THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
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COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION 
 
THE SOCIAL WELFARE LIBRARY 
 
 Edited by Edward T. Devine, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 
 A series of volumes for the general reader and the 
 social worker, designed to contribute to the under- 
 standing of social problems, and to stimulate critical 
 and constructive thinking about social work. 
 
 1. Social Work: by Edward T. Devine. In 
 
 preparation. 
 
 2. The Story of Social Work in America: by 
 
 Lillian Brandt. In preparation. 
 
 3. Community Organization: by Joseph Kinmont 
 
 Hart. Price, $2.25 net. 
 
 4. Industry and Human Welfare: by William L. 
 
 Chenery. In preparation. 
 
 5. Treatment of the Offender: by Winthrop D. 
 
 Lane. In preparation. 
 
THE SOCIAL WELFARE LIBRARY 
 
 COMMUNITY 
 ORGANIZATION 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH KINMONT HART 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 DEMOCRACY IN EDUCATION 
 
 Nem fork 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1920 
 
 All Righti Reserved 
 
COPTBIOHT, 1920, 
 
 Bt the macmillan company 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published December, 1920. 
 
)3l 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THIS book is the outgrowth of ten years of work 
 in educational and social lines in Western States, 
 together with six months' experience with the War 
 Camp Community Service in intensive study of the 
 problems of community life and organization under 
 reconstruction conditions. The backgrounds of the dis- 
 cussion may be found in the educational and sociolog- 
 ical literature of the recent past and present; in the 
 actual work of social construction and reconstruction 
 now going on in the world; and in the community pro- 
 grams of many individuals, groups, associations, and 
 communities. 
 
 It is an effort to approach our social problems from 
 the standpoint of the community as a whole. We are 
 attempting to discover some of the laws, biological, 
 psychological, and social, within which human asso- 
 ciation goes on and in terms of which more or less 
 satisfactory communities have been built up. We are 
 attempting to develop means by which community 
 thinking of a higher order may be brought to bear on 
 the problems of the community in order that our de- 
 mocracy may have the fullest possible use of all its ' 
 latent resources of enthusiasm, intelligence, and good 
 will. We are attempting to point out the larger com- 
 munity ways in which volunteer energy and co-opera- 
 tion may be made to bear fruit in programs of health, 
 
 149.5rS8 
 
PREFACE 
 
 happiness, and social understanding. We are attempt- 
 ing to work out natural social motivations that will 
 bring the common masses of people together in firmer 
 bonds of mutual understanding and helpfulness in 
 order that our democracy may become real, substantial, 
 and humane. 
 
 The field here outlined is still largely open country. 
 This is not a final guide book, it is a sketch of certain 
 high points from which the whole country has been 
 more or less dimly descried. May it stimulate many 
 others to exploration in the same field ! 
 
 I am greatly indebted to a host of friends and stu- 
 dents for inspiration to undertake this task, and par- 
 ticularly to the members of the "Social Service Pub- 
 lishing Company," for providing the leisure that has 
 made the work possible, 
 
 I am indebted to innumerable individuals and groups 
 who have enabled me to come into intimate and con- 
 crete contact with the realities of community life in 
 many parts of the country. 
 
 I am indebted to Mr. Ray F. Carter and Mr. Tam 
 Deering of Seattle for many helpful suggestions; and 
 to my secretary. Miss Adelaide Morey, for continuous 
 helpfulness in the selection of materials and for stimu- 
 lating criticism. 
 
 My thanks are also due to the editor of the series. 
 Dr. Devine, and to Miss Lilian Brandt and Mr. H. S. 
 Braucher, for illuminating criticisms upon the com- 
 pleted manuscript. 
 
 J. K. H. 
 
INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR 
 
 During the past ten years social workers have been 
 at school in technique. Processes of diagnosis and 
 of specialized treatment have been persistently pressed 
 upon their attention. Such broad facts of our com- 
 mon economic life as had been effectively presented in 
 Professor Patten's New Basis of Civilization have 
 been allowed to sink into a secondary place, when not 
 altogether ignored. The training schools for social 
 workers have not unnaturally emphasized the technical 
 aspects of investigation and treatment; and special 
 periodicals devoted to one or another department of 
 social practice have further favored this tendency. 
 
 Within limits this is a necessary and beneficial 
 development. Knowledge of procedure which has 
 proved to be successful, mastery of technique, critical 
 analysis of experience, familiarity with case records, 
 are essential in social work as in every vocation. The 
 danger is that we may become so absorbed in the par- 
 ticular manner in which a group of chosen individ- 
 uals are to be treated — in their reactions, favorable 
 and unfavorable — as to lose altogether the larger view 
 of the conditions under which they live, the social 
 forces which are operating upon them independently 
 of our intervention, the motives which do in reality 
 determine their general course of action. Similar 
 over-specialization may occur in those forms of social 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 work which are concerned with group interests or the 
 common welfare as distinct from family case work. 
 Community organization, for example, may develop 
 a technique in which selected problems are followed 
 to their most intricate ramifications in calm disregard 
 of entire lack of interest in those problems by any 
 existing community of human beings. 
 
 In either case this tendency may be fostered by 
 excessive sensitiveness to the good opinion of those 
 individuals who at the time are regarded as authori- 
 ties in the field in question. An actual dread of gen- 
 eral popularity, coupled with an intense desire for the 
 approval of one or more "experts," a mutual admira- 
 tion guild based on proficiency in a special form of 
 service, an intellectual aristocracy which substitutes 
 inner satisfaction for objective tests of social utility, 
 are the logical outcome of an over-elaboration of 
 "technique," when not controlled by the observations 
 and criticisms of economists, by the dicta of common 
 sense, by the facts of our common social life as plain 
 people see and interpret them. 
 
 A social agency created, let us say, to care for 
 neglected children, or to furnish facilities for whole- 
 some recreation, has constantly to ask, not only. What 
 are the most approved methods of child care? What 
 rare and interesting obstacle has a playground leader 
 uncovered? but also, Are children on the whole less 
 neglected as a result of the activities of the agency? 
 Is the leisure time of the community more profitably 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 employed, and by what test of profit? Are the prob- 
 lems on which attention is so minutely concentrated 
 the fundamental, the urgently pressing ones? Case 
 records are useful for instruction, but they may con- 
 tain little information about the deeper needs even of 
 those with whom they deal, and none at all about the 
 needs of their neighbors. 
 
 The Social Welfare Library, of which this is the 
 initial volume, will attempt to contribute to the inter- 
 ests of those who are engaged in what is broadly 
 called "social work," including not only that directed 
 toward the relief and rehabilitation of individuals 
 and families but that which is undertaken for the com- 
 munity as a whole. The Editor's desire is that the 
 studies which appear in this Library shall do some- 
 thing to supply the deficiency to which attention has 
 been called; that they shall contribute to social think- 
 ing rather than to technique, while not undervaluing 
 the latter; that they shall add to the general knowl- 
 edge of the social conditions in the midst of which 
 social work is done rather than re-analyze processes 
 already sufficiently established; that they shall aid in 
 a human appreciation of the difficulties caused by 
 sickness, poverty, and maladjustment, rather than 
 make converts to some one way of meeting these 
 difficulties. 
 
 With this aim in view, the present discussion of 
 community organization by Professor Hart is confi- 
 dently recommended to the favorable attention of all 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 social workers and of the general public. It is not 
 propaganda, open or covert. It is not designed to 
 inflame the emotions over some one aspect of the prob- 
 lem. It is a thoughtful and sincere presentation of 
 the larger problem itself — a demonstration of the 
 importance of a sense of community, a sympathetic 
 examination of the current plans for deepening and 
 giving expression to that sense, a suggestion as to how 
 current experience and thinking may be audited and 
 applied in a democratic spirit. It is written for those 
 who are directly engaged in community service in any 
 form, and for the larger number who have become 
 uneasy over the absence of community spirit and who 
 know that without it all devices for promoting the 
 common welfare are worse than useless. 
 
 Edward T. Devine. 
 August 3, 1920. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Backgrounds . . . . . r.i >. • 3 
 II The Present Situation .... 22 
 
 III The Individual as the Basis of Com- 
 
 munity 50 
 
 IV The Function of the Social Sciences 62 
 V The Democratic Ideal 'Id 
 
 VI Some Important Tasks 91 
 
 VII Types of Preliminary Effort . . . 104 
 
 VIII Obstructions 129 
 
 IX Developing Community Deliberation 141 
 
 X The Inclusive Program . . . .158 
 
 XI From Deliberation to Action . . . 179 
 
 XII Keeping the Program Human . . . 194 
 
 XIII The Problem of Leadership . . . 206 
 
 Appendix 218 
 
 Index . 226 
 
COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BACKGROUNDS 
 
 Human beings are not separate and independent 
 grains in the midst of drifting social sands. They are 
 complex centers of instincts, impulses, appetites and 
 desires, which impel to all sorts of entangling contacts. 
 They are not simple and distinct atoms in the neigh- 
 borhood of other simple and distinct atoms, but cen- 
 ters of complicated and ever-changing (not always 
 growing) relationships. The "individual" as such does 
 not exist. We live and move and have our actual being, 
 whether we will or no, in the mazes of social contacts 
 and relationships with our fellows. 
 
 Human beings are, therefore, centers of a variety of 
 needs. Five of these may be considered major, and 
 out of these have grown our five major social institu- 
 tions. First, as infants and children, we need nurture 
 and care, and this need has given rise to the institution 
 of the family. Second, as centers of ideal aspirations 
 and unsatisfied longings, we need some broad out- 
 look upon the meanings of life and destiny, and this 
 has given rise to the institutions of religion. Third, 
 we need provision for our physical wants and the 
 
 3 
 
4 Community Organization 
 
 chance to impress ourselves upon the world of things 
 in constructive fashion, and this has given rise to the 
 institutions of industry. Fourth, we need the oppor- 
 tunity of sharing and enjoying, in some more or less 
 just fashion, the various goods of the world, and since 
 this calls for order and restraint it has given rise to 
 the institution of the state. And, finally, we need to 
 know, and to extend our capacity to know, continu- 
 ously, and this has given rise to the institution of the 
 school. (Of course we have many minor needs which 
 have given rise to many sorts of minor instrumentali- 
 ties besides.) 
 
 But specialized institutions, although they have de- 
 veloped out of common human needs, divide the com- 
 munity among themselves, each attempting to satisfy 
 the needs of individuals and the community in its own 
 particularized way. The great modern city community 
 is not an undifferentiated family or industry or gov- 
 ernment or religion or school. These distinctive insti- 
 tutions tend to divide the community. They develop 
 their own particular partisanships and champions ; and 
 they compete more or less openly for the attention and 
 loyalties of the people. The result is that individuals 
 live by fragments and human life becomes a sort of 
 mosaic patchwork instead of a unified experience. 
 More than this : our large cities tend to break up into 
 segregated districts — industrial quarters, residential 
 sections, church neighborhoods, etc. The government 
 is centralized at the city hall and police station. And 
 education is shut up from the world inside school 
 
Backgrounds 5 
 
 buildings whose windows are so high that the chil- 
 dren cannot see what is going on out in the city. 
 
 Children are born into the compHcations of this 
 social world, this world wrought of many aspiring 
 — sometimes co-operative, often antagonistic — frag- 
 ments. Some of these fragments are native to the 
 community soil, the products of long development. 
 Some of them are of later growth, the contributions of 
 immigrant peoples or other innovating influences. 
 
 Some of these children early lose themselves or are 
 lost in one of these struggling groups, and grow up 
 without ever making institutional contacts of a wider 
 and more effective sort. They never learn any real 
 sort of partisanship, except perhaps a sort of primi- 
 tive, wolfish following of the clan. They never become 
 aware that there is anything ideal in the world that 
 is big enough to be worth fighting for. They fall into 
 a groove of the city's life and spend their years irre- 
 sponsibly. They never achieve a share in the complex 
 life that goes on all about them. They are not crim- 
 inals; they are simply the city's ignorant undertow. 
 
 Others, in large numbers, grow up to become com- 
 pletely institutionalized in the conventional industrial, 
 political, social, and religious fashions, and to spend 
 their lives in a round of group relationships, privileges, 
 and in a narrow way, responsibilities. These make up 
 the great bulk of the city's population — respectable, 
 unimaginative people with no large interest in any- 
 thing save the welfare of the group with which their 
 own welfare is identified. 
 
6 Community Organisation 
 
 A very few, under contemporary conditions, having 
 keen imaginations and vigorous sympathies, grow up 
 through all levels of institutional relationships and 
 achieve a more or less vivid and true conception of 
 the physical and human conditions in the midst of 
 which they live. These few grasp something of their 
 own intimate relationship to these conditions ; they see 
 something of the significance of their local groups to 
 the larger life of the nation; and they may even be 
 able to envisage the nation as a member of an eventual 
 world-league of communities. Many are called to this 
 vision, but few there be that find it. 
 
 Now the existence of these many fragmentary ele- 
 ments, with their many varying objections and in- 
 terests, and their many narrow and often exclusive 
 loyalties, leaves many crevices in the life of the city 
 into which unattached individuals may easily fall, or 
 through which they may drop out of sight. Some of 
 these crevices are disease, crime, poverty, isolation, de- 
 feated hopes, and the like. The number of those who 
 do fall into them is socially appalling. 
 
 How can we account for this unsatisfying character 
 of community life, if institutions were developed to 
 serve human needs? And how explain this careless- 
 ness of individuals and groups, if the individual is 
 really a center of social relationships? The answer is 
 found in the story of the development of our com- 
 munities. 
 
 The colonists who poured from the Atlantic sea- 
 board into the wilderness of the West, after the 
 
Backgrounds 7 
 
 so-called "French and Indian War," and especially 
 after the Revolutionary War, carried with them an 
 intense pride in their individual independence and self- 
 sufficiency — a pride which was the lineal descendant 
 of the "separatist" and "non-conformist" convictions 
 of their European forbears. They carried their indi- 
 vidualistic tendencies often to the extreme; they 
 wanted neighbors, but they did not want their neigh- 
 bors to be too near. The story of the frontiersman 
 who "had to move on" when he heard that a neighbor 
 had settled five miles down the trail illustrates the 
 point. 
 
 This pioneering life selected these qualities of indi- 
 vidualistic self-sufficiency and wrought them .into the 
 blood of succeeding generations and into the doctrines 
 and traditions of the nation; until the picture that we 
 have of the early pioneer is of one standing on his own 
 farm and saying tO' all comers : "This is a free coun- 
 try. This is my farm, and I can do as I please with 
 my property. I can run my business as I please !" And 
 because he stood on his own rights and met his prob- 
 lems in his own independent way, the continent was 
 rapidly conquered and developed. 
 
 But recent decades have seen multitudes of people 
 trained in this pioneering way moving into the cities, 
 where they must live in close touch with one another. 
 Under these city conditions some of the old pioneering 
 lessons must be unlearned. In the farm days if the 
 farmer wanted to keep a pig in his back yard, or even 
 in the "parlor," that was his own business — his and the 
 pig's. His neighbors were so far away that, though 
 
8 Community Organisation 
 
 they might talk, they had no real ground on which to 
 object, even had they been inclined to interfere. But 
 if as a city resident, cherishing his old pioneer customs, 
 he wants to keep a pig in his back yard, his neighbor 
 claims the right to have something to say about the 
 matter. The doctrine, "this is my own property and 
 I can do as I please with it" narrows down until it 
 disappears, at least in certain directions. That which 
 was good old American doctrine in the pioneer days 
 on the farm turns out to be no longer good doctrine 
 in the city. Health authorities, police authorities, moral 
 squads, and many other sorts of "impertinent inter- 
 ferers" insist on calling around to help the independent 
 pioneer adjust his old habits to the new conditions of 
 city life. 
 
 In fact, just as the Anglo-Saxon pioneer in America 
 showed himself to be the true descendant of the older 
 European pioneers not by doing the things he had pre- 
 viously done in Europe, but by doing the things that 
 needed to be done under the changed conditions of 
 living in the wilderness, so the modern city dweller 
 will show himself to be the true descendant of the 
 American pioneers by doing what needs to be done 
 in the city. And the thing that needs to be done is 
 not to stand on the inviolability of traditional indi- 
 vidual rights, but so to readjust habit and custom as 
 to make possible a good life for all in the city. But 
 this is a hard lesson, and few there be that learn it. 
 
 There is another phase of historical development 
 wbich demands a word. The life of the race began in 
 
•Backgrounds 9 
 
 small communities which lay perhaps at the crossing 
 of two primitive trails. In such small communities, 
 living was very simple and modern social institutions 
 were as yet undifferentiated. The community was 
 everything. There was no separate government or in- 
 dustry or religion or education. Even separate families 
 did not exist. The whole community was the family, 
 the government, the industry, the religious order, the. 
 school. The community was just a large family which 
 governed itself, fed and clothed itself, worshipped in its 
 own way, and educated its children by giving them the 
 chance to grow up in the midst of the common life. 
 (Of course, there were complications a-plenty in all 
 this, but the community group was simple and all could 
 know each other.) 
 
 Now in the course of some thousands of years, the 
 little community at the crossing of the trails has be- 
 come the great city at the crossing of many trails. In 
 the city people do not know one another. Frequently 
 they even make efforts to keep from knowing one an- 
 other. The city has become too unwieldy to go on as 
 one common group, and the people are too ignorant of 
 one another. The needs of the people, stimulated by 
 all sorts of contacts, have developed in many direc- 
 tions, and special instrumentalities for answering those 
 needs have grown up and become differentiated and 
 distinct. These are our social institutions. 
 
 These illustrations from history show us two defi- 
 nite types of defect in our modern communities: the 
 over-individualistic, somewhat boastful sort of per- 
 
10 Community Organisation 
 
 son, who insists upon standing upon certain ancient 
 "rights," even though multitudes may thereby be 
 crowded below the levels of decent living; and the 
 stagnant, over-developed institution, which, though it 
 is the direct product of natural historic processes, has 
 largely become dislocated from its original function of 
 service to the community along some useful social line, 
 and devotes far too much of its time to the building up 
 of its own prestige, and so comes either to be an ob- 
 struction to community development or, passing up the 
 whole task, turns the welfare of the community over 
 to chance or accident, — to laissez faire. So the old- 
 time integrity of the primitive community has been de- 
 stroyed by competitions among institutions and among 
 their over-individualistic champions ; some fragmentary 
 group and some lesser loyalty have taken the place of 
 this community. Both good and evil have grown out 
 of these changes. 
 
 Yet in spite of the competition of these institutions 
 and their champions among themselves and with the 
 original community, always there emerges the need of 
 a community background for our living. We really 
 have a sixth major need, the need of community. Men 
 cannot live forever in fragments of the world; we need 
 a whole world, a fatherland, however shadowy it may 
 be. Hence, in every age, in the absence of real com- 
 munity, some particular phase of the community has 
 undertaken to make itself the central organizing factor 
 in providing for this need. Always these efforts have 
 spent themselves in attempting to make the part do 
 
Backgrounds 1 1 
 
 the work of the whole. Always some other part has 
 been excluded. The larger task of bringing- all human 
 beings into the community life has remained to the 
 coming of democracy. 
 
 In the course of history this sense of the need of 
 community has gathered around at least three different 
 elements. One of these is property. Under this ten- 
 dency, the real community is supposed to be made up 
 of those individuals who have had sufficient force to 
 make themselves possessors of property. At times, this 
 has been one of the qualifications of the voter. Any- 
 one who could not accumulate a little property did not 
 count, and therefore should not be counted. In the 
 Middle Ages members of the community held their 
 property in a future world, — and that fact seriously 
 interfered with any program of community develop- 
 ment in this world. At present, over-emphasis upon 
 this element constitutes one of the main obstacles to 
 the humanizing of our community life. Property is 
 indeed fundamental to the full sense of personality for 
 most of us, as the individual who can impress himself 
 upon the world through his sheer personality is very 
 rare. But the struggle for the possession of property 
 or power has taken upon itself the form of an old group 
 warfare, and by interpreting itself as a "war of the 
 classes" largely denies the possibility of community. 
 
 The working out of this concept and its organization 
 into political forms would result in an utter individual- 
 ism. Some hold that this is the true and final "order 
 of nature" and that, by and large, under such a pro- 
 
12 Community Organisation 
 
 gram every individual would achieve the measure of 
 success to which he was rightly entitled, measuring suc- 
 cess of course by the property accumulated. The 
 successful individual would prove his right to survive ; 
 the unsuccessful would prove his unfitness. However 
 tragic the case might be for the individual; and how- 
 ever much society might in its kindliness, by charity, 
 palliate his sufferings, his ultimate elimination would 
 make for the real good of the race. 
 
 This is sometimes called the "American doctrine." 
 Obviously, it is related to that extreme pioneering 
 individualism of the nineteenth century, which did 
 indeed make for the quick conquest of the wilderness, 
 and which had much to commend it in the days when 
 free land was plentiful; but we may well question 
 whether it is still good American doctrine now that 
 free land is no more. 
 
 A second of these organizing community concepts is 
 that of the political, state, whose symbol of strength is 
 the military. This concept is all too easily identified 
 with property rights; and democracy seems increas- 
 ingly suspicious of the ultimate value of the concept 
 and increasingly critical of the form and character of 
 the state. In the midst of the great war, the political 
 state, at any rate in America, experienced a consider- 
 able increase in prestige, becoming, after a fashion of 
 feeling, our real community. Property rights seemed 
 for a moment less blatant; labor unions subordinated 
 themselves to the common welfare; and all except a 
 few racial and social irreconcilables out on the fringe 
 
Backgrounds 13 
 
 of things seemed to be able to achieve a sort of merii- 
 bership. 
 
 But the state as the community began to fade into 
 the background as soon as the war was over. The 
 interests and attentions of the people have for the most 
 part turned to more immediate objectives. Property 
 "rights" have become oppressively obnoxious, until 
 as "profiteering" they are threatened with utter elim- 
 ination. "Government by injunction," revived again, 
 has alienated the affections of millions of workers. In 
 recent industrial conferences,, the elected representa- 
 tives of the people, i. e., Congress, have been completely 
 ignored and extra-legal bodies have attempted to do 
 what the state is obviously unable to do. All this raises 
 the question as to the place of the political state in the 
 future of our democratic civilization. As an institution 
 depending upon force for its existence, it must face 
 the very practical question whether it can force the 
 loyalties of all the people. Certainly no community 
 can ever hope to build itself permanently on or by 
 means of force. If the state is to become the com- 
 munity of our needs, it must learn other means of win- 
 ning the loyalties of the people. 
 
 The third of these organizing concepts has had a 
 shorter history than either of the others ; but in recent 
 times it has developed a peculiar strength. The eco- 
 nomic union, the "labor union," under some one of its 
 several forms, claims now to be the true representative 
 of humanity, and therefore the proper center around 
 which to organize the future community. If numbers 
 
14 Community Organisation 
 
 are to count, or the larger humanness of the motive, 
 then this conception comes very much closer to the 
 needs of the world. But insofar as the program of the 
 labor union necessarily works out in terms of a "class 
 struggle" into intolerance of all other interests and 
 groups, it denies community, and is undoubtedly not 
 the ultimate center of community organization. 
 
 It is apparent, then, that no one of these three is 
 fully satisfactory to-day as the ultimate expression of 
 
 human need. All will continue to exist, but the world 
 needs something more. There are too many people 
 who do not belong to any one of them! The world 
 holds many men and women to-day who are without 
 property or a country or a union or a community. The 
 spectacle of boat-loads of irreconcilables ranging the 
 high seas seeking in all directions for landing places 
 is tragic evidence of the partial failure of our past 
 efforts at community building. Not only is this — as 
 in the primitive case of Cain — a punishment greater 
 than these individuals can bear, but it is rapidly 
 becoming a burden greater than the established 
 community cari bear. 
 
 These discontented ones, whether individuals, 
 groups, or nations, cannot be summarily excluded from 
 humanity. We may legislate them out, and declare 
 them, "beyond the pale," but nature will be slow to 
 accept our decree. Carlyle's story of the beggar woman 
 of mediaeval England may become our story. This 
 woman went from door to door through the village 
 begging for food, but ever3'-where the superior beinfys 
 
Backgrounds 15 
 
 turned from her in disgust as if she were not of their 
 race. But she had the final word, for, though she died 
 in the ditch outside the village, she gave an epidemic 
 of smallpox to the whole community. They would 
 have nothing to do with her, but she had much to do 
 with them ! 
 
 And so, because human life is very real, and grows 
 as all other organic things grow — in response to the 
 stimulations that nourish and support it, we need to 
 make sure that we are developing round about our 
 growing individuals and in the midst of our whole 
 civilization adequate wholeness of environment — i. e., 
 a healthful community organization. Human life 
 needs to be surrounded by something more inclusive 
 and sound than property rights or political force or 
 economic self-interest (though the significance of these 
 is not to be ignored). It needs the wholeness of life 
 of a varied human group, active, rich in healthful emo- 
 tions, intelligent. Fragmentary environments inevit- 
 ably nourish fragmentary individuals; and while there 
 may be occasional exceptions, wholeness of life can be 
 assured only in wholeness of community. And why? 
 Because at the center of individual and group charac- 
 ter and personality is habit; and habit grows by what 
 it feeds upon — that is to say, it is developed by the 
 accidents of the world round about. But we do not do 
 well to leave the destiny of the individual and the 
 group to the mercy of environmental accidents; indi- 
 vidual and group growth may not safely be left to the 
 play of circumstance. 
 
16 Community Organisation 
 
 The human nervous system is infinitely complicated, 
 and it hungers inexpressibly for the widest ranges of 
 stimulation. The average environment for most of us 
 in the larger cities is unsatisfying. The range of so- 
 cially healthful stimulations is narrow, and tradition- 
 ally determined, if determined at all; and multitudes 
 of young people are driven out to the precarious search 
 for additional excitements, good or bad. The cry 
 "Nothing interesting ever goes on in our community!" 
 is the cry of the hungry nervous system everywhere. 
 In former times these unsatisfied desires were set 
 down to the credit of the total depravity of the 
 individual; but modern psychology sees them in a 
 truer light, recognizing in them the pledge of what- 
 ever may be new in the true and the beautiful and 
 the good of the civilization of the future. Hence mod- 
 em social work turns ever more and more to the task 
 of making a healthful community life that shall afford 
 adequate stimulation to all this struggling, hungry 
 desire of the individual. In the normal and healthful 
 expression of this desire lie the hopes of the nobler 
 civilization of the future. In its suppression, or in its 
 perverted manifestations, lie promises of endless mis- 
 ery, vice, crime, insanity, disease, and all the long 
 catalogue of human social evils. The healthful growth 
 of our democratic civilization is dependent upon the 
 development of this more completely healthful social 
 environment, — the organized community. 
 
 There is, however, a subtle danger here. The com- 
 munity is not a definite and concrete group which all 
 
Backgrounds 17 
 
 may see and immediately apprehend. It is rather an 
 informing concept, a social ideal. Hence it exists at 
 present mainly in the social imagination of individuals. 
 Outside the individual it may be little more than a 
 phrase, — easily mouthed and easily lost. Hence, if 
 anyone should give up his loyalty to some concrete 
 institution of the community for the sake of this ideal, 
 and then should lose the sense of the reality of this 
 community (as easily he might), he would be lost in- 
 deed. He would be thus a man without a country, with- 
 out objective for his loyalties. It is better to be an 
 ardent churchman of the narrowest sort than to be a 
 milk and water sort of non-religionist; better to be a 
 narrow nationalist than a pallid, ghostly mouther of 
 words about an internationalism that takes no hold 
 on conduct. It takes a big person to be a super-institu- 
 tionalist, a real internationalist. For that reason we 
 need not wonder that strong institutionalists usually 
 regard the advocates of community as being, to use 
 Graham Wallas's phrase, "bloodless traitors"; or that 
 strong nationalists think of internationalists as the 
 worst enemies of mankind. If a phrase should release 
 men from a loyalty, however small, that has some 
 significance, into a reputed larger loyalty that turns out 
 to be nothingness, that phrase may well be regarded as 
 a menace to civilization. 
 
 There is, then, a verbal statement of community 
 which would deny the values of our common institu- 
 tions and would seek to escape from them. This we 
 need to avoid. There is another conception that would 
 
18 Community Organisation 
 
 identify the real values of the community with some 
 one — ^any one — of these fragmentary institutions. This 
 also we need to avoid. We need to save all the race's 
 achievements in the way of institutions, interests, and 
 activities, without becoming lost in any one of them; 
 and we need to surround these achievements with 
 something of the immediate sociability and congenial- 
 ity of the old, primitive group, with its natural 
 desires and instinctive satisfactions. 
 
 The sociability of the primitive community was pos- 
 sible because that group was small. A great city can- 
 not develop the same immediate congeniality or social 
 feeling. But multitudes of people roam the streets of 
 the modern city, work in its industries, throng its trans- 
 portation systems, haunt its dance halls and other 
 places of amusement, huddle in its tenements — all hop- 
 ing for human satisfactions, of the old instinctive and 
 satisfying sort. They find these satisfactions in vary- 
 ing degrees and with uncertain outcomes. The modern 
 city is not consciously organized to destroy its citizens. 
 That would be bad business. But it is so organized as 
 to exploit them, especially the young, to cheapen and 
 degrade them, often to feed them on stones when they 
 ask for bread, and sometimes to entangle them beyond 
 escape. The city questions the validity, of most of our 
 instinctive desires, and so condemns many of them to 
 suppression or repression, or to a sordid and illicit 
 expression. The normal human instincts are given 
 short shrift in modern industry. The longings for nor- 
 mal social contacts are used to ensnare the unsophisti- 
 
Backgrounds 19 
 
 cated. Sex instincts are banned, suppressed, misin- 
 terpreted and perverted. Leadership all too often finds 
 its only outlet in vicious and criminal directions. And 
 gambling, often with stakes not honestly earned, 
 becomes one of the city's chief avenues of adventure. 
 No lasting and worthy civilization can be built of 
 communities that develop far in these directions. 
 
 The modern community could become more intelli- 
 gent with reference to these great needs of the common 
 life. Congenial groups are not impossible, even in the 
 midst of millions. Far-reaching provision could be 
 made for the satisfactions of all the normal aspects of 
 our instinctive life if we were fully convinced of their 
 advantageousness and necessity. And the modern city 
 could be made a really human community if we could 
 just get our critical faculties and our constructive 
 social imaginations focused upon the problem. 
 
 Forgetting our primitive human needs, it is easy 
 to turn the development of the community over to 
 those strong, exploiting individuals who have no par- 
 ticular sense of social values, and whose only interest 
 is in taking "all the traffic will bear." Attempting to 
 escape from this intolerable outcome, we undertake to 
 organize the community in such mechanical ways that 
 everyone's activities are completely circumscribed by 
 fixed regulations. This was the ambition and the fatal 
 mistake of Germany in the old days. 
 
 Is there no escape from this dilemma? Must we 
 admit that our communities must forever choose be- 
 tween thoughtlessness and complete regimentation? 
 
20 Community Organisation 
 
 Democracy and the scientific spirit alike demand a 
 social order that shall be intelligent and still be free: 
 a social order in which all strong and capable per- 
 sonalities will find adequate employment; in which all 
 the sciences and social technologies can be continu- 
 ously brought into use; and in which at the same time 
 adequate democratic opportunity will be increasingly 
 assured the masses of the people to choose their own 
 manner of life and obedience. 
 
 These are the tasks that confront the statesmen, the 
 educators, the social philosophers and idealists, the so- 
 cial workers of the age, and indeed all good citizens 
 who believe in democracy and have any love for their 
 kind. The fate of democracy is wrapped up in the 
 future of community life. And the future of our com- 
 munity life depends upon the programs of community 
 organization which our social inventiveness is able to 
 develop. Democracy awaits the revelation of these 
 broader community programs. 
 
 All too' long these social problems have been re- 
 garded as the tasks of "social workers." But the prob- 
 lems of the community can never rightly be regarded 
 as the private tasks of anyone. The democratic com- 
 munity cannot so lightly escape its responsibilities. 
 
 For a community is not a mere aggregation of indi- 
 viduals. And the problems of a community are not 
 just the sum of the problems of individuals. A com- 
 munity is not a-"gregation" at all. Its members have 
 passed beyond the stage of getting together — in many 
 
Backgrounds 21 
 
 respects — ^and just are together, in wide ranges of 
 interest, activity and hope bound up with one another 
 beyond untanghng. The tangle of problems arising 
 must be solved in the community or not at all. And 
 the only wisdom that is inclusive enough to solve them 
 in democratic fashion is the wisdom of the whole 
 people, when that has been released, mustered, disci- 
 plined, and set to work upon the tasks. The salvation 
 of the democratic community is in the released wisdom 
 and co-operative enterprise of all the members of the 
 community. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 An old civilization came to its breaking point in 
 1914, and to its complete breakdown in 1918. That 
 old civilization is gone in all save some indefinite frag- 
 ments, and "not all the king's horses or all the king's 
 men" can ever put it together again in the old ways. 
 This does not mean, however, that America is doomed 
 to failure. Americans made American institutions in 
 the beginning, and at need they can make others. It 
 does mean that in common with the sordid and shift- 
 less institutions of the world, American institutions 
 failed to provide adequately for the inner life. In the 
 face of danger men and women alike showed in this 
 war period as high courage and moral enthusiasm as 
 in any generation of the past. But moral courage is a 
 function of the biological stock, rather than of acquired 
 character. Therefore, the sordid and shiftless nature 
 of our civilization before the war had not really 
 touched the quality of the stock. The surprise that 
 the whole world expressed when American men proved 
 as courageous as men of other nations shows clearly 
 that there was a general feeling that American insti- 
 tutions had deteriorated since the brave days of old, 
 
 22 
 
The Present Situation 23 
 
 and that along with them, American character had 
 suffered some corresponding disintegration. But the 
 war seems to have proved our native mettle, and there- 
 fore to have proved that the glory of America is more 
 in her stock than in her institutions. 
 
 In the realm of idealism our showing must be con- 
 sidered rather equivocal. We proved ourselves equal 
 to the call to high endeavor as against a foreign men- 
 ace, but we have not shown ourselves equally able to 
 meet the insidious foes within our own community life. 
 We have been victimized by profiteers, browbeaten by 
 patrioteers, and frightened into intolerance by rabid 
 agitators, until we have, either through fear or through 
 a deliberate, bourbonism, legally smothered many of the 
 old ideals of free people. Our reactionary leadership 
 is devoted to "security, sanity, safety" and to a sort 
 of "Americanism" which has been defined as "the right 
 of every man to make himself a millionaire if he can 
 turn the trick." We have been scared by strange noises, 
 and frightened by shadows. The brave idealisms of 
 the Declaration of Independence and of the Bill of 
 Rights are subject now to the interpretation of polit- 
 ical expediency and petty officialdom. 
 
 We must face reality. We must begin with our 
 actual world Hfe, as it appears in our communities. The 
 adjustment of individuals, groups, and nations to one 
 another was not satisfactory in 1914. Their relations 
 were in fact unendurable, and this unendurable quality 
 had become so irritating that it flamed up in the hot 
 
24 Community Organisation 
 
 passions of war. Whether we will or no, we must face 
 the problem of working out new adjustments of in- 
 dividuals, groups, and nations, more in accordance 
 with the democratic developments of human nature. 
 Probably the greatest treason to human well-being pos- 
 sible at the present time is the doctrine that all these 
 long-suppressed energies must be, to the greatest pos- 
 sible extent, once more pressed back into the old insti- 
 tutional molds. 
 
 Some would have us believe that this can be done — 
 that these world unrests are primarily the result of 
 superficial agitation and the futile longing to attain the 
 unattainable. But the sincere thinking of the world 
 seems to agree that they are rather the results of the 
 release of long-suppressed energies. Human instincts 
 buried for centuries under repressive institutions — po- 
 litical, industrial, educational, religious — have had the 
 chance to escape, and the world is now both suffering 
 and enjoying the expression of these largely unsus^ 
 pected areas of energy. 
 
 We are seeing to-day as never before the possibilities 
 of individual life; and we may well question the effec- 
 tiveness of our old community life as it appeared in 
 individual experience. We can find illuminating com- 
 mentaries upon various aspects of this problem in the 
 results of the tests applied by military authorities in 
 the examination of our soldiers under the selective 
 service act. 
 
 The physical tests applied showed that some 30 i>er 
 
The Present Situation 25 
 
 cent or more of our young men were physically unfit 
 for service in the army. This does not mean that 30 
 per cent were altogether socially ineffective, but that 
 an appalling proportion of our young men were physi- 
 cally below par. No nation can call itself intelligent 
 that so lightly ignores the great problem of individual 
 and national health and vitality. The reports of the 
 public health service in all its branches are filled with 
 illustrations of this lack of attention to the problems 
 of health and vitality. We have thought that our Amer- 
 ican rural life produced healthy and effective children, 
 but recent surveys of health conditions in rural counties 
 show an average of more than one defect to each indi- 
 vidual school child. These defects range of course all 
 the way from relatively unimportant ones to the most 
 serious. Yet on the whole before the war our local 
 communities everywhere were blissfully ignorant of 
 these conditions. 
 
 The educational tests applied in the army were new 
 and more practical than any similarly applied before. 
 For example, the test for literacy was twofold: each 
 man was asked tO' read a simple paragraph from a 
 newspaper and explain its meaning, and to write a 
 short news note home to his folks. If he failed to get 
 the meaning of what he read, or if he was unable to 
 write a sensible note, he was listed as illiterate. On 
 the basis of these tests about 33 1-3 per cent of the men 
 were so classed. It is obvious that the census reports 
 on literacy have been absurdly unreliable. 
 
26 Community Organisation 
 
 It may be presumed that similar results would have 
 been secured if these tests had been applied to the 
 young women of the country. 
 
 If we ask the reason for these outcomes of our com- 
 munity life we must go back for our answer to the 
 character of our pre-war institutions. We must inquire 
 into the community status of certain of the great func- 
 tions of life, and of the institutions through which 
 these functions secured their social expression. The 
 world is still shaking with tremors of the old war-time 
 quakings, and will long continue to do so. Our inquiry 
 leads us into some of the outstanding characteristics 
 of the breakdown we have witnessed, and to the prob- 
 able modes of our escape from these old conditions. 
 Straight thinking — a very difficult task under any cir- 
 cumstances — is indispensable now. How shall we 
 achieve this straight thinking? How shall we reach 
 the inclusive outlook that we need? 
 
 Three attitudes of mind are noticeable in these days. 
 Some, holding firmly in their closed minds answers 
 learned from tradition, made sacred by old partisan 
 loyalties and reinforced by subtle fears, fail to see the 
 real problems of the present and call intolerantly for 
 the suppression of all thinking. Others, priding them- 
 selves on what they call their "open-mindedness," seek 
 in an empty-minded sort of way for all sorts of interest- 
 ing bits of information — as a sponge gathers up drops 
 of water lying about — ^and hope that out of this indis- 
 criminate hodge-podge of "data" some illuminating 
 
The Present Situation 27 
 
 principle of reorganization will miraculously issue. A 
 few, having the tolerant patience and persistence of 
 the scientist, seem willing to approach the situation 
 tentatively, with hypotheses of possible solution, and 
 to try endlessly to find the clue to the mazes of con- 
 temporary unrest. The hope of the future of our civ- 
 ilization is with such as these last mentioned. Follow- 
 ing their methods, we must dig deeper into the actuali- 
 ties of present community life, as revealed by the war, 
 and so come upon the more fundamental details of our 
 problem. 
 
 To understand the actual status of the community 
 we must consider the status of its various institutions 
 and interests. Two questions arise in connection with 
 each such institution or interest : first, what is its serv- 
 ice to individual and community at present? Second, 
 to what extent does this service foresee and make pro^ 
 vision for the more completely democratic community 
 of the future ? 
 
 In considering industry we must ask not merely 
 whether the world is being adequately fed and housed, 
 but whether the instincts and habits of workmanship 
 are being preserved and perpetuated. For obviously it 
 would be a tragedy if any particular generation, in 
 the process of its own feeding and housing, should 
 destroy the race's capacity for work or its desire to 
 work. And there is evidence which suggests ^hat in 
 some measure that is happening today.* 
 
 ♦Carlton: The Industrial Situation, 
 
28 Community Organisation 
 
 In considering the church it is necessary to see that 
 not only must certain religious needs of present groups 
 and individuals be met, but the ideal aspirations of 
 future generations must be conserved. And there is evi- 
 dence which suggests that the futility of many present 
 religious activities may be responsible eventually for 
 the discrediting of all religious interests. 
 
 In considering the school we must ask not merely 
 whether children are taking on certain conventional 
 information, but whether the genuine intellectual life 
 of the community is being fostered and enriched. And 
 there are those who insist that the present school 
 regime is slowly destroying all originality and initia- 
 tive on the part of children for the sake of securing 
 fixed modes of thinking and conformity to traditional 
 opinions. 
 
 In considering the state, it is necessary to observe 
 not merely whether men and women outwardly con- 
 form to certain forms of order, but whether in their 
 intimate relationships in the small and large com- 
 munity life a finer and more loyal citizenship is de- 
 veloping, and whether children are growing up to take 
 their places in the positive social order. And there is 
 evidence which suggests that many are receiving a 
 training that makes them despise responsibility and 
 hope to escape from their share in the social order. 
 
 In considering the home we must consider not merely 
 whether the community is filled with children and old 
 primitive instincts are glossed over with a conventional 
 
The Present Situation 29 
 
 propriety, but we must make sure that these funda- 
 mental energies and instincts are organizing them- 
 selves into an ever richer and finer community life, 
 through which children can grow up to be good and 
 still be natural. 
 
 The Status of Work — Hobson, the English econo- 
 mist, tells us that there are three effective motivations 
 underlying human labor : First, the creative impulse ; 
 second, the impulse of service; third, the desire of 
 gain.* From the standpoint of individual and social 
 welfare, the first of these is the most important. But 
 our conventional opinion is that the desire for gain is 
 the only "manly" motive. The first is regarded as too 
 poetical for this rough world; and the second seems 
 effeminate. The result is that men must express them- 
 selves in a more or less skulking way in these two 
 directions, and apologize for being creative or in- 
 terested in service. 
 
 Present developments in the industrial world, how- 
 ever, seem to indicate that the desire for pay no longer 
 satisfies the worker. Increased wages have not proved 
 sufficient to hold the worker to his job. Increases in 
 pay he must have, of course, at least to meet the pres- 
 ent rise in prices. But recent strikes on the part of 
 men who have had wages well above a minimum level 
 indicate that they have not been striking merely for 
 more pay, but for a more complete share in the con- 
 trol of industry. 
 
 ♦Hobson: Democracy After the War, p. 30f, 
 
30 Community Organisation 
 
 That is to say, the motive of gain is not an ade- 
 quate basis upon which to build the structure of indus- 
 try to-day. The mutual interdependence of individuals 
 and groups in our greatly divided systems of produc- 
 tion makes an economic conscience necessary. All 
 groups must feel the responsibility of an interdepend- 
 ent service to one another. A striking group of rail- 
 way workers may paralyze the industry of a nation; 
 but the plan to induce them to return to work by brib- 
 ing them with more pay, leaving them still the creatures 
 of work conditions over which they have no control, 
 will not long solve the problem. If they are responsible 
 for the welfare of other groups remote from their own 
 task, they must not be put in the impossible posi- 
 tion of being held responsible for the welfare of those 
 groups while they have no adequate control over their 
 own industrial destiny. 
 
 Since the only interest the worker is allowed to have 
 in the industrial situation at present is interest in his 
 pay, he must find outlet for his other instincts in activi- 
 ties incidental to the main industrial process.* Having 
 no property interest in his job he seeks to assure his 
 tenure by organization on the one hand, and on the 
 other by prolonging the industrial process through the 
 practice of sabotage. Sabotage even becomes artistic. 
 Also work naturally slows down because the stimulus 
 is too remote to release adequate energy for the task.f 
 
 ♦Daniel Bloomfield: Employment Manaprement, p. 9. 
 Hocking: Human Nature and Its Remaking, Ch. 25. Ross: 
 Social Psychology, Ch. 7. 
 
 fTressal: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist. 
 
The Present Situation 31 
 
 A gradual disintegration of old work habits and of 
 old natural loyalties follows, and with this a disinte- 
 gration of the older types of workmanship. 
 
 The results are: first, that the world is not being 
 adequately fed or clothed or housed, since whole na- 
 tions as well as individuals are existing below the 
 level of normal subsistence. Second, the future of 
 work is very insecure. If gain is the only "manly" 
 motive to labor, then an important question arises, 
 "Why should men work when they have money in 
 their pockets?" If the reply is, "Because the world 
 needs service" — then the reply must be generalized, 
 and service must be made a basic motive in all the or- 
 ganization of industry. This would be a great step in 
 advance. But the true basis of industry will never be 
 achieved until once again the basic instincts of work- 
 manship are recognized as primary elements in human 
 nature, and are given a real place in the motivations 
 of all our industrial enterprises. Until that time comes 
 industry will remain in a precarious condition.* 
 
 The Status of Government. Traditional political 
 theories assume that the state is naturally the most in- 
 clusive social institution and that, whatever other 
 group loyalties the individual may develop, his ulti- 
 mate and final loyalty must always be to the state. 
 This theory, however, disregards fundamental ele- 
 ments in both history and psychology. Men have not 
 always been loyal first of all to the state. Religious 
 
 ♦Gantt: Organization for Work. Money: The Future of 
 Work. Goldmark: Fatigue. 
 
32 Community Organisation 
 
 institutions, social classes, and other groups have not 
 infrequently formed the nucleus of threatened or overt 
 rebellion against the state. Practically, the state is 
 simply one of a number of social institutions compe- 
 ting for the loyalties of the people. 
 
 In this competition the state has not always acted 
 wisely. In former times, when the masses of the peo- 
 ple were ignorant and superstitiously subordinate to 
 authority, statesmen learned that the basis of the state 
 is force; hence ever since, generally speaking, states 
 have scorned to attempt to approve themselves to the 
 native loyalties of the people, and have been inclined 
 to attempt to force those loyalties. In this effort the 
 state has had three extraordinary advantages : first, it 
 has had control of sources of arbitrary income 
 through taxation; second, it has had the power of cen- 
 sorship over the means of public information; and 
 third, it has controlled the military and police forces. 
 It has been able, therefore, to suppress active disloy- 
 alty, and to punish outbreaks against authority. The 
 universal theory of statesmanship is that the state 
 should be a sort of sublimated policeman. Few states- 
 men seem to be able to imagine any more democratic 
 attitude. 
 
 But the growth of intelligence and of democratic 
 aspirations has tended to destroy the foundations of 
 this old autocratic conception among the people. At 
 the present time states everywhere are face to face 
 vith the practical fact of the revolt of large groups 
 
The Present Situation 33 
 
 against arbitrary authority. In recent years various 
 authorities within our national and state governments 
 have laid down the proposition that they would not 
 treat with any group of working people while they 
 were on strike. The striking workers must first sub- 
 mit and return to their positions. Under such a prin- 
 ciple as this, however, public officials have been put 
 in the ridiculous position of being told that whether 
 they recognized the striker or not was of no particu- 
 lar importance. Arbitrary authority dissolves itself 
 when its threats go too far. 
 
 A democratic state seems impossible on the basis of 
 these autocratic administrative attitudes. It is quite 
 likely that we shall either have to return to a com- 
 pletely autocratic political structure in which the 
 outer loyalties of the people are held together by force, 
 or else we shall have to go ahead to a completely dem- 
 ocratic political order in which the loyalties of the peo- 
 ple are securely centered in the state because the state 
 is the most dependable instrument of the people in 
 their struggle for better conditions. No state can long 
 exist that does not know whether it is trying to be 
 democratic or whether it prefers to be autocratic — and 
 few states to-day know which they are determined to 
 be.* 
 
 The Status of Education — In the light of the best 
 democratic theory education has two main functions: 
 
 * Hocking: op. cit, Ch. 28. Laski: The Theory of 
 Sovereignty. 
 
34 Community Organisation 
 
 fkst, it must help communities and individuals to 
 know, — that is, to become acquainted with the 
 world's existent knowledge in usable forms; second, 
 it must continuously seek to extend the ranges of hu- 
 man knowledge and the application of these wider 
 developments to the solution of the human problems. 
 But this democratic theory of education has had no 
 very wide fulfillment. Ostensibly we have had uni- 
 versal education; but our schools have been hackneyed, 
 pedantic, narrow, unsocial; they have not generally 
 attempted to extend knowledge to the whole com- 
 munity, and to every individual in usable form. The 
 conception o£ use has been on the whole foreign to 
 our schools. Indeed, the conception of an intelligent 
 community has not been wholly acceptable to the dom- 
 inant group. 
 
 As for the second function, the extension of the 
 intellectual life of the community has been feared 
 rather than hoped for. We have passed through, in the 
 last century, several distinct fears : the fear of science, 
 the fear of evolution, the fear of the critical inter- 
 pretation of the Bible and religion, and the fear that 
 the social sciences would undermine the foundations 
 of social order. The war did indeed help us to real- 
 ize the value of the physical sciences in the prosecu- 
 tion of war. But it is not at all certain that we have 
 secured a higher standing for the social sciences — or 
 for the spirit of science generally. The task of mak- 
 ing science, i. e. critical thinking, an acceptable and 
 
The Present Situation 35 
 
 integral part of community life and progress lies 
 almost wholly before us. 
 
 The doctrine of heroic endeavor for the truth, the 
 more complete good, as exhibited by scientists long 
 dead is praised, — but not for application to-day. There 
 is such a thing as knowing too much for the good of 
 the social order. Martin Tupper and Samuel Smiles 
 have been our true philosophers of education. Lead- 
 ership in moral and social efforts must be safe and 
 sane. It is even charged by some that education in 
 America is committed to a program of Prussianizing 
 the schools, to the end that a small number of the 
 stronger men and women who can be trusted to "be 
 good" will be selected for training for administrative 
 positions while all the rest will be discouraged as rap- 
 idly as possible, until they drop back into the ranks 
 and lose their ambitions, and so cease to be potentially 
 dangerous — through having an education that is too 
 strong for their sense of proportion. 
 
 The Prussianizing effort made in many states before 
 the war (but not so popular now) to segregate trade 
 schools from the liberal schools and to shunt most of 
 the working-class children into the former, is the 
 most extreme illustration of this determination to con- 
 trol education in the interest of the status quo. 
 
 But the reactionary plan of the legislature of 1920 
 by which the whole educational program of New York 
 State was to be subordinated to political expediency is 
 a very striking illustration of public fear of free 
 
36 Community Organisation 
 
 intelligence. Democracy has little reason for assuming 
 that autocracy will easily surrender its perquisites — 
 even in the field of education.* 
 
 The Status of the Family — The family is, historic- 
 ally, a variable compromise between the social de- 
 mands upon men and women for a sufficiently stable 
 system to provide necessary care and nurture for chil- 
 dren and the more or less lawless and exacting de- 
 mands of sex instinct. This institution has had a 
 wide variety of forms, ranging through many types of 
 polygamy, but tending more and more in modern civ- 
 ilization toward an absolute monogamy. The family 
 has been subject in all ages to economic and social 
 pressures and has been reconstructed from age to age 
 to meet these pressures. But little by little through the 
 Christian centuries, the monogamic form has taken 
 upon itself the character of an absolute institution. 
 In the church marriage has been one of the sacra- 
 ments, and divorce has been practically prohibited. 
 
 Hence the family tends to be looked upon as an in- 
 stitution subject in no way to the reconstructive criti- 
 cisms of social conditions. It has become a final in- 
 stitution tending to absolute form and escaping from 
 the realm of social reconstruction into the realm of 
 absolute metaphysics. Yet, in spite of this the fam- 
 ily is under the severest pressure from many points of 
 view to-day. 
 
 ♦Dewey: Education and Democracy. Hart: Democracy in 
 Education. 
 
The Present Situation 37 
 
 Marriage exists for three fundamental reasons: 
 first, to assure the rearing of children under organized 
 social control; second to protect society against unin- 
 telligent and lawless expression of the sex instinct 
 while assuring individuals those satisfactions which 
 are rooted in the sex characteristics of the race; third, 
 to protect the moral integrity and personality of men 
 and women in their sex relationships. 
 
 When young men and women grew up together in 
 the local neighborhood, played together, worked to- 
 gether, went to school and to church together and 
 shared together all the common social interests of the 
 community, they came to know each other sufficiently 
 well perhaps to be able to make fairly wise choices in 
 the matter of marriage. And since it was altogether 
 likely that they would settle down in the same local 
 community and live their common life imder the same 
 general conditions and stimulations, it was practically 
 sure that whatever moral freedom and personal de- 
 velopment the community might provide would come 
 to them as surely in the marriage relation as under any 
 other conditions. To be sure, there was an occasional 
 tragedy, due not infrequently to the limited size of 
 the group within which choice was possible, thus 
 forcing uncongenial natures, in order to be married 
 at all, into impossible connections. In the main, how- 
 ever, that homogeneous community life found in the in- 
 stitution of marriage fairly adequate provision for the 
 care of childhood, for the organization of the nor- 
 
38 Community Organisation 
 
 mal satisfactions of sex, and for the moral freedom of 
 men and women. 
 
 The modern industrial community offers an en- 
 tirely different sort of problem. Too often young 
 men and women have no adequate chance to know 
 each other in any complete sense before they are mar- 
 ried. They may meet each other from the ends of the 
 earth, see each other only under exceptional condi- 
 tions, choose each other under the stress of any sort 
 of motive, even the most momentary or the most sor- 
 did. Even if they had known each other well before 
 marriage, the modem city deals with the man and the 
 woman differently; and after marriage they may well 
 find their interests running in variant directions. The 
 man's life is surrounded by all the stimulations, exac- 
 tions, and allurements of the city, its business, its in- 
 dustry. Or he may be called to long journeys which 
 may, without any intent on his part, set up divergent 
 lines of interest, releasing fundamental instinctive de- 
 sires from which he finds it hard to escape. At the 
 same time the wife, if she stays at the work of the 
 home, may be surrounded by the most petty stimu- 
 lations, in which she may find little or no satisfaction 
 of her instincts. As a result she may develop an even 
 narrower outlook upon life. Children may save her 
 from pettier concerns : but not infrequently suppressed 
 desire will have its revenge, and lead to questionable 
 teaching about the nature of the world, so that th^ 
 children will grow up with distorted views of life. 
 
The Present Situation 39 
 
 On the other hand, if the woman escapes from this 
 environment, if she goes out to work, achieves eco- 
 nomic independence and something of the man's 
 broader range of stimulation, she runs the risk of 
 complete aHenation of emotions from the convention- 
 aHty of the home; while the family itself is in danger 
 of complete disintegration. 
 
 When two individuals are thus bound together, the 
 result may be disastrous for one or both of them — and 
 for society as a whole, if they are compelled to sub- 
 mit to the ultimate terms of the contract. The diffi- 
 culty lies in determining wherein the higher good may 
 be found. Divorce may be the most desirable solution 
 of the difficulty. Certainly only a particularly stupid so- 
 ciety, that is to say, a society which was so frightened 
 by the thought of change that it did, not care to con- 
 sider any exceptions to its traditional principles, would 
 insist upon keeping together a man and woman whose 
 natures were so mutually uncongenial that their whole 
 lives were thereby continuously hurt. Of course, if 
 there were children the situation would require ex- 
 tremely careful handling. 
 
 At any rate, modern industrial civilization faces the 
 task of re-thinking the ultimate foundations of family 
 life. Economic insecurity is. at present so prevalent 
 that young women as well as young men seek to assure 
 themselves that they can be self-supporting at need. 
 This introduces a large element of risk into the mar- 
 riage relationship. It raises the whole question of the 
 
40 Community Organisation 
 
 moral freedom and personal integrity of the woman in. 
 the case and makes the marriage contract much more 
 definitely a contract between two equals. For this rea- 
 son society may find it necessary eventually to modify 
 the terms of the contract under which they think they 
 ag.ree to live their lives. Certainly no one can at the 
 present time consider carefully the ratio of divorces to 
 marriage in our average American city (in some in- 
 stances reaching 25 per cent) and contend that the 
 marriage institution is an unquestioned success. 
 
 Some sort of family we must have of course if we 
 are to have any sort of community. But it must be a 
 family which, while providing for and protecting the 
 children, providing for and regfulating the conditions 
 under which normal instinctive satisfactions of life 
 may be secured, at the same time protects and pro- 
 vides for the moral freedom and the personal integrity 
 of both the woman and the man.* 
 
 But all these considerations are so closely interwoven 
 with the general structure of our society that it is likely 
 they must all be solved together. 
 
 The Status of Religion — One of the definite out- 
 comes of the war was a universal criticism of organized 
 religion. In the first place, the Christian churches of 
 Europe and America had held a more or less vague 
 theory that Christianity would be able to save the 
 world from any further devastating wars. But 1914 
 disillusioned the world of this hope; Christianity was 
 
 * Ellwood: Sociology and Modern Social Problems, Ch. 
 4-8. Burch & Patterson: American Social Problems, Ch. 22. 
 
The Present Situation 41 
 
 no more able to save the world from war than was 
 Socialism. 
 
 Second, the war having- been precipitated, the relig- 
 ious forces of the belligerent groups organized for the 
 purpose of making the conflict a little less barbarous, 
 at least so it was claimed on the side of the Western 
 Allies. But not alone in Germany did the ministers 
 of religion come to be preachers of the doctrine of 
 hate. In England and America the most primitive and 
 passionate hatreds were expressed by ministers. Not 
 this alone, but the chief representative of organized 
 religious activity in the battle area came out of the 
 war with a great burden of discredit, whether rightly 
 or wrongly earned. 
 
 In the third place, since the war the voice of the 
 church has scarcely been heard in protest against the 
 dominance of force in the, settlement of the political 
 and economic questions of the world. The statesmen 
 who were instrumental in precipitating the war, and 
 who remain to-day in charge of the great task of recon- 
 struction, are almost wholly committed to the doctrine 
 that the world is to be saved by force. They would 
 bring in the Kingdom of Heaven by violence. And 
 there is scarcely a Christian leader in the western 
 world brave enough to challenge this program or intel- 
 ligent enough to suggest a new one based on the funda- 
 mental Christian principles. So neither by its attitude 
 before, during, or since the war does the Christian 
 church seem to have enhanced in any way its prestige. 
 
42 Community Organization 
 
 The problem as it appears in England is set forth 
 as follows by a leader of the English church: "The 
 next general election will put in a Labor Government, 
 and the Labor Government will introduce a bill for 
 the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church 
 of England. This bill will be moved by no hostility to 
 religion, and every possible consideration will be shown 
 the clergy. But the church will fight it in every parish, 
 and they will be beaten, and still further discredited. 
 Then they will make martyrs out of themselves, and 
 compel the government to enact a more drastic bill 
 which will bring organized religion to its ultimate ruin 
 in England." 
 
 In America the situation has some signs of hopeful- 
 ness.* In the great Protestant denominations, in the 
 Catholic and Jewish fellowships, and in the personnel 
 of the Federal Council of Churches, there are some 
 few far-seeing leaders whose essential vision is a great 
 religion of democracy. These leaders are responsible 
 for some significant pronouncements on the present 
 industrial, political, and social situation. If these mod- 
 ern creeds could make themselves felt in the characters 
 and conduct of the adherents of these fellowships, 
 America would experience a profound spiritual revo- 
 lution. The fact is, however, that these doctrines are 
 at present little more than exhibits of the hopefulness 
 and good intentions of a few leaders. The religious 
 forces of America need to escape from their shells in 
 
 ♦Ward: Christianity and the New Social Order. 
 
The Present Situation 43 
 
 church edifices, to become acquainted with the great 
 fundamentals of democracy as expressed in the social 
 sciences and the labor programs of the day. And the 
 church needs to put its tremendous ranges of moral 
 energy back of these programs until democracy be- 
 comes a practical program in every community of the 
 nation. 
 
 But this transformation is so closely knit up with 
 the whole social problem of our time that it cannot 
 be understood apart from that problem. Religion can- 
 not go ahead and leave industry behind. The status 
 of the church is inextricably bound up with the status 
 of industry. 
 
 The Status of Leisure — Nothing shows the trend of 
 development of our civilization more concretely than 
 the facts of the redistribution of leisure.* Once in 
 history all the leisure belonged to one group while 
 all other groups could claim no leisure whatever as 
 a right. This fact impressed itself even upon educa- 
 tion. The liberal education of the past was an edu- 
 cation fitted to the liher, that is the free man, the 
 man who never intended to work. Over against 
 this we find not a vocational education, but a serv- 
 ile education, the education of the servus, or slave. 
 History might be told in the story of the struggle of 
 the servile and working groups to achieve some ade- 
 quate share in the leisure of life. That movement has 
 made rapid progress in recent decades and seems 
 
 ♦Lee: Play in Educatipn, 
 
44 Community Organisation 
 
 determined to find its outcome in the definite establish- 
 ment of a working day within which in any particular 
 industry the individual can be most productive. All 
 other time will be leisure time. 
 
 But we have not yet reached that solution. A state- 
 ment made by Jane Addams some years ago sets the 
 problem of the present. Young people, she says, worn 
 out by long hours of uninteresting toil in factories, 
 must spend their earnings in purchasing cheap recrea- 
 tion in the evenings and on holidays so' that they shall 
 be sufficiently renewed in their energies to enable them 
 to return to their work. A vicious round of uninteres- 
 ting industry and sordid amusement devours them. 
 
 Leisure time has been necessary to the development 
 of the arts and the creation of beauty. And even in 
 the midst of the sordid commercialized amusements 
 and recreations of our modern cities, beauty is still an 
 evident motive. By the very nature of their being, 
 young people demand some share in the l)eauty of the 
 world. Work as organized in modern factories pre- 
 sents few chances for the expression of our instinctive 
 lives. It is unreal, mechanical, meaningless, routine. 
 We have all had the feeling that the job we were 
 working at had lost its significance, bringing no real 
 satisfactions. Thousands of young people in our cities 
 are in that situation, and are struggling in every pos- 
 sible desperate direction to find some real satisfaction. 
 
 This is most seriously true as it appears in the rela- 
 
The Present Situation 45 
 
 tionship of the sexes. The one lasting and permanent 
 thing in the world is human instinct, and the most 
 exacting human instinct is that of sex. We are not 
 here so much concerned with the personal fact of sex 
 relationships as with the long story of the human gen- 
 erations. This inaudible call of the long generations 
 takes hold upon boys and girls and makes them seek 
 for chances to know each other, and for the realization 
 of every possible touch of beauty, of fundamental fel- 
 lowship, and love. This instinctive expression is not 
 primarily personal; it is the vital fact in the life of the 
 race, the call of the untold generations of men. And in 
 our larger communities we have dealt with it not in- 
 telligently, as if it were important in the long story of 
 humanity, but commercially,- as if it were something 
 to be endlessly exploited for profit. And so we have 
 filled leisure time with sordid amusements, exploiting 
 the deepest instincts, and degrading natural beauty to 
 the level of vulgar pictures and blatant music. 
 
 Our natural capacity for play has largely been lost 
 through the pressures of industry, the commercializa- 
 tion of amusement and recreation, and the specializa- 
 tion of games such as baseball and football. We take 
 our play vicariously, and pay for it out of our work- 
 day wages. The thrills of excitement we enjoy are our 
 heritage from an ancestry that did not live its life 
 vicariously, but actively, precariously. 
 
 The substitution of passive amusement of a morbidly 
 
46 Community Organization 
 
 over-stiniulating sort for the old-time active participa- 
 tion in play and recreation leaves the modern nervous 
 system unsatisfied, and the demand for expression 
 repressed and dull. Baseball crazes have tended to 
 destroy play in three ways : First, by helping the 
 community forget its older folk games — the old group 
 games of country-side memory; second, by attempting 
 to teach baseball before boys have the neutral develop- 
 ment to stand the strains of team games — so that 
 among such boys the game generally develops into a 
 wrangle; third, by pretty largely eliminating the girls 
 from all participation in play. The older games in- 
 cluded both boys and girls without sex discrimination, 
 solely on the basis of ability to play. 
 
 The future of the more normal democratic com- 
 munity is bound up with a more intelligent understand- 
 ing of the significance of leisure time, the spirit of play, 
 and the conservation of those essentially educational 
 and humanizing games which the race has developed 
 in its long history, but which we are now in danger 
 of losing under the false demand that everything shall 
 be made to pay. 
 
 Groups That Do Not Belong — Every community 
 in modern, complex society has always had its 
 "hangers-on" — individuals, families, or groups. The 
 community has, as we have seen, always tended to 
 organize itself so as to leave some on the outside. 
 These may be defective or inefficient individuals or 
 groups; or they may be individuals or groups who 
 
The Present Situation A7 
 
 are unassimilable for some particular racial, cul- 
 tural lingual, economic, or psychological reason. These 
 may be merely queer, or they may be a dangerous 
 menace. 
 
 One of the unforeseen results of the war has been 
 the tremendous increase in the number of these 
 excluded groups. This is partly due to the fact that 
 certain racial and cultural groups did perhaps offer a 
 distinct menace to national security in war time. This 
 became so grave, and propaganda with reference to it 
 so exciting, that a state of terror arose in many parts 
 of the country, breaking out into actual terrorism. 
 Officers of the law even were not above counseling: 
 "If you have any reason to suspect your neighbor of 
 coolness toward the nation, do not wait to investi- 
 gate; shoot him up first, and investigate afterwards!" 
 
 Since the war this intolerance of particular groups 
 has established itself in the form of closed standards 
 of membership which, while expressed in general 
 terms, are, like any standard, subject to particular in- 
 terpretations in local communities over the country. In 
 some places "100 per cent Americanism" includes all 
 those virile and vigorous elements which have at any 
 time helped in the making of America and which must 
 be saved if our American communities are not to per- 
 ish of stagnation, while in other localities these stand- 
 ards are so narrowly interpreted as to bring under sus- 
 picion anyone who is not lined up with some accepted 
 political party or social, business, or fraternal organ- 
 
48 Community Organisation 
 
 ization of a peculiarly conservative type. The plight of 
 some of these groups is particularly distressing. Nar- 
 row-minded bureaucrats, public officials trying to make 
 political capital out of unworthy persecutions, and 
 petty despots in local communities all over the country, 
 vie with each other for supremacy in ignorant and 
 brutal repression. 
 
 If we add to these groups emphasized by war-time 
 conditions those older economic groups that have long 
 been victims of industrial exploitation, and all the array 
 of defective, delinquent, criminal, diseased, poverty- 
 stricken, and outcast groups that long have lived upon 
 the fringes of our communities — preying upon the 
 more healthy life — we shall be able to present to our- 
 selves this phase of the serious problem which the com- 
 munity organization of the future faces. 
 
 Here, then, are large numbers who "do not belong." 
 This in itself shows the task of the future of com- 
 munity. There can be no community until these are 
 either eliminated from the community milieu, or are 
 included within the community. No community can 
 exist with such a fringe of individuals or groups neither 
 inside nor outside. They are, from the standpoint of 
 the community's health, like a foreign body in the 
 system; they must be understood and dealt with intel- 
 ligently or they will destroy the community. 
 
 Now and again national leaders like Jane Addams 
 have argued eloquently for the understanding of this 
 situation, and its intelligent handling. The problem 
 
The Present Situation 49 
 
 goes to the roots of community; and it will never be 
 solved until we are ready to attack the whole prob- 
 lem of community. It is one with all the other social 
 problems that we face; its solution is involved in the 
 solution of these other problems, that is, in the develop- 
 ment of the reality of community. ' 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE INDIVIDUAL AS THE BASIS OF COMMUNITY 
 
 This task of community organization involves the 
 development of a social order inclusive enough, rich 
 enough, varied enough, stimulating enough to reach 
 every normal human being; to transform all our com- 
 mon social institutions into instruments of service, 
 and to compete with all lesser elements for the loyalty 
 and support of the individual. The individual must be 
 "on the inside." What are the bases of such a com- 
 munity in the motivations of the individual? What in 
 his own nature will hold him to this community, and 
 at the same time give to his life the conditions of nor- 
 mal development? 
 
 The primitive basis of community life was tradition 
 and custom, which when taken on effectively by the 
 new individual became habit. Such a community is 
 the most stable imaginable, as long as conditions re- 
 main unchanged. The community of custom exists in 
 the individual as a structure of habits. Until the mid- 
 dle of the nineteenth century society was both by theory 
 and practice committed to a program of inertia; the 
 conception of a created, finished, stationary universe 
 came to us out of the Orient, where practically all 
 
 50 
 
The Individual as the Basis of Community 51 
 
 activity was unpleasant and where a curse had been 
 pronounced upon work. This conception carried over 
 into the aristocratic social orders of Europe, and main- 
 tained itself through all the Middle Ages. It was 
 wrought into the structure of the political life, indus- 
 try, the social order, religion, and education. It was 
 sanctified by the theology of the time, and bolstered 
 up by the fears of anarchy and the terrors of the 
 migrating barbarian hosts. 
 
 But this theory could not handle the element of im- 
 pulse and instinct in human life save on the basis of 
 the doctrine of total depravity and the necessity of 
 repression. The Middle Ages found its greatest sub- 
 ject of learned disputation in the conflict between habit 
 and impulse, i. e., between fixed institutions and the 
 innovating spirit. This problem aroused an age-long 
 discussion as to the legitimacy of aspirations and ideals 
 which spring out of new conditions of living, and 
 which therefore call in question old institutional atti- 
 tudes. This discussion took on at times the most fan- 
 tastic forms, forms which have been the occasion of 
 ridicule by the ignorant ever since. But it is certain 
 that there is no more important question in human so- 
 ciety to-day than that of the relationship between old 
 habit and new initiative. 
 
 Then in the nineteenth century the doctrine of evo- 
 lution destroyed the theoretical foundations of that old 
 system except for the constitutional and isolated tra- 
 ditionalists. From this time on, theoretically, the world 
 
52 Community Organisation 
 
 and human life are in constant movement, going either 
 forward or backward with every change in the condi- 
 tions of Hving. But this is another hard lesson to 
 learn, and few there be that learn it. 
 
 For most practical purposes life still runs on in the 
 accustomed grooves of habit, and will continue to do 
 so. Even our American democracy has not widely 
 learned that social health means continuous progress 
 and reconstruction. The sense of the finality of our 
 institutions still hangs like a mediaeval shadow over all 
 our democratic landscape. The suggestion of change 
 irritates men instinctively. Old institutions and even 
 old abuses have achieved actual substance, and intel- 
 ligence and aspiration are forever on the defensive. 
 
 But the world has been severely shaken in* its old 
 habits and customs and it seems certain that no social 
 order can ever again hope to hold its members in 
 control by surrounding them with any such hard "cake 
 of custom." Individuals everywhere are breaking 
 through : the feelings of repression and suppression 
 are dissipating, and individuals are being released into 
 the chaos of broken habits. This has often happened 
 in the past. Always it has aroused the fears of the 
 fearful — lest the whole universe should revert to chaos. 
 Always it has called for a more adequate interpreta- 
 tion of the world, a reorganization of psychology and 
 social theory in the light of the new facts, and a recon- 
 struction of all institutional relationships on the basis 
 of this more adequate theory. 
 
The Individual as the Basis of Community ^3 
 
 If habit and custom cannot be depended upon, what 
 shall take their place in the maintenance of a stable 
 community life? Such a question must find its pre- 
 liminary answer in the experience of the race. When 
 the old habits and customs broke down in Greece and 
 a new basis of social order was needed, what substi- 
 tute could be found to bind the individual back again 
 into the common life of the group ? 
 
 Socrates thought naively enough that intelligence 
 could take the place of habit. But this was such mons- 
 trous doctrine that he was put to death for corrupting 
 the youth of Athens. Plato undertook to carry out 
 his suggestion more at length, but succeeded only in 
 substituting a somewhat more elaborate program oi 
 habit for the old habit that was broken down. And 
 because in the breakdown of habit certain native 
 impulses had been released and certain fears of the 
 undisciplined masses of men had arisen, Plato, holding 
 that the most effective motivation in the lives of the 
 common masses of men was appetite, thought that the 
 only way they could be kept in control was through the 
 existence of a trained military group. For appetite is 
 afraid of nothing but the soldier and the policeman. 
 Fear of the military became the basic element in Plato's 
 plan for the control of the masses of men. 
 
 During the Middle Ages religious terrors were in- 
 voked to give added force to these controls, and the 
 fear of hell helped to keep various social classes in 
 their proper places. For many centuries the world was 
 
54 Community Organisation 
 
 ruled in this way. To a large extent the development 
 of law among Anglo-Saxon peoples was based on the 
 reputed psychological principle that fear and terror are 
 the most effective deterrents to crime. 
 
 But it is evident that fear can be overdone. Fear 
 may even back-fire. The propaganda of fear may be 
 carried too far, and the fear-inculcating minority may 
 themselves become, afraid. This seems to have hap- 
 pened in Germany, and to have hastened the collapse 
 of German resistance at the close of the war. 
 
 From another point of view, fear may produce just 
 the opposite of the effect intended. " Schrecklichkeit" 
 was overworked in war-time, until the opponents of 
 Germany lost their fear of fear. "Americans do not 
 fear," we said in war-time, meaning that we do not 
 fear Germans. It remains to be seen whether we fear 
 our own past, our own institutions, our own oppressive 
 officials. But it seems certain that in these days of in- 
 creasing critical intelligence, no government can long 
 endure on the basis of fear. Thunders no longer drop 
 from the skies at the call of conservatives, political or 
 religious. So while some old habit remains, and some 
 old fear, not enough of either is left to serve as the 
 foundation of a stable social order. 
 
 Another widely accepted theoretical basis of secure 
 social order was set forth in the early decades of the 
 nineteenth century in the writings of the so-called utili- 
 tarians. Bentham, by identifying pleasure with hap- 
 
The Individual as the Basis of Community 55 
 
 piness and pain with unpleasantness, was able to argue 
 that pleasure and pain represent the most universal 
 human motives and that, therefore, these can be the 
 basis of a secure political order. He believed, and his 
 own and later psychology taught and attempted to 
 prove, that men act primarily for the purpose of secur- 
 ing or enhancing pleasures or avoiding pain. 
 
 But here again the parts are very easily reversed. 
 Pleasure is not identical with happiness and pain may 
 be very far removed from the unpleasant. Pleasure 
 surfeits quickly, and becomes disagreeable; pain re- 
 fines and purifies — ^at least sometimes. Men do not 
 lightly choose the way of pleasure. In all times of 
 stress and crisis they tend to choose the harder way; 
 and in their very sufferings and even death find exqui- 
 site happiness. A state or community built on the sup- 
 position that men are ruled by their pleasures would 
 not last. There is at present no way of determining 
 whether any particular man would choose the way of 
 pleasure or the way of pain. And determining that 
 matter for one individual would probably throw only 
 incidental light on the conduct of any other individual. 
 Community cannot ignore these motives; but neither, 
 can it build securely upon them. 
 
 Another group of theorists finds the secure basis of 
 social order and community in the principle of Good 
 Will, of Sympathy and of Love. For these the "Broth- 
 erhood of Man" seems to represent not only the ulti- 
 
56 Community Organisation 
 
 mate ideal, but a very possible ideal. They feel in it a 
 very definite, even final appeal : "Beyond all nations is 
 humanity !" 
 
 There is a certain instinctive quality here, a sort of 
 "consciousness of kind." All types of internationalist 
 groups have been declaring this doctrine for many 
 decades; many had even gone so far as to hold that 
 these international bonds of "good will" would be 
 sufficient to prevent wars in the future; but the experi- 
 ences of the past five years have denied that hope, at 
 least for the present and under forms of organization 
 developed to date. 
 
 The fact is that this so-called "consciousness of kind" 
 has been modified by many sorts of traversing preju- 
 dices: tribal, clannish, national, cultural; prejudices 
 of sex, color, race, social caste, and the like, until sym- 
 pathy seems all but lost under the accumulative antipa- 
 thies of the ages. Our prejudices are too strong for our 
 loves in too many instances. Our fears paralyze our 
 good wills. Our public opinion is too fully controlled 
 by old prejudicial influences to be trusted, — and even 
 when sympathy seems called for we cannot tell whether 
 we are being deceived or not. Sophistication and dis- 
 illusionment make us wary. The doctrine of love is 
 frowned upon by certain types of workers who would 
 substitute statistics for sympathy and a case-record 
 for good will. Professional mendicants, etc., lend sup- 
 port to tjie contention that sympathy does more harm 
 than good in the modern city. A community based 
 
The Individual as the Basis of Community 57 
 
 entirely on good will or sympathy or love could prob- 
 ably not long endure. As the British Labor Party says : 
 "The Labor Party has no belief in any of the problems 
 of the world being solved by good will alone. Good 
 will without knowledge is warmth without light." 
 
 Habit will be always with us. Some will always 
 seek to creep into the grooves of social habit and shut- 
 tle back and forth in a fixed routine. It was never 
 more possible than to-day for this to happen. And all 
 will occasionally long for some secure retreat. But 
 community organization involves the continuous re- 
 direction of one and another aspect of social habit into 
 lines of new growth and more complete development. 
 
 Fear is permanent in human nature. Some of us will 
 always be subject to fear, perhaps, and all of us some- 
 times, though the incidence of fear upon conduct grows 
 less year by year, save in those moments when some 
 great crisis looms upon us. But community organiza- 
 tion involves the gradual elimination of the more deadly 
 and degrading fears of the past, such as the fears of 
 poverty, starvation, limitless punishments, hell, and the 
 like. 
 
 Pleasure and pain we shall always know, and hap- 
 piness will ever be one of the haunting hopes of the 
 race. But we shall be less and less guided by these 
 feelings in our mature conduct. They will be the by- 
 products of our living and the indexes of our capacity 
 to live effectively, not the actual guides of living. Com- 
 munity organization will involve the development of a 
 
58 Community Organisation 
 
 social order which will select and intensify the nobler 
 pleasures ; leave some adequate room for the pains that 
 refine and purify our pleasures; and some real oppor- 
 tunity, if not for the actual pursuit, at least for the 
 enjoyment of the happiness that may come as the result 
 of living. 
 
 Good will, sympathy, love, and even hate, we shall 
 have with us always : love of the good, of the humane, 
 of the nobly fine; hate of the evils, the diseases, the 
 ignoble natures, and the vested wrongs of our common 
 life. Community organization must provide adequate 
 room for the holier loves and the nobler hates of our 
 liberated human nature. 
 
 But until our living rises above the mere level of 
 this emotional life and of the life of habit likewise, the 
 world will not be wholly human; and the world's 
 greatest need is the truly human community. Habit is 
 primarily a function of neural mechanism in the spinal 
 cord : a common illustration of habit is found in "stub- 
 bornness," when, as we say, we "get our backs up," 
 that is, when the spinal cord takes control of our con- 
 duct. Emotion, on its physiological side, is a function 
 of the ductless glands of the body. As we raise the 
 controls of our conduct to the level of the higher nerve 
 centers, the brain and cerebral cortex, we shall rise 
 above these old, stubborn customs, these old, unintelli- 
 gent, balking habits; and above the thrills of emotion 
 with which the secretions of the ductless glands infuse 
 our blood. We shall come, slowly but surely, to the 
 
The Individual as the Basis of Community 59 
 
 clearer outlooks of intelligence and critical understand- 
 ing. We need a community controlled by the brain 
 of the race, not by its spinal cord or its ductless glands. 
 The secure basis of the democratic community of the 
 future will be found in this critical understanding 
 which will include understanding of habit and emotion 
 and all the conditions of our common living. 
 
 But this is difficult to secure. Men love their old 
 habits and customs, even while they suffer from them; 
 and they enjoy the experience of emotions which are 
 dissipative of energy if not destructive; while they find 
 intelligence sometimes cold and inhuman or at least 
 cool and calculating. Spuming all habit, intellect may, 
 in its unwisdom, attempt to discredit and even to de- 
 stroy the past. Rising above all emotion, it may deny 
 the commonest human responsibilities, and all the play 
 of feeling and instinct with their fundamental satis- 
 factions. 
 
 Community organization will be a function of this 
 finer social intelligence, but this intelligence must be 
 kept genuinely human. This means that the bearer of 
 it, the individual, must himself become a real com- 
 munity. A time-honored theory of the individual as- 
 sumes that he comes into the world ready-made. All 
 his experiences are external to him, and all his accom- 
 plishments are hung on him like gifts upon a Christ- 
 mas tree. All the experiences of life remain external 
 to his real nature, and at the end he sloughs them off 
 and returns to the heaven of pure spirits. 
 
60 Community Organisation 
 
 A more recent theory assumes his continuity with 
 the processes of growth and development in the world. 
 He is wrought of many lines of ancestry, and many 
 strata of racial experience; he is primitively a bundle 
 of conflicting instincts, impulses, feelings, and desires. 
 His experiences are real and internal, and all the ex- 
 periences of life which count with him are real and 
 internal. His great task through the plastic years is 
 to organize a unity of feeling, purpose, and life-pro- 
 gram out of these conflicting interests. He enters into 
 the life of the community in all its varied interests in 
 this process, and he becomes as much of a community 
 within himself as the social order and the traditional 
 controls about him permit him to become. He builds 
 up a structure of community habit within himself; he 
 grows into the common emotional experiences of the 
 group. In this way he could be led to take upon him- 
 self the goods and the evils of his group; to see the 
 problems of the community as his problems : its health 
 as his health ; its diseases as his diseases ; its enemies as 
 his enemies ; its defeats as his defeats ; its friends as his 
 friends; its victories as his victories; its gods as his 
 gods. 
 
 In the fully integrated smaller community of the 
 primitive past special ceremonials helped to make the 
 adolescent experiences of children, especially the boys, 
 particularly significant in the development of this sense 
 of community. In historic times the Greek festival in 
 which the young man gave over his youth and took 
 
The Individual as the Basis of Community 61 
 
 upon himself the responsibilities of adult life afforded 
 a like opportunity. In the presence of all the people he 
 took the Ephebic Oath, in which he vowed lasting 
 fealty to the community, both alone and with many, 
 and swore that he would transmit the community to 
 future generations fairer and better than he found it. 
 If the individual is really to become a full member 
 of a community he must become something of a com- 
 munity within himself. He must have the habits and 
 customs of the community and something of its truest 
 emotions, its hopes and fears, its loves and hates, its 
 wider interests and its lasting responsibilities. Thus 
 he will become not only a real member of the com- 
 munity, but the community itself will live and be se- 
 cure in him: in his habits the guarantee of its con- 
 tinuity and stability, in his innovating impulses the 
 guarantee of its vital criticism, and in his growing 
 intelligence the guarantee of its continuous recon- 
 struction. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FUNCTION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 
 
 The community, as we have seen in an earlier chap- 
 ter, "is not SO much a definite and concrete group which 
 all may see and immediately apprehend. It is rather an 
 informing concept, a social ideal. Hence, it exists at 
 present mainly in the social imagination of individuals. 
 Outside the individual it may be little more than a 
 phrase — easily mouthed and easily lost." 
 
 Community cannot exist in the casual feelings and 
 temporary opinions of individuals to-day. The primi- 
 tive community could exist in the immediate experience 
 of its members. Certain modern cities have grown 
 through the development and merging of many little 
 village communities. In these mergings crooked streets 
 have had to be straightened; divergent streets have 
 had to be made to meet; various levels of traffic have 
 had to be brought to a uniform grade; and village 
 minds, village manners, customs and standards, have 
 had to be slowly reconstructed to meet the needs of 
 the cosmopolitan area. This has required vigorous 
 criticism, city planning, and a reconstructive program 
 of life generally. Generalizing such a development we 
 get the organized sciences, social and engineering, 
 
 62 
 
The Function of the Social Sciences 63 
 
 which, examining every particular item of the problem, 
 work out from all the data the fairly permanent and 
 stable elements of an organized program which can be 
 made the basis of the community on this larger scale. 
 
 In this sense political science hopes to take the place 
 of mere political tradition in the guidance of the larger 
 community; economic science would take the place of 
 economic tradition and common practices in the organ- 
 ization of the industry and business of the community; 
 social ethics would come in to reorganize the customary 
 moralities of the villages ; and a broad educational pro- 
 gram would take the place of the primitive schooling of 
 the village. The hope of community, local, national and 
 international, is the world's greatest hope, and in the 
 furtherance of this hope social intelligence is justified 
 in attempting to break down, not ruthlessly and igno- 
 rantly, but carefully, thoughtfully and yet persistently, 
 all intervening obstructions. This is the practical sig- 
 nificance of the social sciences : they must point the 
 way by which society may achieve this larger social 
 organization. The possibility of this is but dimly 
 emerging into our social imaginations. Its actual 
 realization is still far in the future, perhaps. Eventu- 
 ally it will express itself in a wide range of social 
 ideals, and in fairly specific but growing standards of 
 social achievement, as we shall see later. Here we are 
 considering the significance of the social sciences in the 
 task of organizing the community. 
 
 All science rests ultimately, whether consciously or 
 
64 Community Organisation \ 
 
 not, on some fundamental philosophic foundation. 
 Ignoring all incidental variations, three main philo- 
 sophic points of view exist, upon one of which, or upon 
 some unintelligent mingling of which, every social or 
 physical science rests itself. Two of these points of 
 view assume the existence of a complete and struc- 
 turally unchangeable world; the third assumes the real- 
 ity of evolution, not only in its physical sense, but in 
 that more real sense which assumes that in all social, 
 intellectual, and moral lines the universe is still capable 
 of producing new patterns. The first two of these sys- 
 tems are those commonly called idealism and realism; 
 the third is commonly called pragmatism. 
 
 Idealism assumes a universal structure of ideas, or 
 truth, which, like some mighty blueprint of the uni- 
 verse, forms the original sufficient and unchanging pat- 
 tern within which creation moves. Here is that great 
 structure of scientific law and moral principle within 
 which the stars and planets, plants and animals, and 
 man and his institutions all alike develop. It includes 
 also that "divine far-off event toward which the whole 
 creation moves." This may be a very noble conception; 
 but, however noble, it is absolute and limited and sets 
 definite barriers to the development of humanity and to 
 the growth of man's aspirations. As such it has ceased 
 to satisfy human need. 
 
 Realism, on the other hand, asserts the actual exist- 
 ence of the physical structure of the universe. It as- 
 sumes the identity of atoms or other units of matter, 
 
The Function of the Social Sciences 65 
 
 and asserts the indestructibility of these physical exist- 
 ences. This is then that great structure of the physical 
 universe within which stars and planets, plants and 
 animals, man and his institutions develop. An essen- 
 tial item in this system reduces morality to psychology, 
 and psychology to behavior, and behavior to physi- 
 ology, and physiology becomes part of the physical 
 structure of the world. Man loses his significance as a 
 moral being in this system. All his aspirations and in- 
 stitutions become assimilated to physical processes. As 
 one writer has facetiously described its effect on psy- 
 chology, "Under the realistic influence psychology 
 lost its soul some thirty years ago, and recently it has 
 almost succeeded in losing its mind." This realistic 
 conception of the universe has certain great values in 
 redeeming man from his over-emotional emphasis upon 
 the nature of life. But, however dignified, it is again 
 an absolute system; hence, limited in its outlook and 
 insufficient to meet the aspirations of human life. 
 
 The third theory, pragmatism, assumes the reality 
 of human experience, and asserts the reality of the evo- 
 lutionary emergence of new levels of experience and 
 new patterns of being. It finds in old habit, custom, 
 tradition and institution those solid structures of which 
 realism makes so much, and which are capable of form- 
 ing a permanent basis of habit, a permanent universe. 
 It finds in innovation, impulse, and invention the hint 
 of unrealized ideas which seem so much worth while 
 that they carry the suggestion of pre-existence. It finds 
 
66 Community Organisation 
 
 in the conflict between old habit and innovating sug- 
 gestion the possibility of the emergence of new levels 
 of experience which will deny the finality of both old 
 habit and uncriticized idea. In this process of recon- 
 struction, emerges the new pattern which shall take the 
 place of the old modes of living. According to this 
 statement of the nature of the world, the universe is 
 inhnitely creative, making inexhaustible room for the 
 satisfaction of human aspiration, the realization of new 
 forms of human association, and the building of end- 
 lessly new and necessary social orders. The essential 
 theory of this book is pragmatic. 
 
 This view of the matter implies that the democratic 
 community toward which we look is not now in exist- 
 ence. It does not now exist anywhere save perhaps 
 in the longings and aspirations and purposes of the 
 few who love democracy more than their own ease. 
 
 This is, of course, a fact of life. For example, in 
 1786 there was nowhere any such entity as the United 
 States of America. In the course of the summer 1787 
 the plan of such an entity gradually formed itself in 
 the thinking of a group of statesmen. Before the end 
 of 1787 that plan was formally completed; but it re- 
 quired another year to make it actual in the world of 
 institutions and a century to give it substantial stand- 
 ing among the nations of the world. This is the his- 
 toric fact; new institutions do emerge out of the aspira- 
 tions, hopes, longings, and intentions of men. What 
 was not in existence comes into existence ; and becomes 
 
The Function of the Social Sciences 67 
 
 potent among the energies and forces of the world. 
 
 This is the fact, but we do not care to face that fact 
 or admit it, for it seems to put us into a theoretically 
 defenseless position. Nothing, however, is to be gained 
 for democracy by ignoring the origin of democracy's 
 new institutions. As a matter of simple fact, institu- 
 fions do develop out of the germs of feeling, aspira- 
 tion, intention, idea; hence, theoretically pragmatism 
 represents a true view of the nature of our social 
 order, with its old institutions which are only partially 
 satisfactory; with endless new needs continuously ap- 
 pearing; with its continuous inventiveness shaping new 
 institutions to meet these new needs. Men's faith must 
 escape from the mere past and take hold upon the 
 unformed future. That which is unsatisfactory in pres- 
 ent social organization must be scientifically analyzed 
 ior the purpose of determining how much of it can be 
 discarded and of laying the foundations of new sys- 
 tems, molding new orders nearer to our needs and to 
 our heart's desires. 
 
 This involves the use in all social developments of 
 that wonderful tool which has been so fruitful in all 
 the realm of physical inventiveness — the hypothesis. 
 In order that we may see more clearly just what this 
 tool is we may note the alternatives of conduct open to 
 a community in any time of stress. Even the most be- 
 sotted community may without any intention of its 
 own come upon the evil day of uneasiness : what shall 
 it do then? In general four possible lines of conduct 
 
68 Community Organization 
 
 are open. First, it may fall back upon some ancient 
 theory of community organization. Second, it may 
 merely rest upon conditions and drift with circum- 
 stances. Third, it may set up some absolute picture of 
 a future in which all social questions are completely 
 solved. Fourth, it may take a somewhat opportunist 
 view of the future and set up hypotheses of possible 
 organizations to be tested out in the current of events 
 and to be accepted if found useful. The first of these 
 is illustrated by the doctrines of President Wilson in 
 his theory of "The New Freedom," in which he would 
 go back to the simpler social conditions of the days of 
 Jefferson and re-establish American community life in 
 terms of a social order that has passed away. The 
 second is of the nature of kdsser faire and represents 
 the philosophy that "whatever is, is right." The third 
 is represented by an extreme Marxian socialism, which 
 would set up an inevitable goal toward which civiliza- 
 tion moves past all escape. 
 
 The fourth represents the scientific point of view, 
 and the jragmatic mood; it assumes that man's intel- 
 ligence must play around about and upon all his prob- 
 lems day by day and year by year as long as the world 
 stands. But it assumes also that into the maze of the 
 future men must ever project hypothetic solutions and 
 programs which may or may not come true. It is not 
 so important that men's guesses should always come 
 true; it is of the very essence of human intelligence 
 that men should evermore have a chance to guess. 
 
The Function of the Social Sciences 69 
 
 That is what the makers of our American Constitu- 
 tion did, and because they guessed usably they stand 
 high in our esteem. But that is also what the makers 
 of the Articles of Confederation did; and because their 
 guess was not so conclusive their names are not widely 
 known. Human beings do not largely care for cer- 
 tainty. Oliver Cromwell said: "He who knows not 
 whither he is going goes farthest." Democracy may 
 never dare lose the feeling that it is a great experi- 
 ment, knowing not whither it is going, but none the 
 less bravely going on, trusting the intelligence of to- 
 morrow to meet the problems of to-morrow as the 
 intelligence of the past met the problems of the past. 
 
 The use of the hypothesis releases us from control 
 by the past, with all its narrowing limitations, into the 
 freedom of the future with all its promise for the 
 realization of human good. Of course such a mode 
 of procedure demands the use of every critical faculty 
 for the safeguarding of the community against un- 
 founded and impossible vagaries; but no fearfulness 
 on the part of vested interests may rightly be permit- 
 ted to destroy the community's faith in its own unde- 
 termined future. Every community needs to be con- 
 tinually working at the more complete statement of 
 its own more adequate hypothesis. This hypothesis of 
 the ideal community should be free to break radically 
 with all old modes of living, just as, let us say, steam 
 transportation broke with old modes of transportation, 
 or as instantaneous systems of communication broke 
 
70 Community Organisation 
 
 with ancient, slower means. Such an hypothesis will, 
 of course, be related to old conditions, facts, and atti- 
 tudes; but it will distinctly recognize the indisputable 
 fact that no stable social order can rest upon condi- 
 tions, facts or attitudes that are severely questioned. 
 Calling a disintegrating cement good, will not make it 
 good; calling a disintegrating social order good, will 
 not make it good. 
 
 Any hypothesis of the future ideal community there- 
 fore will necessarily relate itself to the unquestioned 
 elements in the present social order. Leaving these 
 secure bases it will work its way through the mazes 
 of social question with the help of every item of social 
 intelligence securable. This intelligence will be pro- 
 vided by such developments as psychology, economics, 
 political science, sociology, ethics, and the like. 
 Through the working out of these elements the form 
 of the more ideal community of the future will gradu- 
 ally emerge in the social imagination of interested men 
 and women. It will be like a finer breed of plant, 
 sought for and selected for its beauty, its strength, its 
 general excellence. It is essential that they who have 
 in charge the growth of this finer social organism shall 
 have substantially sound understanding of the soils in 
 which it will grow, and of the nurturing materials that 
 it needs in its growth. They who have to do with the 
 redirection of the social order — educators, statesmen, 
 thinkers, scientists and the like — must draw their war- 
 rant to be so engaged in a democracy not from the fact 
 
The Function of the Social Sciences 71 
 
 that they have attended many funerals in the past, but 
 from the fact that they have looked with joy on the 
 dawn of many new days. They must be able to see 
 human nature not from the standpoint of a complacent 
 pessimism and cjmical unbelief, but from the standpoint 
 of an insight into the still unexplored areas of human 
 hope. 
 
 They will see in psychology not a cynical proof of 
 the impossibility of human aspiration, but a dramatic 
 presentation of the lines within which human aspira- 
 tion may legitimately arise and may confidently hope 
 to achieve itself. They will see in political science not 
 the brutal and sordid proof that human beings are 
 happiest when they are being manipulated to the profit 
 of a few; but that human nature is happiest when it 
 finds itself serving, expressing, growing, without 
 thought of the outcome. They will find in economics 
 not the old, dismal proof that man is primarily a diges- 
 tion-machine to be kept in order by being always kept 
 full, but rather a social being who, having satisfied 
 himself with some of the good things of the earth, is 
 ready to share in all adventures for the still higher 
 goods of Hfe. 
 
 The possibility of the service of social theory in the 
 development of community might be demonstrated in 
 any one of the social sciences. But a single illustration 
 will be sulificient. 
 
 Social "science" might be any one of three things: 
 it might be a justification, more or less carefully and 
 
72 Community Organization 
 
 plausibly worked out, of established social structure 
 and methods; it might be a descriptive analysis of that 
 structure and method without any particular attempt 
 at evaluation; it might be a constructive analysis 
 weighing the various elements and organizing them 
 according to some theory of progress. 
 
 Political economy has been all three of these, in 
 the early mercantilist days the "economist" worked out 
 his theories of "the balance of trade" on the basis of 
 and as justification for commerce and commercial 
 treaties already in existence. Breaking sharply with 
 this position as a tool of government policies, Adam 
 Smith made a thorough-going study of economic proc- 
 esses, sharply separated from any motive to interfere 
 .with those processes. He said, in effect, to the govern- 
 ment: "Your petty laws of favoritism and restriction 
 are useless and worse than useless. The economic 
 structure is governed by great 'natural' laws with 
 which you are unwisely tampering." 
 
 Yet the third step, to the constructive, intelligent 
 handling of these "laws," was slow in coming. The 
 gulf so necessarily set up between science and action 
 came by a curious turn to be the tool of conservatism. 
 In turn the conservative tells the reformer as he seeks 
 for forward-looking organization and legislation:, 
 "You are merely tampering unwisely with inexorable 
 natural law." Such statements were probably not 
 always believed by their spokesmen, but they exerted 
 a strong restraining pressure on the development of a 
 
The Function of the Social Sciences 73 
 
 constructive, evaluating social science, which should 
 describe fearlessly, and proceed also fearlessly to show 
 on the basis of that description the points at which 
 readjustment must be made. 
 
 The main difficulty probably arises from the inter- 
 pretation oif the word law. The older sciences, physical 
 and social alike, used the term with the connotation that 
 law was divine enactment against which it were blas- 
 phemy even to protest. "Facts" have also at times been 
 used in this same absolute sense; upholders of the 
 status quo have continually warned liberalists to be- 
 ware how they trifled with facts. Now a fact may be 
 never so real a thing and still be subject to a variety 
 of treatments. A solid precipice on the mountainside 
 may be an undesirable thing into which to bump one's 
 head; none the less, a rope securely fastened to the top, 
 of the precipice may make it possible to escape from a 
 low order of existence to one much higher and finer. 
 So a fact may be dangerous if just bumped into; but 
 used as a solid reality to pull one's self up by or to 
 build upon, it may serve not to limit life but to give it 
 new scope and outlook. 
 
 For example, there is a law of supply and demand, 
 just as there is a law of gravitation. But the fact that 
 there is a law of gravitation does not mean that every 
 human being will eventually fall and break his leg. In 
 like fashion, the fact that there is a law of supply and 
 demand does not mean that if there are "naturally" 
 four jobs and five men wanting them one must inevit- 
 
74 Community Organisation 
 
 ably starve to death. The old adage "Necessity is the 
 mother of invention" can quite as readily be inverted 
 and made to read "Invention is the mother of neces- 
 sity." That is to say, supply may be more than the 
 answer to demand. Since human nature is still only 
 partially explored, supply may even be the cause of the 
 appearance of new demands. 
 
 Hence, in the closing years of the nineteenth century 
 and in these two decades of the twentieth century, all 
 the social sciences have definitely been turned in the 
 forward-looking, positive direction. Instead of relying 
 upon old interpretations of history and psychology 
 upon which a dismal structure of defeat must inevit- 
 ably arise, human nature has been subjected to a con- 
 tinuous re-investigation and re-interpretation for the 
 purpose of finding out facts and principles which can 
 be used in the support of a positive program of prog- 
 ress. Psychology has become a search for the mate- 
 rials of understanding and control of the human organ- 
 ism, with a view to providing the various social 
 sciences with substantial foundations in real human 
 nature. The old doctrine that fear is at the basis of 
 human conduct and that starvation is the one motive 
 from which all individuals take their cue has disap- 
 I>eared and we know now that men will gladly go to 
 their deaths for adventure, for noble ideals, for great 
 social purpose, for any number of types of spiritual 
 achievement. Any social system or economic system 
 that ignores the heroic quality in human conduct is 
 doomed to failure. Eventually our political sagacity 
 
The Function of the Social Sciences 75 
 
 will grow big enough to enable us to use for civic 
 purposes the whole great mass of heroisms which work- 
 ing men of the world exhibit in their mass actions and 
 which are now all too frequently turned bitterly aside 
 from inclusion in our civic resources. 
 
 On the side of ethics the old doctrines that men are 
 either good or bad, and that every moral choice in- 
 volves a clear-cut distinction are both giving way in 
 these more analytic days to the understanding that 
 every one of us is a pretty complicated mixture of mo- 
 tives and that every moral situation involves elements 
 that no human wisdom can fully allocate to- either the 
 good or the bad side. So that ethics to-day is largely 
 trying to escape from the old, futile, metaphysical job 
 of classifying individuals and situations and so finish- 
 ing up the ethical problem once for all. Instead of this,' 
 the wisest of ethical leaders are to-day concerned with 
 the greater task, the alluring task, of learning how to 
 bring together in ever larger numbers and with ever 
 greater degree of intelligence and energy those good 
 men and women who will devote themselves to the age- 
 long task of making a good world. 
 
 Rooted in the social instincts of the individual and 
 the primitive group, the hopes of ultimate community 
 are secure. The development of the full growth of 
 community waits upon the development of the more 
 complete social sciences of the future and their ade- 
 quate application to the tasks of making a completely 
 human world. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL 
 
 American idealism rose to high levels in war-time 
 and expressed itself in eloquent measures in the state 
 papers of President Wilson. No more remarkable phe- 
 nomenon has been known in recent centuries than the 
 profound effect of his idealism on the oppressed peoples 
 of the earth. He made their problems America's prob- 
 lems, and he gave to them the inspiration of sharing 
 America's ancient idealism. Reactionary tendencies 
 since the war have seemed to repudiate those aspira- 
 tions, but democracy will never find its complete ful- 
 fillment until it returns to them and makes them a part 
 of its fundamental program. 
 
 What were some of those aspirations ? 
 
 "We wish nothing for ourselves that we are not 
 ready to demand for all mankind, — fair dealing, jus- 
 tice, the freedom to live and be secure against organ- 
 ized wrong." 
 
 "We fight for the things which we have always car- 
 ried nearest our heart, — for democracy, for the right 
 of those who submit to authority to have a voice in 
 their own government, for the rights and liberties of 
 small nations, for a universal dominion of right by 
 
 76 
 
The Democratic Ideal 77 
 
 such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and 
 safety to all nations and make the world itself at last 
 free." 
 
 "A full recognition of the right of those who work 
 to participate in some organic way in every decision 
 which affects their welfare or the part they are to 
 play in industry." 
 
 "There are many things still to do at home, to clarify 
 our own politics and give new vitality to the industrial 
 processes otf our own life, and we shall do them as 
 time and opportunity serve; but we realize that the 
 greatest things that remain to be done must be done 
 with the whole world for stage, and in co-operation 
 with the wide and universal forces of mankind; and 
 we are making our spirits ready for those things. They 
 will follow in the immediate wake of the war and will 
 set civilization up again. . . . There can be no turn- 
 ing back."* 
 
 Apologists for old conditions and ancient wrongs 
 insist that "such words as these did the world infinite 
 injury, because they awakened hopes that can never 
 be realized." But this is part of that folly, partly inten- 
 tional, partly pathetic, and wholly tragic, by which the 
 energies of the world are blocked in their efforts to 
 achieve a truly humane social order. Upholders of 
 these old-time institutions and social organizations base 
 their opposition to change on the traditional theory that 
 human nature is unchangeable: "As long as human 
 
 *See "Selected Addresses and Public Papers of Woodrow 
 Wilson," passim. 
 
78 Community Organisation 
 
 nature remains what it is," they say, "the world will 
 go on as it always has gone on." This doctrine has 
 sufficient support in the fatalisms of religion and ethics 
 and common experience to make most people accept it 
 as final. 
 
 But it has its real and final, though unsuspected, sup- 
 port in our deep wishes and desires. It helps to main- 
 tain our ancient privileges, our vested ignorances; and 
 it tends to gloss over our social indolence. Once we 
 blamed a personal devil for the wrong that is in the 
 world. To this we added the doctrine of total deprav- 
 ity, — "In Adam's fall we sinned all," — to give the doc- 
 trine of evil a more permanent hold on human nature. 
 Evolutionary studies tend to discredit personal devils 
 and total depravities, but leave larger room for this 
 new excuse — "human nature." 
 
 This is, however, a quite definite misinterpretation 
 of human nature. In the first place, there is no one 
 human nature; there are as many different human 
 natures as there are individuals. Human nature ranges 
 all the way from the well-known scribes who devoured 
 widows' houses, and made long prayers in the syna- 
 gogue, to the widow who gave her all to the poor; it 
 ranges all the way from the character of Judas to the 
 character of Jesus. This is a simple historic fact which 
 he who runs may read. 
 
 In the second place, modern psychology no longer 
 accepts any simple statement of human nature. In view 
 of modem investigations each human being is an ama?* 
 
The Democratic Ideal 79 
 
 ing complication of interminable characteristics.* 
 Human personality is not an entity that just is: it is 
 a growing achievement, and may become integrated to 
 some high and worthy purpose or dissipated to ignoble 
 and destructive ends. In spite of the fact that psychol- 
 ogy shows this tremendous complication of human per- 
 sonality, it is opening surer ways to the control of 
 conduct and the development of a real art of living. 
 And though evil possibilities mix in every nature, the 
 way to a generously human community life becomes 
 continuously more clear. Education, if it could be per- 
 mitted to use intelligently the growing knowledge that 
 we have of the possibilities of human nature, could 
 assure us a vigorously democratic civilization led by a 
 broad social intelligence just as surely as the prussian- 
 izing pedagogy of two generations assured Germany 
 a submissive citizenship that both physically and men- 
 tally was dominated by authority. 
 
 All organization of growing social life involves 
 something of manipulation. There never has been a 
 group that grew up "naturally." No set O'f habits or 
 customs has ever represented ultimate human nature. 
 Every civilization, including every modern one, has 
 had its folkways, its arbitrary leaderships, its practical 
 psychologists, who manipulated it to their own interest. 
 People have always been the victims of catch phrases 
 and "question-begging epithets." Bacon pointed out 
 three hundred years ago how human thinking is habitu- 
 
 * Trotter: Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. 
 Wallas: The Great Society, Ch. 2 and Chs. 5 and 6. 
 
80 Community Organization 
 
 ally determined *by what he called "the Idols of the 
 Mind." In modern times we have seen the develop- 
 ment of such a movement as the "psychology of sales- 
 manship," in which salesmen are given just enough 
 insight into practical psychology to be able to play 
 upon some gross motive, vanity, cupidity or fear, and 
 so to manipulate customers. In all ages religion has 
 been called upon to sanction misrepresentation of 
 human nature, and public opinion has supported gross 
 inhumanities, such as slavery, in the name of religion 
 and civilization. Words have exercised fatal influence 
 over the lives oi men: loyalty, solidarity, patriotism, 
 treason, cowardice, slacking, — the books are full of the 
 long lists of epithets by which society has been con- 
 trolled. 
 
 In all these historic illustrations and in the present 
 social situation we face nowhere ultimate human 
 nature. We face only existent conditions, growing out 
 of a more or less plausible history, and depending upon 
 indolence and habit to maintain them. Pope sanctified 
 them in their impudent claims to finality in his cele- 
 brated falsehood, "Whatever is, is right." History 
 proves nothing excepting that certain things are, and 
 that while they may have served fairly well in their 
 own time, they are themselves not final, but usurpers 
 of the positions of other institutional forms which pre- 
 viously existed. And just as those previous existences 
 passed away to make room for these, so these can be 
 rightfully called in question to determine their fitness 
 
The Democratic Ideal 81 
 
 to survive. For a democratic social order must soon 
 or late definitely experience what Ferguson calls the 
 "revolution absolute," — that is, it must give over deter- 
 mining its program from the past and undertake to 
 determine it by establishing desirable standards of 
 achievement for the future, in accordance with the most 
 real and generous aspirations of the present. 
 
 Such standards must be established through all the 
 ranges of our community life: health, housing, indus- 
 try, family life, child welfare, citizenship, justice, edu- 
 cation and public opinion, recreation, and morality. 
 
 With regard to health, a community program will 
 include all the preventive factors : municipal sanitation, 
 railway sanitation, measures to prevent the spread of 
 the venereal diseases, of tuberculosis, of malaria, and 
 of the lesser contagious diseases. It will see that the 
 water we drink, the milk we give our children, the 
 foods we eat, all contribute to health and not disease. 
 It will guard not only against industrial accidents, but 
 against any industrial condition which threatens the 
 maximum health and social effectiveness of the worker. 
 It will see that our rural communities do not remain in 
 ignorance of the great advances in hygiene which have 
 been made by modern medicine and sanitation. It will 
 see that accurate vital statistics are kept and that the 
 intelligence of the community and of each individual 
 member of the community is increasingly alert, well- 
 informed, and able to build strong, vigorous life.* 
 
 ♦See Annual Report Public Health Service 1919. 
 
82 Community Organisation 
 
 A community housing problem will involve more 
 than a minimum of light, air and sanitation. It will 
 be concerned also with the zoning of the city, the 
 transportation, lighting, and beautification of the city, 
 with the elimination of speculative land values, with 
 the acquiring of the benefits of ownership for wage 
 earners without interfering with the mobility of labor, 
 with the elimination of waste in the construction 
 of houses, with the stimulation of the sense of beauty 
 and architectural value throughout all our building.* 
 
 Community standards in industry will make it evi- 
 dent that some form of national minimum which shall 
 insure "to every member of the community in good 
 times and bad alike all the requisites of healthy life 
 and worthy citizenship" is absolutely essential. It will 
 seem also evident with such viewpoint that there must 
 be "a genuinely scientific reorganization of a nation's 
 industry, no longer deflected by individual profiteer- 
 ing, . . . and the adoption in particular services and 
 occupations of those systems and methods of admin- 
 istration and control that may be found in practice 
 the best to promote, not profiteering but the public 
 interest."! 
 
 One difficulty meets us at this point : if the capital- 
 istic wage system of organizing industry remains, the 
 statement of standards will take a particular direc- 
 
 * See The Housing Problem in War and Peace (1918), 
 published by the Journal of the American Institute of 
 Architects, Washington. 
 
 t British Labor Party Program. 
 
The Democratic Ideal 83 
 
 tion; if, as seems likely, some more adequately human 
 organization of industry prevails, such standards will 
 take some other direction. But in either case, certain 
 minimum essentials can be foreseen. The working 
 day must provide maximum productivity without de- 
 stroying the worker's capacity to perform adequately 
 his other functions as a citizen and human being (cer- 
 tainly not to exceed a 44 hour week; and eventually 
 probably a six hour day). All competent members of 
 the community must participate both in the actual 
 work of the community and in the wealth it pro- 
 duces. This, together with adequate community care 
 for dependents and incompetents, means the abolition 
 of poverty. Every form of "child .labor" must be 
 guarded against, without at the same time depriving 
 children of the chance to share in work activities and 
 to learn to work. Industrial controls must be so re- 
 organized as to liberate the constructive intelligence 
 and inventiveness of the workers, both as to industrial 
 processes and as to the control of industry. Industry 
 must also be reorganized for the elimination of all 
 waste, both physical and social, to the end that pro- 
 duction shall be made as economical as possible, the 
 economies so resulting to be shared democratically 
 by all members of the industry.* 
 
 The standard of family life in a community pro 
 
 * Labor groups are sometimes charged with wanting con- 
 trol of industry before they are prepared to accept responsi- 
 bility for the permanence of industrial operations. But fair- 
 ness compels the admission that responsibility can be de* 
 veloped only by sharing in control. , 
 
84 Community Organisation 
 
 gram will center, perhaps, about the children, their 
 rearing, education, and development along normal 
 human lines. This will mean financial security of the 
 family, the sharing of the joint income among all the 
 members according to wise appraisal of the needs of 
 each, and a strong inspiring common affection within 
 the group. And it will demand the prevention by edu- 
 cation, public opinion, and law of unfit marriages, — 
 marriages tending to the spread of disease, vice, crime, 
 incompetence, and insanity. It will also demand frank 
 and open recognition of the desirability of ending mar- 
 riage relationships under certain conditions, — not only 
 under those now generally recognized, but also when 
 unescapable personal incompatibilities make the above 
 standards of home life unattainable. 
 
 Child welfare standards lie at the heart of the as- 
 pirations of a growing developing community. They 
 are an essential factor in all community problems ; and 
 must hold a high place in all community decisions. 
 The standards commonly known as "child welfare," 
 dealing with the variety of needs, physical, intellec- 
 tual, moral, of the growing child, have now been 
 worked out in great detail. But too often they are 
 known only to a very small proportion of the com- 
 munity. They must become a recognized community 
 interest.* 
 
 Standards of citizenship tended before the war to 
 become formalized; and discussion of them often 
 
 * Report of the Washington Child Welfare Conference 
 (1919). 
 
The Democratic Ideal 85 
 
 develops into a question of duties versus rights. It is 
 evident that the community must emphasize both of 
 these aspects ; and no authority is so well fitted for the 
 proper evaluation of these two aspects of citizenship 
 as is the intelligent community. We are recognizing 
 to-day that "papers" do not make an immigrant a cit- 
 izen; nor does voting always make a native American 
 a citizen in matters which are essential to commun- 
 ity ; citizenship means active, intelligent, devoted, mem- 
 bership in the community, and it can be produced only 
 by the community.* 
 
 Justice is an old Anglo-Saxon ideal; it is an old 
 Roman ideal; it is as old perhaps as civilization. But 
 its reality depends upon the constant reinterpretation 
 of that term from age to age. It has a certain essen- 
 tial character : freedom of all before the law and equal- 
 ity of all before the law : "Every subject of the Com- 
 monwealth . . . ought to obtain justice freely and 
 without being obliged to purchase it; completely and 
 without any denial; promptly and without delay; con- 
 formably to the laws."t But the attainment of this 
 ideal through the multifarious complexities of our 
 modern life will not be possible without the definite 
 attention of the community.^ 
 
 In the preparation of the future citizenship the com- 
 munity is vitally concerned, and its standards of edu- 
 
 * Weeks: PsycTioIog-y of Citizenship (McClurg, 1917). 
 t Constitution of Massachusetts, Pt. 1, Art. IX. 
 t Smith: Justice and the Poor. 
 
86 Community Organisation 
 
 cation must be constructive. Community demands that 
 education be socialized and vocationalized, making 
 room for the initiative and resourcefulness of all 
 children. A wide variety of vocations awaits the chil- 
 dren; a wide variety of native interests exists in 
 every child. They must be helped to prepare according 
 to their native bent, for intelligent participation in 
 trade, industry, or the professions. Education must 
 be extended to include definite instruction for all up 
 to at least the eighteenth year. Educational opportun- 
 ity must be equalized as between social classes and 
 groups, as between the sexes, as between rural and 
 urban communities, and as between rich and poor dis- 
 tricts and states. Health and physical training, being 
 fundamental to that personal and social efficiency 
 which can make a stable social order, must be made 
 equal with every other school subject in standing. 
 
 We must secure a reorganization of the methods 
 of teaching to redeem them from their academic dry- 
 ness and make them more adequate both psychologic- 
 ally and sociologically to the conditions under which 
 boys and girls must live. Defective and delinquent 
 children must have the benefit of the most complete 
 scientific diagnosis, prescription, and care; normal 
 children must have every opportunity to explore their 
 native interests in order to find out what they are best 
 fitted to do and be; extraordinary children must not 
 be destroyed by the mechanism of the school. To ac- 
 complish these results the internal structure of schools 
 
The Democratic Ideal S7 
 
 must be made over. Educational administration must 
 become democratic. Teachers and pupils must have 
 some share in the control of education. The new 
 teacher must be more mature without bemg academic, 
 better educated without being pedantic, more broadly 
 interested without being superficial, and more profes- 
 sionally minded without being narrow. Such teach- 
 ers must take definite responsibility for the problems 
 of the school. If democracy really intends to take its 
 problems seriously, the program of education must 
 rise to the level of securing chis sort of teacher. 
 
 Education must no longer be limited to cnildhood 
 and adolescence. A democracy lives in the growing 
 intelligence of its adult citizenship. Citizenship, in the 
 broadest sense of the term, must be made a part of the 
 educational program. This will include the teaching 
 of English to foreigners, the significance of Ameri- 
 can institutions to all groups, and the interpretation of 
 trends of economic and political thinking to all mem- 
 bers of the community. In a democratic community 
 education must continue as long as life lasts.* 
 
 One of the most serious failures of many of our 
 present communities is the failure to conserve the play 
 and recreational life. Human beings live largely in 
 their sense of emotional well-being; and this is mostly 
 kept normal by a natural participation in social and 
 recreational activities. One of the most fundamental 
 
 *Cf, Publications of the National Educational Associa- 
 tion on "T'he Present Emergency in Education." 
 
88 Community Organisation 
 
 necessities is the working out of a broad system of 
 standards of community use of off-time: recognition 
 of the need for playground facilities for the children; 
 of the necessity for social gatherings, amusement, play, 
 and all expressions of healthy social instinct for the 
 young people and for the older people of the com- 
 munity; an established place in the community for a 
 complete all-the-y ear-round program of social life and 
 recreation for all the people of the community, not 
 monotonous and fixed once for all, but year by year 
 being vitalized by the recreational inventiveness of the 
 community; recognition of the importance of special 
 occasions, civic celebrations, and the like, — not for ex- 
 ploitation, but for spontaneous pleasure, — for taking 
 the "eternal grind" out of life; the selection of a super- 
 intendent of recreation, adequately trained and with 
 broad outlook upon the whole social situation ; and the 
 organization of some sort of broad recreational board 
 to promote community occasions in which the whole 
 community gathers and enhances its own collective 
 emotion and sense of the worth of the community. 
 
 The organization of the community toward which 
 we look must make provision for the protection of the 
 leisure of the people against all sordid encroachments 
 whether of business or of narrow tradition. The de- 
 mand for beauty must likewise be protected against 
 all exploitation because the future of the race is bound 
 up with the conservation of the beauty of life. With 
 the increase of leisure in the common life will come 
 
The Democratic Ideal 89 
 
 a tremendous community responsibility for providing 
 adequate means in every sane and helpful direction for 
 the play, recreation, and amusement of the people.* 
 
 Community standards of morality will demand of 
 the members of the community, in addition to the older 
 sense of individual responsibility, a genuine apprecia- 
 tion of the conditions under which they live and a 
 willingness to assume some share of the responsibility 
 for the perpetuation or the cure of those conditions.! 
 
 In common usage the term "standard of living" has 
 primarily reference to economic factors, though in its 
 broader application it is to be noted that economic re- 
 sources are used to pay for all those other more or 
 less intangible goods which make human life worthy 
 and dignified. The standards set forth in this chapter 
 represent the elements that go to the making of such a 
 broad standard of living. Human life grows too 
 valuable to be wasted in war, or in the accidents and 
 diseases of industry or by preventable diseases of 
 infancy, or through bad housing or ignorant disregard 
 of sanitation and hygiene. The standard of living by 
 which human life shall be defended is "the direct 
 product of good inheritance, healthy infancy, pro- 
 tected and sufficiently prolonged childhood consecrated 
 to education in its broadest sense, youth sp)ent in the 
 upbuilding of sound character, rational organization 
 of the occupations into which the young enter at the 
 
 *Lee: Play in Education, 
 t Dewey and Tufts: Ethics. 
 
90 Community Organization 
 
 threshold of maturity, and attention to the conditions 
 under which the wealth of the world is produced and 
 distributed."* 
 
 "If war or industrial depression or irregular 
 employment or famine or pestilence or epidemic or 
 demoralizing poor relief or the luxurious indulgence of 
 vice breaks down the standard of life, this is for civili- 
 zation its one real disaster, retrievable, it may be, by 
 long and painful effort, but very probably not in the 
 same nation or community. Such a disaster is not 
 easily retrieved. Earthquake or flood or fire or defeat 
 in arms may be but a slight disaster in the large per- 
 spective of history, but any force which reaches the 
 inner standards of the people, their ideas as to what 
 manner of life they should lead, has a cumulative and 
 icalculable eft'ect on all their future welfare."! 
 
 ♦Devine: The Normal Life, p. 158. 
 tDevine: op. cit. p. 157. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SOME IMPORTANT TASKS 
 
 In the preceding chapters we have seen something- 
 of the backgrounds of institution and attitude which 
 condition the development of a community program. 
 We have seen how that program is rooted in individ- 
 ual life and need in these complex times, and how it is 
 called for by the developing social intelligence of the 
 age. We have caught some glimpse of the standards 
 of achievement which such a program hopes to reach. 
 We have now to see further what large specific tasks 
 of reconstruction will confront this community spirit 
 as it emerges into actuality and takes charge of the 
 destiny of our communities. 
 
 Old attitudes, indolent and slipshod, have left in 
 our communities many social defects for which the 
 only excuse we can ofifer is that we have no adequate 
 knowledge or methods of procedure for their cure. 
 These defects and problems, some of them shocking 
 in their careless contempt for human well-being and 
 happiness, exist because, as we say, we know no way 
 of curing them. Here and there a devoted individual 
 or a conscientious group spends unmeasured time and 
 energy in tinkering at the job. It is too much as if a 
 
 91 
 
92 Community Organisation 
 
 physician sought to heal an organic ill by some sort of 
 local palliative. Such work is indeed not to be lightly 
 esteemed, but its chief value seems to be to show its 
 own ineffectiveness and to throw us completely back 
 upon the general proposition that community ills must 
 be cured by community remedies, even though those 
 remedies should be so radical as to go to the very root 
 of community life and organization. 
 
 Our communities are well acquainted with these 
 failures, lacks, and general insufficiencies. It may be 
 stated dogmatically that very few individuals under 
 present social conditions achieve a vigorous, positive 
 and abundant life. Inadequate interpretations of life, 
 especially on moral and religious grounds; fra'g- 
 mentary forms of institutions, nurturing fragmentary 
 forms of living; inadequate perceptions of the facts of 
 life, stimulating perverted expressions of normal en- 
 ergy; false, specious, insufificient ideals of individual 
 and group relationships, fostering narrow and preju- 
 dicial types of social living; uncriticized and inade- 
 quate theories of human happiness, tending to limit 
 the ranges within which legitimate human expression 
 may proceed : all these elements in our common living 
 show us the extent to which our communities fail to 
 rise to the levels of even our practical ideals. They also 
 show the great areas of utterly unwarranted individ- 
 ual, group, and community suffering through the per- 
 petuation of maladjustments of all sorts which are 
 accepted either because we are too indolent to call 
 
Some Important Tasks 93 
 
 them in question, or because our theory of the world 
 assumes that they are a natural part of human living. 
 
 This latter explanation has no longer any legitimate 
 reason for existence. There was a time when men ac- 
 cepted yellow fever as of the very nature of human 
 existence, not to be questioned by the trusting religious 
 mind. That time is gone. No one to-day assumes that 
 it is blasphemous to put yellow fever out of exist- 
 ence, and with it that scandalous mosquito whose chief 
 service to the world has been the carrying of fever 
 germs. Doubtless that mosquito has a perfect right 
 to live; if so, let it reform its ways! If not, let it per- 
 ish in its sins! In the same fashion we may say that 
 those human beings and those social institutions which, 
 fatten upon the defects and the miseries of life have 
 a perfect right to live, but not by the continuance of 
 their present modes of living. The community has ex- 
 actly the same right to call in question their legitimacy 
 as it has to call in question the right of the mosquito 
 that carries the fever germ. 
 
 The most comprehensive task of the community 
 spirit therefore is that of applying determined stand- 
 ards of human well-being and excellence to all the 
 conditions of living and to the outcomes of our pres- 
 ent forms of living. This application will show the 
 extent to which our living fails to reach the level of 
 assumed ideals, and this will set for us the great tasks 
 of the community of the future. We may note that 
 these community defects or shortcomings can be set 
 
94 Community Organisation 
 
 forth under two general groupings. First, in all our 
 communities there are certain defects that we may call 
 functional; by this is meant shortcomings in life and 
 service of a general sort wherein the community fails 
 to provide adequately for the well-being of its con- 
 stituent riiembers. The second of these defects may be 
 called structural — meaning by this, shortcomings, 
 overlappings, exaggerations, and lacks of various 
 kinds in specific institutions of the community. 
 
 Considering what we have called functional defects, 
 we may assume a contemporary suggestion that there 
 are three such types of evil in our community life: 
 first, there are the physical defects which limit human 
 life through the shortcomings of the physical world 
 in which we live, including our own bodies. These are 
 our diseases, undernourishments, lack of vitality, bad 
 living conditions, inadequate sanitation, and the like. 
 Second, there are certain psychological defects, or 
 evils of character, such as ignorance, undisciplined im- 
 pulse, unbridled will, and all those other elements in 
 human nature which tend to defeat the working out 
 of a completely human progress. Third, there are 
 certain social defects, — "evils of power," — which are 
 the effect of the groupings of peoples in communities. 
 These are such as poverty, tyranny, and the general 
 degradation of individuals* and groups through the 
 unequal distribution of ability and power. These three 
 types of functional defect run through all our com- 
 munity living and social organization. They make up 
 
Some Important Tasks 95 
 
 the bulk of what is commonly known as "human na- 
 ture" and they seem to stand large in the way of any 
 social progress. But our purpose will be not to see 
 them as ultimate obstacles to social progress but as 
 problems to be solved on the way to a more adequate 
 community life. It may be that they will not all ever 
 be wholly solved; but so long as any part of such 
 problem remains it should remain as a challenge to the 
 intelligence of the community, not as an excuse for 
 community indolence. 
 
 Considering what we have called structural de- 
 fects, we may well ask such questions as these : As to 
 the home, was it a sort of rural isolation that gave 
 strength to this institution in the old days? Does the 
 loss of that isolation mean inevitable weakening of 
 the home? Or does it make necessary those large re- 
 adjustments which all institutions are undergoing in 
 their transition to the more complicated life of the 
 city? 
 
 As to business and industry, we seem lost to-day in 
 an incessant circle of price increases and wage in- 
 creases which solve nothing, but which seem merely 
 to add endlessly to economic unrest. Is there no es- 
 cape from this incessant circling? Cannot industry be 
 organized in such a way that the distribution of the 
 consumable goods of the world shall be more ade- 
 quately performed and something of the endless in- 
 dustrial unrest be solved ? 
 
 As to our churches, we stand at the crossroads, it 
 
96 Community Organisation 
 
 would almost seem. Religion once served to soothe the 
 angry hungers of the poor, while they thought that 
 the inequalities of this earth would be made up to them 
 in a better land. The day of that sort of palliative 
 seems gone forever. Either religion must signify 
 something of essential good in the life that now is, or 
 else it must make room in the energies of men for 
 something that will so signify. Can religion measure 
 up to this essential and justifiable demand ? 
 
 As to our education : in an age when as never before 
 the world has need of growing insight and larger out- 
 look, how can that school be justified which merely re- 
 peats the unquestioned platitudes of the past? The 
 war was won for the western Allies largely because 
 large constructive and inventive intelligence played 
 through every phase of physical, chemical, and medical 
 science, inventing new means of warfare and new 
 modes of saving broken men from death, in order that 
 they might fight once more. In this very process old 
 social structures were shaken to their foundations as 
 they had not been shaken in centuries. In the organi- 
 zation of new social structures either old unintelli- 
 gent habit or undisciplined impulse or critical intel- 
 ligence must serve as leader. Who can doubt which 
 one of these three should so serve? But where in any 
 school does critical intelligence bravely claim the right 
 so to lead as over against old unintelligent habit or 
 mere undisciplined impulse? Is there any hope that 
 our centers of learning will dare to become centers of 
 
Some Important Tasks 97 
 
 critical intelligence, bravely facing the tasks of social 
 inventiveness thrown up by the institutional shocks of 
 the war? 
 
 As to the state, civic control, local, national, and 
 international, is more thoroughly unsure than ever 
 before in many centuries. Old forms of autocratic 
 government have practically failed. Political unrest is 
 a universal phenomenon of the present. Democratic 
 aspiration springs up everywhere in the most unex- 
 pected corners of the earth. Democracy cannot be 
 wrought out, President Wilson declares, on any nar- 
 row national foundation. The whole earth must be 
 its stage, and all the men and women of the earth 
 must have a share in the great play. Some say that 
 this has awal<;ened aspirations in many backward peo- 
 ples beyond the possibility of realization. Others 
 insist that there can be no essentially human aspirations 
 beyond the means of realization. These claim that this 
 age is merely determined to make a world in which 
 human beings will be able to realize a worthy life. 
 Governmental control based on the theory that the 
 majority have a right to rule has involved many 
 inconsistencies and unfairnesses. Minorities have been 
 unintelligently and ruthlessly suppressed, and even in 
 America so-called constitutional rights have been de- 
 nied beyond the ability of anyone to justify in demo- 
 cratic terms. Can the state hope to survive in the 
 midst of the almost universal criticism leveled against 
 it to-day? Or, if it survives, must it not inevitably 
 
98 Community Organisation 
 
 take upon itself very different form and perhaps modi- 
 fied functions? At any rate, these are some of the 
 larger problems which the larger community intelli- 
 gence of the future will be called upon definitely to 
 grapple with. They may not be left to occasional 
 individuals or disinterested small groups. The com- 
 munity as a whole must concern itself with these prob- 
 lems if the democratic community is to survive. 
 
 Beyond these more general descriptions of the great 
 task that confronts the community spirit we may pause 
 a moment to consider some of the specific problems 
 which this same spirit will take over from its pioneer- 
 ing individual social workers and its socially-minded 
 groups. Such a catalogue as can here be set forth will 
 seem to many a social worker little less than humor- 
 ous, by reason of the fact that each of these prob- 
 lems has been made the basis of a large literature and 
 carries within itself many a heroic story and a record 
 of great, social effort. There is no intention, however, 
 to minimize the importance of any social work done 
 in the past or the large significance of any one of these 
 problems. The intention is merely to show the setting 
 of all these problems in the light of the larger com- 
 munity intention and to give to social pioneers the 
 assurance that from this time forward they need not 
 work in isolation at their tasks, since the community 
 as a whole is now profoundly concerned that their 
 work shall succeed. 
 
 No social problem can be really solved in isolation 
 
Some Important Tasks 99 
 
 from other social problems or in isolation from the 
 life of the community as a whole. Unemployment is 
 not important merely because certain individuals are 
 out of work; rather it is evidence that the industrial 
 system of the whole community, perhaps of the whole 
 world, is out of joint in some way. Poverty is not 
 merely due to the indolence or meanness of particu- 
 lar individuals; it is again a social disease, which can 
 never be wholly cured by local treatment of individ- 
 uals. Doubtless there are ineffective individuals; 
 doubtless there are defectives who alone never could 
 be other than poor. But as long as able men and 
 women who* might make large contributions to the 
 world are largely defeated in those contributions by 
 reason of their poverty, poverty cannot be cured by 
 lecturing the poor or by charity. 
 
 Industrial unrest, degrading types of work, disin- 
 tegration of work habits, and the like, are vital phe- 
 nomena expressive of disintegrating conditions in the 
 whole structure of society, conditions which can be 
 cured only as they are seen to be integral in the pres^ 
 ent organization of the world and are dealt with in 
 terms of those organic changes which eliminate their 
 causes and substitute positive elements in their place. 
 
 The problems of women in industry and of child 
 labor are not merely problems of erratic individuals 
 who against the advice of their friends and physicians 
 insist upon making a little extra pin money. Child 
 labor especially is a problem lying at the very heart of 
 
100 Community Organisation 
 
 the whole modern social situation. Children must have 
 a chance to work; but at the same time they must be 
 protected from exploitation even if that calls for all 
 the police power of the state. Nothing but the con- 
 trol of a thoroughly enlightened community can ever 
 adequately handle such questions. 
 
 The problems of so-called "white slavery," of mar- 
 riage and divorce, of the home and family life, and of 
 eugenics, are all integral in the general problem of 
 economic independence and self-respecting moral 
 intelligence. The problems of defective and delinquent 
 children, of poverty and pauperism, of crime and pun- 
 ishment for crime, also are not functions of particular 
 individuals, since it is well known, for example, that 
 prisons as frequently make criminals as they reform 
 them. 
 
 The problems of the intermingling of races are not 
 to be stated or solved in the personal likes and dis- 
 likes of particular individuals but in the statesmanship 
 of the world, and in the working out of the great 
 fundamental economic readjustments by which partic- 
 ular people may achieve their own self-respecting 
 economic independence. It may even be that such 
 problems are functions of that deeper biology and 
 psychology which are still so mysterious to us to-day. 
 
 The point to all this is that while each one of these 
 separate problems must undoubtedly remain the par- 
 ticular interest of some socially minded individual or 
 group and must still build up its own larger literature. 
 
Some Important Tasks 101 
 
 the hope of the solution of the problem by itself seems 
 fallacious. The social worker in that particular field 
 needs to become one of a staff of community workers 
 who all together engage in the great job of curing the 
 ills of the community, each working at his particular 
 task in the light of a common understanding sym- 
 pathy and program. 
 
 Too long these "social problems" have been 
 regarded as the tasks of "social workers." Poverty, 
 charity, defect, and the like, are not the private prob- 
 lems of anyone; we must see them now distinctly as 
 tasks of the community. 
 
 Indeed the very meaning of community itself may 
 be at the root of the matter. We confuse our terms : 
 a mere aggregation of people is not a community. It 
 may be a fortuitous concourse called together by a tem- 
 porary motive. Even a congregation is not a com- 
 munity. That may be a more permanently motived 
 group meeting occasionally. As stated above, a com- 
 munity is not a "gregation" at all; it is something 
 that has passed beyond the stage of getting together 
 and just is together, permanently, in a wide range of 
 interests, common activities, and profound hopes. The 
 process by which aggregations of persons develop into 
 permanent human communities holds the largest part 
 of the story by which men have achieved civilization. 
 
 Now our American life is in all stages of develop- 
 ment between the mere aggregation and the real com- 
 munity. Many of our neighborhoods, especially in 
 
102 Community Organisation 
 
 the cities, are mere aggregations. Only here and there 
 over the country at large has the old wandering, pio- 
 neering spirit of independent individualism been over- 
 come and the instinctive neighborliness of common 
 life taken its place. The strength of America in the 
 century of expansion was this pioneering individual- 
 ism. So long as men lived on farms or in small scat- 
 tered villages the pioneer was a tower of strength. 
 But in the cities he becomes a belated obstacle to the 
 achievement of community solidarity, without which 
 the city becomes a ghastly struggle for existence in 
 which the weak are ruthlessly destroyed by imper- 
 sonal forces over which no one admits he has any 
 control. The strength of the strong is exaggerated, 
 the weakness of the weak is over emphasized, the pov- 
 erty of the poor becomes his destruction, and all 
 because an old theory of life declared that nothing 
 must be put in the way of the individual. 
 
 In the long run, therefore, the big task of com- 
 munity leadership and organization is the task of 
 community education. The whole structure of our 
 education must be made over — in motive, in spirit, in 
 atmosphere, and in projected outcome — until the old 
 blatant individualism passes away and in its place 
 comes the new sense of individual responsibility for 
 the common good, which is the foundation of com- 
 munity. But this demands the development of an edu- 
 cation that shall go far beyond the years of childhood 
 and that shall range far bevond the curricula of the 
 
Some Important Tasks 103 
 
 schools. The education needed for this great task must 
 understand that all the people, whatever their age, are 
 being educated to something or other as long as they 
 live; and that there is no fact or idea or theory, physi- 
 cal, historical, or social, in all the ranges of the world, 
 that should be excluded from the intelligence of the 
 community. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 TYPES OF PRELIMINARY EFFORT 
 
 The ideal of a normal community must include an 
 infinite variety of details; it is not some finally attain- 
 able social order, but an endless series of efforts at 
 a more adequate adjustment of many details. Each 
 of our institutions has had grave ups and downs in 
 the course of history; they will have other more or 
 less grave reconstructions in the future. Even the 
 most conservative accepts the need of some occasional 
 patching of the fabric, while the more radical, as their 
 name implies, would go to the root of the matter. But 
 every new adjustment is likely to produce new over- 
 balances, new maladjustments, new evils. 
 
 These necessities for continuous readjustment 
 become more or less obvious to us all, and nearly 
 every one, certainly every considerable group in the 
 community, has some sort of social program. But a 
 social program is never self-realizing; hence, each pre- 
 supposes some sort of social method or technique. 
 The result is that there are at least as many different 
 sorts of competing social methods as programs. 
 
 Most of these programs of community reconstruc- 
 tion are pious hopes, the projection of feelings of fear, 
 
 104 
 
Types of Preliminary Effort 105 
 
 though all of them, perhaps, have some measure of 
 social intelligence in them. They are not new, except in 
 detail. Utopian aspirations are probably as old as the 
 race itself. But as the thoughts of men have widened 
 these programs have become inclusive of ever broader 
 human goods. And as the methods of the social 
 sciences have become more authentic the details of 
 these programs have become more concrete. 
 
 Methods of social work are of three general types; 
 they involve work with: (a) individuals; (b) groups; 
 (c) the community as a whole. 
 
 The rationale of these three types of method may be 
 found in the historic conceptions of "salvation." For 
 example, there is an atomistic conception of society 
 which assumes that social progress is primarily a 
 function of individual change. The community will 
 be saved by the saving of the individuals who com- 
 pose it. 
 
 There is another theory that society will be "saved" 
 by a special group, — in certain old writings "rem- 
 nants," "chosen peoples," and the like. This is closely 
 akin to a modern social theory that a certain group or 
 class in the community is particularly responsible for 
 the welfare of the community. John Locke says, for 
 example, that if the gentlemen of England are prop- 
 erly educated they will quickly bring all the rest of the 
 community into line. And all through the ages relig- 
 ious groups as well as many other kinds of groups 
 have considered themselves the "salt of the earth." 
 
106 Community Organisation 
 
 Hence a distinctive type of social method directs its 
 energies to the organization of these saving groups. 
 
 With the third type the whole community is the 
 object of social effort. There is a feeling that neither 
 by snatching individuals "as brands from the burn- 
 ing" nor by the development of special saving groups 
 can society as a whole be adequately defended. Those 
 who hold this view feel that a program inclusive of 
 every individual and group, and every legitimate inter- 
 est within the individual or group life, must be the 
 basis of all social effort. 
 
 Now it is obvious that there is substantial merit in 
 each of these points of view, and that only a narrow, 
 institutionalized struggle for prestige can justify spe- 
 cific emphasis upon any one of them to the exclusior 
 of the others. To be sure, habit is strong in us, and 
 special techniques develop in themselves domineering 
 qualities, and with the best of intentions in the world 
 any one of us may become servile to any mode of 
 work. Hence, it is necessary to survey them all and 
 while critically estimating their significance for com- 
 prehensive social progress, work out a plan of pro- 
 cedure which will make sure that no well-intentioned 
 effort shall be thwarted through badly directed 
 methods. 
 
 Likewise it is evident that any program that has 
 held or holds the interest of any considerable group 
 must have some merit. Many such programs have 
 been proposed, but most of them are tainted with a 
 
Types of Preliminary Effort 107 
 
 certain absolutism of form, and democracy cannot 
 make progress by absolute steps. Its programs must 
 be hypothetic and subject to criticism and reconstruc- 
 tion. The full meaning of this will dawn upon us 
 slowly. Perhaps some contrasts will help to establish 
 the point. In this chapter we shall consider certain 
 programs, most of which bear the taint of absolu- 
 tism and finality. These programs are useful and 
 helpful in so far as they forecast a fairer, finer future. 
 They are hindrances in so far as they insist upon the 
 absolute character of that future. 
 
 Out of the wide variety of points of view three 
 types of program of a more conservative character 
 may be mentioned : 
 
 Laisses Faire — The program of community salva- 
 tion by "letting well enough alone." 
 
 Individualism — The program of community salva- 
 tion by individual progress. 
 
 "Business Common Sense" — The program of com- 
 munity salvation by concentration on the production 
 of wealth. 
 
 "Laissez Faire" insists that all restrictive measures 
 in social policy are bad because they disturb the natu- 
 ral course of events. Regulation is unwise because it 
 forces men's actions into artificial lines, whereas it 
 would be much better to let them follow natural lines. 
 Men have the natural right to carry on their economic 
 affairs as they choose, and they have found in prac- 
 tice that interference and regulation produce evil 
 
108 Community Organisation 
 
 rather than good. Hence there should be no supervi- 
 sion by the government over matters of labor, wages, 
 hours, industry, commerce, agriculture, or other ele- 
 ments of production, distribution, exchange or con- 
 sumption. Government should have but three func- 
 tions, viz., to protect the nation from external attack, 
 to protect individuals from injustice or violence at the 
 hands of other individuals, and to carry on educational 
 and other institutions of a general utility.* 
 
 Individuahsm holds that men have some responsi- 
 bility for their own welfare, but that responsibility is 
 of the individual, by the individual, and for the indi- 
 vidual. The best social progress will come from that 
 "enlightened selfishness" which makes each individual 
 supremely concerned about his own affairs. For the 
 welfare of the state is assured in the welfare of each 
 individual. The basis of this individualism is in what 
 Samuel Smiles called "self help." This is the root of 
 all genuine growth in individuals, and when it is ex- 
 hibited universally in the members of a community or 
 a state it constitutes the only permanent and depend- 
 able basis of national strength and well-being.f Such 
 a doctrine certainly carries us into healthier social 
 areas than the doctrine of laisses faire; but it still 
 leaves us far behind the advanced position which 
 social thinking and community responsibility is taking 
 to-day. 
 
 ♦Cheney: Industrial and Social History of England, 
 
 p. 224 flf. 
 t Smiles: Self-Help, p. 1-2, 
 
Types of Preliminary Effort 109 
 
 "Business common sense" holds that the welfare of 
 the community is obviously determined by the pro- 
 duction of wealth, hence every obstacle to the largest 
 possible production of wealth must be removed. 
 Employers of labor must be freed from all molestation 
 in the management of their business; they must be 
 assured of the right to determine the amount and qual- 
 ity of production, the systems of distribution, and the 
 use of methods and systems of payment of wages 
 which are just and equitable. 
 
 Wages must not be dictated by persons or organi- 
 zations not directly concerned in the contract. Strikes 
 are indefensible, and all questions of conditions of 
 labor must be adjusted by methods that will preserve 
 the rights of both parties. Workers have the right to 
 organize, but such organizations have no right to inter- 
 fere with the perfect liberty of contract as between 
 employers and employees. There must be no discrimi- 
 nation as to membership in the union, and all ques- 
 tions of discharge of workers must be left absolutely 
 to the employment management. 
 
 The salvation of our social order according to this 
 view lies in the turning over of the complete con- 
 trol of all the processes of production and distribu- 
 tion of wealth to these managers of industry. They 
 identify this program with an ancient "American doc- 
 trine." It unquestionably does hark back to the old 
 pioneering days when each employee met personally 
 his employer in the small industries of the time, and 
 
110 Community Organisation 
 
 bargained man to man for wages. But it is anti- 
 quated doctrine in these days of great industry, when 
 the employer can no longer know his employees 
 personally.* 
 
 These social programs admit certain gaps in the 
 welfare of the community. Many of these are due to 
 the existence of individuals who are defective, men- 
 tally, physically, or morally, and who, under any sort 
 of social program, must be taken into separate 
 account. But other gaps are caused by the failure of 
 some individuals to accept their responsibility. Hence, 
 even under such programs "social work" is neces- 
 sary. But each particular item of the work is a case 
 by itself. Hence social method takes the form of "case 
 work" predominantly. 
 
 Case Work — Modern social work has largely 
 devoted itself to the care of individuals, either singly 
 or in family groups. Following the best standards, 
 "case workers" have sought to know their "cases" fully 
 and specifically; to consider them in relation to their 
 history, family connections, economic relationships, 
 and the like; and to prescribe for them in the light of 
 the best available knowledge. It is often charged 
 that these prescriptions have been of the nature of local 
 palliatives, such as charitable relief of a temporary 
 sort. Such relief has had at times a ponderous qual- 
 ity that has made it almost inhuman. 
 
 * Reconstruction Programs — Weeks, p. 38. 
 Tressal: Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, 
 
Types of Preliminary Effort 111 
 
 As social problems have developed and social intel- 
 ligence has grown "case work" has undergone severe 
 criticism and reconstruction. Under any form of 
 social order case work in the sense of interest in indi- 
 viduals and groups must exist. But it is not by itself 
 sufficient. Those most interested in this method are 
 concerned to-day to make it a vital and integral part of 
 the general program of social betterment, and to res- 
 cue it from a former reputation as being the method 
 by which general industrial brutality glossed over its 
 own evils. In this movement case work is coming to 
 be more definitely educational in purpose, more con- 
 cerned with mental and moral adjustments of indi- 
 viduals or family groups, and more ready to turn over 
 the socially preventable forms of maladjustment to 
 educational and legislative agencies. 
 
 Not far removed from these individualistic pro- 
 grams is the religious doctrine of the so-called evangel- 
 ical churches which holds that the community can be 
 saved only by the conversion of individuals. They 
 would substitute for the natural community, a new 
 community made up of "brands snatched from the 
 burning." The true community is, therefore, just this 
 "communion of the saints." This program does not 
 contemplate the permeation of the natural community 
 by the spirit of brotherhood so much as the setting 
 up of the religious structure as the community. "Man 
 himself is still the greatest element in his own prob- 
 lem. How is he to be made new? We are back once 
 
112 Community Organisation 
 
 more at the beginning and the last word is the first: 
 ye must be born again."* That is to say, conversion 
 of the individual is the method by which this new 
 community is to be gradually built up.f 
 
 Passing now to a somewhat less traditional con- 
 ception of social welfare, we come to the program of 
 liberalism, — or' the salvation of the community by 
 mending the flaws in the structure. Liberals gener- 
 ally contend that the prevailing order of society is 
 essentially sound and that its achievements are essen- 
 tially just and beneficial, but they admit that there 
 are certain flaws lurking in the social situation 
 which must be mended. These flaws are not indica- 
 tive of organic ill in the social order. They are acci- 
 dental, and therefore capable of being cured without 
 any extreme reorganization. The past twenty-five 
 years have seen real progress. Some of the main 
 abuses of the old economic order have been cured. 
 Collective bargaining has advanced; women and chil- 
 dren have been protected; safety and sanitation in 
 work places secured; industrial insurance legislation 
 has been enacted; and in general the rights and claims 
 of labor have been recognized. 
 
 Other evils which still exist will be cured in a 
 
 ♦Spear: The New Opportunity of the Church, p. 31. 
 
 t It is true that the Protestant denominations have worked 
 out well-developed programs of social legislation, whose ulti- 
 mate result would be the re-making of our present natural 
 community. There is a certain logical conflict between the 
 traditional method of the churches and this new social pro- 
 gram. Catholics and Jews have also given expression to 
 these same social ideas. 
 
Types of Preliminary Effort 113 
 
 variety of ways, among them being the devtlopment of 
 co-partnerships and co-operative societies. These 
 developments will be very slow, but that has been true 
 of all enduring improvements. Hence, liberalism de- 
 pends most completely upon the development of educa- 
 tion, particularly the education of the children. In fact 
 it is quite likely that the significance of education as a 
 means of social reform has been overdone by liberals. 
 
 The doctrine that society can be remade through 
 the education of the children is a favorite doctrine of 
 democracy, and while it holds certain elements of 
 truth, it is primarily an expression of social indolence. 
 All that we hope for in society we are willing to put 
 off until the next generation, if it involves any degree 
 of sacrifice on our own part; but the various evils 
 of society which are dear to ourselves we can scarcely 
 think of giving up in this generation. This doctrine 
 goes so far at times as to suggest that we teach chil- 
 dren to be honest, industrious, thrifty, self-sacrificing, 
 in the midst of a social order that holds such virtues 
 to be evidences of weakness. In other words, we are 
 trying to cure with a little schoolish talk what we are 
 maintaining as an integral part of our community life. 
 
 The doctrine that the social order will be saved by 
 the next generation, that is, by little children, is the 
 lineal descendant of that old pharisaic attitude which 
 was described by the great Teacher in his charge 
 against the Pharisees, "Ye bind burdens heavy to be 
 borne upon the backs of little children, but ye will not 
 
114 Community Organisation 
 
 yourselves so much as touch them with the tips of 
 your fingers." The fact is that the education of chil- 
 dren will have only incidental influence on the gen- 
 eral social situation until such time as the school is 
 recognized as an institution of progress rather than 
 of mere conservation, and teachers come to have a 
 more vital relationship to the actual social world in 
 which they themselves live. 
 
 It is doubtful whether the education of children can 
 ever get far ahead of the education of the community 
 as a whole. In fact it seems obvious that though the 
 technique of school room procedure is very complete 
 the actual outcome of school education is very unsat- 
 isfactory because so much of what goes on in school 
 is irrelevant to the life of the community. It is as if a 
 flour mill were to spend much time grinding out some 
 indigestible substance like wood pulp: the technique 
 of the performance might be admirable, the outcome 
 imposing, but the amount of nourishment furnished to 
 the community would be negligible. Hence it is likely 
 that before our schools can get much farther a more 
 thoroughgoing social understanding must pervade the 
 community, permitting such readjustment of the 
 schools to life as will guarantee the actual relevance of 
 their performance. 
 
 However, adult education, as the British report of 
 1918 insists, cannot be considered apart from those 
 social and industrial conditions which determine in 
 large measure the actual life and outlook of men and 
 
Types of Preliminary Effort 115 
 
 women. "The quality of an educational system must 
 always depend to a large extent upon the economic 
 framework of the society in which it is placed," says 
 this report.* Hence, any program of adult education 
 must not blink the fact that it may develop into a 
 definite movement toward community reorganization. 
 
 But at present certain obstacles block the way to any 
 complete program of education for the adult worker. 
 The hours of labor are too long; overtime work saps 
 the energies; changes of shift disarrange hours of leis- 
 ure; night work tends to "unnatural" routines. Many 
 types of work are so monotonous that the worker must 
 devote all his leisure to recuperation. Some types of 
 work are heavy and exhausting beyond ready recov- 
 ery. Frequent periods of unemployment discourage 
 workers and divert their attention from study. Extra- 
 periods of leisure of a regular sort are infrequent. 
 And beyond these facts are certain "questions of the 
 relation of the whole industrial organization to the 
 intellectual aesthetic and spiritual life of the nation." 
 
 Every sort of program of progress implies a more 
 effective and more intelligent citizenship. The demo- 
 cratic reorganization of the political life was but the 
 first in a series of probable reorganizations, each one 
 of which puts new demands upon the intelligence of 
 the members of the community. The reorganization of 
 industry along democratic lines will make necessary a 
 very wide diffusion of knowledge of industrial pro^ 
 
 * Parliamentary Report of Committee on Adult Educa- 
 tion, 1918, p. 3. 
 
116 Community Organization 
 
 cesses, both mechanical and executive. We are in the 
 midst of new conditions; we shall never return to the 
 old stupidities. But it is not lack of good will that 
 stands in our way. We need real intelligence as the 
 basis of bold and clear thinking. The whole life of the 
 community must be concerned in the future of edu- 
 cation. Good will without intellectual effort is worse 
 than useless; it becomes a moral opiate. Whatever the 
 social program of the future may be, adult education 
 must be one of the effective methods of its realization. 
 
 In the midst of the growing complications of social 
 problems there are some who seek either to solve these 
 problems or to escape from them by retreating into 
 some more simple social condition of the past. Some 
 would do this by direct method, for example, by legis- 
 lating complicated conditions out of existence. The 
 legislation which attempts to restore competitive con- 
 ditions in industry and to dissolve great industrial 
 combinations looks to this end. President Wilson's 
 "New Freedom" heralded such a result. 
 
 Others would bring about this end by more indi- 
 rect methods. The originators of the program of 
 single tax had this outcome largely in mind. Henry 
 George felt that his program would bring about con- 
 ditions in which human nature could develop what is 
 best instead of what is worst in it. He argued that it 
 would permit enormous increase in the production of 
 wealth, that it would secure an equitable distribution 
 of this wealth, that it would solve the labor problem. 
 
Types of Preliminary Effort 117 
 
 that it would make unearned property impossible, that 
 it would check the greed of gain, and that it would 
 open to all, even to the poorest, the advantages of 
 advancing civilization, and thus would really "clear 
 the way for the coming of that Kingdom of right 
 and justice for which the Master told His disciples to 
 pray and work." 
 
 The significance of the single tax program has 
 shifted somewhat, however, since the days of Henry 
 George. Land has ceased to be the chief basis of 
 wealth, and therefore a single tax on land would 
 probably not assure the social reconstruction that it 
 once promised. But some such tax program seems 
 necessary in order to end the intolerable exploitations 
 from which our communities now suffer. Tax reform 
 will be a factor in any comprehensive social program. 
 But probably no single measure out of the past will 
 solve the problems of the present and future. The 
 future of our community life does not lie behind us. 
 We are compelled therefore to accept these social 
 problems as tasks which the social inventiveness of 
 the whole community must face. One of the elements 
 of the community which in recent decades has been 
 attempting to contribute its proper share to the solu- 
 tion of these problems (even to the extent of making 
 more problems) is the "labor group." Practically the 
 trades unions occupy the position of the advocates of 
 "enlightened selfishness." They have organized for 
 the purpose of protecting themselves primarily along 
 
118 Community Organization 
 
 economic lines. At times these organizations have 
 been controlled by certain limited skilled groups and 
 have protected themselves against both the -employer 
 and the unskilled laborer. But more recently the feel- 
 ing of the solidarity of the labor group has grown in 
 some places to overwhelming proportions. And with 
 this growth the labor program has become more defi- 
 nitely social, interesting itself in all phases of the 
 worker's welfare. In certain quarters it has even pro- 
 posed a political program of social reform. 
 
 The question of method to be employed in the 
 achievement of these social-economic ideals has 
 divided labor opinion into three main movements. The 
 more conservative group holds that tlie welfare of the 
 trades union movement can best be secured through 
 adhering to the principle of collective bargaining and 
 through supporting those political candidates and prin- 
 ciples which are not inimical to labor interests. The 
 moderate group holds that the welfare of the labor 
 movement can be secured only through the develop- 
 ment of a definite labor party, which will fight for the 
 program of social legislation favored by the best labor 
 intelligence. The radical wing of the labor move- 
 ment holds that neither collective bargaining nor indi- 
 rect political action is able to accomplish anything 
 effective for the workers; they emphasize some form 
 of "direct action" as the only effective means of 
 advancing their "cause." 
 
 "Collective bargaining" assumes the essential per- 
 
Types of Preliminary Effort 119 
 
 manence of the present industrial system with its con- 
 flict of interest between capitahst and laborer. It aims 
 to reduce this conflict to the minimum and to regulate 
 it in the interests of justice. 
 
 The method of social progress by legislation is prop- 
 erly designated "indirect action" in distinction from 
 the program of certain economic elements which 
 undertake to bring about social readjustment through 
 direct economic processes. The program of indirect 
 action assumes that while the major problem of read- 
 justment to-day is economic, legislation must furnish 
 the intelligent background of general principles in 
 accordance with which particular cases can be solved. 
 Political action does not attempt, generally speaking, 
 to cure a specific economic ill by some s^^ecific act or 
 regulation, but rather to direct the whole economic sit- 
 uation in such a way as to cure a whole class of such 
 ills. This is the basis of the doctrine that a sound dem- 
 ocratic government must be "a government of laws 
 and not of men," meaning that the particular personal 
 element must be eliminated from all specific adjust- 
 ments, leaving a generalized principle to serve as the 
 basis of social organization. These generalized prin- 
 ciples promise the development of a great structure of 
 social order; frequently they permit particular injus- 
 tices, and not infrequently they make necessary long 
 delays in the adjustment of social difficulties. This 
 has given rise to strains of discontent; it has been 
 the cause of much criticism of both the structure of 
 
120 Community Organisation 
 
 law and its modes of administration; and it has been 
 the chief reason for the development of the doctrine 
 that there is no hope for real social progress in this 
 indirect or political action. 
 
 It is quite evident, therefore, that law as a method 
 of social reform is under the necessity of justifying 
 itself to large elements in the population. To many 
 law seems not so much a means of securing progres- 
 sive justice as a means of maintaining stagnant and 
 antiquated injustices. Most democrats, however, 
 believe that law is the chief reliance of the people in 
 any continuous program of social progress, and that 
 the difficulty lies not so much in the method as in the 
 antiquated content of legal enactment, the tendency of 
 both legislatures and courts to follow precedent. 
 
 There has been, therefore, in recent years, a consid- 
 erable development in the direction of what has come 
 to be called "social legislation," meaning thereby a 
 type of enactment which deals more directly with par- 
 ticular social situations, making a compromise between 
 the concrete personal element and the old abstract 
 legal element. This social legislation has had a tre- 
 mendous development in England and America in the 
 past two decades, but it had its greatest development 
 in Germany in a period dating back still earlier. In 
 this movement certain old generalized principles of 
 legality were discarded and laws were made which 
 specified in minute detail conditions of life and work; 
 and in America at least these were so much at vari- 
 
Types of Preliminary Effort 121 
 
 ance with the prevailing legal attitudes of the courts 
 that the first of these laws were almost everywhere 
 declared unconstitutional. For example, a law passed 
 by the legislature of Illinois in 1895 limiting the day's 
 work for women to- ten hours was declared unconstitu- 
 tional on the ground that it interfered with freedom 
 of contract of the individual woman. Fifteen years 
 later the supreme court of Illinois decided that a sim- 
 ilar bill limiting the day's work to eight hours was 
 constitutional on the ground that under the clause 
 defining the police powers of the state the constitution 
 granted the legislature full power to protect the health 
 of the people of the state. So by a shift of constitu- 
 tional ground the courts were finally induced by the 
 incessant labors of a few social minded workers to 
 permit the retention of this social legislation without 
 amendment to the constitution. 
 
 But everywhere in America the courts have been 
 suspicious of all such legislative enactments, though 
 the practice seems slowly gaining more general recog- 
 nition. Some writers are warning us that the ten- 
 dency towards social legislation carries with it a very 
 great danger. They believe that the tendency which 
 was evident in Germany is growing also in England 
 and America to the extent that under the develop- 
 ment of this kind of legislation the common run of 
 people will be compelled to work for capitalistic indus- 
 tries in return for a secure livelihood. Minimum 
 wage laws, employer's liability laws, and other forms 
 
122 Community Organisation 
 
 of social legislation, are cited as evidence that this 
 type of social adjustment may result in the legal recog- 
 nition of the state's right to compel the worker to work 
 under regulations laid down by law, whether he con- 
 sents or not.* 
 
 The problem of social progress by means of legis- 
 lation is therefore not so simple as some would have 
 us believe. Newspaper headlines carry the doctrine 
 "The government is absolute." But this is true only 
 within limits. In dealing with a fraction of one per 
 cent of the population the government may exhibit 
 great ardor and show absolute front, but in the pres- 
 ence of a problem involving any considerable percent- 
 age of the people the government may well consider 
 whether too great absolutism of attitude may not now 
 as often in the past result in its own destruction. 
 
 The third and radical wing of the labor movement 
 has developed the doctrine that the only hope of prog- 
 ress is through some form of direct economic recon- 
 struction. The laggard quality of law and its seeming 
 inability to deal with specific injustices tend to make 
 them look in other directions. For the most part this 
 takes the form, first of an effort to "educate" the 
 employing or so-called "exploiting" class in the com- 
 munity. This education attempts to bring home to the 
 employers the importance of labor's share in production 
 
 * cf. Belloc: The Servile State. 
 The workings of the new Industrial Disputes Law in 
 Kansas will help to determine this question. 
 
Types of Preliminary Effort 123 
 
 by showing how intimate in the process of production 
 the laborer really stands. For example, he slows down 
 on the work intentionally, doing just as little for his 
 wage as he can do. The word "sabot" is the French 
 word for a clumsy wooden shoe worn by French peas- 
 ants and workers, which seriously impedes action: 
 hence sabotage means slowing down. Of course the 
 word has been expanded to cover a good many other 
 forms of obstruction : for example, in western logging 
 camps the advocates of direct action have been accused 
 of driving spikes into sawlogs for the purpose of put- 
 ting the saw out of business; of putting fragments of 
 metal into bearings for the purpose of destroying 
 machinery ; and of attempting in many other ingenious 
 ways to destroy the efficiency of the tools of industry. 
 This process is primarily for the purpose of making 
 the employer realize that without the full co-operation 
 of labor industry could be put completely out of busi- 
 ness. The fuller program seems to assume that when 
 once the employer or "exploiter" understands this fact 
 he will just naturally quit and turn his business over 
 to the laborers. 
 
 It is very doubtful whether the psychology of 
 sabotage runs in the direction of success. Men are 
 not much frightened by frightful things. It is likely 
 that that form of sabotage which consists in destroying 
 machinery and tools will necessarily defeat its own 
 purpose; but it is conceivable that a sabotage of mere 
 
124 Community Organisation 
 
 slowing down, the so-called ''strike on the job," might 
 succeed in forcing considerable economic reconstruc- 
 tion. 
 
 Certain students of current economic conditions are 
 saying that the older instincts of workmanship and 
 work habits of the more primitive days are being disin- 
 tegrated under present economic conditions, and that 
 sabotage is merely an evidence of the failure of cur- 
 rent industrial motives to stimulate effective work; 
 that wages, loyalty to employers, subordination to eco- 
 nomic conditions, and fear of the police or mihtary, 
 alike fail to motivate productive industry. From this 
 point of view, sabotage is not so much a settled deter- 
 mination of working groups as it is the natural result 
 of the failure of adequate stimulation. Muscles grow 
 flabby, and nerves grow slack, and the will fails, 
 because the personal energies of the individual are not 
 sufficiently released in the task; and they are not suf- 
 ficiently released because his personal interests are not 
 sufficiently engaged. Sabotage is therefore primarily 
 a negative protest against the conditions of industry, 
 and it is extremely doubtful whether such a negative 
 protest could ever be transformed into a positive pro- 
 gram or into a substantial basis for social progress. 
 The hope entertained by some groups, therefore, that 
 sabotage will prove to be an effective social method, 
 seems futile. At the best it can only show the insuf- 
 ficiency of certain present industrial conditions; at the 
 worst it can destroy the morale of the workers practic- 
 
Types of Preliminary Effort 125 
 
 ing it. It can never provide a more adequate organiza- 
 tion of industry or a more desirable world.* 
 
 Direct action logically implies the possibility of gen- 
 eral revolution. The apparently impenetrable quality 
 of much of our institutional life seems to certain 
 extremists to leave no escape but revolution. When 
 institutions become absolute and impregnable they will 
 likely yield to no simpler remedy than absolutism of 
 reform, — ^and this may mean revolution. This hap- 
 pened at the close of the mediaeval period. 
 
 To be sure, history shows us few instances of this 
 sort. But underneath all other modes of social prog- 
 ress or all other methods of achieving social welfare 
 runs this universal groping toward a belief in the ulti- 
 mate justification of violence in the remaking of insti- 
 tutions. It may be a counsel of despair, but it is 
 certain that many of the brightest names in human 
 history are names of the leaders of successful revolu- 
 tions. These leaders, however, are not usually asso- 
 ciated with the violent aspects of revolution, though 
 they may have accepted the necessity of violence as a 
 means of escape from the iron-clad qualities of insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 It may be assumed that the world will correct any 
 evil toward which it can be made to direct its atten- 
 tion. The difficulty in traditional social orders is that 
 
 *Marot: American Trade Unions, Ch. on Direct Action. 
 Spargo: Syndicalism, Industrial Unionism and Socialism. 
 Tridon: The New Unionism, Ch. 3. 
 Pouget: Sabotage. 
 
126 Community Organisation 
 
 the attention rarely turns toward the evils, which are 
 organized into the very structure of institutions. Vio- 
 lence becomes a means of centering attention towards 
 the evils of the situation, and the great leaders of revo- 
 lution have been men who have brought forth positive 
 and constructive gains out of the ruins of old institu- 
 tions destroyed by violence. Revolution is justified in 
 the Declaration of Independence and wrought into 
 fixed institution in the American Constitution. Revo- 
 lution is of course to be justified only as an extreme 
 recourse. But not all the sophisms of Bourbon fears 
 can destroy the beliefs of men that when a social sys- 
 tem has become unendurable they have the right to 
 change it. 
 
 But revolution need not be violent. A peaceful revo- 
 lution is conceivable. Those fundamental changes in 
 our economic and social structure which will complete 
 the democratic reorganization begun on political lines 
 more than a hundred years ago, might be achieved 
 without violent overthrow of existent forms. The out- 
 come, however, might be some distinctively new 
 social order. It might be, for example, some form of 
 socialism. 
 
 Many types of doctrine have been included under 
 the general name of socialism. These range all the 
 way from the barest social opportunism to the most 
 extreme absolutism of Marx's economic determinism, 
 and from the most simple co-operation to an extreme 
 state socialism. All these types are agreed in one par- 
 
Types of Preliminary Effort 127 
 
 ticular, namely, that the present production of wealth 
 involves enormous waste and that the whole process of 
 industry must be brought under a more complete 
 intelligence both as to its production and as to its dis- 
 tribution. That is to say, every type of socialism 
 insists that industrial processes shall be administered in 
 the interests of public welfare rather than in the inter- 
 ests of private profit. This involves the substitution 
 for the capitalist wage system of a system of com- 
 pletely socialized industries, owned by all the people 
 and serving all the people democratically. The achieve- 
 ment of this result will be revolution. Whether it shall 
 be the quiet result of revolution or some more violent 
 and sudden overthrow of the existent order, various 
 groups of socialists do not agree. The extreme right 
 assumes that the result will come gradually. The 
 extreme left looks for some historic catastrophe which 
 will precipitate the new system. This was the hope of 
 Marx, and his followers profess to see its fulfillment 
 in the recent developments in Russia. 
 
 In all the western democracies the more moderate 
 forms of socialism have gradually achieved a certain 
 standing through demonstrating actual results. These 
 forms are scarcely distinguishable from many of the 
 current programs of individuals and groups who 
 would hesitate to admit that they were socialists. A 
 democratic socialism assumes the possibility of such 
 a universal intelligence as will enable all normal mem- 
 bers of the community to share in the understanding 
 
128 Community Organisation 
 
 and control of all the activities that affect in any way 
 the common welfare. A state socialism works toward 
 the assumption by the central governmental agencies 
 of the ownership and control of all the activities that 
 affect in any way the common welfare. A guild 
 socialism assumes that each particular organization of 
 industry will own and control its own instrumentali- 
 ties, and by operating these in the interest of the com- 
 mon welfare, will through co-operation with all other 
 such groups contribute to the common welfare. 
 
 All these forms exist or are coming into existence 
 slowly but surely under democratic developments, not 
 avowedly but in substance. Only the more extreme 
 types of socialism are radically revolutionary. The 
 moderate types are largely at one with all the more 
 intelligent liberal groups of the community who are 
 working for social progress through education and 
 legislation. In a sense all intelligent people to-day are 
 socialists and revolutionists, — they are determined to 
 make a social order in which the instrumentalities of 
 the common life shall be redeemed from their tradi- 
 tional devotion to private interests; in which more 
 largely the good of all shall be the concern of all. 
 
 But this brings us to the community, with its chal- 
 lenging inadequacy of organization, with its promises 
 of unrealized development.* 
 
 * Illustrations of various concrete forms of community 
 organizations may be found in the appendix. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 OBSTRUCTIONS 
 
 As we face the long array of social defects in the 
 average community, — the inefficiencies, the broken 
 lives, decadent institutions, wasted enthusiasms, and 
 spent hopes, on the one hand, and then turn to the 
 array of ideals, expectations, and aspirations of the 
 best spirits of the community, the wonder grows why 
 progress lags and why the better day of community is 
 so slow in coming. 
 
 But community progress is a continuous compromise 
 bet wen old levels of ignorant habit and the demands 
 of changing conditions. Mankind is ever prone to 
 bear the evils that exist, fearing to change lest worse 
 evils may come. 
 
 In the development of democracy the first general 
 movement was away from organization. Absolute 
 monarchies, despotisms, and even the benevolent gov- 
 ernments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 
 all expressed the autocratic over-organization of 
 society. The trend toward democracy was motivated 
 partly by the desire to escape from this over-organiza- 
 tion. "That government is best which governs least." 
 
 129 
 
130 Community Organisation 
 
 In its extremest form, this movement developed the 
 extraordinary simplicity of the Jeffersonian regime. 
 
 But democracy is more than an escape from old 
 mechanisms. Democracy must necessarily construct 
 new institutional forms and new social mechanisms for 
 the satisfying of its own needs and the release of its 
 own still largely unexpressed life. That is to say, 
 democracy is to be achieved not in the freedom of 
 unorganization, but in the working out of new and 
 more completely democratic types of community 
 organization. 
 
 There is as yet however little understanding of the 
 essential technique of democratic organization as dis- 
 tinct from autocratic forms. Few realize that democ- 
 racy must definitely disavow autocratic types of organ- 
 ization and build up its own types. To esteem this 
 :ask lightly, to assume that the democratic spirit can 
 live and thrive in an order organized along autocratic 
 lines, is to fail to grasp the essentially natural char- 
 acter of the processes of community. This new and 
 splendid spirit cannot live healthily in old shells. Yet 
 that is largely what we are asking it to do, and what 
 we are likely to continue to expect. 
 
 Our very loyalties stand in the way of change, — 
 loyalties to our classes and our institutions. We feel 
 the safety of the community resting upon our resist- 
 ance to disintegrating changes. Vested wrongs of 
 many kinds in the community depend upon and 
 exploit these native loyalties for profit. Old forms of 
 
Obstructions 131 
 
 parasitic industry, business that robs the poor, finance 
 using the "black hand" and covering up its sins with 
 a mantle of gentle charity, intolerant repression of 
 science and thinking in the name of "patriotism," 
 "Americanism," or some other specious phrase — these 
 are illustrations of the endless story. The resultant 
 poverty, low vitality, illiteracy, abnormality, repression, 
 viciousness, discouragement, and the like, are items in 
 the same story. Our wills are weak, our lives are short 
 and careful, and we wait to let the next generation 
 solve its own problems. But we need to notice here 
 some elements that will obstruct any program of com- 
 munity organization, — both passively and actively. 
 
 In the first place, we shrink from facing issued.- 
 Our institutional attitudes do not favor careful think- 
 ing. Most of our social institutions are not only con- 
 servative in character, they are pessimistic. That is to 
 say, they feel that their control of the community 
 assures the safety of the world; any escape from this 
 control is likely to be dangerous. Schools distrust 
 learning achieved outside the school. States are fright- 
 ened by the non-conformist. The church used to burn 
 heretics, and still ostracises them. Competitive 
 industry thinks of the co-operative or the communist as 
 a traitor to economic welfare. The non-conformist is 
 welcomed in the realm of science only; and science 
 has not largely invaded the philosophy of either the 
 school or the state, either the church or competitive 
 industry. 
 
132 Community Organization 
 
 These autocratic social attitudes tend to develop 
 into fixed folkways which are able to carry themselves 
 on from generation to generation without effort. Left 
 to itself human nature easily sinks into habit, custom, 
 and the folkway. For this reason autocracy is more 
 truly "natural" than is democracy, — just as the sour 
 seedling apple is more truly "natural" than the modern 
 juicy variety. And just as the finer breeds of plants 
 and animals must be conserved by intelligent selection, 
 so the finer strains of social organization must be saved 
 by selection, adaptation and development. For 
 example, not every sort of school is to be accepted as 
 democratic; most of our present schools are still highly 
 autocratic, and our democratic aspirations have to 
 overcome the obstacle of an autocracy inculcated in 
 the children. Democracy will some day learn the 
 absurdity and extreme danger of this type of 
 education. 
 
 In this connection, we must consider what may be 
 called the "dead-hand" of organization. Old types of 
 method control our leaderships, and old types of emo- 
 tion control our feelings. The schoolman teaches his 
 languages as if they were dead, and his history as if 
 it had no significance for the present. The churchman 
 hands down unchanged the "faith once delivered to 
 the saints." The politician is devoted to the words, 
 at least, spoken by the fathers of the Constitution. All 
 our institutions tend to be interested in statistics. 
 Churches have been charged with laying large empha- 
 
Obstructions 133 
 
 sis upon tables of memberships, while they neglect 
 the weightier matters such as justice, mercy and truth. 
 The old lady who got much religious inspiration out 
 of hearing her pastor say "Mesopotamia" could 
 scarcely be expected to share largely in more modern 
 democratic emotions. 
 
 A strange contradiction appears in the industrial 
 and business leader. In dealing with all physical mate- 
 rials, and in connection with the organization of the 
 productive side of plant or industry, he welcomes all 
 sorts of labor-saving devices and rewards the inventor 
 highly. But on the side of the distribution of the 
 wealth produced and in connection with the problems 
 of human welfare he is intolerant still for the most 
 part. Any working man who can show how produc- 
 tion can be speeded up is likely to be looked upon with 
 favor; change is welcomed at this point. But any 
 working man or other individual who seeks to show 
 how wealth can be distributed more equitably is likely 
 to be set down as a dangerous agitator. 
 
 Aside from these institutional inertias there are 
 certain more active obstructionist forces in the com- 
 munity. One of these is the so-called "organ of pub- 
 lic opinion" in which public opinion has really no 
 initiative. The term "newspaper" is a misnomer. Fer- 
 rero, the Italian historian of the early Roman Empire, 
 has pointed out that any so-called organ of public 
 opinion is always an agency for the perpetuation of a 
 particular partisan legend. "Newspapers" fear lest the 
 
134 Community Organization 
 
 people may learn to think for themselves ; "newspa- 
 pers" believe that the people should be protected from 
 themselves; and this leads to deliberate attempts to 
 betray the public by false reports of facts, — at least by 
 false emphasis upon facts or by editorial misinter- 
 pretation of fairly accurate reports. 
 
 Another of these active obstructionist elements is 
 the superstition that only the so-called "practical man" 
 can be trusted with the affairs of the world. This 
 practical man is the product of fixed traditions, for 
 the most part, and has no patience with theory or 
 science except insofar as they tend to bolster up his 
 narrow practicality. 
 
 This practical man is always a natural psychologist. 
 He knows how to manipulate individuals and groups 
 without being suspected. He can play upon human 
 feelings, such as cupidity, fear and social antagonism, 
 with natural skill; but traditionally he manipulates 
 individuals and groups not with a view to the welfare 
 of the community, but in the light of some private 
 interest. 
 
 When this practical man turns organizer he is in 
 danger of overlooking essential human elements in the 
 community's life. As a matter of fact, these human 
 elements are difficult to deal with from the stand- 
 point of organization. They will not conform. Indi- 
 viduals are angular; they have initiatives that crop 
 out in the most unexpected and even awkward con- 
 nections. People who ought to be able to fit in and do 
 
Obstructions 135 
 
 things show no capacity; others who seem to have no 
 natural fitness for sharing in plans may show the most 
 extraordinary capacity for things that are being 
 accomplished. Not infrequently the organizer may find 
 himself confronted by individuals of a more talented 
 character than himself. A whole range of such "lost 
 talent" may be uncovered in any community. The 
 democratic community must make sure that the indi- 
 vidual is never lost. 
 
 The fact is that the work of the so-called "practical 
 man" and of the traditional organizer has been over- 
 done. We need avenues for the release of the life of 
 the people beyond the control of these traditional 
 forces. We need to get rid of sham forms of political 
 representation, which do not represent; and leader- 
 ships which do not express the actual will of the people 
 who are being led. How shall we really enfranchise 
 the people and get their thinking playing into actual 
 political situations until government shall really be "by 
 the people" ? At present when agitators urge revolution 
 they are advised that in America we have adequate 
 means of progress in the ballot. When, follow- 
 ing this advice, they organize for political adventure 
 in new directions, refusing to align themselves with 
 old political parties, they are denounced as enemies of 
 the people, as un-American, and given whatever other 
 question-begging epithet may be the fashion at the 
 moment. The fact is that vested interests in both poli- 
 tics and economics identify "Americanism" and 
 
136 Community. Organisation 
 
 "patriotism" with maintenance of the status quo; and 
 are as much opposed to poHtical or economic change 
 brought about by the ballot box as by a more violent 
 revolution. 
 
 Another of these obstructionist elements is found in 
 the very wide development of all sorts of social dis- 
 tractions and sedatives, more or less intentionally 
 designed to keep the public quiet and to make opinion 
 innocuous. The historic example of this of course is 
 the method of keeping the Roman populace in control 
 by rations of bread and tickets to the circus. Much of 
 our own commercialized amusement like baseball and 
 other games, sports and athletics, occupying as they 
 do a disproportionate part of the space in our news- 
 papers, tend to distract public attention from import- 
 ant matters. This of course does not mean that there 
 is no place in the world for sport. But it does mean 
 that in a democracy there is no such place for commer- 
 cialized sport as has been developed in America. 
 
 A favorite means of wrecking a community pro- 
 gram is found in starting an outside demonstration. 
 It is like the old means of breaking up a liberal meet- 
 ing by starting a dog fight. Opponents of community 
 development are extremely active in starting and 
 accelerating inter-communal rivalries and feuds. 
 Manipulators of special privilege in any particular 
 community, finding their standing threatened by the 
 development of a community program, will throw dust 
 in the air and denounce the evils of some neighboriHg 
 
Obstructions 137 
 
 community, especially by trying to show how the 
 neighboring community is impinging upon the prero- 
 gatives of the home community. Thus attention- will 
 be called off from the evils within the community for 
 a time, and the manipulator of these vested evils may 
 even be able to win to himself the reputation of being 
 a good citizen. 
 
 The saloon was in its day one of the leading centers 
 of community intelligence and gang exploitation by 
 political and economic agents of invisible government 
 and reaction. Drink was one of the greatest of social 
 sedatives. Some even advocate the return of the saloon 
 to our industrial centers on the ground that multi- 
 tudes of working men now have no quick means of 
 spending their money, hence they have too much time 
 on their hands and therefore tend to fall into the bad 
 habit of talking politics and reading economics, and so 
 threaten to become socialists, communists, I. W. W.'s, 
 bolshevists, and the like. Certain labor leaders and 
 industrial operators alike agree that men were better 
 controlled in the old days when it was possible for 
 them to' get drunk and "blow in" six months' wages in 
 a single night. The abolition of the saloon was one 
 of the most terrific blows that vested wrong* ever 
 received, 
 
 A fourth of these obstructive elements is to be found 
 in the general fragmentation of social interest. There 
 is a curious but intelligible demand on the part of 
 traditionalists that there shall be no talk about the 
 
138 Community Organisation 
 
 social question since there is no such thing. The tradi- 
 tionahsts insist that there may be many incidental 
 social problems, but each is to be solved by itself and 
 not to be confused with any general social problem. 
 Hence there must not be one big labor union, since, 
 for some insidious reason, that would be revolution. If 
 there are to be labor unions at all they must be weak 
 and small. After the same fashion we must not have 
 too much talk about community, since that seems to 
 be treason to class and institution. A politician asserts 
 that one of the chief objections to woman's suffrage is 
 found in the fact that women are naturally non- 
 partisan ; that it is difficult to make them partisan ; but 
 that the only safety to our American institutions is in 
 escaping from the evils of non-partisanship into the 
 security of an emphatic partisanship. Finally, there 
 must not be too much talk about internationalism, 
 since that is treason to the particular nation. 
 
 That is to say, in all our social efforts we are handi- 
 capped by the demand that we shall think only of frag- 
 ments of the problem, never of the problem as a whole. 
 Now since the human mind inevitably approaches any 
 problem from the standpoint of logical wholeness, the 
 demand that we shall think only of a fragment neces- 
 sarily converts that fragment into a complete whole. 
 Hence, traditionalists are perfectly sincere in their con- 
 tention that each fragment of the social problem is a 
 complete problem by itself. But a little knowledge of 
 the community as a whole must convince us that there 
 
Obstructions 139 
 
 is one general social problem of which each of these 
 so-called social problems is but a fragment; while a 
 little knowledge of psychology and logic would show 
 us convincingly how easy it is for us to become 
 stranded in some psychological "blind alley," which 
 naturally converts itself into a sociological "blind 
 alley," which in turn transforms itself into a finished 
 world from which any effort to escape would be of the 
 nature of treason. 
 
 A final obstructionist element to which attention 
 should be called is that extreme radicalism which will 
 have nothing at all unless it can have everything. In 
 the practical sense there are many community prob- 
 lems. Community organization does not demand that 
 nothing shall be done unless everything can be done; 
 it merely demands that whatever is done, however 
 small and incidental, shall be done in the view of the 
 whole problem. A reactionaryism that sees nothing 
 but fragments of problems, and a radicalism that sees 
 nothing but one big problem to be solved by revolu- 
 tion, are both alike obstructions to the main task of 
 social progress. That great task is to see the problem 
 as a whole in its infinite variety of special phases ; to see 
 it grow larger and more detailed as our acquaintance 
 with theory and fact grows; and to hitch up the many 
 varieties of social effort with the many varieties of 
 social need in such ways that workers will feel their 
 own common fellowship in a common task because 
 they see the part that each particular aspect of the 
 
140 Community Organization 
 
 problem holds to the problem as a whole. In this way 
 social workers would become transformed into com- 
 munity organizers, and their social work would lose 
 its remote, often irrelevant, contradictory and mechan- 
 ical character, and, being criticized by the needs 
 of the community as a whole, would become human 
 and social. 
 
 Every new way of thinking about the world and 
 about human relationships confronts established 
 obstacles. And the fight is not over when these have 
 been overcome. For any movement as it develops con- 
 fronts within itself some of these same obstacles. The 
 hardening process of traditionalism sets in; the "dead- 
 hand" of organization asserts itself; the leaders 
 become impatient of new suggestions and of wider 
 theory. Obstructions are not overcome once and for 
 all in a democracy. The price of democracy is eternal 
 vigilance. 
 
 There are multitudes to-day who feel that the world 
 needs some sort of reconstruction, but who do not care 
 to be reconstructed themselves. They want change 
 without being changed. They want leaders who can 
 tell them how they can advance without making effort 
 or without consenting to change within themselves. 
 These individuals, whether conservative or radical, 
 lack social imagination. Their logic is very faulty. 
 Only in an unreal dream world do such things happen. 
 The hope of community waits upon the willingness 
 and capacity of all to become communal in spirit and 
 in truth. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 DEVELOPING COMMUNITY DELIBERATION 
 
 Most of our communities have been the result of 
 historic accident modified now and then by incidental 
 thinking, by class and group pressures, or by some- 
 thing in the nature of revolution. What is here pro- 
 posed, what indeed is of the very genius of democracy, 
 is a program deliberately and definitely thought out 
 and wrought into the structure of habit and institution 
 by the intelligent will of the community.* 
 
 This is not new. It has been accomplished occasion- 
 ally in specific directions, notably in city planning and 
 health programs. But it is not a universal practice, 
 and it has been adopted as a general program dealing 
 with all the interests of the community nowhere. 
 
 There has been in American public life little under- 
 standing of the essentially democratic principle that 
 the various parties to a community argument should 
 sit' down together and try to come to a conclusion as 
 to what is for the best interests of the community as 
 a whole, — facing the facts and the theories in the case, 
 and accepting the consequences intelligently set forth. 
 Rather, each side to the argument tries to get ahead of 
 
 * Graham Wallas; The Great Society, Ch. 11. 
 141 
 
142 Community Organii:ation 
 
 the other and "put over" a partisan plan. That is sup- 
 posed to be the manly and heroic thing. Deliberation 
 is supposed to be effeminate if not childish. In spite of 
 all our talk about "team work" and our supposed 
 adherence to the team spirit in our games, an open fight 
 in which sheer will or pugnacity leads and in which 
 intelligence is at a discount, is looked upon as the 
 proper procedure. And a discussion won by obstinacy 
 is regarded as much more worthy than one won by 
 deliberation. 
 
 The main reason for this lies in the fact that the 
 technique of democratic deliberation has not been ade- 
 quately worked out anywhere. It is folly to assuijie 
 that a deliberated program will just naturally happen. 
 It is still greater folly perhaps to assume that the com- 
 munity will just naturally produce deliberation and a 
 deliberated program. There is at present no such thing 
 as a community mind definitely set at the task of 
 deliberating upon a community program. Democracy's 
 salvation depends upon the development of such a com- 
 munity organ of intelligence, — a social mind, capable 
 of critical analysis and deliberative synthesis of a pro- 
 gram fitted to the needs of the community when those 
 needs are examined democratically. This will involve 
 the working out of a definite plan of democratic 
 deliberation. The importance of this must first be 
 considered. 
 
 Any program of community organization must be 
 saved from being identified with any particular frag- 
 ment or group or interest or institution of the com- 
 
Developing Community Deliberation 143 
 
 munity.* This means a number of things: first, it 
 must be saved from being made too completely a muni- 
 cipal function as long as municipal control continues 
 as at the present time in America to be frequently 
 either inefficient through favoritism and bureaucratic 
 methods, or else distinctly undemocratic because the 
 municipal government represents something less than 
 the v^rhole community. Recreation programs, for 
 example, under the control of the municipal authori- 
 ties have been known to become the private possession 
 of some particular group. 
 
 The program mu'st be more than the reiteration of 
 some old custom. It must take into account hitherto 
 ignored needs of the people, especially those underly- 
 ing instinctive needs and longings which our old-time 
 Puritanism has labelled evil. 
 
 On the other hand, the program must be something 
 more than a merely temporary exhibition of impulse. 
 The instinctive needs of the community must be defi- 
 nitely included in the working out of the program, 
 but the program itself must go far beyond impulse 
 and the moment and provide for the larger develop- 
 ment of the growing future. This means that it must 
 use all available insight that psychology and the social 
 sciences can bring to bear on the problems of the 
 present.f 
 
 In other words, the program that is worthy of the 
 
 *Elsie Clews Parsons: Social Freedom. 
 
 t Whitehead: The Organization of Thought — Ch. 6. 
 
 Lankaster: The Kingdom of Man. 
 
 Russell, B.: Why Men Fight— Chs. on Thought and EcJ^j- 
 cation. 
 
144 Community Organisation 
 
 future of a democratic community must be thoroughly 
 intelligent, rising above every particular group inter- 
 est and yet co-ordinating all normal and essential group 
 and individual aspirations into a common aspiration. 
 This of course might mean the complete subordination 
 of every particular interest to one common central 
 dominating and narrow aim. This seems to have been 
 the main mistake which Germany made before the 
 war. Such a mistake is, however, not possible in an 
 intelligent program. An intelligent program will see 
 the necessity of making every normal interest import- 
 ant, thereby saving it from over-emphasis on any 
 particular aspect and maintaining a richness and 
 variety of interest. This will mean that always there 
 will be a healthy play of conflicting aspirations among 
 the specialized groups and interests of the com- 
 munity. Now, if this conflict of interests is ani- 
 mated by good will and a common outlook its existence 
 will be extremely wholesome. If it becomes bitter and 
 rancorous it is undesirable. But it is far better that a 
 community should be animated now and then by bit- 
 ter animosities, even, than that it should be sunk in a 
 spiritual torpor in which some particular materialistic 
 interest domineers over and sneers at all other latent 
 and dormant interests of the community. There is one 
 thing more undesirable than a community feud; and 
 that is community stupor. 
 
 How, then, shall this deliberative, analytic, critical 
 orsran of social thinking be secured 'for the com- 
 
Developing Community Deliberation 145 
 
 munity? It would be encouraging if we could believe 
 that the whole community could be at once interested 
 in its important problems. But that would be a rash 
 assumption. Doubtless thinking can be secured only 
 through the organization of a deliberative group or 
 groups who will be able to bring to the uses of the 
 community all the pertinent knowledge the community 
 needs, together with analytic and critical ability in the 
 handling of that knowledge, and some spirited social 
 imagination in the working out of programs for the 
 future. Such groups should be small enough to enable 
 the members to deliberate truly, and yet large enough 
 to provide actual representation of 'all the essential 
 interests of the community. This means, first, that the 
 group will probably be limited to not more than 
 twenty, since larger numbers would require a formal 
 sort of parliamentary procedure, which is the surest 
 means of destroying deliberation. Fifteen members 
 would probably be more desirable than twenty. At 
 any rate, the number should be such that informal dis- 
 cussion, without too much "recognition" by the chair, 
 may be carried on. 
 
 In the second place, if such a board is to represent 
 the varied interests of the community we shall do well 
 to make some approximate catalogue of those essential 
 interests. Usually when we speak of interests, organi- 
 zations are understood to be intended. But that is not 
 the present intention. In a certain community a Com- 
 munity Council was made up of delegates from vari- 
 
146 Community Organisation 
 
 ous local organizations, fraternal, commercial, religi- 
 ous, and the like. At the first meeting of this board a 
 struggle for prestige began. It was necessary to deter- 
 mine which of these already existent organizations 
 should dominate the Council. The second meeting 
 began in a wrangle, and the third and final meeting 
 broke up in a row. Our present conception of demo- 
 cratic co-operation is not very intelligent. It involves 
 the old primitive fight for prestige; it demonstrates 
 false conceptions of leadership; and it usually involves 
 the general doctrine of "rule or ruin." The community 
 councils of this older type are not brought together 
 to deliberate but to express enthusiasm for some pro- 
 ject, or to adopt and act upon a program handed down 
 to them. 
 
 A more substantial basis on which to organize such 
 a community group would be somewhat as follows : 
 Instead of having representatives of particularistic 
 organizations, let the board be made of men and 
 women who represent vital functions in the developing 
 intelligence of the community. What are these vital 
 functions? Every community needs the intellectual 
 help of trained social scientists; or, where the com- 
 munity is unable to secure such experts, let it call to the 
 service of this deliberative program the men and 
 women who have the largest possible outlook upon 
 these social science fields. The lack of trained students 
 is not as bad as it might be, because every community 
 must definitely begin where it is, and there would 
 
Developing Community Deliberation 147 
 
 probably be some danger in having a deliberative group 
 made up of men and women who were so far beyond 
 the common life of the community as to make them 
 unsympathetic with that common life and liable to pro- 
 duce a program largely irrelevant to that common life. 
 
 Every community needs the help of the best eco- 
 nomic thinking it can secure, though at the present 
 time few communitie's are prepared to admit the valid- 
 ity of economic thinking. Likewise, every community 
 needs the help of the best political science it can find, 
 the best sociological information and theory, and the 
 best help procurable in the interpretation of common 
 behavior, — that is, psychology. Beyond this, this com- 
 munity deliberative council should include a student of 
 American history; a student of the local community's 
 institutions and organizations; a business man who 
 can bring to the group concrete illustrations of the way 
 in which business men think; a leader of the moral and 
 religious forces of the community; a school man, who 
 can illustrate the way in which teachers think; a work- 
 ing man who can bring the particular point of view of 
 workers; a representative of the zesthetic interests of 
 the community; one who i's interested in amusements 
 and recreation; an expert in health and sanitation; a 
 representative of the complicated problems confront- 
 ing the women of the community; a representative of 
 the young women of the community, and a represen- 
 tative of the young men; and the like. 
 
 This is suggestive, only, of the vital functions and 
 
148 Community Organization 
 
 interests which are intimate in the Hfe of the com- 
 munity, and which need to find expression in any 
 deliberation of the community. These men and women 
 should be chosen first of all because they are students. 
 Their duty will not be to put programs into action; 
 their duty will be to think out along the lines of com- 
 munity development and to work out through the long 
 future of democracy the advancing programs which 
 the community will do well to experiment with. It 
 will not be their task to set up dogmatic and ultimate 
 programs for the community. Democracy does not 
 healthily advance that* way. It will be their duty to 
 develop hypothetic programs for the* purpose of com- 
 munity acceptance or rejection. And they should be 
 prepared to stand many rejections of their programs 
 by the community. 
 
 The first task of this group will be to educate itself 
 as to its purpose and as to its methods of procedure. 
 Its second task will be to stimulate the development of 
 an adequate supply of successors, probably young men 
 and women who will want to share in the deliberative 
 life of t^c community, and who will therefore want 
 to know. Of course, any community needs more than 
 knowledge. But that is no excuse for saying that it 
 does not need knowledge. 
 
 More than this, setting up the possibility ci having 
 a definite share in the thinking of the community would 
 go a long way toward stimulating some of our boys 
 and girls to have a real interest in intellectual things 
 
Developing Community Deliberation 149 
 
 and would also help to give the schools some real 
 reason for existence. 
 
 These men and women should not be selected 
 because they represent organizations or interests. They 
 should not represent, — they should know; they should 
 not be propagandists or partisans, they should be, just 
 as far as possible, scientists in their fields. They should 
 be helped to come together in the name of the com- 
 munity, for the service of the community. But the 
 community is a very complex matter in these days, 
 and there will be much conflict of opinion. This is, 
 in itself, the healthiest of all possible developments, 
 provided that conflict is sincere, disinterested, and 
 savored of a little humor. Perhaps the community 
 leader must be able to furnish this savor. This group 
 should meet regularly for the consideration of policies, 
 problems, projects. Its free discussion should throw 
 the light of all community interests upon all matters, 
 and its decisions should represent not politics and 
 intrigue but deliberation and sincere belief. Its results 
 should be put freely at the service of the community. 
 
 This will be an extraordinary experiment in 
 democracy. In small communities whose interests are 
 still fairly homogeneous, one such group working 
 through a period of years, taking seriously its 
 responsibilities in bringing to the community the best 
 results of world knowledge and broadly reconstructive 
 social theory, with intelligent suggestion as to local 
 applications, would serve the community need. In 
 
150 Community Organisation 
 
 larger communities made up of distinctive neighbor- 
 hoods, any number of such groups might be developed. 
 The main difficulty under our American folkways 
 would lie in escaping from two charges that might be 
 brought against the group. On the one hand, it might 
 be charged with an effort to dominate the community. 
 If any such charge were justified the functions of the 
 group would be lost, for the only domination that can 
 be justified in any democratic community is that of the 
 reasonableness of the program proposed. But of course 
 no program is going to be adopted merely because 
 it is reasonable. On the other hand, it might be 
 charged with being primarily or purely doctrinaire, 
 and therefore useless. Here again the good sense of 
 the group will save it from being so irrelevant and 
 remote in its deliberations and proposals as to warrant 
 the proper suspicion of the common man. The pro- 
 gram proposed must be at one and the same time 
 rationally developed out of the actual life of the com- 
 munity, and thrown into the common currents of dis- 
 cussion for acceptance or rejection by the community. 
 But it must not fear to be based on substantial theory. 
 The community must be educated to believe in theory. 
 The so-called "practical man" is a man who is merely 
 boasting of his ignorance of the world's intelligence. 
 This experiment will involve the working out of the 
 technique of deliberation in such a group. Democratic 
 deliberation is largely non-existent. In the main com- 
 mittees, groups, and meetings have been exploited by 
 
Developing Community Deliberation 151 
 
 chairmen and leaders of an executive type of mind 
 rather than of a dehberative type. Doubtless, as we 
 shall see in a later chapter, democracy has great need 
 of men of an executive type of mind. But in this dis- 
 cussion we are not concerned with that type; we should 
 rather prefer that they stay out of these deliberative 
 groups. We want men and women who can really 
 deliberate. The man who would control a group for 
 the purposes of propaganda, or for the sake of putting 
 over his own private opinion, or for some more or less 
 dubious group purpose, is not the type of man wanted 
 in this deliberative council. 
 
 The technique of a democratic deliberation will in- 
 volve certain essential elements which are not uni- 
 versally characteristic of Americans, and which have 
 not been as a rule esteemed as the desirable qualities 
 in community leadership. Here again, however, em- 
 phasis must be placed upon the fact that this particular 
 type of leadership is not concerned with getting things 
 done but with planning what is to be done, — with the 
 working out of a broad community program which, 
 once it is accepted by the community, can be turned 
 over to the executive type of leader for enactment into 
 the life of the community. 
 
 The elements in this type of leadership may be 
 briefly set forth as follows: 
 
 1. Patience — and the good humor that keeps 
 patience from becoming a sullen pessimism. 
 
152 Community Organisation 
 
 2. Ability to listen to others. Mostly we enjoy 
 listening to ourselves. 
 
 3. Determination to help others express themselves 
 even when they have nothing to say. Every 
 member of the democracy must have something 
 to say. 
 
 4. Definite effort to understand others. It is far 
 more easy to misunderstand. 
 
 5. An effort to appreciate the various individual 
 strengths and weaknesses of one's colleagues 
 and so to take account of extraneous elements 
 in deliberation. 
 
 6. A search for a more inclusive common knowl- 
 edge which shall be put freely at the service of 
 every member of the group for the purpose of 
 securing many personal interpretations of facts 
 and personal statements of programs. 
 
 7. A willingness (perhaps secured only in the long 
 course of time) to follow truth for the sake of 
 the community wheresoever it may lead. This 
 will of course introduce continually the element 
 of criticism of the points of view of individual 
 members of the committee. But this will educate 
 them, and compel their continuous readjust- 
 ment. That is to say, it will require thinking. 
 It will involve a co-operative search for the 
 good, not as something already existing, but 
 as something to be found step by step in the 
 processes of experience. That will mean leav- 
 
Developing Community Deliberation 153 
 
 ing behind some old vested wrongs, and no one 
 greatly enjoys that sort of thing. It may take 
 many generations to educate the race to the atti- 
 tude that it is better for our old institutions to 
 perish in the white light of truth than to live 
 on in the moldiness of falsehood. 
 The magnitude of this task is not to be underesti- 
 mated. It does not, however, include the "making over 
 of human nature." It involves the thoughtful estab- 
 lishing of the conditions under which more desirable 
 aspects of human nature will have a chance to develop. 
 Of course it will involve eternal vigilance on the part 
 of this democratic thought fulness, but democracy is 
 not something that can be achieved once for all, 
 and then depended upon to stand of itself; democracy 
 is a great passion, a moral hunger, a spiritual ideal; 
 and its fufeure must be protected by the deliberate intel- 
 ligence, the definite resolution, the quiet passion, and 
 the calm will of all those heroic souls of the com- 
 munity who would perhaps in other days have given 
 their lives valorously on some battlefield for some 
 glorious cause. The fight for democracy has largely 
 been transferred from mob battlefields to individual 
 consciences and hearts. 
 
 But democracy must go at least one step further: 
 the battle must become the task of the democratic 
 intellect and the results and tools of science must be 
 rescued from their service in the construction of battle- 
 ships and machinery of destruction, and made to serve 
 
154 Community Organization 
 
 the great moral and spiritual longings of the race. The 
 new battle must be fought out in committee rooms 
 and community councils, and in the common meetings 
 of men and women. Deliberation must be redeemed 
 from its present reputation. The task of democracy 
 is the long task of the years. The whole future of 
 civilization is at stake. 
 
 And that true future does not now exist anywhere. 
 Customs of the past will attempt to supply it; momen- 
 tary impulses will offer themselves for it; but it must 
 come to us out of our social imagination and out of 
 the deliberate investigations which broad-minded, 
 intelligent lovers of democracy will institute for its 
 invention. All that can save us from the slavish tradi- 
 tions of the past or the futile impulses of the present 
 is that trained deliberativeness which has been, even in 
 our democracy, but little esteemed. 
 
 It is at this point that democracy faces the conditions 
 of its unexplored frontier. Just as the settlers of 
 America left the security and ease of settled com- 
 munities in Europe for the uncertainties and the 
 freedom of the wilderness, so there must be 
 always, in a democracy, some who will leave the 
 settled and outworn conditions of the past and plunge 
 into the insecurities and freedom of the wilderness of 
 unsettled questions, in search of a new and larger 
 world within which to realize the unescapable longings 
 of their souls. Men must see more than to-day in order 
 to see to-day truly. The wilderness must be explored 
 
Developing Community Deliberation 155 
 
 by the pioneer before rest can be enjoyed, — not by 
 reason of fear or need so much as just because man's 
 mind cannot rest easily in any limited corner of the 
 wilderness : even a half universe, says Carlyle, will not 
 satisfy the soul of a bootblack. 
 
 Hence our question comes to this : Can such a de- 
 liberative council, or any fragment of it, be organized 
 in any community to consider the many problems of 
 that community, in accordance with such a program as 
 the following? 
 
 1. Ready to meet regularly at stated times for the 
 purposes of deliberation and discussion, making 
 that time a part of the regular routine of each 
 member of the group as a definite personal ob- 
 ligation and privilege not to be missed. 
 
 2. Keeping their eyes open in all the ranges of 
 daily experience for illustrative materials, facts, 
 bearing on the subject. 
 
 3. Always reading discussions of the subjects for 
 the purpose of securing growing understand- 
 ing of the practical aspects of their task. 
 
 4. Ready to give time and energy to the commun- 
 ity and tO' plan largely, inclusively, to the end 
 that eventually every member of the commun- 
 ity, old and young, shall have the chance to 
 express the long-repressed currents of life, — 
 especially that boys and girls shall have the 
 chance to develop their instinctive lives through 
 normal and healthy expression, to enrich their 
 
156 Community Organisation 
 
 emotions through actual and real experiences, 
 and so come in their youth to a life that is less 
 at the mercy of repressed instincts and emo- 
 tions, more controlled, more normal because not 
 altogether unknown. 
 Such a group must be willing to do this modestly, 
 continuously, thoughtfully, persistently, and even 
 when ridiculed or rejected to to go ahead with the 
 great task. 
 
 Eventually, if democracy is to secure the advan- 
 tages of science in all its common living, just such 
 groups or committees will exist everyv^here, helping 
 to translate scientific conclusions into terms under- 
 standable to the common man and helping to interpret 
 the struggling life of the community in terms that 
 even the scientist will not scorn. It seems likely that 
 only in some such way as this will our under-intelli- 
 gent, over-institutionalized, over puritanical social 
 order be transformed into a social order which makes 
 room for the discoveries of our evolutionary point of 
 view — the fundamental instincts of the race, the emo- 
 tional undercurrents of all our intellectual life, the 
 humanity that rises out of our pre-human endowment, 
 and that great democratic common weal that lures us 
 on and that may be one with the spiritual meanings of 
 the wniverse itself. 
 
 Since democracy does not exist at present, since it 
 is a great adventure involving forecasting the future, 
 it seems necessary to suppose that some such program 
 
Developing Community Deliberation 157 
 
 as the foregoing will be essential. Groups of intelli- 
 gent people must become interested in the problems of 
 the community until they see how such simple things 
 as inadequate recreation, or inadequate housing, for 
 example, prevent the development of those compre- 
 hensive experiences within which the normal life of 
 children and young people can find expression and so 
 come to adequate being. And of course it can be 
 affirmed that democracy will not be real as long as 
 large areas of our personal and social life remain 
 buried under the debris of old institutions. The uncov- 
 ering of the inner repressed lives of people; the work- 
 ing out of more adequate social programs on the basis 
 of facts and by the light of developing social theory; 
 and the presentation of such programs to the commun- 
 ity for its education, its acceptance or rejection : these 
 are aspects of the long struggle for democracy which 
 are absolutely vital to the future. Without delibera- 
 tion in the light of the most complete fund of fact and 
 theory, democracy will be lost in the eddies of old habit 
 or destroyed in the rapids of impulse. Deliberation is 
 as essential in negotiating the uncertain currents of 
 democracy's future as in constructing safe waterways 
 for the commerce of the world. And leadership must 
 recognize the value of this community deliberation in 
 the development of community mind. Instead of con- 
 tinuously seeking to "get things done" it must seek 
 to develop the community's own capacity to do things, 
 and especially to think out things worth doing. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 THE INCLUSIVE PROGRAM 
 
 The first effect of awakening the deliberative atti- 
 tude is likely to be negative, — the development of a 
 passive or even cynical pessimism. The welter of pas- 
 sion and emotion, of tangled ambition and aspiration, 
 success and defeat, vanity and ecstasy, disease and vice 
 and crime, comes before us as a terrifying phantasma- 
 goria. In the isolation of the folkway world, ignor- 
 ant of or ignoring these more poignant facts of life, 
 men could be happy at leasi after a resigned fashion. 
 But who can be happy when hi 3 eyes begin to open 
 upon the haggard facts of life? "In much wisdom is 
 much grief; and he that increaseth knowledge 
 increaseth sorrow." 
 
 Historically man has seemed a creature of depraved 
 character: selfish and prejudiced; sensual and weak, 
 except for physical brutalities; intemperate and 
 shackled by vicious habits, cowed by fears, or driven 
 by manias; indolent and drifting with the tides of 
 appetite, save as iron-clad custom has controlled him 
 with taboos, or other sanctions, or as some few choice 
 spirits have risen above the mob and by organizing 
 autocratic mechanisms, — chiefly armies, — have been 
 
 1'8 
 
The Inclusive Program 159 
 
 able to control the currents of human impulse, and so 
 have saved the very race from destruction. We seem 
 to be victims of conditions, force, energies, — physical, 
 psychological, institutional, — that are beyond modifi- 
 cation or control. 
 
 Little by little, however, this general pessimism 
 resolves itself into many specific items. The world, 
 outwardly and inwardly, seems beyond the reach of 
 intelligence; note such factors as these: 
 
 Physical destruction : by earthquake, storms, floods, 
 fires, and the probable demolition of the planet itself; 
 famines, plagues, epidemics, pestilences, death itself; 
 
 Wars : which demand the destruction of the best, 
 and the defeat of all progress by compelling unlimited 
 birth rates, the "rabbit-hutch" policy of maintaining 
 national strength, the sanctioning of polygamy and of- 
 ficial illegitimacy, — since war can destroy more rapidly 
 than all other calamities combined; 
 
 Poverty and pauperism, dependency and invalidity, 
 insanitary housing and the unspeakable filth through 
 which the race grew up and which still exists unno- 
 ticed all about the living conditions of multitudes; 
 
 Defect, mental and physical : delinquency, vice and 
 crime, unnatural perversions and the loathsome dis- 
 eases that ensue, prostitution and the exploitation of 
 the instincts of sex; 
 
 Exploitation of the masses of men, women and 
 children, through heartless private manipulation of the 
 wealth of the community : unemployment, occupational 
 
.160 Community Organisation 
 
 diseases and accidents, preventable deaths, fatigues; 
 work that degrades the worker through long hours; 
 work that destroys the desire and the capacity to work ; 
 work that degrades women and children; work that 
 fails to feed and clothe and house the world, which 
 merely produces discouragement and unrest : 
 
 Chicanery, gambling, "con," which despises work 
 and exists by shrewd ability to secure a share of the 
 product of other men's labors by the use of "wits." 
 
 Belated, ignorant, tyrannical and prejudiced courts, 
 and other tribunals that stand in the way of justice 
 and right; 
 
 A citizenship that is ighorant, subject to catch- 
 phrases, easily exploited by venal leaderships, — or else 
 over-sophisticated, cynical, dishonest; 
 
 "Public opinion" cleverly organized, cunningly 
 manipulated, at the mercy of shrewd suggestion, 
 refusing to consider any new proposal that might 
 release the community from its defects : "What is 
 good enough for us is good enough for our children." 
 
 Family breakdowns and disintegrations; thought- 
 less marriages; "conspiracies of secrecy" about all sex 
 matters; incompatibilities, disillusionments, divorces; 
 the failures of responsibility; lawless sex relationships; 
 and the whole sordid story of broken faiths, exploited 
 affection, and disappointed lives; 
 
 Superficiality of personality of masses of men and 
 women because they grew up in a "soil that had no 
 depth," — frivolity, insincerity, hypocrisy, sham; 
 
The Inclusive Program 161 
 
 Illiteracy, social unintelligence, unskill; formal ana 
 irrelevant information; non-vocational outlooks of the 
 masses of young people; lack of interest in "the job"; 
 lack of interest in any of the important concerns and 
 movements of the age; 
 
 Amusements that do not amuse; recreations that do 
 not recreate; sordid, over-competitive, destructive 
 social life; a "night life" that devours the earnings of 
 the day and does not give "value received," but grad- 
 ually destroys; play that defeats play, burning out 
 nerve centers before their time; the transformation of 
 all that should be beautiful, recreative, and refreshing 
 into the hectic, the feverish, the demoralizing, the 
 deadly; 
 
 Ugliness of the community, of streets and buildings 
 and vacant lots; the intrusion of bill boards; the sor- 
 did ugliness of houses, inside and out; jerry architec- 
 ture, jazz music, adventitious literature, extremist art; 
 imitation jewelry, and all the tawdry effort to gloss 
 over cheapness with a vain respectability; 
 
 A morality that is ignorant custom and pretense, 
 and that freely sacrifices joy, happiness, sincerity, real- 
 ity, nature and beauty to conventionality and appear- 
 ances ; 
 
 A "religion" that is hard, irrelevant, if not unintel- 
 ligent dogma; outward conformity to meaningless rit- 
 uals, the "whited sepulchres" of ancient descriptions; 
 cups "cleansed on the outer side, but inwardly full 
 of extortion and bitterness;" the "devourers of wid- 
 
162 Community Organisation 
 
 ows' houses making long prayers in the market place," 
 Some such pessimistic presentation of the world as 
 this is the first impression aroused in the awakened 
 intelHgence by the deliberative attitude. And this is 
 necessary, inevitable. The complacency of the f olkway 
 mind must give way to the aroused interest and sense 
 of problem of the alert mind. There is no hope of sal- 
 vation save in a recognition of the fact of sin. 
 
 But a second effect of the deliberative attitude has 
 usually appeared, also; a sort of unlimited and over- 
 weening optimism, that here, at last, a new method 
 has been found with which quickly all the problems of 
 the ages will be solved. The Greek sophists held some 
 such superficial view as this, — though some of them 
 went so far as to suggest that, in the light of intelli- 
 gence, no problem was really worth solving! In the 
 dawn of the modern period a somewhat more serious 
 but quite as thoroughly optimistic opinion prevailed. 
 Bacon felt that his "Novum Organum" was that new 
 instrument which would quickly cure all the ancient 
 "distempers of learning," overthrow all the traditional 
 "idols of the mind," and bring in the day of unlimited 
 illumination and control of life. "Knowledge is 
 power," — ^and man had only to apply himself, dili- 
 gently, to compass shortly all knowledge : "I have 
 taken all knowled;. j to my province!" 
 
 Paracelsus is an excellent illustration of this 
 pathetic hope. Browning's poem represents the wild 
 extravagance of his first plans, and the gradual disil- 
 
The Inclusive Program 163 
 
 lusionment and eclipse of an intellect that might have 
 
 contributed much to the world had it been content to 
 undertake its share in the long task of following 
 "knowledge like a sinking star beyond the utmost 
 bound of human hope." But the age dreamed of a 
 quick clue, a secret of the gods, a philosopher's stone, 
 which would turn base metals into gold, solve all prob- 
 lems by a magic touch, and transform degraded and 
 vicious human nature into fitness for the heavenly 
 mansions in the twinkling of an eye. And the age 
 found none of these; therefore it turned upon those 
 who made such promises, and destroyed them. 
 
 Human weariness still longs for such short cuts to 
 peace, and human credulity never fails to respond to 
 the suggestions when any such has been found. Mod- 
 em "get rich quick," "get healthy quick," "get wise 
 quick" nostrums are the equivalent of the old philos- 
 opher's stone. 
 
 Now and then, of course, some discovery does seem 
 to precipitate a whole age of progress in a moment, — 
 but it is certain that ages of study have gone before. 
 That which is to be for a moment can, probably, be 
 made in a moment; but that which is to become per- 
 manent substance of the structure of the world must, 
 probably, take time for its development. After these 
 three hundred years of scientific effort, we may admit 
 that there is no such single cUie. no simple formula, no 
 final answer to the problems of society in a democrac- 
 
 A third attitude toward the deliberative method 
 
164 Community Organization 
 
 seems necessary, therefore.* The complete organiza- 
 tion of the community will include the mutual develop- 
 ment and interrelating of many programs, dealing with 
 the many aspects of our common life, — each wrought 
 out in the knowledge of the others and in view of the 
 community as a whole. This program will begin 
 where the community actually is, with all its failures 
 and depravities, defeats and limitations, as set forth 
 above ; it will be brave enough to call into use all attain- 
 able facts, past and present, — since only by knowl- 
 edge can we escape from fear; it will take into account 
 all the work that has been done by various frag- 
 mentary groups, and the methods of that work ; it will 
 become acquainted with, and make continuous use of 
 all advancing social sciences, especially of psychology; 
 it will examine and use the advancing standards of 
 achievement which specific departments of the com- 
 munity are developing, and will attempt to relate and 
 co-ordinate these specialized standards into a common 
 aim for the whole community life; it will organize all 
 these factors into a working hypothesis, presenting 
 this hypothesis as a constructive plan of the commun- 
 ity's future, for the challenge of the community, — to 
 be criticized, to be endlessly remade, to be attained 
 in the progress of the years. 
 
 Such an attitude as this is true deliberation, is truly 
 inclusive. It accepts the future as just the field of 
 buman exploration, as that new frontier within which 
 
 ♦Todd: The Scientific Spirit in Social Work. 
 
The Inclusive Program 165 
 
 the still-unrealized hopes and aspirations of the race 
 shall come into being. It is not afraid of the unknown ; 
 it faces that unknown as the pioneers of the last three 
 centuries have faced the wilderness of forest and 
 prairie. In this three hundredth anniversary of the 
 landing of the Pilgrims surely no one need apologize 
 for advocating the value of facing the wilderness, or 
 of life on the frontiers! 
 
 This sort of deliberation involves the escape from 
 both the outworn habit of the past and the uncertain 
 impulse of the present into the intellectual freedom of 
 ideas and the comparative analysis of competing pro- 
 grams. It involves escape from "patch-work" and 
 "tinkering" into the conception of a program that 
 begins with the community as a whole and appraises 
 every activity, function, interest and institution of that 
 community in terms of its service to the common life. 
 From this more inclusive standpoint, from this 
 revised attitude of mind which Ferguson calls the "rev- 
 olution absolute"*, each of these interests, activities, 
 institutions of the community becomes a distinct prob- 
 lem, a challenge to show cause why it should continue 
 to exist, or to exist in just such fashion. The inclu- 
 sive program of the community will be just the out- 
 come of these critical deliberations, — and nothing but 
 
 * The application of science to the arts of war has trans- 
 formed warfare from an activity that once permitted a cer- 
 tain "chivalry" into a monstrous organization of all hideous 
 engines of destruction. The only means of upsetting this is 
 by just as complete application of the methods of science to 
 the arts and institutions of peace. 
 
166 Community Organisation 
 
 such deliberation can ever assure us an inclusive pro- 
 gram. This is the long task of the democratic cen- 
 turies, — a. challenge to the faith and hope and joy of 
 every genuine democrat ! 
 
 In this deliberate challenge by the community of all 
 that affects the happiness and destiny of the members 
 of the community, doubtless some of these old com- 
 munity functions will be more or less ruthlessly elimi- 
 nated. This has happened in the past. Slavery, that 
 divinely ordained institution, disappeared; the saloon 
 is passing from our midst; the "divine right of kings" 
 has received its death-blow in all western lands. 
 Belated types of function, like "Czarism" and "Kaiser- 
 ism," may cling for a while, like "the last leaf upon 
 the tree" in winter; but when the new life of spring 
 surges through the tree and touches its furthest tips, 
 the old leaves must fall. 
 
 There is a crude surgery in revolution, which has 
 served the world well at times, though not always: 
 "This rage was right in the main, — 
 That acquiescence vain " 
 
 But for the most part it is likely that the older type 
 of revolution has served its term. For the future prog- 
 ress will be made by education, including all forms of 
 "case work," and by legislation which will crystalize 
 the developments of public intelligence into the prin- 
 ciples of law and common conduct. Yet in the long 
 run the world will learn that there is but one real 
 escape from the violent revolutions of the past, and 
 
The Inclusive Program 167 
 
 that is by deliberate acceptance of the "revolution abso- 
 lute" — the control of the destinies of the community 
 by intelligence, an intelligence based in assured facts, 
 organized by vital social theory, and carried out into 
 social organization by trained and expert leaders who 
 believe in the things they are doing. 
 
 This will of course be fatal to many evils, many 
 vested wrongs, special privileges, monopolies, and the 
 like; but all such things must go, soon or late. The 
 only question is as to whether they will go decently 
 and in order under the deliberate and calm criticism of 
 facts and assured theory, or whether they will refuse 
 to go and have to be thrown out in the wild excesses 
 of violence "when whirlwinds of rebellion sweep the 
 world." In the democracy of the future, the goods of 
 life are to become more and more the possession of 
 every one. Nothing can prevent this. Institutions of 
 all sorts can delay the coming of that day, but not 
 forever ! 
 
 It was stated above that this deliberative method 
 implies a transformation of social attitude toward 
 each and all of the distinctive interests, activities, and 
 institutions of the community. The older doctrine 
 assumed that the community was made up of the sum 
 of its institutions. This doctrine is a "hangover" from 
 the extreme individualism of the i8th century, — 
 especially from the "social contract" theory of Rous- 
 seau. According to this theory, men first lived in an 
 uninstitutionalized individualism, somewhat like the 
 
168 Community Organisation 
 
 solitary cats which live alone, not like most animals 
 which live in flocks and herds. But at a rather uncer- 
 tain time in human history population grew to such 
 an extent that some sort of social organization became 
 necessary. Accordingly individuals came together 
 and made a contract with each other to live under cer- 
 tain conditions, under certain institutions. The com- 
 munal part of man is, therefore, all summed up under 
 the social institutions; what is not in institutions is 
 essentially individualistic and not to be comprised 
 within the common life. Society makes its greatest 
 mistake when it attempts to compel the whole of 
 human nature to come under the control of these arti- 
 ficial and contractual institutions. 
 
 But this whole doctrine is based on false history and 
 more false psychology. Historically men never lived 
 solitary lives. Man is by his very nature a gregarious 
 animal; his social instincts are quite as dominant in 
 him as his more individualistic instincts. In fact, it is 
 not at all unlikely that many of the world's grossest 
 evils come now from the inescapable quality of man's 
 social instincts. How else account, for example, for 
 that monstrous crowding of people into close quarters 
 in the city? 
 
 Further, the process of evolution Involves not add- 
 ing up a sum of particulars, but differentiating a whole 
 into its parts. Evolution is from within, not from with- 
 out. A homogeneous whole becomes characterized by 
 inner differences. These differences finally become dis- 
 
The Inclusive Program 169 
 
 tinctive, and the whole breaks up into separate parts, 
 each of which may in turn become a new whole. 
 
 And not this historical process alone, but the very 
 nature of the mind of man is to approach any problem 
 from an inclusive point of view rather than from a par- 
 ticular angle. The mind does not work from particu- 
 lars to the whole, but from the whole to its parts. The 
 approach to any social situation is, therefore, logically 
 most easy by first getting a view of the whole situation, 
 and then breaking up that whole into its constituent 
 parts. 
 
 The community antedates the individual and the 
 specialized institution. Both are products of a com- 
 munity life. The community is not made by them; they 
 are made by the community. Hence, any program of 
 community reorganization that hopes to contribute a 
 real and lasting progress must approach the problem 
 from the standpoint of the inclusive community life. 
 That is to say, every constructive program for the 
 reorganization of industry, or health, or recreation, or 
 the like, must undertake its work not from the stand- 
 point of its own particular department of the com- 
 munity, or compartment of human nature, but from 
 the standpoint of the community as a whole. All insti- 
 tutions and interests are functions of a common 
 human nature. That human nature may be infinitely 
 complex and varied; yet it has a community of inter- 
 est running through it, and every function of com- 
 munity differentiation must stand or fall by its abil- 
 
170 Community Organization 
 
 ity to interpret, enrich and serve this common human 
 nature. More than this, there can rightly be no invidi- 
 ous segregation of community functions, by means 
 of which certain groups or classes enjoy special serv- 
 ices denied to other groups or classes. Every normal 
 human being needs the contact with, and service of, 
 every essential item of common good if he is to be 
 wholly human. 
 
 How shall these novel relationships between the 
 specialized functions of the community and the com- 
 munity as a whole, implied in this "revolution abso- 
 lute," be set forth? We have been exclusive, narrow, 
 intolerant, and to that extent un-American, in our 
 conceptions of the proper program. We have set up 
 certain fixed tests, certain shibboleths, — ^and we have 
 declared that whatever could not come within the 
 bounds of these tests was undesirable. Non-conform- 
 ist groups have been persecuted, — in spite of the fact 
 that America was founded by non-conformists ! The 
 Declaration of Independence was a work of revolu- 
 tionary non-conformists. America has long been the 
 refuge of the victims of hide-bound conformities. 
 Democracy must continue to be just that, or perish. 
 
 And so in this deliberate reorganization of the pro- 
 gram of our community life for the purposes of democ- 
 racy, all that is human must be taken into account; 
 the inner life of the community must get its expres- 
 sion. It is not to be a program made "in the mount" 
 and handed down in final form. It is to be the work- 
 
The Inclusive Program 171 
 
 ing out of the repressed and poignant life of the peo- 
 ple who make up the community. The conservative, 
 the radical; the alien, the native; the rich, the poor; 
 the learned and the ignorant, — all must come and bring 
 their needs, their hopes, their longings, their imper- 
 ishable desires to the building of this new structure of 
 the common life. And the "stone which the builders 
 rejected" may once again in the world's history "be- 
 come the head of the comer." 
 
 This program will include, for example, not merely 
 an organization of industry to make it more effective 
 within itself, — ^but such a reorganization of the com- 
 munity as*will enable industry to realize all its human 
 functions : not merely the production of goods, but 
 service to the community, the education of the children 
 in vital ways, the chance for joy in one's handiwork, 
 the sense of creative expression, the fulfillment of the 
 instinct of workmanship, and the actual realization by 
 all men of that old religious conception "Laborare est 
 orare," — "To labor is to pray!" Never again should 
 any community be able thoughtlessly to make profits 
 out of the losses of its workers ! The machinery of this 
 reorganization is "now in the making; it were well for 
 community leaders to make sure that they share these 
 'genuine, hopes of community and democracy.* 
 
 * Veblen: Instinct of Workmanship. 
 Tead: Instincts in Industry. 
 Money: The Future of Work. 
 Gantt: Organizing for Work. 
 
 Survey, Dec. 20, 1919. One Way Out. A Symposium. 
 Cf. British Labor Program. 
 
172 Community Organisation 
 
 Again, in the program of health, the end desired 
 will not be mere absence of obvious diseases and the 
 development of individual vitality, but such a reor- 
 ganization of the whole attitude of the community 
 toward the values of life as will make health contag; 
 ious and disease a sort of disgrace. The community 
 needs to exhale health to all its constituents; and the 
 whole structure of the community — its industries, and 
 all its interests — must be such as shall be consistent 
 with a program of health. What is the use of health, 
 or life, that is planted amidst filth and vice and crime? 
 Why should the community be concerned about the 
 health of individuals if the industry of the community 
 is so organized as cumulatively to destroy that health? 
 Can health. and servile toil go together? Can the indi- 
 vidual whose whole outlook on life is "gazing on the 
 ground" in a hopeless and unrelenting way be healthy? 
 Health cannot be "organized" unless industry is organ- 
 ized, and every other vital aspect of the community 
 with it. 
 
 Likewise, this program does not anticipate the more 
 complete organization of "recreation" for the purpose 
 of absorbing a few fragments of off-time now wasted, 
 — ^but such a reorganization of the whole program 
 of community living as will make leisure time a gen- 
 uine reality in the life of every man, woman and child 
 in the community — their own time, free from any 
 exaction by any control whatever, save their own good 
 democratic sense — and in which normal and natural 
 
The Inclusive Program 173 
 
 opportunity is available to every one for play, recrea- 
 tion, social life, recuperation or regenerative pursuits 
 as will release the emotions, healthfully^ heighten the 
 sense of living, and enhance the whole tone of bodily, 
 moral and spirtual well-being. This cannot be organ- 
 ized by itself. It can come only as part of an inclu- 
 sive community program. 
 
 Such a program will not imply a more highly 
 efficient school in which children will be more com- 
 pletely institutionalized and crammed with more dead- 
 eningly useful information, but such a reorganization 
 of the whole living of the community as will make 
 possible the attainment, by all members of the com- 
 munity, old and young alike, of a more adequate 
 understanding of the conditions under which they live 
 and work; a more complete participation in the world's 
 achievements of culture and joy ; and a more effective 
 organization of active will by means of which the indi- 
 vidual's real sharing in the active concerns of the 
 world may be assured. Democracy demands this, and 
 educators are beginning to see that education must 
 move in this direction.* 
 
 Such a program does not imply the occasional sup- 
 pression of such evils as prostitution, the sneer of a 
 sophisticated understanding that while "good people 
 must have their way once in a while," yet "everyone 
 
 ♦Dewey: Education and Democracy. 
 Addams: Democracy and Social Ethics — Ch. 6. 
 Russell: Why Men Fight. 
 Hart: Democracy in Education. 
 
174 Community Organization 
 
 who knows the world knows that such things always 
 have been and always will be," — ^but rather such an 
 organization of the whole life of the community, its 
 industries, its play, its civic aspirations, its love and 
 its worship, as to leave no real place either for vice as 
 a social institution, or for the cultivation of those mor- 
 bid forms and perversions of instinct which saturate 
 the individual with viciousness. 
 
 This program involves, it is plain, a reconstitution 
 of our attitudes toward all the interests of the com- 
 mon life. When we consider from this point of view 
 the long efforts of women to achieve the fullness of 
 human living, the wonder grows why the world has 
 been so stupid so long. Doubtless the actual working 
 out of the machinery of realization of all the values 
 repressed under our old intolerances will take a long 
 time; but the actual acceptance of the doctrine that 
 women are to have utter freedom in the democratic 
 community need take no more than a moment. And 
 the task of making the machinery of this new order 
 can then go on thoughtfully, democratically, effec- 
 tively, under the direction of those who believe in it, 
 instead of obstructively, under the direction of those 
 who would prefer to see it all fail. 
 
 Can there be any doubt about the logic of a reason- 
 able work day, that will leave the worker still a human 
 being at the end of the day, ready to fulfill all his func- 
 tions as a citizen and with time enough to prepare him- 
 self to enjoy and fulfill his life? 
 
The Inclusive Program 175 
 
 If we could accept the proposition that in the ulti- 
 mate community of the world all races and peoples 
 must live together in some way, would we not come 
 nearer to the conditions under which such a problem 
 could really be solved? There is nothing democratic 
 in perpetuating old racial prejudice and in attempting 
 to "solve" racial problems in the atmosphere of intol- 
 erance and misunderstanding. 
 
 The real study and understanding of "American 
 ideals" is not furthered by the attitudes of bitterness 
 and rancor that leading upholders of "Americanism" 
 exhibit. Hysteria and intolerance are as bad as indo- 
 lence. America has withstood a century of open dis- 
 cussion of her ideals and her problems; it seems 
 unlikely that she could withstand a decade of espio- 
 nage and repression. 
 
 The deliberate intention to make human life physi- 
 cally, mentally, morally and spiritually fit, by the 
 control of the physical ills, by mental hygiene and the 
 segregation of the defective; by providing those oppor- 
 tunities for responsibility within which moral charac- 
 ter can alone develop; and by stimulation of those 
 great community idealisms which rouse the spirit of 
 man like an awakened giant, — these are all parts of 
 the program of community reorganization under the 
 control of democratic deliberation. 
 
 There is an almost infinite variety about the com- 
 mon life of our democracy. This discussion cannot 
 hope to include all details within its scope. Nor would 
 
176 Community Organisation 
 
 it be warranted in doing so if such a thing were pos- 
 sible. We are not here determining a program ; we are 
 simply considering the general outlines and elements 
 that will go to the making of such a program. No 
 such program, let it be said again, can be made out- 
 side the community and handed in, or down. Any 
 externally imposed program would be of the nature of 
 most of our traditional programs, — autocratic, abso- 
 lute, the protector of some sort of vested wrongs. We 
 desire no such program. The program vve need for the 
 democratic community of the future must be wrought 
 out of the very life of the community, by the best 
 thinking of that community, made of the facts of that 
 community, criticised by reference to the best social 
 theory and the best programs of other communities. 
 Hence, we may leave the actual working out of the 
 program for any local community to the people of that 
 community under the leadership of such a commun- 
 ity council as shall have learned to carry on its work 
 in the spirit of a truly democratic deliberation. 
 
 But one or two other items need to be kept in mind. 
 This distinctive conception that the community pro- 
 gram of the democratic future will imply this "revo- 
 lution absolute" in our attitudes toward problems sets 
 before us certain inescapable tasks. First : the life and 
 interest and work of the community are of more 
 importance than the life and interest and work of any 
 particular function or institution of the community. 
 The old doctrine of "enlightend selfishness," that if 
 
The Inclusive Program \77 
 
 every individual would stand for his own rights to the 
 uttermost we should have an ideal community, has no 
 standing whatever with intelligent students to-day. 
 Instead of having an ideal community, we should have 
 an armed camp, and at the snapping of a match the 
 world would be converted into a shambles. So also, 
 the doctrine that the community is advanced by the 
 unlimited egotism of its particularistic institutions 
 will not stand criticism. No institution can be trusted 
 with the fate of the whole community. Nothing hut 
 the community is big enough to determine the fate of 
 the community! And nothing but an intelligent com- 
 munity is wise enough to escape from the ancient false- 
 hoods which identified the good of the community 
 with some narrowly institutional development. 
 
 Again, this re-assertion of the rights of the com- 
 munity, as over against any particularistic institution 
 within the community, involves novel conceptions of 
 leadership, especially the conception that each individ- 
 ual is to have some share in the joys and responsibili- 
 ties of leadership, and that no individual is to be 
 denied the joy and discipline of being occasionally a 
 follower. But we shall see more of this in a later 
 chapter. 
 
 This program of inclusive organization involves 
 also some grave dangers and difficulties, as we shall 
 see- in later chapters. But democracy is looking for a 
 larger life. There can be no larger life save as we 
 escape from the narrower life. Change involves chang- 
 
178 Community Organisation 
 
 ing something. Old littlenesses will have to make way 
 for something bigger. No one knows just what the 
 bigger thing will be, just as no one in 1776 knew just 
 what would come of the Declaration of Independence. 
 But democracy is the social order within which science 
 can find itself most fully at home. Dangers do not dis- 
 turb the pioneer; they challenge him; they thrill him; 
 they discipline him; they make him : the pioneer is just 
 the man who does not run from them, or deny their 
 existence, or ignore them, but who faces them, ques- 
 tions them, tears them to pieces to see what they are 
 made of, solves them, puts them under his feet, and 
 goes on to the new job and the new day. This is 
 what makes him a pioneer! 
 
 Facing the dangers as they come, and the difficul- 
 ties, and the obstacles, the leader of democracy will 
 modestly, tolerantly, open-mindedly seek to understand 
 the times in which he lives, the community in which 
 he lives, the people with whom he lives, — and in the 
 spirit of a great experiment will undertake to help the 
 community move on to the next stage in its develop- 
 ment. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 FROM DELIBERATION TO ACTION 
 
 The most difficult of tasks confronts us here. We 
 see clearly enough what is to be done in the building 
 of the larger democratic community — at least in its 
 major outlines. But is there not some danger that this 
 desirable program will never be translated into social 
 conduct? Is it not necessary now to build a great 
 bridge between deliberation and action?* 
 
 All too often in the past the "idealist" has had a 
 sort of blind faith in the self-realizing quality of ideals, 
 has felt that idealisms have a magic quality which will 
 make them inevitably prevail, or that Providence is 
 on the side of ideals. For the most part such idealists 
 have suffered endless defeats and disillusionments ; but 
 they seem able to recover from every such defeat and 
 shortly to start up again a new orgy of sheer ideal- 
 ism. Such a process has had the effect of making the 
 community as a whole pretty distrustful of too much 
 idealism. 
 
 For this reason most of our scientific techniques 
 have fallen into the control and service of pre-scien- 
 tific purposes. Not only are the older mechanisms of 
 
 * Wallas: The Great Society— Ch. XII. 
 179 
 
180 Community Organisation 
 
 effective action in the control of autocratic interests, 
 but these same interests are quick to appreciate and 
 secure control of any new mechanisms that may be 
 invented. This illustrates one of the lasting conflicts as 
 to the nature of social organization. There are many 
 who advocate the application of force to the control 
 of community life, whether at home or abroad, — such 
 force being mainly in the service of traditional inter- 
 ests. That is to say, alongside of our sheer idealists 
 we can find militarists everywhere who think that the 
 community and the world should be organized pri- 
 marily in terms of physical expression and under the 
 control of a non-social autocracy. 
 
 Over against both these proposals there seems to be 
 room for a more realistic suggestion. Ideals are not 
 self-realizing; force is not merely physical, nor is even 
 physical force forever to be at the service of primi- 
 tive impulse. Ideals need to be organized into the posi- 
 tive programs of the world, and force needs to be 
 directed by comprehensive intelligence. The idealistic 
 intention looks toward a human world; but such a 
 result will be realized only when its supporters use the 
 realities of the world to put that program into exist- 
 ence. Not merely the physical forces, such as are util- 
 ized in battle, but the equally real forces of commerce, 
 industry, world finance, the organization of scientific 
 inquiry, and the development of fundamental neigh- 
 borliness as an actual program for community life: all 
 these are essential elements in that organization of the 
 
From Deliberation to Action 181 
 
 world by which ideals are to be transformed into the 
 realities of social existence. 
 
 Of course this will make the upholders of force 
 scoff, for they will say that forces cannot be made to 
 support an idealistic program. And it will make the 
 upholders of ideals scoff, because they will say that it 
 is a surrender of ideals; that if ideals have to rely upon 
 force for their realization they are not of much con- 
 sequence. As a matter of fact, it simply means that 
 we are escaping from the impossible antagonisms 
 between institutions and ideas, between means and end, 
 and are coming to see human life more realistically as 
 a long struggle for the transformation of primitive 
 group conditions into intelligent social order. It is 
 the wholeness of life that individuals need and that 
 communities need : and that wholeness involves two 
 things: energy to work out intelligent ideals; and 
 energy to make those ideals real. 
 
 Such a fusion of executive and deliberative attitudes 
 is constantly taking place in the current of events. Let 
 the demand for the "humanization of industry" suffice 
 for illustration. Current deliberation does play into 
 action in the form of "suggestion"* continually. 
 Multitudes of conservative business men are to-day 
 advocating "guild socialism" and "soviet" forms of 
 industrial and political control without knowing it. 
 Perhaps it were best not to wake them up, for if they 
 advocate these things long enough they may come to 
 
 ♦Abdul Majid: '^*"=' Psychology of Leadership — Chs. II 
 and III. 
 
182 Community Organisation 
 
 believe in them. At any rate, important items of this 
 program, more or less complete and effective, are being 
 advocated and practiced to-day. 
 
 Details of this indefinite program are already being 
 worked out by men and women who "know how to get 
 things done." Social workers in increasing numbers 
 are at work, and for the most part they can be counted 
 upon to support the larger developments of this com- 
 munity work. But in addition to these, who have a 
 considerable vocational interest in the matter, are 
 large numbers of other active individuals, — recognized 
 "executives," — who are not social workers but rather 
 pride themselves upon their "practicality," — ^by which 
 they largely mean their ignorance of the world of 
 science and theory. These men are usually not inter- 
 ested in programs of democratic progress. They rep- 
 resent a "hang-over" from the older individualism. 
 They are the autocrats of business, politics, education 
 and religion. But they do get things done! 
 
 The men of this "executive" type of mind are usu- 
 ally not very highly intelligent about the social value 
 of what they are doing, nor do they seriously ask why 
 they are doing it. They are, in large measure, the 
 manipulators of traditional mechanisms, and it is their 
 business to see that the wheels go round. Not infre- 
 quently, however, one of them wakes up to the actual 
 task he is engaged in and "muttering angrily, 'Some- 
 one has been making a fool of me,' he quits." Usually 
 these executives are rather sentimental about some 
 
From Deliberation to Action 183 
 
 aspect of the task. Perhaps they like the "game." 
 They enjoy the sense of power, even though it work 
 brutality and hardship. Haeckel says somewhere: 
 "Men are neither just nor merciful, naturally, but they 
 make up for their injustice and their lack of mercy by 
 being extraordinarily sentimental !" 
 
 Hence for the most part the man of executive tem- 
 per will undertake any task that offers him the sort 
 of reward he craves. There is no reason to suppose 
 that he has a priori objection to working for the 
 democratic program. In certain modern novels, the 
 old autocratic "boss" does actually save the reform 
 program from failure, — not so much because he is 
 interested in the program, as because the job offers 
 him the chance to "get into the game" on the winning 
 side. 
 
 Hence we shall do well to study the psychology and 
 logic of the situation and to consider well whether we 
 should not attempt to enlist the effective energies of 
 the real leaders of action in the community in the task 
 of the more democratic program. 
 
 Of course, accepting the help of the impersonal 
 effectiveness of the active man offends our moral scru- 
 ples; often we would rather see our ideals fail than to 
 have them succeed in any such realistic fashion as this. 
 But we are dealing with the world of social realities. 
 We are trying to get an inclusive democratic program 
 into the actual currents of the life of the community. 
 Such a program has a large place, a large need, for 
 
184 Community Organization 
 
 technique and execution of details. The real forces 
 and energies, — the actual effective agencies of the 
 community, — must be organized into the task. As 
 long as idealists are content to dream their beautiful 
 dreams of "an inclusive program," — and to let the 
 executive type of man do the things dictated by auto- 
 cratic tradition, the ideals will remain in the realm of 
 dreams, — a "gleam on a far horizon." They will come 
 down out of the heaven of dreams to dwell among men 
 in the realities of social organization when they become 
 the program of those forces and energies of the 
 community that "can put things over." This however 
 does not mean merely business men and "executives." 
 
 But how to secure such co-operation! All too fre- 
 quently deliberative men scorn the active individual as 
 being ignorant and muddle-headed, while the executive 
 type belittles the thinker as an "impractical theorist." 
 What means of communication between these extremes 
 can be found? At present this is accomplished, inso- 
 far as it occurs at all, chiefly through the medium of 
 persons who do not belong to either of these marked 
 types. Under present conditions the deliberative group 
 in any community is necessarily small; and the execu- 
 tive type is represented by only a few. 
 
 Traditional types of education which discount indi- 
 viduality in favor of conformity, and the lack of oppor- 
 tunity for participation in community affairs, combined 
 with hereditary factors, make it inevitable that large 
 numbers of the community shall be found in neither of 
 
From Deliberation to Action 185 
 
 these groups. Many of these are ignorant and indolent. 
 But others, perhaps in growing numbers, occupy what 
 may be called a "mediating" position. They know the 
 results of deliberation, and they are in touch with men 
 of action ; they understand something of the vocabulary 
 of each, and act, often imperfectly it is true, in the office 
 of interpreter. And in this office they fill an important 
 function in carrying forward a community program. 
 
 But we need to go still deeper into the matter. In 
 the exchange of ideas, in the play of effective motives, 
 in the rounding out of individual viewpoints, argument 
 is not the chief factor. Our communities are largely 
 controlled by elements of suggestion that lie far below 
 the surface of the "intellectual." 
 
 We are accustomed, for example, to the conventional 
 fallacy that our American institutions were established 
 according to an ultimate pattern, and that change, or 
 even the suggestion of a change, is a sort of treason. 
 We have then a very different basis for our loyalty to 
 these institutions when we admit the fact that the spirit 
 of American institutions has from the beginning been 
 originally distinctively experimental. The period from 
 1776 to 1789 was a period of extreme uncertainty, — 
 when men literally did not know where they were 
 going, and when many sorts of hypothesis as to the 
 future were presented and discussed. The Constitution 
 itself is a series of compromises; and shortly after its 
 adoption ten amendments were added to it. In the cen- 
 tury and a quarter since few changes have come by 
 
186 Cemmunity Organisation 
 
 amendment; but profound changes have been produced 
 by judicial interpretation. 
 
 Again, we are subjected to a type of subtle sugges- 
 tion in the old "hang-over" of autocracy which still 
 invades our democratic independence : we submit to the 
 domination of all sorts of "vested controls," — in busi- 
 ness, morality, education, social groupings, politics, and 
 religion. We are more or less content to take the "leg- 
 ends" that are paraded by "newspapers" as reports of 
 facts, and to act upon them without the inhibition of 
 intelligent questioning. 
 
 In place of these old customary attitudes of subordi- 
 nation, suppression and repression, we must establish 
 genuinely democratic attitudes of political and indus- 
 trial independence and responsibility for all normal 
 human beings. This will mean, of course, new lines of 
 habit in the common life and the life of individuals, new 
 lines of suggestion and of constructive energy gradually 
 permeating not only the conscious, but the implicit life 
 of the community. Great areas of physical, intellectual, 
 moral, and spiritual energies, now dormant, or wasted 
 in non-social or even anti-social activities, must be 
 released into the common life, — into its thinking, its 
 appraisements and judgments, and into the determina- 
 tion of its social program. And the present autocratic 
 arbiters of what is "correct," — in social forms, political 
 movements, intellectual fashions, moral standards, and 
 the like, — must learn to accept these new energies, 
 ideals and aims, and to share in making the community 
 
From Deliberation to Action 187 
 
 over so as to include these democratic values so long 
 denied legitimate place. This will involve the complete 
 acceptance of the doctrines of the Constitution, that 
 the safety of democracy is assured only when discus- 
 sion is absolutely free, when peaceful assemblage is 
 utterly unhindered, and when the community has full 
 access to all available facts in any controversy so that 
 citizens can make up their minds with assurance and 
 to some purpose. 
 
 Another fundamental attitude in determining our 
 action is the doctrine of "the economic interpretation of 
 human conduct," which insists that practically all our 
 actions are determined by economic considerations : we 
 act in every instance in such a way as to protect and fur- 
 ther our economic welfare. Property is the main ele- 
 ment in control of conduct. 
 
 Now even though we should refuse to accept this doc- 
 trine in all its baldness, we must admit that it has some 
 large elements of reality in it. "Money talks!" Prop- 
 erty wields an influence in the commimity far out of 
 proportion to its intrinsic significance for human wel- 
 fare; for we have accepted an insidious doctrine that 
 economic welfare is the most important phase of life, 
 that a "job" is the one test of success, and that a gilded 
 fool is a more estimable personage than a poor wise 
 man. Hence, — "money talks !" In the long run, there- 
 fore, property is likely to be found on the side of any 
 program that protects the "rights of property" and 
 against any program that threatens those "rights." The 
 
188 Community Organization 
 
 more inclusive program of democracy and community 
 must adjust itself to this fact. It must either "make 
 peace" with "property rights," — and so win the sup- 
 port of property; or else it must find some more 
 effective social energy with which to oppose the 
 undoubted strength of property in its struggle to be 
 accepted by the community. 
 
 Such an effective social energy is perhaps the "guild" 
 or "labor union," Here is energy and to spare, with 
 social programs and enthusiasm imlimited. And for a 
 century this social energy has been gathering until 
 to-day all over the world it stands largely competent to 
 meet the old "rights of property" without flinching. 
 
 But the doubt intrudes as to whether the "guild" can 
 escape from its own fragmentariness. Property rights 
 are real and very essential in a limited way. They are 
 disastrous only when they set a part of human good in 
 the place of a more complete human good. Can the 
 "labor imion" escape the same difficulty? The goods 
 which the unions support are essential; and while less 
 concrete and obvious are more humane and social than 
 the goods subsumed under "property rights." But can 
 the labor union escape from its own particularism of 
 situation within the common life, break through its 
 own peculiar economic motivations, and organize its 
 program from the standpoint of the community-as-a- 
 whole, and so fulfill the democratic demand for a 
 program that shall approach life organically? 
 
From Deliberation to Action 189 
 
 Or will it too, like Property, be content with the iter- 
 ation of a partial program which it seeks to identify 
 with the common good, or at least to make the sine qua 
 non of the ultimate community good ? It is this uncer- 
 tainty that keeps multitudes who have lost all respect 
 for the old "rights of property" from throwing in all 
 their fortunes with the labor movement. Will that 
 movement betray them ultimately just as" the doctrine 
 of enlightened selfishness and the supreme right of 
 property has betrayed the world ? 
 
 Can the state be so captured by the friends of the 
 new program that the gulf between deliberation and 
 action can be cleared and the new program begin to 
 function immediately ? There are those who insist that 
 loyalty to the "state" and loyalty to "property" are 
 parts of the same program, if, indeed, they are not 
 identical. Hence multitudes have lost confidence in the 
 "state" as the hope of democracy. And even those who 
 have not lost this confidence are well aware that the 
 "state" must be "captured" by the forces that really 
 believe in democracy before it can be made the instru- 
 ment of the larger community program. When the 
 mayor of Cincinnati denounced the "Social Unit" as 
 subversive of government, he meant simply that new 
 civic energies and enthusiasms were being released 
 which questioned the indolence of government, — as 
 new wine questions old bottles, — and he was afraid. 
 But if the government were controlled by friends of 
 
190 Community Organisation 
 
 democracy these newly released energies would be wel- 
 comed into the civic life, and the drab monotony of 
 conventional politics would be brightened up a bit. 
 
 In the long run then we come back to the one hope 
 of the community, the one imperishable hope — the com- 
 munity itself. And now we can see that we need more 
 than a release of the deliberative energies of the com- 
 munity; we need as well the release of the energies of 
 action. We fail to get our program into the social life 
 because the race's capacity to act has been so largely 
 lost.* Democracy and the builder of community must 
 learn how fundamentally the autocracy of the past and 
 even the imperfect democracy of the present have 
 denied to men the chance to act at all. Children are nat- 
 urally active; they are bundles of impulse and instinct, 
 experimental, scientific, democratic. But they have 
 always been early suppressed. Passivity of conduct has 
 always been a virtue in children. Primitively the adult 
 group was jealous of the energies of childhood and used 
 all the coercive energies of the group to bring child- 
 hood under and make it submissive.! 
 
 This has been one of the chief functions of our 
 schools. It is true that the future of democracy does 
 depend upon the education of the new generation to a 
 truly democratic outlook on life. This will include the 
 development in all children, in variable and natural 
 degrees, of initiative, independence, appreciative under- 
 
 * Marot, H.: The Creative Impulse in Industry, 
 t Parsons: Social Freedom. 
 
From Deliberation to Action 191 
 
 standing, critical ability, skill in vocation, discipline and 
 self-control and the sense of responsibility. This does 
 wait upon the schools, — and the schools cannot do this 
 sort of work now because they are still too largely con- 
 trolled and manned by elements that do not know what 
 democracy is, hence are distrustful of all those elements 
 of genuine democracy which impinge in any critical 
 way upon the existent order. If we wait for the new 
 generation to save the world we shall find, when that 
 generation arrives, that while they may exhibit some 
 real increment of democratic desire and capacity, the 
 actual gain will have been dishearteningly small. The 
 present must undertake its proper share in the protec- 
 tion of democracy, in order that the next generation 
 may really be assured that the world moves forward. 
 We cannot put off the task upon the next generation 
 Historical accidents have tended to exalt knowledge, 
 obedience, and conformity, and to undervaluate activ- 
 ity. Our religion has come to us out of a land where 
 indolence was bliss and where work was so disagree- 
 able that it was conceived of as having been an extra- 
 ordinary punishment invented by the Creator for the 
 purpose of disciplining sinful man. Our intellectual tra- 
 ditions have come to us out of other lands where invid- 
 ious distinctions between slaves and free men made 
 work disgraceful and deliberation the only honorable 
 thing. Democracy must escape from both these invid- 
 ious attitudes ! Religion and deliberation alike must be 
 redeemed in order that the more complete human per- 
 
192 Community Organisation 
 
 sonality may find welcome in a democratic social order. 
 
 The old creative impulses once prized in hand work 
 but useless in a factory must find room once more in 
 industry. The deep-lying civic impulses and loyalties 
 denied expression in active form under autocratic gov- 
 ernments must be given large scope in the democratic 
 community. The fundamental social impulses fright- 
 ened into quiescence under espionage systems must be 
 given full chance to express themselves in the congenial 
 fellowship of unrestricted democratic intercourse. Rec- 
 reational impulses that were compelled to find outlets 
 in furtive ways imder puritanical repression must be 
 given opportunity to fill the whole community with a 
 new sense of freedom and joy, and release of emotion. 
 Ethical impulses conventionalized and dehumanized 
 under repressive social conditions must have a chance to 
 express themselves in all the ranges of generous action; 
 and the old primitive religious impulses which bound 
 the whole community together in a common fellowship, 
 but which have been broken into fragments in the bick- 
 ering sectarianisms of the modern world, must have a 
 chance once more to express themselves in a real serv- 
 ice to the ideals of community and a true spiritual 
 fellowship. Such release of the deeper impulsive ele- 
 ments of human nature will provide eventually the 
 active energies necessary to the carrying out of any 
 social program which deliberation may devise. 
 
 Out of this larger release of active energy in the com- 
 munity will appear an abundant supply of those execu- 
 
From Deliberation to Action 193 
 
 tive types of men who will at the same time be trained 
 to a fundamental sympathy with the deliberative pro- 
 grams of the community and who will be efficient in 
 leading the community from the mere deliberation 
 about its future to the actual realization of that future 
 in social conduct, in effective social action, and in 
 reorganized institutions. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 KEEPING THE PROGRAM HUMAN 
 
 No merely negative program can satisfy. Warnings 
 and punishments were too obvious in tiie old social and 
 moral programs; the democratic ideal of to-day is not 
 expressed in warnings against certain obvious evils. Its 
 true genius is found in the adventure toward the 
 unrealized good. Democracy conceives of humanity 
 as on a long trail, and the true democrat is he who can 
 hopefully say "I don't know fully where this trail 
 leads, but it's fine climbing!" 
 
 We have already seen how all organized programs 
 tend to close in on life, to suppress, repress and destroy 
 the natural spontaneities. Our inherited puritanism has 
 been particularly persistent in emphasizing this ten- 
 dency. The famous "blue laws" of New England illus- 
 trate the capacity of the puritan to "take all the joy out 
 of life."* 
 
 This extreme denial of human joy is rooted deep in 
 certain old religious attitudes which date from that 
 primitive period when the larger part of the life of 
 individuals and groups was devoted to ceremonials of 
 cleansing and purification for the purpose of placating 
 
 *Cf. Hawthorne's "Maypole of Merrymount." 
 10" 
 
Keeping the Program Human 195 
 
 c^iigry deities.* This experience was intensified in the 
 development of monastic practices in the Middle Ages, 
 when men and women spent their lives in gloomy 
 efforts to defeat all the native instincts in the hope of 
 winning a brighter crown.f 
 
 On the educational side the same gloomy atmosphere 
 has prevailed for ages. The schoolroom seems to be a 
 sort of natural antithesis to the vital life of childhood. 
 Mr. Dooley, the American philosopher, says that our 
 American educational philosophy is to this effect : "It's 
 no great matter what it is you study, just so you don't 
 like it!" Which is, after all, simply a free paraphrase 
 of Locke's educational philosophy. $ The current cyni- 
 cism of the world with reference to education may be 
 illustrated also by the somewhat flippant remark of the 
 newspaper paragrapher : "The boy who likes to go to 
 school ought to be investigated." 
 
 With the industrial revolution and the passing of the 
 era of handiwork there has been a gradual elimination 
 of the joy of the individual worker in his work. The 
 development of standardized products has substituted 
 more and more mechanical processes for individual 
 play of feeling and instinct; and in more recent times 
 the development of exact statistical and quantitative 
 accounting has tended not only to the complete elimi- 
 nation of the creative element but even to the rejection 
 of all facts that will not admit of statement in statisti- 
 
 * Gilbert Murray: Four Stages in Greek Religion, Lecture I. 
 t James: Varieties of Religious Experience, 
 i Cf. Dickens's "Hard Times." 
 
196 Community Organisation 
 
 cal form.* The development of modem scientific man- 
 agement of industry, which has as its ideal the stating 
 of the worker in terms of work-units per hour, tends to 
 destroy the humanity of the worker, — ^an end con- 
 sidered indispensable by the management but rapidly 
 becoming insupportable to the worker himself, and has 
 set the American Federation of Labor squarely against 
 the whole movement in a way that angers and amazes 
 those employers whose sole economic interest is in units 
 of production so standardized as to increase output at 
 the minimum cost. 
 
 So, through all the interests and activities of our cus- 
 tomary social life, this ignoring of the normal human 
 desire for beauty and joy goes on at the expense of 
 social welfare in the long run, since it denies the pos- 
 sibility of the emergence of a complete humanity in the 
 organization of community life. As a compensation for 
 this, society has for ages winked at the methods of 
 exploiting the suppressed hungers. The saloon was 
 protected for decades by being called "The Poor Man's 
 Club." The brothel was accepted because it was sup- 
 posed to "protect the home." Even the disreputable 
 dance hall is held more desirable than a supervised 
 municipal dance hall by conventional moralists and 
 religionists because they can keep a few of their own 
 "circle" at least away from the "wickedness of the 
 world" as it flaunts itself in the former. 
 
 ♦Veblen: Instinct of Workmanship, p. 245. 
 
Keeping the Program Human 197 
 
 The result of all this has been in large measure an 
 actual dislocation of the world's ideals of human satis- 
 faction. This was definitely expressed by Carlyle in 
 his famous statement, "Man can afford to give up 
 happiness, if thereby he can achieve blessedness." 
 
 It is difficult to know just what such a change of 
 ideal means. It is possible that the term "happiness" 
 as used by Carlyle here has primary reference to all 
 those genuinely human satisfactions which free men 
 should get out of their work, and play, and love, and 
 worship, which large numbers of men and women 
 released from economic or personal subordination, do 
 actually achieve in life; but which were completely 
 denied under mediaeval social organizations to the rank 
 and file of men and women, and which are still held 
 to be not essential to the masses of men. This doctrine 
 seems to give unquestioning religious sanction to the 
 perpetuation of economic and social injustices for 
 which the only excuse can be that economic overlords 
 have decreed that it shall be so, and we are too indolent 
 to will it otherwise. Hence we accept and feed our 
 hungry souls upon ultimate "blessings" instead of 
 genuine present satisfactions. 
 
 We have noted, then, that all intellectual programs 
 tend to become artificial and repressive, with the 
 inevitable result that they defeat the life they were 
 intended to serve. So programs of action frequently 
 lead into blind alleys and become intolerant. Professor 
 Santayana has pointed out that action may become 
 
198 Community Organisation 
 
 doubly active when it has lost its direction. It tends 
 to make up in energy what it has lost of vision. So, 
 from the standpoint both of organized deliberation and 
 of effective action, the vital creative reality of the 
 future community may be menaced. How then shall 
 any existent or proposed program be properly tested? 
 
 It has already been intimated that human happiness 
 will be involved in this test. No program either of 
 deliberation or of action can long be justified which 
 either deliberately or thoughtlessly ignores the hap- 
 piness of the individual or the community, or that 
 tends in any real measure to obstruct that happiness. 
 Moreover, a negative attitude is not sufficient. Both 
 deliberation and action must definitely and positively 
 aim at the production and distribution of a higher 
 average of happiness within the whole life of the 
 community. 
 
 This does not mean that happiness can be easily 
 defined or that it can be secured by direc search, or 
 that it is the only item to be taken into account. The 
 elements that make up happiness are doubtless very 
 variable, ranging all the way from profound moral 
 and spiritual satisfactions which last a lifetime to the 
 simple sense of physical well-being which comes with 
 the sunshine of a spring morning. It may well be, too, 
 that happiness is a by-product of living; but even as 
 such, the conditions under which this by-product 
 appears can be more or less determined and provided 
 
Keeping the Program Human 199 
 
 for. It may be we should use a more inclusive term, 
 such as community well-being, in place of happiness. 
 Such a term might make room for intelligence and 
 action alongside of happiness; but it might also mean 
 that happiness would be crowded out. Whatever else 
 may be included, happiness, in the sense of the realiza- 
 tion of the lasting and genuine satisfactions of life, 
 must be assured. 
 
 Of course, satisfactions are of many sorts; and 
 about them there is not much use disputing. They 
 include the calculating bloodless avarice of the money- 
 mad monster; the wild frenzy of the fanatic; the 
 maudlin gloatings of bestiality and obscenity; the calm 
 joys of the scholar; the unspeakable blessedness of the 
 mother; the thrilling ecstasies of youth and maiden in 
 their first social awakening; and the bitter-sweetnesses 
 of childhood. 
 
 But of whatever sort, satisfaction is primarily a 
 function of instinctive expression, and since our 
 instincts are natural, some at least of our satisfactions 
 rise out of those strata of our natures which antedate 
 the "fall of man." Therefore, for the sake of these 
 satisfactions, which even the most conventional moral- 
 ists sometimes feel, and covertly enjoy, some sort of 
 unity must be secured to human life, and our intel- 
 lectual efforts must be saved from becoming too 
 unnatural. The test of any community program must 
 somehow appear in the happiness and wholeness of 
 
200 Community Organisation 
 
 individual and community life; and the individual and 
 community program, must, therefore, include these 
 natural satisfactions. 
 
 Meanwhile, without reference to any kind of a pro- 
 gram, the hunger of the world for joy and beauty is 
 in evidence on every hand. Nowhere perhaps does this 
 hunger for happiness and the world's failure to under-, 
 stand appear more definitely and more dangerously 
 than in its dealing with the instinctive needs of child-' 
 hood. If we should accept wholeheartedly the general 
 doctrine of the instinctive basis of life, together with 
 the doctrine that these instinctive endowments need 
 expression and exercise both for their development and 
 for their discipline, we might still make the fatal mis- 
 take made by some of the earlier psychologists of 
 instinct in assuming a play instinct as one of the normal 
 instincts of child life. Segregating all the play interest 
 and capacity of childhood under a definite play 
 instinct, which may or may not, like any other instinct, 
 be present in any particular child, we gtt a description 
 of child life which makes it possible to dissociate play 
 activities from all other childish developments. Would 
 it not be more normal and natural to consider that all 
 the native instincts go through a play period? That 
 is to say, should we not speak of the "play of instincts" 
 rather than of an "instinct of play"? Should we not 
 make sure that all the native capacity of childhood 
 shall have its years of free irresponsible activity, exer- 
 cise, development, preparation for the more serious 
 
Keeping the Program Human 201 
 
 activities of later life? Instead of devoting one little 
 corner of childhood to play and joy under the control 
 of a play instinct, should we not determine to preserve 
 all of childhood against the demoralizing interests of 
 adult life, until childish capacities have achieved 
 development sufficient to enter with vigor their adult 
 tasks ? 
 
 "Axes may bite in the forest; science harness the streams, 
 Railway and dock be builded, — all in a land of dreams! 
 Sunk in spiritual torpor, ye flout these words of the wise: 
 'Only to music of children's songs shall the walls of a nation 
 rise.' " 
 
 When we turn to the period of adolescence we enter 
 upon a land that has been mutilated by ignorance and 
 brutality since the world began. In recent years, how- 
 ever, a saner psychology has enabled us to realize 
 something of this poignant hunger for beauty. Jane 
 Addam's Spirit of Youth and the City Streets is a 
 prose poem describing her explorations in this land 
 of adolescence. With skilled hand she touches the facts 
 with reference to both boys and girls, and she sees in 
 the experiences of adolescence the raw materials out 
 of which a world of wondrous beauty or a world of 
 sordid shame or some intermediate between these 
 extremes is being made. 
 
 She helps us to see the young over-worked girl of 
 the city streets and the exploited boy and young man 
 in an altogether new light. We had thought that the 
 young working girl, for example, ought to be content 
 to dress in calico and gingham, to live economically 
 
202 Community Organisation 
 
 in a small hall bedroom, to save her money for good 
 books and uplifting entertainments and to be much 
 concerned with the salvation of her soul. But looking 
 at her in this more sympathetic light we see that she 
 is a unit in the long story of the generations, and that 
 more important perhaps than her own individual soul 
 is the deep fact that she must play her part in the gen- 
 erations of men. For this reason the finer the quality 
 of her being and the more fit she is for motherhood 
 the more surely must she attend to all those elements 
 of appearance, clothing and hats, and the like, which 
 will assure her that in her competitions with other 
 girls of lesser quality she shall never be at a disad- 
 vantage. It is not her own prestige that is at stake, 
 nor even her own happiness; rather it is the future of 
 the race, and for that future she gives herself such 
 beauty as she can. 
 
 We do not see^this as an expression of the hunger 
 for life and beauty, — we see only "the self-conscious 
 walk, the giggling speech, the preposterous clothing." 
 Anna Hempstead Branch's poem "To a New York 
 Shop Girl Dressed for Sunday" carries the same deep 
 insight into that hunger for beauty which can make 
 even the most sordid surroundings endurable: 
 
 "Conspicuous, splendid, conscious, sweet, 
 She spread abroad and took the street. 
 
 And all that niceness would forbid, 
 Superb, she smiled upon and did. . . . 
 
 She half perceives, half understands, 
 Snatching her gifts with both her hands. . . . 
 
Keeping the Program Human 203 
 
 Innocent! vulgar — that's the truth! 
 Yet with the darling wiles of youth! . , 
 
 And judgment, wearily sad, may see 
 No grace in such frivolity. 
 
 Yet which of us was ever bold 
 
 To worship Beauty, hungry and cold! 
 
 Scorn famine down, proudly expressed 
 Apostle to what things are best. 
 
 Let him who starves to buy the food 
 For his soul's comfort find her good." 
 
 We may see all these aspects of the life of boys and 
 girls in our communities in a sympathetic way and so 
 help them in their stumbling struggling efforts to find 
 themselves and express themselves, and so bring new 
 beauty into being; or we may look upon all these dis- 
 plays as vulgar and pretentious, we may criticise and 
 condemn, we may summarily decide that what such 
 giddy young people need is to have more work to do 
 and less money to spend and less time to waste, until 
 they come to their senses. And so we may send them 
 to the mills or to the mines or to any other situation 
 in which childish labor power can be converted into 
 wealth. We may forget that the world needs beauty 
 and joy and freshness of life and reassurance of the 
 worth of life, and of the dominance of the spiritual. 
 In these days we should have much help in forgetting 
 these things and little help in remembering them. But 
 if ever the adult life of our communities is to have any 
 other significance than that sordid round of "getting 
 and spending which lays waste our powers" that sig- 
 
204 Community Organisation 
 
 nificance will be found in the renewal of youth which 
 comes when parents and friends le-live in the lives of 
 the children of the community the lives they had 
 themselves once hoped to live. 
 
 Finally, adult life must be released from many of 
 its old puritanical repressions and fears. The grind of 
 life, the fear of poverty and of impending disasters, the 
 very fear of hell itself, absorbs too much of the world's 
 energy in the form of worry. In these reconstruction 
 years, when science and industry are making over the 
 deliberate and active programs of the world, should 
 we not at the same time make over the world's pro- 
 gram of joy and beauty and set up new resolutions and 
 standards as to what constitutes a genuinely human 
 program of individual and community good? The 
 world has been destroyed by too much old habit and 
 custom, on the one hand, and by too much deliberately 
 developed enginry of destruction on the other. The 
 world is glutted with horror, bestiality and hate. Mil- 
 lions of men and women will carry all their lives 
 hideous memories and gnawing hungers to escape 
 from grief and sorrow and the isolation of wartime 
 attitudes. Much of the world's heritage of beauty as 
 well as of joy and happiness has been destroyed. 
 Europe knows the revolting ugliness of vast devastated 
 areas; but all the world feels something of the 
 revolting ugliness of vast devastated areas of our com- 
 mon human nature, where all the old loyalties and 
 
Keeping the Program Human 205 
 
 neighborlinesses have been destroyed and their places 
 taken by suspicion and hate. 
 
 The world faces, therefore, the long task of bring- 
 ing back the sense of reality to individuals and whole 
 communities, and the restoration of that tranquiHty 
 of mind which can organize deliberation, happiness 
 and activity, into a common social program. In such 
 a program music and poetry and beauty of home and 
 community will have their proper share. The demo- 
 cratic arts of pageantry and drama, folk songs, folk 
 tales, folk music and folk dancing, so reminiscent of 
 the long struggles of the race to escape from the 
 shackles of uninteresting toil, from the horrors of 
 destructive warfare, and from the oppression of super- 
 stitious religions, must all come back to us. The latent 
 talent for making the world beautiful must be devel- 
 oped wherever it is found. In the long run we shall 
 probably find it true that the hunger for beauty, the 
 hunger for some sort of complete freedom and partici- 
 pation, is the most vital hunger of the human heart, 
 and the satisfaction of that hunger in terms of indi- 
 vidual and community happiness made possible through 
 the socialization of science and industry, may prove to 
 be the final word in individual and social salvation. 
 Certainly no community program can justify itself 
 that does not largely include just such an ultimate out- 
 come as this. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF LEADERSHIP 
 
 Among the many "hang-overs" from autocratic 
 regimes of the past is the legend that certain indi- 
 viduals have a peculiar endowment which is called 
 "executive ability." This "ability" is supposed to be 
 essential to the equipment of any man or woman who is 
 to occupy the position of leadership or administration. 
 Psychologically it is supposed to provide quick appre- 
 ciation of certain fundamental elements of what is 
 called "human nature, "^-elements which are supposed 
 to appear in men wherever they work, together with 
 a more or less uncanny capacity to make up one's 
 mind decisively yet more or less judicially, and to 
 stand on the decision though the heavens fall. 
 
 Socially, and in the economic sense, this legend sug- 
 gests an invidious comparison between the executive 
 and the ordinary individual. It helps to perpetuate old 
 social and industrial subordinations, since if executive 
 ability is a special endowment from the Creator it 
 were blasphemy for ordinary individuals to presume 
 to hold themselves of equal rank or importance. Big 
 salaries help to perpetuate this legend and to bolster 
 up this invidious prestige also. 
 
 206 
 
The Problem of Leadership 207 
 
 Undoubtedly men and women of peculiar ability in 
 administrative lines do exist; but that fact does not 
 support the old legend, for that old legend holds more 
 or less consciously that a man of trained executive 
 ability in any one line can be transferred to any other 
 type of activity and administer it quite as effectively. 
 There may be an occasional individual who has this 
 tremendous capacity to take on the essential elements 
 of any new situation quickly and to relate himself 
 effectively to the essential lines of effort in that new 
 position. But executive ability in the long run depends 
 upon knowledge of the elements that enter into a situa- 
 tion; upon ability and willingness to give conscientious 
 attention to details; upon some sort of comprehensive 
 theory of the work being carried on, and of the sig- 
 nificant factors that must be co-ordinated and adapted 
 to each other in order that the most effective results 
 may be achieved. 
 
 Democracy needs a completely new organization of 
 the technique of administration, which will be consis- 
 tent with the factors and the aims which a democratic 
 community seeks to achieve. Democracy requires lead- 
 ership. Autocratic bossing of the job is not real lead- 
 ership. It may be "executive ability" but if so it is an 
 ability to "execute" the aspirations of democracy, to 
 suppress them, and discourage and destroy them, 
 rather than to lead them. All too long democracy has 
 had to fight against these unsympathetic attitudes of 
 the typical administrator. One phase of the work of 
 
208 Community Organisation 
 
 the deliberative community council should be the more 
 complete analysis of the kind of leadership and admin- 
 istration which the democratic community must have. 
 
 The most real difficulty in our present cvorld-unrest 
 arises out of the fact that our community interests, 
 international, national and local, are still largely domi- 
 nated by "executives" who have not the slightest com- 
 prehension of the suppressed energies they are dealing 
 with or the ideal demands toward which those energies 
 are aspiring. The industrial leader, the political boss, 
 the typical educator, the traditional theologian all bear 
 the taint of this undemocracy. They are all impatient 
 of deliberation, and of the vague longings of the sup- 
 pressed multitudes. The more definitely they urge 
 their programs upon present conditions, however, the 
 more they alienate and disaffect those whom they are 
 supposed to lead. 
 
 The industrial leader wants increased production, 
 but he does not know how to get it under conditions 
 that will make increased production permanent. The 
 politician wants votes, but he is rapidly losing his 
 power to control them, and he will soon be mouthing 
 that old lament about the "traditional ingratitude of 
 republics." The theologian wants "the kingdom," — 
 some kingdom, most any kingdom, — and he wants it 
 so badly that he is frequently convinced that he would 
 be justified in bringing it in by any means, — force, 
 falsehood, or hypocrisy. The educator still falls back 
 upon the original maxim of teaching, that "lickin' 
 
The Problem of Leadership 209 
 
 and larnin' go together." These and their kind are all 
 good men gone wrong. Democracy needs executive 
 leadership quite as much as does autocracy, but that 
 leadership must be democratic. 
 
 The first task of the democratic leader should be to 
 become really acquainted Ayith the forces and energies 
 that he is to lead. This involves going far below the 
 conventional surface of things. Democracy demands 
 that every normal individual shall be taken into account 
 and the community leader must be one who can 
 do this democratic accounting. He must be able to help 
 those long-lost forces and energies recover from their 
 old repressions and discover their capacity to express 
 themselves in order that a program or policy for the 
 community shall actually come out of the vital life of 
 that community. That is to say, the democratic leader 
 will be thoroughly sympathetic with the deliberative 
 mood of the community. He will want the policy 
 which he administers to be the policy of the com- 
 munity. Of course if he is still tainted with traditional 
 administrative attitudes he will value efficiency too 
 much to bother with the feelings of the community. 
 
 The story is told of a well-known university presi- 
 dent that during the war he heard that a certain mem- 
 ber of the university faculty had been guilty of making 
 pro-German statements. Calling the man into his 
 office, he inquired as to the facts, "Oh, nothing like 
 that," the teacher is reported to have replied, "all that I 
 said was that an autocratic executive is more efficient 
 
210 Community Organisation 
 
 than a democratic one." "Oh well, if that's all you said, 
 go on about your business," was the reply. This presi- 
 dent was the executive of the state university in one 
 of our more democratic commonwealths. Democracy 
 will have to succeed in spite of its executives, it seems. 
 
 In administering the community policy the demo- 
 cratic executive will seek to release in positive and 
 advantageous ways more and more of the hidden 
 resources of the community life. He will be no more 
 frightened by these hidden resources than is the 
 prospector frightened by discovering gold. Even the 
 prospector gets a sort of stage fever at the sudden 
 realization of wealth. Our communities are poverty 
 stricken, not because they are without wealth, but 
 because the wealth is hidden and unrealized. Com- 
 munity leadership of the future must go endlessly on 
 the assumption that the welfare of the community will 
 be continuously furthered and conserved by the dis- 
 covery of more and more of this hidden wealth — these 
 "lost talents." 
 
 But, now, in such a release and development of the 
 hidden inner life the democratic community will awake 
 to the fact that every human being needs some real 
 experience of leadership. This is not only necessary; 
 it is becoming definitely possible. Our democratic life 
 exhibits a continuous growth in the division of labor 
 and of social interest. This differentiation of interest 
 and vocation calls for continuous development of spe- 
 cial abilities and for specific leaderships. Statistics 
 
The Problem of Leadership 211 
 
 show that more than 13,000 specialized vocations are 
 in existence. Each of these requires some peculiar 
 skill; each gives room for the emergence of qualities 
 of leadership; each such vocation might develop its 
 own particular type of ethics, and each will involve 
 genuine thoughtfulness in working out its vital rela- 
 tionship to other vocations and to the common welfare 
 of the community. Democracy cannot abide the mere 
 isolated worker, lost in the routine of his vocation. 
 Every member of the democratic community ought to 
 be a worker, and every worker ought to be a real mem- 
 ber of the community. 
 
 The full development of the many implications of 
 this doctrine would give to our democratic communi- 
 ties what the enemies of democracy have long declared 
 to be impossible, that is, color and variety. Enraptured 
 by memories of the colorful glory of the conspicuous 
 wastes of autocratic ages, when mannikins established 
 their individuality by distinctive types of ceremonial 
 dress and when, for example, kings met on fields car- 
 peted with gold, the enemies of democracy have uni- 
 formly charged that the inevitable fate of any demo- 
 cratic social order must be monotonous mediocrity, — 
 dull, drab, lifeless. But the real fact seems to be that 
 this monotonous mediocrity which has at times 
 existed is the result not of a real democracy, but of the 
 effort of the enemies of democracy to prevent the 
 emergence of a real democratic variety. It must be 
 apparent that true development of all the native indi- 
 
212 Community Organisation 
 
 viduality of our democratic communities would be 
 quite as colorful as any autocratic community ever 
 could boast, — with this advantage: that the variety 
 would come from the inner resources of individuals, 
 not from the outer resources and arts of the tailor, 
 the dressmaker, and the fashionplate. 
 
 This promise of infinite variety and color of life as 
 the expression of native resources is integral in the 
 faith of democracy. Childhood demonstrates the real- 
 ity of this infinite variety; but wholsale systems of dis- 
 cipline and autocratic methods of inculcating uniform 
 masses of uninteresting facts destroy this individuality 
 early, "There emerges from our school system," says 
 Benson, "a stream of uniformly stupid boys and girls, 
 — nice, quiet and respectable, but knowing almost 
 nothing, without intellectual interests, and indeed hon- 
 estly despising such interests." 
 
 Corresponding to this fact of the infinite variety of 
 childhood is this other fact which we have already 
 noted, the growing range of social vocations and com- 
 munity interests. These two demand each other. But 
 between them stands that narrow pedantry of the 
 schools, that moral fearfulness of religion, that intoler- 
 ant littleness of politics, and that traditional cupidity 
 of business, which are fearful of new patterns of indi- 
 vidual initiative, of variety and color, and which seek 
 in every possible way to prevent the natural develop- 
 ment of these democratic realities. Assuming the final- 
 ity of old institutions, conventional leaders oppose any 
 
The Problem of Leadership 213 
 
 reorganization of institutions or community programs 
 that would provide for the emergence of these new 
 patterns in natural ways. 
 
 But it is certain that this infinite variety of life will 
 find its way out into the open life of the world as 
 surely as the living seed sends its shoots into the sun- 
 shine of the spring. Buried under the debris of ages 
 of ignorance and intolerance, this life is bursting 
 through at last. Out of this more varied life will come 
 that more varied chance for leadership which is of the 
 genius of democracy, while at the same time, the more 
 completely organized community life will give oppor- 
 tunity to every individual to share in the experiences 
 of following. Democracy can tolerate no individual 
 who can do nothing but "lead," — such a person is 
 probably insane, just as the individual who can do 
 nothing but follow is likely to be below par mentally. 
 
 Such differentiation of the community will make 
 room for two types of leaders : ( 1 ) the specialist, who 
 will be particularly concerned with the minutiae of 
 understanding and organization in some limited field; 
 and (2) the "generalist," whose concern will be with 
 the maintenance of the integral community program, 
 in spite of all divisions and differentiations within. 
 There will be no social conflict between these two 
 types; but there will be an endless logical conflict. The 
 specialist will intensify, define, enrich and make end- 
 lessly more varied the particular comers of community 
 interest and life; the "generalist" will criticise all 
 
214- Community Organisation 
 
 such developments from the standpoint of their mean- 
 ing for the community as a whole. Both are needed. 
 
 A final consideration brings in the question of that 
 non-conformist leadership that introduces new pat- 
 terns of living into the community. Autocracy of 
 course could not endure this. In the old Russia, origi- 
 nality was a crime punishable by exile in Siberia. 
 Democracy must take exactly the opposite view. The 
 new pattern and the non-conformist are both essen- 
 tial to the vitality of our democratic life. Professional, 
 pedantic, dull leaderships are produced in plenty in 
 the life of institutions; but those magnetic leaderships 
 which strike out new lines of adventure beyond the 
 limits of the commonplace come largely from outside 
 institutions. Institutional prestige and jealousy refuse 
 to admit this fact, or to accept it; but it remains true 
 and must be admitted even for the sake of the com- 
 munity itself. It is this recognition that community, — 
 in his phrase, "Nationality" — is dependent upon new 
 patterns, new movements, that makes Walt Whitman's 
 poetry of democracy so vital. 
 
 "Still though the one I sing," he says, is Nationality, 
 yet that Nationality is made of contradictions and its 
 hope is in the everlasting revolt against the dead levels 
 of conventionality: 
 
 "Oh latent right of insurrection! Oh quenchless, 
 indispensable fire!" 
 
 Democracy must realize its need of these democratic 
 types of leadership: the specialist, the "generalist," the 
 
The Problem of Leadership 215 
 
 non-conformist, — and make provision for them insofar 
 as provision can be made. It is likely that no provision 
 can be made for the non-conformist, for he is a prophet 
 and he cometh not by observation. But democracy can 
 at least listen to him when he comes. 
 
 As for the specialist and the "generalist," the ele- 
 ments of their training grow more obvious in these 
 reconstructive years. They must both be rooted deep 
 in the social sciences: tliat psychology which appre- 
 ciates the mechanisms and motives of human behavior ; 
 that sociology which illuminates the mechanisms and 
 motives of group and community conduct; that eco- 
 nomics and politics which penetrate to the inner sub- 
 stance of the instincts of workmanship, service, loy- 
 alty, subordination and cupidity; and that ethics which 
 illustrates the ways in which individuals and groups 
 co-operate for the achievement of any desirable end. 
 The community is a reality even though vaguely ap- 
 prehended and understood; he who would lead in the 
 community effectively and constructively must have 
 some realistic grasp of the mechanisms with which he 
 deals. As the physician envisages the intricate inner 
 mechanisms of the body in order that he may assuredly 
 deal with their pathological development, so the com- 
 munity leader must envisage the intricate structure of 
 the community. That structure is the most com- 
 plicated in the universe. To understand it is at present 
 perhaps largely impossible, because the contributory 
 sciences are still largely incomplete ; but one who would 
 
216 Community Organisation 
 
 wofk in the life of the community must give himself 
 to the long task of mastering so much of the under- 
 standing that is now possible as his time will permit; 
 and in the practical work of his career he may then be 
 in a position to add some item of illuminating knowl- 
 edge to the world's understanding of the community. 
 At any rate, here is the greatest task that now faces 
 the imagination of the world. The destiny of civiliza- 
 tion is wrapped up in the future of community life. If 
 that life becomes intelligent, richly developed, demo- 
 cratically organized, socially controlled, — the future of 
 civilization is secure. If it remains indolent, thought- 
 less, careless of human goods, laggard; or if it is 
 organized in such ways as to subordinate all individual 
 vitality, originality and initiative to some purely 
 mechanical principle of organization, — in either case, 
 the future of civilization may well be questioned. The 
 determination is largely one of leadership. If the com- 
 munity can secure deliberative leaders whose very 
 instincts are democratic, and administrative leaders 
 whom no temptations of power of haste or "efficiency" 
 can turn from the democratic ideal, the future of the 
 community is securely democratic. But if these fail, 
 civilization may have to lay its foundations in some 
 new community soil, in some new and future age, after 
 it has recovered from the shock of the failure of the 
 democratic hopes of this age. The fate of democracy 
 and community is not with extrinsic powers and agen- 
 cies; but with the calm, scientific deliberation, the 
 
The Problem of Leadership 217 
 
 serene yet serious aspiration, and the whole-souled 
 democratic administration that are determined from 
 within the community itself. The destiny of the com- 
 munity is in the keeping of — the community. 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 nXUSTRATIONS OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION 
 
 In these unquiet times the call for new forms of 
 community organization is the most healthful of all 
 social demands. And the response to that demand 
 shows that democratic intelligence is not altogether 
 laggard. To be sure, conservative intelligence will 
 not permit of a general orgy of experimentation — 
 and that is well. We have not been much used to 
 social experimentation in America since 1789. (The 
 years from 1776 to 1789 were the most constructively 
 experimental in our history). Hence we have not 
 developed a technique for our control in the matter. 
 We are rather too much like children in a laboratory. 
 
 Certain experiments are well under way in various 
 parts of the world. It were well, if adequate informa- 
 tion were available, to present the facts of that most 
 stupendous experiment, the Soviet organization of 
 Russia. But that must wait until events have cleared. 
 A number of less ambitious experiments in America 
 may be set forth as indicating the direction of practical 
 experience, and as showing the experimental temper 
 of the people. 
 
 1. The Community Center Movement'. 
 
 Men require the companionship of their fellows. 
 
 218 
 
Appendix 219 
 
 Happiness is largely dependent on social approval. 
 Hence we must have something to take the place of the 
 vanishing cross-roads meeting, post-office corner, 
 saloon, and the like. The public schoolhouse seems 
 most available as a neighborhood club, where the 
 people can meet again on terms of common friendship. 
 The community center is limited only by the size of 
 the community. "It seeks to broaden the basis of 
 unity among men, to multiply their points of con- 
 tact, to consider those interests which all have in 
 common."* 
 
 This movement seems to be very valuable as a 
 means of transforming mere residents in a given loca- 
 tion into neighbors. This is necessary; but it is not 
 enough. We need understanding of the complex prob- 
 lems of community and inter-community life; interest 
 in the development of community and inter-community 
 relationships; and the will to share in all the concerns 
 that affect the common welfare. For these things a 
 more closely knit organization seems necessary. 
 
 2. The Central Council of Social Agencies: 
 
 A rather different type of experiment has developed 
 in a number of American cities.f This functions through 
 the representation of the various community groups 
 
 ♦Jackson: A Community Center. 
 cf. also Clarke, I. C: The Little Dernocracy. 
 
 Hanifan, L. J.: The Community Center. 
 Perry, C. A.: Community Center Activities, 
 fcf. pamphlet on The Central Council of Social Agencies 
 by F. H. McLean published by American Association for 
 Organizing Family Social Work. 
 
220 Community Organization 
 
 in one central body. Usually it has included only 
 those agencies devoted to "social work," but efforts 
 are being made to have it include all the agencies of : 
 
 (1) Education, Vocation, Culture and Recreation; 
 
 (2) Relief and Remedy; (3) Industrial, Commercial, 
 Social and Religious Interests. The aim of such a 
 council is to keep the various groups in close friendly 
 contact, to act as a clearing house of information for 
 the general public, and to increase efficiency in all 
 lines of community work by eliminating duplications 
 of effort and supplementing in fields which have not 
 been covered. 
 
 3. The Community Council Movement : 
 
 As a direct outgrowth of the work of the National 
 Council of Defense in wartime, a number of com- 
 munities are organized into community councils. All 
 citizens within a given council area may become mem- 
 bers, membership being based on service rendered by 
 the individual to the community. The community 
 council should be self-governing and self-supporting. 
 It should have an advisory board made up of the 
 representatives of departments of government and 
 social institutions. These representatives should be, 
 whenever possible, local workers of the department or 
 agency whose task lies in the council district, and 
 who therefore need the people's co-operation and could 
 provide the leadership required. The advisory com- 
 mittee should exist for service, not for control. 
 
Appendix 221 
 
 When enough councils have been developed a City 
 Congress or Parliament made up of delegates of these 
 Councils should be formed. And any control over 
 local Councils, if allocated to any outside agency, 
 should be allocated to this City Congress. 
 
 The purposes of such a Council are: to serve as a 
 forum; to provide machinery for initiating neighbor- 
 hood enterprises (such as co-operative markets, block 
 parties, and the like) ; to make the residents of the 
 community real members of the community through 
 participation and responsibility.* 
 
 5. The Community Service Movement : 
 
 Community organization on the basis of social and 
 recreational activities is developing widely over the 
 country, and is being stimulated nationally by "Com- 
 munity Service Incorporated," the successor of War 
 Camp Community Service. The program includes 
 such activities as the following: 
 
 City and Neighborhood Service, — fostering a spirit 
 of neighborliness which will include all nationalities, 
 all homeless men and women, all residents in the local- 
 ity; mobilizing the neighborhood resources for leisure 
 time activities which will secure community participa- 
 tion, will operate through volunteers, and will utilize 
 the semi-idle facilities of the neighborhood, such as 
 school buildings, other public buildings, vacant lots, etc. 
 
 ♦Community Councils of New York City, — Statement of 
 Work and Problems, July 12, 1919. For information address 
 U. S. Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. 
 
222 Community Organisation 
 
 Community Recreation, — including playgrounds, 
 block parties, twilight athletic leagues, neighborhood 
 picnics, festivals, etc. 
 
 Community Drama and Pageantry, — drawing 
 together in this interest all volunteer and professional 
 service. 
 
 Community Music, — to make music, vocal and 
 instrumental, available to every man woman and child ; 
 to encourage mass singing, community choruses and 
 orchestras, etc. 
 
 Department of Information, — to insure to new and 
 old members of the community current knowledge of 
 the institutions and activities of the city which can 
 serve them; to collect information with a view to 
 greater efficiency and broader vision in community 
 work.* 
 
 6. The Home Service Movement : 
 
 Following along somewhat similar lines, the Ameri- 
 can Red Cross has also developed a community service 
 organization. This "Home Service" work includes: 
 1. Public Health Nursing, Educational Classes 
 in Dietetics, Home Care of the Sick and First Aid. 
 
 2. Home Service to Civilian Families, Information 
 Service and Community Projects. 
 
 3. Children's Activities Through Junior Member- 
 ship. 
 
 ♦Particulars concerning this program and its development 
 in various American cities and rural communities can be 
 secured from Community Service Incorporated, 1 Madison 
 Ave., New York City. 
 
Appendix 223 
 
 4. Disaster Relief. 
 
 5. Establishing Health Centers for the preserva- 
 tion, promotion and improvement of the public health 
 in: (a) conservation of child Hfe; (b) promotion of 
 rural hygiene; (c) prevention of mental diseases, 
 industrial diseases, venereal diseases and tuberculosis; 
 (d) education of the people in matters of health and 
 prevention of disease.* 
 
 The Red Cross has encountered considerable critic- 
 ism for undertaking this extended home service work 
 in peace times. But insofar as it undertakes tasks, 
 especially in the field of rural health conservation, not 
 at present the concern of any social agency, it can well 
 afford to ignore these criticisms and permit time to 
 justify or condemn its program. 
 
 7. The "Social Unit" Movement: 
 
 The "Cincinnati experiment" is, perhaps, the most 
 famous effort at community organization. The four 
 features of the Social Unit Organization are as 
 follows : 
 
 1. The Citizens' Council of thirty-one members, 
 chosen by local Block Councils, which are in turn 
 elected by residents of the blocks, every one of either 
 sex over eighteen years of age residing in the block 
 having the right to vote for the Block Councils. It is 
 estimated that each of the thirty-one blocks inclu-des 
 
 ♦Full information can be secured from National Head- 
 quarters, the American Red Cross, Washington, D. C 
 
224 Community Organisation 
 
 a population of approximately one hundred families or 
 five hundred people. 
 
 2. The Occupational Council, composed at present 
 of the elected representatives of seven skilled groups 
 serving, although not necessarily resident in the dis- 
 trict. The Occupational Council is elected by group 
 councils organized in the following skilled groups; 
 physicians, nurses, recreational workers, teachers, 
 social workers, ministers and trade unionists. 
 
 3. The General Council, which has full control 
 over all neighborhood programs, is made up of the 
 members of the Citizens Council and the Occupational 
 Council sitting together. 
 
 4. The Council of Executives, consists of the three 
 executives of the three councils above named. 
 
 Investigations show that the movement is free from 
 machine control. The leaders, workers and sup- 
 porters seem to be intensely interested in the develop- 
 ment of a completely democratic community organiza- 
 tion. They want the people to do their own thinking 
 and to participate fully in the activities by which that 
 thinking becomes organized into community habit. It 
 is an effort to escape from the "representative govern- 
 ment" which does not represent into the essential 
 democracy of our earlier American experiences. The 
 movement has been quite successful in Cincinnati, 
 where the funds were provided from outside sources. 
 It remains to be seen whether it will be as completely 
 
Appendix 225 
 
 successful in any other community which must provide 
 its own funds for financing its program.* 
 
 8. Interesting programs with many admirable 
 community features are proposed by the Y. M. C. A., 
 the Y. W. C. A., the National Catholic War Council, 
 and various of the church organizations. Full partic- 
 ulars of these may be secured from their respective 
 national headquarters. 
 
 *Devine, E. T,: The Survey for November 15, 1919. For 
 information address The National Social Unit Organization, 
 117 West 46th Street, New York City, 
 
INDEX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Adolescejice _ 201f 
 
 Adult Education _ 87, 115 
 
 America _ 41, 97 
 
 American Doctrine _ 12 
 
 American Institutions 138, 185 
 
 "Americanism" _ 23, 131, 135 
 
 Amusements _ _ ^ _18, 42-4S 
 
 Aristocracy _ _ 51 
 
 Attitudes 26 
 
 Autocracy, Naturalness of _ 132 
 
 Bacon _ _ 79, 162 
 
 Beauty _ 88 
 
 Benson _ _ 212 
 
 Bentham _ _ 54 
 
 Brotherhood of Man 55f 
 
 Browning 162 
 
 British Labor Party 57 
 
 Business 95, 107 
 
 Carlyle _ 14, 155, 197 
 
 Case Work „ llOf 
 
 Catholic 42 
 
 Centers of Instinct _ 3 
 
 Central Council of Social Agencies „ 219f 
 
 Change 177f 
 
 Child Labor _ _. 83, 99 
 
 Child, Welfare 84, 86 
 
 Choice _. 37 
 
 Church _ 28, 40f, 96, 111, 131f 
 
 Christianity _ _ 40 
 
 Cincinnati Experiment 223f 
 
 Citizenship 84, 115 
 
 Civilization „ _ 22 
 
 Class Struggle 14 
 
 Collective Bargaining 118f 
 
 Colonists _ 6f 
 
 Communal Nature of Man 167f 
 
 Color in Democracy _ 21 If 
 
 Community .4, 6, 9f, 16, 38, 46, 55, 59f, 63, 93, lOlff, 169f 
 
 Community Center Movement ____..._____,...._ 218f 
 
 226 
 
Index 227 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Community Councils Movement 220f 
 
 Community Deliberative Council 115f, 146 
 
 Community Service Incorporated _ 221f 
 
 Competition ^ - 10 
 
 Congeniality 19 
 
 Control _ ., 97 
 
 Consciousness of Kind 56f 
 
 Co-operation _ 21, 113 
 
 Courtship _ 38 
 
 Crevices — 6 
 
 Cromwell — 69 
 
 Defectives - 46 
 
 Defects (Social) - - 93ff 
 
 Democracy 19, 35, 52, 67, 76ff, 97, 153 
 
 Direct Action 118, 125 
 
 Economics 63, 71ff 
 
 Economic Interpretation of Conduct _ 187 
 
 Education ZZ, 63, 79, 86, 96, 102, 113f, 190f, 195, 212 
 
 Educational Tests 25 
 
 Emotion 58 
 
 England _ 41f 
 
 Enlightened Selfishness _ 176f 
 
 Ephebic Oath 61 
 
 Ethics _ 63, 75, 89 
 
 Evolution _ 51 
 
 Exclusions _ 46f 
 
 Executive Ability „ 182f, 206f 
 
 Experimentation 149, 185, 218f 
 
 Fact 7Z 
 
 Family 36, 83 
 
 Fatherland _ _ 10 
 
 Fear 34, 54, 57, 74, 104 
 
 Ferguson _ 165 
 
 Force _ 13, 32, 180f 
 
 Fragmentation of the Community 137 
 
 Frontiers, the New 154, 164f 
 
 Germany 19, 41, 54 
 
 Good Will 55f, 58, 116 
 
 Government „..4, 31, 129, 143, 189 
 
 Government by Injunction 13 
 
 Gregariousness _ 1 68 
 
 Group Thinking _ 145 
 
 Group Work .„ _ 105f 
 
 Habit _ 15, 50flF, 58, 79ff 
 
228 Community Organisation 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Happiness _ 197f 
 
 Health Program 25, 81, 172 
 
 Home _ - 28, 95 
 
 Housing 82 
 
 Human Nature 78ff, 169f 
 
 Hypothesis _ - 67ff, 148, 164f 
 
 Idealism 23, 64, 179, 184 
 
 Ideals _ 180 
 
 Impulse __ 30 
 
 Indirect Action 119 
 
 Individual 3, 50ff, 59 
 
 Individualistic — 7, 107 
 
 Industry 27, 82f, 85, 133, 181, 195f 
 
 Intellectual 34 
 
 Instincts 18, 24, 31, 75, 124, 199f 
 
 Institutions _ 4, 6, 9, 31f, 67, 167, 177, 214 
 
 Internationalism 17 
 
 Jefferson _ _ 68 
 
 Jesus _ 78 
 
 Jewish 42 
 
 Justice ~ _ - 85 
 
 Labor Union 13, 117ff, 137f, 188f 
 
 Laissez Faire 10, 107 
 
 Law 73, 120 
 
 Leadership 19, 35, 134, 213£, 216 
 
 Leisure 43, 88 
 
 Liberalism* 112 
 
 Literacy _ 25 
 
 Lost Talents of the Community 210 
 
 Loyalty _ _ 12ff, 17, 31f 
 
 Marriage „ 37 
 
 Method _ 105, 118 
 
 Middle Ages _ 51, 53 
 
 Motives _ 30 
 
 National Catholic War Council _ 225 
 
 Needs ._ 3 
 
 Nervous System __ 16 
 
 Newspapers „ _ 133 
 
 Non-Conformist _ 170f, 214 
 
 Normal Living 92 
 
 Optimism _ 162f 
 
 Organic Growth 15 
 
 Organization _ „ „.. 130, 132 
 
Index 229 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Partisanship — _ 5 
 
 Pessimism _ _ _ 158f 
 
 Philosopher's Stone 163 
 
 Philosophy _ ~ 64 
 
 Physical Ability 25 
 
 Pioneers _ 7f, 102 
 
 Plato S3 
 
 Play 42-45, 87, 200f 
 
 Pleasure and Pain 55, 57, 199f 
 
 Political Science _ 63, 71 
 
 Political State 12, 28,. 32ff, 97, 189 
 
 Poverty _ 99 
 
 Practical Man 134, 182 
 
 Pragmatism _. 64, 65ff, 68 
 
 Primitive Community _„ 9, 62 
 
 Program 143, 155, 175f 
 
 Progress 129, 163 
 
 Property 1 1, 187f 
 
 Prostitution _ 173f 
 
 Protestant 42 
 
 Psychology 31, 52, 65, 71, 74, 78 
 
 Puritanism __ 194 
 
 Radicalism 128, 139 
 
 Reaction _ 139 
 
 Realism „ 64 
 
 Reconstruction 91ff, 104, 139 
 
 Recreation 87, 143, 172ff, 200f, 204f 
 
 Red Cross Home Service 222f 
 
 Religion 40, 191, 197 
 
 Repression „ 157 
 
 Revolution 81, 126 
 
 Revolution Absolute 165f, 176 
 
 Roman Circus .._ 1 36 
 
 Rousseau 167f 
 
 Rural Life 25 
 
 Sabotage 30, 123f 
 
 Saloon 137 
 
 Salvation _ 105 
 
 School 4, 28, 34 
 
 Science 19, 27, 34, 62f, 71ff, 149, 156 
 
 Sex _ 18, 2,7, 44f 
 
 Single Tax „ 1 16f 
 
 Smith, Adam 72 
 
 Sociability _ 18 
 
 Social Contract Theory „ 167f 
 
 Socialism 41. 126ff, 128 
 
230 Community Organisation 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Social Legislation 120 
 
 Social Scientist 146 
 
 Social Sedatives 136 
 
 Social Unit 223f 
 
 Social Workers _ 20, 91, 100 
 
 Socrates 53 
 
 Sophistic Attitude _ _ _ 162 
 
 Soviet Russia „ 218 
 
 Standards 81f 
 
 Standards of Living _ 89 
 
 Strikes _ 29ff 
 
 Suggestion _ 181, 185 
 
 Taxati on — 1 1 6f 
 
 Technique of Administration 207f 
 
 Technique of Deliberation 151 
 
 Tests 24ff 
 
 Tradition _ 26, SOff 
 
 Treason „ _ 24 
 
 Unemployment _ _ 99 
 
 Unrest _ „ 99 
 
 Utilitarianism _ _ 54f 
 
 Wage System 82 
 
 Wallas 17 
 
 War Camp Community Service 221 
 
 Whitman 214 
 
 Wilson, President _. 68, 76f 
 
 Women 38f, 99 
 
 Woman's Suffrage 138 
 
 Words 80 
 
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