in many other particulars, American socialists differ from those who, in Germany and France, in Italy and Spain, and even in Great Britain, bear the same name and in general maintain similar principles. There has developed here a distinct type of what may be called with propriety, American Socialism. The political and social atmosphere is different here, and above all the religious, and this accounts for the observed divergence of type. The American socialist is much less grudgeful against all existing institutions than his European prototype. The absence of any State Church, the prevalence of complete religious liberty, make him far less hostile to religion than is the case in Europe, where State Churches, both Protestant and Catholic, are regarded as chief bulwarks of social evils. It is true that many socialists in America believe that organized Christianity here is the ally of Capitalism, and therefore the foe of social progress, and this feeling is something to be reckoned with. This matter will be discussed more fully in a later chapter, and here it is sufficient to remark that this feeling, though undoubtedly existent, lacks the rancor of European Socialism towards all forms of religion, and there is no assertion of crass atheism as part of a programme. Since in America the marriage of convenience, though not unknown, is not the rule, since parental coercion is so rare that we may almost say it is non-existent, there is all the freedom. of union that even Socialism contemplates; and in many States there is nearly as much freedom of divorce as any socialists have demanded; therefore, the socialistic opposition to legal marriage is much less insistent in America than in Europe. Moreover, though American socialists in the main avow themselves followers of Marx, they

have much modified his theories of labor and value. They recognize distinctly the high value of mental labor, the importance of direction in all industrial undertakings, and maintain that means must be found to promote and reward this kind of labor in the new social order.

"All men are born free and equal," as the Declaration holds, only in the sense that all are born equally men. Because of this common manhood, each person who comes into the world has an equal right with all others to the life of a man, and to all that constitutes such a life. The equality" contemplated by the socialist is equality of obligation to one's fellows, to be a producer of wealth according to ability; and society is under a correlate obligation to guarantee to every human being who fulfils his duty such share of the common wealth as shall make possible to him a life worthy of his manhood. There surely cannot be a nobler ideal of human existence, so far as its material conditions are concerned, than this. Contrast it with these facts from the census of 1900: nine-tenths of one per cent of the population of the United States owned 70.5 per cent of the wealth; 29 per cent owned 25.3 per cent of the wealth; while 70.1 per cent owned 4.2 per cent of the wealth. It would be possible to furnish pages of such figures as these, as an 1 These facts may be approximately indicated to the eye by a diagram:

explanation of the growth of Socialism in America, but to little purpose, for it is not enough for this or for any other worthy object merely to accumulate facts about society. Something is needed beyond an industrious observer, more even than an accurate observer. Not sight alone, but insight, must be our equipment for this study, if our results are to have any value. We shall find the spirit that moves society by a study of statistics and an analysis of social facts on the day after we discover faith, hope, and charity by the scalpel in the dissecting

room.

American Socialism differs from European in that it has completely thrown off the notion that it is possible to reach the social millennium at one jump. It recognizes the folly of social Utopias, and maintains firmly that the hope of establishing a just social order lies in an evolution. It believes that there are signs all around us of a tendency in the direction of socalizing industry, that may be hastened by effort and legislation, but that no sudden change to a new order is either possible or desirable. It recognizes frankly the difficulties in the way, and that time and gradual change are necessary to surmount them. It does not discourage present attempts to mitigate social suffering, provided these are recognized as palliatives, not as cures. Kind and considerate treatment of employees by employers will do much for the relief of misery, and is therefore worthy of encouragement, but it is absurd to expect from such means the removal of evils that are inherent in the capitalistic system.

Some socialists are far from cordial in their comments on the tendency among American millionnaires to devote a portion of their wealth to humanitarian enterprises

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hospitals, universities, libraries — and indignantly assert that what they ask is not the doling out as "charity" of some small part of unjustly gained wealth, but that the power of one man to exploit another, being the tap-root of social evils, must be abolished, and then there will be no ill-gotten wealth and no need of charity. This attitude cannot, however, be said to be characteristic of American Socialism as a whole. Rather there is a tendency to the calmer and more equitable view, that the rich as well as the poor among us are the victims of the social system, and powerless by themselves to cure its evils. The single employer can do as little as the single employee to better the social order. If he spends more money on sanitation, if he employs fewer child workers, if he pays higher than the market rate of wages, his cutthroat competitor will undersell him, and eventual bankruptcy will be the reward of his humane attempts.

But the employer can afford to support every law for the betterment of the conditions of labor, because the law will impose equal obligation on all his competitors. This makes inexcusable the combination of capitalists to resist, first the enactment, and then the enforcement of labor-reform laws. They have not even greed as an excuse; it is pure inhumanity that actuates them, when it is not blind conservatism. But even when capitalists favor labor legislation, the principle is still valid that, as society as a whole has made existing institutions, society as a whole must unmake them and remake them; and in the meantime individuals are responsible only for making existing conditions as workable, as little oppressive, as may be. There is, in this view of the case, a large field for private action looking toward the amelioration

of social conditions, while we all await, and hasten if we can, the evolution that is to result in permanent and complete betterment.

It is because of this faith in an evolution of the new social order out of existing elements, that the attitude of socialists toward the Trusts differs so widely from the attitude of the average American. Unless he is personally interested in some Trust, or is in friendly relations to some one who is personally interested, the man in the street is opposed to all Trusts. He favors every legislative measure that will limit their powers and dissolve their combinations of capital. He scorns the distinction sometimes made between the good Trusts and the bad — he believes them all bad, all formed to limit production, eliminate competition and impose higher prices on the consumer, and all, therefore, more or less setting at de⚫ fiance the principles of the common law and innumerable statutes, that every combination in restraint of trade is illegal. His favorite political leader is one who has a reputation as a "Trust-buster." This same average American still believes that it is possible to pass some law, and to get some court to enforce it, by which the Trusts shall be dissolved, and the old era of competition be restored.

The socialist, on the other hand, sees in this development of the Trust an inevitable stage in the evolution of industrial society, and does not believe that any such forward step can ever be retraced. He can cite some impressive facts in support of his view. The oldest of the Trusts, the Standard Oil, was formed some thirty years ago, and ever since then the American people have been trying to secure its dissolution, yet it has grown