William Dean Howells

“ Of course, some are not so individual as others. A great deal depends upon temperament."
"A great deal more depends upon capital," said Camp, with an offensive laugh. "If you have capital in America, you can have individuality; if you haven't, you can't."
His sister, who had not taken part in the talk before, said demurely: "It seems to me you've got a good deal of individuality, Reub, and you haven't got a great deal of capital, either," and the two young people laughed together. ”

“ The Altrurian asked: "Are there mortgages on many of the farms in the neighborhood?"
"Nearly all," said Mrs. Camp. "We seem to own them, but in fact they own us."
Mrs. Makely hastened to say: "My husband thinks it's the best way to have your property. If you mortgage it close up, you have all your capital free, and you can keep turning it over. That's what you ought to do, Mrs. Camp. But what was the slavery that Captain Camp said was not abolished yet?" ”

“ Camp, "that people should found a civilization on the idea of living for one another, instead of each for himself?"
"No, indeed!" she answered. "Poor people have always had to live that way, or they could not have lived at all."
"That was what I understood your porter to say last night," said the Altrurian to me. He added, to the company generally: "I suppose that even in America there are more poor people than there are rich people?"
"Well, I don't know about that," I said. "I suppose there are more people independently rich than there are people independently poor." ”

“ We are as like as so many peas, or pins. In fact, you have to be so, in society. If you keep asserting your own individuality too much, people avoid you. It's very vulgar, and the greatest bore."
"Then you don't find individuality so desirable, after all," said the Altrurian. ”

“ For us, America means work that we have to do, and hard work, all the time, if we're going to make both ends meet. It means liberty for you; but what liberty has a man got who doesn't know where his next meal is coming from? Once I was in a strike, when I was working on the railroad, and I've seen men come and give up their liberty for a chance to earn their family's living. ”

“ Camp," I interposed, "but isn't a black-listed man usually a man who has made himself prominent in some labor trouble?"
"Yes," the young fellow answered, without seeming sensible of the point I had made.
"Ah!" I returned. "Then you can hardly blame the employers for taking it out of him in any way they can. That's human nature."
"Good heavens!" the Altrurian cried out. "Is it possible that in America it is human nature to take away the bread of a man's family, because he has gone counter to your interest or pleasure on some economical question?" ”

“ The Altrurian seemed not to have heard her. He said to Mrs. Camp: "Then I understand from something your son let fall that he has not always been at home with you, here. Does he reconcile himself easily to the country after the excitement of town life? I have read that the cities in America are draining the country of the young people." ”

“ If it is true, I do not see why the Altrurian system should be considered so very un-American. Then, as to whether there is or ever was really a practical altruism, a civic expression of it, I think it cannot be denied that among the first Christians, those who immediately followed Christ, and might be supposed to be directly influenced by his life, there was an altruism practiced as radical as that which we have organized into a national polity and a working economy in Altruria. ”

“ Camp did not answer; but the Altrurian said, in reply to her son: "We should have no name for such a thing, for with us such a thing would be impossible. There is no crime so henious, with us, that the punishment would take away the criminal's chance of earning his living." ”

“ I did not see how young Camp could afford it; but then I reflected that he had really nothing to lose by it, for he did not expect to make anything out of us; Mrs. Makely would probably not give up his sister as seamstress, if the girl continued to work so well and so cheaply as she said. "Suppose," he went on, "that some old native took you at your word, and came to call upon you at the hotel, with his wife, just as one of the city cottagers would do if he wanted to make your acquaintance?" ”

“ Our experiences have a great deal to do with forming our opinions. But I am not dissatisfied with my son's ideas. I suppose Reuben got a good many of his ideas from his father: he's his father all over again. My husband thought slavery was wrong, and he went into the war to fight against it. He used to say when the war was over that the negroes were emancipated, but slavery was not abolished yet. ”

“ Well, a kind of man I've seen in the mill towns, that the bosses have all got on their books as a man that isn't to be given work on any account; that's to be punished with hunger and cold, and turned into the street, for having offended them ”

“ You talk about things that most natives never heard of, and you care for things they never saw. I know it's the custom to pretend differently, but I'm not going to pretend differently." I recalled what my friend, the banker, said about throwing away cant, and I asked myself if I were in the presence of some such free spirit again. ”

“ They knew they were right, and that they ought to have stood up for their rights; but they had to lie down, and lick the hand that fed them! Yes, we are all Americans, but I guess we haven't all got the same country, Mrs. Makely. What sort of a country has a black-listed man got? ”