Comrades Part 14

"Only in so far as she has made me think and feel."

"You have not made love to her?"

"Certainly not. I'm engaged to Elena."

"Then it ought to be easy for us to understand each other. Come down out of the clouds of theory now, and tell me exactly how you are going to save humanity, and let's see if we can't work together for the same end. A great purpose like yours ought not to separate father and son--you can't defend such plat.i.tudes as this, for example, which one of your orators got off last night--listen!"

The Colonel took the morning paper from the table and read:

"Remember in this supreme hour that capitalism has you and your loved ones by the throats, is stealing your substance, draining your veins, and reducing you inch by inch to the potter's field. Every sweating den cries out to you as from the depths of h.e.l.l to gird up your loins and march forth in one solid phalanx to strike the blow that shall sound the knell of capitalistic despotism, and set the star of hope in the skies of the despairing and dying thousands of your cla.s.s who are at the mercy of the vampires of soulless wealth. How long shall capitalism be allowed to work its devastation, spread its blighting curse, destroy manhood, debauch womanhood, and grind the flesh and blood and bone of childhood into food for Mammon?"

The Colonel paused.

"Such appeals to pa.s.sion can only end in riot, bloodshed, and prison bars. You don't write such rot as that yourself, and yet the men you are following preach it."

"I'm not following just now, Governor--I'm trying to direct this tremendous impulse, this enthusiasm for humanity, called Socialism, into a practical experiment that will demonstrate the truths of their faith, and from this white city of a glorified human life send out our missionaries to conquer the world. Give me ten thousand earnest men and women on the island of Ventura, isolated from contact with the corruption of the outside, and I'll show you a miracle more wonderful than if they had risen from the dead."

"And what are the foundations on which you propose to build this heaven on earth?"

"Squarely on these principles: From every man according to his ability; to every man according to his needs; and to every child born the right to laugh and play and grow to a strong manhood and womanhood. We are not civilized so long as there is one child sobbing to be freed from the tomb of the modern workshop, so long as there is one man willing to work and not able to find it, so long as there is one soul striving upward who is crushed to earth, so long as one man lives in idleness and luxury while his neighbour starves, so long as there's one spot of this earth on which a man lives by tearing the bread from the lips of another."

"Hasn't your imagination been caught by beautiful phrases, my boy?"

asked the father. "In your new State of Ventura you will give to each man according to his needs?"

"Yes."

"And who will decide how much each one needs--the man who feels the need or the state?"

"The state, in the last resort."

"Exactly. And who will determine how large the service required of each man? Who will decide the question of ability?"

"The state, of course."

"Are you not cutting out a pretty big job for the state, remembering that the state is nothing more or less than a lot of ordinary second-rate politicians named Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry, who individually or collectively haven't as much sense as you or I?"

"In the new world it will be different."

"Then you are going to import a new breed of men and women?"

"No, we will simply give the G.o.d in man a chance to be."

"But how about the beast that's in man--the elemental instinct to fight and kill--to take the woman he desires by the force of his hands and muscle?"

"When man is free and strong and happy he can have no motive to kill or play the beast."

"That remains to be seen, my boy! Your a.s.sertion does not change the nature of man. Another problem in your scheme I can't solve is wages."

"We will abolish wage slavery."

"Yes, yes, I know; but man must work--all men must work in your new state?"

"Certainly."

"And the man who refuses to work?"

"Will be made to work according to his ability."

"Just so. We live under the wage system now--the system of free contract by which labourer and employer agree. Under your system contract would be abolished, and men would do what they are _told_ to do--a system of _command_ instead of _contract_--is it not so?"

"I should say just the opposite. Men are forced to work now at tasks they loathe and for pay that is insufficient. Under our state they would be free to choose the work for which they are fitted."

"And suppose they all choose one job?"

"The state would a.s.sign their work in the last resort."

"There you are, once more, bowing down to the same Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry. And you cannot see that Socialism would impose on man the most colossal system of slavery, the most merciless because the most impersonal, the world ever saw?"

"No, I cannot. Give me a chance on one spot of earth free from the corruption of your present system, and I'll show you that man is a child of G.o.d, that deep in every human soul is planted the sense of brotherhood, justice, and human fellows.h.i.+p."

"And you will abolish private property?"

"Except what each man earns or makes for himself."

The Colonel laughed aloud.

"Can he earn a wife, or make one for himself?"

"No; nor own one as a slave."

"You can never abolish private property, my boy, so long as any man has the right to say, 'This woman is mine.' The home is the basis of modern civilization. If you destroy it the home will not survive. If the home survives it will kill Socialism. The two things can't mix."

Norman laughed.

"And you think capitalism is building ideal homes with its drudgery that kills woman--its poverty that starves the man and drives the girl to a life of shame?"

"Our conditions are not ideal, my son. But they are growing better with each generation. Because all homes are not ideal, you propose to abolish the inst.i.tution. There are ten million homes in America.

Perhaps a million of them are unhappy. Can we mend matters by destroying them all?"

"Socialism proposes to build the highest ideal of home ever seen on earth, founded on love--and only love."

The Colonel smiled sadly.

"I see I'm too late. You've got it bad. Socialism is a contagious disease, imported from the old world--a brain disease, the result of centuries of wrong and oppression. Its reasons for existence in this country are purely imaginary. If it were possible for you to build the new State of Ventura of which you dream----"

"Dream! We are going to do it, I tell you, Governor! We have a hundred thousand dollars already pledged. We hold to-morrow night a great ma.s.s-meeting at which five thousand Socialists will be present. Four hundred thousand dollars more will buy the island and give a capital of three hundred thousand with which to begin."

"Then I can't persuade you to give up this madness?" the Colonel asked, tenderly.