Chapter XXXVIII

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

　　"Come on, let's go down to the local."So spoke Brissenden, faint from a hemorrhage of half an hour before- the second hemorrhage in three days. The perennial whiskey glasswas in his hands, and he drained it with shaking fingers."What do I want with socialism?" Martin demanded."Outsiders are allowed five-minute speeches," the sick man urged."Get up and spout. Tell them why you don't want socialism. Tellthem what you think about them and their ghetto ethics. SlamNietzsche into them and get walloped for your pains. Make a scrapof it. It will do them good. Discussion is what they want, andwhat you want, too. You see, I'd like to see you a socialistbefore I'm gone. It will give you a sanction for your existence.It is the one thing that will save you in the time ofdisappointment that is coming to you.""I never can puzzle out why you, of all men, are a socialist,"Martin pondered. "You detest the crowd so. Surely there isnothing in the canaille to recommend it to your aesthetic soul."He pointed an accusing finger at the whiskey glass which the otherwas refilling. "Socialism doesn't seem to save you.""I'm very sick," was the answer. "With you it is different. Youhave health and much to live for, and you must be handcuffed tolife somehow. As for me, you wonder why I am a socialist. I'lltell you. It is because Socialism is inevitable; because thepresent rotten and irrational system cannot endure; because the dayis past for your man on horseback. The slaves won't stand for it.They are too many, and willy-nilly they'll drag down the would-beequestrian before ever he gets astride. You can't get away fromthem, and you'll have to swallow the whole slave-morality. It'snot a nice mess, I'll allow. But it's been a-brewing and swallowit you must. You are antediluvian anyway, with your Nietzscheideas. The past is past, and the man who says history repeatsitself is a liar. Of course I don't like the crowd, but what's apoor chap to do? We can't have the man on horseback, and anythingis preferable to the timid swine that now rule. But come on,anyway. I'm loaded to the guards now, and if I sit here anylonger, I'll get drunk. And you know the doctor says - damn thedoctor! I'll fool him yet."It was Sunday night, and they found the small hall packed by theOakland socialists, chiefly members of the working class. Thespeaker, a clever Jew, won Martin's admiration at the same timethat he aroused his antagonism. The man's stooped and narrowshoulders and weazened chest proclaimed him the true child of thecrowded ghetto, and strong on Martin was the age-long struggle ofthe feeble, wretched slaves against the lordly handful of men whohad ruled over them and would rule over them to the end of time.To Martin this withered wisp of a creature was a symbol. He wasthe figure that stood forth representative of the whole miserablemass of weaklings and inefficients who perished according tobiological law on the ragged confines of life. They were theunfit. In spite of their cunning philosophy and of their antlikeproclivities for cooperation, Nature rejected them for theexceptional man. Out of the plentiful spawn of life she flung fromher prolific hand she selected only the best. It was by the samemethod that men, aping her, bred race-horses and cucumbers.Doubtless, a creator of a Cosmos could have devised a bettermethod; but creatures of this particular Cosmos must put up withthis particular method. Of course, they could squirm as theyperished, as the socialists squirmed, as the speaker on theplatform and the perspiring crowd were squirming even now as theycounselled together for some new device with which to minimize thepenalties of living and outwit the Cosmos.So Martin thought, and so he spoke when Brissenden urged him togive them hell. He obeyed the mandate, walking up to the platform,as was the custom, and addressing the chairman. He began in a lowvoice, haltingly, forming into order the ideas which had surged inhis brain while the Jew was speaking. In such meetings fiveminutes was the time allotted to each speaker; but when Martin'sfive minutes were up, he was in full stride, his attack upon theirdoctrines but half completed. He had caught their interest, andthe audience urged the chairman by acclamation to extend Martin'stime. They appreciated him as a foeman worthy of their intellect,and they listened intently, following every word. He spoke withfire and conviction, mincing no words in his attack upon the slavesand their morality and tactics and frankly alluding to his hearersas the slaves in question. He quoted Spencer and Malthus, andenunciated the biological law of development."And so," he concluded, in a swift resume, "no state composed ofthe slave-types can endure. The old law of development stillholds. In the struggle for existence, as I have shown, the strongand the progeny of the strong tend to survive, while the weak andthe progeny of the weak are crushed and tend to perish. The resultis that the strong and the progeny of the strong survive, and, solong as the struggle obtains, the strength of each generationincreases. That is development. But you slaves - it is too bad tobe slaves, I grant - but you slaves dream of a society where thelaw of development will be annulled, where no weaklings andinefficients will perish, where every inefficient will have as muchas he wants to eat as many times a day as he desires, and where allwill marry and have progeny - the weak as well as the strong. Whatwill be the result? No longer will the strength and life-value ofeach generation increase. On the contrary, it will diminish.There is the Nemesis of your slave philosophy. Your society ofslaves - of, by, and for, slaves - must inevitably weaken and go topieces as the life which composes it weakens and goes to pieces."Remember, I am enunciating biology and not sentimental ethics. Nostate of slaves can stand - ""How about the United States?" a man yelled from the audience."And how about it?" Martin retorted. "The thirteen colonies threwoff their rulers and formed the Republic so-called. The slaveswere their own masters. There were no more masters of the sword.But you couldn't get along without masters of some sort, and therearose a new set of masters - not the great, virile, noble men, butthe shrewd and spidery traders and money-lenders. And theyenslaved you over again - but not frankly, as the true, noble menwould do with weight of their own right arms, but secretly, byspidery machinations and by wheedling and cajolery and lies. Theyhave purchased your slave judges, they have debauched your slavelegislatures, and they have forced to worse horrors than chattelslavery your slave boys and girls. Two million of your childrenare toiling to-day in this trader-oligarchy of the United States.Ten millions of you slaves are not properly sheltered nor properlyfed.""But to return. I have shown that no society of slaves can endure,because, in its very nature, such society must annul the law ofdevelopment. No sooner can a slave society be organized thandeterioration sets in. It is easy for you to talk of annulling thelaw of development, but where is the new law of development thatwill maintain your strength? Formulate it. Is it alreadyformulated? Then state it."Martin took his seat amidst an uproar of voices. A score of menwere on their feet clamoring for recognition from the chair. Andone by one, encouraged by vociferous applause, speaking with fireand enthusiasm and excited gestures, they replied to the attack.It was a wild night - but it was wild intellectually, a battle ofideas. Some strayed from the point, but most of the speakersreplied directly to Martin. They shook him with lines of thoughtthat were new to him; and gave him insights, not into newbiological laws, but into new applications of the old laws. Theywere too earnest to be always polite, and more than once thechairman rapped and pounded for order.It chanced that a cub reporter sat in the audience, detailed thereon a day dull of news and impressed by the urgent need ofjournalism for sensation. He was not a bright cub reporter. Hewas merely facile and glib. He was too dense to follow thediscussion. In fact, he had a comfortable feeling that he wasvastly superior to these wordy maniacs of the working class. Also,he had a great respect for those who sat in the high places anddictated the policies of nations and newspapers. Further, he hadan ideal, namely, of achieving that excellence of the perfectreporter who is able to make something - even a great deal - out ofnothing.He did not know what all the talk was about. It was not necessary.Words like revolution gave him his cue. Like a paleontologist,able to reconstruct an entire skeleton from one fossil bone, he wasable to reconstruct a whole speech from the one word revolution.He did it that night, and he did it well; and since Martin had madethe biggest stir, he put it all into his mouth and made him thearch-anarch of the show, transforming his reactionary individualisminto the most lurid, red-shirt socialist utterance. The cubreporter was an artist, and it was a large brush with which he laidon the local color - wild-eyed long-haired men, neurasthenia anddegenerate types of men, voices shaken with passion, clenched fistsraised on high, and all projected against a background of oaths,yells, and the throaty rumbling of angry men.