Frank Chodorov's Disdain for Respectability

Laurie J. Quinby

[Originally published with the title, "Dominance of Wealth in Government."
Reprinted from Land and Freedom, March-April, 1935]

The article by Frank Chodorov in Janunary-February number of LAND AND FREEDOM, to my mind, is one of the finest specimens of logical reasoning which I have met in many a day. It might be epitomized in the simple statement that the Georgist philosophy has been handicapped by "respectability" and that no leader of a Moses-calibre has risen to carry it to triumph in its complete and uncompromising form. My own impatient soul, longing for that "kingdom of heaven," urges me to say "amen." Then arises that kindly angel Natural Law gently warning me, "Not so hasty, my little man."

Never must we ignore the fact of the invariableness of Natural Law. Under that law we are taught that heaven is not gained by a single bound, theological offers to the contrary notwithstanding. He who is rescued from the glaring sun of a blazing desert must pass through gradual stages toward normal light. Else all is surrounding darkness. Or, to reverse the figure, after one has known naught but darkness, suddenly to be plunged into the brilliant light of midday, is to be blinded. So it is with mankind. He who has known nothing but tyranny must grow into the blessings of freedom before he may understand the grandeur of Liberty. Nature herself restrains the hasty step, because she would build her structures without flaw that we may withstand the storms of time.

We must distinguish between a compromise of principle and the details through which we must realize the fruits of it. All human progress, all individual advancement, civilization itself, is accomplished by everlasting compromises regarding the details of achievement. But all progress is stopped when we compromise with principle. This was well illustrated in the course of Lincoln as expressed in his letter to Horace Greeley. His one aim was to save the Union. If, day by day, he saw that might best be achieved by this or that policy, he did not hesitate to shift the policy. (I wish our present President could realize this.) We must advance beyond error before we can realize it for what is was. Polity must be held sacred. Policies through which it may be realized may shift with the current of common thought.

Truth has a cunning way of insinuating its spirit into the heart of all things. The heart of them is the soil in which that spirit thrives.

There it grows, it expands, and, like the tender vine that finds a crevice in the solid rock, bursts its environment to find the light of day.

Throughout all history, wealth has been the dominant power in government and all social order. I do not deprecate that fact. It is right and just that this be so. My only quarrel is that they who have, through special laws and privileges, secured that wealth, constitute just a minority of mankind. Having it, that minority has dominated the enactment of laws and their administration of government. It has grown by what it fed on. Human rights which means natural rights it has trampled under foot, until, even the trampled-upon (or, as an Irish friend calls them, "the submerged tinth") seem to think that such is heaven-ordained. Hardly attempting to rise from beneath the feet that press them down, they peek about in worship of the power that oppresses them. They praise those above them, for "giving them work" as if "work" is the want of man. Poor sodden mass! But, at least, the majority of those above them know that they are oppressors. Therefore are they guilty, not so much in taking what is surrendered to them, but in false instructions to the underlings and in their cruel determination to maintain the fiendish system through which their diabolical cruelties are effective. The relentless hand of Natural Justice always has and always will, in time, scoop up that parasitical group and hurl it into oblivion.

Now, if the "submerged tinth" which in fact is about ninety per cent of the population are willing to persist in their own ignorance, Nature is no more disposed to spare them from the effect of their own stupidity than she is to spare the leaches who suck their blood. They must learn leaches and leached alike that the highest obligation of life is to be intelligent. Then to be intelligent, intelligence will see to it that every form of privilege is stamped from out our social life. When that desired event shall have arrived, men will understand that Nature gives to toil, and to toil alone, her boundless riches. Beggars and thieves both above and below the crust will be no more. Cunning shall no longer thrive at the expense of MANHOOD. Wealth, created by toil and enterprise, will be in the hands of its creators. Being in the hands of the many, its force still will dominate the making of laws, together with their interpretation and administration. Then shall LIBERTY prevail over all.

Yes, I agree with Mr. Chodorov, that, to realize this happy state, a Moses must arrive, for it must always be that the mass of men will follow the strong, the masterful. But, when all is said, this truth shall remain: That unless the followers be intelligent, their lack of it will mean as it did with the Moses of that other day that their leader shall not himself reach the promised land, and with his personal failure so to do, neither shall the followers again as of old realize the glory of his dreams. Or, as in the case of the later Nazarene, lacking intelligence, they buried the beauty of His teachings under the debris of superstition and theology, making His crucifixion endure through the ages.

Let me repeat: The highest individual and social, moral and ethical obligation of life is to be intelligent.