according to the amount of money which they have invested.
Therefore, when machines had been improved until they were realy practicable and
profitable, the builders of those large tools, the machine manufacturers, began to look for
customers who could afford to pay for them in cash.
During the early middle ages, when land had been almost the only form of wealth, the
nobility were the only people who were considered wealthy. But as I have told you in a
previous chapter, the gold and silver which they possessed was quite insignificant and they
used the old system of barter, exchanging cows for horses and eggs for honey. During the
crusades, the burghers of the cities had been able to gather riches from the reviving trade
between the east and the west, and they had been serious rivals of the lords and the
knights.
The French revolution had entirely destroyed the wealth of the nobility and had
enormously increased that of the middle class or "bourgeoisie." The years of unrest which
folowed the Great Revolution had offered many middle-class people a chance to get
more than their share of this world's goods. The estates of the church had been
confiscated by the French Convention and had been sold at auction. There had been a
terrific amount of graft. Land speculators had stolen thousands of square miles of valuable
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land, and during the Napoleonic wars, they had used their capital to "profiteer" in grain
and gun-powder, and now they possessed more wealth than they needed for the actual
expenses of their households, and they could afford to build themselves factories and to
hire men and women to work the machines.
This caused a very abrupt change in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Within a
few years, many cities doubled the number of their inhabitants and the old civic centre
which had been the real "home" of the citizens was surrounded with ugly and cheaply built
suburbs where the workmen slept after their eleven or twelve hours, or thirteen hours,
spent in the factories and from where they returned to the factory as soon as the whistle
blew.
Far and wide through the countryside there was talk of the fabulous sums of money that
could be made in the towns. The peasant boy, accustomed to a life in the open, went to
the city. He rapidly lost his old health amidst the smoke and dust and dirt of those early
and badly ventilated workshops, and the end, very often, was death in the poor-house or
in the hospital.
Of course the change from the farm to the factory on the part of so many people was not
accomplished without a certain amount of opposition. Since one engine could do as much
work as a hundred men, the ninety-nine others who were thrown out of employment did
not like it. Frequently they attacked the factory-buildings and set fire to the machines, but
Insurance Companies had been organised as early as the 17th century and as a rule the
owners were wel protected against loss.
Soon, newer and better machines were instaled, the factory was surrounded with a high
wal and then there was an end to the rioting. The ancient guilds could not possibly survive
in this new world of steam and iron. They went out of existence and then the workmen
tried to organise regular labour unions. But the factory-owners, who through their wealth
could exercise great influence upon the politicians of the different countries, went to the
Legislature and had laws passed which forbade the forming of such trade unions because
they interfered with the "liberty of action" of the working man.
Please do not think that the good members of Parliament who passed these laws were
wicked tyrants. They were the true sons of the revolutionary period when everybody
talked of "liberty" and when people often kiled their neighbours because they were not
quite as liberty-loving as they ought to have been. Since "liberty" was the foremost virtue
of man, it was not right that labour-unions should dictate to their members the hours during
which they could work and the wages which they must demand. The workman must at al
times, be "free to sel his services in the open market," and the employer must be equaly
"free" to conduct his business as he saw fit. The days of the Mercantile System, when the
state had regulated the industrial life of the entire community, were coming to an end. The
new idea of "freedom" insisted that the state stand entirely aside and let commerce take its
course.
The last half of the 18th century had not merely been a time of intelectual and political
doubt, but the old economic ideas, too, had been replaced by new ones which better
suited the need of the hour. Several years before the French revolution, Turgot, who had
been one of the unsuccessful ministers of finance of Louis XVI, had preached the novel
doctrine of "economic liberty." Turgot lived in a country which had suffered from too much
red-tape, too many regulations, too many officials trying to enforce too many laws.
"Remove this official supervision," he wrote, "let the people do as they please, and
everything wil be al right." Soon his famous advice of "laissez faire" became the battle-cry
around which the economists of that period ralied.
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At the same time in England, Adam Smith was working on his mighty volumes on the
"Wealth of Nations," which made another plea for "liberty" and the "natural rights of
trade." Thirty years later, after the fal of Napoleon, when the reactionary powers of
Europe had gained their victory at Vienna, that same freedom which was denied to the
people in their political relations was forced upon them in their industrial life.
The general use of machinery, as I have said at the beginning of this chapter, proved to be
of great advantage to the state. Wealth increased rapidly. The machine made it possible
for a single country, like England, to carry al the burdens of the great Napoleonic wars.
The capitalists (the people who provided the money with which machines were bought)
reaped enormous profits. They became ambitious and began to take an interest in politics.
They tried to compete with the landed aristocracy which stil exercised great influence
upon the government of most European countries.
In England, where the members of Parliament were stil elected according to a Royal
Decree of the year 1265, and where a large number of recently created industrial centres
were without representation, they brought about the passing of the Reform Bil of the year
1882, which changed the electoral system and gave the class of the factory-owners more
influence upon the legislative body. This however caused great discontent among the
milions of factory workers, who were left without any voice in the government. They too
began an agitation for the right to vote. They put their demands down in a document which
came to be known as the "People's Charter." The debates about this charter grew more
and more violent. They had not yet come to an end when the revolutions of the year 1848
broke out. Frightened by the threat of a new outbreak or Jacobinism and violence, the
English government placed the Duke of Welington, who was now in his eightieth year, at
the head of the army, and caled for Volunteers. London was placed in a state of siege and
preparations were made to suppress the coming revolution.
But the Chartist movement kiled itself through bad leadership and no acts of violence took
place. The new class of wealthy factory owners, (I dislike the word "bourgeoisie" which
has been used to death by the apostles of a new social order,) slowly increased its hold
upon the government, and the conditions of industrial life in the large cities continued to
transform vast acres of pasture and wheat-land into dreary slums, which guard the
approach of every modern European town.
EMANCIPATION
THE GENERAL INTRODUCTION OF MACHINERY DID NOT BRING ABOUT
THE ERA OF HAPPINESS AND PROSPERITY WHICH HAD BEEN PREDICTED
BY THE GENERATION WHICH SAW THE STAGE COACH REPLACED BY THE
RAILROAD. SEVERAL REMEDIES WERE SUGGESTED BUT NONE OF THESE
QUITE SOLVED THE PROBLEM
IN the year 1831, just before the passing of the first Reform Bil Jeremy Bentham, the
great English student of legislative methods and the most practical political reformer of that
day, wrote to a friend: "The way to be comfortable is to make others comfortable. The
way to make others comfortable is to appear to love them. The way to appear to love
them is to love them in reality." Jeremy was an honest man. He said what he believed to be
true. His opinions were shared by thousands of his countrymen. They felt responsible for
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the happiness of their less fortunate neighbours and they tried their very best to help them.
And Heaven knows it was time that something be done!
The ideal of "economic freedom" (the "laissez faire" of Turgot) had been necessary in the
old society where mediaeval restrictions lamed al industrial effort. But this "liberty of
action" which had been the highest law of the land had led to a terrible, yea, a frightful
condition. The hours in the fac-tory were limited only by the physical strength of the
workers. As long as a woman could sit before her loom, without fainting from fatigue, she
was supposed to work. Children of five and six were taken to the cotton mils, to save
them from the dangers of the street and a life of idleness. A law had been passed which
forced the children of paupers to go to work or be punished by being chained to their
machines. In return for their services they got enough bad food to keep them alive and a
sort of pigsty in which they could rest at night. Often they were so tired that they fel asleep
at their job. To keep them awake a foreman with a whip made the rounds and beat them
on the knuckles when it was necessary to bring them back to their duties. Of course,
under these circumstances thousands of little children died. This was regrettable and the
employers, who after al were human beings and not without a heart, sincerely wished that
they could abolish "child labour." But since man was "free" it folowed that children were
"free" too. Besides, if Mr. Jones had tried to work his factory without the use of children
of five and six, his rival, Mr. Stone, would have hired an extra supply of little boys and
Jones would have been forced into bankruptcy. It was therefore impossible for Jones to
do without child labour until such time as an act of Parliament should forbid it for al
employers.
But as Parliament was no longer dominated by the old landed aristocracy (which had
despised the upstart factory-owners with their money bags and had treated them with
open contempt), but was under control of the representatives from the industrial centres,
and as long as the law did not alow workmen to combine in labour-unions, very little was
accomplished. Of course the inteligent and decent people of that time were not blind to
these terrible conditions. They were just helpless. Machinery had conquered the world by
surprise and it took a great many years and the efforts of thousands of noble men and
women to make the machine what it ought to be, man's servant, and not his master.
Curiously enough, the first attack upon the outrageous system of employment which was
then common in al parts of the world, was made on behalf of the black slaves of Africa
and America. Slavery had been introduced into the American continent by the Spaniards.
They had tried to use the Indians as labourers in the fields and in the mines, but the
Indians, when taken away from a life in the open, had lain down and died and to save
them from extinction a kind-hearted priest had suggested that negroes be brought from
Africa to do the work. The negroes were strong and could stand rough treatment.
Besides, association with the white man would give them a chance to learn Christianity and
in this way, they would be able to save their souls, and so from every possible point of
view, it would be an excelent arrangement both for the kindly white man and for his
ignorant black brother. But with the introduction of machinery there had been a greater
demand for cotton and the negroes were forced to work harder than ever before, and
they too, like the Indians, began to die under the treatment which they received at the
hands of the overseers.
Stories of incredible cruelty constantly found their way to Europe and in al countries men
and women began to agitate for the abolition of slavery. In England, Wiliam Wilberforce
and Zachary Macaulay, (the father of the great historian whose history of England you
must read if you want to know how wonderfuly interesting a history-book can be,)
organised a society for the suppression of slavery. First of al they got a law passed which
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made "slave trading" ilegal. And after the year 1840 there was not a single slave in any of
the British colonies. The revolution of 1848 put an end to slavery in the French
possessions. The Portuguese passed a law in the year 1858 which promised al slaves
their liberty in twenty years from date. The Dutch abolished slavery in 1863 and in the
same year Tsar Alexander II returned to his serfs that liberty which had been taken away
from them more than two centuries before.
In the United States of America the question led to grave difficulties and a prolonged war.
Although the Declaration of Independence had laid down the principle that "al men were
created free and equal," an exception had been made for those men and women whose
skins were dark and who worked on the plantations of the southern states. As time went
on, the dislike of the people of the North for the institution of slavery increased and they
made no secret of their feelings. The southerners however claimed that they could not
grow their cotton without slave-labour, and for almost fifty years a mighty debate raged in
both the Congress and the Senate.
The North remained obdurate and the South would not give in. When it appeared
impossible to reach a compromise, the southern states threatened to leave the Union. It
was a most dangerous point in the history of the Union. Many things "might" have
happened. That they did not happen was the work of a very great and very good man.
On the sixth of November of the year 1860, Abraham Lincoln, an Ilinois lawyer, and a
man who had made his own intelectual fortune, had been elected president by the
Republicans who were very strong in the anti-slavery states. He knew the evils of human
bondage at first hand and his shrewd common-sense told him that there was no room on
the northern continent for two rival nations. When a number of southern states seceded
and formed the "Confederate States of America," Lincoln accepted the chalenge. The
Northern states were caled upon for volunteers. Hundreds of thousands of young men
responded with eager enthusiasm and there folowed four years of bitter civil war. The
South, better prepared and folowing the briliant leadership of Lee and Jackson,
repeatedly defeated the armies of the North. Then the economic strength of New England
and the West began to tel. An unknown officer by the name of Grant arose from
obscurity and became the Charles Martel of the great slave war. Without interruption he
hammered his mighty blows upon the crumbling defences of the South. Early in the year
1863, President Lincoln issued his "Emancipation Proclamation" which set al slaves free.
In April of the year 1865 Lee surrendered the last of his brave armies at Appomattox. A
few days later, President Lincoln was murdered by a lunatic. But his work was done. With
the exception of Cuba which was stil under Spanish domination, slavery had come to an
end in every part of the civilised world.
But while the black man was enjoying an increasing amount of liberty, the "free" workmen
of Europe did not fare quite so wel. Indeed, it is a matter of surprise to many
contemporary writers and observers that the masses of workmen (the so-caled
proletariat) did not die out from sheer misery. They lived in dirty houses situated in
miserable parts of the slums. They ate bad food. They received just enough schooling to fit
them for their tasks. In case of death or an accident, their families were not provided for.
But the brewery and distilery interests, (who could exercise great influence upon the
Legislature,) encouraged them to forget their woes by offering them unlimited quantities of
whisky and gin at very cheap rates.
The enormous improvement which has taken place since the thirties and the forties of the
last century is not due to the efforts of a single man. The best brains of two generations
devoted themselves to the task of saving the world from the disastrous results of the al-
too-sudden introduction of machinery. They did not try to destroy the capitalistic system.
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This would have been very foolish, for the accumulated wealth of other people, when
inteligently used, may be of very great benefit to al mankind. But they tried to combat the
notion that true equality can exist between the man who has wealth and owns the factories
and can close their doors at wil without the risk of going hungry, and the labourer who
must take whatever job is offered, at whatever wage he can get, or face the risk of
starvation for himself, his wife and his children.
They endeavoured to introduce a number of laws which regulated the relations between
the factory owners and the factory workers. In this, the reformers have been increasingly
successful in al countries. To-day, the majority of the labourers are wel protected; their
hours are being reduced to the excelent average of eight, and their children are sent to the
schools instead of to the mine pit and to the carding-room of the cotton mils.
But there were other men who also contemplated the sight of al the belching smoke-
stacks, who heard the rattle of the railroad trains, who saw the store-houses filed with a
surplus of al sorts of materials, and who wondered to what ultimate goal this tremendous
activity would lead in the years to come. They remembered that the human race had lived
for hundreds of thousands of years without commercial and industrial competition. Could
they change the existing order of things and do away with a system of rivalry which so
often sacrificed human happiness to profits?
This idea—this vague hope for a better day—was not restricted to a single country. In
England, Robert Owen, the owner of many cotton mils, established a so-caled "socialistic
community" which was a success. But when he died, the prosperity of New Lanark came
to an end and an attempt of Louis Blanc, a French journalist, to establish "social
workshops" al over France fared no better. Indeed, the increasing number of socialistic
writers soon began to see that little individual communities which remained outside of the
regular industrial life, would never be able to accomplish anything at al. It was necessary
to study the fundamental principles underlying the whole industrial and capitalistic society
before useful remedies could be suggested.
The practical socialists like Robert Owen and Louis Blanc and Francois Fournier were
succeeded by theoretical students of socialism like Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Of
these two, Marx is the best known. He was a very briliant Jew whose family had for a
long time lived in Germany. He had heard of the experiments of Owen and Blanc and he
began to interest himself in questions of labour and wages and unemployment. But his
liberal views made him very unpopular with the police authorities of Germany, and he was
forced to flee to Brussels and then to London, where he lived a poor and shabby life as
the correspondent of the New York Tribune.
No one, thus far, had paid much attention to his books on economic subjects. But in the
year 1864 he organised the first international association of working men and three years
later in 1867, he published the first volume of his wel-known treatise caled "Capital."
Marx believed that al history was a long struggle between those who "have" and those
who "don't have." The introduction and general use of machinery had created a new class
in society, that of the capitalists who used their surplus wealth to buy the tools which were
then used by the labourers to produce stil more wealth, which was again used to build
more factories and so on, until the end of time. Meanwhile, according to Marx, the third
estate (the bourgeoisie) was growing richer and richer and the fourth estate (the
proletariat) was growing poorer and poorer, and he predicted that in the end, one man
would possess al the wealth of the world while the others would be his employees and
dependent upon his good wil.
To prevent such a state of affairs, Marx advised working men of al countries to unite and
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to fight for a number of political and economic measures which he had enumerated in a
Manifesto in the year 1848, the year of the last great European revolution.
These views of course were very unpopular with the governments of Europe, many
countries, especialy Prussia, passed severe laws against the Socialists and policemen
were ordered to break up the Socialist meetings and to arrest the speakers. But that sort
of persecution never does any good. Martyrs are the best possible advertisements for an
unpopular cause. In Europe the number of socialists steadily increased and it was soon
clear that the Socialists did not contemplate a violent revolution but were using their
increasing power in the different Parliaments to promote the interests of the labouring
classes. Socialists were even caled upon to act as Cabinet Ministers, and they co-
operated with progressive Catholics and Protestants to undo the damage that had been
caused by the Industrial Revolution and to bring about a fairer division of the many
benefits which had folowed the introduction of machinery and the increased production of
wealth.
THE AGE OF SCIENCE
BUT THE WORLD HAD UNDERGONE ANOTHER CHANGE WHICH WAS OF
GREATER IMPORTANCE THAN EITHER THE POLITICAL OR THE
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTIONS. AFTER GENERATIONS OF OPPRESSION AND
PERSECUTION, THE SCIENTIST HAD AT LAST GAINED LIBERTY OF
ACTION AND HE WAS NOW TRYING TO DISCOVER THE FUNDAMENTAL
LAWS WHICH GOVERN THE UNIVERSE
THE Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Chaldeans, the Greeks and the Romans, had al
contributed something to the first vague notions of science and scientific investigation. But
the great migrations of the fourth century had destroyed the classical world of the
Mediterranean, and the Christian Church, which was more interested in the life of the soul
than in the life of the body, had regarded science as a manifestation of that human
arrogance which wanted to pry into divine affairs which belonged to the realm of Almighty
God, and which therefore was closely related to the seven deadly sins.
The Renaissance to a certain but limited extent had broken through this wal of Mediaeval
prejudices. The Reformation, however, which had overtaken the Renaissance in the early
16th century, had been hostile to the ideals of the "new civilisation," and once more the
men of science were threatened with severe punishment, should they try to pass beyond
the narrow limits of knowledge which had been laid d