to its dictates. To-day, wealth being produced primarily for profit, capitalistic interests demand periodical and often radical changes in style; this in order that the renewed demand for goods occasioned by these changes furnish the capitalist with additional profit. The wealthy also here find occasion to display their wealth by a prompt adoption of the new fashions. Under a coöperative form of society the prevailing consideration, in our clothing for instance where fashion most conspicuously dominates, will be adaptability, serviceability, artistic effect. If a garment meets these requirements it will be likely to remain in good taste until well worn.

Diamonds and precious stones are used mainly as a distinguishing badge of wealth. Those who wear them are thought to frown on those who would wear an imitation as being "shoddy," as pretenders. But a good imitation can in appearance be distinguished from the genuine only by an expert. If then these sparkling points or clusters are truly ornamental and desirable for use because of their artistic effect and intrinsic beauty, why do we demand that such ornaments shall be used which can be procured only by the wealthy? Why should it not be equally good taste to secure the same effect at a fraction of the expense of the diamond? Our question needs no further reply than to point out that our capitalistic system is responsible for unnatural and arbitrary standards of taste.

We have intimated that the socialist's measure of value is labor-time. He sees the average labor-hour to be a much more accurate measure of values than money, or any other medium of exchange. In well-organized factories the laborcost of the products, whether shoes, cloth, iron or other forms of wealth, is determined to-day more crudely perhaps than would be the case under a coöperative commonwealth, yet factory officials can determine with a fair degree of accuracy the cost in average labor-hours of any item of their product.

Exploitation abolished, usury whether in the form of rent, profit or interest likewise abolished (a necessary step before equity of distribution can be approached), what more just exchange can be made,

with a modification to be referred to later, than to allow the workman producing wealth as much wealth, in the same or any other form, as is produced in an equal length of time or by the same expenditure of energy, by any other producer? In other words, human effort is the only equitable measure of value.

Doubtless the thought occurs that some workers turn out, in a given time, a much larger product than certain others; under the average-labor-hour basis of exchange therefore, it may be claimed that the rapid workman is discriminated against in that he receives no more product than the moderate workman.

Under our present system of production there is an occasional worker whose amount of product is considerably above the average, and on the other hand an occasional worker whose product is considerably below the average. In exceptional cases the most rapid workman may produce, under the same conditions, twice as much wealth as the most moderate workman. We should bear in mind however that our present system does not furnish to the individual an environment favorable to a wide latitude of choice in the selection of his life-work. Economic necessity has compelled the great majority of workers to accept their sphere of activity regardless of special aptitude or taste for their calling. Had workers at the loom been given an occupation requiring a different order of ability, quite likely their capacities in production would be reversed: The worker who excels at the loom might be a poor hand at music or invention; the inferior weaver might excel at teaching or as a farmer.

A coöperative commonwealth, we have reason to believe, would furnish an environment which would give great latitude of choice to the individual in the

selection of his sphere of effort; and under such circumstances the relative capacities of the individual workers would be much more nearly equal than at present. Again we should bear in mind that the individual is a social product. The units of society are not, to any great extent, self-made; the individual is largely what he is because of his environment; because society has made him such. This being the case as we believe, we may conclude that we cannot in equity deny any individual who applies his best effort in production during a given time the average individual product during the same length of time. At all events this is a question pertaining to the distribution of wealth, which will be determined by the workers themselves; and which they will be perfectly competent to decide. It has been said with truth that there is no greater heresy than to distrust the integrity of the common people.

An important feature attending our social progress is that of appropriation and use of wealth by the collectivity. Large aggregates of wealth individually owned are seen to be a menace to the well-being and stability of society; while our social health is enhanced by an abundant store of it held collectively for the use of society at large.

Social wealth in the form of roads, parks, school and other public buildings, museums, libraries, hospitals, sewer and water-works systems, etc., mark the advance of civilization. Progress in the direction of social ownership is constantly being made, and economic education of the people is creating the demand that land and the machinery of production be transferred to social ownership and democratic control. The socialist sees that until the means of life are socialized there can be no civilization worthy of the name.

With this advance secured in the socialization of wealth, the individual will for the first time in history have direct access to power-machinery, and be able

to produce in abundance the wealth desired for his maintenance and development.

We have intimated that the producer of wealth will recognize the advantage of contributing a percentage of his product to the public treasury for communal use. In addition to the familiar forms of collectively-owned wealth which the community maintains to-day, under the new order we shall have the machinery of production to keep in repair. Also the invention and construction of new machinery, to still further lighten our task of production, will call for social rather than individual expenditure.

Educational facilities doubtless will be much more liberally provided. Not only will our common-school system call for enlargement, but manual and technical schools, and schools of art and universities for higher education will be demanded.

The store of communal wealth, we believe, will be made ample to provide for the wants, not only of the incompetent, but for the maintenance by society of each individual from birth to maturity.

Our present system of life-insurance will doubtless be supplanted under a cooperative commonwealth; in part as we have intimated; and further and completely by some system of old-age pensions. It is not unreasonable to expect that after contributing to society a liberal portion of the individual product throughout an active life devoted to production of wealth, society should provide for her social units a period of freedom and repose during the declining years of life. Even under our present system progress is being made in this direction.

We cannot dismiss this subject without reference to the attitude of a social democracy toward art.

Emerson says: "Without the great arts that speak to his sense of beauty, man seems to be a poor, naked, shivering creature." In the same line of thought John Ward Stimson says: "One sacred pole-star of life, among the weltering

billows and rocks of doubt, confusion and despair, is the growing consciousness of the race that Principles of Immortal Beauty forever cheer, console, sustain, upon every plane of mortal experience, because they are vital to the experience of God himself, and visibly insistent upon every side of his activity."

The socialist believes that the longings of the individual for the beautiful in art can most economically be provided for through collective expenditure. To-day it is not, and doubtless it will not in the near future be practical for each wealthproducer to erect his house of expensive marbles, or to store it with costly statuary and paintings. The desires of the individual in this direction can be adequately provided for, we believe, through communal expenditure. We believe it will be practical under a coöperative commonwealth for every social center to provide its free art-gallery or museum, and that the public buildings, in every such center (library, school-buildings, public halls, etc.), should be erected with lavish expenditure of labor, rarely known to-day, to secure beautiful material and to erect it in harmony of line and color and perfection of detail.

The capitalistic environment tends to conservatism in public expenditure. The coöperative environment, as we have shown in the case of the individual, will, we think, reverse the present order relating to social expenditure. A social democracy, we have reason to believe, instead of being frugal, will be lavish in the use of wealth.

The modern historian views the entire course of human history as the struggle of the race towards a more perfect state of socialization. It is only recently that the study of sociology and of economics has been sufficiently advanced to enable us to broadly interpret the meaning of the conflicts of classes, of tribes, and of nations. For this reason the progress of humanity has been blind and halting, and attended with great waste of wealth and of life. It has heretofore been a

movement without conscious purpose or definite meaning so far as the social destiny of the race is concerned. To-day we have become conscious that we have the power to shape our social environment,-to so control conditions that they will directly contribute to the well-being of society, and indirectly to the individuals of which society is composed.

In conclusion. Capitalism may, in a sense, be scientific application of energy in wealth production. Socialism is more than that: Socialism is science applied not only to the production of wealth but to its distribution. Socialism is the scientific application of human energy in supplying the economic needs of mankind, individual and collective. While socialism is scientific economics, the philosophy based thereon is the most lucid philosophy the world has ever known. It furnishes a key to the interpretation of social phenomena which readily unlocks an otherwise inextricable tangle.

In the Changing Order, a recent volume by Oscar L. Triggs, we find this quotation from Maeterlinck: "There are about us thousands of poor creatures who have nothing of beauty in their lives; they come and go in obscurity, and we believe all is dead within them; and no one pays any heed. And then one day a simple word, an unexpected silence, a little tear that springs from the source of beauty itself, tells us they have found the means of raising aloft, in the shadow of their souls an ideal a thousand times more beautiful than the most beautiful things their ears have ever heard or their eyes ever seen."

To many burdened souls socialism is this ideal which gives added courage and strength to bear patiently the deprivations and disappointments of life, while they work for and witness the dawn of a better civilization. Yes, socialism is more than an ideal. The coöperative commonwealth is a coming reality.

Ware, Mass.

C. C. HITCHCOCK.

LIK

IKE THE mushroom that springs up in a night has come the demand that the Chinese Exclusion Act shall except from its operation in the United States the intelligent classes, which are enumerated as "professional men, commercial agents, bankers, lawyers, priests and journalists."

This demand has recently received the endorsement of the Chamber of Commerce of New York, the Merchants' Club of Chicago, and many of the leading magazines and newspapers of the country. The proposition is sufficiently before the people to deserve that all sides of the important issue be considered.

One of the leading religious journals of the East puts the whole demand in a nutshell in the following editorial com

ment:

"According to Singapore dispatches, the boycott of American goods has sprung up again in that city stronger than ever before. It is further stated that the situation there is critical. Chinese merchants that have persisted in handling American products have received threatening letters from men behind the movement. On the other hand we are told that the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, in its annual report, demands the enforcement to the letter of the Chinese exclusion laws of the country. Of course there is no selfishness in such an atlitude! It remains to be seen whether between Congress, the President, and Secretary Root, the coming winter will see some statesmanlike act recorded which will redress the wrongs of the cultivated, professional Chinese, while properly keeping the lower order of laborers out of this country as at present. As the matter now stands an arrangement ought

not to be difficult. For it is understood that China is willing that the laboring classes shall be excluded, but asks that all other classes shall receive the same treatment here that is accorded similar classes from Europe. The request is a reasonable one. Certainly no good reason can be offered for the exclusion of Chinese professional men, and particularly traveling commercial agents. Chinese merchants are admitted at present, but the exclusion law is interpreted strictly, and a commercial agent cannot enter as a merchant. The exempted classes, as the law stands, are not numerous and it is difficult to understand why a Chinese banker, lawyer or journalist should be excluded while students and teachers are admitted. We want the best of all nations to see us and know us, and it is to be and it is hoped that the present administration will make this possible."

Who constitute the laboring classes that are already excluded and that all seem to be willing to be excluded from the United States? Those who toil with their hands, the real wealth-producers of every land. To be sure they are poor, and it is a strange commentary on industrial conditions the world over that those who do the most and hardest work are the poorest. Those who demand the exclusion only of these laborers must hold that labor and poverty are twin disgraces, and by such exclusion are willing to increase the misery of those who toil with their hands and produce the wealth of the world!

Why should Chinese laborers be excluded from a country that has such wealth of undeveloped resources as America has, and allow the parasites of wealth,

such as merchants, bankers, lawyers, priests and professional men be allowed to come in hordes, as they will come, if an exception is made in the exclusion act in their favor?

To the casual observer, resolutions appear very just and liberal that ask for an open-door for the intelligent and commercial classes. But what will be the result upon America's young business manhood? The commercial life of the Orient gives warning answer. It is true that the cultivated Chinaman is a charming specimen of the human family; he is keen of intellect, tireless in energy, honorable in his dealings to an eminent degree, a skilled money-changer, a lawabiding citizen; but he is also a cheap employé, a poor home-maker, superstitious in religion, holds woman in supreme contempt,-possessing the right of life and death over his wife or wives in his own country,-brutal in his punishments, and if he comes here he comes with all these qualifications as a citizen.

He can vote the same as any other immigrant after a few years of residence. He will soon become a social, commercial and political power to be reckoned with in our already complicated body politic. Shall he come? Is there no danger because he is intelligent? The answer is found in his conduct and influence in the Orient.

He is the money-changer in banks, railway and steamboat-offices, and hotels, the comprador for contractors and syndicates, and wherever trustworthiness is needed there is the intelligent Chinaman; he is the merchant and tradesman, and is so successful that few can compete with him.

Should these "intellectuals" be permitted free ingress they would work the greatest injury to the ambitions and opportunities of young, educated, capable and aspiring American men. Commercialism is quick to recognize ability that hires at a small wage. His supreme virtues make him dangerous.

I am emphatic in the assertion, after

witnessing the almost universal employment in the Orient of the educated Chinaman, that his presence in this country would be most detrimental and dangerous to the Anglo-Saxon business man. The college-educated man, the American banker, professional man, commercial agent, lawyer and journalist would be driven into the background, would be overwhelmed by these Goths and Vandals of the commercial world.

The Chinese merchant is in San Francisco. What is the result? The answer is found in the crowded, filthy, immoral quarter of that city known as "Chinatown." He lives like a rat at home and he would live no better here. To allow the Chinese "intellectual" to come to this country would mean a Chinatown to augment the slums of every city in the United States, for the Chinaman is never sufficiently cultivated to live decently, according to American ideals.

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As a commercial factor the intellectual Chinaman is a dangerous rival in the business world. The intellectual American should be most earnest in opposing his admission into this country. He would do far more harm by lowering the standard of living than the coolie or laboring classes would do. Of the two, the intellectual is a more undesirable immigrant than the coolie; the latter may undermine us with his shovel, but the intellectual would knock us on the head.

The quotation from the religious journal suggests that the resolution by the Federation of Labor is inspired by selfishness.

Be it so, it is most commendable selfishness. It is the selfishness of selfprotection and the preservation of American ideals of home-life.

It is no unkindness nor inhumanity to tell the Chinaman to stay at home. He is needed there to improve his corrupt government, to educate his ignorant hordes, to widen the streets and drain his filthy cities reeking with disease, to treat women like human beings, to banish his Joss-houses and level his temples filled with tawdry gods, to plough up his