Page:King Camp Gillette - The Human Drift (1894).djvu/9



We are rapidly nearing the most critical period in the history of this country. It cannot be denied, but it may be avoided or so met as to be of most fateful purpose in giving birth to a civilization that will be immeasurably beyond any civilization the world has ever known or history recorded. Twenty years will tell the story of irremediable disaster or of the triumph of reason. We are moving rapidly,–too rapidly for the government to adjust its cumbersome machine to the needs of the people; and quick and decisive action by those in political and commercial power is the only hope that lies between this government and its downfall. All governments have fallen because of the insecure foundation on which they were built; and this government is travelling the same road, to the same end.

Reform, with a pathway clearly shown that will meet and avoid the dangers which lie before us, is the purpose of this book. This pathway, once entered, will give birth to hope in the mind of every individual, of a future free from poverty, misery, and crime. Its final success as a movement would mean a more radical change than is possibly for the individual to conceive, and would separate the civilization of the near future from the present and past, by a gulf as wide as that which separates the two extremes of good and evil.

The field of battle of this reform movement would be the commercial field, and the object of attack the underlying principles of our present system of production and distribution; and it would oppose divided and competitive interests in the production and distribution of material things. I dispute the proposition that "competition is the life of trade," or that competition for wealth is the motive power of material progress. I not only dispute this proposition, but I go further. I affirm that progress, both intellectual and material, is re-