pronomie Events in

light of History," in the August number of THE ARENA, I said: "Every phase in the political or economic development of society contains the elements of self-destruction. Every social, political or economic system will in the course of its development reach a point where the elements of self-destruction commence to move and show their presence. From this on the system will gradually be undermined and slowly collapse by its own force. From this on the effect of its own force becomes inimical to its own purposes and a hindrance to its further development."

To show the truth of this theory I illustrated it by describing the outgoing of the guild system and the incoming of the competitive system, and also the present gradual decline of the competitive system and its making way for the combination and concentration in industry, commerce and transportation, or that which is commonly called Trust.

If what I then said is true, I think it should be possible to point out the elements of self-destruction in the Trusts, and their probable movements and manifestations, because the Trust has, in my opinion, advanced in its course of development to the point at which these elements must show their presence and activity.

It is the object of the following lines to show that the course of the Trust is selfdestructive and that it cannot deviate from this course and escape destruction, though it is constantly endeavoring to do so.

If it were possible for any combination to cover the whole industry, it would, of course, so far as that industry is concerned, eliminate entirely the influence of supply and demand; in other words, abolish the market, as a price maker. But no combination is able to do that. Even the

foreign countries. Its life depends upon the killing of all competition. This, it can never completely do, and it must continually fight for its own life. At the same time its efforts to absorb rival concerns have the effect of creating new ones. The large profits lead to the establishment of rival concerns, sometimes for the only purpose of compelling the combination to acquire the new establishment at an enormous price, for absorption is mostly less expensive than destruction.

It is impossible for the combination to leave rival concerns undisturbed. If it would allow them to grow and expand, it would not any longer be able to control the market and reap enormous profits which is the object of its existence. It would itself become merely one of a number of competing rival concerns, but not a trust, not a powerful, controlling combination. To continue as such it cannot allow the existence of rival concerns but must destroy or absorb them in one way or the other.

This is even the case where the combination has reached the highest state of development, that of the one large corporation, as the Standard Oil Company, the United States Steel Corporation, etc.

In its course from mere trade agreements between a number of independent firms to their consolidation into one large corporation and by process of destruction and absorption the combination drives many independent business men out of business and unquestionably reduces the consuming capacity of a part of them.

In its efforts to control the business in all its stages and to reap every possible profit that is in it, it is one of the policies of the combination to eliminate as far as possible the middle man. It sells directly to

the retailer, and the wholesaler and jobber are gradually disappearing. But some of them, as, for instance, the Standard Oil Company and the Tobacco Trust, go even further and eliminate the retailer, by either peddling their goods or monopolizing the retail business. Thus it destroys the sources of income for hundreds of thousands of people and reduces their consuming capacity.

Combination reduces the number of necessary employees, in the shop as well as in the office, but more particularly the number of those employed in selling goods. The drummer, for instance, so necessary an individual under a system of competition, becomes unnecessary under a system of combination. If the buyer has no choice it is not necessary to make efforts to win him. Thus, combination reduces or destroys altogether sources of employment and again reduces the consuming power of hundreds of thousands.

It is, of course, one of the principal objects of the trust to control and fix prices, and to drive them as high as conditions permit, with a view of making the largest possible profit. The consequence, naturally, is an increase of the cost of living. Increase of living expenses is always one of the causes which call forth energetic efforts on the part of the labor-organization to obtain better wages, so as to prevent a sinking of their standard of life. It stands to reason that the combination is able to resist these efforts with much greater strength than a number of individual competing concerns, and the Trust is, generally, strong enough to secure a proportionately higher rise of prices than of wages. That this again reduces the consumptive power of the people needs no explanation.

In my former article I explained combination as forming an element of progress in so far as it is a means of increasing the power of production. Now I have shown that the methods which the combination uses, and which it is bound to use result in a reduction of the power of consumption.

It is evident that this is a self-destroying course, but none other is open to the Trust. If the power of production constantly grows, or even if it remains stationary, while the power of consumption diminishes, a point must eventually be reached when production becomes useless or unremunerative, and must be stopped or suspended. A reduction of the consumptive power prevents the full use of the productive power, but as production and profit-making is the object and purpose of the Trust, it must in the end become a hindrance to production and its methods inimical to its own purposes.

Nevertheless the Trust cannot deviate from this course without destroying itself more rapidly; because this course is necessary to prevent competition, and deviation from it would mean the return of competition, and competition and combination are, of course, antagonistic and cannot exist together.

Therefore, in order to avoid the results of the reduction of the consumptive power of the people, and to prevent the calamity of stopping production, or reducing productive capacity, the combination is compelled, or will be compelled, to seek foreign markets. But here it meets the competition of other nations. To meet this effectually and also to ward off the competition of foreign industry at home, it needs tariff-protection which enables it to sell at high prices at home and to dump upon foreign markets the surplus of its products, which the home market is not able to absorb, at much lower prices, sometimes even at a loss.

Of course, the throwing of goods upon foreign markets at very low prices is not possible without high prices at home. But, as said before, the high prices and big profits are dangerous to the combination because they form a stimulus for new enterprises. Thus a a ring is formed through which the combination is unable to break, and a condition is created which the combination is powerless to change.

The foreign markets must necessarily, in course of time, become satiated; the subjugated islands or colonies, generally

monopolize a commodity, to destroy competition in labor?

The war apparently waged against the Trusts in the halls of Congress and State legislatures will never kill it, and is not intended to kill it.

It is waged by the poorer part of the bourgeoisie which is in danger of being crushed by the other part. Or it is waged between the different interests of different parts of the bourgeoisie: industry, commerce, transportation, finance. The laboring class has little or no interest in discriminating freight rates or passenger rates. nor ships much.

It neither travels

Pure food law? If the burgeois were not in danger of being poisoned, he would no more care for the laborer being poisoned, than he cares for the laborer being killed in the mine.

But the time is not far when the large mass of the people will become conscious of their class-existence. Then the real fight will begin, but not before that. It will not end in the restoration of competition with the consequent repitition of past evils, but in turning over the Trusts to the uses of the people. PHILIP RAPPAPORT.

Washington, D. C.

[Editorial Note: THE ARENA has recently published papers setting forth the religious views of liberal orthodox churchmen who hold to what is known as the higher criticism, in the contributions by Dr. Crapsey and Rev. A. R. Kieffer. Those of conservative churchmen have been admirably presented by Rev. William R. Bushby. The teachings of Christian Science have been presented by W. D. McCrackan and philosophical opinions against and for Christian Science have been discussed by Edward C. Farnsworth and John B. Willis. In the following paper we present a contribution on "The Essence of Religion" from the rationalistic view-point. It has been prepared by Mr. Theodore Schroeder, one of the strongest and clearest reasoners among the radical thinkers. Personally we do not think Mr. Schroeder's stand is well taken in regard to God, at least we think that his illustrations are in some instances unfortunate in that they do not fairly represent the views of those with whom he is dealing. If the writer had limited his conception of God to that of an anthropomorphic being, he would have been justified in classing the Brahmins, the Christian Scientists, and for that matter, the master-thinkers among liberal evolutionary Christians of the present day, as not believing in such a God. But the anthropomorphic concept of God is by no means the only concept, and indeed, in the Christian world it is doubtless true that this oldtime idea is rapidly giving place to the concept of a God that is all-pervading Life and the supreme embodiment of those attributes which are instinct in the fullest and noblest forms of life of which we have any conception. Now to the Brahmin, who believes that the universe is one vast, throbbing

entity and that man in his cycles of existence is merely moving onward and upward through a series of dream-lives, being purified and refined until at last he is at one with the great source of life and being, Brahm is Deity, quite as much as the God of the old colored man who conceived Him to be a great black man sitting on a gold throne with a long gold stick in His hand. Likewise the great evolutionary school of liberal Christian thinkers to-day who hold with the ancient poet that God is everywhere, are none the less believers in Deity than the peasant whose conception of God is that of a magnified man. So also with the Christian Scientists. Their conception of God is that of all-pervading conscious energy-the sum total of intelligence, of life, of love, of truth, so perfect in manifestation of each of these that it is proper to characterize Deity as the incarnation of each attribute, whether it be truth, or love, or intelligence. It is doubtful whether Deity is so real to any modern body of religious believers as He is to the Christian Scientists.

We are not arguing for any special concept of Deity, but stating facts which it seems to us in fairness should be stated in this connection. Much of the misunderstanding and intellectual warfare over religious, philosophical and various other theories that have commanded the attention of thinkers, has arisen from writers employing terms in such a way that their scope is more limited than the terms warrant, or by their giving to terms a special meaning which is not the meaning that the same term conveys to other minds. To us it seems clear that the Brahmin, the liberal evolutionary Christian and the Christian Scientist believe in Deity quite as profoundly as those who hold to the

anthropomorphic idea of God. In regard to the latter, perhaps the best answer to Mr. Schroeder's claim that Christian Scientists do not worship God, is found in the following extract from Science and Health, in which Mrs. Eddy gives in a brief compass the teachings of Christian Science:

"1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.

"2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness.

"3. We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that evil is unreal, hence not eternal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.

NLY very stupid persons would assume that everything can be made a matter of religion merely by calling it religion, or that everything is religious which is so labeled. The moral quacks, vendors of reform cure-alls, the sociological astrologer, the political the ologaster, as well as the mystic degenerate, usually appropriate the religious trademark, thinking thereby to secure for themselves a "respectable" rating, and for their wares & more ready market.

Since we cannot find the essence of religion where religion is not, it follows that we must exclude from our study all of the foregoing classes, and those numerous others who exercise only the parrot-like function of imitating such as are truly religious.

We must also exclude from consideration those well-meaning persons who for want of clear vision, and the consequent inherent timidity of conscious weakness, carefully plan their intellectual destination along the line of least resistance, because it is easiest. These gather a large following by their superficially plausible, and intellectually dishonest use of words with which they appear to harmonize religion and science. These weaklings of science and weaklings of religion, and their following of pseudoscientists and pseudo-religionists, have made dust enough almost to obliterate the essential difference of source of authority, of method, of scope and of

“4. We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the Wayshower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.

"5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith and understanding to perceive eternal Life, even the allness of Spirit and the nothingness of matter.

"6. And we solemnly promise to strive, watch and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to love one another; and to be meek, merciful, just, and pure." (Science and Health, page 497.) Editor of THE ARENA. ]

aim, which must ever separate rea science from real religion. Partially to restore this line of partition for the small thinking portion of the public is the mission of this essay.

Here we are not concerned with the difference between true and false religion, nor with the success or failure in the attainment of religious ideals. What we seek to discover is those characteristics, the absence of which is the negation of all religion either true or false, and the presence of which distinguishes even the errors of false religion from secular error.

Unquestionably, religious men, often even in the name of religion duplicate every crime committed by others. The religious profess convictions which others may also profess, both with and without honesty. The religious perform ceremonies which others also perform with joy to themselves. In common with the non-religious persons they entertain opinions and hopes, all of which some other religious persons repudiate. From these facts of common knowledge we must conclude that the religious man cannot be differentiated from the non-religious by any indispensable conduct, credal statement, or aspect of the outer world. None of these things are essential to religion as such, though any of them may be, and almost everything has been, deemed indispensable to some particular religion. We can make this a little clearer by a few concrete illustrations, of