in the Roadtown there will be no unemployed problem and no men out of a
job except those who are too lazy to work, and yet there will be many
changes in occupation, for the Roadtown will have no news boys, no
messenger boys, no mail carriers, no traffic policemen, no teamsters,
no cabbies, no street car conductors, no expressmen, no delivery boys,
no peddlers, no push cart men, no waiters to tip, no insurance agents;
no organ grinders, no rag pickers nor old clothes men, no street fakirs
nor sandwich men; no beggars, no liveried flunkies; no sweat shops, no
child labor, no wage slavery, no rent on fictitious land values, and no
trusts to gobble up the fruits of labor.
The history of civilization shows that mechanics control economics,
that economics control morality, and that the morality of the time is
expressed through the law; and conversely law does not control morality
nor morality economics nor economics mechanics. Mechanics is the
foundation of all that is good and bad in civilization, law the paint
on the finished structure. The painters who are constantly retouching
the exterior get credit for a good deal of change but their work is
of little real moment compared with the changing of the fundamental
structure.
_The Roadtown Religion._
A tremendous step toward the perfection of civilization will be made
when the world recognizes the two following principles:
(1) That cities should be built in long continuous lines.
(2) That housing, as a _framework_, and scientific transportation, as
a _compact mechanism_ to fit therein, should be developed as a single
enterprise.
The Roadtown will tend to perfect transportation as applied to people,
commodities and intelligence. Highly perfected transportation means
opportunity to get together or to get apart. It means socialism for
the socialist, together with all the advantages of individualism, and
individualism for the individualist, together with all the advantages
of coöperation.
The mission of the Roadtown is to assist in the development of the
physical, mental and moral qualities of mankind through the gradual
elimination of all physical, mental and moral waste, thus creating
an environment where selfishness and inequality of opportunity will
gradually disappear and where man will finally enjoy all the fruits of
his labor.
The above expresses the principles of the Roadtown religion--a faith
which holds that the Kingdom of God can be realized on this earth and
points a practical way by which such realization may be attained.
If you accept these principles and can add them to the faith of your
present religion you are indeed a Roadtowner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account