In the Black World, the Preacher and Teacher embodied once the ideals of this people,--the strife for another and a juster world, the vague dream of righteousness, the mystery of knowing; but today the danger is that these ideals, with their simple beauty and weird inspiration, will suddenly sink to a question of cash and a lust for gold. Here stands this black young Atalanta, girding herself for the race that must be run; and if her eyes be still toward the hills and sky as in the days of old, then we may look for noble running; but what if some ruthless or wily or even thoughtless Hippomenes lay golden apples before her? What if the negro people be wooed from a strife for righteousness, from a love of knowing, to regard dollars as the be-all and the end-all of life? What if to the Mammonism of America be added the rising Mammonism of the re-born South, and the Mammonism of this South be reinforced by the budding Mammonism of its half-awakened black millions? Whither, then, is the new-world quest of Goodness and Beauty and Truth gone glimmering? Co-operation and Nationality BY "A.E." (GEORGE W. RUSSELL) (See page 252) When steam first began to puff and wheels go round at so many revolutions per minute, the wild child humanity, who had hitherto developed his civilization in picturesque unconsciousness of where he was going, and without any set plan, was caught and put in harness. What are called business habits were invented to make the life of man run in harmony with the steam engine, and his movements rival the train in punctuality. The factory system was invented, and it was an instantaneous success. Men were clothed with cheapness and uniformity. Their minds grew numerously alike, cheap and uniform also. They were at their desks at nine o'clock, or at their looms at six. They adjusted themselves to the punctual wheels. The rapid piston acted as pacemaker, and in England, which started first in the modern race for wealth, it was an enormous advantage to have tireless machines of superhuman activity to make the pace, and nerve men, women and children to the fullest activity possible. Business methods had a long start in England, and irregularity and want of uniformity became after a while such exceptions that they were regarded as deadly sins. The grocer whose supplies of butter did not arrive week after week by the same train, at the same hour, and of the same quality, of the same color, the same saltness, and in the same kind of box, quarrelled with the wholesaler, who in his turn quarrelled with the producer. Only the most machine-like race could win custom. After a while every country felt it had to be drilled or become extinct. Some made themselves into machines to enter the English market, some to preserve their own markets. Even the indolent Oriental is getting keyed up, and in another fifty years the Bedouin of the desert will be at his desk and the wild horseman of Tartary will be oiling his engines. The Communist Manifesto