The alternative to a developing Socialism among the
labouring masses in America is that revolutionary Anarchism from which
it is slowly but definitely marking itself off. In America we have to
remember that we are dealing with a huge population of people who are
for the most part, and more and more evidently destined under the
present system of free industrial competition, to be either very small
traders, small farmers on the verge of debt, or wages-earners for all
their lives. They are going to lead limited lives and worried lives--and
they know it. Nearly everyone can read and discuss now, the process of
concentrating property and the steady fixation of conditions that were
once fluid and adventurous goes on in the daylight visibly to everyone.
And it has to be borne in mind also that these people are so far under
the sway of the American tradition that each thinks himself as good as
any man and as much entitled to the fullness of life. Whatever social
tradition their fathers had, whatever ideas of a place to be filled
humbly and seriously and duties to be done, have been left behind in
Europe. No Church dominates the scenery of this new land, and offers in
authoritative and convincing tones consolations hereafter for lives
obscurely but faithfully lived.
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