Castello Newton Holford

“ Ralph Morton had one of those fertile minds in which suggestions, falling sterile on other minds, like seeds sown upon the stones of the highway or among the bushes and brambles of the roadside, sprang up in a fruitful growth. He wondered much that if one person had observed that cowpox gave immunity from smallpox, all the world had not soon known and availed itself of the immunity. He did not make sufficient allowance for human dullness and prejudice. ”

“ The Morton Code proclaimed that the object of punishment was to protect, not to revenge, society; that where possible it should contemplate the reformation, not the destruction, of the criminal; that savage and bloody punishments and tortures were brutalizing to the whole people and worthy of savage and heathen, not of civilized and Christian, people. No crime except murder and arson of a dwelling at night was to be punished with death, and that death in no form except hanging. ”

“ Let us, then, take what pleasure we may in figuring a man of great wisdom, foresight, and genius, with an unselfish devotion to the welfare of humanity, placed with immense power at the parting of the ways in the course of human events, seizing the opportunity to turn the march of bewildered and struggling humanity into the path leading up and away from the dangerous marshes over which dance the deluding ignes fatui of ancient errors, and under which lie the black quagmires of antique evils. ”

“ Vain against corporations are laws relating to heredity, for corporations may perpetuate themselves and live through generations. Above all, he warned the people against giving a corporation any monopoly. Dangerous and evil as is any monopoly in the hands of an individual, in the grasp of a corporation its evil is multiplied infinitely. Although a corporation has no soul, it may have a head, who, wielding its vast power with a single will, may make of himself a most dangerous despot. ”

“ So it was that one Indian-summer day, about eleven months after Ralph first set foot in Jamestown, he left it forever, with his little chest and its precious contents.
That winter voyage was a stormy one, although not a very long one, as the storms came from the west. On the tossing ship, amid the howling tempests, the young adventurer had no fears. His fancy saw a destiny for him too great to be swallowed up in a tempest. Caesar said to the frightened boatman in the storm: "Quid times? Cæsarem vehis et fortunas suas." ”

“ Morton was well aware of all this, and he boldly demanded terms in his charter which seemed, when demanded by an obscure young man, little less than presumptuous. But James, priding himself on his royal power, thought it no less—rather more—an exhibition of that power to create a vice-king in a new world out of an obscure gentleman than out of a great noble. And then, a man who could deliver a hundred thousand pounds sterling of gold was well worthy even of a king's respect. ”

“ In this new nation was realized the dream of the social philosophers and philanthropists of all ages: a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, resting on the deep and solid foundations of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. ”

“ The rich are ever striving to pare away something further from the daily wages of the poor by private fraud, and even by public law, so that the wrong already existing—for it is a wrong that those from whom the state derives most benefit should receive least reward—is made yet greater by the law of the state. The rich devise every means by which they may, in the first place, secure to themselves what they have amassed by wrong, and then take to their own use and profit, at the lowest possible price, the labor of the poor. ”

“ England could fight three European nations single-handed, but she could do nothing toward conquering America in addition. France, who had so recently lost the greater part of North America, was now determined that England should lose it, and she influenced Spain to a like determination. England could not now hope to gain anything by continuing the war, and had much to lose. Her great commerce was being destroyed. The only alternative was to acknowledge the independence of the American colonies, and to this humiliation the stubborn and dauntless mistress of the seas at last consented. ”

“ Then, too, he was an aristocrat, and the democratic civilization of Aristopia, so different from that of England, however well it might suit Aristopians, was distasteful to him. He much preferred life in London, especially with a double salary. So one fine day he climbed into a six-horse coach, and with his retinue of servants at his back, turned his face toward the Atlantic and left Morgania, amid the blare of much martial music, the waving of many red-cross flags, and the booming of cannons. ”

“ Thus to contemplate the past which might have been may in some small measure teach us to discern in the future the opportunity, to seize which—if there be no one man with sufficient wisdom, power, and virtue—there may be found a combination of men whose aggregate wisdom, power, and virtue may be sufficient to turn the march of events out of the night of civilization's destruction which some prophets see close ahead, into the brighter day foreseen by the seers of the Millennium. ”

“ And from these evils it has come that this great republic of the new world, so long the hope of the poor and oppressed of the old world, is fast becoming like Europe socially, and threatens to become even worse than Europe. Now, when the bounties of nature, which a little while ago seemed exhaustless, have been all appropriated, this favored land presents the most violent contrasts of wealth with its pitiless power, and poverty with its abject weakness. ”

“ Although the Church people in authority sternly, even cruelly, repressed the Catholics, it was for two strong reasons: first, the diabolical plots of a few fanatics, mostly Jesuits—plots which the great body of English Catholics abhorred and of which they were innocent; and, second, the clamors of the great and growing body of Puritans, a sect or variety of sects of fanatics who, although they did much to restore English political liberty when it was at its lowest ebb, carried religious intolerance to its utmost extremity of virulence and violence. ”

“ The use of a well-authenticated paper currency would render possible a much needed increase in the volume of the world's currency. The great amelioration in the condition of the people of Europe which took place in the sixteenth, and was still taking place in the seventeenth, century, was attributed by every philosophical man to the increase of the volume of currency by the influx of gold and silver from America. Buyers, whether of merchandise or human labor, grumbled at the rising prices, but a gleam of prosperity was taking the place of the night of abject poverty among the common people. ”

“ It was not the natural utility of gold and silver that did the good work, for as metals they minister little to man's needs. It was their artificial value as counters in a game which could not well or briskly go on without counters. But men were in danger of overlooking—and did overlook—the fact that this value was artificial, and deluded themselves with the idea that it was natural. ”

“ And so, to the misfortune of the colony, they were.
Among the seventy passengers streaming across that improvised bridge from the ship to the shore, eager to press foot upon the soil of the new world, was one who will soon become the central figure of this narrative. His name was Ralph Morton. He was hardly twenty years old, of medium size but strongly built and, unlike too many of those immigrants, with a constitution not undermined by any vice. ”

“ As society is obliged in the end to care for the improvident and incapable, it is a question when that care ought to begin and how far prevention ought to be substituted for alleviation, especially when it is considered that the incapable one is often the head of a family, dragging down to poverty those naturally dependent upon him. But without any question, prevention ought to be used against the great and dangerous accumulation of wealth by individuals and associations not public. ”

“ James had a good deal of respect for Elizabeth, but vastly more for the king of Spain, and thought his example should he followed. But finally Morton evaded this condition by proposing, as if boastfully, to yield the royal treasury from his colony double the amount of gold yielded each year by the four times broader colony of Virginia. James had never seen an ounce of gold from Virginia, but esteeming himself very shrewd, thought that the reckless young man's proposal offered an advantage, and the royal trader closed with it. ”

“ The world has had many men with even greater virtues, clearer foresight, and more entire devotion to the good of humanity than have been ascribed to Ralph Morton. That the opportunity of a new continent on which a new civilization could be wrought out existed three hundred years ago is a matter of history. ”

“ The "Fathers of the Constitution" have been much praised for their wisdom and foresight, and with justice; but there have been men with no opportunities like theirs who were able to look much farther into the future, and who were much more in advance of their age. There were evils which the leaders of the Revolution ought to have foreseen and probably did not, and others they may have foreseen but had no power to avert. ”

“ Great wealth in the bands of a few must with the utmost certainty be balanced by the poverty of many. The dangers and injustice to society of this are so great that no specious plea for liberty must be allowed to cover the acquisition of undue wealth. The liberty of the strong and capable to get all they can and keep all they get, although obtained at the expense of the weak and incapable, is only the liberty of the highwayman glossed over and refined by subtle methods ”

“ In Utopia was that complete religious toleration which was looked for in vain in Europe until the middle of the eighteenth century. In Utopia there was political liberty, a complete democracy, while England, under the Tudor tyrants, was fast losing the little political liberty she ever had. ”

“ In Ralph Morton's mind were vaguely outlined plans for making all sorts of machinery run by water-power do the work of millions of human hands. If a few men could obtain possession of the waterfalls, and by wealth, somehow acquired, could own the machines, they would become the masters of both the workmen who attended the machines and those who were displaced by them. So the constitution carefully guarded the waterfalls from private ownership and provided for the public ownership of factories run by water-power. ”

“ Alas for the world that the makers of history who have had the greatest powers combined with the greatest opportunities have been men whose selfish aims have made their utmost efforts recoil in ruin on their own heads! ”

“ Books giving us a history of the future—a future bright with the millennial dawn of the optimist or dark with the goblin-haunted night of the pessimist—books in French, with a future French and fantastic, and books in English, with a future Anglo-Saxon and matter-of-fact—are much in vogue. ”

“ He must work alone, for he concluded to keep the mine a secret, even from his brothers, for a time. At first he had thought of sharing the mine with them, but as the possible vastness of the wealth occurred to him, certain vague plans began to outline themselves in his mind—plans for changing the face of a considerable part of the world—plans in which he wanted no equal partners, for he knew not how far he could trust even his brothers. ”

“ As soon as possible he sought out one of the council, a stalwart man with a rough, heavy beard and a face browned and seamed by a life of exposure and warfare in all four quarters of the globe—in short, Captain John Smith—to learn what had passed in the colony since his departure. ”

“ The machine was kept a secret, although it would hardly have been adopted in Europe if known, such was the prejudice against machinery in the old world. When some progressive person ventured to introduce a new machine in Europe, mobs of workmen destroyed it lest it should displace them, and cut off even the poor wages they received. But in Aristopia the poorest workmen had no fear of machinery. None was so dull as not to see that the vast continent offered work which every available hand, aided by every possible machine, could not do in generations. ”

“ As work was compulsory with all—no class of idlers, called "noble" and "gentle," living on their stealthy robberies of the workers, as in England—the hours of labor could he shortened to nine, which would have seemed short indeed to the English laborer of that age. The hours thus saved from manual labor were devoted to the cultivation of the mind. To this end a thorough system of public education was maintained. In England few laborers could read. In Utopia every child was well educated. The physical side of life in Utopia was as attractive as the mental. ”

“ Thus, before the end of the seventeenth century, the white sails of staunch vessels, manned by English-speaking crews, could be seen on these lonely inland seas, of whose very existence the people of England were ignorant, supposing that in their place rolled the salt waves of the great South Sea. ”

“ While the colony of Aristopia was thus advancing with giant strides (but so quietly as to attract little public attention in England) , the colony of Virginia still crawled feebly along with its "strange miracles of misery." There was not a single village or hamlet in the colony except Jamestown, and that was smaller after twenty years than it was two years after it was founded. Each family lived isolated, every planter a petty lordling with his black slaves (for negro slavery had been introduced) and white indentured servants, the latter hardly less slaves than the former. ”

“ But, some may say, your story of the mass of gold is an utter impossibility. Not so. That such a mass of gold has never been found is true; that it does not exist and cannot be discovered by no means follows. If the theory is true that the surface of the earth was once molten and liquid, the gold, by its immense weight, must have sunk below the lighter elements so far that when the crust of the earth became solid it could have come to the surface only by means of an eruption from a great depth. ”

“ So horrible an example of a great mass of people robbed of their natural rights seemed, by the force of custom and the decorous forms of law, so right and proper that only here and there, adown the centuries, could be heard a voice like Thomas More's protesting against it. ”

“ These leases could be renewed, so that a family could make a home and have a security for its continued possession—something which private ownership does not give to the nominal owner, as millions of poor men have found to their sorrow. The Commonwealth might, until it needed the rent for revenue, allow its members land rent free, but no more to one man than he and his family actually tilled or used without hired help.
The next great instrument for enriching a few at the expense of the many was, Ralph Morton saw, the traffic in merchandise. ”

“ While in England in More's day the common people dwelt in "low and homely cottages and poor shepherd huts made at all adventure of every rude piece of timber that came first to hand, with mud walls and ridged roofs thatched over with straw," nests of squalor, filth, and pestilence, in Utopia the houses were spacious, well lighted, airy, comfortable, and clean. ”