
globe, sharing in the interests of all nations, in the
literature, the discoveries and the activities of all nations.
To-day we, with our minds on little, material problems, our
thoughts centred on this one little planet, as we lead our
selfish lives, are like that Congo savage hacking away at the
dead hippopotamus.
When night comes, we shut our eyes like the chickens, waiting for
the light that means money-making or pleasure of the senses; or
we go to theatres or to balls, or elsewhere, to shut out as far
as possible all knowledge of that marvellous, unlimited creation
to which we belong, and which it is our greatest privilege feebly
to study. ----
The geography class of the future will be a class in astronomy.
The real problems of the future will be the problems outside of
this earth, and the real interests of the future will be
interests connected with the universe at large.
We shall make of this earth a beautiful garden, inhabited by
safe, happy human beings. We shall take pride in it, and enjoy
it by day. Our intellectual lives will begin with the going down
of the sun and the gradual appearance of those mighty neighbors
in space that alone will interest the thinking man of future
days.
LAST WEEK'S BABY WILL SURELY TALK SOME DAY
It is believed by scientists that the planet Mars may be striving
at this moment to communicate with us. Lines of light are seen
on her surface--on the border of that part of Mars known as Lake
Iscarie--and men of learning believe that the Martians are trying
to signal our earth.
Possibly they are trying.
Of this you may be sure: Sooner or later we shall communicate
with all the planets, and perhaps through the giant sun receive
news of outside solar systems.
We have lived comparatively but a few hours on this earth. The
civilization on Mars is millions of years older than our own.
Although we are still primitive savages, we have done wonders
already.
We can talk instantaneously with a Chinese sitting cross-legged
on the under (or upper) side of our earth. We can send a message
around the earth in a few seconds.
Of course we shall talk to Mars as soon as we get out of our
cradle down here.
Look into an ordinary cradle where a week-old baby lies nursing
his wrath or trying to talk to his toe. There are around him
eighty millions of other human beings--fourteen hundred
millions if you count all on earth--and he, the baby, cannot say
one word to any of them. He does not even know his own mother.
Like humanity on this earth, he is busy growing up. He has not
had time to spread out and get an interest in his surroundings.
His liver must get small--at the end of his milk diet. His legs
must get straight and strong. He must learn to creep and walk.
After a period as extensive in his life as a thousand centuries
in the life of the race, he begins to talk to those about him.
We do not believe that the time has yet come for us to talk to
the Martians, or to the inhabitants of any other older planet.
They may possibly be signalling to us up there, as a man
inexperienced will signal to a new-born baby or even try to make
it understand what he says.
It is probable, however, that Mars, far advanced in science, as
superior to us as we are to new-born infants, would use the light
only to attract our interest and let us know that when the time
comes we have an old brother planet anxious to chat with this
baby earth.
It will be most interesting when the talking time does come. The
men who have lived, studied, experimented millions of years ahead
of us will be able to tell us many things that we need to know.
Like the baby in the cradle, we are compelled now to discover
everything for ourselves. Our old brother Mars, as soon as we
can understand, may help us to take giant steps forward, just as
a younger brother, as soon as he can speak, is taught by his
elder in one of our families. ----
It will be interesting, also, to observe how we shall probably
reject the good advice given us, as the young person here rejects
the words of experience.
Suppose we could talk to Mars, and suppose the wise old people up
there should tell us that millions of years of experience had
made clear the fact that making money is a foolish occupation.
How many of us would cease striving for money? The very
scientist giving us the message would patent his interstellar
talking process and die happy with a huge fortune.
How cheerful also will it be a million or so years hence! We
shall then be like a very young child among the planets. Two of
the older worlds will be talking, and we shall be permitted to
listen, but not to interrupt.
We shall hear questions put as to our origin and destiny.
We know now that the sun, flying through space, is dragging us
toward some unknown spot in the universe. Our older brothers in
space will have definite ideas as to where we are going and
why we are going there.
It will be interesting to follow their speculations, and
occasionally, if permitted, to offer our feeble little ideas, as
the smart boy occasionally speaks up before his elders.
Our future as one of a family of planets freely communicating
with each other cannot be doubted.
He must have a dull imagination who believes that the eternal Law
regulating matters here has put such limits to our possible
development as would shut us out from a share in the big solar
family life to which we belong.
THE GOOD THAT IS DONE BY THE TRUSTS
THE MAMMOTH MADE OUR FIRST PATHS THROUGH THE FOREST
Every big movement in this world in some way or other does solid
good in the long run, however irritating it may be before it is
understood.
The saddest period in a child's life is undoubtedly the period of
teething. If you saw a baby for the first time and didn't
understand that period, you would denounce the cruelty which
inflamed its gums, upset its digestion, kept it awake, condemned
it to incessant torture. But we all know that a full set of
teeth under the control of the child is to reward the suffering
of teething, and this reconciles us to the teething age.
We tell you--and we don't want you to forget this--that all the
trust impositions and suffering and thievery now agitating us
constitute a teething process through which we must pass. The
result will be a full set of industrial teeth owned and
controlled by the nation, which now suffers the torments of the
teething baby. ----
You will realize that individuals must at first do that which
nations do later.
The despotic, irresponsible rule of the savage chief, of the
able individual fighter, was a forerunner of the present system
of government.
We have now taken the governing power from the individual,
bestowing it on the whole people, but at first we had to have our
Attilas, our Napoleons and Alexanders. ----
As individual control of the government has been superseded by
collective control, so individual control of industries will be
followed by collective control. That is the natural order.
Why does not the government take full charge at once?
Why does not the hen lay a hen all covered with feathers, instead
of laying an egg? Everything must have its crude beginning and
its perfect ending, for on this basis we are organized.
The French government to-day makes millions from the national
control of the match industry. But a solitary individual working
in Batavia, New York State, had to create the match and make his
little money out of it before the French government could take it
and make its millions.
That same French government derives millions from its tobacco
business, incidentally giving the people good tobacco cheap
instead of poisonous tobacco dear. The red Indian dodging bears
and using his squaws as slaves had to start that great tobacco
industry before the French government could get it.
Don't waste your time and energy joining the thoughtless crowd
that howls against trusts. Use your vote and your voice to put
those trusts under government control as soon as may be. Be glad
that an old Vanderbilt had brains enough to build great railroad
systems. Don't denounce him or begrudge him the fortune he made.
His work was worth the money.
Let us say to his little descendants the pee wee Vanderbilts of
to-day:
"You have had enough now. Although you have done nothing,
we shall pay you generously for what your great-grandfather
did, and with your kind permission, or without it, we shall
transfer these roads to the people whose patronage gives
them value." ----
In due time this pleasant message of just appropriation will be
delivered to all the various trust owners. They will all be well
paid for their work. They deserve to be, for they have done as
individuals the work which the collective commonwealth could not
do.
But they will be made to see that they cannot forever keep what
they have created. If a man invents a steam engine worth to the
world at large ten thousand billions, he is allowed to keep his
property only seventeen years, under our patent laws. Shall we
allow a clever highway robber of a commercial organizer to keep
the proceeds of his energy for himself and his descendants
forever? ----
We had almost forgotten the mammoth mentioned at the top of this
article. That mammoth, dead and forgotten, is the forerunner of
to-day's trust. The mammoth was hated by all created things
around him. An accidental blow from his left hind foot would
break up any family in existence.
But his vast weight and power ploughed the first paths through
the swamps and forests. The paths made by the mammoth through
unexplored tracts were a great boon to half-savage man. In fact,
man followed along those paths after awhile and learned how to
kill the mammoth very neatly.
The trusts are marking out organized paths through the hitherto
chaotic, disorganized systems of industry. Those paths will be
useful to all men through all time. The trust will be killed
when his day comes, as the mammoth has been killed.
Let us be patient meanwhile, and not forget that, though a
monster, he was a monster absolutely necessary and very useful.
TRUSTS AND THE SENATE
If you are willing to assume your responsibilities as an American
citizen you should study seriously the question of the trusts.
Already trust organization has assumed very real and very
threatening proportions.
Every family in the United States knows of the existence of the
Meat Trust, which cuts down the food supply of the people to add
to its bank account.
Every merchant feels keenly the existence of half a dozen trusts
on which he is absolutely dependent, and from which there is no
escape.
We all have seen the Coal Trust keeping ready armed men to shoot
working citizens whenever it should give the order. This Coal
Trust, in a calm, matter-of-fact way, boasted that it would, if
necessary, "call out the United States Government troops" to
shoot the miners. Here is one trust already talking as though it
controlled the army and all the other forces of Government. The
trusts believe themselves already in control, and their national
power is very great.
The crisis of trust development has not been reached. The
present power of concentrated, organized money is very great, but
it is nothing to the power which money will exert in the
future.
This future development of the trust force should be discussed
and studied calmly, rationally and dispassionately by all
Americans.
There is no use in denouncing or in hating the trusts. It is
true that they are entirely selfish; it is NOT true that they
represent evil, pure and simple.
The trust is a necessary development in humanity's journey toward
organization, concentration and the simplifying of industry.
The first locomotive ever built was a trust. It performed the
work of a thousand four-horse teams, deprived four thousand
horses and a thousand drivers of a livelihood.
The railroad trust is simply an extension of the concentration of
labor, the simplifying of industrial operation, represented in
the building of the first locomotive.
THE TRUSTS IN THE END WILL DO INFINITE GOOD.
They will destroy the mean competition which for centuries has
made liars, swindlers and slavedrivers of men.
They will practically eliminate the great number of large private
fortunes, and thus compel men to devote their energies to
pursuits nobler than the accumulation of money.
At first a few enormous fortunes will dominate the nation--the
beginning of these great fortunes you may see already.
Then will come the owning of the trusts--that is to say, of all
the great national industries--by the nation itself.
The people of the land will own and operate their own
necessities. These necessities, instead of making a few men
enormously rich at the expense of many, will contribute to the
comfort of many without injustice to the few. ----
The development of trusts must run its course, like every other
great feature of human history.
Its beginning--in corrupt legislation, watered stocks, human
selfishness--was inevitable.
Its ending--in national ownership, competition eliminated, and
industrial life vastly improved--is also inevitable.
But thousands of struggles, thousands of economical battles,
thousands of ruined men, will mark this evolution of human
industry from the control of individual selfishness to the
service of the nation.
The duty of the people is to study and, as far as possible, to
foresee and regulate this enormous and inevitable development of
the trusts.
The trusts cannot be destroyed, and they should not be destroyed.
But they can be regulated, and with proper vigilance they can be
kept from commanding and controlling absolutely this nation,
which sees the birth of their great development. ----
We believe that the most pressing public duty at present is
the reorganization of the Senate of the United States on the
basis of popular election.
It has been said truthfully: "You cannot indict an entire
people," and, fortunately for us, it may truthfully be said, "You
cannot PURCHASE an entire people."
The trusts of the United States base their hopes of continued and
growing power upon the United States Senate.
The trusts own absolutely many United States Senators. Of those
Senators whom the trusts do not own, many are deeply interested
in the trusts, which is the same thing as though the trusts did
own them.
Under the present system, the public elects State Legislatures,
and these Legislatures choose the United States Senators.
If a trust can buy the Legislature--which, as we all know, it
usually can--the trust can control the Senatorial representatives
of the State.
The State of New York in the National Congress at Washington is
represented by thirty-four Congressmen and two Senators. The
thirty-four Congressmen are elected by the people and two
Senators are chosen by the trusts. And with these two Senators
the trusts can absolutely veto every bill passed by the
thirty-four Representatives elected by the people.
Does anybody believe that Mr. Depew and Mr. Platt could possibly
have been elected to the United States Senate by the PEOPLE of
the State of New York?
Does anybody question the outrageousness of a system which forces
upon the people as representatives two Senators whom they would
not have chosen and whom they actually believe to be inimical to
their interests?
This condition prevails practically throughout the Union.
The upper house of our National Legislature is the real ruling
power in the United States.
It controls all of the President's appointments.
According to the Constitution, he is compelled to appoint "by and
with the advice and consent of the Senate."
The trusts buy the Legislatures, they own the Senators, and
therefore the Constitution of the United States now reads
practically as follows:
"The President appoints national officers by and with the
advice and consent of the trusts."
As an American voter, you have no more important duty than to
work for the election of Senators by the people.
You should not tolerate the selection of Judges of the Supreme
Court, United States Ambassadors, Federal Judges throughout the
country, and all the great executive forces subject to the
approval of the trusts that notoriously make, break and destroy
laws.
A small trust can buy the Legislature of the State of New York.
But the biggest trust can scarcely buy New York's six million
inhabitants. And, thanks to our secret voting system, we are
protected even against ourselves and our own selfishness.
If a trust buys the ordinary voter it cannot be sure that it gets
what it buys.
But if a trust buys the legislators it can count votes and secure
delivery of the goods purchased.
Use your influence to curb the power of the trusts by taking away
from venal legislators that power to sell to trust managers the
Senate of the United States.
This subject you should discuss with your neighbors. You should
urge it upon all of those voters with whom you come in contact.
You should influence legislators in your State to vote for a
Constitutional amendment causing popular election of
Senators--and no legislator will resent your suggestion if he be
an honest man.
Everybody knows that the United States Senate to-day does not
represent the people. There are exceptions among the Senators,
but they are in the minority. Every year the Senate is less and
less representative of the nation, more and more representative
of organized capital. Good Americans, irrespective of party,
will strive to work for this change in the national machinery.
Take away from the trusts now the power to tamper with national
laws through the Senate.
THE PROMISING TOAD'S HEAD
The head of a toad, like the head of a trust, is superficially a
hideous thing to look at.
Sometimes it is alleged that valuable jewels are found in a
toad's head, and on this account the hideousness even of the
far-famed horned toad of the West becomes less repulsive.
The trust toad, as you will find by examining it closely and
studying events, has a head equipped with jewels of a very fine
quality. Many years from now men will be very glad that the
trust toad was born, because of the good that will come from it.
----
Already we see that the trusts are inevitably strengthening labor
unions. They are bringing the men into closer relationship and
forming them into greater and more closely united bodies of
workmen.
The trusts organize admirably the great industries and prepare
the day when all of these industries will be owned by the
Government--that is to say, by the people themselves.
The trusts eliminate competition, which is a stupid, out-of-date
form of barbarism, leading to cheating, thievery and
adulteration.
The trusts do away with the vast armies of middlemen, and, by
diminishing every day the number of those who live on the work of
others, they compel an ever-growing number to enter the fields of
useful production. ----
Just at present the jewel that stands out most prominently in the
ugly trust toad's head is "FREE TRADE."
Men have argued and fought and voted and made speeches and
paraded for Free Trade--and all in vain. The more they talked
and paraded, the heavier were the duties.
But when the TRUSTS want Free Trade, they will have it, for the
trusts control legislation.
And we SHALL have Free Trade, for the trusts WILL want it very
soon.
A trust engaged in manufacturing wants to buy as cheaply as it
can the raw materials used.
The trusts will soon own all the industries, all the
manufactures, and they will want freedom from the duties which
are now paid on the material.
Already there is in process of formation a great Clothing Trust.
The small man who makes clothing now must pay a duty on wool to
protect the American farmer who raises sheep.
How long do you think the Clothing Trust will tolerate this duty
on wool?
How long do you think the Trust engaged in making cloths in
America will tolerate a duty on wool that makes the industry so
expensive?
Some of the duties will be retained, of course--at least until
the trusts shall be powerful enough even to despise foreign
competition.
But one thing after another the trusts will want free from duty,
and these things will be freed as fast as the trusts' order is
given. ----
The trusts are going to do a great deal of good to the masses of
the people in time. They will end by forcing universal
Government ownership of monopolies upon the people.
TRUSTS WILL DRIVE LABOR UNIONS INTO POLITICS
A workman should use the best tools at his command--the
workman's best tool is his ballot. Everything that men want it
can give them if used intelligently. The reasons urged against
its use by labor unions are conscientious but not strong. They
are based upon the fact that labor men fear to trust each other,
and fear especially to trust their leaders. They will not vote
as unions because they fear that they may be sold out--that is
the plain, unpleasant fact.
We cannot believe that their fears are well founded. We know
that leaders both able and honest can be found among American
workingmen, and we say that they should be found and trusted
promptly. ----
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