Socialism: A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles. John Spargo

so to speak, of an important discovery. His concept of social evolution meant little to him and possessed only an academic interest. And Owen, in many respects the greatest of the three, realized in a practical manner that the industrial problem was a class conflict. Not only had he found in 1815 that pity was powerless to move the hearts of his fellow-manufacturers when their class interests were concerned, but later, in 1818, when he went to present his famous memorial to the Congress of Sovereigns at Aix-la-Chapelle, he had another lesson of the same kind. At Frankfort, Germany, he tarried on his way to the Congress, and was invited to attend a notable dinner to meet the Secretary of the Congress, M. Gentz, a famous diplomat of the day, "who enjoyed the full confidence of the leading despots of Europe." After Owen had outlined his schemes for social amelioration, M. Gentz was asked for his reply, and Owen tells us that the diplomat answered, "We know very well that what you say is true, but how could we govern the masses, if they were wealthy, and so, independent of us?"[37] Lord Lauderdale, too, had exclaimed on another occasion, "Nothing [i.e. than Owen's plans] could be more complete for the poor and working classes, but what will become of us?"[38] Scattered throughout Owen's writings and speeches are numerous evidences that he at times recognized the class antagonisms in industrial society as the heart of the industrial problem,[39] but to him, also, the germ of an important truth meant practically nothing. He saw only the facts in their isolation, and made no attempt to discover their meaning or to relate them to his teaching.

      

      Each of the three men regarded himself as the discoverer of the truth which would redeem the world; each devoted himself with magnificent faith and heroic courage to his task; each failed to realize his hopes; and each left behind him faithful disciples and followers, confident that the day must come at last when the suffering and disinherited of earth will be able to say, in Owen's dying words, "Relief has come." Perhaps no better estimate of the value of the visions of these great Utopists has ever been penned than that by Emerson in the following tribute to Owen:[40]—

      "Robert Owen of New Lanark came hither from England in 1845 to read lectures or hold conversations wherever he could find listeners—the most amiable, sanguine, and candid of men. He had not the least doubt that he had hit on the plan of right and perfect Socialism, or that mankind would adopt it. He was then seventy years old, and being asked, 'Well, Mr. Owen, who is your disciple? how many men are there possessed of your views who will remain after you are gone to put them in practice?' 'Not one,' was the reply. Robert Owen knew Fourier in his old age. He said that Fourier learned of him all the truth that he had. The rest of his system was imagination, and the imagination of a visionary. Owen made the best impression by his rare benevolence. His love of men made us forget his 'three errors.' His charitable construction of men and their actions was invariable. He was the better Christian in his controversies with Christians.

      "And truly I honor the generous ideas of the Socialists, the magnificence of their theories, and the enthusiasm with which they have been urged. They appeared inspired men of their time. Mr. Owen preached his doctrine of labor and reward with the fidelity and devotion of a saint in the slow ears of his generation.

      "One feels that these philosophers have skipped no fact but one, namely, life. They treat man as a plastic thing, or something that may be put up or down, ripened or retarded, molded, polished, made into solid or fluid or gas at the will of the leader; or perhaps as a vegetable, from which, though now a very poor crab, a very good peach can by manure and exposure be in time produced—and skip the faculty of life which spawns and spurns systems and system makers; which eludes all conditions; which makes or supplants a thousand Phalanxes and New Harmonies with each pulsation. …

      "Yet, in a day of small, sour and fierce schemes, one is admonished and cheered by a project of such friendly aims, and of such bold and generous proportions; there is an intellectual courage and strength in it which is superior and commanding; it certifies the presence of so much truth in the theory, and in so far is destined to be fact.

      "I regard these philanthropists as themselves the effects of the age in which they live, in common with so many other good facts the efflorescence of the period and predicting the good fruit that ripens. They were not the creators that they believed themselves to be; but they were unconscious prophets of the true state of society, one which the tendencies of nature lead unto, one which always establishes itself for the sane soul, though not in that manner in which they paint it."