"Sooner or later the so far unchecked tendency toward monopoly in the United States must be met squarely by the American people....

"The problem of the relation of the State and the corporation is now the chief question of the world. In Europe the State is relatively much stronger; in America, the corporation. In Europe the movement towards Socialism--collective ownership and operation of the machinery of industry and transportation--is far on its way; in America we are moving to control the corporation by political instruments, such as State Boards and the Interstate Commerce Commission....

"And if corporate centralization of power continues unchecked, what is the next great popular agitation to be in this country? For State Socialism?"

When a treaty of peace is made between "Big Business" and the smaller capitalists under such leadership as La Follette's, we may be certain that it will not amount merely to a swallowing up of the small fish by the large. The struggle waged according to La Follette's principles is not a mere bid for political power and the spoils of office, but a real political warfare that can only end by recognition of the small capitalist's claims in business and politics--in so far as they relate, not to the restoration of compet.i.tion, but to government ownership or control. As early as 1905, when governor of Wisconsin, La Follette said:--

"It must always be borne in mind that the contest between the State and the corporate powers is a lasting one.... It must always be remembered that their att.i.tude throughout is one of hostility to this legislation, and that if their relation to the law after it is enacted is to be judged by the att.i.tude towards the Interstate Commerce Law, it will be one of continued effort to destroy its efficiency and nullify its provision." Events have shown that he was right in his predictions, and his idea that the war against monopolies must last until they are deprived of their dominant position in politics is now widely accepted.

The leading demands of the small capitalists, in so far as they are independently organized in this new movement, are now for protection, as buyers, sellers, investors, borrowers, and taxpayers against the "trusts," railways, and banks. Formerly they invariably took up the cause of the capitalist compet.i.tors and would-be compet.i.tors of the "Interests"--and millionaires and corporations of the second magnitude were lined up politically with the small capitalists, as, for example, silver mine owners, manufacturers who wanted free raw material, cheaper food (with lower wages), and foreign markets at any price,--from pseudo-reciprocity to war,--importing merchants, compet.i.tors of the trusts, tobacco, beer, and liquor interests bent on decreasing their taxes, etc.

The great novelty of the "Insurgent" movement is that, in dissociating itself from Free Silver, Free Trade, and the proposal to _destroy_ the "trusts," it has succeeded in getting rid of nearly all the "Interests"

that have wrecked previous small capitalist movements. At the same time, it has all but abandoned the old demagogic talk about representing the citizen as consumer against the citizen as producer. It frankly avows its intention to protect the ultimate consumer, not against small capitalist producers (_e.g._ its opposition to Canadian reciprocity and cheaper food), but solely against the monopolies. Indeed, the protection of the ultimate consumer against monopolies is clearly made incidental to the protection of the small capitalist consumer-producer. The wage earner consumes few products of the Steel Trust, the farmer and small manufacturers, many. Nor does the new movement propose to destroy the "trusts" by free trade even in the articles they produce, but merely to control prices by lower tariffs. With the abandonment of the last of the "Interests" and at the same time of the "consumers" that they use as a cloak, the new movement promises for the first time a fairly independent and lasting political organization of the smaller capitalists.

While Senator La Follette is the leading general of the new movement, either Ex-President Roosevelt or Governor Woodrow Wilson seems destined to become its leading diplomatist. While Senator La Follette declares for a fight to the finish, and shows that he knows how to lead and organize such a fight, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Wilson are giving their attention largely to peace terms to be demanded of the enemy, and the diplomatic att.i.tude to be a.s.sumed in the negotiations. Perhaps it is too early for such peaceful thoughts, and premature talk of this kind may eliminate these leaders as negotiators satisfactory to the small capitalists. Their interest for my present purpose is that they probably foreshadow the att.i.tude that will finally be a.s.sumed when the large "Interests" see that they must make terms.

Mr. Wilson's language is at times so conciliatory as to create doubt whether or not he will stand with Senator La Follette and the Republican "Insurgents" for the whole of the small capitalist's program, but it leaves no doubt that, if he lives up to his declared principles, he must aim at the government regulation, not of "Big Business" merely, but of all business--as when he says that "business is no longer in any sense a private matter."

"We are dealing, in our present discussion," he said in an address, delivered in December, 1910, "with business, and we are dealing with life as an organic whole, and modern politics is an accommodation of these two. Suppose we define business as economic _service of society for private profit_, and suppose we define politics as the accommodation of all social forces, the forces of _business, of course, included_, to the common interest." (My italics.)

It is evident that if the community gains by an extended control over business, that business gains at least as much by its claim to be recognized as a _public service_. And this Mr. Wilson makes very emphatic:--

"Business must be looked upon, not as the exploitation of society, not as its use for private ends, but as its sober service; and private profit must be regarded as legitimate only when it is in fact a reward for what is veritably serviceable,--serviceable to interests which are not single but common, as far as they go; and politics must be the discovery of this common interest, in order that the service may be tested and exacted.

"In this acceptation, society is the _senior partner_ in all business. It first must be considered,--society as a whole, in its permanent and essential, not merely in its temporary and superficial, interests. _If private profits are to be legitimatized, private fortunes made honorable_, these great forces which play upon the modern field must, both individually and collectively, be accommodated to a common purpose." (My italics.)

Business is no longer "to be looked upon" as the exploitation of society, private profits are to be "legitimatized" and private fortunes "made honorable"--in a word, the whole business world is to be regenerated and at the same time rehabilitated. This is to be accomplished, as Mr. Wilson explained, in a later speech (April 13, 1911), not by excluding the large capitalists from government, but by including the small, and this will undoubtedly be the final outcome. He said:--

"The men who understand the life of the country are the men _who are on the make_, and not the men who are made; because the men who are on the make are in contact with the actual conditions of struggle, and those are the conditions of life for the nation; whereas, the man who has achieved, who is at the head of a great body of capital, has pa.s.sed the period of struggle. He may sympathize with the struggling men, but he is not one of them, and only those who struggle can comprehend what the struggle is. I would rather take the interpretation of our national life from the general body of the people than from those who have made conspicuous successes of their lives."

But the "Interests" are not to be excluded from the new dispensation.

"I know a great many men," Mr. Wilson says further, "whose names stand as synonyms of the unjust power of wealth and of corporate privileges in this country, and I want to say to you that if I understand the character of these men, many of them--most of them--are just as _honest_ and just as patriotic as I claim to be.

But I do notice this difference between myself and them; I have not happened to be immersed in the kind of business in which they have been immersed; I have not been saturated by the prepossessions which come upon men situated as they are, and I claim to see some things that they do not yet see; that is the difference. _It is not a difference of interest_; it is not a difference of capacity; it is not a difference of patriotism. It is a difference of perception....

"Now, these men have so buried their minds in these great undertakings that you cannot expect them to have reasonable and rational views about the antipodes. They are just as much chained to a task, as if the task were little instead of big. Their view is just as much limited as if their business were small instead of colossal. _But they are awakening._ They are not all of them asleep, and when they do wake, they are going to lend us the a.s.sistance of truly statesmanlike minds.

"We are not fighting property," Mr. Wilson continues, "but the wrong conception of property. It seems to me that business on the great scale upon which it is now conducted is the service of the community, and the profit is legitimate only in proportion as the service is genuine. I utterly deny the genuineness of any profit which is gathered together without regard to the serviceability of the thing done.... Men have got to learn that in a certain sense, _when they manage great corporations, they have a.s.sumed public office_, and are responsible to the community for the things they do. _That is the form of privilege that we are fighting."_ (Italics mine.)[33]

A second glance at these pa.s.sages will show that Mr. Wilson speaks in the name rather of struggling small capitalists, business men "on the make," than of the nation as a whole. His diplomacy is largely aimed to move the "honest" large capitalists. These are a.s.sured that the only form of privilege that Mr. Wilson, representing the smaller business men, those "on the make," is attacking, is their freedom from political and government control. But the large capitalists need not fear such control, for they are a.s.sured that they themselves will be part of the new government. And as there is no fundamental "difference of interests," the new government will have no difficulty in representing large business as well as small.

No better example could be found of the foreshadowed treaty between the large interests and the whole body of capitalists, and their coming consolidation, than the central banking a.s.sociation project now before Congress. Originated by the "Interests" it was again and again moderated to avoid the hostility of the smaller capitalists, until progressives like Mr. Wilson are evidently getting ready to propose still further modifications that will make it entirely acceptable to the latter cla.s.s.

Already Mr. Aldrich has consented that the "State" banks, which represent chiefly the smaller capitalists, should be included in the Reserve a.s.sociation, and that the President should appoint its governor and deputy governor. Doubtless Congress will insist on a still greater representation of the government on the central board.

Mr. Wilson emphasizes the need of action in this direction in the name of "economic freedom," which can only mean equal financial facilities and the indirect loan of the government's credit to all capitalists, through means of a government under their common control:--

"The great monopoly in this country is the money monopoly. So long as that exists, our old variety and freedom and individual energy of development are out of the question. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. _The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men_ who, even if their action be honest and intended for the public interest, are necessarily concentrated upon the great undertakings in which their own money is involved, and who necessarily by every reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy genuine economic freedom.

This is the greatest question of all, and to this statesmen must address themselves with an earnest determination to serve the long future and the true liberties of men." (My italics.)

Undoubtedly this is a great question; the establishment of a political control over credit will mean a political and financial revolution. For it will establish the power of the government over our whole economic system and will lead rapidly to a common political and economic organization of all cla.s.ses of capitalists for the control of the government, to a compromise between the group of capitalists that now rules the business world and that far larger group which is bound to rule the government. The financial magnates have seen this truth, and, as Mr. Paul Warburg said to the American a.s.sociation (New Orleans, Nov.

21, 1911), "Wall Street, like many an absolute ruler in recent years, finds it more conducive to safety and contentment to forego some of its prerogatives ... and to turn an oligarchy into a const.i.tutional democratic federation [_i.e._ a federation composed of capitalists]."

Mr. Roosevelt has announced a policy with regard to monopolies that foreshadows even more distinctly than anything Mr. Woodrow Wilson has said the solution of the differences between large and small capitalists. He urges that a government commission should undertake "supervision, regulation, and control of these great corporations" even to the point of controlling "monopoly prices" and that this control should "indirectly or directly extend to dealing with all questions connected with their treatment of their employees, including the wages, the hours of labor, and the like."[34]

This policy is in entire accord with the declarations of Andrew Carnegie, Daniel Guggenheim, Judge Gary, Samuel Untermeyer, Attorney-General Wickersham, and others of the large capitalists or those who stand close to them. It is in equal accord with the declarations of _La Follette's Weekly_ and the leading "Insurgent"

writers.

It is true that the private monopolies, as Mr. Bryan pointed out (_New York Times_, Nov. 19, 1911), "will soon be in national politics more actively than now, for they will feel it necessary to control Colonel Roosevelt's suggested commission, and to do that they must control the election of those who appoint the commission."

But the private monopolies will soon be more actively in politics no matter what remedy is offered, even government ownership. The small capitalist investors, shippers, and consumers of trust products can only protect themselves by securing control of the government, or at least sharing it on equal terms with the large capitalists.

The reason that Mr. Roosevelt's proposal was hailed with equal enthusiasm by the more far-sighted capitalists, whether radical or conservative, small or large, was that they have an approximately equal hope of controlling the government, or sharing in its control. The unbiased observer can well conclude that they are likely to divide this control between them--and, indeed, that the complete victory of either party is economically and politically unthinkable. Already banks, railways, industrial "trusts," mining and lumber interests, are being forced to follow a policy satisfactory to small capitalist investors, borrowers, customers, furnishers of raw material, and taxpayers--while small capitalist compet.i.tors are being forced to abandon their effort to use the government to restore compet.i.tion and destroy the "trusts."

In the reorganization of capitalism, the non-capitalists, the wage and salary earning cla.s.s are not to be consulted. Taken together with those among the professional and salaried cla.s.s who are small investors or expect to become independent producers, the small capitalists const.i.tute a majority of the electorate (though not of the population), or at least hold the political balance of power. It is capitalist interests alone that really count in present-day politics, and it is for capitalists alone that government control would be inst.i.tuted.

Viewed in this light the statements of Mr. Woodrow Wilson that "business is no longer in any proper sense a private matter," or that "our program, from which we cannot be turned aside, is, that we are going to take possession of the control of our own economic life," and the similar statements of Mr. Roosevelt, are not so Socialistic as they seem. What their use by the leading "conservative-progressive" statesmen of both parties means is that a partnership of capital and government is at hand.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Lincoln Steffens in _Everybody's Magazine_, beginning September, 1910.

[32] _McClure's Magazine_, 1911.

[33] Governor Woodrow Wilson, Speech of April 13, 1911.

[34] The _Outlook_, Nov. 18, 1911.

CHAPTER III

THE POLITICS OF THE NEW CAPITALISM

We are told that the political issue as viewed by American radicals is, "Shall property rule, or shall the people rule?" and that the radicals may be forced entirely over to the Socialist position, as the Republicans were forced to the position of the Abolitionists when Lincoln signed the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation. Mr. Ray Stannard Baker notes also that capital is continually the aggressor, as were the slaveholders, and that the conflict is likely to grow more and more acute, since "no one imagines that these powerful men of money will give up their advantage lightly" any more than the old slaveholders did.

Another "insurgent" publicist (Mr. William Allen White) says that the aim of radicalism in the United States is "the regulation and control of capital" and that the American people have made up their minds that "capital, the product of the many, is to be operated fundamentally for the benefit of the many." It is one of those upheavals, he believes, which come along once in a century or so, dethrone privilege, organize the world along different lines, take the persons "at the apex of the human pyramid" from their high seats and "iron out the pyramid into a plane."[35]