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34 Voices of Freedom the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself— ^and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty ^Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat e^ othit then we will have no more wars We shall all be aifflce— brothers of one father and one mother, with one sky abryro us and one country around us, and one government for all. TJiren the Great Spint Chienvho rules above will smile upon this lawful, and send ram to wash out tlM)loody spots made by brothers^fands from the face of the earth Fortfcis time the Indian race a^vaitmg and praying. I hope that no more groans of wounded rafe and women will ever go to the ear of the Greafl&pirit Chief ahdve, and that all people may be America's Gilded Age, 1870-1890 35 individual human beings and entire social classes According to Social Dar winists, evolution was as natural a process m human society as m nature, and government must not interfere Especially misguided, m this view, were efforts to uplift those at the bottom of the social order, such as laws regulating conditions of work or public assistance to the poor The era's most influential Social Darwinist was Yale professor William Graham Sumner For Sumner, freedom required frank acceptance of inequal ity The growing influence of Social Darwinism helped to popularize a "neg ative" definition of freedom as limited government and an unrestrained free market It also helped to persuade courts, m the name of "liberty of con tract," to overturn state laws regulating the behavior of corporations one people M A N I S B O R N under the necessity of sustaining the existence he Questions 1 How does Gffief Joseph define what it m^qns to be a "free man"7 2 Whjrfmre Joseph's mam complaints about the o^atment of his people7 100. William Graham Sumner on Social Darwinism (ca, 1880) Source: Albert G. Keller, ed., The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays by William Graham Sumner (New Haven, Conn., 1914), pp. 17-27. Keller concludes that the essay from which this excerpt is taken was written during the 1880s. During the Gilded Age, large numbers of businessmen and middle-class Americans adopted the social outlook known as Social Darwinism Adher ents of this viewpoint borrowed language from Charles Darwin's great work On the Origin of Species (1859), which expounded the theory of evolu tion among plant and animal species, to explain the success and failure of has received by an onerous struggle against nature, both to win what is essential to his life and to ward off what is prejudicial to it He is born under a burden and a necessity. Nature holds what is essential to him, but she offers nothing gratuitously. He may win for his use what she holds, if he can. Only the most meager and inadequate sup ply for human needs can be obtained directly from nature. There are trees which may be used for fuel and for dwellings, but labor is re quired to fit them for this use There are ores m the ground, but labor is necessary to get out the metals and make tools or weapons For any real satisfaction, labor is necessary to fit the products of nature for human use. In this struggle every individual is under the pressure of the necessities for food, clothing, shelter, fuel, and every individual brings with him more or less energy for the conflict necessary to sup ply his needs. The relation, therefore, between each man's needs and each man's energy, or "individualism," is the first fact of human life It is not without reason, however, that we speak of a "man" as the individual m question, for women (mothers) and children have spe cial disabilities for the struggle with nature, and these disabilities grow greater and last longer as civilization advances The perpetua tion of the race m health and vigor, and its success as a whole m its Voices of Freedom America's Gilded Age, 1870-1890 struggle to expand and develop human Me on earth, therefore, re quire that the head of the family shall, by his energy, be able to sup ply not only his own needs, but those of the organisms which are dependent upon him The history of the human race shows a great variety of experiments m the relation of the sexes and m the organi zation of the family These experiments have been controlled by eco nomic circumstances, but, as man has gained more and more control over economic circumstances, monogamy and the family education of children have been more and more sharply developed If there is one thing m regard to which the student of history and sociology can affirm with confidence that social institutions have made "progress" ox grown "better," it is in this arrangement of marriage and the fam ily All experience proves that monogamy, pure and strict, is the sex relation which conduces most to the vigor and intelligence of the race, and that the family education of children is the institution by which the race as a whole advances most rapidly, from generation to generation, m the struggle with nature The condition for the complete and regular action of the force of competition is liberty Liberty means the security given to each man that, if he employs his energies to sustain the struggle on behalf of himself and those he cares for, he shall dispose of the product exclu sively as he chooses. It is impossible to know whence any definition or criterion of justice can. be derived, if it is not deduced from this view of things; or if it is not the definition of justice that each shall enjoy the fruit of his own labor and self-denial, and of injustice that the idle and the industrious, the self-indulgent and the self-denying, shall share equally m the product 36 • « o The constant tendency of population to outstrip the means of subsistence is the force which has distributed population over the world, and produced all advance m civilization To this day the two means of escape for an overpopulated country are emigration and an advance m the arts. The former wins more land for the same people; the latter makes the same land support more persons. If, however, ei ther of these means opens a chance for an increase of population, it is evident that the advantage so won may be speedily exhausted if the increase takes place. The social difficulty has only undergone a temporary amelioration, and when the conditions of pressure and competition are renewed, misery and poverty reappear The victims of them are those who have inherited disease and depraved ap petites, or have been brought up in vice and ignorance, or have them selves yielded to vice, extravagance, idleness, and imprudence In the last analysis, therefore, we come back to vice, m its original and hereditary forms, as the correlative of misery and poverty •hh'AME 0 0 37 0 Private property, also, which we have seen to be a feature of society organized m accordance with the natural conditions of the struggle for existence produces inequalities between men. The struggle for ex istence is aimed against nature It is from her niggardly hand that we have to wrest the satisfactions for our needs, but our fellow-men are our competitors for the meager supply. Competition, therefore, is a law of nature Nature is entirely neutral; she submits to him who most energetically and resolutely assails her She grants her rewards to the fittest, therefore,without regard to other considerations of any kind If, then, there be liberty, men get from her just m proportion to their works, and their having and enjoying are just m proportion to their be ing and their doing Such is the system of nature If we do not like it, and if we try to amend it, there is only one way in which we can do it. We can take from the better and give to the worse. We can deflect the penalties of those who have done ill and throw them on those who have done better. We can take the rewards from those who have done better and give them to those who have done worse We shall thus lessen the inequalities We shall favor the survival of the unfittest, and we shall accomplish this by destroying liberty. Let it be understood that we cannot go outside of this alternative liberty, inequality, sur vival of the fittest, not-liberty, equality, survival of the unfittest The former carries society forward and favors all its best members, the lat ter carries society downwards and favors all its worst members. 38 Voices of Freedom What we mean by liberty is civil liberty, or liberty under law; and this means the guarantees of law that a man shall not be interfered with while using his own powers for his own welfare. It is, therefore, a civil and political status, and that nation has the freest institutions m which the guarantees of peace for the laborer and security for the capitalist are the highest.Liberty, therefore, does not by any means do away with the struggle for existence We might as well try to do away with the need of eating, for that would, in effect, be the same thing What civil liberty does is to turn the competition of man with man from violence and brute force into an industrial competition under which men vie with one another for the acquisition of material goods by industry, energy, skill, frugality, prudence, temperance, and other industrial virtues. Under this changed order of things the inequalities are not done away with Nature still grants her rewards of having and enjoying, according to our being and doing, but it is now the man of the highest training and not the man of the heaviest fist who gains the highest reward. It is impossible that the man with capital and the man without capital should be equal To affirm that they are equal would be to say that a man who has no tool can get as much food out of the ground as the man who has a spade or a plough; or that the man who has no weapon can defend himself as well against hostile beasts or hostile men as the man who has a weapon If that were so, none of us would work any more We work and deny ourselves to get capital, just because, other things being equal, the man who has it is superior, for attaining all the ends of life, to the man who has it not o « • Questions i. How does Sumner differentiate between the "natural" roles of men and women m society7 2 How does he explain the existence of poverty and social inequality7 America's Gilded Age, 1870-1890 39 101. George E. McNeill on the Labor Movement in the Gilded Age (1887) Source: George E. McNeill, ed., The Labor Movement: The Problem of Today (Boston, 1887), pp. 454-62. Not all Americans accepted the Social Darwinist definition of liberty as frank acceptance of social inequality m an unregulated market During the Gilded Age, the labor movement offered a very different understanding of freedom The Knights of Labor put forward a wide array of programs, from the eight-hour workday to public employment m hard times, currency re form, anarchism, socialism, and the creation of a vaguely defined "coopera tive commonwealth" All these ideas arose from the conviction that the social conditions of the 1880s needed drastic change Reaching back across the divide of the Civil War, George E McNeill, a shoemaker and factory worker who became one of the movement's most eloquent writers, warned that a new "irrepressible conflict" had arisen, between "the "wage-system of labor and the republican system of government" The remedy was for the government to guarantee a basic set of economic rights for all Americans T H E P R O B L E M O F to-day, as of yesterday and to-morrow, is, how to establish equity between men The laborer who is forced to sell his day's labor to-day, or starve tomorrow, is not m equitable relations with the employer, who can wait to buy labor until starvation fixes the rates of wages and hours of time The labor movement is the natural effort of readjustment,—an ever-continued attempt of organized laborers, so that they may withhold their labor until the diminished interest or profit or capital of the employer shall compel him to agree to such terms as shall be for the time measurably equitable. These are the force ful methods of all time, and may continue to develop manhood and womanhood by peaceful revolution, as laborers advance their line, or may cause a social earthquake, and become destructive by the orga nized repression of labor's right Before the solution of the labor prob lem can be reached, the nature of the complaint must he understood. 40 Voices of Freedom America's Gilded Age, 1870-1890 41 or the sunless mines of Pennsylvania, one chord of sympathy unites These extremes of wealth and poverty are threatening the exis tence of the government In the light of these facts, we declare that there is an inevitable and irresistible conflict between the wagesystem of labor and the republican system of government,—the wage-laborer attempting to save the government, and the capitalist class ignorantly attempting to subvert it. The strike of the trainmen on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was the serving of a notice upon the people of this nation that wages could not be further reduced,—a protest against robbery, a rebellion against starvation. The trainmen were under despotic control. To leave their employ was to become tramps, outlaws; to submit was to starve in serfdom. They knew that the power of the railroad oligarchy exceeded and superseded that of the national and State governments. The railroad president is a railroad king, whose whim is law He col lects tithes by reducing wages as remorselessly as the Shah of Persia or the Sultan of Turkey, and, like them,is not amenable to any human power He can discharge (banish) any employee without cause He can prevent laborers from following their usual vocations. He can withhold their lawful wages He can delay trial on a suit at law, and postpone judgment indefinitely He can control legislative bodies, dictate legislation, subsidize the press, and corrupt the moral sense of the community. He can fix the price of freights, and thus command the food and fuel-supplies of the nation. In his right hand he holds the government; in his left hand, the people And this is called law and order,—from which there is no appeal. It is war,—-war against the di vine nghts of humanity, war against the pnnciples of our govern ment. There is no mutuality of interests, no co-operative union of labor and capital It is the iron heel of a soulless monopoly, crushing the manhood out of sovereign citizens « • 0 The crisis that we are rapidly approaching is not local. No Mason and Dixon's line, no color-tests divide North, South, East and West; wher ever laborers congregate, whether m the factories of New England, them all. No demagogue's cant of race or creed will hold them from their purpose to be free In that coming time, woman will teach her chil dren the lesson of her hate and wrong Already a generation has arisen, schooled m the great moral agitation for public good. Justice demands that those who earn shall receive, that no one has a right to add cost without adding value Recognizing that the steps toward the attaining of the end must be slow, we demand, first, legislative interference between capital and labor; restraining capital m its usurpations, and enlarging the boundaries of labor's opportunity The Constitution of the United States demands that each of the sovereign States shall have a republican form of government A greater power than that of the State has arisen—"a State withm a State,"—-a power that is quietly yet quickly sapping the foundations of the majority-rule The law of self-protection is greater than consti tutions, and legislative bodies are bound to interfere to protect the sovereign citizen against the insidious inroads of the usurping power. Monarchal governments rest upon the ability of the ruler to main tain order by physical force. Republican institutions are sustained by the ability of the people to rule The government has the right, and is bound m self-defence to protect the ability of the people to rule It has the right to interfere against any organized or unorganized power that imperils or impairs this ability Upon no other argument can the free-school system be maintained, institutions of learning, of sci ence, and art be endowed by the State or exempt from taxation It is the policy of the government to protect, not only her domain from monarchal interference, as set forth in the Monroe doctrine, but to protect her citizens from the influence of cheap labor and over-work. For cheap labor means a cheap people, and dear labor a dear people The foundation of the Republic is equality. Voices of Freedom 42 America's Gilded Age, 1870-1890 Questions i How does McNeill define freedom for working men and women7 2. Why does he consider the "wage-system" of labor incompatible with republican government7 Jienry George, Progress and Povertv0879) Source: HenfoQeorge, Progress and Poverty $87$(New Yoyf 1884), pp. 489-96. Dissatisfaction with social additions m the Gildtfrhgt extended well be yond aggrieved workers Alarme^by fear of cla^K warfare and the growing power of concentrated wealth, sociaStfnnkare offered numerous plans for change Among the most influential w^Eenry George, whose Progress and Poverty became one of the era's greatjj^t-seirars Its extraordinary success testified to what George called "armide-spread coWiousr.ess. that there is something radically wrong injrle present social organization" George's book began vnxi a famous statement of "th^Koblem" sug gested by its title—thexpansion of poverty alongside mateNal progress His solution was th^rsmgle tax," which would replace other taxb^with a levy on mcrease^m. the value of real estate The single tax would be sNjugh that it would^frevent speculation 1x1 both urban and rural land, and land would tbanbecome available to aspiring businessmen and urban working memSKking to become farmers Whether or not they beheved^R George's sa^uonScilhons of readers responded to his clear explanation of eco nomic relatwSrfiipS and his stimng account of howtj*?rhin]ust and un equal distributionH^vealth" long thought to bg^nSned to the Old World had made its appearanc?*ii4he New 43 c&ahzation goes on, are not incidents of progress, but tendencies wmch must bring progress to a halt; that they will not cure JRemseh\s, but, on the contrary, must, unless their cause is rjmoved, growfcreater and greater, until they sweep us back into baiJarism by the ro^d every previous civilization has trod But it alscjChows that these e\Vs are not imposed by natural laws, that theu^pring solely from socal mal-ad]ustments which ignore natural la^vs, and that m removing t^eir cause we shall be giving an enorjpous impetus to progress The povert}\which m the midst of abundarfe, pinches and embrutes men, ancLall the manifold evils whicW flow from it, spring from a denial of justice In permitting the monopolization of the nat ural opportunities \hich nature freely pffas to all, we have ignored the fundamental Iaw^of justice'—for so fx as we can see, when we view things upon a large scale, justice sJems to be the supreme law of the universe. But by peeping awa/this injustice and asserting the rights of all men to nalSiral opportunities, we shall conform our selves to the law—we shall remove#ie great cause of unnatural ine quality m the distribution oiWeifth and power, we shall abolish poverty, tame the ruthless passjfas of greed, dry up the springs of vice and misery; light m darkyplVes the lamp of knowledge; give new vigor to invention and ^reshVmpuise to discovery, substitute political strength for politi^d weakness, and make tyranny and an archy impossible The reform I have pr/posed accords \%th all that is politically, so cially, or morally desipble. It has the qualities of a true reform, for it will make all other, Worms easier What isVbut the carrying out m letter and spirit n' the truth enunciated\i the Declaration of Independence-^}) e "self-evident" truth that isVhe heart and soul of the Declaration—"That all men are created equal; vkat they are endowed by their Crefor with certain inalienable rights; that cS^iong them are life, liberty, an0'the pursuit of happiness1" T H E E V I L S A R I S I X C ^rorn the unjustS£.d unequal distribution of wealth, whicl^re becoming more and moiW^goarent as modern Thes<#nghts are denied when the pipial right to laM—on which and b/ which men alone can live—is denied Equalitwjf political