The Communistic Societies of the United States | Page 2

the inconveniences of their lot, as a reasonable
prospect that with industry and economy they may raise themselves out
of the condition of hired laborers into that of independent employers of
their own labor. Take away entirely the grounds of such a hope, and a
great mass of our poorer people would gradually sink into stupidity,
and a blind discontent which education would only increase, until they
became a danger to the state; for the greater their intelligence, the
greater would be the dissatisfaction with their situation--just as we see
that the dissemination of education among the English agricultural
laborers (by whom, of all classes in Christendom, independence is least
to be hoped for), has lately aroused these sluggish beings to strikes and
a struggle for a change in their condition.
Hitherto, in the United States, our cheap and fertile lands have acted as
an important safety-valve for the enterprise and discontent of our
non-capitalist population. Every hired workman knows that if he
chooses to use economy and industry in his calling, he may without
great or insurmountable difficulty establish himself in independence on
the public lands; and, in fact, a large proportion of our most energetic
and intelligent mechanics do constantly seek these lands, where with
patient toil they master nature and adverse circumstances, often make
fortunate and honorable careers, and at the worst leave their children in
an improved condition of life. I do not doubt that the eagerness of some
of our wisest public men for the acquisition of new territory has arisen
from their conviction that this opening for the independence of laboring
men was essential to the security of our future as a free and peaceful
state. For, though not one in a hundred, or even one in a thousand of
our poorer and so-called laboring class may choose to actually achieve
independence by taking up and tilling a portion of the public lands, it is
plain that the knowledge that any one may do so makes those who do
not more contented with their lot, which they thus feel to be one of
choice and not of compulsion.
Any circumstance, as the exhaustion of these lands, which should
materially impair this opportunity for independence, would be, I
believe, a serious calamity to our country; and the spirit of the

Trades-Unions and International Societies appears to me peculiarly
mischievous and hateful, because they seek to eliminate from the
thoughts of their adherents the hope or expectation of independence.
The member of a Trades-Union is taught to regard himself, and to act
toward society, as a hireling for life; and these societies are united, not
as men seeking a way to exchange dependence for independence, but as
hirelings, determined to remain such, and only demanding better
conditions of their masters. If it were possible to infuse with this spirit
all or the greater part of the non-capitalist class in the United States,
this would, I believe, be one of the gravest calamities which could
befall us as a nation; for it would degrade the mass of our voters, and
make free government here very difficult, if it did not entirely change
the form of our government, and expose us to lasting disorders and
attacks upon property.
We see already that in whatever part of our country the Trades-Union
leaders have succeeded in imposing themselves upon mining or
manufacturing operatives, the results are the corruption of our politics,
a lowering of the standard of intelligence and independence among the
laborers, and an unreasoning and unreasonable discontent, which, in its
extreme development, despises right, and seeks only changes degrading
to its own class, at the cost of injury and loss to the general public.
The Trades-Unions and International Clubs have become a formidable
power in the United States and Great Britain, but so far it is a power
almost entirely for evil. They have been able to disorganize labor, and
to alarm capital. They have succeeded, in a comparatively few cases, in
temporarily increasing the wages and in diminishing the hours of labor
in certain branches of industry--a benefit so limited, both as to duration
and amount, that it cannot justly be said to have inured to the general
advantage of the non-capitalist class. On the other hand, they have
debased the character and lowered the moral tone of their membership
by the narrow and cold-blooded selfishness of their spirit and doctrines,
and have thus done an incalculable harm to society; and, moreover,
they have, by alarming capital, lessened the wages fund, seriously
checked enterprise, and thus decreased the general prosperity of their
own class. For it is plain that to no one in society is the abundance of
capital and its free and secure use in all kinds of enterprises so vitally
important as to the laborer for