But
there are a number of little points in the management of this
private government strip of earth that savors more or less faintly
of the Socialist's program, and the Zone offers perhaps as good a
chance as we shall ever have to study some phases of those
theories in practice.
Few of us now deny the Socialist's main criticisms of existing
society; most of us question his remedies. Some of us go so far as
to feel a sneaking curiosity to see railroads and similar purely
public utilities government-owned, just to find how it would work.
Down on the Canal Zone they have a sort of modified socialism
where one can watch much of this under a Bell jar. There one
quickly discovers that a locomotive with the brief and sufficient
information "U.S." on her tender flanks--or more properly the
flanks of her tender--gives one a swelling of the chest no other
combination of letters could inspire. Thus far, too, theory seems
to work well. The service could hardly be better, and recalling
that under the old private system the fare for the forty-seven
miles across the Isthmus was $25 with a charge of ten cents for
every pound of baggage, the $2.40 of today does not seem
particularly exorbitant.
The official machinery of this private government strip also seems
to run like clockwork. To be sure the wheels even of a clock grind
a bit with friction at times, but the clock goes on keeping time
for all that.
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