The Union elected another president, who continued to hold the position as long as the association existed. Its importance soon began to decline, however, and it was finally absorbed by the organization formally known as the “Social Democratic Labor Party” (“Social-demokratische Arbeiterpartei”). This grew out of the alliance of “German Laborers’ Unions” (“Verband deutscher Arbeitervereine”), whose members were gradually led over into the social democratic camp, as I described in the first chapter of this work. The two leading spirits in this party, which swallowed up all other social democratic organizations, were Liebknecht and Bebel.

Liebknecht, unlike some of the other social democrats, is, as generally admitted, personally an honorable man. Nothing can be said against his private life. He differed from Marx, Lassalle, and Von Schweitzer in family and fortune. He was born poor, and has always remained so. While in party matters Liebknecht is unscrupulous as to means, he would sacrifice no principle for the sake of personal gain or advancement. If he had been less conscientious his life might have been a prosperous one. I have it directly from a friend, who associated with him considerably in Leipsic, that Bismarck offered him an excellent position as editor of the Kreuzzeitung, which I have already mentioned as the leading organ of the conservatives. Liebknecht declined promptly, and without hesitation, what was intended as a bribe. He is satisfied with the merest necessities of life, so long as he can serve his cause. Mehring, who is far from being a social democrat, says that in this respect he is irreproachable. “No one can accuse him of improper motives in the lower sense of the term.” It is only when the cause of the social democrats is concerned that he shows himself unscrupulous, exciting envy and discontent, and arousing class against class. His ideas have taken such hold of him that he cannot see the deeds of opponents in their true light. He ascribes the worst of motives to what government does with the best intention.

Although he must be called a demagogue, Liebknecht is a highly educated man. He comes of what the Germans call a Beamtenfamilie—i.e., of a family whose members have for a long time devoted themselves to the civil service. This implies, at least, education and social respectability. Liebknecht was only sixteen years of age when he graduated from a German gymnasium—what we would call a college—but he had already decided that a career as a civil-service officer placed one in a position of such dependence that it was unworthy of a freeman. At the university he took no regular professional course, as he despised bread-and-butter studies, but devoted himself to various branches of science according to his inclination, or as he fancied they might contribute to the free development of his mind. At twenty he thought he had freed himself from bondage to the antiquated institutions of a corrupt world.

Liebknecht took part in the revolutionary movement of 1848 in Germany, and threw himself into the contest with admirable personal bravery. Regardless of danger, he was ever to be found in the thick of the fight. When the rebellion was put down, he found it necessary to flee to Switzerland, whence he emigrated to London, where he lived in exile for thirteen years. His life in London was a hard struggle for existence, and this may have embittered him. His associates, while there, were the old rebels, Engels, Wolff, and Marx, and they must have confirmed him in his views. Amnesty was granted him when the present Emperor William was crowned King of Prussia, and he returned full of hatred for Germany. He has devoted his entire life to the purpose of making propaganda for social democracy, and has never for a moment forgotten his end and aim. Mehring says that in the years since he again set foot on German soil there has been, perhaps, no day, no hour, no minute in which he has not been conscious of the object of his existence. It is this indomitable will, this inflexible purpose, this devotion on the part of men of learning and intelligence, which has filled the world with German socialism. Anything like it has never been known in history.

Liebknecht is not original, but is able to interpret Marx to the common people, since he is not too much ahead of them, but only far enough to take the lead, to express thoughts struggling in their minds for utterance. He takes, however, extreme positions, and injures himself and his party thereby. While he can excite those already won over to his side, he cannot gain adherents from those as yet undecided, still less from those opposed. He cannot persuade such, because he is unable, even for a moment, to place himself in their position so as to understand their thoughts and feelings.

Bebel is a disciple of Liebknecht, and his most important one. He is a turner by profession, and his only education was received in common schools, in Sunday schools, and in travelling about from place to place in the practice of his trade. He has never left his trade, and has never made any pretensions to being anything more than an ordinary artisan. He is sincere, simple, and of sound understanding. Bebel has been called the incorporated ideal of a modern laborer in the best sense of the word. This was, however, before he had been embittered by Liebknecht. He is unassuming, but has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. His influence on the people has been very great. He has a homely sort of eloquence which appeals strongly to them. In the Imperial Parliament he has been able to hold his own with men like Lasker and Simson, the Chief-justice of the Supreme Court of Germany. Bebel’s historical importance lies in the fact that he is the first and, up to the present time, the only German artisan who has pushed himself into the foreground of political life and shown himself an equal of other leaders.

He has become prosperous, and employs two or three hundred laborers. He owns, also, a valuable house in Leipsic. Some have objected that he was inconsistent in paying his employees just as other masters do and in living well himself. Those who do so cannot understand the social democrats. The very corner-stone of their belief is that the individual is not responsible for the present condition of things; that harmony can be secured only by the combined action of society—by a social, and not by an individual, regeneration. All that the individual can do, they hold, is to labor for the overthrow of existing society and the establishment of the people’s state, and in the meanwhile to live like other people.

A change has taken place in German social democracy since the death of Lassalle, who was a patriot, and with whom it was national. He sought a basis in united Germany. Social democracy is now cosmopolitan and international in the sense of anti-national. It has approached more and more nearly to the most unqualified communism. Like French communism, it lays most stress on equality, and at times appears ready to sacrifice everything else to obtain that. The unity of interests (solidarité) and economic equality (egalité) are the watchwords of the leaders. Liebknecht says: “Human progress consists in the approach to equality; freedom is only a conventional phrase, which conceals all possible things.” It begins to be recognized that equality and liberty—as now understood, at any rate—are incompatible, and greater value is attached to the former.

Most, in his lecture in Baltimore, to which reference has already been made, brought out vividly the gross, materialistic view the social democrats take of liberty. “You boast of your American liberty,” cried he, “but of what value is it? Has any one ever been able to clothe himself with it? to house himself in it? or to satisfy with it the cravings of his stomach?”

Previous to the attempts to take the life of the German emperor, in 1878, the necessity of overthrowing existing institutions by violence was proclaimed with ever-increasing openness. Lassalle had spoken of a radical change brought about peacefully, which he called a peaceful revolution. The upper classes had the choice between yielding to the demands of the fourth estate and a violent overthrow of existing economic institutions. “I am persuaded,” said he, “that a revolution will take place. It will take place legally and with all the blessings of freedom if, before it is too late, our rulers become wise, determined, and courageous enough to lead it. Otherwise, after the lapse of a certain time, the goddess of revolution will force an entrance into our social structure, amid all the convulsions of violence, with wild, streaming locks and brazen sandals on her feet. In the one way or the other she will come; and when, forgetting the tumult of the day, I sink myself in history, I am able to hear from afar her heavy tread.”

But the social democrats soon became convinced that the existing powers of state and society would not yield their positions without a combat. Glorification of bloody struggles of laborers in the past became ever more common. Laborers were taught that they had, in times gone by, seized the sword and sacrificed life in behalf of their wealthy oppressors; they were told that they must next use the weapons of war in their own behalf, to fight for the day of their own deliverance from bondage. This was made to appear just by representing them as humanity and the few rich people as wilfully cruel and wicked taskmasters. The presiding officer of the Social Democratic Congress, in 1869, used these words in the address with which he closed their meetings: “There is a tree which bears golden fruit, but when those who have planted it reach out their hand to pluck it, it draws back and escapes them. Wound about the tree there is a serpent, which keeps every one away from it. This tree is society; the serpent is our present economic organization, which prevents us from enjoying the golden fruit. Gentlemen, we are determined to enjoy the golden fruit and to drive away the serpent. If that cannot be done in peace, then, as men who do not tremble before a conflict, are we ready to fell the old tree, and in its place to set a new, powerful tree.”

This sort of talk was stopped by the stringent law which was enacted after the attempts on the life of the emperor. There is no evidence to warrant the belief that the social democratic party had any direct connection with these attempts, but those who committed them had been, doubtless, excited by the constant talk of wrong and oppression, and of release therefrom by a destruction of our present leaders of society. They consequently struck at its very head.

Social democrats are fond of comparing themselves to the early Christians. They speak of their leaders as the apostles of the present and of laborers as the rock upon which the Church of the future must be built. The German has a strongly religious nature, of which he can never divest himself. So these social democrats make their economic belief a matter of religion, and therein attempt, even unconsciously, to satisfy their religious feelings.

We would not, for a moment, accept the comparison between social democracy and Christianity in the sense in which these men mean it. Yet when we find rude, uneducated men—for such are the social democratic masses—turning the world upside-down, and striking terror into the hearts of the powers that be, we are reminded of that earlier faith, propagated by poor, ignorant men, which, in the course of centuries, has become more powerful than statesmen, monarchs, and armies. No one, save a fool, would pretend to be able to describe exactly the ultimate organization of society; but we know that in profane, as well as in sacred, history, weak and contemptible beginnings have, ere this, led to grand and glorious growths and developments.

CHAPTER XV.
SOCIALISM OF THE CHAIR.

It is generally known that Bismarck has been endeavoring to introduce new economic measures and institutions of a more or less socialistic nature in Germany. One of these projects has been described in an earlier chapter. It is not, however, an equally familiar fact that he may be regarded as a member of an economic school. Such is, nevertheless, the case. In the earlier part of his career as imperial chancellor Bismarck accepted the doctrines of English political economy in modified form, as taught by the National Liberals of the Reichstag. But he professes that he received their teachings only as a makeshift, until he should find time to study political economy and investigate economic problems for himself. This he did some eight years since. The first-fruits of his new researches were the tariff reform of 1879. Later fruits have been the tobacco monopoly and labor insurance bills. He repudiates the politicians with whom he formerly worked as “representatives of a party which in political economy advocates the right of the stronger and deserts the weak in the struggle against the might of capital, and which refers him to free competition, to private insurance, and I do not know what else—in short, refusing him all help of the state.”

It is, then, a matter of more than ordinary interest to study the principles of the economic system, whose leading advocate at present is the favorite counsellor of the most powerful statesman of modern times. This is the system of the so-called professorial socialists, or socialists of the chair.

In the ordinary or vulgar signification of the term professorial socialists are not socialists at all; in the strict sense of the word they are. They recognize the existence of a social problem, and hold that the co-operation of government is necessary to its solution. They believe that man, associated with his fellows in the state, has duties to perform which, single and alone, he is unable to fulfil. They point to the fact that all civilized governments are, even at present, more or less socialistic. Sanitary legislation, governmental inspection of buildings, the legal limitation of a day’s labor, the prohibition of work on Sunday, the regulations respecting the labor of women and children, temperance laws, state control and management of railroads, the post-office, and other like arrangements, are socialistic in their nature.[199] These matters are not left to individual initiative and private competition. The state—in a certain sense, even now, the highest and most majestic of co-operative associations—steps in and attempts to do for the citizens what it is supposed they could not do for themselves without the help of such a union as government represents. It is sought to give, as it were, a divine sanction to this kind of socialism, by calling to mind the strong socialistic tinge of the Mosaic legislation. Of such character were the laws compelling the return of land in the year of jubilee, of which one had been forced to dispose by reason of poverty, the setting free of slaves at the same time, the forgiveness of debt, and the prohibition of interest in passages like the following: “And if thy brother be waxen poor and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him.... Take thou no usury (=interest) of him or increase; but fear thy God, that thy brother may live with thee.”[200]

The party of professorial socialists was formed ten years ago in Germany. They received their name from an opponent, a clever newspaper writer. He also called them “sweet-water” socialists, but the first name is their ordinary designation, and they do not, as a rule, object to it. Some of them have sought to give the word socialist an honorable and respected meaning by avowing themselves unreservedly socialists on all occasions. Others think that the prejudice against the name is so strong that they only injure themselves thereby. They are, in the narrowest sense, all university professors of political economy, though there is no reason why the name should not be extended so as to include others who hold similar views.

The scientific leader of the party is its most radical member, Adolf Wagner, the Berlin professor. Other prominent members are Gustav Schmoller, recently professor in Strassburg, now, likewise, professor in Berlin, and Brentano, professor in Breslau, lately transferred, I am told, to Strassburg. Adolf Held, the late young and talented professor in Bonn, and later in Berlin, did not hesitate to speak of himself as a professorial socialist. Although John Stuart Mill died before this school of political economists became known, his views and tendencies as regards social questions were so much in accord with theirs that he can properly enough be ranked among them. It must be remembered that Mill placed no limit to state activity save the general good, and declared that all the difficulties of even communism would be but as dust in the balance if he were called upon to choose between that system and a continuance of our present economic life without improvement.

Perhaps, to-day, no professorial socialist could give a better statement of his own aims and desires than Mill’s description of the views and expectation of himself and his wife some thirty years ago. “While we repudiated,” says Mill, “with the greatest energy, that tyranny of society over the individual which most socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat will be applied, not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labor, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to. The social problem of the future we considered to be how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labor.” This is, I must remark in passing, an extreme position. The professorial socialists are not accustomed to express themselves in favor of carrying socialism so far, and I believe Mill does it nowhere else. “We had not the presumption,” continues Mill, “to suppose that we could already foresee by what precise form of institutions these objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to render any such social transformation either possible or desirable an equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated herd who now compose the laboring masses and in the immense majority of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labor and combine for generous, or, at all events, for public and social purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of the sentiments will make a common man dig or weave for his country as readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But the hinderance is not in the essential condition of human nature.” Ruskin expresses the thought that one ought to be as ready to give money as life for one’s country when he says: “I will tell you, good reader, what would have seemed Utopian on the side of evil instead of good: that ever men should have come to value their money so much more than their lives, that if you call upon them to become soldiers, and take chance of a bullet through their heart, and of wife and children being left desolate, for their pride’s sake, they will do it gayly; but if you ask them, for their country’s sake, to spend a hundred pounds without security of getting back a hundred and five, they will laugh in your face.”[201]

The German professorial socialists held a meeting in Eisenach in October, 1872, and founded the “Union for Social Politics.” They hoped, by means of an organization holding yearly meetings, to be able to exercise greater influence on legislation and public opinion. Their proceedings were published in Leipsic, in 1873, under the title “Transactions of the Union for Social Politics,” and reports of meetings which have since been held have been published at the same place under the same title.

They discussed such questions as joint-stock companies, insurance, savings-banks, and factory legislation, including the prohibition of labor on Sunday and protection of women and children in factories. Their negative work consisted in combating the empty abstractions of the English free-trade school, or, as they call it, the Manchester school. They accused the Manchester men of lacking all appreciation for the higher duties of the state or the ethical side of economic life, and of having no warmth of heart for the interests of the lower classes. The professorial socialists endeavored, on the other hand, to reconcile the laborers and social democrats to society by recognizing and favoring what might be called their just demands.

The difference between professorial socialists and other professors of political economy in Germany is one of degree. The former emphasize more strongly the beneficial effects of governmental intervention, and believe that the state has not as yet gone nearly far enough in recognizing its duties towards the weak and poor and in regulating the distribution of wealth.[202] They regard political economy as, first and foremost, an ethical science. To them the state is, above all things, a moral person. It is, indeed, necessary to obtain a clear understanding of their conception of the state before it is possible to comprehend their teachings. They regard the state as something sacred and divine, holding that it arises out of the essential characteristics of the human nature given us by God. They have a reverence for state obligations which reminds one of the doctrines of the ancient Greeks and of the heroic self-sacrifice of Socrates, who considered it his duty to obey the laws, even when they ordered his death. They consider that the rights of the state spring from a higher source than a social contract, either implicit or explicit, of the citizens with one another. The state stands above the citizens as the Church above its members. Humanity, in their opinion, progresses, and ever must progress, through Church and state. They see God in both. They know nothing of any civilization in the past apart from the state, and are able to imagine none in the future existing outside of such a social organism. In this spirit Professor Schmoller defines the state as the grandest moral institution for the education and development of the human race.

The socialists of the chair deprecate any attempt to separate political economy from the higher ideal side of our nature. They do not believe that in business or anywhere should man be governed solely by selfish motives.

In practical politics they reject decidedly violent change, but advocate a gradual and peaceful development. Some of them do not expect that their ideal will be realized for a thousand years to come.

Wagner believes that he has discovered a law according to which the functions of government are constantly increasing—in many places, even in spite of theory. According to him, government in all civilized countries is uninterruptedly taking upon itself new duties. The post-office, education, the telegraph, railroads, and the care of forests are examples. The increase in state business in England, e.g., may be seen from the fact that the expenses of government were forty times as great in 1841 as in 1685, although the population had little more than trebled its numbers.[203] If it can be shown that Wagner’s theory is really a law, and that the apparent proofs of it are not merely temporary social phenomena, it will at once be admitted that it is of the highest importance. Its operation would, of itself, establish the socialistic state, since, if government continually absorbs private business, there will, in the end, be only state business. In this socialistic state there would be the same differences in rank as at present between the different governmental employees. At the top of the social ladder there would still be an emperor, and at the bottom ordinary laborers, steadily employed in the service of the state, as, e.g., the workmen on the state railroads now.

At present things are moving pretty rapidly in Germany towards the accomplishment of Wagner’s ideal, if we may suppose that expressed by his law. In fact, since Bismarck is said to value him highly, it is not impossible that he may have considerable to do with directing the economic policy of Germany. He has always been a strong advocate of state railways, the compulsory insurance of laborers by the state, and the tobacco monopoly. What may be the ultimate results of the changes taking place in Germany it is far too early to say.

The leading ideas of the professorial socialists may be best learned from a little work by Professor Gustav Schmoller, entitled “A Few Fundamental Principles of Law and Political Economy.”[204] It is an open letter, addressed to Professor von Treitschke, a Prussian of the Buncombe type, who, with a very insufficient study of their writings, had the rashness to attack the professorial socialists in his “Socialism and Those Who Favor It” (“Der Socialismus und seine Gönner”). Von Treitschke is generally regarded as having fared ill in this encounter. As Schmoller pointed out, those whom he attacked had spent more years in the study of economic questions than he had weeks.

But one of the most interesting features of this new school of political economy, altogether apart from the correctness of its other doctrines, is its repudiation of selfishness, or self-interest, as it is more euphemistically called, as a sufficient guide in economic matters. The necessity of Christian self-denial and self-sacrifice is emphasized by its adherents. They attack what they call the mammonism of the Manchester school, and elevate man, not wealth, to the central position in economic science. “The starting-point, as well as the object-point, of our science is man” (Roscher). All hope of resolving “the social question” without a moral and intellectual elevation of mankind is abandoned. The Christian religion is assigned an important work in this field, and political economy becomes a Christian science. To see the leaders of economic thought, starting with anything rather than religious predilections, gradually forced to this position, may indeed be styled a triumph of Christianity.

CHAPTER XVI.
CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM.

We have come to a point now where professorial socialism and Christian socialism meet. Professors of political economy, finding themselves forced to abandon every hope of reconciling adverse interests of society without a moral and religious regeneration of the various social classes, turn to Christianity, and appeal to it for co-operation in their endeavors to bring about an era of peace and harmony. Professorial socialism terminates in Christianity. Christian socialism seeks in it a starting-point.

De Lamennais, who was born in 1782, was one of the earliest representatives of Christian socialism. He was for a time a French Catholic priest and an ardent defender of the faith. He sought to bring about an alliance between the masses and the Church, in opposition to kings, whom he regarded as oppressors of the people. The Church was to become an organizing power, and was to gather the individuals, the atoms, of industrial society, into a compact and harmonious whole. She was to become the soul, the animating spirit, of the economic as well as the religious world. He hoped to see her found a grand co-operative association of laborers, which should free them from the yoke of capitalist and the tyranny of landlord. The democratic views entertained by Lamennais, and his opposition to the monarchs of Europe, did not give satisfaction among the Church authorities. He went to Rome to plead his cause before Leo XII., and was received with open arms. But afterwards the motto of his journal L’Avenir, “Séparez vous des rois, tendez la main au peuple”—“separate yourselves from the kings, extend your hand to the people”—displeased Gregory XVI., and Lamennais, unable to win over the Pope to his views, finally left the Church in despair. “Catholicism was my own life,” said he, “because it is the life of humanity. I wished to defend it and draw it from the abyss into which it sinks more and more daily. Nothing was easier. The bishops have found that it would not suit them. Thus Rome lagged behind. I went there and saw the most abominable cloaque which ever offended human eyesight.... No other God rules there but egotism. For a piece of land, for a few piasters, they would bargain away the nations, the whole human race, even the blessed Trinity.”[205]

He wrote, after his return, “Les Paroles d’un Croyant”—“The Words of a Believer”—published in 1833, and perhaps his most celebrated work. It is a strange, weird, fascinating book. In prose, yet with all the fervor, imagery, and beauty of poetry, he describes the wrongs and sufferings inflicted on the laborer by rulers and capitalists. How is it, one might ask, that he, so far above the masses, can depict their sorrows as vividly as if he had felt them? It is precisely because he is not far above the toiling many; he has in sympathy drawn near to them; he feels with and for them; what they have experienced, that has he also lived. Their pain is his pain; their anguish is his anguish, and has penetrated perhaps more deeply into his soul than into theirs.

In the following passage from “Les Paroles d’un Croyant” he shows how much worse are modern employers who oppress their laborers than were the earlier slave-owners. The story he tells is this:

“Now, there was a wicked and accursed man. And this man was strong and hated toil, so that he said to himself: ‘What shall I do? If I work not I shall die, and labor is to me intolerable.’

“Then there entered into his heart a thought born in hell. He went in the night and seized certain of his brethren while they slept, and bound them with chains.

“‘For,’ said he, ‘I will force them with whips and scourges to toil for me, and I will eat the fruit of their labor.’

“And he did that which he had resolved; and others, seeing it, did likewise, and the men of the earth were no longer brothers, but only masters and slaves.

“This was a day of sadness and mourning over all the face of the earth.

“A long time afterwards there arose another man, whose cruelty and wickedness exceeded the cruelty and wickedness of the first man.

“Seeing that men multiplied everywhere, and that the multitude of them was innumerable, he said to himself:

“‘I could indeed enchain some of these, and force them to work for me; but it would then be necessary to feed and otherwise maintain them, and that would diminish my gains. I will do better: I will let them work for nothing; they will die, in truth, but their number is great; I will amass a fortune before their number is largely diminished, and there will always remain enough of them.’

“‘Now all this multitude of men might live on what they received in exchange for their labor.’

“Having thus spoken, he addressed himself separately to some of them, and said: ‘You work six hours, and you receive a piece of money for your labor; work twelve hours and you will receive two pieces of money, and you and your wives and your little ones will live better.’

“And they believed him.

“Then he said to them, ‘You work only half the days of the year; work every day in the year and your gains will be doubled.’

“And they believed him still.

“Now it happened that the quantity of labor having been doubled without any increase in the demand therefor, the half of those who previously lived by their labor could find no one to employ them.

“Then the wicked man whom they had believed said to them: ‘I will give labor to all, under condition that you will labor the same length of time, and that I shall pay you only half so much as I have been in the habit of doing; because I indeed desire to render you a service, but I do not wish to ruin myself.’

“And as they, their wives, and little ones were suffering the pangs of hunger, they accepted the proposal of the wicked man, and they blessed him; for, said they, ‘He gives us our life.’

“And, continuing to deceive them in the same manner, the wicked man ever increased their labor and ever diminished their wages.

“And they died for lack of the necessaries of life, and others pressed forward to take their places; for poverty had become so terrible in the land, that entire families sold themselves for a morsel of bread.

“And the wicked, cruel man, who had lied to his brothers, amassed a larger fortune than the wicked man who had enslaved them.

“The name of the latter is tyrant; but the former has no name save in hell itself.”[206]

The Christian socialism of England has peculiarities which render it exceedingly interesting in connection with an account of French and German Christian socialism, furnishing, as it does, opportunities for instructive comparisons.

It arose about thirty years ago. Its founders were men like Charles Kingsley, Frederick Maurice, and Thomas Hughes. They were filled with horror at the wrongs and hardships of the lower classes, and rejected with lofty moral indignation the theory of the Manchester men that state and society were to do nothing about it. They refused to believe that the action of self-interest led to the most perfect social harmony, or that government should do nothing to alleviate suffering and elevate the masses. Some of their expressions might have satisfied even a social democrat. Kingsley expressed his opinion of economic liberalism by describing the Cobden and Bright scheme of the universe as the worst of all narrow, hypocritical, anarchic, and atheistic social philosophies; while he predicted the coming of good times to the poor, and the overthrow of mammonism, in these words: “Not by wrath and haste, but by patience made perfect through suffering, canst thou proclaim this good news to the groaning masses, and deliver them, as thy Master did before thee, by the cross and not the sword. Divine paradox! Folly to the rich and mighty—the watchword to the weak, in whose weakness is God’s strength made perfect. ‘In your patience possess ye your souls, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.’ Yes, he came then, and the Babel-tyranny of Rome fell, even as the more fearful, the more subtle, and more diabolic tyranny of mammon shall fall ere long—suicidal, even now crumbling by its innate decay. Yes; Babylon the Great—the commercial world of selfish competition, drunken with the blood of God’s people, whose merchandise is the bodies and souls of men—her doom is gone forth. And then—then—when they, the tyrants of the earth, who lived delicately with her, rejoicing in her sins, the plutocrats and bureaucrats, the money-changers and devourers of labor, are crying to the rocks to hide them, and to the hills to cover them, from the wrath of him that sitteth on the throne; then labor shall be free at last, and the poor shall eat and be satisfied, with things that eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, but which God has prepared for those who love him.”[207]

Kingsley and his confrères held that modern competition was only one kind of warfare, and consequently sinful. They sought to replace it by co-operation, in which they found a practical carrying-out of Christian principles. Mr. Ludlow, Maurice, and others talked the matter over, and finally formed a society in London to promote co-operative undertakings and the education of the lower classes. They assisted laborers to found productive co-operative associations. They established also a newspaper, the Christian Socialist, in which they made propaganda for their faith. They thought they had discovered the panacea for all social evils: “I certainly thought,” said Mr. Hughes afterwards—“and, for that matter, have never altered my opinion to this day—that here we had found the solution of the great labor question; but I was also convinced that we had nothing to do but just to announce it, and found an association or two, in order to convert all England, and usher in the millennium at once, so plain did the whole thing seem to me. I will not undertake to answer for the rest of the council, but I doubt whether I was at all more sanguine than the majority.”[208]

The Christian socialists established seventeen co-operative societies in London and twenty-four in other parts of England, but chiefly, if not wholly, in the south, before their organ ceased to appear. These, however, all failed. But about this time there began to spring up in the north of England distributive co-operative societies, not designed to produce commodities, but, as their name implies, to distribute them by establishing stores. These associations, which have prospered greatly, furnished an opportunity for some of the Christian socialists to exert themselves in behalf of the laborer. So far as there is to-day any active Christian socialism in England, it is to be found in the Co-operative Union. Indeed, Mr. Thomas Hughes seems to identify the two movements in a letter,[209] which he was kind enough to write me about Christian socialism. As it is interesting, and Americans are always glad to hear what the author of “Tom Brown at Rugby” has to say, I will take the liberty of quoting such parts of his letter as bear on our subject:

Mr. Neale has been good enough to write me a fuller account of the connection between co-operation and Christian socialism, which he regards as two distinct movements—in their origin, at least. I will quote what he has to say about them:

The Englishman, like the American, is eminently practical. He must find some concrete form in which to embody his ideas. If he cannot now obtain all he desires, he will take what he can get and wait for an opportune moment to gain possession of what remains. He does not cease to think, plan, and even dream, but he spends more time in action than in talk. Thus have the Christian socialists of England, without changing their views, contented themselves for the present with distributive co-operation. They have, however, done far more than to establish co-operative associations. They called attention to the duties and responsibilities of wealth as well as its rights. They induced men to stop and consider whether it might not, after all, be possible to do something to ameliorate the condition of the unfortunate and to improve the poor and degraded. The results have been seen in generous, philanthropic, and, to a large extent, successful endeavors to elevate those low down to a higher plane of life and thought. Legislation has followed, limiting the length of a day’s work, restricting the employment of young children, regulating the labor of women, protecting operatives in factories, and otherwise benefiting the laboring classes. This has counteracted the effects of discontent and dangerous agitation so far as to prevent the violent attempts at revolution, once feared. The humane and enlightened views, which to-day obtain to such an extent in England, are due, far more than is generally supposed, to the warm-hearted zeal of those noble Englishmen who were called Christian socialists.

In Germany, there are two branches of the Christian Socialists, the Protestants and the Roman Catholics.

The Protestant Christian Socialists are not numerous, nor are they sufficiently important to justify much more than the mention of their existence. Their two leaders are Dr. Todt, a pastor, and Dr. Stöcker, court-chaplain, who is known on account of his leadership in the Anti-Semitic agitation in Germany. His part in this latter movement shows how little nobility there is in his nature. I attended one meeting of the Christian Socialists in Berlin. Instead of proposals to ameliorate the condition of laborers, I heard little save abuse of the Jews. When any member of the audience was invited to reply, a bright-appearing young man of twenty or thereabouts came forward and began to talk in a sensible sort of way concerning the position of the Hebrews, but his arguments were soon drowned by the hooting of the rabble. Court-pastor Stöcker bowed him off the stage with mock ceremoniousness. I thought the young man showed to far better advantage than the leader of those whom he was addressing.

The ideas of the Protestant Christian Socialists are rather vague and indefinite. They favor, however, legislation in behalf of the laboring classes similar to that which is now in force in England, and desire a strong monarch to take the lead in measures designed to elevate the toiling masses. They wish also to bring the people back to the Church, that they may enjoy the consolations of religion. Dr. Todt appears to hope for a peaceful introduction of communism, or some form of socialism approaching thereto, in a far-distant future.

Catholic Christian Socialism in Germany is a far more important, a far nobler, movement. Its leading light was the late Bishop of Mainz or Mayence, Baron von Ketteler.

Wilhelm Emanuel Baron von Ketteler was born in 1811, in Münster. He came of an old and honorable family. He studied law, and began his career in the German courts, before he decided to devote himself to the Church. He was ordained as priest in 1844 and was made bishop in 1850.

Von Ketteler was keen, eager, eloquent—a valiant champion of the Church, who fought for her emancipation from state control, and obtained important concessions. His activity was remarkable, and displayed itself prominently in the foundation of numerous institutions, as monasteries, unions, schools, orphan-asylums, and houses of refuge. He understood how to make use of the press in forwarding his designs, which included plans intended to promote the welfare of the masses. After the formation of the German empire Von Ketteler took a leading position in the party of the Ultramontanes, and was ever ready with tongue and pen in all matters concerning the relations of state to Church and school.

He opposed the proclamation of the doctrine of papal infallibility as inopportune, but, after it had been proclaimed, he became its ardent supporter.

Von Ketteler’s eventful life ended in 1875, and his body now rests in the cathedral at Mainz.

Von Ketteler accepts the doctrine of the iron, cruel law of wages, and assents to many of the teachings of the social democrats, in so far as they are directed against our present social organization. He seeks salvation, however, in the Catholic Church.

He holds that God or the Church is the supreme owner of all property, and that human rights are only secondary. Men have only the right of administering what has been committed to them. The Church has always held, says he, that if a starving man took a loaf of bread to satisfy hunger which he could still in no other way, it was no theft. In that case human proprietary rights yield to the divine right of self-preservation.

The good-will of the Church is also shown in the large property which she has accumulated to alleviate the sufferings of the poor. It was not her fault that she was deprived of a great part of this by the secularization of her possessions, which took place after the Reformation. It increased the distress of the unfortunate, and the worldly powers were obliged to enact poor-laws to relieve those who had thereby been reduced to helplessness.

The misery of the present time is due to materialism and liberal politics. The state and the Church should exercise greater control over human conduct in such matters, e.g., as marriage.

“We will not deny,” says Von Ketteler, “that in various regions the contraction of marriage is made too difficult; but, on the other hand, a certain limitation is justifiable—is founded in reason as well as in Christianity—and the abolition of all limitations cannot fail to promote thoughtlessness in the contraction of marriage, and thus injure the family. Of such a character is the general effort and tendency to regard marriage as a simple civil institution, to introduce the Civilehe—i.e., marriage by civil authorities alone—and to separate it entirely from the Church. The stability of the family is based on the religious and Christian doctrine of marriage. Especially is the view of the Catholic Church that marriage is a sacrament, and can be dissolved only by death, the immovable foundation of this stability.”[210]

Von Ketteler regards the dissolution of the organic bonds, or ties of society, as one cause of our present troubles. He is, consequently, in favor of trade corporations, and has a friendly feeling for the guilds of the Middle Ages. He combats vehemently the atomism of modern liberalism. There is, in my opinion, a great deal of truth in what he says about the necessity of religion to cure the ills of modern society. He declares that “Christ is the Saviour of the world, not only because he has redeemed our souls, but also because he brought salvation for all human institutions and relations—civil, political, and social. Especially is he the Saviour of the laboring classes.... He has elevated the labor-class from servitude to its present condition;[211] without him all humanitarian tendencies of the so-called friends of the laboring man will not prevent his sinking again into a state of slavery.”

Von Ketteler mentions five remedies which the Church has to offer the laborer.

1. She founds and manages institutions for the benefit of the laborer unable to work. These are managed by those who have a tender interest in his welfare. Love to Christ will enable the Catholic nurses to perform disagreeable and repulsive services in a mild and gentle manner.

2. She offers him the institution of the Christian family.

3. She presents to him the truths and doctrines of the Church, which are the true education of the laborer. The doctrine of the liberals, that education for the laborers is to be found in self-help and in their unions for instructing working-men is only a simulacrum and deceit.

4. She offers him the social power of the Church. This unites men, and may be used to assist in founding unions and societies of laborers. Such unions are Christian in nature.[212]

5. This social power of the Church might be used in establishing productive co-operative associations on a Christian basis. Nothing could be more pleasing to God and beneficial to man than gifts of the wealthy for this purpose.

For our part, we rejoice that men of all shades of opinion are turning to Christianity for help in the solution of social problems, and trust that the poor and needy, where they are now estranged from the Church, may ere long be led to recognize in her their best friend. All Christian men, and particularly the authorities of the Church, should see to it that no opportunity is lost to win to her the toiling masses. We fully agree with a celebrated Belgian professor[213] of Political Economy when he writes: “The proletarians have been detached from and will return to Christianity when they begin to understand that it brings to them freedom and equal rights, whereas atheistic materialism consecrates their slavery and sacrifices them to pretended natural laws. By a complete misapplication of its ideas, the religion of Christ, transformed into a temporal and sacerdotal institution, has been called in as the ally of caste, despotism, and the ancient régime to sanction all social inequalities. The Gospel, on the contrary, is the good news to the poor—the announcement of the advent of that kingdom when the humble shall be lifted up and the disinherited shall possess the earth.”[214]