CHAP. XXVII The Sole Reason We Do Not Servants In the middle and southern American colonies, besides the negro slaves there were great numbers of white bond servants in a state of temporary involuntary servitude. Aside from some four thousand who were prisoners taken in civil war, they were felon convicts, which, however, does not always imply greatturpitude in a time when every excuse was snatched at to stock the tobacco plantations with labor from the submerged classes of English towns. Their social status is thus described: None could marry without consent of the master or mistress, under penalty of an addition of one year's service to the time set Have Bond forth in the indenture. They were worked hard, were dressed in the cast-off clothes of their owners, and might be flogged as often as the master or mistress thought necessary. If they ran away, at least two days might be added to their time of service for each day ognizes No they were absent. Father, mother, and children could be sold to and Redemptioners'' Is That Our Law Rec Such different buyers. Such remnants of cargoes as could not find purchasers within the time specified were bought in lots of fifty or more by a class of speculators known as soul-drivers" who drove them through the country like so many cattle and sold them for what they would bring. Besides there there were great numbers of "redemptioners," or immigrants too poor to pay their passage, who, on their arrival in America, sold themselves to him who for the shortest term of service- usually five years would reimburse the captain of the ship for the cost of their passage. Who can doubt that tens of thousands would even now make their way to America on such terms if such contracts were enforceable under American law? Often wealth confers advantages which bring yet more wealth. Thus the founders of the Danish aristocracy were simply peasants who fortified their houses during deadly village struggles and then used their advantage. For this reason the laws of the Frisians forbade any one to rear himself a house of stone; only the church might be stone-built. In old English times a hardy refugee from another community-lawbreaker or fugitive from oppression offered himself as fighter to that man in the community who appeared to be ablest to keep and protect him. Such McMaster, "The Acquisition of the Social and Political Rights of Man in America," pp. 34-35. CHAP. XXVII When the to Protect, "Com State Fails the Weak mend Them to the "house carls," having no ties to the rest of the community, became fit instruments for imposing their master's will on his fellows. Thus the man who had a little the start of his neighbors became able to browbeat them, override community rights, appropriate community land, and make himself lord of the district. The advantage from greater wealth grows in the degree that the state fails to furnish equal protection and justice. In the imperial domains of the later Roman empire the members of the senatorial aristocracy, becoming too independent owing to the immunities rashly granted them by the state, got out of hand and selves encroached upon the small neighboring landowners. Since in Strong criminal matters the nobles were responsible to no one save the emperor or his immediate representative, the pretorian prefect, and since the lawsuits were decided by judges drawn from this class, the man whose land had been seized by a noble had no certain redress. Hence, the commoners fell into the practice of seeking from the strong that protection which the law should have afforded them. Each commended" himself to some lord, and the patron relation spread through society. The petty landowners became tenants-at-will upon their ancestral acres, and over them the nobles wielded sovereign powers usurped from the state. Before the advent of genuine governmental regulation our great railroad companies, by giving or withholding special rates, rebates, and facilities, destroyed or built up industries, rewarded or punished cities and states, made or ruined business men, and nursed monopolies like the oil trust and the anthracite coal trust. The failure of the state to exact equal treatment for shippers led to the shipper (as it were) "commending" himself to the railroad company. In the same way nothing but the long struggle of the trade unions has spared the laborers in some industries, e.g., the coal-mining industry of Colorado, from the necessity of virtually renouncing all appeal to the laws supposed to protect them and "commending" themselves to the conscience and humanity of their employers. STATIC TIMES COMPARED WITH DYNAMIC TIMES It is in changeful times or in changeful fields that new peaks or even plateaus are upheaved in society. While conditions continue static, the struggle for wealth, power, or prestige alters Feudalism in America before the Railroad Regulation Era of СНАР. only slowly the social landscape. From one generation to the next its features remain much the same. Generally the high can stay up, while the low must stay down. Wealth, income, phasize the social power, sometimes even place and office, pass from father Static Family Line Dynamic phasize the Individual to son, even if brains do not. Individual differences in ability and character bring about some interchanges between the social strata, but not many. The family line establishes itself whenever it can and, in the absence of new fields of opportunity, the lot of a man depends much on his inheriting or failing to inherit such advantages as wealth, place, connections, or education. On the other hand, rapid growth, headlong economic progress, Times Em- the cropping up of chances in unexpected places, permit the sudden rise of new men. The discovery of the New World no doubt caused in the end more displacement of social power than any happening in history. But on a smaller scale we see the same thing at our elbow. The "boom" of a big city means great profits to some from rising land values. A new region. is a fascinating gamble, since the discovery of rare minerals or an outlet for ore, coal, or lumber, owing to the advent of a new railroad or the clearance of a waterway, is sure to lift some prospectors or settlers into Millionaires' Row. The eager exploitation of the natural wealth of Colorado and California made great changes in American social registers. Social Strata Are and Broken thrust of New Fortunes and New Prestiges But new fields, like the electrical and the automobile industries, offer opportunities as rich as do cornucopia provinces like British Columbia or Sao Paulo. Inventions, such as the teleby the Up- phone, the bicycle, the trolley car, and the motion film, hatch a brood of new fortunes. The introduction into a region of some new cropsugar beets, hops, or citrus fruits throws chances in the way of the foresighted and enterprising, while some bright men mount into the empyrean on the wings of a clever idea, such as founding a "ten-cent" magazine, teaching by correspondence, popularizing health foods, or pushing a method of curing stammering or pursuing physical culture at home. War, like a continental upheaval, may alter most of the wealth courses, ruining old families while new Croesuses are made through munitions, shipping, army contracts, and the floating of war loans. When army promotion goes by seniority, how slow is the rise of the talented subaltern; whereas war gives a "leg up" to a Clive, a Bonaparte, a Skobeloff, a Kitchener, or a Pershing! During a dull era in politics re-election is the rule, office shows a fondness for certain families and regular political dynasties appear; but an upheaval by disillusioned farmers or workingmen is likely to bring into public life demagogues and constructive reformers who otherwise would never have been heard of. Scientific eminence cannot of course be entailed like a fortune. There are times, however, in which the prestige of the discoverer is, at least, a life estate, whereas in epochs of great intellectual fermentation laurels are constantly redistributed. In our time, thanks to the discovery of radioactivity, the germ origin of disease, immunity, the mutation of species, the Mendelian law of inheritance, mental suggestibility and psycho-analysis, a host of eager investigators are sharing in a glory which ordinarily would be monopolized by the retired explorers of older fields. Let it not be forgotten, however, that the channels of social power may not shift as much as do its sources. The top people are sometimes nimble in adjusting themselves. Wealthy old families may "get in on the ground floor" of a new economic development, gather cream from a virgin mineral region or a field like the electrical industry, instead of keeping to father's line of investment. Our great capitalists have gained control of much of Alaska's resources, while the gold of the Transvaal has repaired the fortune of many a British noble. Likewise a public man of an old political family may be nimble enough to get on the winning side of a popular agitation, while the scientific investigator may keep his laurels green by leaving his earlier vein of research and going over into a new and more promising field. LEGITIMATION CHAP. Old Wealth Up by Par ticipating in New Opportunities Fortunes Have Their Origin in the Rendering of an Equiv alent Service to It is striking how frequently the fortunes which support social Few Great superiority originate in force, fraud, or corruption. One recalls the estates carved out of the church lands by Henry VIII after the dissolution of the monasteries; the profits from mingled crime and trade piled up by means of the Dutch East India Company; the oriental loot brought back to England by the "nabobs "; the lucrative Indian monopolies of tea, salt, opium, and spice; the wealth heaped up in the African slave trade; the infamous fortunes of the tax farmers under the old régime in France. Coming nearer home, there are the American fortunes founded on cheating in the army supplies during the Civil War, on railroad Society CHAP. XXVII How Illgotten Fortunes Are Deodorized wrecking, on customs frauds, on the stealing of public lands, on proprietary medicines and food adulteration, on public franchises won by bribery, on tariff favors corruptly obtained, on prison-labor contracts, on vice catering, on tax dodging, and on .numerous other iniquities. I refer not to methods of wealthgetting which a later generation has learned to condemn, but to acquisitive practices which outraged the contemporary standards of right and were pursued to a triumphant conclusion only because bribery and corruption turned the edge of every instrument the people sought to use against such practices, or because a secret control over sources of opinion deceived or confused the public as to what really was going on. In order that these dungheap fortunes may be sublimated into social luster they undergo a process of legitimation, whereby illgotten wealth is made to look precisely like well-gotten wealth. The gatherer of tainted money may have to endure lifelong odium, but his descendants, when they get ready to retire from acquisition and devote themselves to enjoyment, may exchange it for sweet-smelling forms of property which will yield less dividend but more prestige. Then, too, as the crimes, frauds, and treacheries which lie at the base of family pride and pretension recede a little into the past, they are quickly hidden under a veil of oblivion. Many motives, some of them far from bad, are at work to bring this about. The present holders of ill-gotten fortunes not only have every interest in suppressing the truth, but they may be quite innocent of misleading the public as to the real character of the founder of the house. Then the rising generation is regularly fed with fairy stories which cloak the grim realities of the socal mêlée. Its school-teachers, moreover, are nearly as ignorant and credulous as their pupils respecting the origins of private accumulations. To spare national pride, the shameful episodes and scandals, particularly those which reflect on conspicuous and influential families, have been expurgated from school history. Some of the most social-minded persons, namely those interested in institutions of social welfare, higher education, and scientific research, cherishing the hope of recovering portions of ill-gotten wealth for public uses, refrain from alluding to historical facts which might alienate possible donors. Through advertising, the use of credit, etc., the newspapers are |