tunity, and fair diffusion of wealth-industrial and political democracy, human brotherhood, the sovereignty of love and devotion as the dominant ideal: those are the things the world is in deepest need of. But we cannot get them by any magic of sudden transformation. We must climb. the mountain a step at a time, and every step away from war and barbarism, conflict, mastery, greed, and oppression, toward peace and liberty and justice, mutual help, and the elevation of labor, is a step toward the grand brotherhood of man the twentieth century ought to evolve; and every step in the opposite direction is a step backward toward primeval savagery and the tiger epoch in man's history, or the still lower level of organized intelligence under the dominion of brutish instincts.

Boston University School of Law.

FRANK PARSONS.

THE GOVERNMENT CAN EMPLOY THE
UNEMPLOYED.

The "Program of Progress," in the January ARENA, furnishes the needed wire, as it were, along which the electric fluid of altruistic purpose and advanced economic thought may be conducted to those points where its discharge will result in the turning of actual wheels of progress.

A storm-cloud hangs over civilization, and the darkness is deepening. Lightning flashes of economic truth from tens of thousands of disorganized but well meaning reformers furnish spasms of light and hope, but unfortunately most of the thoughts and consecrated efforts in behalf of social regeneration are of this inharmonious and aerial kind. They need to be brought to earth to be organized and turned as one irresistible power against definite evils, and in behalf of definite reforms. This Program of Progress presented by THE ARENA is capable, it seems to me, of accomplishing this thing. The unification of forces, such as this Program

of Progress is likely to accomplish to crush specific evils, and to exalt and establish definite reforms-to act along well-defined lines and for predetermined results-will cause a conflict as speedy and as certain as if one army were charging upon another. Truly, THE ARENA, by presenting this Program of Progress, opens to us the vision of a real arena where, like gladiators, the contending forces of Mammon and Righteousness are to carry on their conflict during the early years of this opening century.

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Deciding upon a program is equivalent to taking position preceding conflict. Methods for executing a program are equivalent to weapons employed by the contestants. definite program with well-defined methods for carrying out the same is as important as the ultimate victory, because the victory is absolutely dependent upon these methods. Less abstraction and more application seem to be the tendency and the necessity of the hour.

By this paper I would contribute some of the weapons toward equipping one of THE ARENA'S six young gladiators. One of the defenders of economic righteousness in the Program of Progress is "Employment of the Unemployed."

How employment is to be given to the unemployed is relegated to Method. Mr. B. O. Flower has shown in THE ARENA, what is confirmed by Mr. William M. Smythe in The Forum, that there are in the State of Nevada 6,000,000 acres of rich soil, for the most part unoccupied and in its present condition worthless, which could be irrigated (as sufficient water is at hand) and brought into a most profitable state of cultivation. As an illustration to show the prospective productive value of these 6,000,000 acres Mr. Flower points out that in the States of Colorado and Utah combined, both of which are noted for their agricultural wealth, there are but 2,000,000 acres in cultivation. Human labor when properly organized and supported is all that is required for making a veritable garden and paradise of homes out of these 6,000,000 acres in Nevada.

I propose that the Government organize an industrial

army of 100,000 wealth producers-in striking contrast with its present army of 100,000 wealth destroyers-and establish a Coöperative Commonwealth in miniature on these 6,000,000 acres. Such an undertaking would not only be feasible but might be made most profitable. In doing this the Government could give employment at once to 100,000 unemployed men and women, and provide means by which in the future it could give employment to all the unemployed of the nation. As reservoirs are constructed to hold surplus waters, so this miniature Coöperative Commonwealth would be as a reservoir into which the surplus labor on the market could be drawn off for years to come.

The establishment by the Government of a small Cooperative Commonwealth in Nevada is a plain business proposition. The Government could accomplish it with no injustice to any existing business interests and with no possible risk of financial loss, provided it took proper precautions against the thieving of corrupt politicians.

This undertaking would necessitate the Government's advancing certain capital sufficient to cover the necessary first investments. That portion of the land which the Government does not already own would have to be purchased. The first equipment of machinery, outfits, and temporary wages for the support of the workers would cover most of the needed outlay of capital. For this the Government could amply secure itself by taking low interest-bearing bonds upon the 6,000,000 acres of land and its future improvements sufficient to cover the entire outlay.

A picture as beautiful as Bellamy's "Looking Backward" might be drawn from reality rather than from a seer's vision of a future Utopia were this army of wealth producers now waging its industrial warfare in Nevada under proper generalship for the establishment of this proposed Coöperative Commonwealth.

It is assumed that the reader understands for the most part what is implied by a Coöperative Commonwealth. It is a commonwealth wherein a pure economic or business

democracy becomes established in conjunction with political democracy. If the Government were serious in establishing this miniature of a Coöperative Commonwealth it could amply secure itself for the money advanced as a loan to the workers without attempting to enrich itself from them except by the indirect way of adding several billion dollars to the national wealth.

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Labor intelligently directed and applied always creates wealth. For this reason this army of wealth producers once on the field would soon be self-supporting. economist has pointed out from statistics that the average wage-earner to-day creates more than three times as much wealth as he receives in the form of wages. This being true, the labor spent in irrigating and cultivating this land and in building cities and operating manufacturing establishments and developing the other industries of such a community would create sufficient wealth to secure beyond any possibility of risk the whole original investment made by the Government. The Coöperative Association of America, at Lewiston, Maine, in which I am interested, is making the attempt to establish a coöperative civilization in miniature along lines such as I would urge for adoption by the Government in its effort to establish this proposed Coöperative Commonwealth in Nevada. In fact it is my experience with this enterprise that has satisfied me of the practicability of the Government's undertaking a work of this nature. It is the object of this Lewiston association to reduce wealth production to a science as efficient as the science by which wealth is destroyed in war. It is succeeding in eliminating most of the wastes of competition, and in multiplying several fold the savings of combination. It has relieved labor (its members) of the necessity of being dependent for employment upon the law of supply and demand by furnishing an unlimited amount of work, which is at all times within the reach of every one. Furthermore, wages have been taken from the dominion of the so-called iron law of wages and are determined strictly by the

amount of wealth which the labor creates. The town pump in a small community is used by every inhabitant at will and without cost. He pumps the water that he needs without asking the privilege from any one, and without dividing the product with any one for the privilege. This pump is a machine rendering assistance to human muscle in taking from Nature one of the necessities of life. It is a so-called "instrument of production." In a Coöperative Commonwealth all the instruments of production-all machinery, tools, land used for agricultural purposes, all domestic animals used for breeding purposes-in fact, everything that facilitates labor in the production of wealth, are owned by the community. Of course, work is perfectly systematized in such a community, or civilization. If one pump is not sufficient for the use of all, as many more are added as are necessary.

Thus with the aid of public equipment every man, woman, and child can apply his arm or his brain to the work of producing wealth-as it were, pumping wealth from Nature, with the full assistance that science and invention can render. It is only just that every person in the world should have the privilege of using what is here illustrated by the pump, which includes all that the twentieth century has inherited from the past by which labor is facilitated in wealth production, and this without cost to him greater than enough to pay his proportion of repairs and the necessary public expense. Every son of the twentieth century is by right an heir to his share of what the nineteenth century fathers bequeathed to mankind, but the vast majority of men are by might deprived of their inheritance.

The Cooperative Association at Lewiston, Maine, is at the present time furnishing necessary equipment for providing permanent employment to each of its co-workers on an investment of $300. In other words, it is able to extend the privilege of the industrial pump to its members. on an original deposit by them of $300. Basing my judg