The scientific reforestation of timber lands and the reclamation of swamp lands; the land so reclaimed to be permanently retained as a part of the public domain:
The enactment of further measures for general education and for the conservation of health. The Bureau of Education to be made a department. The creation of a department of public health. The free administration of justice.
Obviously, therefore, even revolutionary Socialists advocate certain reforms; but they will be content with nothing less than the transfer of political power from those who now use it ill to those who will use it better.
Last, but not least, revolution does not in the Socialist vocabulary involve the idea of violence. It is used in the same sense as we use the expression "revolution of the planets," "revolution of the seasons," "revolution of the sun." Undoubtedly there are Socialists willing to use violence in order to attain their ends just as there are Fricks willing to use Pinkerton men, and mine owners willing to use the militia to attain theirs. But the idea of violence has been expressly repudiated by the leaders of the Socialist party. And the word "revolution" must not be understood to include it. This question is studied in fuller detail in Book III, Chapter II.
The evolutionist point of view claims to be wider than either of the foregoing. The evolutionist is not content to study Socialism from the point of view of any one class. He undertakes to climb out of the forest of prejudices created by class to a point where he can study Socialism free from every obstruction. He studies Socialism from the point of view of the whole Democracy, including the employer, the employee, and those who neither employ nor are employed; as, for example, the farmer who farms his own land without the assistance of any farm hands outside of his own family. From this point of view, he can denounce the evils of the existing system of production and distribution--if system it can be called[11]--without the bitterness that distorts the view of the victims of this system, and can therefore see perhaps more clearly the methods by which the evils of the existing system can be eliminated.
The evolutionist points to history to prove that forcible revolution is generally attended by great waste of property and life, and is followed by a reaction that injuriously retards progress. He therefore seeks to change existing conditions without revolution, by successive reforms. This class of Socialist is denounced by revolutionists under a variety of names. He is called a parlor Socialist, an intellectual Socialist, but perhaps the name that carries with it the most contempt is that of step-by-step Socialist. He answers, however, that when he finds his progress arrested by a perpendicular precipice such as we are familiar with at the top of the Palisades, he refrains from throwing himself--or advising his neighbors to throw themselves--headlong into the abyss, but takes the trouble to find a possibly circuitous way round. He will not consent to sit at the top of the precipice until he grows wings, as the Roman peasant sat by the Tiber "until it ran dry." The step-by-step Socialist is content to adopt a winding path which sometimes turns his back to the place which he wishes to reach, because he holds in his hand a compass whose unerring needle will bring him eventually to the desired goal.