philanthropic zeal may be found to be entirely unworkable; if so, it will soon be quietly abrogated, ́ with little opposition. We shall see that such facts as these are not to be explained by any bias of the American legislature toward theoretical socialism. In fact, socialism has been little known, and less understood, in the United States, down to a comparatively recent period. Within this period, there has been no change in the general scope of American legislation. No party of considerable strength has yet proposed in a State legislature or in the national Congress a distinctively socialistic programme, and there seems no prospect of such a party arising. Whenever a measure has been adopted which the socialist would call a step in the direction of complete ownership by the State of the means of production, it has not been passed as such, but purely on its merits as an individual instance. Thus the Massachusetts General Court of 1891 authorized towns and cities to manufacture electric light under certain carefully specified conditions; but the legislature was far from giving this simple permission on the ground, expressed or implied, that, everywhere and always, the State is to be preferred to the individual as a producer. On the contrary, in accordance with the usual practice in such permissive legislation, it left each local community free to decide for itself whether to undertake the manufacture of electric light or not, and to continue the business or not, according as the results should be found to be favorable or unfavorable by the community.

Briefly, one may say then, that neither a Herbert Spencer nor a Karl Marx could legitimately extract much comfort from the proceedings of our American

legislatures. Undoubtedly, on the surface, there would be many more indications of a "coming slavery" to disturb Mr. Spencer than of laissez-faire to arouse Karl Marx; but if either Mr. Spencer or Karl Marx should suppose that a consistent socialism or individualism underlies the doings of the legislatures, or is likely to result from them, he would profoundly mistake the situation. The issue has never been plainly raised between socialism and individualism as general principles; but wherever specific matters have come up for decision, in which the rights of the individual have been an important consideration, the result has usually been their final establishment, however grossly invaded they may have been at first. The absurd prohibition, for example, of the very manufacture of oleomargarine was an instance of extreme legislation in favor of the farmer; it had to give way to laws limited, for the most part, to preventing the sale or use of this product under the name of "butter." A practical conclusion has not so easily been reached in the much more important matter of the sale of intoxicating liquors. In a number of States prohibitory laws or amendments to the constitution have been enacted, and in most of these they have been repealed. The issue is still far from being taken decisively out of the hands of the State legislature; but, on the whole, local option, which leaves the question of the sale of liquor to the town or city, is the result which has best approved itself. Such a settlement would be in accord with the general feeling of the American mind, which endures with patience a larger amount of governmental activity as one comes closer home to the local administration.

If the reasonings in this chapter are not erroneous,

there is no propriety in supposing that the American Spirit is characterized throughout by Individualism, under any strict definition of this term. In the next chapter I shall show that the national temper is just as little in favor of a scientific Socialism.

CHAPTER V.

THE AMERICAN SPIRIT AND SOCIALISM.

THE phenomena of scientific socialism in this country were set forth in 1886 by Professor R. T. Ely in "The Labor Movement in America;" the new edition of 1890 was enlarged, but not revised to date. Professor A. Sartorius Freiherrn von Waltershausen in his elaborate work, "Der Moderne Socialismus in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika" (1890), is dependent upon Professor Ely for most of his facts. A foreigner easily commits the mistake of supposing that thoroughgoing socialism, such as Professor Ely investigated with much industry, is a threatening feature in the American situation. In point of fact, however, most of its phenomena are of a very obscure order, even now; and when they have been brought to the light of day, they have drawn from the American-born no expression of alarm, and still less of respect. Referring my readers to the two volumes, by the American and the German professors, for that exposition of the propaganda of strict socialism in this country which is no part of my purpose here, I shall best show my own estimate of its importance by another kind of presentation of the actual condition of affairs.

I. IMPORTED AND AMERICAN SOCIALISM. Putting the situation in a concrete form, we may

say that the great majority of socialists in the United States is made up of two classes.

I. There is, first, the newly-arrived foreigner who has brought with him, more especially if he comes from Germany, a head stuffed with abstract theories of the right social order and a heart bursting with wrath against the existing government, because of its outrages on individual freedom. Two cousins, Johann and Wilhelm, land in a country where speculative thought is lightly esteemed, particularly in politics, but where the Anglo-Saxon instinct for liberty and order has established a government of the people, by the people, for the people, where, in fact, the "government" is simply an agent of the people. The worthy Johann needs some time to adjust himself to the new atmosphere and the new earth. Free to talk to his heart's content and to print all the matter that he can pay for, in denunciation of every existing institution, he slowly learns the absurdity of much of his logic. His reasoning may pass muster in Berlin, where the Social-Democrats are largely a political party, asking for such reforms as have long been familiar to America in practice. The very premises of such reforms are lacking here, the political repression, the crushing weight of an enormous military establishment, the remnants of feudalism, the career closed to the talent of the poor, and the spirit of profound social inequality. Johann soon votes on a political level with other American citizens. His ballot is as weighty as that of the richest man of the oldest family in the country. He is practically free from military service, and he is subject to no obligation of homage or obedience to an upper class. His to a free school in the Western town where

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