Dear Friend: The longer I stay here the more I am impressed with the profound melancholy which appears to have taken possession of this people. The men, particularly, seem sunk in a torpor of dejection and settled apathy. The women, although by no means so vivacious and vigorous as our women, are, however, far more animated, and seem to have a keener relish for life, than the men. Probably the comparatively recent emancipation of the women, their new political and social freedom, adds a zest to the routine of life here which men do not feel.

So universal is the dreary aspect of the people, whether at work or play—and they play, I observe, far more languidly than they work—that the type of face among them has undergone a strange and interesting transformation. You remember in the old prints the typical “Yankee” face, with its keen, penetrating eye, its courageous, determined chin, its intelligent brow, and its extraordinarily shrewd and intently alert expression. This vivacity and energy, once the chief charm of the American face, has entirely disappeared. In its stead, imagine wooden, almost sodden features, heavy, dull eyes, receding chins, and a brow on which dulness that very nearly approaches stupidity is writ in large letters. On all the faces is a stereotyped expression, a mingling of discontent and dejection. There is the same lack of variety of types among the faces I have noticed, as there is a want of contrast in the houses and streets. The entire population appears to have one face; wherever one turns one sees it repeated ad infinitum, whether it be that of man or woman, youth or old age.

I have accounted to myself for this curious physiological uniformity by finding in it simply a reflection of the uniformity seen in the life and occupations of this people. The race having been leveled to a common plane, there has been a gradual dying out of individuality. The inevitable curtailment of individual aims, individual struggle, individual ambitions, has naturally resulted in producing a featureless type of character, common to all. Since, of course, it is character alone which moulds feature, this people, being all more or less alike, have come, in process of time, to look alike. Nature, after all, is only clay in the potter’s hand; man, with his laws and creeds, fashions in the end his own face.

I found it, however, far more difficult to account for the cloud of melancholy and dejection which appears to have settled upon this people, than to seek the causes of the above physiological aspect. I asked myself, again and again, why should this people, of all people, be full of this discontent and unhappiness? Haven’t they come to the realization of all their dreams? Have they not attained to the very summit and to the full glory of the possession of their social, civic and political desires and aspirations? Is there not equality of sex? Has not leisure instead of labor become a law? Is not private property abolished—is not the land the property of the State—the wage system become a thing of the past, and the possession of capital made a crime punishable by law? Does not the State also exist for the people, educating them, training them for their work in life, distributing among them any surplus funds that the public treasury may accumulate, and furnishing for their amusement and leisure a vast system of educational clubs, educational theaters, public games, museums and shows? If a people are not happy under such conditions, what will insure content?

Yet come with me. Let us walk through the principal thoroughfares, and watch the multitudes of people wandering listlessly up and down the streets; let us see them as they drift aimlessly into the theaters, museums, clubs; let us look in on them as they idly finger the new books and newspapers, yawning over them as they read, and you will agree with me, that the entire population seems to have but one really serious purpose in life—to murder time which appears to be slowly killing them.

After much thought on the reasons of this strange apathy, this inertia, and sloth of energy, I have come to two conclusions which have helped me to solve the problem of this people’s unhappiness. My first conclusion is that the people are dying for want of work—of downright hard work; my second conclusion is that in trying to establish the law of equality, the founders of this ideal community committed the fatal mistake of counting out those indestructible, ineradicable human tendencies and aspirations which have hitherto been the source of all human progress, to which I alluded in my last letter.

First, let us take the subject of work. As all work, men and women alike, and as machinery has been brought here to a wonderful degree of perfection, the actual labor necessary to maintain the people is, of necessity, very light. At first, a hundred or so years ago, in the early days of the community, the time of labor was fixed at five hours per day. But every decade, with the growth of the population, the labor hours have been diminishing. Recently a law has been put into effect, forbidding any one’s working more than two hours a day. This latter law has been found to be an actual necessity, from an economic point of view, as a provision against surplus production. A man, therefore, has the whole of the rest of his day on his hands, to spend as best he may.The original hope and belief of the founders of Socialism was that if the people could only be given sufficient leisure, the whole race would be lifted to an extraordinary plane of perfection; that, were men given time enough, each man and woman would devote himself and herself to the development and improvement of his or her mental tastes and capacities. At first, I believe, such was the case. For at least thirty years there was an extraordinary zeal for learning and self-improvement. But in time, a reaction came. The founders had forgotten to make allowances for the mass of sluggards, idlers, and ne’er-do-wells who are always the immovable block in the reformer’s path of progress. Two parties were soon developed; the party of enlightenment and the conservative party. Learning being the sole channel for the exercise of individual capacity or individual ambition, the old baneful system of competition soon developed itself. A superior class, a class composed of scholars, students, artists and authors, arose, whose views and whose political ideas threatened the very life and liberties of the community. The aristocracy of intellect, it was found was as dangerous to the State as an aristocracy founded on pride of descent or on the possession of ancestral acres. It became necessary, therefore, to make a law against learning and the sciences. All scholars, authors, artists and scientists who were found on examination to be more gifted than the average, were exiled.

A strict law was passed, and has since been rigidly enforced, forbidding mental or artistic development being carried beyond a certain fixed standard, a standard attainable by all. Quite naturally learning and the arts have gradually died out among this people. Where there are no rewards either of fame or personal advancement, the spur to mental or artistic achievement is found wanting. The arts particularly have languished. Art, as is well known, can only live by the strength of the imagination—and the imagination is fed by contrasts of life and degrees of picturesqueness. One of the old American sages, Emerson I think it was, well said of the artist, “If the rich were not rich, how poor would the poet be!” Quite naturally, in such a civilization as this, no conditions exist for either creating or maintaining artistic ability.

Can you not imagine, my dear Hannevig, that under such a system and order of life, time might be found to be a weighty burden? After the two hours devoted to labor, there are still fourteen waking hours to be disposed of. The people have, it is true, their clubs and their theaters, the national games, their libraries and gardens. But just because all these are free and at their command, is, I presume, reason enough for their finding the amusements thus provided tame and uninteresting. Most of the inhabitants of this city spend their days at the gymnasium. In the exercises and games there practiced, one sees the only evidence or show of excitement and interest indulged in. Both men and women are muscled like athletes, from their continual exercises and perpetual bathing. The athletic party is now trying to pass a law to permit races and contests on the old Greek plan. But the conservatives will scarcely pass it, as they urge that the Olympian games, by developing the physical powers, were in reality only a training-school for the Greek army, and internecine trouble and dissension would surely follow any such public games, as they did in the Greek states.

You have, I believe, asked me if the people here are not allowed to find a scope for their superfluous energies in politics. But politics, as a profession, as a separate and independent function of activity, has ceased to exist. The state or Government is run on the great universal principle of reciprocity which governs the entire community. It exists for the people, is administered by the people, and acts for the people. All surplus revenues, derived from a minimum of equalized taxation are turned over to the public fund, being applied to public use. The machinery of the Government is run on the same principle of light labor which governs individual exertions. Each citizen, men and women alike, of course, serves his or her term as a government official, as in old Prussia men served in the army. As no one is ever re-elected, no matter what his capacity or ability, and as each citizen only serves once during his life-time, there is no such thing known as political strife, or bribery or corruption. Neither is there any political life. The government is as automatic a performance as one of the silk-looms of a factory.

There are certain changes which have lately taken place in the political and international affairs of the people which lead one into a labyrinth of speculation. There has, for instance, been a noticeable and lamentable dying out of international commerce and a general sluggishness of trade which greatly alarms the community at large. All trade and commerce are conducted on the socialistic principle, which forbids the venture of private capital, did such here exist, or of private enterprise. It is the State which directs all such ventures. But the State, for some reason or other, does not appear to be a success as a merchant or as commercial financier. For one thing, the State is tremendously absorbed in its own affairs. As it takes care of its people, educating, training and developing them; as it looks after the material comforts and necessities of its vast population, its own internal duties really absorb all its energies. Then, in a government, founded as this one is, on a principle of equality, which principle is the sworn enemy of ambition there must of necessity be a lack of initiative, a feebleness in aggressive attack, and a want of determination in the pursuance of any given policy. It is only ambitious stable governments which can command and maintain a definite policy of national action. Even the American Republic found it difficult, with its recurrent changes in official departments, to carry into effect great international projects. The people, here, have ended by contenting themselves with the exercise of only so much executive, political or commercial activity as is found actually necessary to maintain their own existence. Men, whether as individuals or as a collective body, are indeed only actively aggressive, ambitious or audacious in proportion as they meet with opposition. It is struggle, and not the absence of it, which makes both men and a nation great.

I have, therefore, ceased to ask myself where are the old magnificent energies which once characterized this people. One looks in vain for the former warfare of intelligence, for the old time audacity of invention, for the fray of commercial contest, for the powerful massing of capital we read of as characteristic of Americans two hundred years ago. All this has gone with the old competitive system.

With the abolishment of competition have died out, naturally, all the prizes and rewards in life which came from individual struggle. As accumulation of personal property, in lands or in moneys, and the possibility of personal advancement are forbidden by law, under this form of government, all incentives to personal activity have disappeared. The law of equality, with its logical decrees for the suppression of superiority, has brought about the other extreme, sterility. The crippling of individual activity has finally produced its legitimate result—it has fatally sapped the energies of the people.

It is a curious and interesting feature in one’s study of this people, to find that it is not the establishment of the law of equality which has been the cause of decay in this people, but the enforcement of the opposite law—the law it was soon found necessary to establish against inequality. It naturally and logically followed that if men are to be made equal, such equality can only be maintained by the suppression of degrees of inequality. Mentally, for instance, the standard must be made low enough for all to attain it; each man, therefore, in time, no matter what his fitness, capacity or gift, was forced to subordinate his particular qualities to the general possibility of attainment. This level of a common mediocrity was more or less difficult to inforce and develop. Their own historians record many interesting accounts of the slow death of inequality. In one I read only yesterday, “So instinctive through long centuries of oppression and misuse of power was the impulse among men to aspire to superiority of attainment, to excel in mental development, or to exhibit richer creative power, that for years the state penitentiaries were filled with men whose crime was their unconquerable desire selfishly to surpass their less fortunate brothers. It is only within our own enlightened twenty-first century that this grave fault has been remedied. Now, happily, no one dreams of insuring his own personal happiness at the expense of others.”

And so, my dear Hannevig, the old drama of history is enacted anew. Years ago men were unhappy because the many had to struggle against the favored few. Here, where all are equal, men are miserable because they are so; because all having equal claims to happiness, find life equally dull and aimless. The perpetual moan here is, O for a chance to be something, to do something, to achieve something!

I shall be able to send you only one more letter, as I return in a few days—by balloon this time, I think, instead of by tunnel.