p. 5 | Impending Revolution by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 13, 1905

Impending Revolution

By L. A. S.

THE following facts and conditions indicative of an early social revolution, are specified by Professor John Bascom, LL. D., in a recent contribution to The Independent. Professor Bascom is the author of many standard works on political economy and sociology, and is now lecturer on sociology at Williams College. His views, says the editor of The Independent, “are of extreme significance, coming from a man of his age and academic environment.” Professor Bascom notes:—

1. The “multimillionaire can not be the member of a free State, on equal terms with his fellow citizens. This would be true under any circumstances,” he observes, “but is still more true when this wealth has been acquired in abuse and in defiance of economic and civil law,” and “this additional fact shows that the tyrannical temper is present, which, opportunity favoring, will disregard all rights in behalf of personal power.” And he utters the prediction that “the next generation is threatened with a still greater perversion of the conditions which belong to a free and democratic community.”

2. “Equality of opportunity in business relations has suffered a sudden overthrow,” because the great “captain of industry” who “can bring hundreds of millions to an undertaking, and by a little combination can carry the capital invested into the billions, has a power which in comparison with that of men of ordinary means gives him complete control of large undertakings.” He can so control all conditions bearing upon the success of an enterprise as to shut out all natural liability to loss, so that the gain must come to it under almost any circumstances. “The profits of a monopoly accrue to it at every stage.” This overthrow of business equality between the multimillionaire and the man of ordinary means is one which “the future will easily complete.”

3. Not only business equilibrium, but political equilibrium, has been destroyed by this accumulation of wealth. “Political influence is won by a contribution to the expenses which attend on gaining political power. The ruling party is so pledged to the support of a given financial policy that its chief virtue comes to be standing fast in existing relations. Even the defeated party is almost equally involved in the same interested motives.”

4. The educational system is beginning to bend to the influence of wealth. “Education is now becoming an opening to an occupation. It thus drops into subordination to production, with an abatement of its own superior character.” “In connection with the tendency to turn education into training there comes a growing demand for large endowments, and the college becomes a petitioner at the feet of wealth. Independence is sacrificed, commercial standards displace ethical ones, and civic principles adapt themselves as best they can to the new allegiance.”

5. The impress of this growing evil is seen also upon the Christian Church. “It has been no strange spectacle with us to find one ordering his economic activity in a method utterly subversive of the kingdom of heaven, and yet cherishing some detached notion of finding his way into that kingdom. He has provided himself with a night-key so that, an opportune moment arising, he may leave his business companions in the street, and drop into this quiet home of the faithful.”

All these facts and conditions can not but be, says Mr. Bascom, “an immediate and urgent cause of social changes;” and he believes it to be “quite within the range of possibilities that the Standard Oil magnates and their collaborators shall give date to a period in which the self-assertion of a few arose once more in the face of human attainments and the hopes of the many.”

Professor Bascom sees no hope of deliverance from this evil state in either of the dominant political parties. The one “is fast becoming the bondman of plutocracy;” the other “has broken midway, one extremity plutocratic, the other democratic.” But “the unrest of workmen,” “scattered revolt in many States,” and “the number, radical character, and large vote of secondary parties at the last presidential election,” are evidence that the elements of a new political force are in existence, only waiting the welding process to be ready to make a new and eventful chapter in American history and in the history of the world. “Our forecast is,” says Mr. Bascom in conclusion, “that one of those sudden changes which are sure to arise in times of wide pressure, will combine these forces of resistance, and with them sweep the field for another deal in human rights, and one more approach toward the kingdom of heaven.”

Referring to this forecast The Independent raises the query as to when and how this sweeping of the field is likely to be realized. “Is it to come ‘not with observation,’ as a quiet process of social evolution?” it inquires, “or is it to come with the devastating storm of a French Revolution?” “That in one way or the other it will come,” says the editor, “We entertain no shadow of doubt.”

The Independent sees in this present situation two conditions which are “especially disquieting” and “distinctly unfavorable” to a quiet evolution toward equality. “One of these is the disorganized, the almost chaotic, state of the social forces opposed to the superbly organized plutocracy. The other is the half-good natured, half cowardly attitude of the intellectual and spiritual forces inherent in the American people; the overpatient tolerance of tyrannical encroachments upon liberty, the unwillingness (to which we have heretofore called attention) to speak out on great issues of right and wrong.” There is also “a sycophant priesthood,” which in all ages “has been the most effective police power of the oppressor, the apologist for his crimes, and the soother of his conscience.” The Independent sees a hopeful sign in the fact that “a group of influential men have been brave enough to speak their minds and record their protest” against the acceptance by the American Board of Foreign Missions of a gift of money from the head of the Standard Oil trust.

In the view of The Independent the question whether the coming revolution shall be peaceful or otherwise “turns

absolutely upon the vigor and fearlessness of discussion.” If the people have become intellectual and moral cowards, then “the day when the sword of steel must be unsheathed is not far distant.”

From any point of view it is now evident that a great change is at hand. But only from the standpoint of the third angel’s message can the nature of the coming change be correctly apprehended.

L. A. S.