Twentieth Century Socialism Part 23

As regards ice, it is amazing that the munic.i.p.al authorities should not have undertaken this task before--especially in view of the raising of the price of ice for the poor by the Ice Trust. Every city has to supply its citizens with water, and as they are in control of pure water, it should be as much the function of the city to furnish pure ice as pure water. They have reservoirs free from pollution from which ice could be cut; and nothing but the political influence of the Ice Trust on the one hand, and the stupid indifference of the consumer on the other, has permitted this business to remain in private hands.[164]

The enormous profits made by the Meat Trust would permit not only of sanitary handling of this industry, but proper compensation to all engaged therein, and a notable reduction in the price of meat.

The fact that the baking industry is not trusted will make the taking over of this industry by the state a more difficult undertaking, but not for that reason an impossible one.

Compet.i.tion is not necessarily to be eliminated in the taking over of these industries. It is quite possible that the state might not furnish good bread, and it ought, therefore, to be permissible for any individual to enter into this business. The compet.i.tion will be limited because, inasmuch as the state will charge for its bread very little above cost price, few will be induced to enter into this business out of the desire for making money. The only motive that will induce citizens to enter into the business will be that of furnishing bread to their taste. Moreover, such industries would have to comply strictly with hygienic conditions, and they would be not so numerous as to make inspection as difficult, ineffectual, or expensive as to-day.

The production and distribution of milk suggests a function of the state to which sufficient importance cannot be attached. I mean the creation of farm colonies. On this single point I am not supported by the authority of the Socialist party. In other words, farm colonies have never been suggested as a part of the Socialist program; but this seems to be due to an oversight, for there does not seem to be in the Socialist party, as far as I can judge of it, any opposition to the idea. And the role of the farm colony seems to me of such importance that it is hardly possible to give too much attention to it.

-- 4. FARM COLONIES

The first farm colony was established in Holland. The system has since taken root all through Europe, but has reached its finest development in the Canton of Berne, in Switzerland. It proceeds upon the principle that while it is difficult to make money out of farm land, it is easy to get nourishment from it, and that the most obvious remedy for idle labor is to apply it to idle land.

In Switzerland it is also recognized that idle labor is divided into two distinct cla.s.ses--the unemployed and the unemployable--and the unemployable must be again cla.s.sified into those unable to work through physical defect and those unable to work through moral defect; that is to say, those who are morally willing and physically unable and those physically able and morally unwilling. There are therefore in Switzerland two different kinds of farm colonies: forced colonies which deal with the tramp, the drunkard, and the misdemeanant--all those persons upon whom discipline has to be exercised; and free colonies for those physically disabled or who are out of employment through causes over which they have no control.

It is in the poorest countries in Europe that farm colonies have reached their highest development. Switzerland has been driven to organize farm colonies by the fact that she is too poor to disregard the burden of the unemployed and unemployables. It is in the richest countries, England, France, and America, that the farm colony system has been most neglected. The farm colony plan is the cheapest as well as the best way of solving the problem of pauperism, deserving or undeserving. This question has been fully treated elsewhere[165] and it is only referred to here in sufficient detail to explain why it is believed that the farm colony system will form an essential feature of every Socialistic community. For although there will be an enormous diminution in the number of those unwilling or unable to work (for the reason that under a cooperative commonwealth no one need be overworked and, therefore, no one need be reduced to the physical exhaustion which is the prime cause of pauperism), and although there will be fewer drunkards because drunkenness, also, is largely due to overwork, nevertheless, until the cooperative commonwealth has been in operation several generations, that part of the population that is unwilling or unable to work will have to be provided for. And even later there will certainly be some part of the population that will require discipline as regards work. The farm colony system, more and more indispensable in our existing civilization, will perform an important role in the gradual transformation of society from the compet.i.tive to the cooperative form. It probably presents to-day one of the most perfect pieces of constructive Socialistic work in which legislators can engage. For it has the extraordinary advantage of satisfying an immediate necessity of the compet.i.tive system and at the same time realizing some fundamental principles of Socialism; for example, that every man and woman is ent.i.tled to work; that the aged are ent.i.tled to support; and that the state should own enough land to a.s.sure both these things.

The fact that our railroads are now awakening to the necessity of handling the tramp proves the necessity of the system, and the fact that in Switzerland the forced colonies have been made to pay their own expenses indicates its economy. Indeed, no proposed legislation ill.u.s.trates so well the power driving us towards Socialism as the history of attempts at legislation in this direction in New York State.

Twelve years ago a farm colony bill was drawn by a committee appointed by the charitable societies in New York; but it did not secure at Albany a moment's serious attention. We were told by our legislators that poverty is not a crime. When we answered that our bill did not make it a crime more than the penal code, but only purposed to subst.i.tute for the expensive and degenerating system of the misnamed workhouse, inexpensive and regenerating work on a state farm, and that the plan had operated effectually in Holland and Belgium for over a hundred years, we were told that the plan might do in Holland, but would not do here. So in the archives of the French senate may still be read the report made by Thiers, when appointed by Louis Philippe on a committee to investigate the first railroad ever built, which concludes as follows: "Railroads may serve a purpose in England, but they are not suited to France."

A similar bill, improved by borrowing from late experience in Switzerland, drawn by a similar committee (to which was added the Commissioner of Charities, Mr. Hebberd) was presented at Albany at the session of 1909, and although not pa.s.sed, was sufficiently well received to encourage the hope that it will pa.s.s at the session of 1910. It had the support of the great railroads in New York state; for the railroads have discovered that the tramp is an intolerable nuisance.[166] Colonel Pangborn of the Baltimore & Ohio has lately estimated that the damage occasioned by tramps to railroads in the United States amounts in a single year to twenty-five million dollars.[167] For the tramp in America does not tramp; he rides on railroads; he sets fire to freight cars and freight stations; he obstructs the lines, wrecks trains, and is a fruitful cause of action for damages. The measure, therefore, which was thrown out by the a.s.sembly when proposed from motives of humanity, may be pa.s.sed as a measure of self-defence, and self-defence thus const.i.tutes an element of the power always at work on the side of progress that neither ignorance nor interest will be able to resist.

The reason for believing that the farm colony will perform an important function not only during the period which must elapse before the cooperative commonwealth, but also after the cooperative commonwealth has been attained, is that work on land seems to be the only work to which the unemployed and unemployables can be suitably put.

Every day we seem to be increasing our capacity to make land productive. We not only make new discoveries, but profit by those of more ancient civilizations than our own. It has long been known that in the East they subject grain to the same system of replanting that truck gardeners do early vegetables.[168]

Dr. Fesca informs us that in j.a.pan rice is treated in the same way: "It is allowed first to germinate; then it is sown in special warm corners, well inundated with water and protected from the birds by strings drawn over the ground. Thirty-five to fifty-five days later, the young plants, now fully developed and possessed of a thick network of rootlets, are replanted in the open ground. In this way the j.a.panese obtain from twenty to thirty-two bushels of dressed rice to the acre in the poor provinces, forty bushels in the better ones, and from sixty to sixty-seven bushels in the best lands. The average, in six rice-growing States of North America, is at the same time only nine and a half bushels."[169]

Agriculturists are familiar with the results obtained by Major Hallett's growing what he called "pedigree cereals"; that is to say, by using as seed only the best ears in his crop; and by giving to each grain sufficient s.p.a.ce he obtained sometimes as much as 2500 grains for one grain planted. Even better results were obtained by Grandeau.[170]

We are only beginning to know how much can be produced out of an acre of ground. One thing, however, is certain: where labor is cheap and land limited as in the case of our unemployed, there is no method known by which labor can produce better results than by putting it to what is called "intensive culture"; and as the secrets of intensive culture become more known, it becomes clear that if the state would only take the trouble to set aside a certain amount of land for the purpose, it could without further expense than that of the first installation make able-bodied unemployed and unemployables self-supporting.

This is not a question of fertility; it is simply a question of s.p.a.ce.

Unfertile land is made fertile by intensive culture. It has been said that the Paris gardener defies the soil and the climate. Every truck gardener there stipulates in renting land that he "may carry away his soil down to a certain depth, when he quits his tenancy."[171] In other words, soil is now a manufacture; we are no longer confined to fertile areas; we can make any area fertile by the application to it of industry and intelligence.

Munic.i.p.alities can contribute enormously to the fertility of the land around them. A district near Paris, called Genevilliers, was a few years ago a desert tract of sand. The city poured over this tract the sewage of the city after a filtration that deprived it of its offensive features. This tract has become of fabulous fertility; but the munic.i.p.ality having failed to buy this land before this operation, the increased value of the land has accrued to the persons who happened to be the owners of it; whereas if the city had begun by purchasing the land at the price at which it could have been purchased before this operation, it would have had here a tract of enormous value that, by the farm colony system, would have greatly contributed to relieve the city of the burden of pauperism.

It would seem as though the art of using manure were practically unknown in this country by the farmers. The results that can be obtained in this way are given in the Farmer's Bulletin, No. 242, where an intelligent use of manure resulted in crops of 6.7 tons of hay for every acre of cultivation;[172] and this not by the application of any extraordinary science, but simply by recognizing the obvious fact that manure must be spread daily and not allowed to lose most of its value from being piled into heaps, where it burns and degenerates.[173]

The farm colony must be so organized that it furnishes work summer and winter. As its name implies, the colony is not confined to work on land. Many skilled workmen would lose their skill if they were put to farm work. Swiss colonies, therefore, have a few industries established in each colony to which skilled workmen are put. This occupies unskilled inmates during the winter months when the weather is too inclement for out of door work, and also teaches them.

Moreover, in a self-supporting farm colony there is work which can be done by the aged and the infirm, teaming, taking care of animals, plucking fruits and vegetables, preparing them for preserving, and all the small jobs that attend large housekeeping.

The farm colony plan will in part relieve the state of the expense of old-age pensions. Every industry will provide pensions for its own workers and thus the state will be relieved by the guilds; but there will always be some aged left unsupported by such private industries as will continue to exist by the side of the guilds. Of these it may be expedient to relieve some in their own homes; but many will find in the free farm colony an abiding place more congenial to themselves than the almshouse, and far less expensive to the state. It will be more congenial because there will be no more disgrace attending a free farm colony than any other state employment, and because it will be organized so as to render its work as agreeable as possible. It will never be so attractive as work outside the colony because it will be subject to the kind of regulations that attend all big inst.i.tutions, so there is little fear of these colonies becoming larger than is good for the community. But it will be a home rather than an almshouse, and it will be less expensive to the state because of the work which even the aged can do.

The farm colony furnishes a system by means of which the state can compel the unwilling, able-bodied tramp and pauper to earn his own livelihood; where it can afford work to the unemployed without cost to the state; and can utilize to the utmost possible the services of those who are not able-bodied.

It must not be imagined that discipline of a harsh character is necessary. There are in every one of these colonies in Europe dark cells, where a man who will not work, or will not obey rules, is confined and kept on bread and water until he consents to work and to obey rules; and the very fact of the existence of these cells, and of this system, has been found sufficient to secure good work and obedience to rules without using the dark cells except under exceptional circ.u.mstances. The director of one of the Dutch colonies told me that he did not use the dark cell once a year.

There is no reason why the farm colony system should not be extended to the treatment of all crime except that we have prisons, prison managers, and a prison administration which stand in the way of radical prison reform; and the general stupidity which prefers the ills we have to the blessings which, obvious as they are, we have not imagination enough to comprehend. The folly of keeping an enormous population of criminals idle, within four walls, at an enormous expense to the community, when we could keep them busy to their great advantage, physical, intellectual, and moral, without a penny of cost to the community, is one of those things which future generations will find it difficult to believe.[174]

In the cooperative commonwealth there will be no prisons, no penitentiaries, no almshouses, no tramps, no unemployed. There will be farm colonies of various grades, from those that have no discipline beyond that necessary to secure the observance of rules necessary to all inst.i.tutional life, through those that have just enough discipline to keep lazy men at work, to those that have sufficient discipline to keep even criminals at work. For although it is obvious that under a cooperative commonwealth in which there is no necessity for exhausting any individual, no necessity for alcoholism or stimulation, no anxiety regarding the means of existence; where there is throughout a high standard of living, ease for the mind and abundance for the body, the production of the natural criminal ought to be immensely diminished, yet the occasional criminal will have to be provided for.

For further study of the farm colony system as it has been developed in Switzerland, and as it might be applied in the United States under existing conditions, the reader is referred to "The Elimination of the Tramp."[175] It is hoped, however, that enough has been said regarding these colonies to enable us to consider the immense role which an intelligent cla.s.sification of farm colonies would play, not only under existing conditions, but in the future cooperative commonwealth.

A single farm colony for dealing with tramps as proposed in the bill now before the a.s.sembly of New York State would render an indispensable service by taking off the streets and highways the vagrants who, because they are now confounded with the unemployed, tend to confuse the mind of the public on this all-important subject.

But although such a colony, organized under the same conditions as the forced labor colony in Switzerland, would render this service without cost to the state beyond that of first installation, its usefulness in the problem of production at large would be extremely small. It would attain its purpose if it were self-supporting. But if this tramp colony proves a success, the same system could be applied not only to take care of all our dependent and criminal cla.s.ses, but to play an important role in the production of the necessaries of life.

There ought to be three distinct cla.s.ses of colonies:

The criminal farm colony surrounded by walls where the strictest discipline would be enforced, and within which the inmates would be confined to intensive cultivation, handicrafts, and some form of machine industry.

The forced labor colony for misdemeanants and able-bodied vagrants and paupers where larger liberty would be enjoyed; and

The free labor colony where there would be no regulation except that indispensable in all inst.i.tutions.

Perhaps to these should be added probationary colonies as described in the "Elimination of the Tramp," p. 59, for those as to whose willingness to work there is doubt. These would furnish the "test" so much sought by English Poor Law Guardians. From these probationary colonies the inmates would be graduated down to the forced labor colony, or up to the free. So also criminals would be prepared for social life by pa.s.sing through the forced labor colony, and inmates of the forced labor colony prepared for social life by pa.s.sing through the free labor colony.

In a cooperative commonwealth free labor would have no objection to industrial work conducted within these colonies, because the less work there is to be done in any given industry, the less hours would the workers in that industry have to give to it. So that every industry carried on in the colony would by so much diminish the amount of goods produced outside by that industry, and to that extent relieve the free labor engaged therein. This great objection to penal labor being removed, the state will have an advantage in distributing the industries throughout its colonies according to geographical conditions.

The criminal colonies will naturally be more industrial in their character than the agricultural, because they will have to be operated within prison walls. They will nevertheless include truck gardening and horticulture.[176] Penal colonies, therefore, will group themselves around great water power, which will be retained by the state and not dissipated by the gift of franchises to private corporations.[177]

Misdemeanants and tramps will preferably be set to work on large farms which, because of their size and remoteness from towns, will render escape difficult. The methods adopted in Switzerland for making escape difficult if not impossible, are fully described in the "Elimination of the Tramp."[178]

As in these colonies there is more or less work to be done all the year round, it would be indispensable to build in connection with them factories which could be operated during the winter months, the state being careful to limit the factories to the production of things already socialized, so as not to compete injuriously with private industry.

Free labor colonies ought to be located near large centers of population, not only because of the character of the things they will produce, for example, milk, vegetables, and fruits, which need a market at the door, but also because it is in these great centers that pauperism and unemployment express themselves in largest figures and in greatest variation. In these colonies inmates will remain the shortest terms, and it is important, therefore, to have them in proximity to places where the inmates are likely to live in order to avoid the heavy expense of transportation.

Free labor colonies will be engaged in the production of milk for two reasons: The hygienic importance of milk is so great that it should as much as possible be removed from the compet.i.tive field. It is important that milk should be produced as near as possible to the town where it is to be consumed. It is wiser, therefore, to a.s.sign the production of milk to the free labor colony, near the city, than to the penal or forced labor colony that would be comparatively remote.

But it must not be imagined that the production of milk can be confided exclusively to such inexpert labor as that of the inmates of free labor colonies. The production of milk can only be entrusted to careful experts receiving a relatively high rate of wages. Free labor colonies, therefore, will have to be provided with a corps of men and women trained in the production of milk and dairy products.

It may be suggested that the fact that dairy products must be entrusted to trained experts is a reason for not a.s.sociating the production of milk with free labor colonies. This objection disappears when account is taken of the fact that dairy farms should have connected with them such subsidiary products as chickens and pigs.

Skimmed milk is of the greatest value in these subsidiary productions; so also is the garbage that would acc.u.mulate in such an inst.i.tution as a farm colony. The care of pigs and poultry can be confided to defectives such as we are likely to find in a free labor colony. It furnishes work all the year round; it enriches the soil rather than impoverishes it.

Free labor colonies, therefore, will be engaged in the production of milk, pigs, poultry, vegetables, fruits, and flowers. They will be furnished with grain by the forced labor colonies in the States where grain can be cultivated on a large scale; and by distributing industries among the three cla.s.ses of colonies and arranging for exchange of products, the whole colony system ought not only to be self-supporting, but to produce more than the colonies can themselves consume. The disposition made of these products will be studied in connection with the problem of distribution.

Under such a plan, no pauperism or even poverty will be tolerated in the towns. As soon as a man, woman, or family is incapable of self-support in the compet.i.tive field, or because of sickness or accident in the cooperative field, they will be taken out of the town where their presence is an expense and a nuisance not only to themselves, but to the community, to a free farm colony where health can be restored and defectives put to the best use possible.

Farm colonies in the Rocky Mountain region where sheep and cattle can be fed on public land for nine or ten months in the year, and fed by hand during the remaining two or three months, will furnish cattle and sheep to munic.i.p.al packing-houses that will distribute meat with the economy of the postoffice system from door to door.

State farm colonies in the grain-growing districts will furnish grain to all the other colonies and wheat to munic.i.p.al bakeries that will distribute bread with the economy of the postoffice system from door to door.

Free labor colonies adjoining cities will produce milk, b.u.t.ter, and dairy products, pork and pork products, chickens, eggs, vegetables, fruits, and flowers and distribute them with the economy of the postoffice system from door to door.

State factories distributed amongst penal colonies in accordance with the geographical conditions that will make them most efficient, will furnish garments, shoes, hats, etc., to the other colonies at the cheapest possible price.

By the side of these productions, there will be maintained exactly the same system of private ownership that exists to-day with all the virtues that emulation produces free from the fatal consequences that make failure result in misery, pauperism, prost.i.tution, vagrancy, and crime. For so long as the individual prospers in his private enterprise, he will be encouraged to maintain it; whereas the moment he fails, he will come within the state system under which the private individual having proved his inability to support himself and his family under the compet.i.tive plan, will be shown how to support himself and his family by state inst.i.tutions that will have reduced this task to a science.