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The next day the doctor and I took the first opportunity to tell Thorwald that we were anxious to have him proceed with his narrative.
"Yes," he said, "I shall be glad to do so, for I had not reached the important part when our sitting broke up yesterday.
"I was describing to you a remarkable era in our career, and one of you mentioned the fact that the present condition of your race corresponded in some particulars with that age on Mars. If you shall discover further points of likeness as I continue, it will add a peculiar interest to my story.
"There is a difference of opinion among our historians in regard to those times. Some believe that the whole world was corrupt, that it was an age of material development only, and that, if there were any good impulses at all, they were so smothered with selfishness as to be of no account. But these writers lived long ago, and were themselves more or less under the shadow of that epoch. I strongly hold to the views of the great majority of our scholars, who tell us that, while there was too much evil of all kinds, there was also much good, and many believers in a final happy issue out of all the troubles of the time.
"In a society so entirely given up to the pursuit of wealth and worldly advantage of every sort, those who were trying to hold up the standard of righteousness and to alleviate the lot of their fellow beings should be remembered with gratitude. Among the multitude of inventions were many that were calculated to relieve the laborer of his severest tasks, to mitigate suffering, to ward off disease, and to lighten the load of mankind in various ways. Large sums of money were given for hospitals, charitable institutions, and colleges, and for other kinds of philanthropic work, while private benevolences were not uncommon. There was prosperity, too, of a certain kind, and some people were happy, or thought themselves so. In the records of that as of every period of our history, it is possible to find rays of light if we search for them, and I tell you these things in order that you may get a fair understanding of the situation, for in what follows you will see something of the other side.
"I think I shall not err if I say that the gigantic evil of the times, that from which others sprang, was the inordinate love of money. Even political power, by which the opportunity was obtained of doing public service, was too often sought merely for the better chance one had of making money, as the saying was. In the revolt against aristocratic government, the tendency in our race of going from one extreme to the other was again shown, and universal suffrage was adopted. This would have been wise if intelligence and honesty had also been universal. But the result proved it to be an exceedingly bad policy, for it created a large class of voters who held the high privilege of citizenship so meanly, and were themselves so venal, that they would even sell their votes to the highest bidder. This, supplemented by the immorality of some of the intelligent citizens, made politics corrupt and the name of politician too often a by-word.
"In doing business, by which was meant buying and selling and manufacturing, also financial dealings and commerce, the passion for money-getting was particularly prominent. An astonishingly small percentage of those that went into business, as they said, made a success, if we except the large manufacturers, but in spite of that it was a popular way of earning a livelihood. One thing that made it popular was the fact that there was always more or less speculation in it. The haste to get rich made men too careless of the rights of others."
"Do you mean that all business was conducted dishonestly?" I asked.
"No," answered Thorwald, "not as men looked at it then. There was a great deal of downright knavery in business, but there was another class who satisfied their consciences by being as honest as they could. The thoughtful ones knew the system was wrong but felt themselves utterly unable to replace it by a better one, and feeling no responsibility for it, they were satisfied to smother their sensibilities and drift along. They had their living to make, and, though they were not making it in an ideal way, they did not know that any other kind of work would be more satisfactory to their uneasy consciences."
"Excuse me, Thorwald," I said; "I am dull. What was there wrong in their manner of doing business?"
"Can you see nothing wrong," he answered, "in a system where one man's fortune was built on the ruins of another's, or perhaps a score of others, or where a business was started and increased solely by drawing from another one already established?"
"Why," said I, "that is competition, which they no doubt thought better than monopoly. I can imagine that they argued that a man's first duty was to himself and his family, that one had a right to go into any legitimate business, and that others must take care of themselves. The evil, if there was any, they probably felt was incident to the nature of business and could not be helped. I would like to ask how society could exist with any other business rules."
As I closed it struck me that I had spoken pretty fast and without much discretion, and the impression was not removed as Thorwald answered with dignity:
"I am telling you the state of things on this planet thousands of years ago, and it is a sufficient answer to your question to say that society at the present day is not governed on any such principles; still, we seem to exist. It was a favorite saying in those days that 'a man must live,' and one that was used as an argument or excuse for questionable practices. The premise was wrong; it was not necessary to live: death would have been far better for the world and for the individual than a dishonorable life. So with society at large; better a change in the social structure, caused by an awakened conscience, than a state of peace founded on wrong principles. Our history proves that no particular plan of society is necessary to the world and that no order based on selfishness or injustice can long endure. But do not imagine such changes were easy or swift in accomplishment. They came, not by violence nor by the device of crafty men, but only through the universal betterment of the race, whereby a state of things that had been considered good enough, and then endured as the best attainable, became at last positively wrong and was slowly pushed aside by a growing sense of right.
"To return to your first question, as to what there was wrong in their way of doing business, I want to say with emphasis that the essence of the wrong was in an undue regard for self and an almost total disregard for the interests of others. There were exceptions to the rule, notably in the direction of charity and philanthropy and in religious work, but I am speaking of the mass of the business community. It was every man singly against all the rest of the world. No man was his brother's keeper. If one did not look out for himself, that was the end of it; there was no one else to do it."
"But the system itself made men selfish," I ventured to say.
"To be sure it did," he replied. "But why did they not then abolish the system before it had brought upon them its long train of evils? It had to go at last."
"But," I asked again, "was not competition a good thing for the large number of people not directly engaged in business? Did it not keep down the prices on all kinds of commodities?"
"Certainly not in the main. It increased prices, because it increased the cost of everything. But let us suppose a case where it had the effect you suggest. Could a man with a heart wear a coat, for example, with any pleasure, if he knew that rivalry between the manufacturers had forced the people who made the garment to accept starvation wages? And this was done, not from humanitarian motives, to furnish the poor with cheap clothing, but for the purpose of getting more business and so of making more money."
I could hardly resist the temptation at this point of asking Thorwald if he had not been reading up on the current history of the earth, but I knew well enough that was not possible, for we had brought no books with us. And then I did not care to tell Thorwald just yet how near he was coming to our experience. But I could not endure having the props knocked from under our social structure without another effort to save it. So I said:
"But were not the great majority of business men honest, and were not these instances that you have cited extreme cases?"
"They were the natural results of a bad system. A great many men were as honest as their environment would permit, and they tried to convince themselves that they were not responsible for the environment."
"Were they?" I asked eagerly.
"When they at last discovered that they were, then began a radical change. I am not exaggerating the evils of the times. I am merely setting them forth to show you how our race has improved with its maturity. If my purpose required it, I could detail many good things in the life of that people. One bright point in their character, to which I just now referred, I will illustrate. My boy, who is also my student in drawing, will never be able to make a straight line until he can see that the line he has already made is not straight. His improvement depends upon more than a steady hand. So with this people. Deep down in their being, planted by a divine hand, were the instinct of truth and the principle of growth, and when, in the natural course of their development, they came to realize how unworthy they were of their better nature, they set about the work of improvement.
"But they came to that knowledge through many sad experiences. I have not begun to tell you the number and extent of the evils they endured.
"The desire for money affected all classes. The general prosperity had bettered the condition of the wage-earners, creating many artificial wants which could not be satisfied without good pay. Hence arose a natural and constant effort to obtain higher wages, while competition among the employers operated just as constantly to keep them down, and the result was a sharp and increasing antagonism between capital and labor. The general public shared in the blame for this state of things by reason of the almost universal demand for cheap goods.
"While the introduction of machinery was a real advance, whose benefits we are reaping to this day, other conditions had not become adjusted to it at the time of which we are speaking, so that there was often a surplus of workmen, especially in the lower grades of labor. This had a tendency to reduce wages, of course; and the want of employment, improvidence in the use of small wages, intemperance and other immoralities, ignorance and misfortune, all combined to keep part of the people in poverty. On the other hand, it was a time of great wealth and luxurious living, and these two classes, so far apart in their manner of life but often so near each other in all their selfish aims, seemed to have a strong mutual attraction, for they were always found together, crowding upon each other in every large city.
"One of the most difficult things for us of the present day to imagine is, how persons of refinement and sensibility, living in comfort and without a care, could take any pleasure in life when they knew that within a stone's throw of their doors were human beings who, very often through no fault of their own, were so destitute that a crust would relieve their want, or so friendless that a kind word would make them shed tears of joy. Oh! I cannot comprehend it, and yet the record tells us there were cases of just that nature, where such people, without lifting a finger to alleviate the distress, actually laughed and were happy. Happy! What could they know of happiness? The word must have changed its meaning wonderfully, if we think of what it signifies to-day."