VITAL FORCES IN CURREIST EVEMS SPEARE AND NORRIS ' •» UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES ^HIS VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS READINGS ON PRESENT-DAY AFFAIRS FROM CONTEMPORARY LEADERS AND THINKERS EDITED BY MORRIS EDMUND SPEARE HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, COLLEGE OF COMMERCE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND AND WALTER BLAKE NORRIS ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON ATLANTA • DALLAS • COLUMBUS • SAN FRANCISCO COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY MORRIS EDMUND SI'EARE AND WALTER BLAKE NORRIS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 4163 GINN AND COMPANY . PRO- PRIETORS • BOSTON ■ U.S.A. PREFACE The present volume owes its origin to the increasing recog- nition of the value of current events in education, as evidenced not only by the inclusion of readings in current events as one possible unit in fulfilling the uniform college-entrance require- ments in English but by the widening use of current literature in English courses in school and college. Teachers are realizing as never before the vitalizing influence which a study of distinguished contemporary writing can create. In compiling a book of selections to assist in making such work feasible and effective, the editors have sought for articles with four qualities, all of them desirable in material of this sort. Each selection should present a vital issue, a question of real importance to America and the world. Each discussion ^ should deal with fundamental ideas such as are likely to hold good through the changing current of events. An analysis of the style and structure of each article should disclose the best qualities of present-day writing, clearness and interest. And, lastly, so far as possible the student should be brought into stimulating contact with some leader of thought or action today •j who can speak with the authority of public recognition. ^ The editors have taken advantage of similarity of aim of the two volumes to use considerable material from their ''World War Issues and Ideals," and wish to express their appreciation of the kindness of the contributors to that volume for the opportunity to use again the material so generously granted them there. Though the field covered by the two books is somewhat different, the general purpose has remained the same — to present contemporary problems and ideals, national and international, as they are seen by men of light and leading today. THE EDITORS 185925 - CONTENTS I. THE MEANING OF AMERICA PAGE What is an American? Charles W. Eliot i Law and Liberty Elihi'i Root 5 The Right Attitude for the American Citizen Chai'les E. Hughes 7 A Charter of Democracy Theodore Roosevelt 14 Theodore Roosevelt — American .... Leonard Wood 26 II. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES Western Democracy and Big Business Frederick J. Tiirner 34 The Challenge of the Pacific Coast . . Josiah Royce 45 American Resources and Inventions . Franklin K. Lane 48 The Conservation of our Resources . John Bates Clark 54 Country Life and Conservation . . Theodore Roosevelt 62 Forward to the Land Movement David Franklin Houston 65 America's Foreign Trade George E. Roberts 6g Our New Merchant Marine .... Ralph D. Paine 76 The Democratic Control of the Railroads Frederic C. Howe 81 Government Ownership vs. Private Control Samuel O. Dunn 84 III. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT National \Velfare defined Industrially Herbert Hoover 93 Humanizing Industry Irving lusher 95 V vi VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS TiiF. Tfxhmqi'k oi- American Industry tage Carlcton H. Parker 103 TiiF. Demands of Labor Samuel Gompers 110 The Reply of Capital — Representation Jolin D. Rockefeller, Jr. \ 1 4 Capital and Labor: A Fair Deal . . . Otto H. Kahn 119 The Immigrant's Viewpoint . . . Randolph S. Bourne 131 "Americanization" — A Definition. . Walter E. IVeyl 134 IV. EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES A Revised Definition of Education . Charles W. Eliot 1 50 The Social Ideal in Education . . . George E. Vincent 155 Vocational Education and National Ideals B. H. Crocheron 163 Women in Politics — A Chance for Broader Education Helen H. Taft 1 67 V. THE ESSENTIALS OF WORLD PEACE Peace through Democracy Elihu Root 1 76 Force and Peace Henry Cabot Lodge 180 The Fourteen Points Woodrow Wilson 183 The Policy of "The Open Door" . . Baiiibridqe Colby 186 The Principle of Nationality . . Archibald C. Coolidge 189 VI. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS The League of Nations a Culmination of Civilization Jati C. Smuts 195 " I AM A Covenanter " Woodrow Wilson 1 99 The Question of " Reservations " . Henry Cabot Lodge 204 Article X Woodrow {Vilson 209 Article X Henry Cabot Lodge 215 Is the Covenant A.merican? . . . Henry Cabot Lodge 217 CONTENTS vii VII. LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES The United States and Latin America page Woodroiv Wilson 221 Our Latin-American Policy Richard Olney 226 The Tests of Self-Government . . . Woodroiv Wilson 229 Tutoring the Philippines Charles H. Brent 237 VIII. UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS European and American Life Compared Guglielmo Ferrero 245 Diagnosis of the Englishman .... Johfi Galsworthy 250 Gilbert Mu7-ray 253 Maurice Barres 256 Entile Boutroux 258 Aristocracy in English Life . . . The French Flame of Patriotism . French Liberty The Modern Italian William Kay Wallace 262 The Intelligentsia and the People in the Russian Revolution Moissaye J, Olgitt 271 The Far-Eastern Problem J. O. P. Bland 278 APPENDIX Questions for Class Use i VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS I THE MEANING OF AMERICA WHAT IS AN AMERICAN?^ Charles W. Eliot [Charles William Eliot (1834- ), a graduate of Harvard and its president from 1869 to igog, has wielded a great influence on American education, especially in securing the adoption of the elective system in colleges. He has written largely on education and public affairs and is one of the clearest thinkers on the prob- lems of American life. On the breaking out of the World War he began writing frequently on its issues and problems. His best essays are "American Contributions to CiviHzation" (1897), "The Working of American Democracy," and "The Modern Defini- tion of the Cultivated Man" (igo3).] In the first place, the American is the product of certain moral inheritances. He is usually the descendant of an immi- grant or an immigrant himself. That immigrant, in many cases, was escaping from some sort df religious, political, social, or economic oppression. He was some kind of nonconformist, and he was dissatisfied with his surroundings and wished to better them. Therefore he must have had an unusual amount of imagination, ambition, and venturesomeness. This is as true of the late comers to America as of the earlier comers. The English Pilgrims and Puritans, the French Huguenots, the Scotch Covenanters, the Moravians, the Quakers, the Russian iFrora Collier's Weekly, August 12, 1916. Reprinted by permission. 3 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS Jews, the Armenians, and the Syrian Christians all fled from religious hostilities or restrictions, and meant to secure, or ex- pected to tmd, in the New World freedom to worship God each in his own way. They found that liberty, and ultimately estab- lished in the United States a regime of absolute religious toler- ation. After 1848 a large German immigration took refuge here from political oppression. Millions of European and Near- Eastern people have crossed the Atlantic and taken the serious risk of attempting to secure a foothold in fresh and free Amer- ica, because they hoped to escape from economic pressure and chronic poverty. They have exiled themselves from home and friends in search of some better opportunity for a successful and happy life than the native land offered. The migrations of the Irish and the Scotch Highlanders have been strong cases of escape from harassing economic and social conditions. The early comers took the risks of the wilderness, the Indians, the untried climate, and the unknown diseases. The late comers have dared the perils of congested cities, of novel industries, and of insecure employment. Hence, by heredity, the white Americans of today — of whatever race or stock — have a fair chance to be by nature independent, bold, and enterprising. In the second place, the environment of the immigrants into North America during the past three centuries has exerted a common influence on them all, which has tended to produce in the successive generations certain advantageous qualities. All the American generations thus far may fairly be said to have done pioneering work, and all the earlier generations lived a life of conflict with the hostilities of adverse Nature and with hostile human beings, both savage and civilized. Such pioneer- ing and such conflict all across a continent supply men and women alike with a strenuous training. The American colonies were engaged most of the time in some kind of warfare. From the beginning the American settlers carried arms and were often called upon to defend their homes and their communities. The Massachusetts Puritan farmer car- ried his flintlock with him to the meetinghouse, and the frontier settler has always had firearms in his cabin and has taught his boys how to use them. THE MEANING OF AMERICA 3 In the nineteenth century the United States was involved four times in costly war. No American generation has escaped the discipline of war. Among the most recent immigrants from southern Europe and the Near East there have been many thousands of young men who, before they had really established themselves in the New World, returned home to bear their part in the present agonies of the Old. An American, therefore, is likely to be a man of individualistic quality, who nevertheless possesses a strong community sense and is ready to fight in defense of his family and his community. His environment has trained him to energetic industry, sharp conflict with natural obstacles, and the use of protective force. Nevertheless his inheritance and his environment alike predispose him to con- demn military establishments, a military class, and militarism in general. He is and means to be a freeman. A genuine American regards his government as his servant and not as his master, and will have no chief executive in city, state, or nation except an elected executive. He recognizes that men are not equal as regards native capacity or acquired power, but desires that all men shall be equal before the law and that every individual human being — child or adult — shall have his just opportunity to do his best for the common good. He be- lieves in universal education and is always desiring the im- provement of the free schools. In respect to this desire for education, however, many of the most recent Americans outdo some of the earlier ones — particularly in the zeal and assiduity of their children in school. As a result of his own experience in public affairs and of his ancestors' experience, a true American always acquiesces in the decision of a majority of the legitimate participants in an elec- tion or other public contest. This is an American trait of high political value. It makes American political and social progress, as a rule, a peaceful evolution. People who have long been helpless under political or ecclesiastical oppression, and have had no practice in self-government, have difficulty in acquiring this trait. The characteristic American believes, first, in justice as the foundation of civilized government and society, and, next, in 4 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS freedom for the individual, so far as that freedom is possible without interference with the equal rights of others. He con- ceives that both justice and freedom are to be secured through piopular respect for the laws enacted by the elected representa- tives of the people and through the faithful observance of those laws, and because of his confidence in law as the enactment of justice and the security for freedom, he utterly condemns all lawless practices by public servants, private citizens, or groups of citizens. For him lawless violence is the worst offense which can be committed by either the governors or the governed. Hence he distrusts legislation which is not faithfully executed, and believes that unsuccessful legislation should not lapse, but be repealed or replaced. It should be observed, however, that American justice in general keeps in view the present common good of the vast majority, and the restoration rather than the punishment of the exceptional malignant or defective indi- vidual. Indeed, the American conception of justice is very different from that of traditional Christian theology, or of feudal institutions, or of any of the despotic governments. It is es- sentially democratic ; and especially it finds sufferings inflicted on the innocent unintelligible and abhorrent. The American believes that if men are left free in the planning and conduct of their lives they will win more success in the pro- fessions, the trades, and the industries than they will if their lives are regulated for them by some superior power, even if that power be more intelligent and better informed than they. Blind obedience and implicit submission to the will of another do not commend themselves to characteristic Americans. The discipline in which they believe is the voluntary cooperation of several or many persons in the orderly and effective pursuit of common ends. Yet Americans are capable of intense col- lective action when they see that such action is necessary to efficiency or to the security of the community as a whole. Thus they submit willingly to any restrictions on individual liberty which can be shown to be necessary to the preservation of the public healthy and they are capable of the most effective cooperation at need in business, sports, and war. THE MEANING OF AMERICA 5 Such are the common ideals, hopes, and aims of the hetero- geneous peoples assembled on the territory of the United States. Whoever accepts them and governs his life by them is an Amer- ican, whatever his origin, race, or station. No other assimilation of different national stocks is needed — or is even desirable — than this acceptance of the common American ideals ; but with this acceptance should go, and ordinarily does go, an ardent love of the new country and its liberal institutions, a love not inconsistent with an affectionate regard for the old country from which the original immigrant into America took his resolute departure. LAW AND LIBERTY^ Elihu Root [Elihu Root (1845- ) was educated at Hamilton College and is one of the foremost American statesmen of today. His chief public services have been as Secretary of War under Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt, Secretary of State under President Roose- velt, and senator from New York from iqoq to 1915. He was a member of the Hague Tribunal in igio and has rendered important services to the settlement of international problems. In 1912 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.] Insistence upon hasty and violent methods rather than orderly and deliberate methods is really a result of impatience with the slow methods of true progress in popular government. We should probably make little progress were there not in every generation some men who, realizing evils, are eager for reform, impatient of delay, indignant at opposition, and in- tolerant of the long, slow processes by which the great body of the people may consider new proposals in all their relations, weigh their advantages and disadvantages, discuss their merits, and become educated either to their acceptance or rejection. ^Froni "Experiments in Government and Essentials of the Constitu- tion." Copyright, 1913, by the Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission. 6 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS Yet that is the method of progress in which no step, once taken, needs to be retraced, and it is the only way in which a democracy can avoid destroying its institutions by the impul- sive substitution of novel and attractive but impracticable expedients. The wisest of all the fathers of the Republic has spoken, not for his own day alone but for all generations to come after him, in the solemn admonitions of the Farewell Address. It was to us that Washington spoke when he said : The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government, but the Consti- tution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. . . . Towards the preservation of your Government and the perma- nency of your present happy state it is requisite not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect in the forms of the Constitution altera- tions which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to under- mine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions ; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country ; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothe- sis and opinion, exposes to perpetual changes from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion. While in the nature of things each generation must assume the task of adapting the working of its government to new conditions of life as they arise, it would be the folly of ignorant conceit for any generation to assume that it can lightly and easily improve upon the work of the founders in those matters which are, by their nature, of universal application to the permanent relations of men in civil society. Religion, the philosophy of morals^ the teaching of history, the experience of every human life, point to the same con- clusion — that in the practical conduct of life the most diffi- cult and the most necessary virtue is self-restraint. It is the THE MEANING OF AMERICA 7 first lesson of childhood ; it is the quality for which great monarchs are most highly praised ; the man who has it not is feared and shunned ; it is needed most where power is greatest ; it is needed more by men acting in a mass than by individuals, because men in the mass are more irresponsible and difficult of control than individuals. The makers of our Constitution, wise and earnest students of history and of life, discerned the great truth that self-restraint is the supreme necessity and the supreme virtue of a democracy. The people of the United States have exercised that virtue by the estab- lishment of rules of right action in what we call the limitations of the Constitution, and until this day they have rigidly ob- served those rules. The general judgment of students of gov- ernment is that the success and permanency of the American system of government are due to the establishment and observ- ance of such general rules of conduct. Let us change and adapt our laws as the shifting conditions of the times require, but let us never abandon or weaken this fundamental and essential characteristic of our ordered liberty. THE RIGHT ATTITUDE FOR THE AMERICAN CITIZEN 1 Charles Evans Hughes [Charles Evans Hughes (1862- ) was educated at Brown Uni- versity and first came into prominence by his fearless investigation of insurance companies in New York City. He served as gover- nor of New York and as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court. In 19 16 he was the Republican candidate for presi- dent. In 192 1 he became Secretary of State. The present selection is part of an address delivered at Yale in 1910, and vigorously restates in terms of today "the pubhc duty of educated men."J I desire to consider the fundamental question of attitude and the principles of action which must be regarded as essential to the faithful discharge of the civic duties. ^From "Conditions of Progress in Democratic Government." Copy- right, 1910, by the Yale University Press. Reprinted by permission. 8 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS It is of first importance that there should be sympathy with democratic ideals. 1 do not refer to the conventional attitude commonly assumed in American utterances and always taken on patriotic occasions. I mean the sincere love of democracy. As Montesquieu says : "A love of the republic in a democracy is a love of the democracy ; as the latter is that of equality." It would be difticult to find an association in which wealth or family or station are of less consequence and in which a young man is appraised more nearly at his actual worth than in an American college. Despite the increase of luxury in college living, the number of rich men's sons who frequent these institutions, and the amount of money lavishly and foolishly expended, our colleges are still wholesomely demo- cratic. A young man who is decent, candid, and honorable in his dealings will not suffer because he is poor, or his parents are obscure, and the fact that he may earn his living in humble employment in order to pay for his education will not cost him the esteem of his fellows. He will be rated, as the rich man's son will be rated, at the worth of his character, judged by the standards of youth which maintain truth and fair deal- ing and will not tolerate cant or sham. This is so largely true that it may be treated as the rule, and regrettable departures from it as the exception. But a larger sympathy and appreciation are needed. The young man who goes out into life favorably disposed toward those who have had much the same environment and oppor- tunity may still be lacking in the broader sympathy which should embrace all his fellow countrymen. He may be tolerant and democratic with respect to those who, despite differences in birth and fortune, he may regard as kindred spirits, and yet in his relation to men at large, to the great majority of his fel- low beings^ be little better than a snob. Or despite the cama- raderie of college intercourse he may have developed a cynical disposition or an intellectual aloofness which, while not marked enough to interfere with success in many vocations or to dis- turb his conventional relations, largely disqualifies him from aiding his community as a public-spirited citizen. The primary object of education is to emancipate — to free from superstition, THE MEANING OF AMERICA 9 from the tyranny of worn-out notions, from the prejudices, large and small, which enslave the judgment. His study of history and of the institutions of his country, has been to little purpose if the college man has not caught the vision of democ- racy and has not been joined by the troth of heart and conscience to the great human brotherhood which is working out its destiny in this land of opportunity. The true citizen will endeavor to understand the different racial viewpoints of the various elements which enter into our population. He will seek to divest himself of antipathy or prejudice toward any of those who have come to us from foreign lands, and he will try, by happy illustration in his own conduct, to hasten appreciation of the American ideal. For him "American" will ever be a word of the spirit and not of the flesh. Difference in custom or religion will not be per- mitted to obscure the common human worth, nor will bigotry of creed or relation prevent a just appraisement. The pitiful revelations of ignorance and squalor, of waste and folly, will not sap his faith. He will patiently seek truly to know himself and others, and with fraternal insight to enter into the world's work, to share the joys of accomplishment, and to help in the bearing of the burdens of misery. He will be free from the prejudice of occupation or of residence. He will not look askance either at city or at country. For him any honest work will be honorable, and those who are toiling with their hands will not be merely economic factors of work but human beings of like passions and possessed of the " certain unalien- able rights." Neither birth nor station, neither circumstance nor vocation, will win or prevent the esteem to which fidelity, honesty, and sincerity are alone entitled. He will look neither up nor down, but with even eye will seek to read the hearts of men. This sense of sympathetic relation should increase respect both for individual interests and for community interests and should give a better understanding of what is involved in each. They are not in opposition ; properly speaking, they cannot be divorced. By individual interests I mean those interests which concern the normal development of the individual life, 10 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS which relate to freedom in choice of work and individual pur- suits, to the conservation of opportunities for the play of imlividual talent and initiative, to the enjoyment of property honestly acquired. The liberty of the individual in communi- ties must of course be restrained by the mutual requirements imposed upon each by the equal rights of others and by the demands of the common welfare. It may be difficult to define the precise limitations of such restrictions, but the guiding principle must be that the common interest cannot be pre- served if individual incentive is paralyzed, and that to preserve individual incentive there must be scope for individual effort freely expended along lines freely chosen and crowned by advantages individually acquired and held. There is no al- chemy which can transmute the poverty of individual hope into communal riches. Restrictions, to be justified, must be such as are essential to the maintenance of wholesome life and to prevent the liberty of some from accomplishing the enthraldom of all. The citizen should contribute something more than sympathy with democracy, something more than respect for individual and community interests, something more than adherence to the standards of fair dealing. Sympathy and sentiment will fail of practical effect without independence of character. A man owes it to himself so to conduct his life that it be recognized that his assent cannot be expected until he has been convinced. He should exhibit that spirit of self-reliance, that sense of individual responsibility in forming and stating opinion, which proclaims that he is a man and not a marionette. This of course is a matter of degree varying with personality and depends for its beneficial effect upon intelligence and tact. None the less the emphasis is needed. There are so many who with respect to public affairs lead a life largely of self-negation ! They are constantly registering far below their capacity and never show anything like the accomplishment for which they were constructed and equipped. We have too many high-power vessels whose power is never used. THE MEANING OF AMERICA 11 It is constantly urged that men must act in groups and through organizations to accomplish anything. This is ob- viously true, and describes such a marked tendency that it is hardly necessary to point the lesson. The difficulty is not to get men to act in groups and through organization, but to have groups and organizations act properly and wisely by reason of the individual force and independent strength of their members. Groups and organizations constantly tend to represent the influence and power of one man or a few men, who are followed not because they are right but because they lead, and who maintain themselves not so much by the pro- priety and worth of leadership as by their skill and acumen in availing themselves of the indifference of others and by use of solicitations, blandishments, and patronage. This is illustrated in all forms of association, and, to the extent that it exists, the association loses its strength and capacity to accomplish the results for which it is intended. Groups and organizations within democracy depend upon the same conditions as those which underlie the larger society. If they come into the strong control of a few by reason of the indifference and subservience of the many, the form, is retained without the substance, and the benefits of cooperative action are lost. It is of course a counsel of wisdom that men should be tactful and desirous of cooperating, and not in a constant state of rebellion against every effort at group action. But men who are eccentric and impossible are proof against counsel, and their peculiarities simply illustrate the exceptional and abnormal in society. The normal man naturally tends to work with others ; to him the sentiment of loyalty makes a powerful appeal. And the counsel that is most needed is that men in the necessary action of groups should not lose their individual power for good by blind following. The man who would meet the responsibilities of citizenship must determine that he will endeavor justly, after availing himself of all the privileges which contact and study afford, to reach a conclusion which for him is a true conclusion, and that the action of his group shall if possible not be taken until, according to his opportunity and his range of influence, his point of view has been presented 12 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS and considered. This docs not imply sheer obstinacy or opinion- ated stubbornness. Progress consists of a series of approxi- mations. But it does imply self-respect, conscientious effort to be sound in opinion, respect for similar efforts on the part of others, and accommodations in the sincere desire for coopera- tive achievement which shall be rational and shall be sensibly determined in the light of all facts and of all proposals. It also implies that there shall be no surrender that will compro- mise personal integrity or honor, or barter for gain or success one's fidelity to the oath of office or to the obligation of public trust. A consideration of the obstacles which are found to be suc- cessfully interposed to this course is not flattering to those of our citizens who have had the greatest advantages. There is, in the first place, the base feeling of fear. Lawyers are afraid that they will lose clients ; bankers, that they will lose deposits ; ministers, that important pewholders will withdraw their support ; those who manage public-service corporations, that they will suffer retaliation. Throughout the community is this benumbing dread of personal loss which keeps men quiet and servile. The first lesson for a young man who faces the world with his career in his own hands is that he must be willing to do without. The question for him at the start and ever after must be not simply what he wants to get but what he is willing to lose. "Whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it" is the profoundest lesson of philosophy. No one can fight as a good soldier the battles of democracy who is constantly seeking cover. But still more influential is the desire to avoid controversy and to let things go. The average American is good-hearted, genial, and indisposed not simply to provoke a quarrel but even to enter into a discussion. By the constant play of his humor he seeks to avoid sharp contacts or expression of differences. But independence of conviction and the exercise of one's proper influence do not imply either ill nature or constant collisions with opposing forces. The power of the man who is calm and temperate, just and deliberate, who seeks to know the truth and to act according to his honest convictions, THE MEANING OF AMERICA 13 is after all not best figured by the force of arms but by the gracious influence of sunshine and of rain and the quiet play of the beneficent forces of nature. In suitably expressing his individuality, in presenting his point of view, he need not sacri- fice his geniality or the pleasures of companionship, which are always enhanced by mutual respect. Then there are the fetters of accumulated obligations. The strongest appeal that can be made to an American is to his generous sense of obligation because of favors received. Men whom no wealth could bribe and no promise could seduce will fall in public life victims to a chivalrous regard for those who have helped them climb to public place. This is because of a strange inversion of values. The supposed private debt is counted more important than the public duty. But there are no obligations which friendship or kindly action can impose at the expense of public service. It is simply a perverted senti- ment which suggests such a demand or the necessity of meeting it. It is a strange notion, which courses in ethics and the benefits of higher education so frequently find it difficult, if not impossible, to dislodge. Whether you like it or not, the majority will rule. Accept loyally the democratic principle. The voice of the majority is that neither of God nor of devil, but of men. Do not be abashed to be found with the minority, but, on the other hand, do not affect superiority or make the absurd mistake of think- ing you are right or entitled to special credit merely because you do not agree with the common judgment. Your experience of life cannot fail to impress you with the soundness of that judgment in the long run, and I believe you will come to put your trust, as I do, in the common sense of the people of this country and in the verdicts they give after the discussions of press, of platform, and of ordinary intercourse. The dangers of the overthrow of reason and of the reign of passion and prejudice become serious only as resentment is kindled by abuses for which those who have no sympathy with popular government and constantly decry what they call "mob rule" are largely responsible. But whether the common judgment shall exhibit that intelligence and self-restraint which have given 14 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS tt) our system of government so large a degree of success wil? (leponcl upon your attitude and that of the young men of the country who will determine the measure of capacity for self- government and progress in the coming years. Prize your birthright and let your attitude toward all public questions be characterized by such sincere, democratic sym- pathy, such enthusiasm for the common weal, such genuine love of justice, and such force of character that your life to the full extent of your talent and opportunity shall contribute to the reality, the security, and the beneficence of government by the people. A CHARTER OF DEMOCRACY^ Theodore Roosevelt [Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was educated at Harvard. Early entering public life, he first became prominent as president of the Police Board of New York City. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, but soon resigned to organize, with Leonard Wood, the cavalry regiment known as the "Rough Riders." Elected vice president in 1900, he became president upon the death of McKinley and continued in office until 1909. In his younger days he spent several years on a ranch in North Dakota, and after retiring from the presidency traveled to Brazil and East Africa on exploring and hunting expeditions. As a historian he is known for his "Naval War of 1812" (1882) and his "Winning of the West" (1896); as a biographer, for his lives of Thomas H. Benton, Gouverneur Morris, and Oliver Cromwell. Other books of his are "Hunting Trips of a Ranchman" (1885), "Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography" (1913), and "Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to his Children" (1919). His exposition of American democracy before the Ohio State Con- stitutional Convention in 191 2, from which the pages which follow are taken, expresses very clearly the principles for which he stood during his public career.] I believe in pure democracy. With Lincoln, I hold that ''this country, wdth its institutions, belongs to the people who in- habit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing ^From the Outlook, February 24, 1912. Reprinted by permission. I THE MEANING OF AMERICA 15 government, they can exercise their Constitutional right of amending it." We Progressives believe that the people have the right, the power, and the duty to protect themselves and their own welfare ; that human rights are supreme over all other rights ; that wealth should be the servant, not the master, of the people. We believe that unless representative government does absolutely represent the people it is not representative govern- ment at all. We test the worth of all men and all measures by asking how they contribute to the welfare of the men, women, and children of whom this nation is composed. We are engaged in one of the great battles of the age-long contest waged against privilege on behalf of the common welfare. We hold it a prime duty of the people to free our government from the control of money in politics. For this purpose we advocate, not as ends in themselves but as weapons in the hands of the people, all governmental devices which will make the representatives of the people more easily and certainly responsible to the people's will. This country, as Lincoln said, belongs to the people. So' do the natural resources which make it rich. They supply the basis of our prosperity now and hereafter. In preserving them, which is a national duty, we must not forget that monopoly is based on the control of natural resources and natural advan- tages, and that it will help the people little to conserve our natural wealth unless the benefits which it can yield are secured to the people. Let us remember, also, that conservation does not stop with the natural resources, but that the principle of making the best use of all we have requires with equal or greater insistence that we shall stop the waste of human life in industry, and prevent the waste of human welfare which flows from the unfair use of concentrated power and wealth in the hands of men whose eagerness for profit blinds them to the cost of what they do. We have no higher duty than to promote the efficiency of the individual. There is no surer road to the efficiency of the nation. I am emphatically a believer in constitutionalism, and because of this fact I no less emphatically protest against any theory that would make of the Constitution a means of l6 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS thwarting instead of securing the absolute right of the people to rule themselves and to provide for their own social and indus- trial well-being. All constitutions — those of the states no less than that of the nation — are designed and must be interpreted and administered so as to fit human rights. Lincoln so inter- preted and administered the national Constitution. Buchanan attempted the reverse, attempted to fit human rights to, and limit them by, the Constitution. It was Buchanan who treated the courts as a fetish, who protested against and condemned all criticism of the judges for unjust and unrighteous decisions, and upheld the Constitution as an instrument for the pro- tection of privilege and of vested wrong. It was Lincoln who appealed to the people against the judges when the judges went wrong, who advocated and secured what was practically the recall of the Dred Scott decision, and who treated the Consti- tution as a living force for righteousness. We stand for apply- ing the Constitution to the issues of today as Lincoln applied it to the issues of his day ; Lincoln, mind you, and not Buchanan, was the real upholder and preserver of the Consti- tution, for the true progressive, the progressive of the Lincoln stamp, is the only true constitutionalist, the only real conserva- tive. The object of every American constitution worth calling such must be what it is set forth to be in the preamble to the national Constitution, "to establish justice"; that is, to se- cure justice as between man and man by means of genuine popular self-government. If the Constitution is successfully invoked to nullify the effort to remedy injustice, it is proof positive either that the Constitution needs immediate amend- ment or else that it is being wrongfully and improperly con- strued. I therefore very earnestly ask you clearly to provide in this Constitution means which will enable the people readily to amend it if at any point it works injustice, and also means which will permit the people themselves b}^ popular vote, after due deliberation and discussion, but finally and without appeal, to settle what the proper construction of any constitutional point is. It is often said that ours is a government of checks and balances. But this should only mean that these checks and balances obtain as among the several different kinds of THE MEANING OF AMERICA 1 7 representatives of the people — judicial, executive, and legis- lative — to whom the people have delegated certain portions of their power. It does not mean that the people have parted with their power or cannot resume it. The " division of powers" is merely the division among the representatives of the powers delegated to them ; the term must not be held to mean that the people have divided their power with their delegates. The power is the people's, and only the people's. It is right and proper that provision should be made render- ing it necessary for the people to take ample time to make up their minds on any point, but there should also be com- plete provision to have their decision put into immediate and living effect when it has thus been deliberately and definitely reached. I hold it to be the duty of every public servant, and of every man who in public or in private life holds a position of leadership in thought or action, to endeavor honestly and fearlessly to guide his fellow countrymen to right decisions ; but I emphatically dissent from the view that it is either wise or necessary to try to devise methods which under the Consti- tution will automatically prevent the people from deciding for themselves what governmental action they deem just and proper. It is impossible to invent constitutional devices which will prevent the popular will from being effective for wrong without also preventing it from being effective for right. The only safe course to follow in this great American democracy is to provide for making the popular judgment really effective. When this is done, then it is our duty to see that the people, having the full power, realize their heavy responsibility for exercising that power aright. But it is a false constitutionalism, a false statesmanship, to endeavor by the exercise of a per- verted ingenuity to seem to give the people full power and at the same time to trick them out of it. Yet this is precisely what is done in every case where the state permits its repre- sentatives, whether on the bench or in the legislature or in executive office, to declare that it has not the power to right grave social wrongs, or that any of the officers created by the people, and rightfully the servants of the people, can set l8 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS themselves up to be the masters of the people. Constitution makers should make it clear beyond shadow of doubt that the people in their legislative capacity have the power to enact into law any measure they deem necessary for the betterment of social and industrial conditions. The wisdom of framing any particular law of this kind is a proper subject of debate, but the power of the people to enact the law should not be subject to debate. To hold the contrary view is to be false to the cause of the people, to the cause of American democracy. Lincoln, with his clear vision, his ingrained sense of justice, and his spirit of kindly friendliness to all, forecast our present struggle and saw the way out. What he said should be pondered by capitalist and workingman alike. He spoke as follows (I condense) : I hold that while man exists it is his duty to improve not only his condition but to assist in ameliorating mankind. Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor should this lead to a war upon property. Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built. This last sentence characteristically shows Lincoln's homely, kindly common sense. His is the attitude that we ought to take. He showed the proper sense of proportion in his relative esti- mates of capital and labor, of human rights and the rights of wealth. Above all, in what he thus said, as on so many other occasions, he taught the indispensable lesson of the need of wise kindliness and charity, of sanity and moderation, in the dealings of men one with another. We should discriminate between two purposes we have in view. The first is the effort to provide what are themselves the ends of good government ; the second is the effort to pro- vide proper machinery for the achievement of these ends. The ends of good government in our democracy are to secure by genuine popular rule a high average of moral and THE MEANING OF AMERICA 19 material well-being among our citizens. It has been well said that in the past we have paid attention only to the accumula- tion of prosperity, and that from henceforth we must pay equal attention to the proper distribution of prosperity. This is true. The only prosperity worth having is that which affects the mass of the people. We are bound to strive for the fair distribution of prosperity. But it behooves us to remember that there is no use in devising methods for the proper distribu- tion of prosperity unless the prosperity is there to distribute. I hold it to be our duty to see that the wage worker, the small producer, the ordinary consumer^ shall get their fair share of the benefit of business prosperity. But it either is or ought to be evident to everyone that business has to prosper before anybody can get any benefit from it. Therefore I hold that he is the real progressive, that he is the genuine champion of the people, who endeavors to shape the policy alike of the nation and of the several states so as to encourage legitimate and honest business at the same time that he wars against all crookedness and injustice and unfairness and tyranny in the business world (for of course we can only get business put on a basis of permanent prosperity when the element of in- justice is taken out of it). This is the reason why I have for so many years insisted, as regards our national government, that it is both futile and mischievous to endeavor to correct the evils of big business by an attempt to restore business con- ditions as they were in the middle of the last century, before railways and telegraphs had rendered larger business organiza- tions both inevitable and desirable. The effort to restore such conditions and to trust for justice solely to such proposed restoration is as foolish as if we should attempt to arm our troops with the flintlocks of Washington's Continentals instead of with modern weapons of precision. Flintlock legislation, of the kind that seeks to prohibit all combinations, good or bad, is bound to fail ; and the effort, in so far as it accomplishes anything at all, merely means that some of the worst combina- tions are not checked, and that honest business is checked. What is needed is, first, the recognition that modern business conditions have come to stay, in so far at least as these 20 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS conditions mean that business must be done in larger units ; and then the cool-headed and resolute determination to introduce an effective method of regulating big corporations so as to help legitimate business as an incident to thoroughly and com- pletely safeguarding the interests of the people as a whole. We are a business people. The tillers of the soil, the wage workers, the business men — these are the three big and vitally important divisions of our population. The welfare of each division is vitally necessary to the welfare of the people as a whole. The great mass of business is of course done by men whose business is either small or of moderate size. The middle-sized business men form an element of strength which is of literally incalculable value to the nation. Taken as a class, they are among our best citizens. They have not been seekers after enormous fortunes ; they have been moderately and justly prosperous, by reason of dealing fairly with their customers, competitors, and employees. They are satisfied with a legitimate profit that will pay their expenses of living and lay by something for those who come after, and the addi- tional amount necessary for the betterment and improvement of their plant. The average business man of this type is, as a rule, a leading citizen of his community, foremost in everj^thing that tells for its betterment, a man whom his neighbors look up to and respect ; he is in no sense dangerous to his com- munity, just because he is an integral part of his community, bone of its bone and iiesh of its flesh. His life fibers are intertwined with the life fibers of his fellow citizens. Yet nowadays many men of this kind, when they come to make necessary trade agreements with one another, find themselves in danger of becoming unwitting transgressors of the law, and are at a loss to know what the law forbids and what it permits. This is all wrong. There should be a fixed governmental policy — a policy which shall clearly define and punish wrong- doing and shall give in advance full information to any man as to just what he can and just what he cannot legally and properly do. It is absurd and wicked to treat the deliberate lawbreaker as on an exact par with the man eager to obey the law, whose only desire is to find out from some competent THE MEANING OF AMERICA 2i governmental authority what the law is and then live up to it. It is absurd to endeavor to regulate business in the interest of the public by means of long-drawn lawsuits without any accom- paniment of administrative control and regulation, and with- out any attempt to discriminate between the honest man, who has succeeded in business because of rendering a service to the public, and the dishonest man, who has succeeded in business by cheating the public. So much for the small business man and the middle-sized business man. Now for big business. It is imperative to exer- cise over big business a control and supervision which is un- necessary as regards small business. All business must be conducted under the law, and all business men, big or little, must act justly. But a wicked big interest is necessarily more dangerous to the community than a wicked little interest. "Big business" in the past has been responsible for much of the special privilege which must be unsparingly cut out of our national life. I do not believe in making mere size of and by itself criminal. The mere fact of size, however, does unques- tionably carry the potentiality of such grave wrongdoing that there should be by law provision made for the strict super- vision and regulation of these great industrial concerns doing an interstate business, much as we now regulate the transpor- tation agencies which are engaged in interstate business. The antitrust law does good in so far as it can be invoked against combinations which really are monopolies or which restrict production or which artificially raise prices. But in so far as its workings are uncertain, or as it threatens corporations which have not been guilty of antisocial conduct, it does harm. More- over, it cannot by itself accomplish more than a trifling part of the governmental regulation of big business which is needed. The nation and the states must cooperate in this matter. Among the states that have entered this field Wisconsin has taken a leading place. Following Senator La Follette, a num- ber of practical workers and thinkers in Wisconsin have turned that state into an experimental laboratory of wise governmental action in aid of social and industrial justice. They have initiated the kind of progressive government which means not merely 22 \ITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS the preservation of true democracy but the extension of the principle of true democracy into industriahsm as well as into politics. One prime reason why the state has been so success- ful in this policy lies in the fact that it has done justice to corporations precisely as it has exacted justice from them. Its Public Utilities Commission in a recent report answered certain critics as follows: To be generous to the people of the state at the expense of justice to the carriers would be a species of official brigandage that ought to hold the perpetrators up to the execration of all honest men. Indeed, we have no idea that the people of Wisconsin have the remotest desire to deprive the railroads of the state of aught that, in equality and good conscience, belongs to them, and if any of them have, their wishes cannot be gratified by this commission. This is precisely the attitude we should take towards big business. It is the practical application of the principle of the square deal. Not only as a matter of justice but in our own interest we should scrupulously respect the rights of honest and decent business and should encourage it where its activities make, as they often do make, for the common good. It is for the advantage of all of us when business prospers. It is for the advantage of all of us to have the United States become the leading nation in international trade, and we should not deprive this nation, we should not deprive this people, of the instru- ments best adapted to secure such international commercial supremacy. In other words, our demand is that big business give the people a square deal and that the people give a square deal to any man engaged in big business who honestly en- deavors to do what is right and proper. On the other hand, any corporation, big or little, which has gained its position by unfair methods and by interference with the rights of others, which has raised prices or limited output in improper fashion and been guilty of demoralizing and cor- rupt practices, should not only be broken up, but it should be made the business of some competent governmental body by constant supervision to see that it does not come together again, save under such strict control as to insure the community THE MEANING OF AMERICA 23 against all danger of a repetition of the bad conduct. The chief trouble with big business has arisen from, the fact that big business has so often refused to abide by the principle of the square deal ; the opposition which I personally have en- countered from big business has in every case arisen not because I did not give a square deal but because I did. All business into which the element of monopoly in any way or degree enters, and where it proves in practice impossible totally to eliminate this element of monopoly, should be care- fully supervised, regulated, and controlled by governmental authority ; and such control should be exercised by administra- tive, rather than by judicial, officers. No effort should be made to destroy a big corporation merely because it is big, merely because it has shown itself a peculiarly efficient business instrument. But we should not fear, if necessary, to bring the regulation of big corporations to the point of controlling condi- tions so that the wage worker shall have a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor not so excessive as to wreck his strength by the strain of un- ending toil and leave him unfit to do his duty as a good citizen in the community. Where regulation by competition (which is, of course, preferable) proves insufficient, we should not shrink from bringing governmental regulation to the point of control of monopoly prices if it should ever become necessary to do so, just as in exceptional cases railway rates are now regulated. In emphasizing the part of the administrative department in regulating combinations and checking absolute monopoly, I do not, of course, overlook the obvious fact that the legisla- ture and the judiciary must do their part. The legislature should make it more clear exactly what methods are illegal, and then the judiciary will be in a better position to punish adequately and relentlessly those who insist on defying the clear, legislative decrees. I do not believe any absolute private monopoly is justified, but if our great combinations are properly supervised, so that immoral practices are prevented, absolute monopoly will not come to pass, as the laws of competition and efficiency are against it. 24 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS The important thing is this: that, under such government recognition as we may give to that which is beneficent and wholesome in large business organizations, we shall be most vigilant never to allow them to crystallize into a condition which shall make private initiative difficult. It is of the utmost inifKDrtance that in the future we shall keep the broad path of opportunity just as open and easy for our children as it was for our fathers during the period which has been the glory of America's industrial history — that it shall be not only possible but easy for an ambitious man, whose character has so im- pressed itself upon his neighbors that they are willing to give him capital and credit, to start in business for himself and, if his superior efficiency deserves it, to triumph over the biggest organization that may happen to exist in his particular field. Whatever practices upon the part of large combinations may threaten to discourage such a man or deny to him that which in the judgment of the community is a square deal should be specifically defined by the statutes as crimes. And in every case the individual corporation officer responsible for such unfair dealing should be punished. We grudge no man a fortune which represents his own power and sagacity exercised with entire regard to the welfare of his fellows. We have only praise for the business man whose business success comes as an incident to doing good work for his fellows. But we should so shape conditions that a fortune shall be obtained only in honorable fashion, in such fashion that its gaining represents benefit to the community. In a word, then, our fundamental purpose must be to secure genuine equality of opportunity. No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered. No watering of stocks should be permitted ; and it can be prevented only by close governmental supervision of all stock issues, so as to prevent overcapitalization. We stand for the rights of property, but we stand even more for the rights of man. We will protect the rights of the wealthy man, but we maintain that he holds his wealth subject to the i THE MEANING OF AMERICA 2$ general right of the community to regulate its business use as the public welfare requires. We also maintain that the nation and the several states have the right to regulate the terms and conditions of labor (which is the chief element of wealth) directly in the interest of the common good. It is our prime duty to shape the industrial and social forces so that they may tell for the material and moral upbuilding of the farmer and the wage worker, just as they should do in the case of the business man. You, framers of this Constitution, be careful so to frame it that under it the people shall leave themselves free to do whatever is necessary in order to help the farmers of the state to get for themselves and their wives and children not only the benefits of better farming but also those of better business methods and better conditions of life on the farm. Moreover, shape your constitutional action so that the people will be able through their legislative bodies, or, failing that, by direct popular vole, to provide workmen's compensation acts, to regulate the hours of labor for children and for women, to provide for their safety while at work, and to prevent over- work or work under unhygienic or unsafe conditions. See to it that no restrictions are placed upon legislative powers that will prevent the enactment of laws under which your people can promote the general welfare, the common good. Thus only will the "general welfare" clause of our Constitution become a vital force for progress, instead of remaining a mere phrase. This also applies to the police powers of the government. Make it perfectly clear that on every point of this kind it is your intention that the people shall decide for themselves how far the laws to achieve their purposes shall go, and that their deci- sion shall be binding upon every citizen in the state, official or nonofficial, unless, of course, the Supreme Court of the nation in any given case decides otherwise. So much for the ends of government. 2 6 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS THEODORE ROOSEVELT— AMERICAN ^ Leonard Wood [Leonard Wood (i860- ) was graduated from the Har\-ard University Medical School in 1884 and entered the Army Medical Corps. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War he became colonel of the " Rough Riders," a volunteer cavalry regiment which he organized with Theodore Roosevelt. He served in the campaign about Santiago. In iSgg, at that time a major general, he became military governor of Cuba, and remained till the control was trans- ferred to the Republic of Cuba in 1902. In 192 1 he became governor general of the Philippines. In the years preceding the entry of the United States into the World War he was a prominent advocate of "preparedness" and of universal military training. His best-known book is "The Military Obligation of Citizenship." The address given below was delivered near Deadwood, South Dakota, on July 4, 1919.] We are assembled here today to dedicate this monument and this mountain to the memory of Theodore Roosevelt, the Great Leader, whom death has taken from us. The sense of loss and sorrow which spread over the land when he died is still heavy upon us. The nation mourns one of its greatest sons — a man whose memory will be as enduring among us as the mountain itself. Millions who have never known or seen Theodore Roosevelt feel that they have lost a friend ; that the nation has lost an absolutely honest and courageous leader ; that a great far- seeing intelligence has been taken from us at one of the most critical periods in our national life — taken from us at a time when we needed it more than ever before. America loved him and trusted him because he was, above everything else, an American. His broad vision, deep knowl- edge of the world's affairs, sound judgment, and courageous leadership were never more needed than in these days when it is necessary to stand together, shoulder to shoulder, for the Constitution and for the policies through which we have be- come great. While intensely American, his sympathy was as broad as the world. It was limited to no race or creed. ^From the Outlook, July 16, 1919. Reprinted by permission. THE MEANING OF AMERICA 27 Somehow the world seems less safe for the ideals we are struggling for. The cause of righteousness and fair dealing between nations, of open and honest policies, has lost its strongest champion. This feeling of loss is confined to no class or section ; it is felt by labor and capital, by soldier and sailor, by rabbi and priest, by the people as a whole. They all understand that he stood for the right, for the square deal, for high ideals, for clean living, and that he had studied and that he understood the difficulties of the poor and of labor ; that he appreciated the responsibilities and the problems of the rich. They appreciated his frankness, his absolute honesty, his will- ingness to admit a mistake once he saw it, H'e appealed to the conscience of our country and impressed upon business and industry new standards. He preached against the neglect of civic obligations by those of our citizens who should take most interest in them — the educated and well-to-do. His name is a synonym for honest courage and the spirit of service. He was a true statesman, wise enough to hold on to the good of the past and liberal enough to take advantage of what is best in the progress of today. He prepared a way for a better understanding between labor and capital. He appreciated the fact that they were inter- locking forces — that united they stood, separated they fell. He strove to encourage legitimate business and to curb and control unworthy enterprises. He held that wealth should be the servant of the people, and not their master. He believed in neither an autocracy of wealth nor an autocracy of labor, but rather in a democracy of both — a democracy characterized by a spirit of helpfulness and cooperation and an understand- ing of the vital relationship between them. As president he pursued an unbroken foreign policy of inter- national understanding and good will. He was a believer in arbitration, as shown by the many arbitration treaties made during his administration. He called to his assistance the best men available, regardless of party. He gathered his informa- tion by full and free consultation with the best men of all parties. The mainspring of his policy was an honest desire for justice and fair dealing, with a view to a righteous peace. He 2 8 \1TAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS was conservative and patient in crises, seeking freely the advice of all those best able to give it. The welfare of our country was ever foremost in his mind. He never sought it through oppression or injustice in dealing with the weak, nor did he lose sight of it in dealing with the strong. He believed in avoiding entangling alliances, while standing ready to help when our own conscience dictated, and realized that America must have a strong national spirit, backed by the right kind of a national conscience, in order that she might stand ready to play her part when civilization and the rights of mankind were in danger, acting under the dictates of her own conscience and not under the mandate of other nations. Among his last words were these : We must feel in the very marrow of our being that our loyalty is due only to America, and that it is not diluted by loyalty for any other nation or all other nations on the face of the earth. Only thus shall we fit ourselves really to serve other nations, to refuse ourselves to wrong them, and to refuse to let them do wrong or suffer wrong. He hated war, as all do who know it ; but he dreaded, above all things, failure to do our duty, even though it should be done through war. While believing in arbitration, he had that knowledge which comes from study of the past, which led him to understand that arbitration is most effective when we have not only justice but strength. He had sufficient confidence in America. He believed she could be organized and strong, ready to do her duty as she saw it, without becoming an oppressor of others. He realized that, strong as well as just, we would be a force for righteousness and world peace. He believed in international conventions and in bringing nations together to discuss matters which were of international interest ; in other words, in any procedure which would tend to make nations discuss questions at issue before fighting, provided such arrangements did not interfere with our essential sovereignty or violate our traditional policy. We lost our soundest and strongest advocate for peace when Theodore Roosevelt died. Soundest and strongest because he understood the character of man, the causes which lead to war, THE MEANING OF AMERICA 29 and realized that a nation must be not only right but of reso- lute spirit and have ready that moral and material organization which is often necessary to make the protest of a justice-loving nation effective. He saw the war approaching years before it came. When the fatal day arrived he pointed out where our duty lay. The people of the nation turned to him for leader- ship, not only in counsel but in the field. He planned to raise a division. Tens of thousands stood ready to respond to his call. The voluntary spirit of the country was behind him. Denied an opportunity to raise a division, he threw his whole energy and his whole soul into a vigorous support of the war. His children and those closest to him v/ent with his blessing. Everything he had, everything he controlled^ was devoted to the winning of the war, for he saw clearly that it was as much our war as that of our allies, and that it was a war for civilization. Born and reared under the best surroundings, well educated, widely read, with every opportunity to drift into the easy, careless life, his whole career from early youth was marked by a desire to do something worth while, to be of some service to the world. Frail in early youth, he made himself robust and strong. Handicapped by defective vision, he became an expert hunter, fearless explorer, a man who loved rough and dangerous places. He loved the simple, yet strenuous life. He worked hard and played hard. He was never inactive. Married life was for him the ideal life. He was singularly devoted to home and family. His respect for women was pro- found. He appreciated their position and influence in the world as few men do. He was clean of speech, and his life was clean and moral. He abhorred^ above all, suggestive speech, loose living, and immorality. While he loved all our people, he had an especial apprecia- tion of the people of the West. It was the part of the country in which he had found health and strength. He was fond of their simple life, their patriotism, and their directness. He loved a hard, fast run in a rough country, a bout with the broadswords, a hard gallop across country. He was an omniv- orous reader. He was equally at home at a roundup, in the 30 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS legislative halls, an assembly of scientists, or as a speaker at a university commencement. Travel, reading, study, and contact with men had given him a familiarity with men and affairs which is seldom found. He was a many-sided man ; a human dynamo, driven by the forces of truth, humanity, and patriotism. Like all men who do things, he made mistakes — mistakes which he was the first to recognize once he saw them. His honesty, purpose, and purity of character were such that slander never touched him and his real enemies were few. He had the old crusading spirit. He was always leading onwards and up- wards, generally well in the advance. He feared nothing, unless it were duty undone. He was a profound student of history and a devout Christian. He realized that progress comes generally through struggle and seldom through ease and idleness. He realized that wars have been man's portion at times ever since he was created ; that it is often necessary for a nation to do its duty through war. He believed that rational preparation against it, combined with justice and fair dealing, are the most effective forces for peace. He was a thorough believer in the basic principle of democ- racy, that hand in hand with the opportunity and privilege given us by the Republic goes obligation for national service in war as well as in peace. He believed that unless democracy accepts and lives up to this principle it cannot endure ; that shoulder to shoulder, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, new- comer and native-born, we must serve the Republic in war and in peace, in fair weather and in storm. He saw in this com-munity of service, in this equality of obligation, the flame to fuse the diverse elements in our population into one homo- geneous mass of Americans, the upbuilding of a spirit of national solidarity, and the establishment of better under- standing between the groups and classes of our people. He saw in it also something of the brotherhood of man which comes through community of effort, surroundings, and purpose, and that better appreciation of each other which comes from closer association, especially when this association is for a THE MEANING OF AMERICA 31 common purpose, and that purpose a lofty one — the defense of our country and the right. In Theodore Roosevelt's opinion no man who refuses service to the limit of his ability, whether in war or peace, is fit to be a citizen. Knowing our men will always go to war for what they be- lieve to be right and that when they refuse we shall cease to be a nation, and realizing that our women will send them and despise them if they do not go and that the better trained they are the fewer will die, he advocated universal training for national service, training on rational lines such as the Swiss or Australian. He realized that it was a false humanity — indeed, it was brutal inhumanity — not to give the men who are to light our battles a sporting chance. He saw the deadly unpreparedness of this country as the war crept upon us, and strove to correct it by voice and pen, for he knew that not to prepare meant thousands of unnecessary dead. Having been in war, he realized how great the losses must be where the men, and especially the officers, are unprepared and where there is any shortage in the machines and weapons with which man fights on the ground, in the air, on the sea, or beneath its surface. " Speak softly, but carry a big stick," with him, meant to be just and fair but ready to meet the forces of wrong with the disciplined strength of right. He had little patience with those adroit in the use of words and skilled in the building of phrases but lacking the concrete courage to meet issues when national honor, the lives of our people, and the best interests of humanity and civilization demanded action. It was impossible for him to be neutral in the face of wrong. He believed in a free press, free speech, and pitiless publicity, and understood that a democracy resenting criticism, smother- ing the press, and hampering publicity is a democracy in danger, if not a democracy dying. He was devoted to nature. No one loved forests and moun- tains more than he. From extensive travel and observation, not only in our own country but abroad, he saw the necessity of establishing a sound and rational system of conservation of cur 32 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS national forests, which were being ruthlessly wasted in many places, and under his leadership a sound system of conservation became a part of our national policy. In looking forward to an equitable distribution of our national wealth he urged a vigorous policy in reference to the reservation of our water- power sites and the reclamation of our desert areas that they may be ready for the coming millions. He established the Department of Commerce and Labor ; laid the foundation for better understanding between capital and labor ; did more than any other president to make the world realize what the United States stands for and what a government "of the people, for the people, by the people " means. He was the most inspiring and consequently the most domi- nant figure in our national life since Lincoln. The youth of the country turned to him ; he was its ideal. He was a brave and efficient officer, often reckless of his own safety but always careful of that of his men. He was always frank and straightforward, yet absolutely subordinate and loyaL While subordinate, he understood the difference between subordination and servility. He gave his opinion frankly, but obeyed promptly and faithfully whatever com- mands he received, whether they were in accord with his own views or not. He was a many-sided man, but foursquare to all the world — a wise statesman, naturalist, author, writer of history, scholar, soldier, builder of standards, a man with a clean soul and dauntless spirit, whose watchword was duty and whose life was one for the right, for country, and for God. Such was Theodore Roosevelt. He believed in the Constitution, in a government owned and run by and for the people and not in a people owmed and dominated by the government. Perhaps his greatest service was rendered in his last years, when he raised his voice against the deadly menace of internationalism and the heresies of the day. He believed in one flag, one language, and one country ; no dual citizenship. He believed in a sincere welcome and fair treatment for the immigrants who come to us for the purpose of adopting our standards and living up to them, and had no THE MEANING OF AMERICA 33 sympathy for those who come to us for the purpose of tearing down those things which we have spent our national life in building up. He believed that true liberty is found within the law. His creed was clearly expressed in his last message : I cannot be with you, and so all I can do is to wish you God- speed. There must be no sagging back in the fight for American- ism now that the war is over. . . . We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilate himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equal- ity with ever>-one else. . . . There can be no divided allegiances at all. We have room but for one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes only war against liberty and civilization. We have room but for one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house, and we have room for but one loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people. Such is the man to whom we today dedicate this mountain, which in its rugged simplicity and strength typifies his charac- ter. May the influence of his teachings be as permanent among us as the mountain itself ! God grant that his spirit and ideals may guide us in the days before us ! II NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES WESTERN DEMOCRACY AND BIG BUSINESS^ Frederick J, Turner [Frederick J. Turner (1861- ) was educated at the University of Wisconsin and at Johns Hopkins, and from 1889 to 1910 was connected with the former as instructor and professor of history. Since then he has been professor of history in Harvard University. He is best known for his studies of Western history, among these being the present essay and "The Rise of the New West" (1906) in the "American Nation" series. Nowhere can a better presenta- tion of the characteristic features of Western democracy and its various problems be found than in the essay from which the histori- cal review below has been taken.] The last chapter in the development of Western democracy is the one that deals with its conquest over the vast spaces of the new West. At each new stage of Western development the people have had to grapple with larger areas, with vaster combinations. The little colony of Massachusetts veterans that settled at Marietta received a land grant as large as the state of Rhode Island. The band of Connecticut pioneers that followed IMoses Cleaveland to the Connecticut Reserve occupied a region as large as the parent state. The area which settlers of New England stock occupied on the prairies of northern Illinois surpassed the combined area of Massachusetts, Con- necticut, and Rhode Island. Men who had been accustomed to the narrow valleys and the little towns of the East found themselves out on the boundless spaces of the West dealing with units of such magnitude as dwarfed their former expe- rience. The Great Lakes, the prairies, the Great Plains, the iFrom the Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XCI. Reprinted by permission, 34 NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 35 Rocky Mountains, the Mississippi and the Missouri, furnished new standards of measurement for the achievement of this in- dustrial democracy. IndividuaHsm began to give way to coop- eration and to governmental activity. Even in the earlier days of the democratic conquest of the wilderness, demands had been made upon the government for support in internal improve- ments, but this new West showed a growing tendency to call to its assistance the powerful arm of national authority. In the period since the Civil War the vast public domain has been donated to the individual farmer, to states for education, to railroads for the construction of transportation lines. More- over, with the advent of democracy in the last fifteen years upon the Great Plains, new physical conditions have presented themselves which have accelerated the social tendency of Western democracy. The pioneer farmer of the days of Lin- coln could place his family on the fiatboat, strike into the wilderness, cut out his clearing, and with little or no capital go on to the achievement of industrial independence. Even the homesteader on the Western prairies found it possible to work out a similar independent destiny, although the factor of trans- portation made a serious and increasing impediment to the free working out of his individual career. But when the arid lands and the mineral resources of the Far West were reached, no conquest was possible by the old, individual, pioneer methods. Here expensive irrigation works must be constructed, cooperative activity was demanded in utilization of the water supply, capital beyond the reach of the small farmer was re- quired. In a word, the physiographic province itself decreed that the destiny of this new frontier should be social rather than individual. Magnitude of social achievement is the watchword of the democracy since the Civil War. From petty towns built in the marshes, cities arose whose greatness and industrial power are the wonder of our time. The conditions were ideal for the production of captains of industry. The old democratic ad- miration for the self-made man, its old deference to the rights of competitive individual development, together with the stupendous natural resources that opened to the conquest 36 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS of the keenest and the strongest, gave such conditions of mobil- ity as enabled the development of the vast industries which in our own decade have marked the West. Thus, in brief, have been outlined the larger phases of the development of Western democracy in the different areas which it has conquered. There has been a steady development of the industrial ideal and a steady increase of the social tend- ency in this later movement of Western democracy. While the individualism of the frontier, so prominent in the earliest days of Western advance, has been preserved as an ideal, more and more these individuals struggling each with the other, dealing with vaster and vaster areas, with larger and larger problems, have found it necessary to combine under the leadership of the strongest. This is the explanation of the rise of those preeminent captains of industry whose genius has concentrated capital to control the fundamental resources of the nation. If now, in the way of recapitulation, we try to pick out from the influences that have gone to the making of Western democracy the factors which constitute the net result of this movement, we shall have to mention at least the following : Most important of all has been the fact that an area of free land has continually lain on the western border of the settled area of the United States. Whenever social conditions tended to crystallize in the East, whenever capital tended to press upon labor or political restraints to impede the freedom of the mass, there was this gate of escape to the free conditions of the frontier. These free lands promoted individualism, economic equality, freedom to rise, democracy. Men would not accept inferior wages and a permanent position of social subordination when this promised land of freedom and equality was theirs for the taking. Who would rest content under oppressive legisla- tive conditions when with a slight effort he might reach a land wherein to become a co-worker in the building of free cities and free states on the lines of his own ideal ? In a word, then, free lands meant free opportunities. Their existence has differentiated the American democracy from the democracies which have preceded it, because ever as democracy in the East NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 37 took the form of a highly specialized and complicated indus- trial societ}^, in the West it kept in touch with primitive condi- tions, and by action and reaction these two forces have shaped our history. In the next place, these free lands and this treasury of indus- trial resources have existed over such vast spaces that they have demanded of democracy increasing spaciousness of de- sign and power of execution. Western democracy is contrasted with the democracy of all other times in the largeness of the tasks to which it has set its hand and in the vast achievements which it has wrought out in the control of nature and of politics. Upon the region of the Middle West alone could be set down all of the great countries of Central Europe, — France, Ger- many, Italy, and Austria-Hungary, — and there would still be a liberal margin. It would be difficult to overemphasize the importance of this training upon democracy. Never before in the history of the world has a democracy existed on so vast an area and handled things in the gross with such success, with such largeness of design, and such grasp upon the means of execution. In short, democracy has learned in the West of the United States how to deal with the problem of magnitude. The old historic democracies were but little states with primitive economic conditions. But the very task of dealing with vast resources, over vast areas, under the conditions of free competition furnished by the West, has produced the rise of those captains of industry whose success in consolidating economic power now raises the question as to whether democracy under such conditions can survive. For the old military type of Western leaders like George Rogers Clark, Andrew Jackson, and William Henry Harrison have been substituted such industrial leaders as James Hill, John D. Rockefeller, and Andrew Carnegie. The question is imperative, then : What ideals persist from this democratic experience of the West, and have they acquired sufficient momentum to sustain themselves under conditions so radically unlike those in the days of their origin ? In other words, the question put at the beginning of this discussion be- comes pertinent. Under the forms of the American democracy 38 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS is there in reality evolving such a concentration of economic and social power in the hands of a comparatively few men as may make political democracy an appearance rather than a reality ? The free lands are gone. The material forces that gave vitality to Western democracy are passing away. It is to the realm of the spirit, to the domain of ideals and legisla- tion, that we must look for Western influence upon democracy in our own days. Western democracy has been from the time of its birth idealistic. The very fact of the wilderness appealed to men as a fair, blank page on which to write a new chapter in the story of man's struggle for a higher type of society. The Western wilds, from the Alleghenies to the Pacific, constituted the richest free gift that was ever spread out before civilized man. To the peasant and artisan of the Old World, bound by the chains of social class, as old as custom and as inevitable as fate, the West offered an exit into a free life and greater well-being among the bounties of nature, into the midst of resources that demanded manly exertion, and that gave in return the chance for indefinite ascent in the scale of social advance. "To each she offered gifts after his will." Never again can such an opportunity come to the sons of men. It was unique, and the thing is so near us, so much a part of our lives, that we do not even yet comprehend its vast significance. The existence of this land of opportunity has made America the goal of idealists from the days of the Pilgrim Fathers. With all the materialism of the pioneer movements, this idealistic conception of the vacant lands as an opportunity for a new order of things is unmistakably present. Kipling's ''Song of the English" has given it expression: We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town ; We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down. Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need, Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead. As the deer breaks — as the steer breaks — from the herd where they graze. In the faith of Httle children we went on our ways. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 39 Then the wood failed — then the food failed — then the last water dried — In the faith of little children we lay down and died. On the sand-drift — on the veldt-side — in the fern-scrub we lay, That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way. Follow after — follow after ! We have watered the root, And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit ! Follow after — we are waiting by the trails that we lost For the sound of many footsteps, for the tread of a host. Follow after — follow after — for the harvest is sown: By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own 1 This was the vision that called to Roger Williams, — that ''prophetic soul ravished of truth disembodied," "unable to enter into treaty with its environment," and forced to seek the wilderness. "Oh, how sweet," wrote William Penn, from his forest refuge, "is the quiet of these parts, freed from the troubles and perplexities of woeful Europe." And here he pro- jected what he called his " Holy Experiment in Government." If the later West offers few such striking illustrations of the relation of the wilderness to idealistic schemes, and if some of the designs were fantastic and abortive, none the less the influ- ence is a fact. Hardly a Western state but has been the Mecca of some sect or band of social reformers, anxious to put into practice their ideals in vacant land far removed from the checks of a settled form of social organization. Consider the Dun- kards, the Icarians, the Fourierists, the Mormons, and similar idealists who sought our Western wilds. But the idealistic influence is not limited to the dreamers' conception of a new state. It gave to the pioneer farmer and city builder a restless energy, a quick capacity for judgment and action, a belief in liberty, freedom of opportunity, and a resistance to the domi- nation of class which infused a vitality and power into the in- dividual atoms of this democratic mass. Even as he dwelt among the stumps of his newly cut clearing, the pioneer had the creative vision of a new order of society. In imagination he pushed back the forest boundary to the confines of a mighty commonwealth ; he willed that log cabins should become the 40 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS loft>- buildings of great cities. He decreed that his children should enter into a heritage of education, comfort, and social welfare, and for this ideal he bore the scars of the wilderness. Possessed with this idea he ennobled his task and laid deep foundations for a democratic state. Nor was this idealism by any means limited to the American pioneer. To the old native democratic stock has been added a vast army of recruits from the Old World. There are in the INIiddle West alone four million persons of German parentage out of a total of seven millions in the country. Over a million persons of Scandinavian parentage live in the same region. This im- migration culminated in the early eighties, and although there have been fluctuations since, it long continued a most extraor- dinary phenomenon. The democracy of the newer West is deeply affected by the ideals brought by these immigrants from the Old World. To them America was not simply a new home ; it was a land of opportunity, of freedom, of democracy. It meant to them, as to the American pioneer that preceded them, the opportunity to destroy the bonds of social caste that bound them in their older home, to hew out for themselves in a new country a destiny proportioned to the powers that God had given them, a chance to place their families under better condi- tions and to win a larger life than the life that they had left behind. He who believes that even the hordes of recent immi- grants from southern Italy are drawn to these shores by nothing more than a dull and blind materialism has not penetrated into the heart of the problem. The idealism and expectation of these children of the Old World^ the hopes which they have formed for a newer and a freer life across the seas, are almost pathetic when one considers how far they are from the possi- bility of fruition. He who would take stock of American de- mocracy must not forget the accumulation of human purposes and ideals which immigration has added to the American populace. In this connection it must also be remembered that these democratic ideals have existed at each stage of the advance of the frontier, and have left behind them deep and enduring effects on the thinking of the whole country. Long after the NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 4 1 frontier period of a particular region of the United States has passed away, the conception of society, the ideals and aspira- tions which it produced, persists in the minds of the people. So recent has been the transition of the greater portion of the United States from frontier conditions to conditions of settled life, that we are, over the larger portion of the United States, hardly a generation removed from the primitive conditions of the West. If, indeed, we ourselves were not pioneers, our fathers were, and the inherited ways of looking at things, the fundamental assumptions of the American people, have all been shaped by this experience of democracy on its westward march. This experience has been wrought into the very warp and woof of American thought. Even those masters of indus- try and capital who have risen to power by the conquest of Western resources came from the midst of this society and still profess its principles. John D. Rockefeller was born on a New York farm and began his career as a young business man in St. Louis. INIarcus Hanna was a Cleveland grocer's clerk at the age of twenty. Glaus Spreckels, the sugar king, came from Germany as a steerage passenger to the United States in 1848. INIarshall Field was a farmer boy in Gonway, Massachu- setts, until he left to grow up with the young Chicago. Andrew Carnegie came as a ten-year-old boy from Scotland to Pitts- burgh, then a distinctively Western town. He built up his fortunes through successive grades until he became the domi- nating factor in the great iron industries and paved the way for that colossal achievement, the steel trust. Whatever may be the tendencies of this corporation, there can be little doubt of the democratic ideals of Mr. Carnegie himself. With lavish hand he has strewn millions through the United States for the promotion of libraries. The effect of this library movement in perpetuating the democracy that comes from an intelligent and self-respecting people can hardly be measured. In his "Triumphant Democracy," published in 1886, Mr. Carnegie, the ironmaster, said, in reference to the mineral wealth of the United States : "Thank God, these treasures are in the hands of an intelligent people, the Democracy, to be used for the gen- eral good of the masses, and not made the spoils of monarchs, 42 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS courts, and aristocracy, to be turned to the base and selfish ends of a privileged hereditary class." It would be hard to find a more rigorous assertion of democratic doctrine than the celebrated utterance attributed to the same man, that he should feel it a disgrace to die rich. In enumerating the services of American democracy Presi- dent Eliot includes the corporation as one of its achievements, declaring that ''freedom of incorporation, though no longer exclusively a democratic agency, has given a strong support to democratic institutions." In one sense this is doubtless true, since the corporation has been one of the means by which small properties can be aggregated into an effective working body. Socialistic writers have long been fond of point- ing out also that these various concentrations pave the way for and make possible social control. From this point of view it is possible that the masters of industry may prove to be not so much an incipient aristocracy as the pathfinders for democ- racy in reducing the industrial world to systematic consoli- dation suited to democratic control. The great geniuses that have built up the modern industrial concentration were trained in the midst of democratic society. They were the product of these democratic conditions. Freedom to rise was the very condition of their existence. Whether they will be followed by successors who will adopt the policy of exploitation of the masses, and who will be capable of retaining under efficient control these vast resources, is one of the questions which we shall have to face. This, at least, is clear: American democracy is funda- mentally the outcome of the experiences of the American people in dealing with the West. Western democracy through the whole of its earlier period tended to the production of a society of which the most distinctive fact was the freedom of the individual to rise under conditions of social mobility, and whose ambition was the liberty and well-being of the masses. This conception has vitalized all American democ- racy and has brought it into sharp contrast with the democ- racies of history and with those modern efforts of Europe to create an artificial democratic order by legislation. The NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 43 problem of the United States is not to create democracy but to conserve democratic institutions and ideals. In the later period of its development Western democracy has been gaining ex- perience in the problem of social control. It has steadily enlarged the sphere of its action and the instruments for its perpetuation. By its system of public schools — from the grades to the graduate work of the great universities — the West has created a larger single body of intelligent plain people than can be found elsewhere in the world. Its educational forces are more democratic than those of the East, and count- ing the common schools and colleges together, the ]\Iiddle West alone has twice as many students as New England and the Middle States combined. Its political tendencies, whether we consider democracy, populism, or republicanism, are distinctly in the direction of greater social control and the conservation of the old democratic ideals. To these ideals the West as a whole adheres with even a passionate determination. If, in working out its mastery of the resources of the interior, it has produced a type of industrial leader so powerful as to be the wonder of the world, nevertheless it is still to be determined whether these men constitute a menace to democratic insti- tutions, or the most efficient factor for adjusting democratic control to the new conditions. Whatever shall be the outcome of the rush of this huge industrial modern United States to its place among the nations of the earth, the formation of its Western democracy will always remain one of the wonderful chapters in the history of the human race. Into this vast shaggy continent of ours poured the first feeble tide of European settlement. European men, institutions, and ideas were lodged in the American wilderness, and this great American West took them to her bosom, taught them a new way of looking upon the destiny of the common man, trained them in adaptation to the condi- tions of the New World, to the creation of new institutions to meet new needs ; and ever as society on her eastern border grew to resemble the Old World in its social forms and its industry, ever as it began to lose its faith in the ideals of democracy, she opened new provinces and dowered new democracies in 44 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS her most distant domains with her material treasures and with the ennobling intluence that the fierce love of freedom, the strength that came from hewing out a home, making a school and a church, and creating a higher future for his family, furnished to the pioneer. She gave to the world such types as the farmer Thomas Jefferson, with his Declaration of Inde- pendence, his statute for religious toleration, and his purchase of Louisiana. She gave us Andrew Jackson, that fierce Ten- nessee spirit who broke down the traditions of conservative rule, swept away the privacies and privileges of officialdom, and, like a Gothic leader, opened the temple of the nation to the populace. She gave us Abraham Lincoln, whose gaunt frontier form and gnarled, massive hand told of the conflict with the forest, whose grasp on the ax handle of the pioneer was no finner than his grasp of the helm of the ship of state as it breasted the seas of civil war. She gave us the tragedy of the pioneer farmer as he marched daringly on to the conquest of the arid lands and met his first defeat by forces too strong to be dealt with under the old conditions. She has furnished to this new democracy her stores of mineral wealth that dwarf those of the Old World, and her provinces that in themselves are vaster and more productive than most of the nations of Europe. Out of her bounty has come a nation whose industrial competition alarms the Old World, and the masters of whose resources wield wealth and power vaster than the wealth and power of kings. Best of all, the West gave, not only to the American but to the unhappy and oppressed of all lands, a vision of hope, an assurance that the world held a place where were to be found high faith in man and the will and power to furnish him the opportunity to grow to the full measure of his own capacity. Great and powerful as are the new sons of her loins, the Republic is greater than they. The paths of the pioneer have widened into broad highways. The forest clear- ing has expanded into affluent commonwealths. Let us see to it that the ideals of the pioneer in his log cabin shall enlarge into the spiritual life of a democracy where civic power shall dominate and utilize individual achievement for the common good. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 45 THE CHALLENGE OF THE PACIFIC COAST ^ JOSIAH ROYCE [Josiah Royce (1855-1916), one of the greatest American phi- losophers, was born in California and educated at the University of California and at Johns Hopkins. From 1882 to his death he taught philosophy at Harvard. He wrote, besides a large number of other works, a history of California, "The Philosophy of Loy- alty" (1908), and "William James and Other Essays on the Philosophy of Life" (191 1). His brilliant defense of idealism en- titled "Loyalty and Insight," in the last-mentioned volume, is perhaps the best popular e.xample of his philosophical teaching. The analysis below is part of an address entitled " The Pacific Coast : A Psychological Study of the Relations of Climate and Civilization," prepared for a meeting of the National Geographic Society in 189S and first printed in the International Monthly for November, 1900. Its luminous discussion of the distinctive temperament of the inhabitant of the Pacific coast is a valuable contribution to any survey of American character.] The free life and interchange of hospitality, so often de- scribed in the accounts of early California, has left its traces in the country life of California at the present day. Very readily, if you have moderate means, you can create your ovm quiet estate at a convenient distance from the nearest town. You may cover your house with a bower of roses, surround yourself with an orchard, quickly grow eucalyptus as a shade tree, and with nearly equal facility multiply other shade trees. You become, on easy terms, a proprietor, with estate and home of your own. Now all this holds, in a sense, of any mild climate. But in California the more regular routine of wet and dry seasons modifies and renders more stable the general psycho- logical consequences. All this is encouraging to a kind of harmonious individuality that already tends in the best in- stances toward a somewhat Hellenic type. A colleague of my own, a New Englander of the strictest persuasion, who visited California for a short time when he iFrom "Race Questions, Provincialism, and Other American Prob- lems." Copyright, 1908, by The Macmiilan Company. Reprinted by permission. 46 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS was himself past middle life, returned enthusiastic with the report that the California countrymen seemed to him to re- semble the ancient, yes, even the Homeric, Greeks of the Odyssey. The Californians had their independence of judg- ment ; their carelessness of what a barbarian might think, so long as he came from beyond the border ; their apparent free- dom in choosing what manner of men they should be ; their ready and confident speech. All these things my friend at once noticed as characteristic. Thus different in type are these country proprietors from the equally individual, the secretively independent, the silently conscientious New England villagers. They are also quite different from the typical Southern proprie- tors. From the latter they differ in having less tendency to respect traditions and in laying much less stress upon formal courtesies. The Californian, like the Westerner in general, is likely to be somewhat abrupt in speech, and his recent coming to the land has made him, on the whole, quite indifferent to family tradition, I myself, for instance, reached twenty years of age without ever becoming clearly conscious of what was meant by judging a man by his antecedents, a judgment that in an older and less isolated community is natural and inevi- table and that, I think, in most of our Western communities, grows up more rapidly than it has grown up in California, where the geographical isolation is added to the absence of tradition. To my own mind, in childhood, every human being was, with a few exceptions, whatever he happened to be. Hereditary distinctions I appreciated only in case of four types of humanity. There were the Chinamen, there were the Irishmen, there were the Mexicans, and there were the rest of us. Within each of these types every man, to my youthful mind, was precisely what God and himself had made him, and it was distinctly a new point of view to attach a man to the antecedents that either his family or his other social relation- ships had determined for him. Now, I say, this type of individuality, known more or less in our Western communities but developed in peculiarly high degree in California, seems to me due not merely to the newness of the community, and not merely to that other factor of geographical isolation that I NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 47 just mentioned, but to the relation with nature of which we have already spoken. It is a free and on the whole an emotionally exciting, and also, as we have said, an engrossing and intimate relation. In New England, if you are moody, you may wish to take a long walk out of doors, but that is not possible at all or even at most seasons. Nature may not be permitted to comfort you. In California, unless you are afraid of the rain, nature welcomes you at almost any time. The union of the man and the visible universe is free, is entirely unchecked by any hos- tility on the part of nature, and is such as easily fills one's mind with wealth of warm experience. A poet often quoted has laid stress upon the directly or symbolically painful aspects of the scene. But these are sorrows of a sort that mean pre- cisely that relation with nature which I am trying to character- ize, not the relation of hostility but of closeness. And this is the sort of closeness determined not merely by mild weather but by long drought and by the relative steadiness of all the climatic conditions. Now, I must feel that such tendencies are of vast impor- tance, not merely today but for all time. They are tendencies whose moral significance in the life of California is of course both good and evil, since man's relations with nature are, in general, a neutral material upon which ethical relations may be based. If you are industrious this intimacy with nature means constant cooperation, a cooperation never interrupted by frozen ground and deep snow. If you tend to idleness nature's kindliness may make you all the more indolent, and indolence is a possible enough vice with the dwellers in all mild climates. If you are morally careless nature encourages your freedom and tends in so far to develop a kind of morale frequently character- istic of the dwellers in gentle climates. Yet the nature of Cali- fornia is not enervating. The nights are cool, even in hot weather ; owing to the drought the mildness of the air is not necessarily harmful. Moreover, the nature that is so uniform also suggests in a very dignified way a regularity of existence, a definite reward for a definitely planned deed. Climate and weather are at their best always capricious, and, as we have 48 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS seen, the variations of the California seasons have involved the farniers in much anxiety and in many cases have given the farm- ing business, as carried on in certain California communities, the same sort of gambling tendency that originally vitiated the social value of the mining industry. But, on the other hand, as the conditions grew more stable, as agriculture developed, vast irrigation enterprises introduced once more a conservative tendency. Here again for the definite deed nature secures a definite return. In regions subject to irrigation man controls the weather as he cannot elsewhere. He is independent of the current season. And this tendency to organization — a tend- ency similar to the one that was obviously so potent in the vast ancient civilization of Egypt — is present under Cali- fornian conditions and will make itself felt. AMERICAN RESOURCES AND INVENTIONS^ Franklin K. Lane [Franklin K. Lane (1864-1921), though born in Canada, early moved to California and was educated at the University of Cali- fornia. He was a newspaper man and lawyer, and after 1902 was prominent in political life. In 1905 he became a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission ; in 1913 he was appointed Secre- tary of the Interior by President Wilson, and in the latter office emphasized especially the questions of conservation and land settle- ments for ex-soldiers. After resigning in 1920 he wrote frequently on these questions.] In the development of this continent, the discovery of its resources and their highest utilization, there is a fascination to the American which is superlative. It is, indeed, our life, and has called out the most sterling qualities in our character. Those foreigners who write of our country often engage in facetious if not scornful comment upon our bombastic manner of telling the story of our growth and of the things achieved or possessed. They fail, unfortunately, to see far enough into the secret of our pride. ^This article is an abstract from one of the reports which Mr. Lane, as Secretary of the Interior, made to the President of the United States. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 49 To have taken the prize for the largest pumpkin at the county fair, or to have milled more ore in a day than any other mine, or to have built the highest dam in the world — such things are to us adventures which make the game of opening a new country worth while. No one would smile when told that a foreign army had made an unprecedented number of miles in a day's march, or had brought into action a gun wf unrivaled caliber or built a ship of unequaled displacement or power. These are the very things on which nations pride themselves as revealing their capacity, ingenuity, and resourcefulness. They make for national self- respect and self-confidence. And so it is with the American. His place in the scheme of things is to reveal to the world what can be done in the devel- opment of a new country ; and every crop raised, every school- house built, every rail laid, every nail driven, is evidence that the work he is sent to do is being done. Instead of being the petty boasting of a parochial-minded provincial, this spirit is of the very essence of the highest creative quality. It is not a figure of speech to say that every American has it in his heart that he is in a small sense a discoverer, that he is join- ing in the revelation to the world of something that it was not before aware of and of which it may some day make use. Men work for what they think worth while, and if they find their joy in proving that land has coal, and tell about it proudly, they may be serving themselves, but they are also serving the world. The clerk in the store or the mechanic in a mill may not consciously engage in any enterprise which makes this appeal, but when he learns that the government of which he is a part has within the year opened a town on the shores of the North Pacific which now has nearly three thousand inhabitants, and has driven a railroad nearly forty miles inland toward the arc- tic circle on its way to the coal fields of the Matanuska and the gold fields of the Tanana, he has a feeling that he too is participating in the making of this new world. One might say that this was nothing more than sentimental pride. There is a truer and a more dignified word for this quality : it is the expression of the American instinct for improvement. 50 \1TAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS We have a passion for going into the unknown, for answer- ing the puzzles that are put to us. Our imagination is chal- lenged by difficulty. And the result has been a century of growth, which in its magic and in its largeness casts a spell upon the mind. Some months since, I sought to learn what I could of the assets of this country as they might be revealed by this depart- ment, where we were in point of development, and what we had with which to meet the world, which was teaching us that war was no longer a set contest between more or less mobile armed forces but an enduring contest between all the life forces of the contesting parties, their financial strength, their indus- trial organization and adaptability, their crop yields, and their mineral resources, and that it ultimately comes to a test of the very genius of the people involved. For to mobilize an army, even a great army, is now no more than an idle evidence of a single form of strength if behind this army the nation is not organized. An army is no longer merely so many rifles and men, cart- ridges and horses, but chemists and inventors, mines and farms, automobiles and roads, airships and gasoline, barbed wire and turning lathes, railroads and weather prophets — indeed, the complete machiner}^ of an industrial nation's life. And out of the reports then made these facts stand out : With the exception of one or two minor minerals the United States produces every mineral that is needed in industry, and this can be said of no other country. We produce 66 per cent of the world's output of petroleum, 60 per cent of its copper, 40 per cent of its coal and iron, and 32 per cent of its zinc. Tin in small quantities is produced in Alaska, and platinum in Oregon, Nevada, and California ; manganese in Virginia, Georgia, Arkansas, and California ; but of these latter min- erals, as of nickel and some others of less importance, our supply is altogether inadequate for our consumption. We can build a battleship or an automobile (excepting for the tires), a railroad or a factory, entirely from the products of American mines and forests. To replenish the soil we have phosphorus in abundance ; potash is known to exist in the NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 51 deposits of Searles Lake, California, — which, however, is not yet commercially available, — and in alunite, where it is com- bined with aluminum, and deposits of which are found in sev- eral states ; and nitrogen can be extracted from the air by cheap hydroelectric power, as is now done in Germany, Norway, and elsewhere ; so that we can feed the earth and keep it sustained. Our soil and climate are so varied that we can produce all the grains, fruits, vegetables, and fibers known to the temperate zone and some found in the semitropics. And to crown all these we have water power that can be made to generate per- haps as much as 60,000,000 horse power. The public domain is rapidly growing less, which means that it is being occupied and used. Of the two hundred and odd million acres left, 12,000,000 acres have already been classified as coal bearing, over 4,000,000 as probably carrying oil, and 2,600,000 as phosphate lands. The most valuable discovery made in recent years as affecting the public domain is that the semiarid regions may become abundantly produc- tive under dry-farming methods. The Territory of Alaska, con- taining perhaps 400,000,000 acres, is now the great body of public domain. It is heavily mineralized and is a land of un- known possibilities. One gold mine there has recently erected a mill of 6000 tons daily capacity, with ore in sight to run this mill for fifty years. The waters that flow idly to the sea could be made to sup- port not less than fifty million people if turned upon the land that otherwise will remain pasture land or altogether worth- less. The demonstration has been given that the lands of little rain can be made more fruitful than those where the rainfall is abundant. Land and water we have ; the problem of bring- ing them together is one only of money. When the war in Europe shut off certain chemical supplies, one of our chemists, Mr. Rittman, found a new process (which has been given to the public), by which benzol and toluol — the foundation of aniline dyes and explosives — and gaso- line may be made from crude petroleum. Mr. Parsons and Mr. Moore have devised and proved a process for the reduction of radium from carnotite ores. An oil expert, Mr. Pollard, was 52 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS put to the task of saving the billions of feet of gas wasting daily into the air from the oil wells of Oklahoma, and was successful. Mr. Cottrell has devised a method of taking solids and liquids out of smelter smoke, such as sulphuric acid, arsenic, zinc, and lead. During the past fifty years the people of the United States have uttered two thirds of all the revolutionary, epoch-making inventions of the world, ranging from the telephone and the incandescent lamp to Wright's aeroplane and high-speed steel (see below). Each day we issue an average of two hundred letters patent to American inventors, and the number of in- ventions is increasing with the years. There are over twenty million boys and girls in the public schools of the United States. These, then, are the assets of the United States as revealed in but this one department — lands and waters and mines, in- ventors and chemists and engineers, and a new generation coming on which will add still further to the adventurous annals of peace. LIST OF EPOCH-MAKING INVENTIONS BY PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES DURING THE LAST FIFTY YEARS Invention Telephone Typewriter Cash register Incandescent lamp .... Talking machine Electric furnace reduction . Electrolytic alkali production Transparent photograph film Motion-picture machine . . Buttonhole sewing machine Carborundum Calcium carbide Artificial graphite .... Split-phase induction motor Air brake Electric welding Type-bar casting Inventor Date Bell 1876 Sholes IS78 Patterson IS85 Edison iSSo Edison IS7S Cowles 1885 Castner 1890 Eastman 1888 Edison 1893 Reece 1 88 1 Acheson 1891 Willson 188S Acheson 1S96 Tesla 1887 Westinghouse 1869 Thomson 18S9 Mergenthaler 1SS5 NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 53 LIST OF EPOCH-MAKING INVENTIONS (Continued) Chain-stitch shoe-sewing machine . . . Single-type composing machine .... Continuous-process match machine . . Chrome tanning Disk plows (modern type) Welt machine Electric lamp Recording adding machine Celluloid Automatic knot-tying harvester machine Water gas Machine for making barbed wire . . . Rotary converter Automatic car coupler High-speed steel Dry-air process for blast furnace . . . Block signals for railways Trolley car Harveyized armor plate French & Myers 1881 Lanston 1887 Beecher 1888 Schulz 1884 Hardy 1896 Goodyear 1871 Brush 1879 Burroughs 1888 Hyatt 1870 Appleby 1880 Lowe 1875 Glidden 1875 Bradley 1887 Janney 1873 Taylor & White 1901 Gayley 1894 Robinson 1872 Van Depoele & Sprague 1S84-1887 Harvey 1891 As compared with this list, note the following list of impor- tant inventions that have been made during the same period by foreigners, which has been compiled from information furnished by the forty-three examining divisions of the Patent Office : Invention Electric steel Dynamite Artificial alizarin (dye) . . Siphon recorder Gas engine (Otto cycle) . . Wireless telegraphy . . . Smokeless powder .... Diesel oil motor Centrifugal creamer . . . Manganese steel .... Electric transformer . . . Cyanide process for extraclinf metal Mantle burner By-product coke oven . . Inventor Heroult Nobel Graebe & Lieberman Thompson Otto Marconi Vielle Diesel l)c Laval Iladfield Gaulard & Gibbs .'\rthur & De Forrest Welsbach Hoffman Nationai-itv Date French .Swedish German English German Italian French German Swedish English English English Austrian Austrian 1900 1867 1869 1874 1877 1900 1886 1900 1880 1884 1883 1888 1890 1893 54 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS THE CONSERVATION OF OUR RESOURCES ^ John Bates Clark [John Bates Clark (1847- ) is a well-known political econo- mist. He was educated at Amherst College and has been a pro- fessor of political economy in Columbia University since 1895. The following essay is from a recent article of his entitled ''The Eco- nomics of Waste and Conservation."] The story of "Realmah," by Sir Arthur Helps, contains a description of a so-called "House of Wisdom." This was the dwelling place of a number of prophets who possessed differing degrees of prophetic power, lived upon fees, and had incomes varying wuth the number of their clients. In an outer inclosure two men were living in the deepest poverty. They were called "Spoolans," and were contemptuously treated and almost never consulted, since their special gift consisted in predicting events that would occur a hundred or more years in the future. In the next inclosure there were men who were only a shade less miserable. They were the "Raths," and had few clients, because they could foretell only what would occur after a lapse of twenty-seven years. In another and better apart- ment there were five " Uraths," who could tell what would hap- pen after a single year should elapse, and these men were in good spirits, handsomely dressed, and evidently well off ; while the "Auraths," who could prophesy what would happen after a month, had a superabundance of clients and of fees. Vastly v/ealthy were the " Mauraths," who could foretell what would happen after three days ; but the multimillionaire of the com- pany was the great "Amaurath," who was approached with the awe with which a servant might have approached Sardana- palus, for this man could foresee what would occur after six hours. This description applies to a common mental attitude toward the future. Intelligence does, indeed, modify it, and the iFrom the Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CVI. Reprinted by permission. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 55 man of property who is providing for his descendants is by no means on a plane in respect of forethought with a happy, go-lucky Southern negro. The founder of an estate would have need of the services of the most farseeing class in the House of Wisdom, but the average man would pass by or, at most, in a leisure moment, satisfy curiosity at the cost of a trifling tip. The Amauraths and their great chief would get the rich fees. If we judge by appearances it seems that states come in the same category^ and it is certainly true that a people in its entirety will often act more blindly than a select class would ever do in a private capacity. Yet there is every reason why a state should make use of forethought. A century is as nothing in its life, and yet how many acts do legislatures, congresses, and parliaments pass for the benefit of coming ages? In all that concerns those periods the national consciousness is dull. Representatives are allowed to take short views and, in their capacity as politicians, are compelled to use their efforts in ways that afford quick results. Where an act insures a benefit that will begin at once and continue forever, the continuance does not tell against it, but counts somewhat in its favor^ and more and more, it is fair to say, the nearer part of the endless future counts as a makeweight ; but the real test comes when it is necessary to sacrifice something now in order to gain some- thing hereafter. When an economic measure will cost us some- thing but will enrich posterity, how general and ardent is the support of it ? We seem willing that the earth should be largely used up in a generation or two. If we turn a hunter loose in a well-stocked deer forest, will he so use the game as to perpetuate the supply ? Not if there are other hunters who have access to the preserve. In that case he will shoot bucks, does, and fawns lest, while he is sparing the does and fawns, another man may kill them. If he taps a reservoir of natural gas, he will draw off the supply as fast as possible, knowing that his neighbors will do so if he does not. These cases represent the condition that insures the most injurious but also the most morally pardon- able type of exploitation. A single individual cannot prevent 56 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS or greatly reduce the destruction ; all he can do is to hold his hands and let others do the destroying and get the return. The game and the gas are at the mercy of whoever is near enough to them to take a hand in the scramble. If the hunter had the preserve well fenced and in his own exclusive posses- sion, he would not exterminate the game. A very little intel- ligence would make him rear this herd as a ranchman rears domestic cattle ; and a similar thing is true of the men who tap reservoirs of gas, since if they could confine and hold their several shares of the elusive material^ they would not waste it as rapidly as they do. Exposing any valuable thing to a free-for-all seizure is in- suring the surest and speediest destruction of it, and private ownership marks an advance on this condition, even from the point of view of public interest. Only a monumental idiot will kill a goose that lays golden eggs when he has her securely penned, but when she is at large and other men are chasing her an intelligent selfish man will do it, since under those cir- cumstances only a quick use of his gun will make her afford to him personally even so much as a dinner. And refraining from shooting would not save the goose. The whole issue lies between this particular destroyer and some other, and the situation fairly well describes the attitude of many who prey on public resources. They would do better, though not usually very well, if they owned the resources outright. Private ownership con- fers a power to preserve and affords some motive for doing it, and it is for the state to supply what will decisively reenforce that motive. Resources that are needed by the public may well be privately owned when, either spontaneously or under com- pulsion, owners use them for the public. What would be a perfectly ideal course for a nation to pur- sue with reference to the future ? Give its people a keen enough perception of conditions, and altruism enough to estimate the welfare of coming generations at its true value, and how far would it trench on its own immediate gains for the sake of later benefits ? The supposition itself departs from the realm of fact, for no such keen intelligence and perfect altruism have ever existed ; and in asking what would happen if they did NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 57 exist we part company with realities. We find at once that what ideally should be done goes too far beyond what is ever thought of as practicable to be advocated without bringing suspicion on the mental state of those who favor it. And yet it is well worth while to see how far into the future a national policy would look if it were governed by perfect intelligence and high sense of obligation. A mere glance will show how little danger there is of overdoing the care for future interests or of becoming fanatics on the subject of protecting them. In view of the unending ages that will be affected by its action, an ideal government would begin by making a very searching inquiry into the extent of existing resources and would secure, if not complete knowledge, at least a basis for a confident estimate of the length of time they would hold out under given rates of consumption. It would also do another thing which it strains the imagination to picture as a reality, in that it would estimate the welfare of the people of the future as quite on a plane of importance with the people of the present, and would use one and the same degree of care in guarding the welfare of all. As an end of effort it would count the happiness of a thousand generations not yet born as a thousand times as important as the welfare of one genera- tion now living. It would, indeed, recognize the fact that the future population will receive many of its blessings by transmission from the present one, and that there must be no breaks in the transmission. To impoverish the present generation would be bad for later ones. Men of today must be well enough off to endow their children with the means of maintaining and gradually raising their standard of living, and this fact would prove highly important as bearing on a practical policy. Merely as helping to make up the summum bonum of economics, human welfare is scientifically one and the same thing wherever, in point of time, it is located. Still recognizing the fact that we are idealizing humanity and assuming an insight and an altruism which is far from existing, we may ask what are a very few of the things that with a really just regard for a thousand generations — a small fraction of the number that have already lived and passed S8 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS away — a government would do. It would call a halt on the unlimited burning of coal for motive power. Long before a hundred generations will have passed, this will be sorely needed for heating dwellings and workshops and for smelting ores. A steam engine utilizes a small fraction of the potential energy of the coal, while a smelting furnace utilizes more, and an apparatus for heating dwellings, even where it is waste- ful, puts the fuel to a very necessary use and gets a great, absolute benefit from it. A policy that would protect the interests of the later dwellers on the planet would stop burning up the combustible part of it in an unnecessary way and would get motive power from waterfalls, tidal movements, and waves. In the end it might conceivably utilize the electricity that is wasted in thunderstorms, and stop the storm ; or, as Edward Atkinson once suggested, it might create electrical currents by induction, through the motion of the earth. The revolving planet would thus be converted into a dynamo, and if the other planets and the sun served the purpose of magnets, and the combination were made to drive our ships and our railroad trains, then of a truth we should have "hitched our wagons to a star." It is probably doing that, in the more familiar and figurative sense, to suggest this possibility at all ; and decidedly it is doing this in a fatuous and unhappy way to make the chance of working such mechanical miracles in the future a reason for destroying our stock of fuel and letting coming gen- erations shift for themselves. What if, after the fuel is gone, the earth declines to be the dynamo we need? What is not fanciful is the opinion that in simpler and more obvious ways it is possible to get from other sources much of the power that we now get from coal. Preserving forests and husbanding natural gas and mineral oil are demanded in the interest of a very near period. For within the single century is likely to come the evil which destruction of these gifts of nature will cause. Moreover, it is perfectly certain that, quite apart from causing destruction of coal, the making over to private citizens of a vast value in known deposits of it now in public ownership will misuse the people's property in a way of which they should and will take NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 59 account. Without in any wise limiting the use of the fuel or ceasing to treat it as an asset of the people now living, we shall call a halt on recklessly alienating it. Forests present a problem by themselves, and it is much in the foreground. The interests dependent on them are vital, and the general policy that is needed is clear. At stake are the preservation of the water supply and, in mountainous regions, of the soil, and the furnishing of lumber, fuel, paper pulp, and many other products. Much of the exploitation that is now going on both destroys existing trees and prevents others from growing, and it exposes untouched areas of forest to destruc- tion by fire. Lumbermen are barely beginning to destroy the tree tops and branches which the cutting of a forest leaves strewn on the ground. When they are burned, one pine forest is naturally succeeded by another ; whereas, when they are left, it is usually followed by cottonwoods. To save a very slight present expense the supply of lumber for the near future is put in jeopardy, and the case for rigorous public regulation is a clear one. In another respect forestry is peculiar. Conservation not only permits but requires the use of the thing that is the object of care. WTien the crew of a ship are on a short allow- ance of food, the purpose is so to conserve the food as to make it do its utmost for the consumers. If the voyage is long enough the supply will come to an end despite all efforts, but it is not so with forests. There is no need of their ever disappearing or dwindling. Cutting may be followed by renewed growing, and the supply may last forever. Humanity is on an unending voyage and may secure, in the case of lumber, an unfailing supply, but not till the slaughtering of forests that has thus far gone on is brought to an end. We have nearly if not quite reached the point where the measures that the state needs to prescribe would be profitable for private owners. Such regulation would, at least, impose on private owners a far lighter burden than would many another measure of rational conservation. The scientific treatment of forests not only does not preclude a use of them but positively requires it, and complete disuse is itself wasteful. Judicious 6o VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS cutting may go on forever without lessening the supply of timber which a forest contains, while refraining from all cut- ting is like letting fruit or growing crops go to decay. The trees that are ripe for use may give place to others which will keep up the succession and preserve forever the integrity of the forest ; and few, indeed, are the public measures which would do as much for the general welfare as insisting on this amount of conservation. There is one point in forest economy which demands especial eniphasizing ; namely, that in a certain sense the common allegation is true that a small area of growing trees is capable of meeting the entire demand of the country for lumber. It will do so at a price. With the forests depleted the price rises, the use of lumber falls off, and for many purposes for which we once used it, we go without it. For imperative needs there is enough of it still, but is it right that we should have to limit ourselves to those uses and pay famine rates for the lumber that they require? Yet that is the condition we shall rapidly approach if no care is used to keep in available condition the forests that we have. It is the time for prescribing the simple beginnings of scientific forestry, for inaugurating it on public lands and enforcing the practice on private lands. We may not yet be ready for the German system, that in the future will be called for here ; but we are more than ready for the measures that will stop the destruction both of growing timber and of the sources of future timber. Private monopoly is a hateful thing, for which good words are seldom to be said ; but there is one palliative fact about a monopoly of forests — that it would probably curtail produc- tion, and it would let new forests grow. In the single point of perpetuating the supply of lumber, the interests of a monop- oly would more nearly harmonize with those of the state than those of ordinary proprietors. Vanishing resources would last longer in its hands than they will when held by private and competing owners. It would be more endurable to pay, in the shape of a high price, a small and permanent tax to a monopoly than to pay to anybody a famine price after the forests are largely destroyed. But why should we do either ? If we must NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 6 1 have nothing but purely private action, there is something to be said in favor of monopoly ; but if we can have efficient regulation, all such apologetic pleas fail. We can, if we choose, own forests publicly and manage them for the common good. The aversion to monopoly should be and is greater than the aversion to a limited amount of public production, and it is far greater than is the opposition to public regulation. These two measures afford the escape from the hard alternative of the "devil and the deep sea," — the former being the control of the lumber supply by a great self-seeking corporation ; and the other, the destroying of it by compet- ing lumbermen. The logic of the entire situation points to some public forestry as one of the admissible and, within limits, desirable functions of the state, and a bold and effective states- manship will lose no time in recognizing this fact and preparing to act on it. There is no taint of real socialism in such a policy. For various good reasons we must have forest reserves, and it is proper to use them in better ways than by letting the lumber go altogether to waste or by intrusting the cutting to contractors. Let private forestry also continue on its present great scale, but let it be under regulation. There are other wastes going on which rival the destruction of forests in sacrificing the future to the present. Oil is now offered as a fuel, and the owners of engines are invited to con- sider the comparative cost per horse power of oil and of coal. The immediate cost account, and no further consideration, will decide whether this material shall go the way of natural gas. Exploitation of the coal supply is a serious matter in a view that is rational enough to range over the coming centuries. To a world that neither knows nor cares what will happen more than a hundred years hence, it is a matter of indifference. Con- servation in the case of coal, however, has to do with something besides the manner of using it ; namely, the question of owning it. We shall use it freely enough in any case, but there is no rea- son for directly giving vast quantities of it to private persons or corporations. That depletes the immediate estate of the people. In the general policy of conservation the issue is one of transient interests as against permanent ones, of small benefits 62 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS as against great ones, of private gain as against public wel- fare. The appeal throughout is to the collective intelligence of the people. The more rational is the view that is taken, the more radical is the conservation that is favored. The people are as yet not fully alive to the necessity for a thorough- going protection of the resources of the near future ; and those who thrive by wasting them are extremely alive to the desirability of continuing the operation. The case calls for a leadership that shall organize the people and enable them to act on the principles which they vaguely perceive in both guarding and utilizing their rich inheritance. The utmost that any party is practically trying to get is less than the welfare of even a single century requires. COUNTRY LIFE AND CONSERVATION^ Theodore Roosevelt [For biographical sketch of Theodore Roosevelt see page 14.] There is no body of our people whose interests are more inextricably interwoven with the interests of all the people than is the case with the farmers. The Country Life Commission should be revived with greatly increased powers ; its aban- donment was a severe blow to the interests of our people. The welfare of the farmer is a basic need of this nation. It is the men from the farm who in the past have taken the lead in every great movement within this nation, whether in time of war or in time of peace. It is well to have our cities prosper, but it is not well if they prosper at the expense of the country, I am glad to say that in many sections of our country there has been an extraordinary revival of recent years in intelligent in- terest in and work for those who live in the open country. In this movement the lead must be taken by the farmers them- selves ; but our people as a whole, through their governmental agencies, should back the farmers. Everything possible should iprom the Outlook, Vol. CII. Reprinted by permission. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 63 be done to better the economic condition of the farmer and also to increase the social value of the life of the farmer, the farmer's wife, and their children. The burdens of labor and loneliness bear heavily on the women in the country ; their welfare should be the especial concern of all of us. Everything possible should be done to make life in the country profitable so as to be attractive from the economic standpoint and also to give an outlet among farming people for those forms of activity which now tend to make life in the cities especially desirable for ambitious men and women. There should be just the same chance to live as full, as well-rounded, and as highly useful lives in the country as in the city. The government must cooperate with the farmer to make the farm more productive. There must be no skinning of the soil. The farm should be left to the farmer's son in better and not worse condition because of its cultivation. INIoreover, every invention and improvement, every discovery and economy, should be at the service of the farmer in the work of produc- tion ; and, in addition, he should be helped to cooperate in business fashion with his fellows, so that the money paid by the consumer for the product of the soil shall to as large a degree as possible go into the pockets of the man who raised that product from the soil. So long as the farmer leaves cooperative activities with their profit sharing to the city man of business, so long will the foundations of wealth be under- mined and the comforts of enlightenment be impossible in the country communities. In every respect this nation has to learn the lessons of efficiency in production and distribution and of avoidance of waste and destruction ; we must develop and improve instead of exhausting our resources. It is entirely possible by improvements in production, in the avoidance of v/aste, and in business methods on the part of the farmer to give him an increased income from his farm while at the same time reducing to the consumer the price of the articles raised on the farm. Important although education is everywhere, it has a special importance in the country. The country school must fit the country life ; in the country, as elsewhere, educa- tion must be hitched up with life. The country church and 64 \ ITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS the country Young Men's and Young Women's Christian Asso- ciations have great parts to play. The farmers must own and work their own land ; steps must be taken at once to put a stop to the tendency towards absentee landlordism and tenant farming ; this is one of the most imperative duties confronting the nation. The question of rural banking and rural credits is also of immediate importance. There can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country. Just as we must conserve our men, women, and children, so we must conserve the resources of the land on which they live. We must conserve the soil so that our children shall have a land that is more and not less fertile than that our fathers dwelt in. We must conserve the forests, not by disuse but by use, making them more valuable at the same time that we use them. We must conserve the mines. Moreover, we must insure so far as possible the use of certain types of great natural resources for the benefit of the people as a whole. The public should not alienate its fee in the water power which will be of incalculable consequence as a source of power in the immediate future. The nation and the states within their sev- eral spheres should by immediate legislation keep the fee of the water power, leasing its use only for a reasonable length of time on terms that will secure the interests of the public. Just as the nation has gone into the work of irrigation in the West, so it should go into the work of helping reclaim the swamp lands of the South. We should undertake the complete development and control of the INIississippi as a national work, just as we have undertaken the work of building the Panama Canal. We can use the plant and we can use the human experience left free by the completion of the Panama Canal in so developing the ]\Iississippi as to make it a mighty highroad of commerce and a source of fructification and not of death to the rich and fertile lands lying along its lower length. In the West the forests, the grazing lands, the reserves of every kind, should be so handled as to be in the interests of the actual settler, the actual home maker. He should be en- couraged to use them at once, but in such a way as to preserve and not exhaust them. We do not intend that our natural NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 65 resources shall be exploited by the few against the interests of the many, nor do we intend to turn them over to any man who v/ill wastefully use them by destruction, and leave to those who come after us a heritage damaged by just so much. The man in whose interests we are working is the small farmer and settler, the man who works with his own hands, who is working not only for himself but for his children and who wishes to leave to them the fruits of his labor. His permanent welfare is the prime factor for consideration in developing the policy of conservation, for our aim is to preserve our natural resources for the public as a whole, for the average man and the average woman who make up the body of the American people. FORWARD TO THE LAND MOVEMENT ^ David Franklin Houston [David Franklin Houston (1866- ) was educated at South Carolina College and at Harvard. Before becoming Secretary of Agriculture he had taught political science and served as the head of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas and of Washington University, St. Louis. He was Secretary of the Treasury 1920-1Q21.] Interest in land for homes and farms increases in the nation as the population grows. It has become more marked as the area of public land suitable and available for agriculture has diminished. It is intensified at the present time by reason of the suggestion and desire that returned soldiers and others who may wish to secure farms shall have opportunity to do so under suitable conditions. It finds expression, too, in discus- sions of the number of tenant farmers and in its meaning and significance. There is still room in the nation for many more people on farms. The United States proper contains about 1,900,000,000 acres of land, of which an area of 1,140,000,000 acres, or 60 ■■ From the Report of the Secretary of Agriculture. Government Print- ing Office, 1919. 66 VITAL FORCES IX CURRENT EVENTS per cent, is tillable. Approximately 367,000,000 acres, or 32 per cent of this, was planted in crops in 19 18. In other words, for ever>' hundred acres now tilled 300 acres may be utilized when the country is fully settled. Of course much of the best land (especially that most easily brought under cultivation and in reasonably easy reach of large consuming centers) is in use, though much of it, possibly 85 per cent, is not yielding full returns. Extension of the farmed area will consequently be made with greater expense for clearing, preparation^ drainage, and irrigation, and for profitable operation will involve market- ing arrangements of a high degree of perfection and the dis- criminating selection of crops having a relatively high unit value. Increased production can therefore be secured in two ways : namely, through the use of more land and through the adop- tion of improved processes of cultivation of all land and of marketing. The latter involves the general application of the best methods used by the most skillful farmers and urged by experienced, practical, and scientific experts. It will neces- sitate seed selection and improvement^ plant and animal breeding, soil development through rotation, the discriminating use of fertilizers, the control and eradication of plant and animal diseases, good business practice and thrift, and many other things. It means that farming must be profitable and that society must be willing to pay the price. Under no other condition can farming expand. It means, too, that only as many will or need stay on farms as may be necessary to supply what the consumers will take at prices which will jus- tify production. IMany people speak as if they thought there should be no limit to the number engaged in agriculture or to production of crops. The farmer must consider his balance just as much as any other business man. The number of in- dividuals remaining in the farming industry will, in the long run, continue to adjust itself roughly to the economic demand and will increase as it expands or as relative economies are effected. To a certain extent we are still pioneering the continent, agriculturally and otherwise, and are still exporters of food, NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 67 feedstuffs, and materials for clothing. With wise foresight and increased employment of scientific practice, under the stimulation of intelligent agencies, we can take care of and provide for a very much larger population under even more favorable circumstances and in greater prosperity. This is the task to which the nation has set itself, and indicates the responsibility resting upon each individual and especially upon the farming population and state and federal agencies respon- sible for leadership. We have, up to the present, succeeded in this enterprise. In the years from 1900 to 191 5 the nation gained a population of approximately 22,000,000, and they have been fed and clothed in large measure from domestic sources. It is estimated that in the years from 191 5 to 1918 the population increased by 3,200,000, of which a very small part was from immigration. We shall, perhaps, gain as many more in the next fifteen or twenty years, even if the rate of immigration should not be maintained, for the natural growth in recent years^ averaging about three fourths of a million a year, shows an upward tendency. It would be desirable to facilitate land settlement in more orderly fashion. This can be effected in a measure by sys- tematic effort on the part of the Federal government, the states, and the several communities to furnish through appropriate agencies more reliable information, intelligent guidance, and well-considered settlement plans. The nation has suffered not a little from irresponsible and haphazard private direction of settlement. In many sections, especially in the newer and the more rapidly developing ones, the situation has been compli- cated by the activities of promoters whose main concern was to dispose of their properties. They too frequently succeeded in attracting farmers to localities remote from markets, where they either failed to produce crops or met with disaster through lack of market outlets or adecjuate marketing arrangements. It is particularly vital that by every feasible means the processes of acquiring ownership of farms be encouraged and hastened. This process is real in spite of appearances to the contrary. It has been too generally assumed and represented that tenancy has increased at the expense of ownership and that 68 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS we are witnessing agricultural deterioration in this direction. Tenancy does present aspects which should cause great con- cern, but its bright sides have not been sufficiently considered. The situation does not warrant a pessimistic conclusion. In the thirty years from 1880 to 1910 the number of farms in the United States increased from 4^09,000 to 6,362,000; the number of those owned, from 2,984,000 to 4,007,000 (a gain of 1,023,000, or 34.3 per cent) ; and the number operated by the tenants, from 1,025,000 to 2,355,000 (a gain of 1,330,000, or 129.9 psr cent). But in 1910 five eighths of the farms and 68 per cent of the acreage of all land in farms were operated by owners, and 65 per cent of the improved land. The number of farms increased faster than the agricultural population. The only class not operating farms who could take them up were the younger men, and it is largely from them that the class of tenants has been recruited. In a recent study of the cases of nine thousand farmers, mainly in the Middle Western states lying in the Mississippi Valley, it was found that more than 90 per cent were brought up on farms; that 313^ per cent remained on their fathers' farms until they became owners and 27 per cent until they became tenants, then owners ; that 13^ per cent passed from wage earners to ownership, skipping the tenant stage ; and that 18 per cent were first farm boys, then wage earners, later ten- ants, and finally owners. It is stated, on the basis of census statistics, that 76 per cent of the farmers under twenty-five years of age are tenants, while the percentage falls with age, so that among those fifty-five years old and above only 20 per cent are tenants. In the older sections of the country (except in the South, which has a large negro population), that is, in the New England and INIiddle Atlantic States, the tenant farmers formed a smaller proportion in 19 10 than in 1900. This is also the case with the Rocky Mountain and Pacific divisions, where there has been a relative abundance of lands. The con- ditions on the whole, therefore, are not in the direction of de- terioration but of improvement. The process has been one of emergence of wage laborers and sons of farmers first to tenancy and then to ownership. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 69 AMERICA'S FOREIGN TRADE^ George E. Roberts [George E. Roberts (1857- ) spent his early years in Iowa and was from 1878 to igog proprietor of the Fort Dodge Messenger. Since i8g8 he has served three terms as Director of the Mint. He is at present assistant to the president of the National City Bank of New York, and as such is in close contact with the prob- lems and opportunities of American business expansion in foreign countries.] The end of the war finds the United States in a much stronger position in world affairs than it was at the beginning, but it finds us with new obligations and responsibilities, some of which are of special concern to you who are members of this organization of investment bankers. Among the most signifi- cant of the changes which have occurred is the change of our financial position from that of a debtor nation to that of a creditor nation. Do we comprehend all that this means ? We understand, of course, that it means that in our financial rela- tions the balance of payments will be in our favor, but do we know all that this involves, and the policies which it imposes upon us ? A people who are creditors to the world must not play a miserly part ; they must play a helpful, reciprocal part. A creditor nation which expects to receive its balances regu- larly in gold will not make the best use of its wealth or remain a leading factor in world affairs. In the United States we are now confronted with the ques- tion : Can we rise promptly to an appreciation of the necessities of our newly attained position ? Are we ready to lend and lend and lend continually and permanently to support and develop our foreign trade? Will our investment market take up the offerings that will have to be made here in order to hold the exchange situation level? 1 An address delivered before the Investment Bankers' Association of America in 1919. 70 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS The truth is that we have developed our industries and in- creased our wealth so far beyond the position of other countries that in the very nature of things it is now to our interest to be a lending nation until the equilibrium is in some degree restored. The suggestion has been made in this country that the United States should forgive or cancel its loans to Great Britain, France, and other allies on account of the services they have rendered to the world (this country included) in the war. I am not going to discuss the merits or the difficulties of that proposal, and it may be doubted whether the debtor countries would care to have the subject brought under discussion or any such action taken, but it is pertinent to say that from our own standpoint, in view of the present situation in the exchanges, early payments upon either principal or interest are undesir- able. We already have more than our share of the world's gold, and additions to our stock would be harmful instead of advantageous. Payments in goods upon any such scale as would be required would cause an interference with our estab- lished industries for which the country is unprepared, and which certainly would be vigorously opposed. Other countries have far greater need to import commodities than has the United States. There is no doubt that as a practical proposi- tion the business interests of this country would say, "We do not want to be paid in goods/' and this means that we must in- crease the amount of the loans by the amount of the interest, perhaps for years to come, not because the debtors are unable to pay but because as a creditor nation we find it to our advantage at this time to increase our investments abroad. There is a natural equilibrium in economic affairs which in the long run is bound to be maintained. There is an altruism in the economic law which prevents an individual or a nation from absorbing wealth without limit. An individual whose in- vestments have reached the point where the income more than suffices for his own wants goes on accumulating and reinvesting his surplus, although the gains no longer contribute anything to his personal needs or comfort. It is reserve wealth or surplus wealth to him. Nominally and lawfully it belongs to him ; he controls it ; but actually it is in the service of the public. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 71 And so it is advantageous for a country whose stock of wealth is proportionately greater than that of the rest of the world to grant aid to other countries less advanced or tempo- rarily short of working capital. In our economic relations our obligations coincide with our largest and best interests. There is an obligation upon us to assist in restoring industrial order in the devastated regiotis of Europe, to put these people back into homes and workshops, to supply them with the means to be- come self-supporting and prosperous again, and it is to our interest to do it, because it will give employment to our own industries. Our own interests will be best served by allowing our income from the foreign loans to remain in the possession and service of our debtors. Neither the principal nor the interest will ever be wrung from distressed peoples. When the payments are made it will be done by the natural readjustments in international affairs, and by that time the productive powers of all countries will have so increased that no burden will be felt. I would like to emphasize, in this connection, what to me is a most suggestive feature- of this international situation. We are, I repeat, under constraint by our interests to allow both principal and accruing interest to remain in the debtor coun- tries. Think of just what that means : it means that this capi- tal, instead of being passed over to us, will remain in use in these debtor countries. It will be used to finance their business, to enlarge their industries, and to give employment to their people. It will contribute to the strength of their banks, it will build up their foreign trade ; and if we want to take the narrow view of it, we may say that this capital of ours in their hands will help to strengthen them as competitors of ours in world affairs. And yet it will be to our advantage to do it. We shall suffer if we fail to do it. In order to serve our own interests we must serve the common interests, and that principle holds throughout the business world. That Europe shall not pay her debts to us under present conditions is fixed in the very constitution of things, in the framework of economic relations. I doubt if she ever does pay in the sense of sending goods or gold to this country. Not if we remain a creditor nation. We shall have 72 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS interests over there, we shall have paper certificates of obliga- tion or perhaps of ownership in properties over there ; but if we continue to take interest or dividends in the form of new certificates we shall withdraw nothing. A creditor nation, in- creasing in wealth, is always adding to the holdings of its tin boxes. What difference does it make to the debtor nations so long as they have all the property and all 'the increment from the property ? Generations may come and go, enjoying a con- stantly increasing stream of products from these properties and never knowing that they are in debt. So little do certifi- cates of ownership really count in the distribution of consum- able wealth. To illustrate : Let us suppose a case within our own country. Let us suppose that a resident of New York makes an invest- ment in Montana. ^Montana is not a foreign country, but it is as far away as a foreign country, and economic laws are the same everywhere. We will suppose a resident of New York makes an investment in ^Montana in a mining or manufacturing enterprise. The business is successful, but as the owner has all the income he requires for personal expenditures from other sources, he draws nothing from it. All the profits are retained in the business for development purposes. The plant is en- larged ; the product is increased. The product has a ready market ; it meets a common need ; the public is served by the increased production. The pay roll grows larger. A town grows up about the works ; it grows into a city, with stores, schools, churches, libraries, theaters, street railways, and all the facilities, equipment, and conveniences of city life. It is a pros- perous, progressive community. Finally, the owner dies, never having drawn a dollar from the ^Montana property. Query : Who has had the benefits of the investment in Montana ? You may say that somebody will inherit the property, but that does not alter the principle that so long as the increment is rein- vested productively the benefits are running to the public and not to the owner. An instance quite similar in some respects to this supposed case developed the other day, when Captain Joseph Delamar, whose wealth was largely in Western mines, died and left NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 73 $10,000,000 worth of securities to the endowment funds of Columbia, Harvard, and Johns Hopkins universities. That case is closed with the accumulations definitely dedicated to the public. In the case of a creditor country, of course, individuals re- ceive their incomes from foreign investments, but the aggregate of foreign, investments will naturally continue to increase so long as the state of industry and the exchanges makes it mutually advantageous. There is a tendency for investment capital to flow to the places where it is most needed, as there is for commodities to flow to places where they are scarce and in demand. A mutual interest is served. There is a tendency to level conditions throughout countries which are in contact, bringing up those which are behind. The effectiveness, the marginal utility, of capital is greater in a country where capital is relatively scarce. The part which a creditor country plays is not a bloodsucking, exploiting part, as sometimes represented, but a helpful, constructive part, even benevolent in the sense that the immediate benefits are likely to be on the side of the borrowing country. In a free, peaceful state of world affairs I do not know how one nation can be exploited by another. When I was a boy in the Middle West it used to be said that that section of this country was exploited by the East, but the development of the West was greatly aided by Eastern capital, and there is more Eastern capital in the West now than ever before. If conditions in Mexico were as favorable to the employment of capital there as on this side of the line, there would be a great flow of capital into Mexico and quick leveling- of living conditions there to what they are in this country. And, finally, the development of Mexico and of her now idle resources would react beneficially upon this country. The fundamental fact in world relationships and in all economic relationships is this mutuality of interests. Unfor- tunately there is only a faint comprehension of it, and because this is so we have a world of rivalries and antagonisms which naturally break out from time to time in war. The responsibil- ity for war does not lie wholly with the nation which fires the first gun. The spirit of war is developed in mistaken ideas 74 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS about national interests. If nations believe that their funda- mental interests are in confiictj that there is an irreconcilable rivalry and struggle for existence ; if people believe that the future of their country or of their children is at stake, — of course they will fight ; war is inevitable. Nothing else is to be expected. I do not like the language of warfare in description of trade rivalries. There are trade rivalries ; they are necessary, legiti- mate, and, if conducted in the proper spirit, stimulating and wholesome. But it is a mistake to emphasize them as though the success of one nation depended upon driving another out of the field. That idea is based upon the assumption that there is only a limited amount of business to be done and never enough for all — an error responsible for infinite mischief. It is the chief grievance alleged against the labor organiza- tions that they sometimes limit the output, acting upon the theory that there is only a limited amount of work to be done, and that it is to their interest to make it go as far and pay as much in wages as possible. Every such conception of industry and business is fundamentally wrong. There is no limit to the amount of work to be done or the amount of business to be had, because there is no limit to the amount of wealth that may be created from the resources of nature, or to the consumptive demands of the world's level of comfort above that of any other people in the world, and yet the average family in this country lives far below the level of its wants and its commendable aspirations. In this day of free schools, of cheap printing, of democratic ideas, the wants of the people develop faster than their ability to supply them, and hence we have a growing dis- content which threatens the very foundations of the social order. The spirit which finds its blind expression in Bolshe- vism has its inception in the desire for better living conditions, and it is an affront to that spirit — and an affront to common sense — to conduct the international policies of nations upon the theory that the chief danger to be averted is that of over- production. Such an argument amounts to a confession of in- effectiveness or nonachievement in the industrial management of the world and affords a basis for challenging the existing order. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 75 But it is one thing to be critical and anotiier thing to be con- structive, and the critics of the existing order, where they get a chance, display a greater incompetency. The condition of the masses will never be improved by paralyzing industry in efforts to divide the existing stock of wealth. The existing stock in itself is of small importance ; it is the constant and efficient employment of all the agencies of production, and the regular and increasing flow of goods to the market^ which concerns the public. The problem of society everywhere is to organize more effectively — to coordinate, integrate, and balance — production in all branches to obtain the greatest possible output of the things which minister to the common comfort and welfare, and to secure by exchange of products and services their wide- spread distribution and consumption. This is the great appeal to the enlightened and constructive forces of the world. The United States, as a creditor nation, by the very logic of its position and for the maintenance of its leadership, will be obliged to use its strength for the upbuilding of other countries. It has the opportunity, the resources, the industrial equipment and organization, to play a great part in the reconstruction and progress of the world. The only question is. How is the world to pay for the things it would be glad to buy ? We can have any amount of business from Russia, from Asia, from South America, and from Europe upon condition that we finance the purchases, giving them a chance to pay out of the benefits which are created. When one sees the opportunities that are waiting for capital everywhere, and the benefits that would result if they could be improved, he is prompted to think that this country ought to be willing to go on siege rations, with meat days, bread cards, and milk tickets, and voluntarily economize and devote its sav- ings and its industrial equipment to increasing the productive capacity of the world and thus ameliorating conditions in this great emergency. No group of business men in this country is more directly interested in this situation than the Investment Bankers. It >s your business to popularize the fundamental virtues of thrift and economy, to teach the social service that is performed in 76 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS saving for investment, and to gather up the' capital which is required for industrial development. There is no adequate comprehension in the public mind of the part which capital plays in social progress, or of the obligations of our new posi- tion. It is for you to assume leadership in a campaign of education. OUR NEW MERCHANT MARINE ^ Ralph D. Paine [Ralph Delahaye Paine (1871- ) was educated at Yale Col- lege and is today one of the best American writers of the sea and of the ships that ride upon the sea. He was a war correspondent during the Cuban Rebellion, the Spanish-American War, the Boxer uprising in China, and a special correspondent in England during the Boer War. He was attached to the New York Herald in igo2 and was associate editor of the Outing Magazine in 1906. Among his best-known books are ''The Praying Skipper and Other Stories/' "The Romance of the Old-Time Shipmaster," "The Judgments of the Sea," "The Wrecking Master," and "The Ships and Sailors of Old Salem." The article below is from one of a series pubhshed in the World's Work in the spring of 1920.] Long ago a wise man wrote, "With the single exception of the soil, ships are the noblest property which any country can possess, being machines of national defense as well as instru- ments of wealth for individuals." Such was the national belief during a bygone era of achievement so brilliant that American ships and sailors were unsurpassed wherever the trade winds blew. For almost a century they were a dominant asset of the common welfare in war and peace. Then they ceased to attract the energy and enterprise of their people and vanished from blue water, so that instead of the tiers of shapely hulls in every foreign port one might wander around the globe without a glimpse of his own flag. To three generations the maritime pres- tige of the United States has been a shadowy memory, a roman- tic tradition. 1 Reprinted with the courteous permission of the editors of the World's Work. Copyrighted. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 77 Foreign liners and dingy tramps — mostly British, German, and Norwegian — filled our wharves and carried 90 per cent ot the vast export and import trade of six billion dollars' worth of cargoes a year. It was a popular opinion that if these nations could back their ocean delivery wagons up to our doors and haul the goods away at cheaper rates than American ships could afford to convey them, the shrewd policy was to let the foreigner do it. The basis of trade was dollars, not sentiment, English yards were building vessels at 40 per cent lower cost, and the owners were operating them with a similar advantage of expense. American shipyards were kept alive by naval con- tracts and by the splendid coastwise and Great Lakes traffic of six million tons, which had demonstrated that capital would seek investment in shipping if given a fair chance of survival. In a few modern yards of the Atlantic coast the hopes and dividends were both deferred. There was to be found in them a spirit which Homer L. Ferguson, president of the Newport News Company, explains in this wise : Shipbuilding has always attracted men of imagination and a great many men with money, but most of us who have gone into it have not made much money, and I think that most of us could have made a better living doing something else. But when a man once gets into his blood this thing they call the sea, he simply harks back to it and wants to go and paddle around salt water and be around a shipyard, and get up every morning and look it over. Attempts to revive a merchant marine by means of legislation were thwarted by indifference, or ignorance, or hostility toward giving ships the same kind of protection against foreign compe- tition which was freely granted to other manufactured products. The roots of this feeling ran deep into sectional disagreements of the past, from the early days of the Republic, and the phrase "ship subsidy" was a red rag of provocation. The probleni was argued in terms political rather than economic. There were brave and futile efforts to rekindle interest in the sea as an American heritage, — a few large steamers built for foreign trade, stirring orations in Congress, perennial investiga- tions and reports, now and then a timidly constructive law, — but away from the Atlantic and the Pacific seaboards nobody really 78 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS cared. The "grandest, richest, bravest nation on earth" was getting on very well without ships and had better uses for its surplus cash. Why worry ? That inland empire known as the Middle West, whose opinions are listened to with such respect- ful consideration^ particularly at the ballot box, was apt to re- gard a merchant marine as the chronic obsession of a certain class of New Englanders whose fathers had made fortunes in the East India trade and whose faces were turned backward. All national impulses stopped short at the water's edge. It had become impossible to realize what the fleets of tall ships meant to the country in the golden age of its sea-borne commerce, — that in 1825 they had carried 89 per cent of its ex- ports and 95 per cent of its imports, confounding the dictum that Britannia ruled the waves. At the end and climax of this salt}'^ epoch, in 1861, the Yankee ships were transporting 60 per cent of the exports and still holding an invaluable suprem- acy. This magnificent fleet of ours steadily dwindled, until in 19 14 there was only a ton of American shipping in trade over- seas for every seventeen tons that flew the "red duster" of the United Kingdom, for the greater part of our tonnage was on the Great Lakes and in our own coastwise trade, from which foreign ships are excluded. Long before the ships forsook the sea American manhood had almost ceased to follow it as a career. The life was intolerable to ambitious youth^ which found far greater opportunity ashore. Centuries of crude tradition had decreed that a sailor should be underpaid, underfed, and grievously mishandled. Afloat and ashore his existence was wretched and he lived apart from other kinds of human beings. His wages were a pittance, and even when promoted from forecastle to cabin the rewards were beggarly in modern times, yet always his courage and his hardi- hood were superb. The American youngster sensibly relin- quished the calling to the foreign seaman, who signed on for eighteen dollars a month, and the skipper of the British tramp, who sailed for seventy-five dollars. As far distant as the great days of the Atlantic packets and the Cape Horn clippers Yankee masters trod quarterdecks, but the Liverpool "dock rat" and the Scandinavian " squarehead" sailed before the mast. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 79 This, in a word, was the situation when the fateful year of 191 7 suddenly convinced the nation, to its farthest farm and village, that ships^ hundreds and thousands of them, were vital to its safety and to the salvation of the world. The foreign vessels which had so conveniently and cheaply served our uses in time of peace were otherwise engaged. It was also compre- hended that a merchant marine is the right arm of the navy when the crisis comes. The battle front was three thousand wet miles away, but Columbia was no longer the gem of the ocean. And German submarines were sinking and disabling the rest of the world's tonnage at the rate of a million tons a month. Then began the huge, convulsive effort to build and launch ships by a people who had forgotten the sea and the mastery of it. In the desperate race against time, money was no con- sequence. In normal times American yards had been glad to build fine steel steamers at $50 a ton, and there were no better ships in the world. The war cost soared as high as S300 a ton and was seldom lower than $225. The entire merchant fleet of England cost no more than a billion dollars, before the war, and the United States has paid four billions to create a fleet of less tonnage and of inferior capacity and usefulness. The waste, the blunders, the delays, were inevitable. They were the price of unreadiness^ of the imperative necessities of the hour. Not foreign commerce but "the bridge of ships" was the ruling motive. Four hundred thousand men were coaxed and drafted to work in shipyards, and most of them were greenhorns at the trade. Shops and launching ways and scaffoldings sprang up like mushrooms, until two hundred plants were contracting to lay keels. Steel ships, big and little, wooden ships, fabricated ships, concrete ships, — anything that would steam and carry cargo, — three thousand of them to be hurled together to transport and supply, if need be, five million soldiers beyond the Atlantic. It was undertaken in the spirit of Charles M. Schwab when he told President Wilson, "We're going to get you into a lot of trouble, and probably I'm going to make a lot of mistakes, but, damn it, I'm going to get you ships," , . . 8o VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS Of this prodigious activity and expenditure there was left intact and operating the new merchant marine. In this respect it was unique at home and abroad, a national instrument con- trived solely to win battles and yet with untold potentialities for peace. It survived because of its own momentum when all else of war dissolved like the fabric of a dream. For the gov- ernment to finish the ships and manage or sell them was better business than to wreck the intricate and far-flung organization of men, material, and equipment and pay adequate compensa- tion. The powers granted by Congress had anticipated such a situation, and the enormous amounts of money required by the Shipping Board — a total of S3, 67 1,000,000 — were readily authorized as reflecting the general desire of the country that all the trumpeted boasts, predictions^ and preliminary outlay should result in something better than a sorry anticlimax. . . . The renown of the old merchant marine was won by wooden ships, but out of the demands of the war has come another typfe of ship of the Gulf and the Pacific coast, the large bark or schooner with the gasoline or oil motor to help shove her along, so that the days of "iron men in wooden ships" and gleaming canvas will survive in the new merchant marine. It is very generally assumed that the steel ships smaller than 4500 tons cannot profitably compete in overseas trade, and that it is advisable to sell them in the open market to American and foreign buyers. The offshore fleet is thus reduced to some- thing less than one thousand large^ new steel steamers, all of which meet the highest requirements of Lloyd surveyors and the American Bureau of Shipping's classification. These, to- gether with the requisitioned tonnage returned to private owners, and the passenger and the cargo boats of German and Austrian parentage, give the United States 8,000,000 gross tons of deep-sea tonnage in the year 1920. It is a commercial armada second only to England's. Including all classes of tonnage it is greater than the combined merchant fleets of any other ten nations, England excepted. The ships have been set at work as fast as they have been commissioned. Already they have restored an economic condi- tion unknown since i860, in that 50 per cent of our imports NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 8 1 and 34 per cent of our exports are actually moving under the American flag, and the total value of the foreign trade in 19 19 was $12,000,000,000. The Shipping Board has assigned, or "allocated," steamers to three hundred different owners or companies, who operated them as managers or agents for fixed fees and commissions, the government paying all expenses and taking the profits. Surprising as it may sound, the profits have been large, although another purpose, and a very wise one, was to develop trade routes and to spread a knowledge of and increase the interest in shipping and foreign trade among the American people. These companies — and most of them are new to the game — are sending ships deep laden to South America, to Africa, to the Black Sea, on the long road across the Pacific, to the crowded ports of Europe, to marts and roadsteads long un- familiar, where the little ships of Salem showed the way a hundred years ago. . . . Our merchant marine is no longer a dream of Edwin N. Hurley or emblazoned on war posters. It has arrived, and is doing business on fifty foreign routes, with more ships awaited as fast as they slip from the launching ways and are fitted out in the wet basin. THE DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF THE RAILROADS' Frederic C. Howe [Frederic C. Howe (1867- ) was educated at Allegheny Col- lege and at Johns Hopkins. After practicing law in Cleveland, Ohio, for some years, he became director of the People's Institute in New York City and later Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island. He has written extensively on municipal administration and taxation and on the problems of government ownership.] I wonder ... if government operation of the railroads is as bad as we are led to believe. The statistics show that the num- ber of people killed and injured under Federal control is very 1 From Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, Vol. VIII. No. 4, January, 1920. Reprinted by permission. 82 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS much less than it was under private control. That is a gain. We are led to believe that the railroads, under government oper- ation, have been building up a continuous deficit. That point is much emphasized ; but beginning in July the railroads turned the corner, as soon as anyone had a right to expect them to. They paid the standard return^ operating expenses, and every- thing else. In August the surplus was 812,000,000, and in Sep- tember it was $19,000,000. Why did they not earn a surplus in the previous two years ? Because the railroads during those years were run for winning the war, and Secretary IMcAdoo ran his trains filled with goods to the seaboard, and ran them back empty in order to get more goods. No one expected any agency during the war to do anything else but win the war. Then there was a period after that in which everything was disorganized. In some industries there were surpluses, and in others which had not yet begun to function normally there was a continuing deficit. The wage roll of the railroads was piled up over nine hundred million dollars under government opera- tion. Does anyone suppose there would have been no increase in wages under private control ? They might have been less, they might have been greater ; no one can tell. But in connec- tion with that nine hundred million which we hear so much about, we do not hear that there were 145,000 employees put on for the purpose of speeding up war production. Weeks before the government took the railroads over, there was no freight moving, as I recall it. Little, if anything, moved in New England, and scarcely anything out of Pennsylvania and the West. Within three weeks after the government took them over, something happened to that congestion. Freight again began to move, and it has been moving ever since. The months before the war — I am a commuter, and I know — there was scarcely a month, sometimes scarcely a week, when the New York dailies did not carry a headline of a smash on the New Haven. There have been no such headlines that I recall since the government took over the railroads. The other day I read, in the report of the regional directors who are actually operat- ing the railroads, of the economies they had effected — not waste. We assume these men have been wasters, but the NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 83 economies due merely to the better utilization of the ph\'sical properties totaled over two hundred million dollars, and that did not include the ten or twelve million from reduction in salaries, and many, many millions from other things. These economies may or may not have been wise. I merely mention them to suggest that government officials do not consciously and intentionally, apparently, waste money. They are not wasters. Not only is this true but the railroads have been out of politics — out of politics, I mean, in the big way. ^Managers were able to devote themselves to railroading. They were interested, or they should have been interested, in making transportation efficient. And a large number of men found a new satisfaction, a new joy, in operating the railroads as rail- roads rather than as financial, speculative, monopoly interests that existed and maintained their power through continued in- terference with our political life. In addition, all shippers had a fair deal. They were able to get a hearing. Independent coal operators found it easy to secure cars. The same is true of shippers of food products. The freight car had no particu- lar home. It was sent anywhere. The same was true of mo- tive power. Freight cars were loaded more nearly to their total capacity, as were freight and passenger trains. Hundreds of needless competitive passenger trains were eliminated. The best roads were used for hauling freight, while other roads were used for hauling empties. Long, circuitous hauls were elimi- nated. Goods were routed by the most direct way possible. Terminals were consolidated. They too were used efficiently. Thousands of passenger offices were eliminated, as were hun- dreds of needless officials. And only a beginning has been made in economies of this sort. For it was necessary to maintain the integrity of the private lines in view of their probable return to their owners. No one can yet estimate the economies that could ultimately be made if the government definitely merged the 250,000 miles of railways into a single operating system. 84 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP VS. PRIVATE CONTROL > Samuel O. Dunn [Samuel Orace Dunn (1877- ) is a writer and lecturer on transportation subjects and a specialist on railroad matters. He was born in Iowa, was educated in Kansas, and was admitted to the bar in the state of Illinois. He was editor of various Middle-Western papers until 1904, when he became for three years the railroad editor of the Chicago Tribune. He was managing editor of the Railway Age from 1907 to 1908 and has been editor of the Railway Age Gazette since 1908. He is the author of "The American Transpor- tation Question," "Government Ownership of the Railroads," and "Railway Regulation or Ownership?" The selections below are from two articles entitled "Some Political Phases of Government Own- ership," which appeared in Volume CXV of the Atlantic Monthly, and from a recent discussion on "Railway Efficiency" to which tke author contributed.] A. The Fundamental Defect of Government Ownership The fundamental trouble with government ownership is that it reverses a tendency which has marked the progress of mod- ern civilization and has contributed greatly toward promoting it — the tendency toward differentiation of political and eco- nomic functions. Under the patriarchal system all political, social, and economic functions were concentrated in the patri- arch. He was the head of the family, captain of industry, mili- tary commander, chief priest, king. Even under feudalism varied and numerous functions and powers were united in the baron. His economic power and his military and political authority were coextensive. His retainers were forced to fight for him in order to keep their right to exact a living from the soil ; they had to cultivate his land to secure from him protec- tion from the attacks of others and to obtain justice in his court ; and it was from these conditions that the evils of the feudal system chiefly arose. The king was, politically and ^Reprinted through the courtesy of the Annals of the American .Acad- emy of Political and Social Science editors and the Atlantic Monthly Publishing Company. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 85 economically, merely a greater feudal baron. From the Middle Ages to the present time the differentiation of these various functions, while often retarded, has never ceased. Most important of all, perhaps, has been the segregation of the political function of ruling from the economic function of directing industry. The doctrine of laissez faire, so ardently preached a century ago, was little more than the doctrine that the function of ruling — that is to say of maintaining peace and order — and the function of managing industry should be kept separate, and especially that the former should not need- lessly interfere with the latter. Doubtless for a time laissez faire was carried too far in both theory and practice. But it is notable that it was during this time that the greatest impetus was given to the development of political freedom, on the one hand, and of industry, on the other. Government ownership is a movement backward because it would reconsolidate political and economic functions. There must be some sovereign power. This power must be the politi- cal power. And by appropriate means and tribunals the politi- cal power should so control the management of industry as to prevent and correct abuses not prevented or corrected by economic law. But it does not follow that the sovereign politi- cal power should itself assume the exercise of gigantic economic functions. The modern industrial system has sometimes been likened to the feudal system because great captains of industry have sometimes used their money, and the votes it has enabled them to command, to dominate and corrupt the politics of cities, states, and the nation. When this condition has existed, how- ever, the real vice in it, as under the feudal system, has con- sisted in the union of political and economic power in the same hands. Those possessing the two kinds of power have been able to use their economic power to attain their political ends, and their political power to attain their economic ends ; and both politics and legitimate business have suffered. Public ownership often is advocated as the only effective means of destroying the corrupting alliance of big business and 86 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS politics. But already the two great movements for the puri- fication of politics and for the regulation of concerns of a monopolistic or quasimonopolistic character have practically dissolved this alliance and are raising the tone of politics and reducing the abuses in business. A continuance of efforts to purify politics and improve government^ and to use the power of government to destroy and prevent economic and social evils, while avoiding placing unnecessary restrictions and burdens on the exercise of private initiative and enterprise, will have bene- ficial effects on both politics and business. On the other hand, the adoption of an extensive policy of government ownership would once more combine great political power and great economic power in the same hands. In the recent past this power has been combined in the hands of leaders of industry ; under government ownership it would be combined in the hands of leaders of politics. For government management, like business management, is always more a thing of men than of machinery. Men always have their leaders and bosses, whether in war, or business, or poli- tics ; and it is the leaders of politics, whether statesmen or bosses, who really manage the government and who under pub- lic ownership would control the management of elections, on the one hand, and of government industries, on the other. They would then exercise a total power incomparably greater than was ever exercised by any body of men in this country. They would have the same political power of the ordinary kind that the leaders of the party dominant in the government have now. The power to determine what rates and prices should be charged by concerns earning billions of dollars annually would be a great power ; and they would have it. The power to make contracts for expenditures that amount to billions annually would be a great power ; and they would have it. The power to determine whether millions of men should be allowed to keep their jobs would be a great power ; and they would have it. The power largely to determine how millions of men would vote, and thereby what men should keep or lose public office, would be a great pov/er ; and they would have it. And these would be powers which, once acquired, might be transferred NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 87 from one group of political leaders to another, but which could never be dissolved into their elements without abolishing gov- ernment ownership itself ; and to abolish it would be much more difficult than to adopt it. Big business never controlled anywhere near as many voters as it is proposed to take into the government service ; yet big business has managed at times to control the politics of cities, of states, and of the nation. In politics, as in war, a small, relatively well-organized, well-disciplined force is more power- ful than a far larger body if untrained and undisciplined. If all the aspects of government ownership be considered, the conclusion must be reached that its extensive adoption would be destructive of both the economic and the political welfare of the people of the United States. The people would find that they had created an economic and political Franken- stein which would not only be able to undermine their material well-being and destroy their free political institutions but which would be irresistibly impelled by its very nature to accomplish this work of ruin. B. The Management of Railroads under Private Control [Editors' Note. The so-called Plumb Plan here referred to is named after Mr. G. E. Plumb, the general counsel of the Rail- road Brotherhoods. It proposes that all railroads of the country shall be owned by the United States government and shall be leased for one hundred years to an operating company composed in the main of the railroad employees and railroad executives, and repre- sentatives of the public. It provides for the complete consolidation of all railroads into a single national system and for the regula- tion of all railroad rates by the Interstate Commerce Commission. If the rates fixed by the Commission do not produce a revenue sufficient to pay expenses, the United States government shall pay the deficit from the United States Treasury ; if they produce a surplus, it shall be divided equally between the employees and the government.} It is claimed that the railroads under private management have not been efficiently operated, and that in order that they shall be efficiently operated their ownership must be transferred 88 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS to the government and their management largely transferred to the employees under some such scheme as the Plumb Plan, In measuring the efficiency with which an individual does his work or a management conducts a concern it is necessary to apply standards of some kind. Our critic says that " the notion that our railroads in the past have been highly efficient is fallacious" and that "this is doubly true when judged from the basis of real standards such as science has been able to define in the last ten years." Unfortunately he does not mention any of the "real standards" to which he refers, and, although I have been a constant student of railroad operations and the railroad problem for many years, he does not convey to me any idea of what standard he means. There are, however, certain standards which have been gen- erally applied by experts in measuring the efficiency of opera- tion of different railroad systems, and I maintain that the application of these standards shows, first, that the railroads of the United States under private management were as efficiently operated as any other railroads in the world, and, second, that under private management there was a steady and rapid increase in the efficiency of their operation. Nowhere in his paper does our critic cite a single concrete fact in support of his proposition that our railroads have not been efficiently man- aged. The following are some facts which may be cited in sup- port of the counterproposition that they have been efficiently operated. They have developed and used the most powerful locomo- tives and the largest freight cars in the world. I grant, of course, that in developing them they have been helped by the railway equipment and supply companies. They have handled more tons per car and per train than any other railroads. They have paid higher wages while charging lower freight rates than any other large system of railways. They have handled more traffic in proportion to their capital investment — nominal or real — than any other railways. They have handled more freight traffic in proportion to the number of their employees than any other railways. NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 89 Except in respect to the matter of safety, they have rendered as good freight and passenger service as any other railways. Anybody who accepts our critic's views without knowledge of the facts regarding the way in which our railways have been managed would conclude that because of their alleged domina- tion by a few great financial interests the managing officers have hardly thought of anything except trying to please and placate their financial masters in Wall Street. Doubtless this has been the case on some roads, but on a large majority of roads it has not been the case. I have lived for many years in close contact with the operating and executive officers of our railroads throughout the United States, and I am stating what I personally know to be a. fact when I say that very much the greater part of their thought and energy has been devoted to trying to increase the efficiency of operation and improve the service rendered to the public. The results of their efforts to increase efficiency are set forth in the statistics of the Inter- state Commerce Commission, where every man can ascertain them. Let us consider just a few of these statistics for the years 1906 to 1916. I stop with the year 1916 because in 191 7 ab- normal conditions were created by the war. In the year 19 16 the railways had 1^654,075 employees. The average compen- sation paid to them was S849, an increase over the average compensation paid in 1906 of $272, or 47 per cent. A very simple computation will show that if in 1916 the railways had paid their employees the same average wage that they did in 1906, the total wages paid in 19 16 would have been $450,000,- 000 less than they actually were. In other words, there was an increase of $450,000,000 a year in the pay roll in these ten years which was due to advances in average wage per em- ployee. During the decade when this large increase in wages was occurring there was no advance in the average charge for transportation to the public. The average receipts per passen- ger per mile increased from 2.003 cents in 1906 to 2.006 cents in 1916, while the average receipts per ton per mile declined from 7.48 mills to 7.16 mills. The facts that the railroads dur- ing this period made advances in wages of $450,000,000 a year, 90 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS that they made no advances in. rates, and that nevertheless they earned about the same percentage of return in 191 6 as in 1906 indicate that there must have been a substantial increase in efficiency of operation. The statistics of the Interstate Com- merce Commission show how this increase of efficiency was ob- tained. The number of tons per loaded car increased from 18.9 to 22.4 ; the number of loaded cars per train from 18.2 to 23.4 ; and the average number of tons hauled per train from 344 to 535, or 55 per cent. In consequence, although there was an actual decline in average receipts per ton-mile, the freight revenue earned per train-mile increased from $2.61 to $3.83, or almost 50 per cent. In these figures is to be found the chief explanation of the fact that the railroads were able, in the absence of any advance in rates, to increase the average wage per employee from $577 in 1906 to $849 in 1916, or 47 per cent, and at the same time maintain their solvency. While it is easy to demonstrate the incorrectness of the con- tention that under private management our railroads have been inefficiently operated, I do agree that an increase of efficiency could be secured under some plan by which the employees would be stimulated to greater efforts. It is unfortunately true that a spirit of antagonism has grown up between the owners and managers on the one side and the employees on the other which is constantly rendering it more difficult to get efficiency. But I certainly do not believe that an increase in efficiency would be obtained by substituting government ownership for private ownership and the so-called "tripartite management" contemplated by the Plumb Plan for private management. The Plumb Plan and all other syndicalist plans really con- template and would result in the domination of management by labor unions. Under the Plumb Plan specifically if any surplus earnings were made the employees would get half of them, while if any losses were incurred the public would have to pay all of them. Would the employees be deeply concerned about losses no part of which they would have to pay, especially if they were incurred in order to give them higher wages? Further- more, the Plumb Plan would drive brains out of the railroad business. No man of real ability and initiative would stay in NATIONAL RESOURCES AND ACTIVITIES 91 the railroad business under that plan if there was any other business left into which he could go and get freedom of action and rewards in proportion to his ability and initiative. Con- sequently, while it is conceivable, although not probable, that under the Plumb Plan the employees would do more and better work, it is certain that the total amount of brain power actually devoted to increasing railroad efficiency would be diminished ; and no increase in the efficiency of those who work with their hands could long compensate for a substantial decline in the amount of brains devoted to the business. Personally, I should like to see the ownership of the railroads radically changed. I should like to see it transferred, however, not to the government, but largely, or even wholly, to the rail- road employees. In my opinion the only way in which true democracy in industry can ever be brought about is not by the government buying large industries and turning them over to their employees to run but by the employees themselves buying these industries. It would be by no means so difficult to do as it may seem. A simple computation will show that the railway employees, by saving one fifth of their present an- nual wages, investing these savings in railroad stocks, and in- vesting also in railroad stocks the normal dividends upon their stock, could in five years buy at par a majority of the stock of all the railroads of the United States. Ownership of a majority of the stock would give them complete control of the manage- ment. Everybody should be glad to see them in control of the management if they had bought control of the ownership of the properties with their own savings. The employees would then know that if the properties were efficiently managed they would gain by it, and also that if the properties were inefficiently managed they would lose by it ; and it should not be over- looked that the fear of loss is just as necessary an incentive to efficiency in business management as the hope of gain. Knowing that if the railroads were efficiently managed they would gain and that if they were inefficiently managed they would lose, the employees would have incentive not only to do the best and most work of which they wore capable themselves but also the same incentive that the present owners have to 92 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS employ the best brains available to manage the properties and to give the managers the freedom of action and the authority necessary to enable them to develop and manage the properties efficiently. When the railroads are returned to private management I personally should like to see some plan worked out under which the employees would be given ample opportunity to acquire railroad securities ; under which they would be given some voice in the management even before they had acquired sub- stantial amounts of stock ; and also under which each individual employee would be given opportunity to earn not only reason- able standard wages but, in addition, premiums or bonuses for doing more than the standard amount of work. But, as I have said, I do not agree that our railroads have been operated with inefficiency in the past, and I feel sure that the efficiency of their operation would be destroyed by the adoption of any plan which placed the control and management in the hands of the employees while imposing upon them no financial responsi- bility for the results of their management. Ill SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT NATIONAL WELFARE DEFINED INDUSTRIALLY^ Herbert Hoover [Herbert Clark Hoover (1874- ) was educated at Leland Stanford, Jr. University. After a short experience as a mining en- gineer in the United States he pursued his profession in Australia and China. In 1899 he was made chief engineer of the Chinese Imperial Bureau of Mines, and after the Boxer troubles, during which he took part in the defense of Tientsin, he became associated with English mining companies in China and various parts of the East Indies. From 191 5 to 191 7 he directed the distribution in Belgium of the food supplies furnished by the Allies and the United States. When the United States entered the World War he became the United States Food Administrator and managed the conservation and distribution of foodstuffs in the entire country during the period of the war. His writings deal with mining or with the problems of world food supply. In 192 1 he became Secretary of Commerce.] It is the essence of democracy that progress of the mass must rise from progress of the individuaL It is the only road to a higher civilization. Its conception of the state is of one that, representative of all the citizens, will in the region of eco- nomic activities limit itself in the main to the prevention of economic domination of the few over the many. It is true that our government in these latter particulars sometimes lags be- hind the fertile economic inventiveness and greed of some of our citizens, and it requires constant progress in legislation and enforcement to keep pace with them. On the whole, however, it has moved surely in its corrective influence, and our institutions have demonstrated themselves capable of meeting their tasks. ' Reprinted by permission from the Saturday Evening Post. Copy- righted, 1920, by the Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia. 93 94 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS This dominant idea of establishing and preserving an equal- ity of opportunity has during these one hundred and fifty years carried us on a far different road of social and political ideals from that in Europe. We have no frozen class distinctions. We have developed a far better distribution of necessities^ com- forts, and wealth than any other place in the world. We have a willingness to abide by the will of the majority, a sense of neighborly obligation, and a higher sense of justice, of self- sacrifice, and of public conscience ; and out of these we have certainty of ultimate solutions. For all I know, it may be neces- sary to have revolutions in some places in Europe in order to bring about these things, but it does not follow that such philos- ophies have any place with us. Our plan does not enable us to take our neighbor's home overnight, but it does enable us to build one of our own. I am one of the adherents of this American philosophy from a conviction that only along this line lie the moral and physical welfare of this nation and its usefulness in regenerating the rest of the world. Adherence to this idea, however, requires some militancy against imported social diseases that tend to infect it ; and, of more importance, it requires a jealous care that with our advancing economic development the state should also advance in its safeguards against domination — that is, in the preservation of our fundamental ideal of equality and oppor- tunity. Latterly, with the growth of large units of industry, the loss of the old mutual responsibilities of employed and em- ployer, the import of many ill-digested foreigners, and, gener- ally, out of contact with Europe, we have given class terms to purely economic meanings, with much superficiality. The as- sumption of class distinctions between labor, capital, and the public is a foolish creation of false class consciousness and is building for us the very same kind of foundations upon which Europe rocks today. All panaceas of socialism, syndi- calism, communism^ capitalism, or any other "isms" are based on the hypothesis that class division necessarily exists in the United States, and thence they launch into logical deductions after the acceptance of this false premise. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 95 When all is said and done, labor, whether with hand or mind, is the only excuse for membership in the community. Capital is nothing but the savings of the nation, represented by tools of production and service, whether it be land, factories, homes, railways, or schools ; its managers are laborers themselves and must be sifted out by competition in accord with their intelli- gence, skill, and character. Capital is not money, for money is nothing but the token by which we barter goods and services. There is no quarrel with capital itself ; the quarrel is over the distribution of its ownership and the profits that rise from it. HUMANIZING INDUSTRY ^ Irving Fisher [Irving Fisher (1867- ) was educated at Yale and has taught political economy at his alma mater since 1895. He has written extensively on economic and social problems, especially on the question of public health.] The war revealed great industrial discontent in our country and our consequent weakness in time of stress and emergency. Lack of loyalty and lukewarmness of patriotism appeared more common among the industrial workers than elsewhere. The I. W. W. were regarded as distinctly disloyal. . . . The fault with the I.W. W. is not primarily with its members, but with our existing social and industrial system. There is something radically wrong, of which the I. W. W. is a symptom. We must try to get an understanding of this, not stop at mere blame of its victims. . . . There are great changes necessary and imminent, in bringing which, I believe, we should cooperate with the workingman. It will not be mere increase of wages and reduction of hours, though these reforms are the two things stressed in the demands of the labor unions. These needs have constituted the "labor 1 From the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. LXXXII, March, 1919. Reprinted by permission. 96 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS problem " in the minds of most of us, but they will, I believe, largely take care of themselves, — at least, with the help of the labor unions. There is a more fundamental reform upon which they are, to a great degree, dependent. Christ stated a great industrial truth when he said, " Man shall not live by bread alone." Of the many rights which the workman has heretofore only partially enjoyed, the greatest is the right to healthful condi- tions. Many do not recognize the importance of this right, but a few labor leaders, like Arthur Holder, are giving it more attention as a great factor in industrial success. Health is the workingman's capital, his only important asset. The man with money, the capitalist^ does not need health as a means of mak- ing a living. If he falls ill he can " live on his money." But if the laboring man loses his health he loses the power to earn his living. His wages, which we consider so all-important, are dependent on his health. Some people say that if his wages were raised, his health would be improved. This is doubtless true ; but it is still truer that if his health were improved, his wages would be increased. To improve slightly an individual's health will not necessarily, it is true, nor always, increase that individual's wages ; but if we increase, even slightly, the health, and thereby the working power of the nation as a whole, the general wage level will rise. In the last analysis wages depend on productive power, and the workingman's power to produce is dependent on his muscle and brain, that is, his health. A good illustration of this truth is to be found in the story of the hookworm disease in the South. The hookworm is called the germ of laziness. It produces anaemia and saps energy. The Rockefeller Hookworm Commission, by an expenditure of about sixty-five cents per capita, cured the disease by whole- sale and made the Southern poor whites once more into work- ing citizens. With regained health a worker could produce, at the least, enough to make every day a loo per cent return on the sixty-five cents invested in his health. Great returns are to be had from investments by employ- ers in factory sanitation, lighting, and ventilation ; by the SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 97 workingman in better and better-selected food, housing, cloth- ing, sports, amusements, and books on health ; and by the state in hospitals, sanatoria, dispensaries, health departments, health insurance, factory inspection, labor legislation, school hygiene, recreation, etc. The workingman should have not only physical health but also mental health. Mental health depends on the satisfaction of certain fundamental instincts. If these major instincts are not fairly well satisfied, our lives will be failures^ ending in the insane asylum or the penitentiary. A human being whose in- stincts are balked becomes an enemy of society. This is the real reason for the I. W. W., as was emphasized by Professor Carleton H. Parker of the University of Washington, who, by personal contact and deep insight, probably knew more about that much-discussed organization than anyone else. The mem- bers of the I.W. W. were, he saw, not innately antisocial, but became so because they had individual initiative and a will of their own and refused to conform, like the ordinary workman, to the Procrustean bed of industry today. They rebelled, like the small boys of a large city without playgrounds who break windows for excitement. When boys become so destructive we give them, not a jail sentence but a place to play ; or at any rate the Juvenile Court recognizes that the delinquency is simply a miscarriage of the boys' legitimate instincts. The I. W. W. workman is the naughty boy of industry. We have not given him the outlet which he must have. The very energy which breaks through and makes him destructive would, if enlisted for constructive work, have made him a more useful workman than his more docile and less energetic brother. It may be too late to reclaim him now, but we can at least prevent the making of more of his kind. I shall name seven major instincts which apparently must be satisfied to make a normal life. First, there is the instinct of self-preservation. The securing of a living wage must always be the first concern of a workingman. This has always been recognized as basic, and I need not, therefore, dilate upon it. Furthermore, self-preservation demands the maintenance of healthy working conditions, the prevention of overfatigue, and 98 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS the provision of safety devices. No man can do his work well if he feels that it is fitting himself only for the scrap heap. Finally, every employee should be assured of a steady job so long as he does his part. If he has to be " laid off" without any fault of his own, he should have due notice or a suitable dis- missal wage. Fear of unemployment dissipates energy. Secondly, there is the instinct of self-expression, or workman- ship. Until modern industry contrives to satisfy this instinct in the ordinary workman^ our labor problem will not be solved. I shall consider this below in greater detail. Thirdly, there is the instinct of self-respect. Unless the workman is made to feel that "A man's a man for a' that" he will be our enemy, will cherish a grievance, and will become antisocial. The employer should, so far as possible, use praise for incen- tive rather than blame. If it is really necessary to call a man down, the rebuke need not be administered before his fellow workers. The workman should be considered trustworthy until he has proved himself untrustworthy. Rivalry in production involves the satisfaction of the instinct of self-respect. Fourthly, there is the instinct of loyalty. The universality of this instinct was strikingly illustrated in this war. Devotion to a cause, sacrifice for this cause, heroism if you like, have been shown by soldiers whose whole training has been one of monotonous industry. The instinct of loyalty should be satis- fied in industry as it is in the trenches. The employer often misses a great opportunity to be his workingmen's hero or hon- ored general instead of their taskmaster. If the men can organize, a team spirit will develop. Collec- tive bargaining and other forms of control of the industry by the men will forestall useless "knocking" and discontent and will develop loyalty instead. ]Mass activities, group singing, march- ing in a parade, wearing a button, or cheering a baseball team will develop and foster a united feeling. Pride is an important constituent of loyalty. Workers have a right to expect that their plant is one worth being proud of. Fundamentally, loyalty is based on justice and mutual consid- eration. The employer who can best put himself in the place SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 99 of his men best secures their loyalty. Extra work or overtime can, by loyal workmen, be "volunteered" with pleasure where '"conscription" might arouse ill-feeling. The great instinct of love, or of home-making, is a fifth instinct, and one vital for society. The homeless, migratory I. W. W. is an example of what occurs when life is deprived of its satisfaction. A man thinks of his own family as part of him- self. His success means their happiness. Any action on the employer's part which affects family welfare immediately arouses resentment. The unrest caused by inability to enjoy family life or by bad instinctive life outside the plant is de- moralizing. In a word, conditions of employment should, in every way, conduce to a happy family life. The workingman's instinct of worship, if we may properly speak of such a faculty as a sixth instinct, hungers and thirsts for righteousness and often is not filled. If his daily work appeals to his whole nature and not merely to a portion of it, the task will be exalted to become really a part of his religion. No man should have to do work which is degrading or which will tend to crush idealism or warp the spirit of humanity and service. Finally, the play impulse must be satisfied to produce mental health. The saying " All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" is true of the laboring man. Some instincts are almost inevitably repressed and, deprived of a wise outlet, are in danger of an unrestrained outburst. Play provides a safety valve. This play should not be frivolity, still less dissipation, but entertainment which will develop physical and mental health and a broadened outlook on life. A long workday makes proper play impossible and is largely responsible for a man's resort to drink and other perversions of play. Of the seven mentioned, only the instinct of self-preservation is even fairly well satisfied by the majority of workers. We thrum too continually on this one string. Human nature is a harp of many strings. We must use the rest of the octave. The instinct of workmanship has been all but crowded out. So gradual and subtle has been the change that we do not 100 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS recognize it until we suddenly note the contrast. Like the art of making iridescent glass, which, since the iridescence was due to inperfections in the process of glassmaking, was lost without the loss being realized as that process was gradually perfected, so the instinct of workmanship has been dropped out by the very perfection of modern industry. While making one man perfect in one point and another in another point, we have sac- rificed the satisfaction of both. The monotonous nature of the work and the fact that the workman does not see his product are the characteristics of modern industry which cripple the effort that instinct could put into the work and which are responsible for the dissatisfaction and unrest. Get rid of them, and the main (though not the only) obstacle to industrial peace will be gone. In modern industry individuality is lost, — each man's work is thrown in a common pool. In former days the cobbler made the pair of shoes and watched their progress, inquiring of the wearer, '^How do they wear today ? " The artist similarly has the joy of self-expression and creation in his picture. Textbooks of economics today make the statement that the motive for work is money-making, \^^th the exception that artists and scientists work for the joy that their work gives them. There is no greater fallacy than to make this contrast. The workman has this same power, though latent, of enjoying self-expression in his work. Our usual acceptance of this fallacy- shows how far we are off the track. President Eliot of Harvard once spoke in Boston on the joy of work. The next week a labor leader in the same hall spoke with a scornful laugh of the '' highbrow's" reference to such "joy," and the crowd of workingmen present approvingly joined in his ridicule. This incident is pathetic evidence that joy of work is too often conspicuous by its absence. When I first became conscious of this fact I was loath to publish my opinions. I was not sufficiently experienced in the field either as laborer or employer. I wanted to wait until I could see the ideas tested. In the last year Miss Marot's book "The Creative Impulse in Industry" and Ordway Tead's on "The Instincts in Industry" SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT loi have given expression to substantially these same conclusions. From still another angle Carleton H. Parker had reached similar views. The strongest evidence of their truth, however, is the experience of Robert B. Wolf, who has applied them in the practical management of a paper-pulp factory. What did Wolf do ? He introduced into his mill a system of record charts by which each individual workman could see what his contribution to the product was. Just as in baseball we are interested in the score, and just as in school, students find grades an incentive^ so the workmen were stimulated by having and making a record. The curves and charts which W^olf devised gave an opportunity for such expression as the artist or handicraftsman enjoys. Before Wolf came to the mill, where he tried out these ideas, there used to be discontent. On his arrival as manager, there was a strike on, and pickets surrounded the yards. The mill- owner told him to get that energy that was called out by the strike into the making of wood pulp. In strikes, as in the trenches, there is the satisfaction of the instincts. At first antagonistic to Wolf's innovations, the men soon saw the "new game" and, in striving to excel in it, found a con- structive outlet for the impulses that had previously gone into destructive channels. They no longer have to make trouble in order to have the feeling of " something doing." Discontent is gone. It has sometimes been necessary to change a man's work, but almost never to discharge a man for inefiiciency. The tendency of letting men slip into dead-end jobs is overcome. Mentally and physically each man is suited to his job. Pro- motions and the development of all-round ability are encour- aged. The work becomes educative, as the workman, watching his progress, masters the process until he can himself invent improvements in the technique. I have sometimes illustrated the fact that employees need other than monetary inducements in this way : Suppose Presi- dent Wilson, as General Pershing's employer, had said to the general when he called him to the White House before sending him overseas : " Now, Pershing, you are going to do a job for me. I want it well done. I know you will shirk if you have 102 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS a chance. I therefore want to hitch up your interests with mine. Your pay will depend on your victories. I'll pay you a bonus for every German killed, and another for every German taken prisoner. I'll pay you also for overtime beyond eight hours a day." How would General Pershing reply to such '^inducements," especially when put forward as though President Wilson as- sumed that he could not be expected to feel any other motive than the mercenary one? Would he not have replied : "Here is my resignation, Mr. President. You have insulted me. What do you take me for ? Of course a man must live, but money is the last thing I am thinking of now. I want to fight for my country, for you, for our ideals^ for glory, and for the satisfac- tion of expressing whatever is in me of military genius"? An objector might say, " But Pershing is a general, an artist in his line, an exceptional man." Were not the common sol- diers under him fighting with the same motives ? And were they not the very same men who were formerly in shops work- ing merely for pay ? The army affords the most supreme illus- tration of men motivated by entirely different instincts from simply self-preservation or " making a living." Instincts which had been repressed or dormant up to this point in their lives were found far more powerful in these workmen soldiers than the instinct of making a living. When, as ex-soldiers, they come back to be workmen again they unconsciously miss something, and unless it is supplied them, there will be trouble. We must satisfy their higher instincts. The employer must see in the workman his brother man, of the same flesh and blood, with the same soul hunger, needing the same soul food to satisfy it. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 103 THE TECHNIQUE OF AMERICAN INDUSTRY ^ Carleton H. Parker [Carleton H. Parker (1878-1918) was graduated from the Uni- versity of California in 1904. He later studied economics, especially its human side as developed by pyschological investigations, at Harvard and at various German universities. From 19 12 to his death he was engaged in teaching at the universities of California and Washington and in acting as investigator and mediator in labor disputes in the West. His life, entitled "An American Idyll," has been written by his wife, Cornelia Stratton Parker, who has also edited a collection of his writings, "The Casual Laborer."] One hundred years ago an industrial characteristic isolated itself from the general body and began an evolution, slow but stupendous in promise. Industrial technique had been in past economic periods the but slightly important assistant of man's trade dexterity. Today the machine in its character fixes the man's speed of work, his hours, his posture, limits his thoughts in the day, and in the end molds for his life the very processes of his mind, and thus determines how he shall worship, vote, and find his pleasure. In America, at the close of the Civil War, the machine tech- nique began its last stage of evolution, which was to reach in our day "scientific management." The minute subdivision of industrial production, and the adaptation of the automatic ma- chine, more than any other single characteristic, defines Ameri- can production. It determines the intelligence and sex of the worker, demands the temperamentally acquiescent, and finds self-assertion and trade-unionism impossible with "efficiency." What is this technique? What kind of a worker has it de- manded and obtained ? . . . An eyewitness at the stockyards describes a scene in one of the large packing-houses, "A month ago," he says, "we stood with a superintendent in a room of the canning department. Down both sides of a long table stood twenty immigrant women ; most of them were visibly middle-aged and mothers. ^From the Atlantic Monthly, January, 1920. Reprinted by permission. 104 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS 'Look at that Slovak woman,' said the superintendent. She stood bending slightly forward, her dull eyes staring straight down, her elbow jerking back and forth, her hands jumping in nervous haste to keep up with the gang. These hands made one simple precise motion each second, 3600 an hour, and all exactly the same. 'She is one of the best workers we have,' the superintendent was saying. We moved closer and glanced at her face. Then we saw a strange contrast. The hands were swift, precise, intelligent. The face was stolid, vague, vacant. 'It took a long time to pound the idea into her head,' the superintendent continued, ' but when this grade of woman once absorbs an idea she holds it. She is too stupid to vary. She seems to have no other thought to distract her. She is as sure as a machine. For much of our work this woman is the kind we want. Her mind is all on the table.' " A few years ago the miner in the coal fields was a skilled worker in the true sense. He handled dynamite, calculated his own timbering, undercut the coal, and worked on piecework ton- nage. The mining machine did away with the skilled pick- work, and a machine drilled the holes which broke down the cut-under coal. The holes were fired by a specialized work- man. This new work of tending the machines under a foreman is done largely by unskilled agricultural laborers from the Balkan States, who have never seen a coal mine. The skilled American coal miner is rapidly deserting the Pennsylvania soft- coal region. The irregularity of the miner's working days, hourly and yearly, must always be taken into account. In 1898, in anthra- cite coal, the men worked 152 days, the lowest record since 1890; in 1917, 285 days, the highest record. The average number of days worked during a year from 1890 to 191 7 is 204. In bituminous coal the average has been 214. There is considerable variation in the hours of work among coal miners. The average day for anthracite in 19 19 is 7.4 hours; the aver- age wage 61 cents per hour. The largest number of men are found to be working 8 to 9 hours at wages of from 50 to 60 cents. Over 10 per cent of the 1892 men studied work over SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 105 10 hours, and one third over 12 hours. At the other extreme 20 per cent work under 6 hours, and one half under 4 hours. In bituminous coal the average day is 5.5 hours, the average wage 72 cents per hour; 10,790, by far the largest group, fall under the heading " 60, and under 70, cents." Even in the industry alleged to demand more skill among its workmen than any other, the manufacture of automobiles, the machine is beginning to render technical knowledge and ex- perience unnecessary. The great Ford plant at Detroit em- ployed 40,000 men, manufactured 2618 machines a day, or 785,432 a year, and in 191 7 produced $350,000,000 to S400,- 000,000 worth of cars, as compared with $89,000,000 worth in 1913 and $206,867,343 in 1916. The basic fact in a consideration of this factory is that it produces one car which holds almost without change to one model. This standardization of type has allowed all the econ- omies of large-scale production. All operations are simplified to the last possible division. An agricultural laborer from Austria-Hungary can be made a one-piece molder in three days, and in two days could be a finished core-maker. A maximum period of two days is allowed for learners in most branches of the work. If the operation is not learned within that time the worker is moved on to another type of occupation. Labor need not even be able-bodied. The overhead crane has done away with lifting and trucking. By planning and crowding machines on the floor, the four-cylinder casting, which formerly traveled over 4000 feet in the finishing, now (19 14) travels but 334 feet. Steadily the labor of this plant becomes unskilled, the change keeping pace with the unceasing mechanization of the produc- tive work. So minute has the subdivision of labor become, that men must be moved from one job to another in order to make it humanly possible to keep working over a long period within the plant. In 1890, in a certain community in Pennsylvania, a glass- factory was built, and skilled glassworkers from Belgium, Germany, and France imported. Very few unskilled workers io6 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS could be used. Late in the nineties glassmaking machinery was perfected and was introduced into this factory. The ma- chines simpHfied the principal operations so much that cheap unskilled labor was immediately put at work. The Glass- workers' Union recognized the danger in this development and in 1898 struck against the machine. The union was beaten, and by 1904 every plant in the community had fully installed the machines. Italians, Poles, Slovaks, and Russians rapidly filled the industr}'^ and now (1914) all plants are running as ''open shops." Of the 9000 inhabitants of this community, 4800 were recent immigrants from southeastern Europe. This same story finds endless repetition in the intensive studies of the Federal Immigration Commission. An uncolored statement from the United States Tariff Com- mission Report (1918) illuminates a striking phase of American large-scale production : Without touch or aid of human hand, an automatic machine produces complete one-dram bottles at the rate of 165 per minute. In the manufacture of beer bottles one machine displaces 54 skilled hand-workmen. The labor cost is "practically nothing." ... In the making of bottles by the hand method the labor cost in 19 16 was 57 per cent of the total factory cost in twenty-six factories. The greater part of this is due to the high wages paid the skilled blowers. By the automatic method the wage of the skilled opera- tive is a cost that is entirely eliminated. A machine-blower in the most efficient American factories can blow five cylinders of wnndow glass simultaneously, each nearly 39 feet long and 32 inches in diameter, in less time than it takes a Belgian hand-blower to blow one cylinder 5 feet long and 5 inches in diameter. The wages of this skilled operative are $40 per week. In the demoralization of industr}^ due to competition between handmade and machine-made glass in 191 2-19 13 wages sank two thirds. Hand-workers went down to $15 a week; even so, machine-made glass was cheaper. Wages at that time were lower in the L^'nited States than in Belgium. Now there are but 1800 hand window-glass blowers — among the most highly skilled of all workmen — in the L^nited States, and their annual income does not average $100 per month. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 107 An improvement in the hours of work is noticeable. In 19 14, 1738 glassworkers in Pennsylvania were employed 72 hours a week. The 1919 statistics show that 7.7 hours is the average day, with about one fifth of the workers employed 10 hours and over. The average wage today is 50 cents per hour, with almost half the workers earning under 40 cents. The influence of technique in characterizing the foregoing industries is in no way so absolute as the effect of improved machinery upon the labor force in the steel industry. In the United States the industry of smelting ore and making mer- chant steel employs over 300,000 men and is capitalized at one and one-half billions. All the various processes in the manufacture of steel are mechanically handled and rigidly con- tinuous beyond the most optimistic dreams of early systema- tizers. In addition to the introduction of automatic machinery, the human labor has been subdivided and simplified until in 1910 the percentage of men in the industry skilled in the tra- ditional sense had sunk from 60 to 24. Some plants show an even greater change. The roll tables, which now carry and distribute the white-hot ingots, are controlled by a semiskilled man with levers, who sits high up in a small cage, the "pulpit," in the side of the building. The big crews of skilled catchers and roughers, who formerly handled by hand the steel in the rolls, have disappeared. Thousands of dollars and exhaus- tive experiments are used to do away with the labor of a single man. Machinery has been greatly increased in size ; more power is used. The electric overhead crane has, literally, re- placed hundreds of men ; scrap steel is now picked up by the ton by a single semiskilled man in control of an electric magnet ; steel rails are cut, sorted, and shoved out on the cooler by a remote man in a chair with a lever in his hand. The ore which two days ago lay in its geological bed in the Upper Superior region may today be sorted, measured, and stamped steel rails, sold and about to leave the mill on a flat car for some Far-Western railway division. It is difficult to realize how completely the adaptation of machinery, stimulated by the "continuous process" of steel I08 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS production, has changed the very nature of the industry. If the best economies are to be realized, the pig iron must be con- verted into steel while yet liquid, and this steel rolled at once into merchantable shapes without cooling. As the blast fur- naces increased the tonnage of the "cast," great machines had to be contrived to handle the growing units and handle them rapidly. The relative weight of the product, the necessary speed in its handling, the great heat of the pig iron and steel, the standardization of the product, the quickly recognized economies of large-scale production, all stimulated the intro- duction of the automatic machine. In the smelting of ore be- tween 1899 and 1909 the number of workers in the industry actually decreased 2.1 per cent ; the horse power used increased 136 per cent ; the value of materials, 144 per cent ; and the capital invested in the plant, 241 per cent. This is the statis- tical indication of the decline in importance of human labor and the increasing part played by capital. When pig iron was cast into sand, it required 500 men to handle the 2500-ton output of live furnaces. With the pig- casting machine now in use and the direct conversion of the molten pig iron, 130 men are a complete casting crew for that tonnage. The "mud gun" and pneumatic drill have displaced many skilled men. One of the very recent labor- saving machines to be installed is that for handling molten iron, by which 4 men now do the work formerly accomplished by fourteen. . . . In the steel industry proper, despite its going over for the first time into the manufacture of merchant shapes which de- mand much hand labor, the labor force increased but 31 per cent in the ten years 1899 to 1909, while horse power used in- creased 91 per cent; materials, 68 per cent; and capital invested, 135.5 per cent. From 1909 to 19 14 labor increased 5 per cent; horse power, 28.8 per cent; material decreased lo.i per cent; capital increased 25.2 per cent. This has resulted, in the last few years^ in a tendency to develop a new type of worker, the semiskilled, at the expense of both the skilled men above him and the unskilled below. These semiskilled are recruited from the unskilled workers, who, SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 109 after a period of work, have picked up some single dexterity, such as handling a crane or a lever, but who lack, as a rule, any- mechanical knowledge. A steel superintendent put it tersely : "That Pole skidding rails up the incline with his lever control could be replaced in five minutes by any one of those three laborers there. They have each been watching like hawks for months every move he has made. We can get a thousand of these semiskilled tomorrow by calling on the gang bosses. They can't go very wrong with the machine, no matter how confused they get ; and in the end, while they know only one small operation, they have that cold." The machine displaces the unskilled, and the semiskilled dis- places the skilled at the machine. This new evolution dates roughly from the recent increase in the use of electric power in the plants. . . . Industrial evolution was fated to produce the technique of the automatic machine. The all-important necessity of exact standardization in the production of duplicate parts meant that the one irresponsible, variable influence — man's labor — must be minimized, even eradicated. At once a vast equipment of nineteenth-century skill and trade knowledge lost value. Unskilled labor, capable only of sustained attention, became the typical labor. Not only did the huge markets of New York, Chicago, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh furnish a ready sup- ply to the capitalist but the human elements in this labor mar- ket found that they could easily sell their unskilled labor in any market which had a labor demand, and the stimulus to a rest- less, migratory spirit was given. The number of hirings in the year necessary to keep the factory force up to normal has steadily increased. As the simplification of processes develops, one immigrant race is rapidly displaced by another of lower industrial knowledge and willing to work for lower wages. As the intensity and monotony of the work increased, a race more pliable and subservient, less liable to organize, was naturally sought by the employer. The United States Steel Corporation advertised during the tin-mill strike in 1909: "Wanted: Tin- ners, Catchers, and Helpers, to work in open shops. Syrians, Poles, and Roumanians preferred." no VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS The new technique came because the machine industry born in the English Industrial Revolution was predestined to pro- duce it. One of the most remarkable coincidences in economic history is the migration to America from Europe of a great nation of unskilled workers during the very period when the simplification and mechanization of American industry took place, AMiether this unskilled labor-supply came because America's siinplified industry offered it employment, or the in- dustry simplified itself to use the cheap adult labor arriving at the rate of almost a million a year, is a question to which a correct answer is not essential. The labor and technique came together. THE DEMANDS OF LABORS Samuel Gompers [Samuel Gompers (1850- ) was born in England, but came to America in early youth and began life as a cigar maker in New York City. He was one of the founders of the American Federa- tion of Labor and has been, except for one year, its president since 1882. During the World War he was a member of the Advisory Committee of the Council of National Defense. He is generally regarded today as the spokesman for organized labor in America.] The American labor movement will cooperate with all other agencies to help in this reconstruction time. Our movement is not to destroy but to construct, — but all may just as well un- derstand now as at any other time that the advantages which the workers of America and of the allied countries have gained, and which we hope to extend to the people even of the con- quered countries, are not going to be taken away from us, and that we will resist to the uttermost any attempt to take them away. The principal danger is that we may at some time in the future revert to the old conditions of unemployment. The continually increasing cost of living entails the necessity of ^From the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. LXXXI, January, 1919. Reprinted by permission. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT iii continually increasing wages, but a surplus in the labor market makes it difficult, if not impossible, for wages to keep pace with the living cost. Intermittent employment with low wages is one of the chief causes of poverty, with its accompanying mis- ery and its social and personal demoralization. Reasonable farsightedness in readjustment will obviate a labor surplus. We have a right to demand, and we do demand, that such reasonable farsightedness be exercised. The American Federa- tion of Labor expects governments — national, state, and local — to adopt every measure necessary to prevent unemployment. During the period of reconstruction every wage earner should be afforded the opportunity of suitable employment and an in- come and sustenance sufficient to enable him, without the labor of mother and children, to maintain himself and family in health and comfort and to provide a competence for old age with ample provision for recreation and good citizenship. Gov- ernments should (i) prepare and inaugurate plans to build model homes for the wage earners ; ( 2 ) establish a system of credits whereby the workers may borrow money for a long term of years at a low rate of interest to build their own homes ; (3) encourage, protect, and extend credit to voluntary, non- profit-making, and joint-tenancy associations ; (4) exempt from taxation and grant other subsidies for houses constructed for the occupancy of their owners; (5) relieve municipalities from the restrictions preventing them from undertaking proper housing plans; (6) encourage and support the erection and maintenance of houses where workers may find lodging and nourishing food during the periods of unemployment. Much talk has been made about preparing plans for the con- struction of public buildings, roads, and other public works in order to avoid unemployment. All such suggestions are good, in so far as these things are needed, and no farther. There can be no question, however, of the urgent, immediate need of great numbers of wholesome houses at reasonable cost for work- ing people. The environment offered by many of the tenements is unfit to surround the growing children of a free republic. The revolting conditions in many tenement districts, without sufficient light, air, or play spaces, tend to produce persons 112 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS unfit for citizenship. Squalor and almost unlivable conditions are still found in many houses of the workers whose compensa- tion is inadequate, where opportunity to associate with their fellow workmen for their moral, intellectual, and industrial im- provement is persistently and successfully denied. Such hous- ing should not be permitted to exist. The employment of public funds in the provision of homes for workers is a far better investment than large expenditures on ornamental buildings and beautiful boulevards, seldom, if ever, seen by the poor. If large expenditures of public money are needed to avoid unemployment, the construction of houses is of far greater public benefit, especially to the poor, promoting health, happiness, and good citizenship. Moreover, such in- vestments have the added merit of returning to the public treas- ury without loss and even with gain. There is developing very rapidly a public demand that every worker shall be provided with a decent, sanitary, and comfortable home. The wage earners of America are deserving of this new conception of living and are entitled to no less. This, then, is the inspiration, the motive of one of the ultimate objects of the American Federation of Labor. The demand of the wage earners is not only for sanitary and fit houses to live in but that a sufficient number of houses shall be available so that they may be freed from the evil of high rents, overcrowding, and congestion. The ordinary method of supplying houses, through their erection by private capital for investment and speculation, has rarely, if ever, been adequate. Nearly all of our workmen's habitations are built on a system of exploitation. Most of the houses built for the wage earners are built to sell. This system of exploitation does not permit of proper housing facilities and adequate upkeep. The fact that there is danger of unemployment, a shortage of foodstuffs, and demoralizing congestion of population, while there are hundreds of millions of acres of agricultural, suburban, and urban lands lying idle, should make a deeper impression upon public thought than it has heretofore done. We should no longer hesitate in forcing unused lands into use by exempt- ing all improvements from taxation and by placing a tax on SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 1 13 nonproductive the same as on productive land. Regular employ- ment, comfortable homes, necessities at reasonable cost, and an adequate income are urgent demands. Reconstruction will fail unless these conditions are attained. To attain them the workers must be assured that they are guaranteed and encouraged in the exercise of their right to organize and associate with their fellow workmen in the trade unions and deal collectively with employers through such representation of their unions as they may choose, for their improved economic and industrial conditions and relations. Perhaps the following might be regarded as a summary of demands to be satisfied in the pending readjustment of conditions : No wage reduction. No lengthening of the working day. Opportunity for suitable, regular, remunerative employment. A workday of not more than eight hours ; a work week of not more than five and a half days. Protection for women and children from overwork, under- pay, and unsuitable employment. Increased opportunity for both education and play for children. The elimination of private monopolies, and protection from the extortions of profiteers. The final disposition of the railroads, telegraph, telephone, and cable systems to be determined by the consideration of the rights and interests of the whole people, rather than the special privileges and interests of a few. Comfortable, sanitary homes and wholesome environment, rather than elaborate improvements of no special benefit to the masses of the people. Heavier taxation of idle lands, to the end that they may be used for the public good. A government made more responsive to the demands of jus- tice and the common good by the adoption of initiative and referendum measures. In a word, any and all measures shall be taken tending toward constant growth and development of the economic, 114 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS industrial, political, social, and humane conditions for the toilers, to make life the better worth living, to develop all that is best in the human being, and to make for the whole people a struc- ture wherein each will vie with the other in the establishment of the highest and best concepts and ideals of the human family. THE REPLY OF CAPITAL— REPRESENTATION^ John D. Rockefeller, Jr. [John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and was educated at Brown University. He has been closely identified with the business interests of his father and has given special attention to the relations between capital and labor ; as, for example, his plan which was adopted for settling the strike of the employees of the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company in 1914. His philanthropic ac- tivities have also been extensive, especially as chairman of the Rockefeller Foundation.] I speak as a member of the public group. I hold no execu- tive position in any business corporation and am not here repre- senting any business interests. I have come in response to the request of the President to accept appointment as one of the representatives of the general public in this conference and am considering the questions which come before the conference from that standpoint. The resolution before the conference is predicated upon the principle of representation in industry, which includes the right to organize and the right to bargain collectively. In supporting the resolution I beg leave to present the following statement which for the sake of brevity and clearness I have reduced to writing : The experiences through which our country has passed in the months of war, exhibiting as they have the willingness of all Americans, without distinction of race, creed, or class, to sacrifice personal ends for a great ideal and to work to- gether in a spirit of brotherhood and cooperation has been iprom the Annals of the American Academy oj Political and Social Science, Vol. LXXXI, January, 1919. Reprinted by permission. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 115 a revelation to our own people and a cause for congratulation to us all. Now that the stimulus of the war is over, the question which confronts our nation is, How can these high levels of unselfish devotion to the common good be maintained and extended to the civic life of the nation in times of peace ? We have been called together to consider the industrial problem. Only as each of us discharges his duties as a member of this conference in the same high spirit of patriotism, of un- selfish allegiance to right and justice, of devotion to the prin- ciples of democracy and brotherhood with which we approached the problems of the war, can we hope for success in the solution of the industrial problem which is no less vital to the life of the nation. There are pessimists who say that there is no solution short of revolution and the overturn of the existing social order. Surely the men and women who have shown themselves capa- ble of such lofty sacrifice, who have actually given themselves so freely, gladly, unreservedly as the people of this great coun- try have during these past years, will stand together as un- selfishly in solving this great industrial problem as they did in dealing with the problems of the war if only right is made clear and the way to a solution pointed out. The world position which our country holds today is due to the wide vision of the statesmen who founded these United States and to the daring and indomitable persistence of the great industrial leaders, together with the myriads of men who, with faith in their leadership, have cooperated to rear the mar- velous industrial structure of which our country today is justly so proud. This result has been produced by the cooperation of four factors in industry — labor, capital, management, and the public, the last represented by the consumer and by organized government. No one of these groups can alone claim credit for what has been accomplished. Just what is the relative im- portance of the contribution made to the success of industry by these several factors and what their relative rewards should be are debatable questions. But however views may differ on these questions, it is clear that the common interest cannot be advanced by the effort of any one party to dominate the other, to dictate arbitrarily the terms on which alone it will cooperate, ii6 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS to threaten to withdraw if any attempt is made to thwart the enforcement of its will. Such a position is as un-American as it is intolerable. Almost countless are the suggested solutions of the indus- trial problem which have been brought forth since industry first began to be a problem. Most of these are impracticable ; some are unjust ; some are selfish and therefore unworthy ; some of them have merit and should be carefully studied. None can be looked to as a panacea. There are those who believe that legislation is the cure-all for every social, economic, politi- cal, and industrial ill. Much can be done by legislation to prevent injustice and encourage right tendencies, but legislation will never solve the industrial problem. Its solution can be brought about only by the introduction of a new spirit into the relationship between the parties to industry — a spirit of justice and brotherhood. The personal relationship which existed in bygone days is essential to the development of this new spirit. It must be reestablished — if not in its original form, at least as nearly so as possible. In the early days of the development of industry the employer and capital investor were frequently one. Daily contact was had between him and his employees, who were his friends and neighbors. Any questions w^hich arose on either side were taken up at once and readily adjusted. A feeling of genuine friendliness, mutual confidence, and stimulating interest in the common enterprise was the result. How different is the situation today ! Because of the propor- tions which modern industry has attained, employers and em- ployees are too often strangers to each other. Personal contact, so vital to the success of any enterprise, is practically unknown ; and naturally misunderstanding, suspicion, distrust, and (too often) hatred have developed, bringing in their train all the industrial ills which have become far too common. Where men are strangers and have no points of contact, this is the usual outcome. On the other hand, where men meet frequently about a table, rub elbows, exchange views, and discuss matters of common interest, almost invariably it happens that the vast majority of their differences quickly disappear and friendly SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 117 relations are established. Much of the strife and bitterness in industrial relations results from lack of ability or willingness on the part of both labor and capital to view their common problems each from the other's point of view. A man who recently devoted some months to studying the industrial problem and who came in contact with thousands of workmen in various industries throughout the country has said that it was obvious to him from the outset that the workingmen were seeking for something, which at first he thought to be higher wages. As his touch with them extended he came to the conclusion, however, that not higher wages but recognition as men was what they really sought. What joy can there be in life, what interest can a man take in his work, what enthu- siasm can he be expected to develop on behalf of his employer, when he is regarded as a number on a pay roll, a cog in a wheel, a mere "hand"? Who would not earnestly seek to gain recognition of his manhood and the right to be heard and treated as a human being and not as a machine ? While obviously under present conditions those who invest their capital in an industry, often numbered by the thousand, cannot have personal acquaintance with the thousands and tens of thousands of those who invest their labor, contact between those two parties in interest can and must be established, if not directly, then through their respective representatives. The resumption of such personal- relations through frequent con- ference and current meetings, held for the consideration of matters of common interest such as terms of employment and working and living conditions, is essential in order to restore a spirit of mutual confidence, good will, and cooperation. Per- sonal relations can be revived under modern conditions only through the adequate representation of the employees. Repre- sentation is a principle which is fundamentally just and vital to the successful conduct of industry. This is the principle upon which the democratic government of our country, is founded. On the battlefields of France this nation poured out its blood freely in order that democracy might be maintained at home and that its beneficent institutions might become available in other lands as well. Surely it is not consistent for Il8 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS us as Americans to demand democracy in government and practice autocracy in industry. What can this conference do to further the establishment of democracy in industry and lay a sure and solid foundation for the permanent development of cooperation, good will, and industrial well-being ? To undertake to agree on the details of plans and methods is apt to lead to endless controversy without constructive result. Can we not, however, unite in the adoption of the principle of representation, and the agreement to make every effort to secure the indorsement and acceptance of this principle by all chambers of commerce, industrial and commercial bodies, and all organizations of labor ? Such action I feel confident would be overwhelmingly backed by public opinion and cordially approved by the Federal government. The assurance thus given of a closer relationship between the parties to industry would further justice, promote good will, and help to bridge the gulf between capital and labor. It is not for this or any other body to undertake to deter- mine for industry at large what form representation shall take. Once having adopted the principle of representation, it is ob- viously wise that the method to be employed should be left in each specific instance to be determined by the parties in interest. If there is to be peace and good will between the several parties in industry it will surely not be brought about by the enforce- ment upon unwilling groups of a method which in their judg- ment is not adapted to their peculiar needs. In this as in all else, persuasion is an essential element in bringing about convic- tion. With the developments in industry what they are today, there is sure to come a progressive evolution from autocratic, single control — whether by capital, labor, or the state — to democratic, cooperative control by all three. The whole move- ment is evolutionary. That which is fundamental is the idea of representation, and that idea must find expression in those forms which v;ill serve it best, with conditions, forces, and times what they are. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 1 19 CAPITAL AND LABOR: A FAIR DEAL^ Otto H. Kahn [Otto H. Kahn (1867- ) was born in Germany and educated there as a youth. He came to the United States in 1893, and since that time has been, through his large banking interests as a mem- ber of Kuhn, Loeb, and Company and as director of various trusts, corporations, and railroad companies, and, furthermore, as trustee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and of Rutgers Col- lege and for his generous encouragement of our best opera and music, one of the most useful and enterprising of Americans. The tribute he paid to the work of our army overseas during the World War, in an address he delivered before the American Bankers' Asso- ciation in Chicago, at the close of 1918, was one of the stirring speeches made upon our public platform during the war.] The principle on which all concerned should deal with the labor question appears to me plain. It is the principle of the Golden Rule. I think the formula should be that, first, labor is entitled to a living wage ; after that, capital is entitled to a living wage ; what is left over belongs to both capital and labor, in such proportion as fairness and equity and reason shall determine in all cases. The application of that formula is, of course, complex and difficult, because there are so many different kinds of labor, there are so many different kinds of capital. Not infrequently the laborer and capitalist overlap and merge into one. You have skilled labor and unskilled labor and casual labor ; you have the small employer, the large individual employer, the corporate employer, the inventor, the prospector, etc. And, then, circumstances and conditions vary greatly, of course, in different parts of the country and in different industries. It is impossible to measure by the same yardstick everywhere, but the principle of fairness can be stated, the desire can be slated, to do everything possible to bring about good feeling and good understanding between labor and capital, and will- ingly and freely to cooperate so that labor shall receive its fair ^ This address was delivered before the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, April 24, 1919. 120 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS share in the fruits of industry, not only by way of a wage return but of an adequate return also in those less tangible things which make for contentment and happiness. It seems to me that, in the main, right-thinking men of capital and of labor would concur in the following points : I. The workman is neither a machine nor a commodity. He is a collaborator with capital. (I do not use the word "part- ner," because partnership implies sharing in the risks and losses of the business, which risks and losses labor does not and cannot be expected to share, except to a limited extent and indirectly.) He must be given an effective voice in determining jointly with the employer the conditions under which he works, either through committees in each factory or other unit or through labor unions, or through both. Individual capacity, industry, and ambition must receive encouragement and recog- nition. The employer's attitude should not be one of patroniz- ing or grudging concession, but frank and willing recognition of the dignity of the status of the worker and of the considera- tion due to him in his feelings and viewpoints. Ever>^thing practicable must be done to infuse interest and conscious purpose into his work and to diminish the sense of drudgery and monotony of his daily task. The closest possible contact must be maintained between employer and employee^ Arrangements for the adjustment of grievances must be pro- vided which will work smoothly and instantaneously. Every feasible opportunity must be given to the workman to be in- formed as to the business of which he forms a part. He must not be deprived of his employment without valid cause. For his own satisfaction and the good of the country every induce- ment and facility should be extended to him to become the owner of property. Responsibility has nearly always a sobering and usually a broadening effect. I believe it to be in the interest of labor and capital and the public at large that workmen should par- ticipate in industrial responsibilities to the greatest extent com- patible with the maintenance of needful order and system and the indispensable unity of management. Therefore, wherever it is practicable and really desired by the employees themselves SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 12 1 to have representation on the Board of Direction^ I think that should be conceded. It would give them a better notion of the problems, complexities, and cares which the employer has to face. It would tend to allay the suspicions and to remove the misconceptions which, so frequently, are the primary cause of trouble. The workman would come to realize that capitalists are not, perhaps, quite as wise and deep as they are given credit for, but, on the other hand, a good deal less grasping and selfish than they are frequently believed to be, a good deal more decent and well meaning, and made of the same human stuff as the worker, without the addition of either horns or claws or hoofs. 2. The worker's living conditions must be made dignified and attractive to himself and his family. Nothing is of greater importance. To provide proper homes for the workers is one of the most urgent and elementary duties of the employer, or if he has not the necessary means, then it becomes the duty of the state. 3. The worker must be relieved of the dread of sickness, un- employment, and old age. It is utterly inadmissible that be- cause industry slackens, or illness or old age befalls a worker, he and his family should therefore be condemned to suffering or to the dread of suffering. The community must find ways and means of seeing to it, by public works or otherwise^ that any man fit and honestly desirous to do an honest day's work shall have an opportunity to earn a living. Those unable to work must be honorably protected. The only ones on whom a civilized community has a right to turn its back are those un- willing to work. , . . 4. The worker must receive a wage which not only permits him to keep body and soul together but to lay something by to take care of his wife and children, to have his share of the comforts, joys, and recreations of life, and to be encouraged in the practice and obtain the rewards of thrift. 5. Labor, on the other hand, must realize that high wages can only be maintained if high production is maintained. The restriction of production is a sinister and harmful fallacy, most of all in its effect on labor. I 12 2 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS The primary cause of poverty is underproduction. Further- more, lessened production naturally makes for high costs. High wages accompanied by proportionately high cost of the essen- tials of living don't do the worker any good. And they do the rest of the community a great deal of harm. The welfare of the so-called middle classes — that is, the men and women liv- ing on moderate incomes, the small shopkeeper, the average professional man, the farmer, etc. — is just as important to the community as the welfare of the wage earner. If, through undue exactions, through unfair use of his power, through in- adequate output, the workman brings about a condition in which the pressure of high prices becomes intolerable to the middle classes, he will create a class animosity against himself which is bound to be of infinite harm to his legitimate aspira- tions. Precisely the same, of course, holds true of capital. The advent of the machine period in industry somewhat over a century ago brought about a fundamental and violent dislo- cation of the relationship which had grown up through hun- dreds of years between employer and employee. The result has been a grave and long-continued maladjustment. In conse- quence of it, for a long period in the past, it must be admitted, unfortunately, labor did not secure a square deal, and society failed to do anything like its full duty by labor. But more and more of recent years the conscience and thought of the world have awakened to a recognition of the rights of the working people. Much has been done of late to remedy that maladjustment, the origin of which dates back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The process of rectification has not yet been completed, but it is going on apace. Meanwhile laboring men should take heed that, in their rightful resentment against former practices of exploitation and in their determina- tion to obtain the redress of just grievances, they do not permit themselves to be misled by plausible fallacies or self-seeking agitators. They must not give credence, for instance, to the absurd preachment that practically all wealth other than that produced by the farmer is the product of the exertions of the WDrkingman. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 123 There are, of course, a number of other factors that enter into the creation of wealth. Thus the "directive faculty," the quality of leadership in thought and action, is not only one absolutely needful in all organized undertakings, great or small, but it becomes increasingly rare and consequently in- creasingly more valuable as the object to which it addresses itself increases in size, complexity, and difficulty. Let us take as an example the case of Mr. Henry Ford. Through the organizing genius and enterprise of this absolutely self-made man (not by monopoly but in keen competition), the automobile, instead of being a luxury of the few, has been brought within the reach of those of modest means. The cost of the product has been vastly cheapened. The margin of profit on each automobile sold has been greatly diminished. Wages have been very largely increased, the liv- ing conditions of employees greatly improved. Work has been found for a great many more men than were employed before. In other words, every single human factor concerned in either production or consumption has gained advantage. New wealth has been created at the expense of no one. It cannot be said that it was created by the workingman, except in the physical sense. It was not created by either monopoly or privilege. It was created mainly out of Mr. Ford's brain and at his risk. By far the largest percentage of this new wealth goes to pay the wages of workingmen and other expenses of the business, but out of what is left, Mr. Ford's share is, by common report, in excess of Si, 000,000 a year. Did Mr. Ford earn $1,000,000 in one year? If not, how much did he earn} By what scale would you measure the proportion due to him of the new wealth created mainly by his faculties ? If he had not been allowed to earn the large sums which he did earn, how and where could he have found the means to enlarge and improve his factory so as to make possible an enterprise which immensely cheapened the product to the con- sumer and largely increased the wages to the workingman and the opportunity for employment ? Is there any instance where communistic or even merely cooperative undertakings have 124 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS produced similar results ? Is there any instance where gov- ernmental management has produced similar results ? Or, to take another instance :' The state of Florida existed long before I\Ir. Henry ]\I. Flagler came upon the scene, but its opportunities were permitted ... to lie largely dormant until INIr. Flagler risked his fortune and employed the power of his creative genius to realize the visions which he conceived as to the possibilities of that beautiful and richly endowed portion of our national domain. The new wealth, growth, and opportuni- ties which were created by ]\Ir. Flagler's daring and far- flung enterprise, undertaken and carried out by him almost single-handed in the face of scoffing and discouragement and vast difficulties, are almost incalculable. A portion of that new wealth — a considerable portion, regarded by itself, but utterly insignificant as compared to the total enrichment of in- dividuals as well as of communities, the state, and the nation — went to Mr. Flagler. Did he earn that reward? Can it be denied that his directive faculty and pioneering genius were a splendid investment to the people of Florida and of the nation at the compensation he received ? It would be easy to multiply similar instances testifying to the vast additions made to the assets of the community by the genius, daring, and efforts of men endowed with the gifts of industrial captaincy. In a recently published, very able pamphlet entitled " Indus- trial Salvation," Miss Christabel Pankhurst, the well-known English leader in the cause of woman suffrage, says : Certain Socialists, who ought to know better, have falsely taught that the poverty or semi-poverty of the many is due to the luxu- rious living of the prosperous sections of the community. This is not the truth, and if through all the years of Socialist preachings the result of each year's industrial effort had been divided equally among the members of the community, there would have been no appreciable increase of prosperity for any, and there would have been one dead level of poverty for all. The way to progress is not to pull everybody down to a com- mon level of mediocrity, but to stimulate individual effort and strive to raise the general level of well-being and opportunity. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 125 It is not material success which should be abolished ; it is poverty and justified discontent which should be abolished. We cannot abolish poverty by division, but only by multiplication. It is not by the spoliation of some^ but by creating larger assets and broader opportunity for all, that national well-being can and must be enhanced. I wonder how many people realize that if all incomes above $10,000 were taken and distributed among those earning less than $10,000, the result, as near as it is possible to figure it out, would be that the income of those receiving that distribu- tion would be increased barely ten per cent ! And the result of any such division would be an immense loss in national productivity by turning a powerful and fructi- fying stream into a mass of rivulets, many of which would simply lose themselves in the sand. I wonder how many people know that the frequent and loud assertion that the great bulk of the wealth of the nation is held by a small number of rich men is wholly false ; and that the fact is, on the contrary, that seven eighths of our national in- come goes to those with incomes of $5000 or less, and but one eighth to those with incomes above $5000. Moreover, those in receipt of incomes of $5000 or less pay little or no income tax, while those having large incomes are subjected to very heavily progressive income taxes. We have often heard it said recently — it has become rather the fashion to say it — that the rulership of the world will henceforth belong to labor. I yield to no one in my respect and sympathy for labor or in my cordial and sincere support of its just claims. The structure of our institutions cannot stand unless the masses of workmen, farmers, indeed all large strata of society, feel that under and by these institutions they are being given a square deal within the limits not of Utopia but of what is sane, right, and practicable. But the rulership of the world will and ought to belong to no one class. It will and ought to belong neither to labor nor to capital nor to any other class. It will, of right and in fact, belong to those of all classes who acquire title to 126 \1TAL FORCES IX CURRENT EVENTS it by talent^ hard work, self-discipline, character, and service. He is no genuine friend or sound counselor of the people nor a true patriot who recklessly, calculatingly, or ignorantly raises or encourages expectations which cannot or which ought not to be fulfilled. We must deal with all these things with common sense, mutual trust, with respect for all, and with the aim of guiding our conduct by the standard of liberty, justice, and human sympathy. But we must rightly understand liberty. We must resolutely oppose those who in their impatient grasping for unattainable perfection would make of liberty a raging and destructive torrent instead of a majestic and fertilizing stream. Liberty is not fool-proof. For its beneficent working it de- mands self-restraint, a sane and clear recognition of the reality of things, of the practical and attainable, and a realization of the fact that there are laws of nature and of economics which are immutable and beyond our power to change. Nothing in history is more pathetic than the record of the instances when one or the other of the peoples of the world rejoicingly followed a new lead which it was promised and fondly believed would bring it to freedom and happiness, and then suddenly found itself, instead, on the old and only too well-trodden lane which goes through suffering and turmoil to disillusionment and reaction. I suppose most of us when we were twenty knew of a short cut to the millennium and were impatient, resentful, and rather con- temptuous of those whose fossilized prejudices or selfishness, as we regarded them^ prevented that short cut from becoming the highroad of humanity. Now that we are older, though we know that our eyes will not behold the millennium, we should still like the nearest pos- sible approach to it, but we have learned that no short cut leads there and that anybody who claims to have found one is either an impostor or self-deceived. Among those wandering signposts to Utopia we find and recognize certain recurrent types : There are those who in the fervor of their world-improving mission discover and proclaim certain cure-alls for the ills of SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 127 humanity which they fondly and honestly believe to be new and unfailing remedies, but which, as a matter of fact, are hoary with age, having been tried on this old globe of ours at one time or another, in one of its parts or another, long ago — -tried and found wanting, and discarded after sad disillusionment. There are the spokesmen of sophomorism rampant, strut- ting about in the cloak of superior knowledge, mischievously and noisily, to the disturbance of quiet and orderly mental processes and sane progress. There are the sentimental, unseasoned, intolerant, and cock- sure "advanced thinkers," claiming leave to set the world by the ears and, with their strident and ceaseless voices, to drown the views of those who are too busy doing to indulge in much talking. There are the self-seeking demagogues and various related types. And finally there are the preachers and devotees of liberty run amuck_, who in fanatical obsession would place a visionary and narrow class interest and a sloppy internation- alism above patriotism and with whom class hatred and envy have become a ruling passion. They are perniciously, cease- lessly, and vociferously active, though constituting but a small minority of the people and though every election and other test has proved, fortunately, that they are not representative of labor, either organized or unorganized. Among these agitators and disturbers who dare clamorously to assail the majestic and beneficent structure of American tra- ditions, doctrines, and institutions, there are some, far too many, indeed, — I say it with deep regret, being myself of foreign birth,— who are of foreign parentage or descent. With many hundreds of thousands they or their parents came to our free shores from lands of oppression and persecution. The great republic generously gave them asylum and opened wide to them the portals of her freedom and her opportunities. The great bulk of these newcomers have become loyal and enthusiastic Americans. Most of them have proved themselves useful and valuable elements in our many-rooted population. Some of them have accomplished eminent achievements in 128 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS science, industry, and the arts. Certain of the qualities and talents which they contribute to the common stock are of great worth and promise. When the great test of the war came, the overwhelming majority of them rang wholly and finely true. The casualty lists are eloquent testimony to the patriotic devotion of '' the children of the crucible," doubly eloquent because many of them fought against their own kith and kin. But some there are who have been blinded by the glare of liberty as a man is blinded who after long confinement in darkness comes suddenly into the strong sunlight. Blinded, they dare to aspire to force their guidance upon Americans, who for generations have walked in the light of liberty. They have become drunk with the strong wine of freedom, these men who until they landed on America's coasts had tasted little but the bitter water of tyranny. Drunk, they presume to impose their reeling gait upon Americans, to whom freedom has been a pure and refreshing fountain for a century and a half. Brooding in the gloom of age-long oppression, they have evolved a fantastic and distorted image of free government. In fatuous effrontery they seek to graft the growth of their stunted vision upon the splendid and ancient tree of American institutions. Admitted in generous trust to the hospitality of America, they grossly violate not only the dictates of common gratitude but of those elementary rules of respect and consideration which immemorial custom imposes upon the newcomer or guest. They seek, indeed, to uproot the foundations of the very house which gave them shelter. We will not have it so, we who are Americans by birth or by adoption. We reject these impudent pretensions. By all means let us move forward and upward, but let us proceed by the chart of reason, experience, and tested American princi- ples and doctrines, and let us not intrust our ship to dema- gogues, visionaries, or shallow sentimentalists who most assuredly would steer it on the rocks. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 129 When you once leave the level road of Americanism to set foot upon the incline of Socialism, it is no longer in your power to determine where you will stop. It is an axiom only too well attested by the experience of the past^ that the principal ele- ments of the established order of civilization (of which the institution of private property is one) are closely interrelated. If you tolerate grave infringement upon any of these elements, all history shows that you will have laid open to assault the foundations of personal liberty, of orderly processes of govern- ment, of justice and tolerance, as well as the institution of marriage, the sanctity of the home, and the principles and practices of religion. The strident voices of the fomenters of unrest do not cause me any serious apprehension, but we must not sit silently by, we must not look on inactively. Where there are grievances to redress, where there are wrongs existing, we must all aid in trying to right them to the best of our conscience and ability. To the extent that social and economic institutions, however deep and ancient their roots, may be found to stand in the way of the highest achievable level of social justice and the widest attainable extension of opportunity, welfare, and contentment, they will have to submit to change. And the less obstructive and stubborn, and more broad-minded, cooperative, sympathetic, and disinterested those who preeminently prospered under the old conditions will prove themselves in meeting the spirit of the new day and the reforms which it may justly call for, the better it will be both for them and for the community at large. But to the false teaching and the various pernicious "isms" with which un-Americans, 50 per cent Americans, or anti- Americans are flooding the country, we must give battle through an organized, persistent, patient, nation-wide cam- paign of education, of information, of sane and sound doctrine. The masses of the American people want what is right and fair, but they "want to be shown." They will not simply take our v;ord for it that because a thing is so and has always been so, therefore it should remain so. They do not mean to stand 130 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS still. They want progress. They have no use for the stand- patter and reactionary. Even before the war a great stirring and ferment was going on in the land. The people w^ere groping, seeking for a new and better condition of things. The war has intensified that move- ment. It has torn great fissures in the ancient structure of our civilization. To restore it will require the cooperation of all patriotic men of sane and temperate views, whatever may be their occupation or calling or political affiliations. It cannot be restored just as it was before. The building must be rendered more habitable and attractive to those whose claim for adequate houseroom cannot be left unheeded, either justly or safely. Some changes, essential changes, must be made. I have no fear of the outcome and of the readjustment which must come. I have no fear of the forces of freedom un- less they be ignored, repressed^ or falsely or selfishly led. Changes the American people will make as their needs be- come apparent ; improvements they welcome ; the greatest attainable well-being lor all those under our national rooftree is their aim. They will strive to realize what formerly were considered unattainable ideals. But they will do all that in the American way — of sane and orderly progress — and in no other. Whatever betide in European countries, this nation will not be torn from its ancient moorings. Against foes within no less than against enemies without, the American people will ever know how to preserve and protect the splendid structure of light and order which is the treasured inheritance of all those who rightfully bear the name Americans, whatever their race and origin. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 131 THE IMMIGR.\NT'S VIEWPOINT ^ Randolph S. Bourne [Randolph S. Bourne (1886-1918) was educated at Columbia University and had traveled and studied in Europe. He was one of the most important of the younger contributors to American maga- zines on social and pohtical movements and on education. His most important books are "Youth and Life" (1913) and "Educa- tion and Living" (1917). The pages below are part of a stimu- lating discussion on the assimilation of the immigrant into American life, which has come to be referred to as "the melting pot."] Mary Antin is right when she looks upon our foreign-born as the people who missed the Mayflower and came over on the first boat they could find. We are all foreign-born or the descendants of foreign-born, and if distinctions are to be made between us they should rightly be on some other ground than indigenousness. The early colonists came over with motives no less colonial than the later. They did not come to be assimi- lated in an American melting pot. They did not come to adopt the culture of the American Indian. They had not the smallest intention of '^giving themselves without reservation" to the new country. They came to get freedom to live as they wanted to. They came to escape from the stifling air and chaos of the Old World ; they came to make their fortune in a new land. They invented no new social framework. Rather they brought over bodily the old ways to which they had been accustomed. Tightly concentrated on a hostile fron- tier, they were conservative beyond belief. Their pioneer dar- ing was reserved for the objective conquest of material resources. In their folkways, in their social and political institutions, they were, like every colonial people, slavishly imitative of the mother country. So that, in spite of the "Revolution," our whole legal and political system remained more English than the English, petrified and unchanging, while in England law developed to meet the needs of the changing times. ^From the dilm^k Monthly, July, 1916. Reprinted by permission. 132 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS It is just this English-American conservatism that has been our chief obstacle to social advance. We have needed the new peoples — the order of the German and Scandinavian, the turbulence of the Slav and Hun — to save us from our own stagnation. I do not mean that the illiterate Slav is now the equal of the New Englander of pure descent. He is raw ma- terial to be educated, not into a New Englander but into a socialized American along such lines as those thirty nation- alities are being educated in the amazing schools of Gary. I do not believe that this process is to be one of decades of evolution. The spectacle of Japan's sudden jump from medie- valism to post-modernism should have destroyed that supersti- tion. We are not dealing with individuals who are to " evolve." We are dealing with their children, who, with that education we are about to have, will start level with all of us. Let us cease to think of ideals like democracy as magical qualities inherent in certain peoples. Let us speak, not of inferior races but of inferior civilizations. We are all to educate and to be educated. These peoples in America are in a common enter- prise. It is not what we are now that concerns us, but what this plastic next generation may become in the light of a new, cosmopolitan ideal. If we come to find this point of view plausible we shall have to give up the search for our native "American" cul- ture. With the exception of the South and that New England which, like the Red Indian, seems to be passing into solemn oblivion, there is no distinctively American culture. It is ap- parently our lot rather to be a federation of cultures. This we have been for half a century, and the war has made it ever more evident that this is what we are destined to remain. This will not mean, however, that there are not expressions of indigenous genius that could not have sprung from any other soil. Music, poetry, philosophy, have been singularly fertile and new. Strangely enough, American genius has flared forth just in those directions which are least " understanded of the people." If the American note is bigness, action, the objec- tive as contrasted with the reflective life, where is the epic SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 133 expression of this spirit? Our drama and our fiction, the pe- culiar fields for the expression of action and objectivity, are somehow exactly the fields of the spirit which remain poor and mediocre. American materialism is in some way inhibited from getting into impressive artistic form its own energy, with which it bursts. Nor is it any better in architecture, the least romantic and subjective of all the arts. We are inarticulate of the very values which we profess to idealize. But in the finer forms — music, verse, the essay, philosophy — the American genius puts forth work equal to any of its contemporaries. Just in so far as our American genius has expressed the pioneer spirit, the adventurous, forward-looking drive of a colonial empire, is it representative of that whole America of the many races and peoples and not of any partial or traditional enthusiasm. And only as that pioneer note is sounded can we really speak of the American culture. As long as we thought of Americanism in terms of the "melting pot," our American cultural tradition lay in the past. It was something to which the new Americans were to be molded. In the light of our changing ideal of Ameri- canism, we must perpetrate the paradox that our American cultural tradition lies in the future. It will be what we all together make out of this incomparable opportunity of attack- ing the future with a new key. The failure of the melting pot, far from closing the great American democratic experiment, means that it has only just begun. Whatever American nationalism turns out to be, we see already that it will have a color richer and more exciting than our ideal has hitherto encompassed. In a world which has dreamed of internationalism we find that we have all una- wares been building up the first international nation. The voices which have cried for a tight and jealous nationalism of the European pattern are failing. From that ideal — however valiantly and disinterestedly it has been set for us — time and tendency have moved us farther and farther away. What we have achieved has been rather a cosmopolitan federation of national colonies, of foreign cultures, from whom the sting of devastating competition has been removed. America is 134 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS already the world federation in miniature, the continent where for the first time in history has been achieved that miracle of hope, the peaceful living side by side, with character substantially preserved, of the most heterogeneous peoples under the sun. Nowhere else has such contiguity been anything but the breeder of misery. Here, notwithstanding our tragic failures of adjust- ment, the outlines are already too clear not to give us a new vision and a new orientation of the American mind in the world. It is for the American of the younger generation to accept this cosmopolitanism, and carry it along with self-conscious and fruitful purpose. In his colleges he is already getting, with the study of modern history and politics, the modern literatures, economic geography^ the privilege of a cosmopolitan outlook such as the people of no other nation of today in Europe can possibly secure. If he is still a colonial he is no longer the colonial of one partial culture, but of many. He is a colonial of the world. Colonialism has grown into cosmopolitanism, and his motherland is no one nation, but all who have anything life- enhancing to offer to the spirit. That vague sympathy which the France of ten years ago was feeling for the world — a sym- pathy which was drowned in the terrible reality of war — may be the modern American's, and that in a positive and aggres- sive sense. If the American is parochial, it is in sheer wanton- ness or cowardice. His provincialism is the measure of his fear of bogies or the defect of his imagination. "AMERICANIZATION "—A DEFINITION ^ Walter E. Weyl [Walter Edward Weyl (1873-1919) studied political economy at the University of Pennsylvania and at various German univer- sities. He had conducted economic investigations for various gov- ernment bureaus and was a frequent contributor to periodicals upon subjects connected with American development. From 1914 to 191 6 he was one of the editors of the New Republic. The discus- sion here given was originally entitled "New Americans."] iFrom Harper's Magazine, September, 1914. Reprinted by permission. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 135 We must not forget that the men and women who file through the narrow gates at Ellis Island, hopeful, confused, with bundles of misconceptions as heavy as the great sacks upon their backs — we must not forget that these simple, rough- handed people are the ancestors of our descendants, the fathers and mothers of our children. So it has been from the beginning. For a century a swelling human stream has poured across the ocean, fleeing from pov- erty in Europe to a chance in America. Englishman, Welsh- man, Scotchman, Irishman ; German, Swede, Norwegian, Dane ; Jew, Italian, Bohemian, Serb ; Syrian, Hungarian, Pole, Greek — one race after another has knocked at our doors, been given admittance, has married us and begot our children. We could not have told by looking at them whether they were to be good or bad progenitors, for racially the cabin is not above tlie steer- age, and dirt, like poverty and ignorance, is but skin-deep. A few hours, and the stain of travel has left the immigrant's cheek ; a few years, and he loses the odor of alien soils ; a generation or two, and these outlanders are irrevocably our race, our nation, our stock. That stock, a little over a century ago, was almost pure British. True, Albany was Dutch, and many of the signs in the Philadelphia streets were in the German language. Neverthe- less, five sixths of all the family names collected in 1790 by the census authorities were pure English, and over nine tenths (90.2 per cent) were British. Despite the presence of Ger- mans, Dutch, French, and negroes, the American was essen- tially an Englishman once removed, an Englishman stuffed with English traditions, prejudices, and stubbornnesses, reading English books, speaking English dialects, practicing English law and English evasions of the law, and hating England with a truly English hatred. In all but a political sense America was still one of "his Majesty's dominions beyond the sea." Even after immigration poured in upon us, the English stock was strong enough to impress upon the immigrating races its language, laws, and customs. Nevertheless the incoming millions profoundly altered our racial structure. Today over thirty-two million Americans are either foreign-born or of foreign 136 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS parentage. No longer an Anglo-Saxon cousin, America has be- come the most composite of nations. We cannot help seeing that such a vast transfusion of blood must powerfully affect the character of the American. What that influence is to be, however, whether for better or for worse, is a question more baffling. Our optimists conceive the future American, the child of this infinite intermarrying, as a glori- fied, synthetical person, replete with the best qualities of all component races. He is to combine the sturdiness of the Bulgarian peasant, the poetry of the Pole, the vivid artistic perceptions of the Italian, the Jew's intensity, the German's thoroughness, the Irishman's verve, the tenacity of the English- man, with the initiative and versatility of the American. The pessimist, on the other hand, fears the worst. America, he be- lieves, is committing the unpardonable sin ; is contracting a mesalliance, grotesque and gigantic. We are diluting our blood with the blood of lesser breeds. We are suffering adulteration. The stamp upon the coin — the flag, the language, the national sense — remains, but the silver is replaced by lead. All of which is singularly unconvincing. In our own families the children do not always inherit the best qualities of father and mother, and we have no assurance that the children of mixed races have this selective gift and rise superior to their parent stocks. Nor do we know that they fall below. We hear much concerning "pure" races and "mongrel" races. But is there in all the world a pure race ? The Jew, once supposed to be of Levitical pureness, is now known to be racially unor- thodox. The Englishman is not pure Anglo-Saxon, the Ger- man is not Teutonic, the Russian is not Slav. To be mongrel may be a virtue or a vice. We do not know. The problem is too subtle, too elusive, and we have no approved receipts in this vast eugenic kitchen. Intermarrying will go on, whether we like it or loathe it, for love laughs at racial barriers, and the maidens of one nation look fair to the youth of another. Let the kettle boil, and let us hope for the best. But the newcomer brings with him more than his potential parenthood, and he influences America and the American in SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 137 other ways than by marriage and procreation. He creates new problems of adjustment. He enters into a new environment. He creates a new environment for us. Unconsciously but irre- sistibly he transforms an America which he does not know. He forces the native American to change, to change that he may feel at home in his own home. When we seek to discover what is the exact influence of the immigrant upon his new environment, we are met with difficul- ties almost as insurmountable as those which enter into the problem of the immigrant's influence upon our common hered- ity. Social phenomena are difficult to isolate. The immigrant is not merely an immigrant ; he is also a wage earner, a city dweller, perhaps an illiterate. Wage earning, city dwelling, and illiteracy are all contributing influences. Your immigrant is a citizen of the new factory, of the great industrial state, within, yet almost overshadowing, the political state. Into each of our problems — wages and labor, illiteracy, crime, vice, insanity, pauperism, democracy — the immigrant enters. There is in all the world no more difficult, no more utterly bewildering problem than this of the intermingling of races. Already thirty million immigrants have arrived, of whom con- siderably over twenty millions have remained. To interpret this pouring of new, strange millions into the old, to trace its result upon the manners, the morals, the emotional and intel- lectual reactions of the Americans, is like searching out the yellow waters of the Missouri in the vast flood of the lower Mississippi. Our immigrating races are many, and they meet diverse kinds of native Americans on varying planes and at innumerable contact points. So complex is the resulting pat- tern, so multitudinous are the threads interwoven into so many perplexing combinations, that we struggle in vain to unweave this weaving. At best we can merely follow a single color, noting its appearance here and its reappearance there, in this vast and many-hued tapestry which we call American life. Fortunately we are not compelled to embark upon so ambi- tious a study. We are here concerned, not with the all-inclusive question ''Is immigration good or bad?" but with the problem 138 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS of how immigration has contributed to certain broad develop- ments in the character and habits of the American, and even to this question we must be content with a half answer. When we compare the America of today with the America of half a century ago certain differences stand out sharply. America today is far richer. It is also more stratified. Our social gamut has been widened. There are more vivid con- trasts, more startling differences, in education and in the gen- eral chances of life. We are less rural and more urban, losing the virtues and the vices, the excellences and the stupidities, of country life, and gaining those of the city. We are massing in our cities armies of the poor to take the place of country ne'er-do-wells and village hangers-on. We are more sophisti- cated. We are more lax and less narrow. We have lost our earlier frugal simplicity and have become extravagant and com- petitively lavish. We have, in short, created a new type of American, who lives in the city, reads newspapers and even books, bathes frequently, travels occasionally ; a man fluent intellectually and physically restless, ready but not profound, intent upon success, not without idealism but somewhat dis- illusioned, pleasure-loving, hard-working, humorous. At the same time there grows a sense of a social maladjustment, a sense of a failure of America to live up to expectations, and an intensifying desire to right a not clearly perceived wrong. There develops a vigorous_, if somewhat vague and untrained, moral impulse, an impulse based on social rather than indi- vidual ethics, unsesthetic, democratic, headlong. Although this development might have come about in part, at least, without immigration, the process has been enormously accelerated by the arrival on our shores of millions of Euro- peans. These men came to make a living, and they made not only their own but other men's fortunes. They hastened the dissolution of old conditions ; they undermined old standards by introducing new ; their very traditions facilitated the growth of that traditionless quality of the American mind which has- tened our material transformation. How we estimate this influence of the immigrant depends upon our definition of the term. In a sense we are all SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 139 immigrants, from the straightest lineal descendant of Miles Standish to the burly "Hunkie" unloaded at Ellis Island this morning ; from the men who came over in the Mayflower to the men who came over in the newest liner. We may, however, arbitrarily define immigration as beginning with 1820, the first year for which we have statistics. Prior to that date the trans- atlantic movement was feeble. During the colonial period only a trickling stream flowed across the ocean. The Revolutionary War cut us off from Europe. England was hostile, the rest of the world indifferent. America was little known and not well known. During the forty years ending in 1820 less than a quarter million Europeans came to America. At present more immigrants land on a single summer day than arrived a century ago during a whole year. The very poverty of the European masses prevented their exodus. A ticket for the hold of one of the pitching little sail- ing vessels cost about ten pounds. But where should a laborer in those days find ten pounds ? Men were born, grew up, mar- ried, begot children, and died at a ripe old age without ever owning a pound, without ever touching or seeing a five-pound note. To buy his passage the emigrant sold himself. He be- came an "indentured" servant, liable to a number of years of unpaid labor in America. This service was neither brief nor easy. Adults usually indentured themselves from three to six years ; children from ten to fifteen or until they came of age. If on the way over a man's parents died — and this event was common enough — the orphan served their time as well as his own. At Philadelphia, at Boston, at New York, dealers in "indentured servants" boarded the boat to look for a "likely boy" or a not too old housekeeper. Parents sometimes sold their children, to remain free themselves. The traffic, though lucrative to the shipowner and advantageous to the farmer, pressed hardly on the poor "indentured servants," often chained together and peddled off in the colonial villages. It is not strange that immigration increased. Gradually transportation facilities improved, America became better known, and the European population more mobile. Immigrants already established in America sent home money to permit 140 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS other immigrants to come. The endless chain began to revolve. In 1828 the number of arriving immigrants exceeded 27,000, as compared with less than 8000 only four years earlier. In 1832 another powerful impulse carried the immigration to over 60,000 annually. During the next twelve years immigra- tion maintained itself at a fairly constant level, averaging almost 70,000 a year. Then in 1845 there came to the trans- atlantic movement a stupendous and unprecedented growth. Soon the 200,000 mark was reached, then 300,000, and finally, in 1854, no less than 427,000 immigrants arrived. In propor- tion to our population, it was the greatest immigration this country has ever had. No one who knew the state of Europe need have wondered at this human flood. The feudal conditions in Germany, which had survived the French Revolution and Napoleon, were at last disintegrating ; industry was beginning, the power loom was destroying the old hand weavers ; education was spreading, and the population was on the move, intellectually and physi- cally. To these conditions, making for a freer-footed peas- antry, a special occurrence contributed. The bitter winter of 1845 destroyed innumerable vineyards. The melting snows swelled the Danube, the Elbe, the Main, the Moselle, the Rhine, devastating the surrounding country. The potato crop, the main resource of the German peasant, failed utterly, and during the winter of 1846 hosts of people stolidly starved. Those who had the means to leave discovered that America was the one way out, and so on the white Strasburg road long lines of carts began to make their way from Bavaria and Wiirt- temberg, from Baden and Hesse-Cassel, to the nearest seaport. "There they go slowly along," wrote a sympathetic observer, "their miserable tumbrels drawn by such starved, drooping beasts that your only wonder is how they can possibly hope to reach Havre alive." The carts were littered with the scanty property of the emigrants, and "piled on the top of all are the women and children, the sick and bedridden, and all who are too exhausted with the journey to walk. One might take it for a convoy of wounded, the relics of a battlefield, but for the rows of little white heads peeping from beneath the ragged hoods." SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 141 If these German emigrants, these new adventurers, were poor, what may we say of the Irish, who in their fearfully over- crowded island were, at the best, on the verge of starvation ? The horrible ravages of the potato famine of 1846 among the wretched poor of Ireland need no repetition. Untold thousands died in their huts ; others, finding no relief in the towns con- gested with starving folk, lay down in the streets and died. ''Along the country roads," writes Justin McCarthy, "one met everywhere groups of gaunt, dim-eyed wretches, clad in miserable old sacking and wandering aimlessly with some vague idea of finding food." This was the impulse, this "vague idea of finding food," which in the fifties brought millions of West Europeans across the ocean. The voyage was desperate. The vessels, officered by ignorant, underpaid, and often brutal captains, and crowded to the gunwale with despised passengers, carried fever in their holds. The dead were consigned to the sea, the sick and stricken were put off at New York or Boston to fill the hospi- tals and almshouses. The Germans, some of whom had means, moved in a never-ending line to the Western frontier. The less mobile Irish were to a great extent stranded in the Eastern cities. This immigration was by no means cordially welcomed. From 1835 on a strongly antagonistic attitude manifested itself in the "Native-American" and " Know-Nothing " movements, both of which were largely anti-Catholic in animus and political in form. The Nativists demanded a restriction of immigration and the appointment of only native Americans to political office. The " Know-Nothing " party, which arose out of the enormous immigration of the late forties, elected a number of senators and representatives, but remained without effect on national legislation. Immigration went on unimpeded. The conditions, however, in which the newly arrived immi- grants found themselves, and the conditions which they made for themselves, were by no means all that might have been de- sired. America did nothing to protect the newcomers, and the first and most lasting impression which the alien received was often the lodging-house shark or some other of the numerous 142 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS exploiters who infested the landing place at Castle Garden. Nor did the majority of immigrants bring with them high standards of living. The newcomers from southern and western Ireland had spent their early lives in the utmost squalor, in crowded, wretched, ill-lit, ill-ventilated hovels, with no floor and no furniture, and no beds but heaps of filthy straw or filthier rags. From miserable huts of this sort these immigrants migrated to horrible tenements in loathsome American alleys. The transition meant no immediate radical improvement in their habits. As a matter of history, most of the conditions and influences now ascribed to immigration were ascribed to it half a century and more ago. Then, as now, the resident had a prejudice against the newcomer because of his lower standards. Though the native refused to associate with the alien, he none the less objected to the latter's isolation, to the clannishness of the Irish, and to the close congregation of Germans, who formed racial clots in the American vascular system. It was com- plained that these aliens "have their own theaters, recreations, amusements, military and national organizations ; to a great extent their own schools, churches, and trade unions ; their own newspapers and periodical literature." A quiet social ostracism prevailed, emphasized from time to time by attacks upon Catholic churches or German Turner societies, by persecutions of foreign-born children in the schools, and by occasional vehe- ment denunciations from rostrum and pulpit. In the meanwhile, however, the immigrant was quietly being changed by America and was quietly changing America. After 1854 immigration fell off rapidly, and during the early years of the Civil War it dwindled to less than a hundred thousand a year. The country was expanding at an unprecedented rate. The war absorbed native and foreign-born, and the growing West made its appeal to all. Industry grew stupendously, the railroads opened new territories, and cities sprang up every- where. The immigrants were learning American ways, were marrying American wives, were begetting and rearing American children. The son of the German or Irish immigrant was more American than the Americans. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 143 What happened in the forties and fifties has been repeated again and again, though in less spectacular form. The source of immigration has changed, but the impulse has remained the same. Hundreds of thousands have come to escape religious or political persecution, but the movement of the millions has been an economic movement, impelled by economic causes and sub- ject to economic laws. Immigration ebbed and flowed, declining after panics and depressions in America and increasing to tor- rential floods with each European calamity or with each sudden improvement in American industry. Progress, however, was upward. Immigrants were insulted, cheated, occasionally mur- dered, but those who survived and prospered wrote glowing letters home, while the men who died from tuberculosis and dynamite explosions wrote no letters. Year by year the inflow increased. The average gross immigration during the years 1905-19 1 2 was only a little under a million a year. A change, however, has come over this movement. Of the total immigration from 1820 to i860, over one half was British and Irish and over one fourth German. Since 1881 our immi- grants have come chiefly from southern and eastern Europe. Today there climb out of the ship's steerage Italians, Greeks, Bohemians, Li'thuanians, Poles, Magyars^ Russians, Hebrews, Syrians, Armenians, Turks, Croatians, Slovenians, Slovaks, Serbians, Rumanians, Bulgarians, Montenegrins, Dalmatians, Bosnians, and Herzegovinians. Improved transportation and improved conditions in Europe have contributed to this devel- opment. We could not have expected many more immigrants from Ireland. That country's population is less than five years of our total inflow ; if all our immigrants were to come from Ireland not a soul would be left by the year 1918. Sweden's population is that of New York City ; Norway's that of Chi- cago. We could empty both countries in a decade. Germany's large population grew, but conditions there improved so rapidly that the empire attracted immigrants. Eastern and southern Europe, on the other hand, are awakening. The rail- road, trolley, newspaper, telegraph, telephone, invade the in- terior. Men begin to move. The attraction of America reaches ever farther. Today the peasant in Dalmatia^ Syria, Basilicata, 144 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS is nearer America, knows more about us, than did the man from Galway or Bavaria half a centurj^ ago. The Italian in New York City goes to a moving-picture theater on Elizabeth Street and sees on the screen the faces of friends who, a few months before, embarked from Naples for the Tripolitan war. For a few "soldi" an urchin of Palermo actually sees "Little Italy." That is the history of our immigration, a coming together oi the New and the Old World. The attraction of America pene- trates ever deeper into Europe, from the maritime peoples liv- ing on the fringe of the ocean, to the inland plains, and then into somnolent, winter-locked mountain villages. Simultane- ously Europe changes America. You can alter any country if you pour in enough millions. These immigrants, moreover, are of a character to effect changes. America's attraction is not to the good or to the bad, to the saint or to the sinner, but to the young, the aggressive, the restless, the ambitious. The Euro- peans in America are chosen men, for there is a rigorous selec- tion at home and a rigorous selection here, the discouraged and defeated returning by the shipload. These immigrating races are virile, tenacious, prolific. Each shipload of newcomers carries to American life an impulse like the rapidly succeeding explosions of a gasoline engine. Moreover, these immigrants, peasants at home, become city dwellers here. The city is the heart of our body social. It is the home of education, amusement, culture, crime, discontent, social contacts ^ — and power. The immigrant, even in the gutter of the city, is often nearer to the main currents of our national life than is the average resident of the country. His children are more literate, more restless, more wide-awake. With such numbers, such qualities, and such a position within the social network, one might imagine that the immigrant would gradually transform us in his own likeness. But no such direct influence is visible. As a nation we have not learned po- liteness, although we have drawn millions of immigrants from the politest peoples in the world. Our national irreverence is not decreased, but, on the contrary, is actually increased, by the mass of idols, of good old customs, memories, religions, SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 145 which come to us in the steerage. Nor is the immigrant's in- fluence in any way intentional. Though he hopes that America will make him, the immigrant has no presumptuous thought of making America. To him America is a fixed, unchanging, en- vironmental thing, a land to browse on. This very passivity of the newly arrived immigrant is the most tremendous of influences. The workman who does not join a union, the citizen who sends his immature children to the factory, the man who does not become naturalized or who main- tains a standard of living below an inadequate wage, such a one by contagion and pressure changes conditions and lowers standards all about him, undermining to the extent of his lethargy our entire social edifice. The aim of Americanization is to combat this passive influence. Two forces, like good and evil, are opposed on that long frontier line where the immigrant comes into contact with the older resident. The American, through self-protection, not love, seeks to raise the immigrant to his economic level ; the immigrant, through self-protection, not through knowledge, involuntarily accepts conditions which tend to drag the American down to his. In this contest much that we ordinarily account virtue is evil ; much that is ugly is good. The immigrant girl puts on a corset, exchanges her picturesque headdress for a flowering monstrosity of an American hat, squeezes her honest peasant's foot into a narrow, thin-soled American shoe — and behold, it is good. It is a step toward assimilation, toward a more expensive if not a more lovely standard of living. It gives hostages to America. It makes the frenzied saving of the early days impossible. Docility, abnegation, and pecuniary abasement are not economic virtues, however highly they may be rated in another category. In still other ways this assimilation alters and limits the alien's influence. Much is lost in the process. The immigrant comes to us laden with gifts, but we have not the leisure to take nor he the opportunity to tender. The brilliant native costumes, the strange, vibrant dialects, the curious mental molds are soon faded or gone. The old religions, the old customs, the traditional manners, the ancient lace, do not survive the melting 146 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS pot. Assimilation, however necessary, ends the charm and rare- ness of our quaint human importations. For this aesthetic degeneration the immigrant must not be blamed. To gain himself he must lose himself. He must adopt "our ways." The Italian day laborer finds that macaroni and lettuce are not a suitable diet for ten hours' work on the sub- way or the Catskill dam. The politeness of sunny southern Europe is at a discount in our scurrying, elbowing crowds. The docility of the peasant damns a man irretrievably in the struggle to rise, and conservatism in gentle, outlandish manners is impossible in kaleidoscopic America. The immigrant, there- fore, accepts our standards wholesale and indiscriminately. He "goes the limit" of assimilation — slang, clothes, and chewing gum. He accommodates himself quickly to that narrow fringe of America which affects him most immediately. The Talmud- ist in Russia is, for better or worse, no Talmudist here ; he is a cloak presser or a real-estate broker. The Greek shepherd becomes an elevator boy or a hazardous speculator in resus- citated violets. The Sicilian bootblack learns to charge ten cents for a five-cent shine ; the candy vender from Macedonia haggles long before he knows a hundred English words ; the Pole who never has seen a coal mine becomes adept at the use of the steam shovel. Another limit to the immigrant's influence is due to the fact that the America to which he adapts himself is the Amer- ica that he first meets, the America at the bottom. That bot- tom changes as America changes from an agricultural to an industrial nation. For the average immigrant there is no longer a free farm on a Western frontier; there is only a job as an unskilled or semiskilled workman. For that job a knowledge of his letters is not absolutely necessary. Nor is a knowledge of English. There are in America today a few millions of aliens who cannot speak English or read or write their native tongue and who, from an industrial point of view, are almost mere muscle. The road from bottom to top becomes steeper and more inaccessible. Stratification begins. Because of his position at the bottom of a stratified society, the immigrant — especially the recent immigrant — does not SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 147 exert any large direct influence. Taken in the mass, he does not run our businesses, make our laws, write our books, paint our pictures, preach to us, teach us, or prescribe for us. His indirect influence, on the other hand, is increased rather than diminished by his position at the bottom of the structure. When he moves, all superincumbent groups must of necessity shift their positions. This indirect influence is manifold. The immi- gration of enormous numbers of unskilled ''interchangeable" laborers, who can be moved about like pawns, standardizes our industries, facilitates the growth of stupendous business units, and generally promotes plasticity. The immigrant, by his mere presence, by his mere readiness to be used, speeds us up ; he accelerates the whole tempo of our industrial life. He changes completely "the balance of power" in industry, politics, and social life generally. The feverish speed of our labor, which is so largely pathological, is an index of this. The arrival of ever-fresh multitudes adds to the difficulties of securing a democratic control of either industry or politics. The presence of the unskilled^ unlettered immigrant excites the cupidity of men who wish to make money quickly and do not care how. It makes an essentially kind-hearted people callous. Why save the lives of "wops" ? What does it matter if our in- dustry kills a few thousands more or less, when, if we wish, we can get millions a year from inexhaustible Europe? Immi- gration acts to destroy our brakes. It keeps us, as a nation, transitional. Of course this transitional quality of America was due partly to our virgin continent. There was always room in the West ; a man did not settle, but merely lighted on a spot, like a migra- tory bird on its southern journey. Immigration, however, in- tensified and protracted this development. Each race had to fight for its place. Natives were displaced by Irish, who were displaced in turn by Germans, Russians, Italians, Portuguese, Greeks, Syrians. Whole trades were deserted by one nation and conquered by another. The peoples of eastern Europe in- undated the Pennsylvania mining districts, displacing Irish, English, and Welsh miners. The Irish street laborer disap- peared ; the Italian quietly took his shovel. Russian Jews 148 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS revolutionized the clothing trade, driving out Germans as these had driven out native Americans. The old homes of displaced nations were inhabited by new peoples ; the old peoples were shoved up or down, but, in any case, out. Cities, factories, neighborhoods, changed with startling rapidity. Connecticut schools, once attended by descendants of the Pilgrims, became overfilled with dark-eyed Italian lads and tow-headed Slavs. Protestant churches were stranded in Catholic or Jewish neigh- borhoods. America changed rapidly, feverishly. That peculiar, quiet restlessness of America, the calm fear with which we search with the tail of our eye to avoid swirling automobiles, the rush and recklessness of our life, were increased by the mild, law-abiding people who came to us from abroad. There was a time when all these qualities were good, or at least had their good features. So long as we had elbowroom in the West, so long as we were young and growing, with a big continent to make our mistakes in, even recklessness was a virtue. But today America is no longer elastic, the road from bottom to top is not so short and not so unimpeded as it once was. We cannot any longer be sure that the immigrant will find his proper place in our Eastern mills or on our Western farms without injury to others — or to himself. The time has passed when we exulted in the number of grown-up men, bred at another country's expense, who came to work for us and fertilize our soils with their dead bones. The time has passed when we believed that mere numbers were all. Today, despite night schools, settlements, and a whole network of Americanizing agencies, we have teeming, polyglot slums and the clash of race with race in sweatshop and factory, mine and lumber camp. We have a mixture of ideals, a confu- sion of standards, a conglomeration of clashing views of life. We, the many-nationed nation of America, bring the Puritan tradition, a trifle anaemic and thin, a little the worse for disuse. The immigrant brings a Babel of traditions, an all too plastic mind, a willingness to copy our virtues and vices, to imitate us for better or for worse. All of which hampers and delays the formation of a national consciousness. SOME PROBLEMS OF READJUSTMENT 149 From whatever point we view the new America, we cannot help seeing how intimately the changes have been bound up with our immigration, especially with that of recent years. The widening of the social gamut becomes more significant when we recall that with unrestricted immigration our poorest citi- zens are periodically recruited from the poor of the poorest countries of Europe. Our differences in education, while they have other causes, are sharply accentuated by our enormous development of university and high schools at the one end and by the increasing illiteracy of our immigrants at the other. In cities where there are large immigrant populations we note the beginning of a change in our attitude toward the public schools, toward universal suffrage, toward many of the pious, if unrealized, national ideals of an earlier period. Fundamentally, however, the essential fact about our present- day immigration is not that the immigrant has changed (though that fact is of great importance), but that the Amer- ica to which the immigrant comes has changed fundamentally and permanently. And the essential fact about the immigrant's effect on American character is this, that the gift of the immi- grant to the nation is not the qualities which he himself had at home, but the very qualities which Americans have always had. In other words, at a time when American industrial, political, and social conditions are changing, partly as a result of immigration itself, the immigrant hampers our psychological adjustment to such changes by giving scope and exercise to old national characteristics which should be obsolescent. America today is in transition. We have moved rapidly from one industrial world to another, and this progress has been aided and stimulated by immigration. The psychological change, however, which should have kept pace with this indus- trial transition, has been slower and less complete. It has been retarded by the very rapidity of our immigration and by the tremendous educational tasks which that influx placed upon us. The immigrant is a challenge to our highest idealism, but the task of Americanizing the extra millions of newcomers has hindered progress in the task of democratizing America. IV EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES A REVISED DEFINITION OF EDUCATION^ Charles William Eliot [For a biographical sketch of Charles W. Eliot see page i] The war has brought to light the fact that American schools and ordinary American life for more than a hundred years have failed to keep alive one sentiment of public duty which was natural to the early American communities on the shores of the Atlantic because they lived under the constant public dangers and apprehensions. When the Pilgrim Fathers first planted their settlement at Plymouth, they took it for granted that every able-bodied man was to bear arms in defense of the community. The Puritan Colony of Massachusetts Bay made the same assumption ; and both these pioneering communities relied for many years on a militia to which every able-bodied man belonged as a matter of course. In the adventurous Puri- tan settlements on the border the men carried their guns with them into the fields where they worked and to church on Sun- days. Every able-bodied man felt that he might at any time encounter wounds and death in defense of his home and his village. Military service from him was the country's due. In recent American generations this sense of personal indi- vidual duty to the country has, been lost, and it has taken a great war in defense of human liberty to reestablish it. Now it is for the schools and colleges of the country to maintain this sense of obligation in all the generations to come by direct and 1 From the New York Times, Sunday, November 24, 1918. Reprinted by permission. ISO EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES 1 51 positive teachings and by cooperating with the family and church in training boys and girls and young men and women to render gladly free, unpaid service in their homes, to the neigh- bors and friends whom they can help, and to the stranger within their gates. Every secondary school should give concrete and well-illustrated instruction in all the cooperative enterprises in which young people can take part for the benefit of the com- munity, and in all the protective and helpful services which young citizens can render. The altruistic sentiments and serv- ices should be set before the pupils, and should be exemplified in the lives of their teachers, parents, and natural leaders. The influence of all teachers and parents should be steadily exerted to diminish the selfishness and self-reference which often ac- company thoughtless childhood, and to develop as early as possible good will and serviceableness toward others and con- sideration for the needs of others. It should be made a special object in all schools to develop among the children and youth what is called in sports ''team play"; to impress all the pupils with the high value of coop- erative discipline, that is, of the discipline imposed with the consent of the subjects of discipline in order to increase the efficiency of the group and therefore the satisfaction of every member in his own contribution. This content in a strict disci- pline which he has a share in planning and imposing is today the chief need of all workmen in industries which require punc- tuality, order, system, and a common purpose to be efficient on the part of all concerned. There should be many opportunities during school life to learn this enjoyable acquiescence in the strict, cooperative discipline necessary when many persons have to combine in the prompt and accurate production of a given effect or result. Some of the familiar means to this end are singing in parts, producing music in a band or orchestra, folk- dancing, combining in groups to perform gymnastic feats, act- ing plays, and giving descriptions or narratives before a school audience in which many speakers combine to produce one har- monious and consecutive story. In modern warfare a soldier's work in an active army depends for its success chiefly upon the soldier's skill and satisfaction in action guided and determined 152 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS by strict, cooperative discipline. The same is true in almost all the large national industries. Success in them involves the general submission of all participants to a strict, cooperative discipline. This discipline does not much resemble the old- fashioned, automatic, unthinking obedience which was long the ideal in military and industrial organization. It requires the voluntary cooperation of intelligent, free individuals whose wills consent to the discipline for an object which seems good to them and in a method which they think reasonable and appropriate. All schools and colleges should systematically provide much practice in this kind of discipline. Because of the complete detachment of Church from State in this country, and the existence here of a great variety of churches based on different dogmas and creeds, or on different observances, rituals, rites, and symbols, or on different forms of ecclesiastical government, — all of which are tolerated and protected by the national and state governments, — it has been considered impossible to allow in the free schools (which are supported by general taxation) any of the teachings or prac- tices ordinarily called religious. A bad result of this condi- tion is that there has been in the public schools no systematic inculcation of duty toward parents, neighbors, teachers, friends, or country, or of reverence toward God, although some practi- cal virtues essential to the conduct of a school have always been inculcated, such as punctuality, order, and respect for the neighbor s rights and for constituted authority. Accordingly, reverence for prophets, saints, and spiritual heroes has been taught only incidentally and with caution, lest the religious sentiments of one church or another be shocked. It is one of the best lessons of the war that millions of American youth, trained in schools of this negative character as regards things spiritual, — many of them were not connected with any church, — have developed in the presence of the hard- ships, horrors, and risks of war sentiments which may be prop- erly called religious and might be expressly inculcated in American public schools. Most of the young men who have filled the national army and navy went to the war in a gregarious way, because their EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES 153 comrades did, or because they were drafted, or because their friends and relatives would be proud, though troubled, to have them go ; but when they came to face imminent death or wounds, when they realized that at any moment they them- selves might be called on to make the supreme sacrifice, many of them began to consider why they were in such a novel and horrible situation, and some of them found a satisfactory an- swer to that question. Innumerable soldiers from many races, dying, or realizing in hospitals that they were crippled for life, have said that they were dying or were crippled for the sake of their country, — France, England, Scotland, America, — or for their dear home, or for their children, or for the next gen- eration, that they may have a better world to live in than the present generation found prepared for themselves. Multitudes of the American soldiers and sailors in this war have perceived for the first time that their own prime motive in life has been the desire to be of service to other people, though they had lived the ordinary life of daily labor and play, of family affec- tion and careless gayety, without much reflection on the great issues of life and death or on the deep things of love and duty. The tremendous emotions of battle and the sense of comrade- ship which the sharing of great dangers and hardships creates develop in them feelings and states of mind which may properly be called religious. They learn what self-sacrifice means and practice it contentedly ; they learn that a man may gladly risk his life or lay it down for his friends ; they learn that service to others is immeasurably happier than thought for self ; they hate war and everything about it, but fight on resolutely in the hope That other generations might possess From shame and menace free in years to come A richer heritage of happiness, He marched to that heroic martyrdom. They learn that brotherhood is the very essence of practical religion. A letter written by a young man who enlisted after having served his term as a convict in Sing Sing Prison, and then had trying experiences during several months in the French 154 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS trenches, to the former warden of the prison, who had been a good friend to him, dealt mostly with the ordinary tediums, trials, and hardships of the private soldier's life, but this was one of its broken sentences : '' Religion ? This battalion is a band of brothers." Some line officer who has been intimate with his men when in hospital or in their resting places, or some chaplain who has shared with the privates their hardships and their dangers and written letters home for them as they lay wounded or dying, ought to prepare a manual of the religion of the thinking sol- dier in this war for the freedom and security of mankind. It would contain no dogma, creed, or ritual, and no church history, but it would set forth the fundamental religious ideas which ought to be conveyed in the schools to every American child and adolescent in the schools of the future. Such teaching would counteract materialism, promote reverence for God and human nature, strengthen the foundations of a just and peace- loving democracy, and conform to Micah's definition of reli- gion: "What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " The manuals of American history for use in the public schools will hereafter tell how in 19 17 the American people with re- markable unanimity went into a ferocious war of European origin in the hope and expectation of putting down divine-right government, secret diplomacy and militarism, of making justice and kindness the governing principles in international relations, and of promoting among the masses of mankind the kind of lib- erty under law which they had themselves long enjoyed. In con- tributing to the vigorous and successful prosecution of this war they spent their money like water, upset their industries and their habits of life, laid on their posterity an immense burden of debt, and put at risk the lives of millions of their sons and daughters. At the same time they gave huge sums of money to relieve the miseries and woes which war now entails on combatants and noncombatants alike. No great church and no single organization incited the Amer- ican people to this disinterested crusade. Nevertheless, the united action of the people for the nineteen months past EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES 155 testifies that they are guided and inspired by certain simple religious teachings of supreme efficacy. They evidently mean to do unto others as they wish others to do to them, to love their neighbors as themselves, to imitate the example of the Good Samaritan in binding up the wounds of mankind, and to love truth, freedom, and righteousness. That is the religion which ought to be taught hereafter in all American schools. THE SOCIAL IDEAL IN EDUCATION ^ George E. Vincent [George Edgar Vincent (1864- ) was educated at Yale and has had much to do with the administration of the Chautauqua Institution, founded by his father, Bishop John H. Vincent. While serving as professor of sociology in The University of Chicago he was in 191 1 elected president of the University of Minnesota. Since 191 7 he has been president of the Rockefeller Foundation. Though the Commencement address which follows is substantially that which was delivered at the University of Wisconsin in 191 1, its charac- terization of the social aims of modern higher education and its ringing challenge to youth for service to the commonwealth make it peculiarly appropriate for study today.] As purpose unifies the individual, so a common aim gives the human group a sense of solidarity. Social consciousness is the well-worn term for this thrill of comradeship. The sense of team play that makes the eleven or the nine an efficient unit gives us the type. Each individual sees the group as a whole, is aware of his own relation to it, knows that his fellows share his feeling, and counts upon them to act promptly for a com- mon end. A group which cannot control its members and rally them in loyalty to a single aim lacks solidarity and effectiveness. If the university, as an organ of society, is to gain strength of purpose, it must have a consciousness of its function and duty. Only by such sense of team play can individuals, depart- ments, schools, colleges, faculties, classes, student groups, be ^From Science, June 30, 191 1. Reprinted by permission. 156 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS fused into genuine unity and rallied to a common loyalty. In general, the university ideal is changing from the thought of personal privilege to the conception of social service, from a preaching of personal culture to a democracy of studies, or, in another phrase, from culture to efficiency. This does not mean that colleges and universities have not always had some sense of social obligation. But too generally the privileges of higher education were for the favored few, who, by virtue of their special opportunities, were set off from the masses of men. The growth of democracy has made new demands, has widened opportunity, has broken down the barriers of class. Even in the Old World, and notably in the New, democracy has created schools, colleges, and universities, and has chartered them to serve the common welfare. The university has become, there- fore, especially in this mid-Western region, "the people's or- ganized instrument of research," or, as President Van Hise puts it, "the scientific adviser of the state." On every hand we hear variations of this central theme of social service. College presidents and men in political life, each group from its own point of view, insist upon this conception of higher education. In this view the university appeals to the imagination, it be- comes an organ of the higher life of the community and the state, it connects itself at every point with the industry, com- merce, social conditions, educational interests, ideal purposes of the commonwealth. The university as a social agent is intrusted with certain standards of the community, standards of scientific method and of truth, standards of technical efficiency, standards of cultural attainment, standards of personal character and of civic duty. It is only through the creation, the guarding, the elevation of these standards that material and spiritual prog- ress is possible. The university becomes a trustee of ideas and ideals, a custodian of standards. In the administration of these standards the university cannot sacrifice the common welfare to individual need or desire. It must exclude those who fail to meet the standards of attainment and character which the university administers. Favoritism, faltering, com- promise, cowardice, mean betrayal of a social trust. Nor may EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES 157 the standards of the university be provincial and temporary. In the words of President Hadley, "the university must be judged by the standards which have held for all time rather than those of a single generation, or of a single profession." The imagination kindles at this thought of a university ex- alting the tests of truth and character by which society slowly gropes toward higher levels. When the mind is possessed by this vision of the university, all the careers for which it provides training take on the dignity of social worth. Vocations which have been thought of as individual widen into literal calls to be servants of the common life. The office of the teacher, the function of the physician, the work of the engineer, get their higher meaning from their value to the community. The profession of the law, so often thought of as a field for personal exploitation, is in its true significance a social service. "We lawyers," declares Woodrow Wilson, "are servants of society, officers of the courts of justice . . . guardians of the public peace, . . . bond servants of the people." The scientific farmer is in one view seeking personal gain, but in a much deeper sense he is diffusing knowledge and skill and is raising into higher esteem fundamental industry which makes modern society possible. The college graduate who has received the training men are fond of calling liberal may no longer regard himself merely as a member of a privi- leged class. In the new spirit of noblesse oblige he must recog- nize his obligation to his fellows and to the community ; must remember that "life is not a cup to be drained, but a measure to be filled." Such is the ideal purpose which summons the modem university to unity and comradeship in the service of the common life. When this vision fills the minds of all, when it controls their conduct, when it stirs their emotions and carries them steadily forward to loyal achievement, then the university gains an irresistible power and becomes a true expression of the higher purposes of the state, the nation, and mankind. The university fails of its purpose if its students do not catch the inspiration of the common ideal. To generous- minded young men and women this thought of the university 158 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS must make appeal. It is the duty of the institution to fix this image of the university in the imaginations of its students. From the day they enter to the day they leave, this dominant purpose, this persuasive spirit, should grow ever more potent and fascinating. It would be well if students could begin their college life with formal ceremony, so that at the very outset they might feel more keenly the social obligations they are assuming. Admission to the university should seem to them initiation into a high calling. It is a pity that they should begin for the most part thoughtlessly or with minds fixed solely upon personal aims and plans. The state is calling them to her service. She has a right to insist that only those who are in earnest, who have at least a dawning sense of social duty, should seek admission to the public training which can be justified only by its service to the state. It should be made clear that no one has the right to demand admission as a personal privilege. Conformity with technicalities of entrance must not blind us to the moral obligations involved. Out of the common fund to which all citizens contribute, the state erects and maintains, not for personal advantage but for public good, this West Point of science, the arts, and the professions. Ever}' matriculant, therefore, by virtue of admission is honor bound to meet the state halfway in her desire to prepare soldiers of science for the battles of peace. The university must unhesitatingly rid itself of individuals who are indifferent to intellectual work or hostile to it. After fair test, those who fail to show their sense of the university's purpose must be dismissed. This is necessary not only in justice to the state but in fairness to those who show due appreciation of their opportunities and duties. The dominant university purpose gives a proper setting to the activities of student life and to the standards and conduct of the groups into which the student community naturally falls. The contacts of daily association and searching tests of comradeship, the discovery and development of leadership, the give-and-take of social intercourse, the healthy recreation of undergraduate life, — all constitute an environment which may afford admirable discipline. There is large truth in the EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES 159 assertion that the university is the world in miniature and that it offers a social training which will be turned to account in the wider life of the community. But all these activities must be tested by the dominant purpose of the university. The question must always be, Is this or that out of harmony with the ideal of the university as an organ of the common life ? Does this student demonstration or that rollicking festivity create in the public mind the feeling that the university is living for itself and not for the community ; does it foster the belief that the university is not dominated by the motive of service ; does it create the suspicion that students ignore or forget their duty to the state which is making their self- preparation possible? This is a vital question. So with the student groups that play so large a part in academic communi- ties. Are these groups working loyally for the common welfare, have they due regard for the fundamental things of university life, are they actuated by a sense of responsibility for their members, do they cultivate tolerance, justice, and good will? These are questions which individuals and groups must con- stantly put to themselves and answer frankly and honestly. The good name of the university is safe only when its members feel an obligation to further the common purpose to make the university a true organ of the whole people. So long as this spirit prevails, no sense of arrogance, of ex- clusiveness, of privilege or caste, will enter the minds of its members. The old distinction of ''town" and "gown," the traditional attitude of superiority toward those outside the walls of the academic cloister, these things have no place in an institution dominated by the spirit of social service. Every man and woman of the commonwealth becomes in this view a supporter and patron of the university and may expect from it good will and loyal service. If to say that the uni- versity belongs to the state is anything more than phrase- making, every member who has imagination, the power to see the institution in its real relationships, must feel the genuine humility of one who would faithfully serve his fellows. If the university is to fulfill its function, it must carry con- viction to the people of the commonwealth. It must impress i6o VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS them with its purpose, make them see it as a faithful agency of the people. The men and women of the state must not think of the university as an institution which, because it has public support, should lower its standards to admit the weak, indifferent, or incompetent, or to graduate those who have failed to reach the minimum of attainment. People must not think of the university as a place in which personal influ- ences can secure special privilege. Rather they must regard it as fearlessly loyal to the common welfare, true to high standards of scholarship, truth, efficiency, character, and judgment. They must not ask or expect special favors from this servant of the whole democracy. If the university purpose is to be achieved, the institution must seek special ability wherever this is to be found. It would be a calamity if only sons and daughters of the rich and well-to-do could gain access to higher training. Talent and genius ignore the distinctions of wealth and class. A way must be found by which young men and young women of great promise, however they may be hampered by poverty, may gain access to the social training of the university and be freed in large part or wholly from the self-supporting work which makes the best scholarship impossible. We must be- lieve that men and communities will catch this vision of the university, and by providing scholarships see to it that no exceptional ability shall be deprived of development for the service of the commonwealth. The university would lose its power and its ideals if it ever became a place of privilege for the well-to-do and not a training school for all who have talents and capacities for which the state has need. The con- trolling ideal, the mastering purpose of the university, there- fore, is not a mere phrase or conceit — it is a guiding principle which finds application to every individual, to every group, to every activity of academic life, and organizes these into the strength and unity which only a common aim can confer. Purpose steadily pursued creates a persuasive spirit, regis- ters itself in institutional character. Open-mindedness must be a conspicuous trait of a true academic community. The very search for new knowledge, the effort to see the relations EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES i6l of things, presupposes an attitude of inquiry, a willingness to look at an idea or a fact from many different standpoints. Open-mindedness toward truth merges into tolerance and mutual respect as between the individuals and groups who make up the university. Narrowness or prejudice, a patron- izing attitude of one group toward another, the discrediting of this calling as compared with that, the limiting of the con- ception of research to traditional fields of inquiry, — these things have no place in an institution mastered by a sense of loyal duty to commonwealth and nation. Genuine culture consists largely in sympathy with many kinds of men and in insight into the widest ranges of human life. To live in a highly specialized community and to enter with appreciation into the activities of one's colleagues in many fields is in itself a liberalizing experience. There is place for generous rivalry in a great university, but this rivalry must be kept on a high level and not allowed to sink into unworthy conflict and dis- cord. Open-mindedness, tolerance, high-minded rivalry, can- not fail, under the guidance of a controlling ideal, to fuse the university into a genuine unity of comradeship and good will. When each man and each group can see, not only through its own eyes but through the eyes of other persons and groups, the common problems of the institution, there must develop a keener sense of team play, a quickened loyalty, a more vivid corporate consciousness. The university, a servant of the common life, exalting standards of efficiency and worth, summoning its members to a common task, must stand for the loftiest ideals. It must inspire enduring faith. It must exalt character above tech- nical skill, mental alertness, refinement of feeling. It must lay hold of the fundamental motives. The university rightly aims at leadership, but, in the words of Dr. Pritchett, it can win this "only by inspiring the youth of the democracy with a true, vibrant, living faith. . . , The American university is today the home of that faith. It is the faith of humanity in humanity . . . and the American university, which embodies the intellectual aspirations of a free people, is becoming day by day the representative of their spiritual aspirations as well.'' 1 62 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS The state university cannot fulfill its true function unless it rises to the higher level of spiritual idealism. It may not ally itself with any church or support any one theology, but it must draw its inspiration from an essentially religious view of life. As Sir Thomas JMore's Utopians tolerated many theologies of widely varying kinds, but united in common wor- ship of the divine energy back of all nature and human life, so the university welcomes men and women of many faiths and rallies them to a devoted loyalty to common ideals of duty, service, and reverent aspiration. In the " Republic," Socrates, in talking of testing the young for leadership, declares : We must inquire who are the best guardians of their own con- viction that the interest of the state is to be the rule of all their actions. We must watch them from their youth upwards and pro- pose deeds for them to perform in which they are most likely to forget or be deceived, and he who remembers and is not deceived is to be selected and he who fails in the trial is to be rejected. The gentle sage goes on to describe the tests of toil and pain, the tests of fear, the tests of seductive pleasures, and he tells us that "he who at every age as boy and youth, and in mature life, has come out of the trial victorious and pure, shall be appointed a ruler and guardian of the state. He shall be honored in life and death, and shall receive sepulcher and other memorials of honor, the greatest that we have to give." The essentials of life and character have not changed since the days when Socrates talked of truth and justice in the groves of Academus. You graduates today go forth to be tested. You have in varying measure the vision of the university, the sense of obligation which your training lays upon you. You must hear, be it ever so faintly, the call to be servants of the com- monwealth. Put to yourselves the question which comes down through the centuries, Can you hold to this conviction that the interests of the community should be the rule of all your actions? You will face intellectual sophistry and beguiling fallacies. Have you the keenness of mind and the force of character to analyze these specious assertions and to hold EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES 163 steadfastly to things that are true and enduring? You will be tested by fear — fear of financial loss, fear of ridicule, fear, it may be, of social ostracism. Have you the courage and character to preserve your convictions of loyalty to the general good ? You will be lured by pleasure, dazzled, it may be, by luxury and ostentation, tempted to self-indulgence and evanes- cent pleasures. Have you the fiber to resist these appeals and to remember that the social servant must be ever strong, clear- eyed, and faithful to his work ? May you hold to the vision you have caught ; may it with the passing years grow ever clearer, brighter, more command- ing in your lives. The university sends you forth today with Godspeed, intrusts to you the good name of our widening com- munity, summons you to loyalty, urges you to organize all your resources of mind and spirit into the unity of a high aim — the firm resolve to realize in your own lives the masterful purpose of the university, which is to be in ever-fuller measure at once the standard bearer and the servant of the state. Go to your work and be strong, halting not in a world of men, Balking the end half won for an instant dole of praise. Stand to your work and be wise — certain of sword and pen, Who are neither children nor Gods, but men in a world of men. VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND NATIONAL IDEALS^ B. H. Crocheron [Associate Professor of Agricultural Extension, University of California] We are emerging from our first conquest : we have con- quered the lands. Farms stretch from coast to coast so that desert and forest push back to the comers of the continent. Our second conquest will be of machines. Already the wheels of industry turn almost of themselves, while unlimited power from ^ From the Atinnls of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. LXVII, No. 156, p. 77. Copyrighted. 1 64 MTAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS the turbines streams over wires to distant cities. So great have been our conquests, so many are the powers harnessed to industrial life, that the casual onlooker may be brought to conclude industrial labor has been abolished by the accumu- lated knowledge and surplus property laid up for us by genera- tions of the past and present. The man who lives in cities is likely to travel little and to see little because his routine by its security and monotony starves out all adventurous instinct. So the city man, traveling between his home and the office or store, complacently dwells upon this as the age of the mind and of machines. He charms himself into the belief that the time is here when man will no longer earn his living by the sweat of his brow, but rather will sit in Jovian contemplation of a per- fected mechanism which will turn the wheels of agriculture, of commerce, of manufacture and trade. The truth is that the world still labors by muscle, not by mind. The farmer tills his lands from early morning till late at evening, trudging home at sunset, wet with sweat. The miner astride his quivering drill knocks down his tons of ore and, gasping, comes up from his shift to change sodden clothes for dry. The mill worker and mechanic, with flying hands and fingers, beat through the day, and at night go out the gates tired of muscle and of brain. It would be well if those street- car and subway philosophers who derive their image of Amer- ica from across desk tops and the penny papers could make a tour of adventure and of exploration to the mills of their town, the farms that lie about it, and the mines in the near-by hills. They would find that manual labor is the means by which America lives and that men, not machines, are still the contact points with nature. And it is well that it is so. A new and terrible degeneracy would no doubt creep in when the world sat down to watch nature do its work. For man, mechanics is only an assistant, not a substitute. Manual labor must re- main the heritage of the masses, their birthright to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. Education must emphasize the need of manual labor and the desirability of doing that labor so well that it will produce abundantly for the needs of the individual and society. In the EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES i6s last century of America formal education has become universal, but it still clings to the ideals of the fortunate few to whom it was originally restricted — those members of the nonlaboring class who were to do the planning, not the working, for the race. Education must aim at the heart of the problem by teaching that manual labor is necessary and therefore honorable, and that education is a means whereby manual labor becomes more effective. Educators have long embraced the theory that the province of education is to deal with higher things than mere labor ; that labor must come soon enough for the masses of children ; and that, therefore, the brief time in schools must be made a vacation period for the hands while the brain takes its short and final exercise, from whence, perforce, it must come to rest when school days end and work begins. It seemed to them imperative that the children of the masses should par- ticipate for a time in that realm of thought and of scholasticism to which they will probably never have an opportunity to return. As a result some complained that schools were incompetent, that they had no relation to real life, and that educators were theorists and dreamers. Meanwhile there sprang up a host of office boys, clerks, odd-job men, hangers-on, and others who had come through the school system to find the world a place wherein they were required to do something for a living and to do it by hand as well as by brain. Only lately have persons grudgingly admitted that schools should have some relation to occupation ; that schools should be the training ground for work as well as for thought ; and that manual labor on farms, in mines, in mills and shops, must be the heritage of the many who attend the public schools. In response to the demand for this occupational work, courses in manual training, home economics, and agriculture have crept into the school systems, and some persons are bold enough to term these courses "vocational." In truth few of them are yet really vocational, because they do not train for a vocation. Rather do they seem to give to the student a very limited amount of manual dexterity and thought familiarity in these subjects. Manual-training courses in the school do not train mechanics, home-economics courses do not train housekeepers, 1 66 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS nor do agricultural courses train farmers. Many manual- training courses still putter with tiny tables and jig-saw work. Many home-economics courses peter out in sticky candies badly made and impossible aprons poorly sewn. Most agri- cultural courses specialize in tiny gardens and never get out to the fields and farms. Some of the best vocational and industrial teaching in Amer- ica was the earliest. When General Armstrong created the first real industrial school in America at Hampton, in 1868, and thereby cut the Gordian knot of education, he established a school which was truly vocational in that he trained men and women for daily work and turned out therefrom a finished product. From uneducated labor Hampton makes farmers, bricklayers, carpenters, and mechanics. Hampton is a voca- tional school. Such schools are only possible, however, where they are regarded as the essential form of education by those who are to be educated and by those who have the schools in charge. For real vocational education in manual pursuits there is not yet wide demand from the common folk or from the edu- cators. Both the people and the pedagogues have received their education in schools of the old academic type ; they are there- fore likely to regard the old type, which trained away from labor, as the only real education. ]Many schools have been founded upon the fond dream that they were to train for life's elemental occupations, only to find their trend changed by the men who had their direction or by the people among whom they were to work. The truth is that the mass of persons whom manual schools would benefit do not want such schools. They still desire to have their children study in the direction which to them means learning. Schools for the manual vocations, they believe, may be desirable for negroes and Indians and perhaps for the people in the next town, or even possibly for their neighbors' children — but for their own children, never. These, they think, are destined for higher and better things. Because the people of America do not want manual educa- tion for their children, the burden is the greater upon educators EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES 167 and other leaders of public opinion to call persistently to the attention of the public, whose ear they have, that public manual education is a necessity for the present and future good of society. We must teach and preach that "easy living" can- not be the lot of all, and therefore it is unsocial and immoral for those who have not earned it. We must glorify manual labor by treating it fairly and squarely. We must educate manual labor by teaching it to labor better and more efficiently. We must hold forth manual work as a vocation which pays better in life and living than a clerkship. The farm has more of life than the ribbon counter ; the machine shop pays better wages than the bank cage. Public opinion can also be led and directed by means of a few privately supported schools which are independent of pub- lic opinion. Schools like Hampton leap the entire gap of edu- cation by frankly and efficiently training American boys. . . , Such schools if successful become popular by the superior ability of their graduates to earn money in the trades, and in turn serve as beacon lights for the slowly following public opinion and public education. Public schools training for life — which is training for work — will make boys better farmers, better laborers, and better mechanics. By so doing they will save America. WOMEN IN POLITICS— A CHANCE FOR BROADER EDUCATION^ Helen Herron Taft [Helen H. Taft (1891- ) was educated at Bryn Mawr Col- lege and at Yale, where she specialized in modern history. During her father's terms as civil governor of the Philippine Islands and as President she had exceptional opportunities for observing the actual conditions of political life. From 191 7 to 1920 she was dean of Bryn Mawr College and at times acting president.] ^Miss Taft's article appeared in the April, 1920, issue of the Woman's Home Companion and is here reprinted by courtesy of that publication. 1 68 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS The American woman today may fmd in politics her greatest opportunity ; her most important field ; the supreme test of her capacity, her sincerity of purpose, her courage. With the . . . passage of the Federal Suffrage Amend- ment — indeed, three fourths of the state legislatures may have added it to the Constitution before this article is published — the question of women's participation in community, state, and national politics is removed definitely from academic considera- tion and becomes a matter of intense practical interest. The logic of circumstances gives the vote alike to the woman who wanted it and to the woman who thought she did not want it. Neither has the right to neglect it. That the political coming of age of American women should occur at a time when society especially needs their services is one of the interesting coincidences of history. In evolving and putting into effect a coherent program of reconstruction, the United States immediately requires, it seems to me, the best intelligence and energies of women as well as of men. " Recon- structing" — nursing, mending, making over — always has been a woman's job ! The sick and broken after-the-war world is waiting for women to "remold it nearer to our heart's desire." And only through politics can women "carry on," can they develop logically and effectively the lines of work begun during the war. We all know women were a most important element in getting the country on a war basis and in making the war a success. Now that they have learned to think, to organize and to work nationally, all that fine energy and enthusiasm must not be lost. Its most practical peace-time expression is through politics. The chief reason, however, why I think women — all women — should orient themselves politically is not because of an amendment to the Constitution, or because politics needs women, but because women need politicsl They need its broad, impersonal outlook, its varied interests, its emphasizing of the practical aspects of each idea or plan. Women are too theoreti- cal, too much inclined to dwell on vague, beautiful projects without also considering the detailed execution of them and the possible objections to them. "The hurly-burly of rough, EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES 169 practical politics," as the antisuffragists used to call it, is exactly what, psychologically speaking, the feminine sex should expe- rience for its own good. How can women prepare themselves, not merely to vote but to have an equal voice with men in the councils of the nation ? As somebody pointed out that the first step toward becoming a gentleman is to choose one's grandfather, so I am tempted to say the first requisite for a woman's political success is to choose her grandmother, because so many grandmothers (and mothers) have helped give to the woman of today an assort- ment of so-called feminine qualities of mind and temper which are not the best equipment for public affairs. She is, for one thing — now I am speaking of women in the mass, not of the leaders of women — too docile, too biddable, too obedient. She is too much inclined to accept a program laid down for her, instead of reacting against it, as a man so often does. The individual woman is not to blame for this passivity ; it is largely a result of the traditional superiority of man to woman, which keeps the word "obey" in the marriage service and which refuses to the grown daughter living at home a freedom never denied the son. In the patriarchal household submissiveness was an indispensable feminine virtue, but it is one which women may as well ''check at the door" of the political world. Another conventional feminine characteristic which seems to me fundamentally unsound in political life is the instinct to please at all costs, so stressed, even today, in the education of the average girl. Her weakest point is her uneasiness about the impression she may make on others, her unwillingness to face displeasure and criticism. Of course I do not mean that she should cultivate churlishness and utter insensitiveness as a pref- ace to her participation in politics, but she ought to realize that independence and courage are virtues at least as commend- able as docility and amiability — besides being rather more valuable when one wants to get things done. To do her political thinking clearly, if not originally, — there are so few original minds of either sex, — a woman should be trained, or train herself, to be logical, to be accurate, to be 170 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS practical. To say that a woman cannot deserve any or all of these adjectives, because of some congenital defect of mind, is absurd. The defect has been in her training, or in the life that has allowed certain innate human characteristics to lie fallow and undeveloped. When she begins to take an interest in the political problems which demand logic, accuracy, and practicality for their adequate handling, she will find it per- fectly possible to cultivate these traits. Our educators should make a point of cultivating them, from this moment, in girls as well as in boys, just as we should not hesitate to teach a girl to stand up for her rights as her brother stands up for his. Political education of a more detailed nature also forms an essential part of the preparation of women for their new responsibilities. It may be argued that most men are not given such education, but men have grown up in political tradition, with a knowledge of the political life of their country and at least a rule-of-thumb notion of how to run it. Women have missed this casual but fairly comprehensive training. There- fore they must study history, politics, civics, not as abstract branches of knowledge but as subjects linking up intimately with the work of national and international reconstruction. There are such courses at Bryn Mawr and the other colleges for women, and I know students are finding in the work a fresher and more concrete meaning than ever before. There should be courses to prepare girls for citizenship in the high schools and grammar schools throughout the country. For the mature woman, the woman's club is the natural university in which she may be educated most simply and comprehensively for politics. Instead of lectures on abstract subjects, the woman's club should give short courses in the tech- nique of politics, the business of governing by the will of the people. It is an excellent idea to invite each community official — and state and national officials, if they can be had — to de- scribe the functioning of his own office. V/omen should read newspapers, — so many women do not, — at least two papers every day, preferably of opposite editorial policy. There are many excellent books. I instance Bryce's "American Com- monwealth" and Ostrogoskj's "American Politics" as good EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES 171 examples which will give the woman reader an impersonal and accurate view of her government. I believe women should not limit themselves to national af- fairs, but should inform themselves as fully as possible on inter- national relations. They ought to be familiar with the history and the economic conditions of foreign countries and to keep in touch with current happenings through such reviews as the Literary Digest, Current Opinion, and others which epitomize the news and the thought of foreign capitals. Only in this way can women learn the causes which underlie national antagonisms and may result in war, and only when fortified by such knowl- edge can women make effective what I think is their nearly universal desire for international harmony and the arbitration of difficulties. Feminine peace propaganda which depends merely on emotion will never get very far. There are many reasons why I am opposed to the idea of a Woman's Party. In the first place, it is utterly impractical. Women at present are the apprentices of politics. They have to learn all the tricks of the trade, all the rules of the game. Who is to teach them, except men ? If women go off to play by themselves they will accomplish nothing except mistakes ; they will be like the reform party, which, through sheer igno- rance and lack of experience, often throws away the fruits of the victory it has gained at the polls. Then, although a Woman's Party never could swing ihe women's vote in any one direction, it would be most undesirable that a Woman's Party should do such a thing. On all our most important issues men and women ought not to divide on sex lines. Even if the majority of women should be in favor of some specific piece of legislation, opposed by the majority of men, some men would be sure to agree with the women, and the two groups had better go together. Nothing would do more to develop sex antagonism — an antisuffrage bogy which hardly has shown its head in this country — than a Woman's Party, an organized militancy based on sex. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that women need to work with men. The defects of each group are offset by the good qualities of the other. I have spoken of the weaknesses 172 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS of women, but men have theirs, too. If the leaders of women are so ideahstic that in straining their eyes after lofty theories they stub their toes on lowly facts — on the other hand, men are too much bound by traditions and precedents, by humdrum materialism. Women can learn much from men in the tech- nique of politics, in the devising of ''court-proof" legislation, in making it effective after it is passed, in managing public finances. Women, nevertheless, can do much, if they will, to counter- act one of the worst defects in men's working out of our system of government — the omnipresent professional politician. From the days of Andrew Jackson we have left the running of our country largely in the hands of the professional politicians, men who went into politics to make a living or because they had an ax to grind. What we need, more than anything else, is the public-spirited citizen who will take the responsibility of watching the workings of government machinery between elec- tions, the disinterested critic who is not an office seeker. As a class, the men best fitted for this role are far too busy to fill it. But I believe it can be filled most effectively by the public-spirited, intelligent, high-minded women who have the leisure and an enormous amount of unused energy. As a start to taking such a real part in politics, women should join one of the two big political parties, and join now. They should have a share in making the next political platforms. The independent woman, the "mugwump," should not be deterred by the fact that neither party is precisely to her liking ; there, again, the theoretical bent of her mind, her longing for a counsel of perfection, is likely to mislead her. We all have to work with the tools provided for us. The thing to do is to pitch in and try to make the platform of the party we choose more truly representative of our opinions. Although I personally am a Republican, I feel that women owe no special gratitude to either Democrats or Republicans, since both parties held off as long as possible, and, when they couldn't hold off any longer, each claimed all the credit for "giving women the vote." However, I believe in letting politi- cal bygones be bygones, except in the case of men whose EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES 173 illiberal and reactionary attitude toward women in the fight for suffrage indicates that they will continue to be as much of a hampering influence as possible. Not to avenge the past but to protect the future, women should work and vote against such men. Because the "woman's vote" is still a mystery both parties are trying their hardest to attract it, which puts the newly enfranchised in an excellent position strategically. I believe they should take advantage of that fact and write their planks in each platform. One thing which seems to me most impor- tant is that women should stand for improvements in education — a department of education at Washington, with its woman representative in the Cabinet ; a Federal appropriation for education ; the improvement of schools everywhere ; the de- crease of illiteracy and of subnormal physical conditions as dis- closed by the draft ; the increase in the pay of teachers, who do not now receive a living wage and who in consequence are being forced out of the schools and colleges. Women should insist that some legal and constitutional method, either through the nation or through the states, be found for the abolition of child labor. And surely a demand for the immediate adop- tion of the League of Nations covenant is one of the most effec- tive ways in which women can show their feeling against war. Such matters as special legal protection for women who work and mothers' pensions seem to me subjects requiring careful study and reflection, if we are to be sure of taking the right attitude, of helping women and not hampering them. The women's organizations, which no one wants to see disbanded, might take up such study and, when a decision is reached, might conduct campaigns of education among the people at large. Such a campaign I wish could be waged immediately on the issue of improving educational facilities — a movement bound to achieve success as soon as it is explained widely enough. Most important, politically speaking, is the representation of women in all bodies — in city councils, in legislatures, in conventions. Women should make an issue of this representa- tion immediately. Women and men always should work to- gether on committees ; men should be made to get over the 1 74 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS idea that they can shove women off on committees by them- selves. It is not necessary that the numbers of men and women representatives should be exactly equal, — that would be draw- ing the sex line too sharply, — but there should be a fair pro- portion of women. There is no reason why women should not be elected to office at once if they have — as in many cases is true — proved their political ability. Women should serve on juries, with proper exemptions for those who have the care of households or of small children. There are members of either sex whose sentimentality ought to disqualify them, but after all ex- emptions have been made, I imagine that, because of the greater leisure of women, there would be left better material for panels than is to be found now, when so many men of intelligence do everything to avoid jury duty because of the pressure of their private affairs. The question as to whether women will exercise a purifying influence on politics is interesting. Personally, I do not believe women will be a bit more scrupulous than men in "playing politics." Have not women made use of every politi- cal trick and maneuver in their clubs and social activities ? I do not like to be dogmatic, but I venture to say there will be women grafters, just as there are men grafters ; there will be venal voters among the women, just as there are among the men. And women will be enormously clever politicians because of their mingling of finesse and audacity ; after they have learned their ground they may outgeneral the other, sex. Nevertheless I think that women will raise the tone of political life, at least for a time, because so many women of public spirit, intelli- gence, and fineness will enter it. The group corresponding to them among men has little or no time for political activity. Besides her general contribution of disinterested political ac- tivity, woman will bring such special contributions into politics as a passion for detail and a grasp of it which men have lacked. I fancy women will be more keen than men in getting full value for the use of public money, and will turn more alert minds on the problem of society's relations with the individual, notably as exemplified in the penal laws. The argument, still treasured by reactionaries, that women must neglect their homes in order to be good citizens is utterly EDUCATIONAL AIMS AND VALUES 175 fallacious, it goes without saying. Owing to the trend toward luxurious living and the increase in labor-saving devices, not for a generation has the American woman needed to devote all her time and energy to her home, yet there has been no other outlet for her worthy of her energy and ability. She has been handicapped for the professions, which demand an undivided allegiance. To the woman with an hour or several hours of idle time on her hands every day, politics may prove an ideal opportunity for service. She will not neglect her family, but she may neglect her bridge ! Politics will have a most important effect on women in their relations with each other, for it will make them more democratic and less snobbish. It will have an excellent influence on the relations of men and women, for it will give to marriage what it never had before — a basis for perfect equality and for coop- eration in public as well as private interests. Women's entrance into politics may not end war, but I believe they are more unanimous than men in their opposition to it. The success of this opposition will depend not on their emotional reaction but on the intelligence with which they make their horror of war effective by working for the removal of its causes and the settlement of international disputes by arbitration. In general, it will be no easier for women to succeed where men have failed — in the task of constructing, through political activity, a new world. But the political future of women, as I see it, certainly holds this promise : it gives American women the opportunity to give what is in them, instead of turning it into useless channels. V THE ESSENTIALS OF WORLD PEACE PEACE THROUGH DEMOCRACY ^ Elihu Root [For a biographical sketch of EHhu Root see page 5. The address from which the selection below is taken was delivered on April 26, 191 7, before the American Society of International Law.] The progress of democracy is destroying the type of govern- ment which has shown itself incapable of maintaining respect for law and justice and resisting the temptations of ambition, and is substituting a new form of government, which in its nature is incapable of proceeding by the same methods, and necessarily responds to different motives and pursues different objects from the old autocratic offenders. Only when that task has been substantially accomplished will the advocates of law among nations be free from the inheritance of former failure. There will then be a new field open for a new trial, doubtless full of difficulties of its own, but of fair hope and possibilities of success. Self-governing democracies are, indeed, liable to commit great wrongs. The peoples who govern themselves frequently mis- understand their international rights and ignore their interna- tional duties. They are often swayed by prejudice and blinded by passion. They are swift to decide in their own favor the most difficult questions upon which they are totally ignorant. They are apt to applaud the jingo politician, who courts popularity by public insult to a friendly people, and to condemn the ^From "The Effect of Democracy on International Law," Interna- tional Conciliation, August, 191 7. Reprinted by permission. 176 THE ESSENTIALS OF WORLD PEACE 177 statesman who modifies extreme demands through the conces- sions required by just consideration for the rights of others. All these faults, however, are open and known to the whole world. The opinions and motives from which they proceed, the real causes of error, can be reached by reason, by appeal to better instincts, by public discussion, by the ascertainment and dissemination of the true facts. There are some necessary features of democratic self- government which tend towards the progressive reduction of tendencies to international wrongdoing. One is that democra- cies are absolutely dependent for their existence upon the pres- ervation of law. Autocracies can give commands and enforce them. Rules of action are a convenience, not a necessity for them. On the other hand, the only atmosphere in which a democracy can live between the danger of autocracy on one side and the danger of anarchy on the other is the atmosphere of law. Respect for law is the essential condition of its exist- ence ; and as in a democracy the law is an expression of the people's own will, self-respect and personal pride and patriotism demand its observance. An essential distinction between de- mocracy and autocracy is that while the government of an autocracy is superior to the law, the government of a de- mocracy is subject to the law. The conception of an interna- tional law binding upon the governments of the world is, therefore, natural to the people of a democracy, and any viola- tion of that law which they themselves have joined in prescrib- ing is received with disapproval, if not with resentment. This is well illustrated by the attitude of the people of the separate states of the American Union toward the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States passing upon the exercise of power by state governments. Physical force has never been used to compel conformity to those decisions. Yet the demo- cratic people of the United States have answered Jefferson's contemptuous remark, "John Marshall has made his decision ; now let him enforce it." The answer is that it is the will of self-governed democracy to obey the law which it has itself established, and the decisions of the Great Tribunal which de- clares the law controlling state action will be accepted and 178 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS observed by common consent and enforced by the power of public opinion. Another necessary feature of democratic government is that the exercise of the power of popular self-government is a con- tinual training of all citizens in the very qualities which are necessary for the maintenance of law between nations. Demo- cratic government cannot be carried on except by a people who acquire the habit of seeking true information about facts, of discussing questions of right and wrong, of interest, and of possible consequences, who have kindly consideration for opposing opinions and a tolerant attitude towards those who differ. The longer a democracy preserves itself through the exercise of these qualities, the better adapted it is to apply the same methods in the conduct of its international business, and the result is a continually increasing certainty that international law will be observed in a community of democratic nations. The most important difference, however, between the two forms of government is that democracies are incapable of holding or executing those sinister policies of ambition which are beyond the reach of argument and the control of law. A democracy cannot hold such policies because the open and public avowal and discussion which must precede their adop- tion by a democracy is destructive of them ; and it cannot execute such policies because it uniformly lacks the kind of disciplined efficiency necessary to diplomatic and military affirmatives. This characteristic of popular governments is well illustrated by the hundred years of peace which we are all rather proud of preserving throughout the three thousand miles of boundary between Canada and the United States without fortifications or ships of war or armies. There have been many occasions when the tempers of the men on either side of the line were sorely tried. The disputes regarding the Northeastern Bound- ary, the Oregon Boundary, the Alaska Boundary, were acute ; the affair of the Caroline on the Niagara River, the Fenian Raid upon Lake Champlain, the enforcement of the Fisheries regulations, were exasperating and serious, but upon neither side of the boundary did democracy harbor those sinister THE ESSENTIALS OF WORLD PEACE 179 designs of aggrandizement and ambition which have character- ized the autocratic governments of the world. On neither side was there suspicion of any such designs in the democracy across the border. The purpose of each nation was merely to stand up for its own rights, and so reason has always controlled, and every question has been settled by fair agreement or by arbi- tral decision ; and, finally, for the past eight years a permanent International Commission with judicial powers has disposed of the controversies arising between the citizens of the two countries along the border as unobtrusively and naturally as if the questions arose between citizens of Maryland and Virginia. Such has been the course of events, not because of any great design or farseeing plan but because it is the natural working of democratic government. The incapacity of democracies to maintain policies of aggres- sion may be fairly inferred from the extreme reluctance with which they incur the expense and make the sacrifices necessary for defense. Cherishing no secret designs of aggression them- selves, they find it difficult to believe in the existence of such designs on the part of other nations. Only imminent and deadly peril awakens them to activity. It was this obstinate confi- dence in the peaceable intentions of all mankind which met Lord Roberts (honored, trusted, and beloved as he was) when long before the present war he vainly sought to awaken the people of England to the danger that he saw so plainly in Germany's stupendous preparation for conquest. It is well known that when the war came France was almost upon the verge of diminishing her army by a reduction in the years of service. In our own country a great people, virile, fearless, and loyal, have remained indifferent to all the voices crying in the wilderness for preparation, because the American people could not be made to believe that anything was going to happen inconsistent with the existence everywhere of those peaceful purposes of which they themselves were conscious. i8o VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS FORCE AND PEACE ^ Henry Cabot Lodge [Henry Cabot Lodge (1850- ) was educated at Harvard and has represented Massachusetts in the United States Senate since 1893. He is a distinguished statesman, a writer on historical-poUtical subjects, best known for his lives of Washington and Hamilton, "Hero Tales from American Histor>'," and many volumes of admi- rable essays and addresses. He represents splendidly in our country a tradition, more common in England, as yet, than '^\'ith us, of a leader of public affairs who is at the same time a great man of letters. The vigorous courage and profound love of country which he has shown in his speeches and addresses during the last few years assure him a notable place in American histor\'.] In his romance of the "Last Days of Pompeii," Bulwer makes a dramatic point of the Roman sentry motionless at his post while the darkness and the flame and the burning flood were rushing down upon the doomed city. That solitary sen- try was the symbol of the force of the Roman Empire. Peace, order, and law reigned throughout all western Europe, but it was the gleam upon the sword and corselet of the Roman legionary which made men realize that behind that law and peace and order was the irresistible force of the Empire of Rome. Let us take a more homely illustration. We have all seen in London and New York police officers stationed at points where the traffic is densest regulating and guiding its movement by merely raising one hand. They would be per- fectly incapable of stopping the vehicles carrying on that traf- fic, by their own physical force. It could pass over them and destroy them in a moment, and yet it is all governed by the gesture of one man. The reason is simple ; the policeman is the symbol of the force of the community against which no individual force can prevail, and of this the great mass of in- dividuals are thoroughly if unconsciously aware. Law is the written will of the community. The constable, the policeman, iFrom "War Addresses, 1Q15-1Q17." Copyrighted by Houghton Mifflin Company, authorized publishers, and reprinted with their permission. THE ESSENTIALS OF WORLD PEACE i8i the soldier, is the symbol of the force which gives sanction to law and without which it would be worthless. Abolish the force which maintains order in every village, town, and city in the civilized world and you would not have peace — you would have riot, anarchy, and destruction ; the criminal, the violent, and the reckless would dominate until the men of order and the lovers of peace united and restored the force of the community which had been swept away. It is all obvious enough, it all rests on human nature, and if there was not somewhere an organized force which belonged to the whole community there would be neither peace nor order anywhere. No one has suggested, not even the most ardent advocates of peace, that the police of our cities should be abolished on the theory that an organization of armed men whose duty it is to maintain order, even if they are compelled often to wound and sometimes to kill for that purpose, are by their mere existence an incitement to crime and violence. If order, peace, and civilization in a town, city, or state rest, as they do rest in the last analysis, upon force, upon what does the peace of a nation depend? It must depend and it can only depend upon the ability of the nation to maintain and defend its own peace at home and abroad. Turn to the Constitution of the United States. In the brief preamble one of the chief purposes of the Constitution is set down as provi- sion for the "common defense." In the grant of powers to Congress one of the first powers conferred is to provide for the "common defense of the United States." For this purpose they are given specific powers: to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, to provide for calling forth the militia, suppressing insurrections, and repelling invasions. The states are forbidden to engage in war unless actually in- vaded, and the United States is bound to protect each of them against invasion and, on their request, to protect them also against domestic violence. In other words, the Constitution provides for the mainte- nance of order at home and peace abroad through the physical force of the United States. The conception of the Consti- tution is that domestic order as well as peace with other 1 82 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS nations rests upon the force of the nation. Of the sound- ness of this proposition there can be no doubt, I think, in the mind of any reasonable man. This obvious principle em- bodied in the Constitution and recognized by every organized government in the world is too often overlooked at the pres- ent moment in the clamor against armament. The people who urge the disarmament of one nation in an armed world confuse armament and preparation with the actual power upon which peace depends. They take the manifestation for the cause. Armament is merely the instrument by which the force of the community is manifested and made effective, just as the policeman is the manifestation of the force of the munic- ipal community upon which local order rests. The fact that armies and navies are used in war does not make them the cause of war, any more than maintaining a fire in a grate to prevent the dwellers in the house from suffering from cold war- rants the abolition of fire because where fire gets beyond con- trol it is a destructive agent. Alexander the Great was bent on conquest, and he created the best army in the world at that time, not to preserve the peace of Macedonia but for the pur- pose of conquering other nations, to which purpose he applied his instrument. The wars which followed were not due to the Macedonian phalanx, but to Alexander. The good or the evil of national armament depends not on its existence or its size but upon the purpose for which it is created and maintained. Great military and naval forces created for purposes of con- quest are used in the war which the desire of conquest causes. They do not in themselves cause war. Armies and navies organ- ized to maintain peace serve the ends of peace because there is no such incentive to war as a rich, undefended, and helpless country, which by its condition invites aggression. The grave objections to overwhelming and exhausting armaments are economic. A general reduction of armaments is not only desir- able but is something to be sought for with the utmost earnest- ness. But for one nation to disarm and leave itself defenseless in an armed world is a direct incentive and invitation to war. The danger to the peace of the world, then, lies not in arma- ment, which is a manifestation, but in the purposes for which THE ESSENTIALS OF WORLD PEACE 183 the armament was created. A knife is frequently dangerous to human life, but there would be no sense in abolishing knives, because the danger depends solely on the purpose or passion of the individual in whose hand the knife is and not upon the fact that the knife exists. The peace of a nation depends in the last resort, like domestic order, upon the force of the community and upon the ability of the community to maintain peace, assum- ing that the nation lives up to its obligations, seeks no conquest, and wishes only to be able to repel aggression and invasion. If a nation fulfills strictly all its international obligations and seeks no conquest and has no desire to wrong any other nation, great or small, the danger of war can come only through the aggression of others, and that aggression will never be made if it is known that the peace-loving nation is ready to repel it. The first step, then, toward the maintenance of peace is for each nation to maintain its peace with the rest of the world by its own honorable and right conduct and by such organiza- tion and preparation as will enable it to defenc its oeace. THE FOURTEEN POINTS WooDROw Wilson [Woodrow Wilson (1856- ), president of the United States igi3-iQ2i, was educated at Princeton, the University of Virginia, and at Johns Hopkins, and later taught history and political science at Bryn Mawr, Wesleyan, and Princeton. From 1902 to 19 10 he served as president of Princeton University. He was then elected governor of New Jersey. His most important writings are "Con- gressional Government" (1885), "The State" (1889), "History of the American People" (1902), and a life of Washington. The best examples of his essays are "Ideals of America" (Atlantic Monthly for December, 1902) and "When a Man Comes to Himself" (1915). The Fourteen Points were first made public in a message to Congress of January 8, 1918.] The program of the world's peace is our program, and that program, the only possible program, as we see it, is this : I. Open covenants of peace openly arrived at, after which there will surely be no private international action or rulings of 1 84 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view. II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants. III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating them- selves for its maintenance. IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national arma- ments will reduce to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety. V. Free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the population concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined. VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settle- ment of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy, and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choos- ing ; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment ac- corded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy. VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one THE ESSENTIALS OF WORLD PEACE 185 another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired. VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1 87 1 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all. IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be ef- fected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality. X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be ac- corded the freest opportunity of autonomous development. XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated ; occupied territories restored ; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea ; and the relations of the several Balkan States to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality ; and international guarantees of the political and economic independ- ence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan States should be entered into. XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other national- ities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested oppor- tunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and com- merce of all nations under international guarantees. XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant. XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guaran- tees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike. 1 86 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS THE POLICY OF ''THE OPEN DOOR''^ Bainbridge Colby [Bainbridge Colby (1869- ) was educated at Williams Col- lege and practices law in New York City. He was one of the founders of the Progressive Party in 1912, a member of the United States Shipping Board during the World War, and, 1920-1921, Presi- dent Wilson's Secretary of State. This selection is an address de- hvered in May, 191 7, before the National Conference on the Foreign Relations of the United States. It is valuable for its emphasis on the importance of economic factors in international affairs, especially as illustrated by the poHcy of "the open door."] The supreme concern of mankind is justice. This is the as- piration of democracy, not only in its internal but in its inter- national relations. Justice not only demanded for ourselves but freely accorded to others. This is the keynote of President Wilson's epoch-making appeal to the nations of the world. This immortal address con- stitutes not only a satisfactory declaration of the principles for which we entered the World War, but it is the latest and most authentic expression of the spirit of democracy. The invio- lability of treaties, respect for nationality, the right of develop- ment along self-evolved and national lines, obedience to the promptings of humanity, in other words, international justice — these are the salients of his definition of democracy's aims and of the democratic ideal in international relations. But nations are animated not only by theories but by con- ditions. And it is well for us to remember that a nobly defined ideal does not necessarily meet or vanquish a robust and per- sistent condition. The issue of the World War is familiarly defined as between autocracy or militarism on the one hand and democrac}^ on the other. But militarism or even autoc- racy, odious as they are, are only different lines of approach to, or treatment of, underlying conditions in the world. ^ From Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, Vol. VII, No. 2. Reprinted by permission. THE ESSENTIALS OF WORLD PEACE 187 I think it may fairly be said that the ailment which afflicts the world is economic and not exclusively political. The trouble with the highly industrialized nations of the temper- ate zone is that they cannot produce what they need to con- sume, and they cannot consume what they need to produce. The populations of the industrial nations are steadily growing. The nations of western Europe in a century have doubled their population. Germany is adding a million per annum to her population, and the United* States even more. The nations of western Europe cannot produce the means required for their subsistence. They have not the agricultural basis which yields them their requirements in food and raw materials. These in- dispensables of national life must be obtained beyond their borders. They must, in other words, be purchased, and the means necessary to the purchase are manufactured products, which must greatly exceed in amount what the domestic mar- ket of the producing nation can absorb. From this universal need of nations, that is, food and raw materials on the one hand, and a market for products on the other, arises the value of colonial possessions, particularly in the unexploited and highly productive regions in the tropics and the Orient. These regions are in large part peopled by nations whose titles to the lands they hold are unassailable, yet the people are lacking either in industry or ambition, and the productive possibilities of their lands are incapable of realization unless the popular energies are marshaled and directed and even supplemented by the more progressive and colonizing nations. The world needs their produce, the life of Europe demands their raw materials, and mere rights of nations can with difficulty make a stand against necessities that are so imperious. There has thus arisen an economic imperialism, of which, strange to say, the most democratic of nations are the most conspicuous examples. England throughout the world, France in Africa and the East, arc deeply conscious of the relation to their industrial vigor of colonial expansion. Economic advantage seems to follow in the wake of politi- cal control. It is the mother country which builds the rail- roads in the colonies, controls port privileges, fixes tariffs, and l88 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS secures to her nationals the outdistancing advantages which make alien competition impossible. Theoretically this may not be true, but in practice it is uniformly true. Of Algeria's ex- portations seventy-nine per cent are to France, and eighty-five per cent of her imports come from France. As the industrial nation grows in population, the pressure upon her means of sustenance increases, her need of raw ma- terials grows greater, and she turns a ranging eye throughout the world for the means of satisfying this internal pressure. Here is the motive of wars, here is the menace to world peace. And it is with reference to this condition, prevalent throughout the world, that we must determine the attitude of democracy in its international relations. This economic pressure is but beginning to be felt in the United States, but its premonitory symptoms are already seen. It is only a question of time when our complacent sense of security will give way to a realization that our vast agricultural basis is not vast enough to sustain our even vaster industrial development. We shall then feel, if not so acutely as sister nations in the east, at least as truly, the need of expanding markets and enlarged sources of raw materials, if not of food. The spiritual aims of democracy, so perfectly defined by the President, will have to encounter the imperious, economic necessities which drive all nations, which cannot be stayed, and which refuse to be silenced. The freedom of the seas, respect for international boundaries, observance of treaties, obedience to international law, recognition of the dictates of humanity, — in short, all the aims which animated America and her allies in this great war, — do not in and of themselves contain the promise of a complete tranquilization of the world. To end wars requires that the sources of international friction should be reached. The repression of barbarism, the punishment of ruthlessness, constitute a sufficient but only an immediate ob- jective of the world's struggle. It is, of course, the primary undertaking of civilization, and, once achieved, our thought and our effort must go forward in aims that are more far- reaching. Our goal must be the destruction of the economic root of war — in other words, to establish an economic, not THE ESSENTIALS OF WORLD PEACE 189 only a political, internationalism, a community of interests, even if qualified and incomplete, among great nations. The American policy of the open door in colonial administration must find acceptance in the world if mankind is to emerge from the perennial menace of war. THE PRINCIPLE OF NATIONALITY^ Archibald C. CoolidGe [Archibald Gary Coolidge (1866- ) was educated at Harvard, and after several years' connection with the American diplomatic service in European capitals returned to Harvard and is now pro- fessor of European history. In 1914 he was Harvard Exchange Professor at the University of Berlin. He has written "The United States as a World Power" (1908) and "The Origins of the Triple Alliance" (1918).] What is nationality ? On what is it based ? Not on race — most of the nations of Europe are of too mixed and uncertain origin to have blood count for much. The skull measurements in the different parts of the Continent suggest totally different divisions from the modern political and linguistic ones. It is worth remarking here that an imaginary descent may be of more importance than the real one. It matters little whether the modern Greeks are or are not descended from the ancient Hellenes. What is of consequence is that they believe they are. This belief affects them profoundly ; it permeates their national consciousness and is a fundamental part of their psychology. In the same way we need not care to what extent the modern Rumanians are the children of the Roman legionaries and colonists and to what extent they are of Dacian, Slavic, or othet origin. The thing that counts is that, speaking a Latin lan- guage, they regard themselves as a Latin people, akin to the French, Italians, and Spaniards, something different from the Slavs about them, something more western, the heirs to an older civilization. Although they belong to the Greek Orthodox iFrom the Yale Review, April, 1915. Reprinted by permission. I90 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS Church, they turn for inspiration not to Constantinople and Moscow but to Rome and Paris. We know that the Swiss are a nation though composed of several nationalities, and that as long as these prefer to remain in their present glorious little republic no one has a right to interfere with them, though this doctrine is hardly acceptable to the extreme partisans of Pan-Germanism or of Italia Irredenta. We apply the same principle to the Belgians, though they speak two languages ; but of what nationality are the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine? The Germans claim the Alsatians as German by speech and descent as well as by most of their history. The French base their arguments on what they regard as a more modern conception — that of national consciousness and desire, of common ideas and aspirations. They declare that though the French language is that of the great mass of the people in France, and is the official and liter- ary vehicle of expression, — one they believe superior to any other, — nevertheless a Basque, a Breton, a Fleming, an Alsa- tian, may be a genuine and most patriotic Frenchman even if he knows nothing but his local dialect. It must be admitted that in this instance the claim to a nationality, as based on language and history, cannot well be reconciled with our belief in gov- ernment with the consent of the governed. Had the Germans, during the last forty years, been as successful in Alsace-Lorraine as the Americans have been in our own South, the situation would be different. As it is, compromise or reconciliation has not been reached, and the question of the future allegiance of Alsace-Lorraine has once more been referred to arbitrament of the sword. In many European countries ethnographical statistics are to be accepted with much caution. To be sure, partisan guesses are still more unreliable, for where no official figures exist, the widest play is left to passion and imagination ; witness the extraordinary estimates that have been made frequently in good faith of the strength of the various elements in Mace- donia. In lands where there are official statistics we may take it for granted that the nationality which has charge of the census will get more than its share in the returns. THE ESSENTIALS OF WORLD PEACE 191 Doubtful and neutral elements can always be used to swell the figures. For instance, in the Austrian province of Galicia, 808,000 out of a total of 871,000 Jews are officially recorded as speaking Polish, which assures to the Poles a good ma- jority of the population. In the neighboring province of Bu- kowina, out of 192,000 Jews, 95,000 are put down as Germans. In both cases the real language of most of the Jews is Yid- dish. Now, if as a result of the present war Russia keeps Galicia, the Jews of the eastern half of the province will no longer be reckoned as Poles ; and if at the same time Rumania gets Bukowina, the Jews there will soon go to swell the Ru- manian element in that province, and there is no reason why they should not. Why should not the Jew in the Dual Empire transfer his linguistic allegiance? It is often transferred for him. If he lives in southern Hungary he may be today an ardent IVIagyar, though his father was counted as a German ; and it may be the duty of his son to be a good Rumanian or Serbian without his wishes being consulted in any event. This does not mean that the Jews as a race are always prompt to change their linguistic or other allegiance with each shift of their political fortune. There are plenty of cases to the con- trary. Many Jews have, for example, been good Polish patriots. A more surprising recent instance of their abiding loyalty to one country is the obstinacy with which the colony of Jews from Livorno, settled in Tunis, have remained irreconcilably Italian in their opposition to French rule. But even after admitting language to be the chief though not the only determinant of nationality, we still have to inquire what constitutes a language, and the answer is sometimes far from easy. Whatever the philologists may have decided, there is sometimes from a political point of view great difficulty in distinguishing between a language and a dialect. Such things may be matters of national consciousness rather than of gram- mar or vocabulary ; indeed, practically the same tongue may be regarded as a dialect or as a language, according to where it happens to be spoken. Dutch is a language, but the claim of Flemish is a little more doubtful; and they are both mere branches of Low German, which is admittedly nothing but a 192 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS dialect. In the same way, Portuguese is a language, but Gal- lego, which hardly differs from it, counts as a dialect of Spanish. Modern languages have grown out of certain local dialects, and the process is still going on. Astonishing as it may seem, the tendency in Europe today — in spite of the tremendous in- crease of the ease and the need of communication throughout mankind, and in spite of the strength of such cosmopolitan movements as socialism — appears to be rather towards the mul- tiplication than to the diminution of tongues. Within recent years written Norwegian has been drawing further away from written Danish, with which it formerly was almost identical. Slovak has come to regard itself as an independent speech, not as a dialect of Bohemian, and INIoravian may possibly do the same. All the efforts of the Russian government to maintain the unity of the national language and to keep Little F.ussian in the position of a mere dialect, like Plattdeutsch in Germany, have not prevented the growth of a strong Ukrainophil party in southern Russia, which in time may menace the political as well as the linguistic unity of the empire ; indeed, it is one of the most serious perils that threaten its future. The Little Russians have among themselves local differences that may develop, and to the north of them are the White Russians, as yet without a separatist consciousness, but capable of find- ing one. In Ireland, Irish still lingers, and at least the teaching of it is on the increase ; and even in France all the intense patriotism and pride in la patrie and her language that every Frenchman feels have been required to keep the Provengal movement in the nineteenth century within the bounds of a harmless literary cult and prevent its getting into politics and weakening the unity of the French nation. Enthusiasts for liberty are apt to overlook the sad truth that however admirable the development of national and lin- guistic consciousness may be of itself, it does not necessarily make for peace among nationalities any more than do free in- stitutions and advanced civilization. On the contrary, in mixed districts, as long as there are no schools or legislative bodies, the question of what language shall prevail in such institutions does not come up. When — at least in the form of newsoapers, THE ESSENTIALS OF WORLD PEACE 193 posters, and shop signs ^ — the written word becomes a necessity for the most inert minds, the need of a common medium in- creases. Here progress and friction are apt to go hand in hand. The very fact that men are thrown together so much more than they used to be makes it the more irritating if they are unable to understand one another. To admit that any other tongue has superior merits to your own or should enjoy greater privileges argues a sad want of patriotism. All the European movements of emancipation and unification of the last century have been accompanied by higher national consciousness and have meant keener national rivalries if not hatreds. The awakening of modern Russia was accompanied -by fierce nationalistic strife. It was also in the usual order of things that after the Turks and Christians in the Ottoman Empire had combined to overthrow the despotism of Abdul Hamid the Second, their antagonisms towards one another should have soon become more acute, for they were relieved of the pressure that had kept down their vitality and desire for expansion. Like all such parties, the Young Turks have been ultranationalists. Everywhere in Europe today where we find two national- ities in considerable numbers in the same state, the outlook is discouraging. In Russia and Germany the minorities have been frankly oppressed ; in Austria-Hungary the various peoples are in fierce antagonism with one another ; in Belgium the Flemish movement, however justified, has threatened the future of the kingdom ; and even in Switzerland, where, thanks to a federal constitution and a splendid common patriotism and pride, representatives of three great nationalities have lived on an equal footing in such harmony as nowhere else, there has been increasing friction in the last few years between the French and the German elements. The circumstance that in the present war their respective sympathies are, as is natural, on the side of the belligerent whose language they speak, can hardly contribute to good feeling between themselves. But granting that it would be desirable that in the Europe of the future each national group should be as far as possible self-governing, there is an obvious limit to the principle. 194 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS Under modern conditions a state, and particularly an inland state, requires a certain size for independent political and economic existence. In these days of large countries such iso- lated groups as the Saxons in Transylvania, the Slovaks in North Hungary, the Wends in the Lausitz, the Basques in France and Spain, cannot be expected to exist as independent communities ; indeed, they have no desire to. All they ask for is certain local privileges, but it is doubtful whether these can be preserved much longer. The future seems to offer little promise to small detached minorities, however historically or culturally interesting. The claims of historical possession cannot always be lightly dismissed. Has a people no right to maintain its supremacy in the homes and the lands that have come to it through long generations? If it has been too hospitable to strangers, is it therefore a fit subject for dismemberment or conquest? In any equitable territorial adjustment the historical unity of a country may legitimately demand consideration. For instance, the Czechs in Bohemia do not. desire an independence or greater self-government than would sever them from the fron- tier portions of their territory which have a German popula- tion. In like manner, to deprive Hungary of all the parts of the kingdom where the Magyars do not form the majority of the inhabitants would be to sin against a state which, though its boundaries may have varied, has had a unity and fixed abode in the same region for over nine hundred years, during which its history has counted many glorious pages. VI THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS A CULMINATION OF CIVILIZATION^ Jan C. Smuts [Lieutenant General Smuts (1870- ) is a native of South Africa, but was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he distinguished himself as a scholar. In the Boer War of 1899-1902 he fought against the British, but in the World War he commanded the British troops which drove the Germans out of East Africa. During 191 7 he visited England as South-African representative in the Imperial War Cabinet, and his speeches on the war and the question of Imperial federation made a profound impression. One after-dinner speech was delivered at a banquet given in his honor by members of both Houses of Parliament on May 15, 1917, and was characterized by the London Daily Telegraph as "one of the finest and most statesmanlike utterances that the war has produced." This was called "The British Commonwealth of Nations." The selection below is from General Smuts's "Plan for a League of Nations," written December 16, 1918.] During this war a great deal of attention has been given to the idea of a league of nations as a means of preventing future wars. The discussion of the subject has proceeded almost en- tirely from that one point of view, and as most people are rather skeptical of the possibility of preventing wars altogether the league has only too often been looked upon as Utopian, as an impracticable ideal not likely to be realized while human nature remains what it is. Quite recently the practice of the Allies in controlling and rationing food, shipping, coal, muni- tions, etc. for common purposes through the machinery of ^ Reprinted with the permission of The Nation, New York, from the issue of February 8, 191 9. Copyrighted. 195 196 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS interallied councils has led to the idea that in future a league of nations might be similarly used for the common economic needs of the nations belonging to the league — at any rate, for the control of articles of food or raw materials or transport in respect of which there will be a shortage. In other words, the economic functions of the league would not be confined to the prevention of wars or the punishment of an unauthorized bellig- erent, but would be extended to the domain of ordinary peace- ful intercourse between the members of the league. And it was especially argued that during the period of economic recon- struction following the war, when there would be a shortage of several essential articles, the league would be the proper authority for rationing states in respect of such articles. That, generally speaking, was the utmost extent to which the idea of the league of nations was thought to be applicable. An attempt will be made in this sketch to give an essential extension to the functions of the league ; indeed, to look upon the league from a very different point of view — to view it not only as a possible means for preventing future wars but much more as a great organ of the ordinary peaceful life of civiliza- tion, as the foundation of the new international system which will be erected on the ruins of this war, and as the starting point from which the peace arrangements of the forthcoming conference should be made. Such an orientation of the idea seems to me necessary if the league is to become a permanent part of our international machinery. It is not sufficient for the league merely to be a sort of dens ex machina, called in in very grave emergencies w^hen the specter of war appears ; if it is to last, it must be much more. It must become part and parcel of the common international life of states ; it must be an ever-visible, living, working organ of the polity of civiliza- tion. It must function so strongly in the ordinary peaceful in- tercourse of states that it becomes irresistible in their disputes ; its peace activity must be the foundation and guarantee of its war power. How would it be possible to build the league so closely into the fabric of our international system? I would put the position broadly as follows : The process of civilization has always been towards the league of nations. I THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 197 The grouping or fusion of tribes into a national state is a case in point. But the political movement has often gone beyond that. The national state has too often been the exception. Nations in their march to power tend to pass the purely national bounds ; hence arise the empires which embrace various nations, sometimes related in blood and institutions, sometimes again different in race and hostile in temperament. In a rudimentary way all such composite empires of the past were leagues of nations, keeping the peace among the constituent nations, but unfortunately doing so not on the basis of freedom but of re- pression. Usually one dominant nation in the group overcame, coerced, and kept the rest under. The principle of nationality became overstrained and overdeveloped, and nourished itself by exploiting other, weaker nationalities. Nationality over- grown became imperialism, and the empire led a troubled exist- ence on the ruin of the freedom of its constituent nations. That was the evil of the system ; but with however much friction and oppression, the peace was usually kept among the nations fall-' ing within the empire. These empires have all broken down, and today the British Commonwealth of Nations remains the only embryo league of nations because it is based on the true principles of national freedom and political decentralization. Such was the political system of modern Europe right up to the early decades of the twentieth century. The nations of continental Europe were mostly grouped into certain empires v/hich were small leagues of nations, keeping the peace among their constituents and incidentally robbing them of their liber- ties. Leaving aside France and Italy as national states, Russia, Austria, and Turkey were composite empires embracing the most heterogeneous races and peoples, while the German Em- pire was predominantly national, with certain minor accretions from other races. The war has wrought a fundamental change and recast the political map of Europe. Three of these empires have already disappeared, while Germany, even if she survives the storms of the coming days, will certainly lose her subject races of non-German blood. The attempt to form empires or leagues of nations on the basis of inequality and the bondage and oppression of the smaller 198 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS national units has failed, and the work has to be done all over again on a new basis and an enormous scale. The vast elemen- tal forces liberated by this war, even more than the war itself, have been responsible for this great change. In the place of the great empires we find the map of Europe now dotted with small nations, embryo states, derelict territories. Europe has been reduced to its original atoms. For the moment its political structure, the costly result of so many centuries of effort, has disappeared. But that state of affairs must be looked upon as temporary. The creative process in the political movement of humanity cannot be paralyzed ; the materials lie ready for a new reconstructive task, to which, let us hope, the courage and genius of Western civilization will prove equal. Adapting the great lines of Browning, one may describe Europe as lapsing to That sad, obscure, anarchic state Where God unmakes but to re-make the world He else made first in vain, which must not be. The question is, What new political form shall be given to these elements of our European civilization ? On the answer to that question depends the future of Europe and of the world. My broad contention is that the smaller, embryonic, unsuccess- ful leagues of nations have been swept away, not to leave an empty house for national individualism or anarchy but for a larger and better league of nations. Europe is being liquidated, and the league of nations must be the heir to this great estate. The peoples left behind by the decomposition of Russia, Austria, and Turkey are mostly untrained politically ; many of them are either incapable of or deficient in power of self-government ; they are mostly destitute and will require much nursing towards economic and political independence. If there is going to be a scramble among the victors for this loot, the future of Europe must, indeed, be despaired of. The application of the spoils system at this most solemn juncture in the history of the world, a repartition of Europe at a moment when Europe is bleeding at every pore as a result of partitions less than half a century old, would, indeed, be incorrigible madness on the part of rulers and enough to drive the torn and broken peoples THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 199 of the world to that despair of the state which is the motive power behind Russian Bolshevism, Surely the only statesman- like course is to make the league of nations the reversionary in the broadest sense of these empires. In this debacle of the old Europe the league of nations is no longer an outsider or stranger, but the natural master of the house. It becomes nat- urally and obviously the solvent for a problem which no other means will solve. "I AM A COVENANTER "1 WooDROw Wilson [For a biographical sketch of Woodrow Wilson see page 183.] I came back from Paris bringing one of the greatest docu- ments of human history. One of the things that made it great was that it was penetrated throughout with the principles to which America has devoted her life. Let me hasten to say that one of the most delightful circumstances of the work on the other side of the water was that I discovered that what we called American principles had penetrated to the heart and to the understanding not only of the great peoples of Europe but to the hearts and understandings of the great men who were repre- senting the peoples of Europe. I think that I can say that one of the things that America has had most at heart throughout her existence has been that there should be substituted for the brutal processes of war the friendly processes of consultation and arbitration, and that is done in the Covenant of the League of Nations. I am very anxious that my fellow citizens should realize that that is the chief topic of the Covenant of the League of Nations, the greater part of its provisions. The whole intent and purpose of the document are expressed in provisions by which all the member states agree that they will never go to war without first having done one or the other of two things : either submitted the matter in controversy to arbitration, in which case they agree to abide by the verdict, or ^Address delivered at Kansas City, Missouri, on September 6, 1919. b 200 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS submitted it to discussion in the Council of the League of Na- tions ; and for that purpose they consent to allow six months for the discussion, and, whether they like the opinion expressed or not, that they will not go to war for three months after that opinion has been expressed, so that you have, whether you get arbitration or not, nine months' discussion ; and I want to remind you that that is the central principle of some thirty treaties entered into between the United States of America and some thirty other sovereign nations, all of which are confirmed by the Senate of the United States. We have such an agree- ment with France ; we have such an agreement with Great Britain ; we have such an agreement with practically every great nation except Germany, which refused to enter into such an arrangement because, my fellow citizens, Germany knew that she intended something that did not bear discussion, and that if she had submitted the purpose which led to this war to so much as one month's discussion she never would have dared to go into the enterprise against mankind which she finally did go into. And therefore I say that this principle of discussion is the principle already adopted by America. And what is the compulsion to do this? The compulsion is this — that if any member state violates that promise to submit either to arbitration or discussion, it is thereby, ipso jacto, deemed to have committed an act of war against all the rest. Then, you will ask. Do we at once take up arms and fight them? No. We do something very much more terrible than that — we absolutely boycott them. Let any merchant put up to him- self that if he enters into a covenant and then breaks it, and the people all around absolutely desert his establishment and will have nothing to do with him, ask him after that if it will be necessary to send for the police. The most terrible thing that can happen to any individual, and the most conclusive thing that can happen to a nation, is to be read out of decent society. There was another thing that we needed to accomplish that is accomplished in this document. We wanted disarmament, and this document provides in the only possible way for dis- armament by common agreement. Observe, my fellow citizens, THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 201 that just every great fighting nation in the world is a member of this partnership except Germany, and inasmuch as Germany has accepted a Hmitation of her army to one hundred thousand men, I don't think, for the time being, she may be regarded as a great fighting nation. And you know, my fellow citizens, that armaments mean great standing armies and great stores of war material. They do not mean burdensome taxation merely ; they do not mean merely compulsory military service, which stays the economic strength of the nation, but they mean the building up of a military class. Again and again, my fellow citizens, in the conference at Paris we were face to face with this situation : that in dealing with a particular civil government we found that they would not dare promise what their general staff was not willing that they should promise, and that they were dominated by the mili- tary machine which they had created nominally for their own defense but really — whether they willed it or not — for the provocation of war. And so as long as you have a military class, it does not make any difference what your form of govern- ment is. If you are determined to be armed to the teeth you must obey the orders and directions of the only men who can control the great machinery of war. It is not merely the cost of armament, although that is overwhelming, but it is the spirit of it, and America has never had and, I hope, in the providence of God never will have that spirit. And there is no other way to dispense with great armaments except by the common agreements of the fighting nations of the world. And here is the agreement. They promise disarma- ment and promise to agree upon a plan. Then there was another thing we wanted to do, my fellow citizens, that is done in this document. We wanted to see that helpless people were nowhere in the world put at the mercy of unscrupulous enemies and masters. There is one pitiful ex- ample which is in the hearts of all of us. I mean the example of Armenia. There was a Christian people, helpless, at the mercy of a Turkish government which thought it the service of God to destroy them. And at this moment, my fellow citizens, 202 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS it is an open question whether the Armenian people will not, while we sit here and debate, be absolutely destroyed. When I think of words piled on words, of debate following debate, when these unspeakable things that cannot be handled until the debate is over are happening in these pitiful parts of the world, I wonder that men do not wake up to the moral responsibility of what they are doing. Great peoples are driven out upon a desert where there is no food, and can be none, and they are compelled to die, and then men, women, and children are thrown into a common grave so imperfectly covered up that here and there is a pitiful arm stretched out to heaven, and there is no pity in the world. When shall we wake to the moral responsibility of this great occasion? And so, my fellow citizens, there are other aspects to that matter. Not all the populations that are having something that is not a square deal live in Armenia. There are others. And one of the glories of the great document which I brought back with me is this : that everywhere in the area of settlement cov- ered by the political questions involved in that treaty, people of that sort have been given their freedom and guaranteed their freedom. But the thing does not end there, because the treaty includes the Covenant of the League of Nations. And what does that say ? That says that it is the privilege of any member state to call attention to anything anywhere that is likely to disturb the peace of the world or the good understanding be- tween nations upon which the peace of the world depends, and every people in the world that have not got what they think they ought to have is thereby given a world forum in which to bring the thing to the bar of mankind. There never before has been provided a world forum in which the legitimate grievances of peoples entitled to consideration can be brought to the com- mon judgment of mankind. And if I were the advocate of any suppressed or oppressed people I surely could not ask any better forum than to stand up before the world and challenge the other party to make good its excuses for not acting in that case. To reject that treaty, to alter that treaty, is to impair one of the first charters of mankind. And yet there are men who approach the question with passion (with private passion and THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 2 03 party passion), who think only of some immediate advan- tage to themselves or to a group of their fellow countrymen, and who look at the thing with the jaundiced eyes of those who have some private purpose of their own. When, at last, in the annals of mankind they are gibbeted, they will regret that the gibbet is so high. I would not have you think that I am trying to characterize those who conscientiously object to anything in this great document. I take off my hat in the presence of any man's genuine conscience, and there are men who are conscien- tiously opposed to it, though they will pardon me if I say ignorantly opposed. I have no quarrel with them. It has been a great pleasure to confer with some of them and to tell them, as frankly as I would have told my most intimate friend, the whole inside of my mind and every other mind that I knew anything about that had been concerned with the conduct of affairs at Paris, in order that they might understand this thing and go with the rest of us in the confirmation of what is neces- sary for the peace of the world. I have no intolerant spirit in the matter, but I also assure you that from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head I have got a fighting spirit about it. And if anybody dares defeat this great experiment, then he must gather together the counselors of the world and do something better. If there is a better scheme I, for one, will subscribe to it, but I want to say now, as I said the other night, it is a case of put up or shut up. Negation will not save the world. Opposition constructs nothing. . . . Is it not a great vision, my fellow citizens, this of the thoughtful world combined for peace, and this of all the great peoples of the world associated to see that justice is done, that the strong who intend wrong are restrained, and the weak who cannot defend themselves are made secure ? We have a prob- lem ahead of us that ought to interest us in this connection. We have promised the people of the Philippine Islands that we will set them free. It has been one of our perplexities how we should make them safe after we set them free. Under this arrangement they will be safe from the outset. They will be- come members of the League of Nations, and every great 204 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS nation in the world will be obliged to respect and preserve against external aggression from any quarter the territorial integrity and political independence of the Philippines. It simplifies one of the most perplexing problems that has faced the American public. But it does not simplify our problems merely, gentlemen. It illustrates the triumph of the American spirit. I do not want to attempt any flight of fancy, but I can fancy those men of the first generation that so thoughtfully set this great govern- ment up, — the generation of Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, and the Adamses ; I can fancy their looking on with a sort of enraptured amazement that the American spirit should have made conquest of the world. If anything I have said has left the impression on your mind that I have the least doubt of the result, please dismiss the impression. And if you think I have come out on this errand to fight anybody, please dismiss that from your mind. I have not come to fight or antagonize any individual or body of in- dividuals. I have, let me say, without the slightest affectation, the greatest respect for the United States Senate ; but, my fellow citizens, I have come out to fight for a cause. That cause is greater than the Senate ; it is greater than the govern- ment. It is as great as the cause of mankind, and I intend, in office and out, to fight that battle as long as I live. My ancestors were troublesome Scotchmen, and among them were some of that famous group that were known as the Covenanters. Very well, there is the Covenant of the League of Nations. I am a Covenanter ! THE QUESTION OF '' RESERVATIONS "^ Henry Cabot Lodge [For a biographical sketch see page i8o. The following material was chosen from Senator Lodge's address on the League of Nations made before the United States Senate on August 12, 1919. In 1 For the complete address consult the Congressional Record of the 66th Congress, first session, volume 58, part 4, pp. 3779 et seq. THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 205 that address he discussed, article by article, the Covenant of the League of Nations, which, as part of the peace treaty, had been submitted to the Senate for ratification. The first quotation in the selection below is the third paragraph of Article III of the League Covenant. A few of his remarks upon that article are given in the two following paragraphs of our text.] "The assembly may deal at its meetings with any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world." The French Revolution, which was wholly internal at the beginning, affected the peace of the world to such an extent that it brought on a world war which lasted some twenty-five years. Can anyone say that our Civil War did not affect the peace of the world? ''Any matter affecting the peace of the world" is a very broad statement which could be made to justify almost any interference on the part of the League with the internal affairs of other countries. If Europe desires such an alliance or league with a power of this kind, so be it ; I have no objection, provided they do not interfere with the American continents or force us against our will, but bound by a moral obligation, into all the quarrels of Europe, If England, abandoning the policy of Canning, desires to be a member of a league which has such powers as this, I have not a word to say. But I object in the strongest possible way to having the United States agree, directly or indirectly, to be controlled by a league which may at any time and perfectly lawfully and in accordance with the terms of the covenant draw us in to deal with internal conflicts in other countries, no matter what those conflicts may be. We should never permit the United States to be involved in any internal conflict in another country, except by the will of her people expressed through the Congress which represents them. Article XXI says, '' Nothing in this covenant shall be deemed to affect the validity of international engagements such as treaties of arbitration or regional understandings like the Monroe Doctrine for securing the maintenance of peace." 2 06 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS The Monroe Doctrine was the corollary of Washington's neutrality policy and of his injunction against permanent al- liances. It reiterates and reaffirms the principle. We do not seek to meddle in the affairs of Europe and keep Europe out of the Americas. It is as important to keep the United States out of European affairs as to keep Europe out of the American continents. Let us maintain the Monroe Doctrine, then, in its entirety, and not only preserve our own safety but in this way best promote the real peace of the world. Whenever the pres- ervation of freedom and civilization and the overthrow of a menacing world conqueror summon us we shall respond fully and nobly, as we did in 191 7. He who doubts that we should do so has little faith in America. But let it be our own act and not done reluctantly by the coercion of other countries, at the bidding or by the permission of other countries. Another point in this covenant where change must be made in order to protect the safety of the United States in the future is in Article I, where withdrawal is provided for. This pro- vision was an attempt to meet the very general objection to the first draft of the League, that there was no means of getting out of it without denouncing the treaty ; that is, there was no arrangement for the withdrawal of any nation. As it now stands it reads that ''Any member of the League may, after two years' notice of its intention to do so, withdraw from the League, provided that all its international obligations and all its obliga- tions under this covenant shall have been fulfilled at the time of its withdrawal." The right of withdrawal is given by this clause, although the time for notice (two years) is altogether too long. Six months or a year would be found, I think, in most treaties to be the normal period fixed for notice of withdrawal. But whatever virtue there may be in the right thus conferred is completely nullified by the proviso. The right of withdrawal cannot be exercised until all the international obligations and all the obligations of the with- drawing nations have been fulfilled. The League alone can decide whether "all international obligations and all obligations under this covenant " have been fulfilled, and this would require, THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 207 under the provisions of the League, a unanimous vote, so that any nation desiring to withdraw could not do so, even on the two years' notice, if one nation voted that the obligations had not been fulfilled. Remember that this gives the League not only the power to review all our obligations under the covenant but all our treaties with all nations, for every one of those is an "international obligation." Any analysis of the provisions of this League covenant brings out in startling relief one great fact. Whatever may be said, it is not a league of peace ; it is an alliance, dominated at the present moment by five great powers (really by three), and it has all the marks of an alliance. The development of interna- tional law is neglected. The court which is to decide disputes brought before it fills but a small place. The conditions for which this League really provides with the utmost care are political conditions, not judicial questions, to be reached by the executive council and the assembly — purely political bodies without any trace of a judicial character about them. Such being its machinery, the control being in the hands of political appointees whose votes will be controlled by interest and ex- pediency, it exhibits that most marked characteristic of an alliance — that its decisions are to be carried out by force. Those articles upon which the whole structure rests are articles which provide for the use of force ; that is, for war. This League to enforce peace does a great deal for enforcement and very little for peace. It makes more essential provisions look- ing to war than to peace for the settlement of disputes. Taken altogether, these provisions for war present what to my mind is the gravest objection to this League in its present form. We are told that of course nothing will be done in the way of warlike acts without the consent of Congress. If that is true let us say so in the covenant. But as it stands, there is no doubt whatever in my mind that American troops and American ships may be ordered to any part of the world by nations other than the United States, and that is a proposition to which I, for one, can never assent. It must be made per- fectly clear that no American soldiers, not even a corporal's 2o8 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS guard, that no American sailors, not even the crew of a sub- marine, can ever be engaged in war or ordered anywhere ex- cept by the constitutional authorities of the United States. To Congress is granted by the Constitution the right to declare war, and nothing that would take the troops out of the country at the bidding or demand of other nations should ever be per- mitted except through Congressional action. The lives of Amer- icans must never be sacrificed except by the will of the American people expressed through their chosen representatives in Congress. This is a point upon which no doubt can be permitted. American soldiers and American sailors have never failed the country when the country called upon them. They went in their hundreds of thousands into the war just closed. They went to die for the great cause of freedom and of civilization. They went at their service. We were late in entering the war. We made no preparation, as we ought to have done, for the ordeal which was clearly coming upon us, but w^e went, and we turned the wavering scale. It was done by the American soldier, the American sailor, and the spirit and energy of the American people. They overrode all obstacles and all shortcomings on the part of the admin- istration or of Congress and gave to their country a great place in the great victory. It was the first time we had been called upon to rescue the civilized world. Did we fail ? On the contrary, we succeeded, succeeded largely and nobly, and w^e did it without any command from any league of nations. When the emergency came we met it ; we were able to meet it because we had built up on this continent the greatest and most powerful nation in the world — built it up under our own policies, in our own way ; and one great element of our strength was the fact that we had held aloof and had not thrust our- selves into European quarrels, that we had no selfish interest to serve. We made great sacrifices. We have done splendid work. I believe that we do not require to be told by foreign nations when we shall do work which freedom and civilization require. I think we can move to victory much better under our own command than under the command of others. Let us unite with the world to promote the peaceable settlement of all THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 209 international disputes. Let us try to develop international law. Let us associate ourselves with the other nations for these pur- poses. But let us retain in our own hands and in our own con- trol the lives of the youth of the land. Let no American be sent into battle except by the constitutional authorities of his own country and by the will of the people of the United States. ARTICLE X WooDROw Wilson [For a biographical sketch see page 183. The letter that follows was published on March 8, 1920, and indicates clearly President Wilson's attitude toward perhaps the most discussed article in the Covenant of the League of Nations. The text of Article X is given in the footnote to page 215 of this book.] My dear Senator Hitchcock: I understand that one or two of your colleagues do me the honor of desiring to know what my views are with reference to Article X of the League of Nations and the effect upon the League of the adoption of certain proposed reservations to that article. I welcome the opportunity to throw any light I can upon a subject which has become so singularly beclouded by misapprehensions and misinterpretations of every kind. Can't escape Moral Obligation There is no escaping the moral obligations which are ex- pressed in positive terms in this article of the covenant. We won a moral victory over Germany far greater even than the military victory won on the field of battle, because the opinion of the whole world swung to our support and the support of the nations associated with us in the great struggle. It did so because of our common profession and promise that we meant to establish "an organization of peace which should make it certain that the combined power of free nations would check every invasion of right and serve to make peace and justice the more secure by affording a definite tribunal of opinion to 210 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS which all must submit and by which every international read- justment that cannot be amicably agreed upon by the peoples directly concerned shall be sanctioned." This promise and assurance were written into the preliminaries of the armistice and into the preliminaries of the peace itself, and constitute one of the most sacred obligations ever assumed by any nation or body of nations. It is unthinkable that America should set the example of ignoring such a solemn moral engagement. For myself, I feel that I could not look the soldiers of our gallant armies in the face again if I did not do everything in my power to remove every obstacle that lies in the way of the adoption of this particular article of the covenant, because we made these pledges to them as well as to the rest of the world, and it was to this cause they deemed themselves devoted in a spirit of crusaders. I should be forever unfaithful to them if I did not do my utmost to fulfill the high purpose for which they fought. No Need to state Methods I think, my dear Senator, we can dismiss from our minds the idea that it is necessary to stipulate in connection with Article X the constitutional methods we should use in fulfilling our obligations under it. We gain nothing by such stipulations and secure nothing which is not already secured. It was understood as a matter of course at the conference at Paris that whatever obligations any government assumed or whatever duties it undertook under the treaty would, of course, have to be fulfilled by its usual and established constitutional methods of action. Once or twice in meetings of the conference, when the treaty was under consideration, "reservations" were made to that effect by the representatives of individual powers, and those ''reservations" were invariably received in the way in which men who have met for business and not for talk always receive acts of scrupulous supererogation — listened to with indifferent silence, as such men listen to what is a matter of course and was not necessary to say. There can be no objection to explaining again what our con- stitutional method is and that our Congress alone can declare THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 211 war or determine the causes or occasions for war, and that it alone can authorize the use of the armed forces of the United States on land or on the sea. But to make such a declaration would certainly be a work of supererogation. Sees Virtual Nullification I am sorry to say that the reservations that have come under my notice are, almost without exception, not interpretations of the articles to which it is proposed to attach them but in effect virtual nullifications of those articles. Any reservation which seeks to deprive the League of Nations of the force of Article X cuts at the very heart and life of the covenant itself. Any league of nations which does not guarantee as a matter of incontestable right the political inde- pendence and integrity of each of its members might be hardly more than a futile scrap of paper, as ineffective in operation as the agreement between Belgium and Germany which the Germans violated in 19 14. Article X, as written into the Treaty of Versailles, represents the renunciation by Great Britain and Japan (which, before the war, had begun to find so many interests in common in the Pacific), by P" ranee, by Italy, — by all the great fighting powers of the world, — of the old pretensions of political conquest and territorial aggrandizement. It is a new doctrine in the world's affairs and must be recognized, or there is no secure basis for the peace which the whole world so longingly desires and so desperately needs. If Article X is not adopted and acted upon, the governments which reject it will, I think, be guilty of bad faith to their people, whom they induced to make the infinite sacrifices of the war by the pledge that they would be fighting to redeem the world from the old order of force and aggression. They will be acting also in bad faith to the opinion of the world at large, to which they appealed for support in a concerted stand against the aggressions and pretensions of Germany. 212 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS Fears Jealous Rivalry again If we were to reject Article X, or so to weaken it as to take its full force out of it, it would mark us as desiring to return to the old world of jealous rivalry and misunderstandings, from which our gallant soldiers have rescued us, and would leave us without any vision or new conception of justice and peace. We would have learned no lesson from the war, but gained only the regret that it had involved us in its maelstrom of suffering. If America has awakened, as the rest of the world has, to the vision of a new day in which the mistakes of the past are to be corrected, it will welcome the opportunity to share the responsibilities of Article X. It must not be forgotten, Senator, that this article constitutes a renunciation of wrong ambition on the part of powerful nations with whom we were associated in the war. It is by no means certain that without this article any such renunciation will take place. Militaristic ambitions and imperialistic policies are by no means dead, even in the counsels of the nations whom we most trust and with whom we most desire to be associated in the tasks of peace. Throughout the sessions of the conference in Paris it was evident that a militaristic party, under the most influential leadership, was seeking to gain ascendancy in the counsels of France. They were defeated then, but are in control now. The chief arguments advanced in Paris in support of the Italian claims on the Adriatic were strategic arguments — that is to say, military arguments, which had at their back the thought of naval supremacy in that sea. For my own part I am as intolerant of imperialistic designs on the part of other nations as I was of such designs on the part of Germany. Choice between Two Ideals The choice is between two ideals : on the one hand, the ideal of democracy, which represents the rights of free peoples everywhere to govern themselves ; and on the other hand, the ideal of imperialism, which seeks to dominate by force and THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 213 unjust power — an ideal which is by no means dead and which is earnestly held in many quarters still. Every imperialistic influence in Europe was hostile to the embodiment of Article X in the Covenant of the League of Nations, and its defeat now would mark the complete consummation of their efforts to nullify the treaty. I hold the doctrine of Article X to be the essence of Americanism. We cannot repudiate it or weaken it without at the same time repudiating our own principles. The imperialist wants no League of Nations ; but if in re- sponse to the universal cry of the masses everywhere, there is to be one, he is interested to secure one suited to his own pur- poses, one that will permit him to continue the historic game of pawns and peoples — the juggling of provinces, the old balances of power, and the inevitable wars attendant upon these things. The reservation proposed would perpetuate the old order. Does anyone really want to see the old game played again? Can anyone really venture to take part in reviving the old order ? The enemies of a League of Nations have by every true instinct centered their efforts against Article X, for it is un- doubtedly the foundation of the whole structure. It is the bulwark and the only bulwark of the rising democracy of the world against the forces of imperialism and reaction. Enter Fearlessly or Stay Out Either we should enter the League fearlessly, accepting the responsibility and not fearing the role of leadership which we now enjoy, contributing our efforts toward establishing a just and permanent peace, or we should retire as gracefully as pos- sible from the great concert of powers by which the world was saved. For my own part I am not willing to trust to the counsel of diplomats the working out of any salvation of the world from the things which it has suffered. I believe that when the full significance of this great question has been generally apprehended, obstacles will seem insignifi- cant before the opportunity, a great and glorious opportunity, 214 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS to contribute our overwhelming moral and material force to the establishment of an international regime in which our own ideals of justice and right may be made to prevail and the nations of the world be allowed a peaceful development under conditions of order and safety hitherto impossible. I need not say, Senator, that I have given a great deal of thought to the whole matter of reservations proposed in con- nection with the ratification of the treaty, and particularly that portion of the treaty which contains the Covenant of the League of Nations, and I have been struck by the fact that practically every so-called reservation was in effect a rather sweeping nullification of the terms of the treaty itself. I hear of reservationists and mild reservationists, but I can- not understand the difference between a nullifier and a mild nullifier. Our responsibility as a nation in this turning point of history is an overwhelming one, and if I had the opportunity I would beg everyone concerned to consider the matter in the light of what it is possible to accomplish for humanity rather than in the light of special national interests. If I have been truly informed concerning the desire of some of your colleagues to know my views in this matter, I would be very glad if you should show this letter to them. Cordially and sincerely yours Woodrow Wilson Honorable Gilbert M. Hitchcock United States Senate THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 215 ARTICLE X^ Henry Cabot Lodge [For a biographical sketch see page 180. The discussion below is part of the remarks of Senator Lodge during his debate with President A. L. Lowell of Harvard on March 19, 1919.-] Then comes Article X. That is the most important article in the whole treaty. That is the one that I want the American people to consider, take it to their homes and their firesides, discuss it, think of it. If they commend it the treaty will be ratified and proclaimed with that in it. But think of it first, think well. This article pledges us to guarantee the political independence and the territorial integrity against external aggression of every nation a member of the League. That is, every nation of the earth. We ask no guaranties, we have no endangered frontiers ; but we are asked to guarantee the ter- ritorial integrity of every nation, practically, in the world — it will be when the League is complete. As it is today, we guarantee the territorial integrity and political independence of every part of the far-flung British Empire. Now mark ! A guaranty is never invoked except when force is needed. If we guaranteed one country in South America alone, if we were the only guarantor, and we guaranteed but one country, we should be bound to go to the relief of that country with army and navy. We, under that clause of this treaty, — it is one of the few that are perfectly clear, — under that clause of the treaty we have got to take our army and our navy and go to war with any country which attempts aggression upon the territorial integrity of another member of the League. ^The high contracting parties shall undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all states members of the League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression, the Executive Council shall advise upon the means by which the obligation shall be fulfilled. — Covenant of the League of Nations, Article X. "From "The League of Nations," Vol. II, No. 2, April, 1919. Pub- lished by the World Peace Foundation, Boston. 2l6 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS Now, guaranties must be fulfilled. They are sacred promises — it has been said only morally binding. Why, that is all there is to a treaty between great nations. If they are not morally binding they are nothing but "scraps of paper." If the United States agrees to Article X, we must carry it out in letter and in spirit ; and if it is agreed to I should insist that we did so, because the honor and good faith of our country would be at stake. Now, that is a tremendous promise to make. I ask those — the fathers and the mothers, the sisters and the wives and the sweethearts — whether they are ready yet to guarantee the political independence and territorial integrity of every nation on earth against external aggression and to send the hope of their families, the hope of the nation, the best of our youth, forth into the world on that errand ? If they are, it will be done. If the American people is not ready to do it, that article will have to go out of the treaty or be limited. If that League with that article had existed in the eighteenth century, France could not have assisted this country to win the Revolution. If that League had existed in 1898 we could not have interfered and rescued Cuba from the clutches of Spain ; we should have brought a war on with all the other nations of the world. Perhaps the time has come to do it. I only wish tonight to call your attention to the gravity of that promise — to what it means, that it is morally binding, that there is no escape when a guaranty of that sort is invoked. Think it over well ; that is all I ask. Consider it. And remember that we must make no promise, enter into no agreement, which we are not going to carry out in letter and in spirit without restriction and without deduction. k THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 217 IS THE COVENANT AMERICAN?^ Henry Cabot Lodge [For a biographical sketch see page 180. The selection below is from the closing remarks of Senator Lodge in his debate with President Lowell.] I repeat again, I want a League of Nations that will advance the cause of peace on earth, that will make war as nearly im- possible as it can be made. I want to bring about a general disarmament. I know arbitration can do much. I do not wish to put into any league articles which I believe impossible of fulfillment and which I believe nations will readily abrogate. But I am so firm a believer in the strength of the great peace movement that I am not ready to back it by the argument of fear. The United States has not come to where she is through fear. We have known That in ourselves our safety must be sought ; That by our own right hands it must be wrought ; That we must stand unpropped or be laid low. We are a great moral asset of Christian civilization. We are all that President Lowell has described as a necessity of the League. How did we get there ? By our own efforts. Nobody led us, nobody guided us, nobody controlled us. We have just been told that we are not fit to be intrusted with any care of the South American difficulties if such arise, and therefore we must intrust it to some other power. I object to that. I believe the people of the United States are just as humane, just as anxious to do right to others, as any nation in the world. We have cared for three of those states, as I have already stated — San Domingo, Haiti, and Nicaragua. In every instance war has been stopped and civilization and peace have progressed. Of course we can guarantee them. I did not know anybody ever said we could not guarantee the boundaries of another ^From "The League of Nations," Vol. II, No. 2, April, 1919. 2i8 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS state. We have done it here under the Monroe Doctrine, and done it well. The Monroe Doctrine was the necessary corollary of Washington's policy. I believe in it because I believe it protects and defends and guards the United States as it has for a hundred years. It does not interfere with Europe, it does not prevent our going to the aid of Europe, but it does preserve peace throughout this hemisphere. There is a longer record of peace here than you can find in some other places. And we are going to hand it over to a majority of other nations — a body where we have one vote. I do not say the time has not come to do it, but I do say, Think well about it. Consider it carefully. May I venture a parable ? A man is called on an errand of mercy. He springs to his feet and rushes out into the darkness. He does not know the way. He has no light. He falls into a trench, breaks his leg, and the errand of mercy remains unperformed. Another man starts on the same errand of mercy. He knows the road. He knows where he is traveling. He carries a light. He performs the errand of mercy. I wish to have the American people understand the road they are traveling. I want them to have light, plenty of light — broad daylight ; not go through a dark tunnel of umbrageous words, with nothing to see except at the end, the dim red light of internationalism. Let us be careful where we tread. You are asked to exchange the government of Abraham Lincoln, "of the people, by the people, for the people," for a government of, by, and for other people. Be sure that the exchange is for the better and not for the worse. WTien we abandon, if we must abandon, — and if the American people think we must abandon we shall abandon, — the teachings of Washington and Lincoln, let us be sure, as we enter on the road of internationalism, that we do not go too far toward the sinister figures at the other end, of Trotzky and Lenine. Let us do all in the world we can to secure the peace of the world, but let us in this most momentous time move slowly and take due consideration of our steps. I admit, I confess frankly, THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 219 that perhaps I speak with some prejudice, but there is one thing of which I have said nothing, of which I must say one single word before I close. I cannot forget America. I want my country to go forth ; I want her to be a help to humanity, as she has been. I have nothing but the kindliest feelings for every race on the face of the earth. I hope peace will reign throughout the world. I wish my country to do everything she can to bring about that blessed consummation. She has never proved wanting yet. She threw her sword into the wavering scales and turned the balance in favor of freedom and civilization against autocracy and barbarism. T cannot but keep her interests in my mind. I do not wish the Republic to take any detriment. I do not want dangers heaped upon us that would only cripple us in the good work we seek to do. I would keep America as she has been — not iso- lated, not prevent her from joining other nations for these great purposes — but I wish her to be master of her fate. I am an American — born here, lived here, shall die here. I have never had but one flag, never loved but one flag. I am too old to try to love another, an international flag. I have never had but one allegiance, the allegiance to the United States. Per- sonally, T am too old to divide it now. My first allegiance must stay where it has always been, to the people of the United States, my own people. I have no doubt that this great country, which has no al- liances, which seeks no territory, which desires nothing so much as to keep the peace and save the world from all the horrors it has been enduring — I would have her left in a position to do that work and not submit her to a vote of other nations, with no resource except to break a treaty which she wishes to maintain. We must not only strive to keep the world at peace, we must try to keep America as she is — I do not mean outside a league, but keep her as she is in her ideals and in her principles. Therefore, study this question. Think of it. Think of it. Remember that the Senate at least will ultimately carry out the wishes of the American people. They must look at it 220 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS themselves ; they want the people to look at it ; and when that is done I have no fear of the verdict. The verdict of the people, while it will be in favor of doing everything that this mighty nation can for the preservation of the world's peace, will not allow the United States to be put into a position where she will be in any degree injured, weak- ened, or crippled. I wish to see her stand as she always has stood — for the right, for mercy, for the help and benefit of all men, for the oppressed and those who struggle for freedom, all alike. Let her go on in her beneficent career, and I would have her stand as she has always stood — strong, alive, triumphant, free. VII LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES THE UNITED STATES AND LATIN AMERICA WooDROw Wilson [For a biographical sketch of Woodrow Wilson see page 183. The address from which the following extract is taken was deliv- ered at Mobile, Alabama, several years ago, before the Southern Commercial Congress.] Your Excellency, Mr. Chairman, it is with unaffected pleas- ure that I find myself here today. I once before had the pleasure, in another Southern city, of addressing the Southern Commercial Congress. I then spoke of what the future seemed to hold in store for this region, which so many of us love and toward the future of which we all look forward with so much confidence and hope. But another theme directed me here this time. I do not need to speak of the South. She has, perhaps, acquired the gift of speaking for herself. I come because I want to speak of our present and prospective relations with our neighbors to the south. I deemed it a public duty, as well as a personal pleasure, to be here to express for myself and for the government I represent the welcome we all feel to those who represent the Latin-American states. The future, ladies and gentlemen, is going to be very different for this hemisphere from the past. These states lying to the south of us, which have always been our neighbors, will now be drawn closer to us by innumerable ties and, I hope, chief of all, by the tie of a common understanding of each other. Interest does not tie nations together ; it sometimes separates them. But sympathy and understanding does unite them, and I believe that by the new route that is just about to be opened, 22 2 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS while we physically cut two continents asunder, we spiritually unite them. It is a spiritual union which we seek. I wonder if you realize, I wonder if your imaginations have been filled with, the significance of the tides of commerce. Your governor alluded in very fit and striking terms to the voyage of Columbus, but Columbus took his voyage under com- pulsion of circumstances. Constantinople had been captured by the Turks and all the routes of trade with the East had been suddenly closed. If there was not a way across the Atlantic to open those routes again, they were closed forever, and Columbus set out, not to discover America, for he did not know that it existed, but to discover the eastern shores of Asia. He set sail for Cathay and stumbled upon America. With that change in the outlook of the world, what happened ? England, that had been at the back of Europe with an unknown sea behind her, found that all things had turned as if upon a pivot, and she was at the front of Europe ; and since then all the tides of energy and enterprise that have issued out of Europe have seemed to be turned westward across the Atlantic. But you will notice that they have turned westward chiefly north of the equator, and that it is the northern half of the globe that has seemed to be filled with the media of intercourse and of sympathy and of common understanding. Do you not see now what is abdut to happen ? These great tides which have been running along parallels of latitude will now swing southward athwart parallels of latitude, and that opening gate at the Isthmus of Panama will open the world to a commerce that she has not known before, — a commerce of intelligence, of thought and sympathy between north and south. The Latin-American states, which, to their disadvantage, have been off the main lines, will now be on the main lines. I feel that these gentlemen honoring us with their presence today will presently find that some part, at any rate, of the center of gravity of the world has shifted. Do you realize that New York, for example, will be nearer the western coast of South America than she is now to the eastern coast of South America ? Do you realize that a line drawn northward parallel with the greater part of the western coast of South America runs LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES 223 only about one hundred and fifty miles west of New York? The great bulk of South America, if you will look at your globes (not at your Mercator's projection), lies eastward of the conti- nent of North America. You will realize that when you realize that the canal will run southeast, not southwest, and that when you get into the Pacific you will be farther east than you were when you left the Gulf of Mexico. These things are significant, therefore, of this, — that we are closing one chapter in the his- torj' of the world and are opening another of great, unimaginable significance. There is one peculiarity about the history of the Latin- American states which, I am sure, they are keenly aware of. You hear of "concessions" to foreign capitalists in Latin America. You do not hear of concessions to foreign capitalists in the United States. They are not granted concessions. They are invited to make investments. The work is ours, though they are welcome to invest in it. We do not ask them to supply the capital and do the work. It is an invitation, not a privilege ; and states that are obliged, because their territory does not lie within the main field of modern enterprise and action, to grant concessions are in this condition, that foreign interests are apt to dominate their domestic affairs, — .a condition of affairs always dangerous and apt to become intolerable. What these states are going to see, therefore, is an emancipation from the subordi- nation, which has been inevitable, to foreign enterprise and an assertion of the splendid character which, in spite of these diffi- culties, they have again and again been able to demonstrate. The dignity, the courage, the self-possession, the self-respect, of the Latin-American states, their achievements in the face of all these adverse circumstances, deserve nothing but the admiration and applause of the world. They have had harder bargains driven with them in the matter of loans than any other peoples in the world. Interest has been exacted of them that was not exacted of anybody else, because the risk was said to be greater ; and then securities were taken that destroyed the risk, — an admirable arrangement for those who were forcing the terms. I rejoice in nothing so much as in the prospect that they will now be emancipated from these conditions ; and we 2 24 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS ought to be the first to take part in assisting in that emancipa- tion. I think some of these gentlemen have already had occasion to bear witness that the Department of State in recent months has tried to serve them in that wise. In the future they will draw closer and closer to us because of circumstances of which I wish to speak with moderation and, I hope, without indiscretion. We must prove ourselves their friends and champions upon terms of equality and honor. You cannot be friends upon any other terms than upon the terms of equality. You cannot be friends at all except upon the terms of honor. We must show ourselves friends by comprehending their interest, whether it squares with our own interest or not. It is a very perilous thing to determine the foreign policy of a nation to the terms of material interest. It not only is unfair to those with whom you are dealing but it is degrading as regards your own actions. Comprehension must be the soil in which shall grow all the fruits of friendship ; and there is a reason and a compulsion lying behind all this which is dearer than anything else to the thoughtful men of America. I mean the development of con- stitutional liberty in the world. Human rights, national in- tegrity, and opportunity as against material interests, — that, ladies and gentlemen, is the issue which we now have to face. I want to take this occasion to say that the United States will never again seek one additional foot of territory by con- quest. She will devote herself to showing that she knows how to make honorable and fruitful use of the territory she has, and she must regard it as one of the duties of friendship to see that from no quarter are material interests made superior to human liberty and national opportunity. I say this, not with a single thought that anyone will gainsay it but merely to fix in our consciousness what our real relationship with the rest of America is. It is the relationship of a family of mankind devoted to the development of true constitutional liberty. We know that that is the soil out of which the best enter- prise springs. We know that this is a cause which we are making in common with our neighbors, because we have had to make it for ourselves. LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES 225 Reference has been made here today to some of the national problems which confront us as a nation. What is at the heart of all our national problems? It is that we have seen the hand of material interest sometimes about to close upon our dearest rights and possessions. We have seen material interests threaten constitutional freedom in the United States. There- fore we will now know how to sympathize with those in the rest of America who have to contend with such powers, not only within their borders but from outside their borders also. I know what the response of the thought and heart of America will be to the program I have outlined, because America was created to realize a program like that. This is not America because it is rich. This is not America because it has set up for a great population great opportunities of material prosper- ity. America is a name which sounds in the ears of men every- where as a synonym with individual opportunity because a synonym of individual liberty. I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty. But we shall not be poor if we love liberty, because the nation that loves liberty truly sets every man free to do his best and be his best, and that means the release of all the splendid energies of a great people who think for themselves. A nation of employees cannot be free any more than a nation of employers can be. In emphasizing the points which must unite us in sympathy and in spiritual interest with the Latin-American peoples, we are only emphasizing the points of our own life, and we should prove ourselves untrue to our own traditions if we proved our- selves untrue friends to them. Do not think, therefore, gentle- men, that the questions of the day are mere questions of policy and diplomacy. They are shot through with the principles of life. We dare not turn from the principle that morality and not expediency is the thing that must guide us, and that we will never condone iniquity because it is most convenient to do so. It seems to me that this is a day of infinite hope, of con- fidence in a future greater than the past has been, for I am fain to believe that, in spite of all the things that we wish to correct, the nineteenth century that now lies behind us has 226 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS brought us a long stage toward the time when, slowly ascending the tedious climb that leads to the final uplands, we shall get our ultimate view of the duties of mankind. We have breasted a considerable part of that climb and shall presently — it may be in a generation or two — come out upon those great heights where there shines unobstructed the light of the justice of God. OUR LATIN-AMERICAN POLICY^ Richard Olney [Richard Olney (1835-1917) was educated at Brown and Harvard universities and was a member of President Cleveland's Cabinet from 1893 to 1897, first as attorney-general and then as Secretary of State. The chief incident of his term of office was the Venezuela Affair, in which the United States by a rather tart note induced Great Britain to refer her boundary dispute with Venezuela to arbitration.] Within a short period the United States has developed a distinctive rule of action in respect of Latin America, which in one sense certainly is in the interest of Europe and not against it, and whose only connection with the Monroe Doctrine is the desire and purpose of the United States to avoid any clash with Europe over the practical application of the doctrine. Perhaps what has been done in the course of developing the new policy may be considered as a tacit acknowledgment and acceptance of the claims of European jurists and statesmen, that if the United States assumes to protect the political inde- pendence and territorial integrity of other American states, it must see to it that such states abide by and perform their international duties and obligations. At all events, that is what the United States has been doing and is doing with the ac- quiescence of European states in various well-known instances. Instead of standing by and looking on while a European state enforces its international rights as against a lawless or defaulting iprom the North American Review, February, 1916. Reprinted by permission. LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES 227 American state, the United States has intervened, has in effect warned the European state concerned off the premises, and has itself caused international justice to be done. It has under- taken the protection of the lives and property of Europeans when threatened by riots and revolutionary movements. It has exacted indemnities and penalties for injuries suffered by them, and has collected debts for European states and their citizens by occupying ports and collecting and applying customs revenues. In cases of this sort it has, in effect, charged itself with duties and trusts analogous to those devolving upon the receiver of a bankrupt corporation. Consequently, whether the supplemental policy above sketched is or is not the logical and inevitable sequence of the Monroe Doctrine, it is now no longer aimed at Europe only, but also trenches upon American states themselves. It is a policy, indeed, which as respects such states impairs their independ- ence. It does not alter the case that the intervention of the United States in the manner described may be for the best good of such states. Such intervention is in clear conflict with the basic principle of international law, which asserts the absolute equality inter sese of all states, great and small. But our Latin-American policy, hitherto practically limited to the Monroe Doctrine and its corollaries, has necessarily taken on a wholly new development by reason of our acquisition of the Panama Canal and the Panama Zone. The United States is now a South-American power, with extensive territorial interests acquired at immense cost. It holds the Canal in double trust — on the one hand for the people of the United States, on whose behalf it is bound to make the operation of the Canal efficient and, if possible, fairly remunerative ; on the other hand for the world at large, on whose behalf it is pledged to give to all nations the like facilities in the use of the Canal upon equal terms. In both relations it has assumed to protect the Canal against all assaults from every quarter, whether they come in the shape of military invasion or of economic com- petition. Hence, on the one hand the United States has forti- fied the Canal and will undoubtedly take all other measures necessary to protect it against military attack. Hence, on the 228 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS other hand the United States has initiated measures looking to the preemption of all other routes practicable for a rival canal. It sufficiently appears from these premises that the Latin- American policy of the United States now has the following objects : first, to secure every American state against loss of independence or territory at the hands of a European power, as means to which end the United States will resist aggression by such power by force of arms, if necessary, while, in the case of the weak and backward states, removing any excuse for such aggression by itself seeing to the performance of their inter- national duties ; second, to secure its interests in the Panama Canal by whatever military measures may be appropriate or necessary ; and, third, to protect its interests in the Panama Canal and Zone by whatever measures may be appropriate and necessary to prevent unjust and ruinous competition. These being the general objects aimed at by our present Latin-American policy, what is the best and most obvious course for the United States to pursue in order to insure their accomplishment ? The efforts of the present administration for the pacification of ^Mexico distinctly point the way to the course to be pursued. The striking feature of those efforts is the cooperation between the United States and South-American states. That the cooperation has been highly beneficial to all interests concerned is unquestionable, and, should normal con- ditions in ISIexico follow, as now seems probable, it must be largely credited with the result. Nevertheless, and however more or less valuable such cooperation in this particular in- stance, its chief value lies in its tendency to introduce into our Latin-American policy a new and important factor, which in all respects — ethical, political, and practical — should operate de- cidedly to the advantage of the United States and all American states. LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES 229 THE TESTS OF SELF-GOVERNMENT ^ WooDROw Wilson [For a biographical sketch see page 183. The discussion given below is extracted from an article entitled "The Ideals of America," which, though written at the time of the beginning of American ex- pansion, describes clearly the consistent attitude of President Wilson toward recognizing new governments.] "I should suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France," said Burke, — the master who had known our liberty for what it was, and knew this set up in France to be spurious, — "I should suspend my congratulations on the new liberty of France until I was informed how it had been combined with government ; with public force ; with the discipline ajid obedience of armies ; with the collection of an effective and well-distributed revenue ; with morality and religion ; with solidity of property ; with peace and order ; with social and civil manners." Has it not taken France a century to effect the combination, and are all men sure that she has found it even now? And yet were not these things combined with liberty amongst us from the very first ? How interesting a light shines upon the matter of our thought out of that sentence of Burke's ! How liberty had been com- bined with government ! Is there here a difficulty, then ? Are the two things not kindly disposed toward one another ? Does it require any nice art and adjustment to unite and reconcile them? Is there here some cardinal test which those amiable persons have overlooked, who have dared to cheer the Filipino rebels on in their stubborn resistance to the very government they themselves live under and owe fealty to ? Think of Wash- ington's passion for order, for authority, for some righteous public force which should teach individuals their place under government, for solidity of property, for morality and sober counsel. It was plain that he cared not a whit for liberty 1 From the Atlantic Monthly, \o\. XC, p. 721. Reprinted by permission. 230 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS without these things to sustain and give it dignity. "You talk, my good sir," he exclaimed, writing to Henry Lee in Congress, "you talk of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influence is to be found, or, if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders. Influence is no government. Let us have one by which our lives, liberties, and properties will be secured, or let us know the worst at once." In brief, the fact is this, that liberty is the privilege of maturity, of self-control, of self- mastery, and a thoughtful care for righteous dealings, — that some peoples may have it, therefore, and others may not. We look back to the great men who made our government as to a generation not of revolutionists but of statesmen. They fought, not to pull down but to preserve ; not for some fair and far-off thing they wished for, but for a familiar thing they had and meant to keep. Ask any candid student of the history of English liberty, and he will tell you that these men were, of the lineage of Pym and Hampden, of Pitt and Fox ; that they were men who consecrated their lives to the preservation intact of what had been wrought out in blood and sweat by the count- less generations of sturdy freemen who had gone before them. Look for a moment at what self-government really meant in their time. Take English history for your test. I know not where else you may find an answer to the question. We speak, all the world speaks, of England as the mother of liberty and self-government ; and the beginning of her liberty we place in the great year that saw Magna Charta signed, that immortal document whose phrases ring again in all our own bills of rights. Her liberty is in fact older than that signal year, but 1215 we set up as a shining mark to hold the eye. And yet we know, for all we boast the date so early, how for many a long generation after that the monarch ruled and the Commons cringed ; haughty Plantagenets had their way, and indomitable Tudors played the master to all men's fear, till the fated Stuarts went their stupid way to exile and the scaffold. Kings were none the less kings because their subjects were free men. Local self-government in England consisted until 1888 of government by almost omnipotent justices of the peace LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES 231 appointed by the Lord Chancellor. They were laymen, however. They were country gentlemen and served without pay. They were of the neighborhood and used their power for its benefit as their lights served them, but no man had a vote or choice as to which of the country gentlemen of his county should be set over him, and the power of the justices sitting in quarter sessions covered almost every point of justice and administra- tion not directly undertaken by the officers of the crown itself. "Long ago," laughs an English writer, "lawyers abandoned the hope of describing the duties of a Justice in any methodic fashion, and the alphabet has become the only possible con- necting thread. A Justice must have something to do with ' Rail- roads, Rape, Rates, Recognizances, Records, and Recreation Grounds ' ; with ' Perjury, Petroleum, Piracy, and Playhouses ' ; with 'Disorderly Houses, Dissenters, Dogs, and Drainage.'" And yet Englishmen themselves called their life under these lay masters self-government. The English House of Commons was for many a generation, many a century even, no House of Commons at all, but a house full of country gentlemen and rich burghers, the aristoc- racy of the English counties and English towns ; and yet it was from this House, and not from that reformed since 1832, that the world drew, through Montesquieu, its models of represent- ative self-government in the days when our own Union was set up. In America, and in America alone, did self-government mean an organization self-originated and of the stuff of the people themselves. America had gone a step beyond her mother coun- try. Her people were for the most part picked men — such men as have the energy and the initiative to leave old homes and old friends and go to far frontiers to make a new life for themselves. They were men of a certain initiative, to take the world into their own hands. The king had given them their charters, but within the broad definitions of those charters they had built as they pleased, and common men were partners in the government of their little commonwealths. At home, in the old country, there was need, no doubt, that the hand of the king's government should keep men within its reach. The countrysides 232 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS were full of yokels who would have been brutes to deal with else. The counties were in fact represented very well by the country gentlemen who ruled them, for they were full of broad estates where men were tenants, not freehold farmers, and the interests of masters were generally enough the interests of their men. The towns had charters of their own. There was here no democratic community, and no one said or thought that the only self-government was democratic self-government. In America the whole constitution of society was democratic, inevitably and of course. INIen lay close to their simple gov- ernments, and the new life brought to a new expression the immemorial English principle, that the intimate affairs of local administration and the common interests that were to be served in the making of laws should be committed to laymen, who would look at the government critically and from without, and not to the king's agents, who would look at it professionally and from within. England had had self-government time out of mind, but in America English self-government had become popular self-government. "Almost all the civilized states derive their national unity," says a great English writer of our generation, ''from common subjection, past or present, to royal power ; the Americans of the United States, for example, are a nation because they once obeyed a king." That example in such a passage comes upon us with a shock; it is very unexpected, — ''the Americans of the United States, for example, are a nation because they once obeyed a king ! " And yet, upon reflection, can we deny the example ? It is plain enough that the reason why the English in America got self-government and knew how to use it, and the French in America did not, was that the English had had a training under the kings of England and the French under the kings of France. In the one country men did all things at the bidding of officers of the crown ; in the other, officers of the crown listened, were constrained to listen, to the counsels of laymen drawn out of the general body of the nation. x'\nd yet the kings of England were no less kings than the kings of France. Obedience is everywhere the basis of government, and the English were not ready either in their life or in their thought LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES 233 for a free regime under which they should choose their kings b}^ ballot. For that regime they could be made ready only by the long drill which should make them respect above all things the law and the authority of governors. Discipline — discipline generations deep — had first to give them an ineradicable love of order, the poise of men self-commanded, the spirit of men who obey and yet speak their minds and are free, before they could be Americans. This is what Burke meant by combining government with liberty, — the spirit of obedience with the spirit of free action, Libert}'^ is not itself government. In the wrong hands — hands unpracticed, undisciplined — it is incompatible with govern- ment. Discipline must precede it, — if necessary, the discipline of being under masters. Then will self-control make it a thing of life and not a thing of tumult, a tonic, not an insurgent madness in the blood. Shall we doubt, then, what the condi- tions precedent to liberty and self-government are, and what their invariable support and accompaniment must be, in the countries whose administration we have taken over in trust, and particularly in those far Philippine Islands whose govern- ment is our chief anxiety ? We cannot give them any quittance of the debt ourselves have paid. They can have liberty no cheaper than we got it. They must first take the discipline of law, must first love order and instinctively yield to it. It is the heathen, not the free citizen of a self-governed country, who " in his blindness bows down to wood and stone, and don't obey no orders unless they is his own." We are old in this learning and must be their tutors. There are, unhappily, some indications that we have our- selves yet to learn the things we would teach. You have but to think of the large number of persons of your own kith and acquaintance who have for the past two years been demanding, in print and out of it, with moderation and the air of reason and without it, that we give the Philippines independence and self-government now, at once, out of hand. It were easy enough to give them independence, if by independence you mean only disconnection with any government outside the islands, the independence of a rudderless boat adrift. But 234 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS self-government? How is that "given"? Can it be given? Is it not gained, earned, graduated into from the hard school of life? We have reason to think so. I have just now been trying to give the reasons we have for thinking so. There are many things, things slow and difficult to come at, which we have found to be conditions precedent to liberty, — to the liberty which can be combined with government ; and we cannot, in our present situation, too often remind ourselves of these things, in order that we may look steadily and wisely upon liberty, not in the uncertain light of theory but in the broad, sunlike, disillusioning light of experience. We know for one thing that it rests at bottom upon a clear, experimental knowl- edge of what are in fact the just rights of individuals, of what is the equal and profitable balance to be maintained between the right of the individual to serve himself and the duty of the government to serve society. I say, not merely a clear knowl- edge of these, but a clear experimental knowledge of them as well. We hold it, for example, an indisputable principle of law in a free state that there should be freedom of speech, and yet we have a law of libel. No man, we say, may speak that which Wounds his neighbor's reputation unless there be public need to speak it. IMoreover, we will judge of that need in a rough- and-ready fashion. Let twelve ordinary men, impaneled as a jury, say whether the wound was justly given and of necessity. "The truth of the matter is very simple when stripped of all ornaments of speech," says an eminent English judge. "It is neither more nor less than this ; that a man may publish anything which twelve of his fellow countrymen think is not blamable." It is plain, therefore, that in this case at least we do not inquire curiously concerning the rights of man, which do not seem susceptible of being stated in terms of social obligation, but content ourselves with asking. What are the rights of men living together, amongst whom there must be order and fair give-and-take ? And our law of libel is only one instance out of many. We treat all rights in like practical fashion. But a people must obviously have had experience to treat them so. You have here one image in the mirror of self-government. LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES 235 Do not leave the mirror before you see another one. You cannot call a miscellaneous people, unknit, scattered, diverse of race and speech and habit, "a nation," "a community." That, at least, we got by serving under kings ; we got the feeling and organic structure of a community. No people can form a com- munity or be wisely subjected to common forms of government who are as diverse and as heterogeneous as the people of the Philippine Islands. They are in no wise knit together. They are of many races, of many stages of development, econom- ically, socially, politically distintegrate, without community of feeling because without community of life, contrasted alike in experience and in habit, having nothing in common except that they have lived for hundreds of years together under a govern- ment which held them always where they were when it first arrested their development. You may imagine the problem of self-government and of growth for such a people, if so be you have an imagination and are no doctrinaire. If there is diffi- culty in our own government here at home because the several sections of our own country are disparate and at different stages of development, what shall we expect, and what patience shall we not demand of ourselves, with regard to our belated wards beyond the Pacific? We have here among ourselves hardly sufficient equality of social and economic conditions to breed full community of feeling. We have learned of our own ex- perience what the problem of self-government is in such a case. No doubt our study of these things which lie at the front of our own lives, and which must be handled in our own prog- ress, will teach us how to be better masters and tutors to those whom we govern. We have come to full maturity with this new century of our national existence and to full self-consciousness as a nation. And the day of our isolation is past. We shall learn much ourselves now that we stand closer to other nations and compare ourselves first with one and again with another. More- over, the center of gravity has shifted in the action of our Federal government. It has shifted back to where it was at the opening of the last century, in that early day when we were passing from the gristle to the bone of our growth. For the first 236 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS twenty-six years that we lived under our Federal constitution, foreign affairs, the sentiment and policy of nations over sea, dominated our politics, and our presidents were our leaders. And now the same thing has come about again. Once more it is our place among the nations that we think of ; once more our presidents are our leaders. The center of our party management shifts accordingly. We no longer stop upon questions of what this state wants or that, what this section will demand or the other, what this boss or that may do to attach his machine to the government. The scale of our thought is national again. We are sensitive to airs that come to us from off the seas. The President and his ad- visers stand upon our chief coign of observation, and we mark their words as we did not till this change came. And this centering of our thoughts, this looking for guidance in things which mere managing talents cannot handle, this union of our hopes, will not leave us what we were when first it came. Here is a new world for us. Here is a new life to which to adjust our ideals. It is by the widening of vision that nations, as men, grow and are made great. We need not fear the expanding scene. It was plain destiny that we should come to this, and if we have kept our ideals clear, unmarred, commanding through the great century and the moving scenes that made us a nation, we may keep them also through the century that shall see us a great power in the world. Let us put our leading characters at the front ; let us pray that vision may come with power ; let us ponder our duties like men of conscience and temper our ambitions like men who seek to serve, not to subdue, the world ; let us lift our thoughts to the level of the great tasks that await us, and bring a great age in with the coming of our day of strength. LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES 237 TUTORING THE PHILIPPINES ^ Charles H. Brent [Charles H. Brent (1862- ) was born in Canada and educated at Trinity College, Toronto. From 1901 to 191 7 he was the bishop of the Episcopal Church for the Phihppine Islands and was closely identified with the progress made by the Filipinos after the Amer- ican occupation. In 191 1 he was president of the International Opium Conference at The Hague. During the World War he was a chaplain in the United States army and was in charge of all the chaplains attached to the American Expeditionary Forces in France. He is now bishop of western New York.] In the course of a recent discussion of the Philippine prob- lem I was asked by one of our most eminent educators of the senior generation whether any instance in history could be cited where one nation had successfully tutored another in self- government. My answer took the form of a counter-question, Can an instance be adduced where the full experiment has been tried, except so far as our own nation has done so during the last two decades ? No reply was made. By tutoring in self-government was understood the effort of a country to develop to the uttermost the latent capacity of a backward dependency, with a view to bringing it to nation- hood and launching it with all the responsibilities and pre- rogatives of a new unit of government in the world of men. I believe that this can be successfully done and that the result of our labors in the Philippines testifies to the fact. Great Britain, whatever her deficiencies, has been the most just friend of weak and backward people that history has known. The part she has played in their development and protection has been replete with noble elements, especially during the last half-century. She has consistently put her de- pendencies and colonies to school, carrying them from the kindergarten to the higher grades, but she has always stopped short of graduating them into independent statehood. In every 1 From Yale Review, July, 191 7. Reprinted by permission. 238 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS instance her frankly declared objective has been not their inde- pendence but their continued and, in a sense, increased depend- ence. Her whole viewpoint has been imperial : her first concern has been the well-being of the empire, and her second, the individual aspirations and desires of the dependency. Of course her statesmen would claim that what was good for the empire was good for the dependencies, and that it was more profitable all the way round to develop a strong dependency within the empire than a weak nation outside of it. That, however, is not to the point. Even if it be true that the British Empire came into existence through a fit of absent-mindedness, it represents, with its famous pax Britannica and its network of colonies all over the world, one of the noble monuments of history, quite capable of justifying its principles and its main methods. But the question at stake is not whether Great Britain is a struc- ture of magnificent proportions and beneficent influence. It is whether she or any other European power has ever set as the goal of a dependency ultimate self-government and used all her wisdom and resources to compass that end. I am aware of no such instance. The outstanding example of the British government's edu- cational and philanthropic ventures among alien peoples is its administration, for more than a quarter of a century, of Egyp- tian affairs. It was doubtless for Egypt's sake that the country was occupied, but it was still more for the benefit of the empire. An effete and bankrupt nation, under Great Britain's firm dis- cipline and beneficent schooling, renewed its youth and credit in a remarkably short period. But the moment Egyptian nationalism reared its head, it was, to use mild language, dis- couraged. That is to say, the educational terminus ad quem came short of the ideal of independence, and the child was kept in the schoolroom. The late Lord Cromer, Egypt's greatest friend and servant, a man whom history cannot fail to place high on the roll of statesmen and administrators, was of the opinion that there was lack of capacity among the Egyptians to come up to the requirements of a modern independent state. In 1905 in reply to my categorical question. Will Egypt ever be able to govern herself? he gave an unqualified negative. LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES 239 Recently Great Britain has found it necessary to denude Egypt of even the semblance of independence. In the case of Cuba, America's occupation was too brief to be immediately effective. Nevertheless, however short it was, it represented a period of administrative education without which Cuba could not have so soon become a tolerable neighbor. Between the moment when the American flag went up on Morro Castle and the Cuban flag took its place, a period of four years, America was tutoring Cuba in self-government. Popular edu- cation was begun, departments of government planned, and standards of political integrity set. Cuba, because of her his- tory, her proximity to the American continent, her comparative freedom from heterogeneous elements of population, her ter- ritorial compactness, was at once put into an advanced class and given her degree of independent statehood early. A short postgraduate course was administered later. Now the new republic seems to have settled down to sober business and bears perpetual witness to America's purpose to promote the interests of small or weak nations and her aptitude as a teacher in self-government. Her case stands alone in history. The Philippines presented a vastly different proposition. Situated ten thousand miles away ; composed of the broken ter- ritory of an archipelago ; with a diversified population widely scattered excepting in an occasional congested district such as Cebu ; with no common language, save among a small per- centage where there is a babel of dialects ; devoid of a native literature ; disturbed by internal troubles ; with a stubborn fragment of the people wild and unorganized, and a Moham- medan tertium quid traditionally hostile to the Christian popu- lation, — with all this to face, the problem presented by the pupil to the teacher was baffling. Even before the process of restoring public order was well under way, the symbol of democracy — the schoolhouse — made its appearance. In 1901, the year in which civil government was established, a veritable army of American school-teachers was drafted into the Philippine service. The training of Filipino 240 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS teachers was begun at the earliest possible moment. In 19 13 there were in the Department of Public Instruction some 9500 teachers, of whom 658 were American, the balance, of course, being Filipino. This is noteworthy, for it indicates that the purpose of the United States was sincere. There can be no successful experiment in democracy where free education for all does not prevail. And the converse is true : where there is a strong public-school system, democracy will surely take root. The progress of education marks the progress of demo- cratic ideals and principles — that is to say, of self-government. There never yet was a republic in more than name that had not an instructed commonalty, either in Central or in South America. And where the franchise outruns the intelligence of the voters, you have bureaucracy among officeholders, manipu- lation of voters by corrupt and self-seeking politicians, and a debased governmental system from top to bottom. You can- not teach men how to vote merely by extending the franchise, as we know to our sorrow in our own country without looking further. It is not merely that efficient public schools promote literacy, valuable as the function is. The Philippine public school is the direct application of democracy to the life of the child. "Definite training for citizenship," says the Report of the Philippine Commission for 1914, "is given in the primary, intermediate, and secondary courses. Various literary societies afford pupils practice in conducting meetings at which questions of interest to all citizens are discussed." Admitting shortcomings in the Philippine Department of ' Public Instruction, which was organized in 1901, it represents the high-water mark of popular education in an oriental de- pendency. To quote again from the commission's report : The intellectual awakening of the Philippines which followed the American occupation and the establishment of a modern school system is one of the most gratifying results of American control in the Islands. Everywhere there is the keenest desire for education. ... It is because of this intellectual awakening and desire for growth and development that the American teachers have an op- portunity of doing so important a work in introducing Western methods and ideals, and in keeping the schools in close touch with LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES 241 Western culture. Through the introduction of English, the people of the Philippine Islands have had access to a Hterature undreamed of by them, and, not only in the schools, but in the pubhc libraries, works of history, travel, biography, and science are greatly sought, not only by the coming generation but by many of the older generation who learned English because they found that their horizon was im- measurably widened through the reading of Enghsh prose and verse. I attach supreme importance to the place of public education and the preservation of its standards in our school of Philippine self-government. Education outranks all else, although its fruits ripen slowly. It is the mightiest engine of democracy ; and where it is weak, citizenship is weak. In the case of Mexico no group of men have more nearly analyzed her need or intimated the solution of her problem than the group of college professors who have been giving careful consideration to her educational poverty and how to remedy it. In the Philippines the great mass of the adult population is illiterate, and their horizon is more circumscribed than can be easily realized by those personally unfamiliar with the country at large. Though the terms for qualifying as a voter were from the first set at the bottom notch, only some 200,000 out of a population of approximately 9,000,000 have up to this time claimed the franchise. Voters are now those comprised within one of the following classes : men who under existing law are legal voters and have exercised the right of suffrage ; men who own real property to the value of five hundred pesos, or who annually pay thirty pesos or more of the established taxes ; men who are able to read and write Spanish, English, or a native language. It was the Jones Bill which added the ability to read and write a native language as an alternative. The provision is theoretically just. Unfortunately, however, it is premature, as it will not only increase the present number of poorly informed voters but also tend to check the bilingual movement which is going to be so valuable an asset in the unifying of the Archipelago and in the international relations of the Philippines of the future. It would be the part of wisdom, even at the cost of hurting the feelings of the adult generation of the day, to restrict the electorate until the present school 242 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS children shall have reached their majority. In advocating this I am only applying to the Philippines a principle which I should like to see operative in the United States, where the emphasis is rather on the extension of democratic privilege than on the exactions of democratic responsibility and the preservation of its purity. Next in importance to the Philippine Department of Public Instruction, I would place the cooperative method of actual government which has characterized our procedure in the Philippines. With a consistency that has been more rapid than opportune, we have "moved from a government of Americans aided by Filipinos to a government of Filipinos aided by Americans." From the beginning an honest effort was made to fill every possible office with Filipinos as they manifested abil- ity. A minority of the first commission were Filipinos ; likewise the chief justice, an increasing number of the associate justices, and so on through every department and bureau of govern- ment to the personnel of the most obscure municipality. There can be no possible objection to this course provided the ap- pointees are chosen with strict regard for fitness and training, which has not always been the case. Men have been taught to govern by being given a share in government. The response through a decade has been eminently satisfactory, and a care- fully organized civil service, controlling both Americans and Filipinos, has promoted a purity of motive and an efficiency of service that is admirable. Every step in the direction of Filipinization — this awkward but expressive word is current coin — has been logical. Government by commission gave place in the course of time to government by commission and pop- ular assembly. A majority of American commissioners gave place to a majority of Filipino commissioners, and in provincial administration similar changes were made. Now within a few months, government by commission and popular assembly has been superseded by government by a legislature of two chambers — a senate and a house of representatives. The future of the Philippines is difficult to forecast. It will depend in large part upon the way America executes the balance LATIN AMERICA AND THE PHILIPPINES 243 of her trust. But I would say in conclusion that this seems tol- erably clear : the young or small or weak nation of tomorrow is going to have a harder time and a grander opportunity than ever before. It is true that nations like India and Egypt did govern themselves or, to speak more accurately, had inde- pendent statehood — the two expressions are not synonymous — in ancient days. But that was at a period when the ends of the earth did not rub shoulders. Such government as they had would not be tolerated in our modern world any more than an absolute monarchy would be tolerated in America. If inter- nationalism and the federation of the world are anything more than empty verbiage, they imply that every nation is respon- sible for the purity and effectiveness of its government not only to itself but also to the whole family of nations, just as truly as the states of the- Union are responsible to the Federal center which symbolizes and cements the whole. Even we have not hesitated to call to account Spain and Santo Domingo and Haiti and, forbearingly and ineffectively, Mexico for financial in- competence or inability to preserve order. The small state of the future, if it has any self-respect, will not even desire to crawl behind the pseudo-protection of the discredited principle of neutralization. Every nation, great and small, will desire and be compelled to stand on its own merits and character, manfully shouldering its responsibility. It is not merely that neutralization fails to protect from attack from the outside. If a nation were really to trust in its guaranteed inviolability, as, happily, Belgium did not, as Holland and Switzerland do not, neutrality would prevent growth from within, for it would emasculate and sterilize its victim. A nation cannot be a nation in more than name if it declines to accept full inter- national responsibility. Democracy to grow healthily must grow slowly ; and, as I view it, it will be to the mutual advantage of both America and the Philippines to walk yet awhile in close organic relation. America has had no more sobering or enlightening experience than her direct responsibility for the well-being of a people like the Filipinos. It goes without saying that when once America's governmental authority in the Philippines has reached the 244 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS vanishing point, the flag that has guaranteed and presided over an unprecedented period of peace, prosperity, and progress will go down forever, leaving the Islands to their own self- protection as well as their own self-government. But I still cling to the hope that our school, so ably and hopefully estab- lished by American men and patriots, will not close its doors until the Philippines shall have honorably graduated into a liberty that will be as secure as it will be to the liking of its citizens and to the credit of democracy. VIII UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN LIFE COMPARED GUGLIELMO FeRRERO^ [Guglielmo Ferrero (1872- ), the distinguished Italian his- torian of Rome, is of northern ItaHan stock and studied at the uni- versities of Pisa and Bologna. In 1907 he visited South America and in 1908 the United States. His "Greatness and Decline of Rome" is his chief work and, like his other historical writings, of which one is "Ancient Rome and Modern America," abounds in parallels between the life and political movements of ancient Rome and modern civilization.] The detractors of America — and there are many of them in Europe — affirm without hesitation that the Americans are barbarians laden with gold, that they think only of making money, and that in consequence of their riches they lower the level of Europe's ancient civilization and infect its beautiful traditions with a crass materialism. Admirers of America, on the contrary, — and of these there are as many in Europe as there are detractors, — will tell you that the New World is giving to the Old a unique example of energy, activity, intelli- gence, and daring. Let old Europe then give heed ; beyond the Atlantic young rivals are girding themselves with new weapons to dispute with her the superiority of which she is proud. What must one think of these conflicting answers to the puzzle? Let us begin with the reasoning of the detractors: "Amer- icans are barbarians laden with gold." In order to simplify iprom "Ancient Rome and Modern America," by Guglielmo Ferrero. Copyright by G. P. Putnam's Sons. 245 246 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS the discussion let us limit our examination to the United States, which is justly entitled to represent contemporary America with all its qualities and all its defects. No long sojourn within the borders of the United States is necessary to convince a person that in the great republic people do not think only of money. A writer partial to paradox might well amuse himself with proving that the Americans are more idealistic than the Europeans, or even that they are a mystical people. Anyone who cares to find arguments to establish this thesis may well be embarrassed by their number. For instance, would a people which despised the higher activities of the mind have been able to create the philosophical doctrine which is popularly known to us under the name of ''pragmatism"? The pragmatist affirms that all ideas capable of rendering useful service are true. He takes utility as his standard of the measure of truth. This theory has seemed to many WTiters of the Old World a decisive proof of the practical mind of the American people, who never forget their material interests, even in connection with metaphysical questions. This, however, is a mistake. Pragmatism does not propose to subordinate the ideal to prac- tical interest. Its purpose is to reconcile opposing doctrines by proving that all ideas, even those which seem mutually ex- clusive, can help us to become wiser, stronger, better. What service is there then in struggling to make one idea triumph over another instead of allowing men to draw from each idea the good which each can yield? In a word, pragmatism, as America has conceived it, is a mighty effort to give the right of expression in modern civilization to all religious and philo- sophical doctrines which in the past have stained the world with their sanguinary struggles. A beautiful doctrine this, which may lend itself to many ob- jections ; but true or false, it proves that the people who have conceived it, far from despising the ideal, have such respect for all ideas and all beliefs that they have not the courage to repel a single one. Such a people wishes to learn all and understand all. Another proof of this same characteristic is furnished by American imiversities. Europeans have all heard descriptions I UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 247 of these great American universities — Harvard and Columbia, for example. They are true cities of learning, with vast and splendid buildings, gardens, pavilions, laboratories, museums, libraries, athletic fields for physical exercises, pools where students can go to swim. They are enormously rich and, at the same time, always in dire straits. How can that be? Because no specialty or item of perfection is allowed to be lacking. All the languages and the literatures of the world which have reached any degree of importance, all the histories, all the sciences, — judicial, social, moral, physical, natural, — all the divisions of mathematics, and all the philosophies are taught there by hundreds of professors. Private citizens of the rich classes — bankers, manufacturers, merchants — have in a great degree met from their private purses the steadily growing needs of the universities. There is the same tendency in art. That American cities are ugly I willingly admit. It would need much courage, no doubt, to brand this affirmation as false, but it would also be unjust to deny that America is making mighty efforts to beautify her cities. All the schools of architecture in Europe, especially that of Paris, are full of Americans hard at work. The sums which cities, states, banks, insurance companies, universities, and railroads have spent in beautifying their magnificent edifices is fabulous. Not all these buildings, by any means, are master- pieces, but there are many which are very beautiful. America has architects of indisputable worth. In Europe men like to repeat that Americans buy at extravagant prices objects of ancient art, or things that pass for such, not distinguishing those which are beautiful and ancient from those which are inferior and counterfeit. But those who have seen something of the houses of rich Americans know that although there are snobs and dupes in America, as everywhere else, there are also people who know the meaning of art, who know how to buy beautiful things, and who search the world over for them. You will find in the streets of New York every variety of architec- ture, just as you find in its libraries all the literatures of the world, and in its theaters all the music, and in its houses all the decorative arts. 248 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS "The barbarian laden with gold" is, then, a legendary per- sonage, but it is not at all surprising that such a conception should exist. Modern society is organized in such fashion that it is impossible even to conceive of a people at once rich and ignorant. Industry, business, agriculture, demand nowadays very special technical knowledge and a very complete social organization ; that is to say, they imply a scientific, political, and judicial civilization of reasonably high order. Thus America is not at all uninterested in the higher activities of the mind. It would be more just to say that as a nation, and with- out regard to individual instances, she interests herself in such activities less than in industry, in business, and in agriculture. But is not this also the case with Europe? Who would dare affirm that the progress of the arts and sciences and letters is at this moment the principal concern of the governments and of the influential classes of the Old World? We Europeans have only to listen to what people round about us are saying. Their talk is all of bringing the cultivation of the land to eco- nomic perfection, of opening coal and iron mines, of harnessing waterfalls, of developing industries, of increasing exports. Kings who rule "by the grace of God" publicly declare thai noihmg interests them so much as the business of their countries ! . . . It would appear, then, that the riddle of America is very simple. The answer contains nothing to make us uneasy. The riches of the New World threaten no catastrophe to the noblest traditions of our civilization. For New York's wealth is only a part of the riches produced in the same economic develop- ment in the two worlds. The ultimate development of these mighty riches might be merely a general advance, both ma- terial and ideal, of Europe and America. Rich and prosperous Americans might try to assimilate the culture of Europe, and on her part Europe, in her effort to increase her own riches, might seek to equal America. But a historian of antiquity who returns from America cannot share this optimism. In the lap of modern civilization there are twin worlds struggling with each other for leadership. But these two worlds are not, as people are apt to think, Europe and America. Their names are Quality and Quantity. ... UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 249 America is neither the monstrous country where men think solely of making money nor the country of marvels boasted by her admirers. It is the country where the principles of Quan- ity, which have become so powerful during the last one hun- dred and fifty years, have achieved their most extraordinary triumph. An active, energetic, vigorous nation has found itself master of an enormous territory, portions of which were very fertile and other portions very rich in mines and forests, at the very moment when our civilization iinally invented the ma- chine which makes possible the exploitation of vast countries and the swift creation of wealth — the steam engine. Less cumbered by old traditions than the elder nations, and with a vast continent in front of her, America has marched along the new roads of history with a rapidity and an energy for which there is no precedent. Ten, fifteen, thirty times in a single century has she multiplied her population, her cities, and all the M^ealth coveted by man. She has created in careless and prodigal profusion a society which has subordinated all former ideas of perfection to a new ideal ; ever building on a grander scale and ever building more swiftly. No, it is not true that America is indifferent to the higher activities of mind, but the effort which she spends upon the arts and sciences is, and will long remain, subordinate to the great historic task of the United States — the intensive cultivation of a huge continent. Intellectual things will remain subordinate, although very many Americans of the upper classes would wish that it were otherwise. In just the same way, it is not accurate to say that, in contrast to American barbarism, Europe reaps the harvest of civilization ; just as it would be unfair to say that the Old World is done for, exhausted by its petrifying, inevitable routine. The ancient societies of Europe have likewise entered into the quantitative phase of civilization. The new demon has also got hold of them. In Europe, as well as in America, the masses of people long for a more comfortable existence ; public and private expenses pile up with bewildering speed. Thus in the Old World also the production of wealth must be increased, but this enterprise is far more difficult in Europe 2 50 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS than in America. The population of Europe is much more dense than that of the New World ; a portion of its lands is exhausted ; the great number of political subdivisions and the multiplicity of tongues increase enormously the difficulties of conducting business on a great scale. Traditions handed down from the time when men toiled to produce slowly and in small quantities things shaped toward a far-distant ideal of perfection are still strong among its people. Europe, then, has the ad- vantage over America in the higher activities of the mind, but she cannot help being more timid, more sluggish, and more limited in her economic enterprises. America and Europe may each be judged superior or inferior to the other according as the critic takes for his standard the criteria of Quality or of Quantity. If a civilization approximates perfection in propor- tion to the rapidity with which she produced riches, America is the model to be followed ; if, on the contrary, perfection is expressed by the measure of the higher activities of the spirit, Europe leads the way. DIAGNOSIS OF TIHE ENGLISHMAN ^ John Galsworthy [John Galsworthy (1867- ) lives in Devonshire, England, and is one of the best-known contemporary novelists and dramatists. His chief novels are "The Man of Property" (1906) and ''The Freelands" (1Q15); his best-known play, "Justice" (1910).] The Public Schools. This potent element in the formation of the modern Englishman, not only of the upper but of all classes, is something that one rather despairs of making under- Stood — in countries that have no similar institution. But imagine one hundred thousand youths of the wealthiest, healthiest, and most influential classes passed, during each generation, at the most impressionable age into a sort of ethical mold, emerging therefrom stamped to the core with the impress iFrom "A Sheaf." Copyrighted, 1916^ by Charles Scribner's Sons. Reprinted by permission. UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 251 of a uniform morality, uniform manners, uniform way of look- ing at life; remembering always that these youths fill seven eighths of the important positions in the professional adminis- tration of their country and the conduct of its commercial enterprise ; remembering, too, that through perpetual contact with every other class their standard of morality and way of looking at life filters down into the very toes of the land. This great character-forming machine is remarkable for an unself- consciousness which gives it enormous strength and elasticity. Not inspired by the state, it inspires the state. The character- istics of the philosophy it enjoins are mainly negative and, for that, the stronger. ''Never show your feelings — to do so is not manly, and bores your fellows. Don't cry out when you're hurt, making yourself a nuisance to other people. Tell no tales about your companions and no lies about yourself. Avoid all 'swank,' 'side,' 'swagger,' braggadocio of speech or manner, on pain of being laughed at." (This maxim is carried to such a pitch that the Englishman, except in his Press, habitually under- states everything.) "Think little of money, and speak less of it. Play games hard, and keep the rules of them, even when your blood is hot and you are tempted to disregard them. In three words: Play the Game" (a little phrase which may be taken as the characteristic understatement of the modern English- man's creed of honor in all classes). This great, unconscious machine has considerable defects. It tends to the formation of "caste"; it is a poor teacher of sheer learning; and, aesthet- ically, with its universal suppression of all interesting and queer individual traits of personality, it is almost horrid. But it imparts a remarkable incorruptibility to English life ; it con- serves vitality, by suppressing all extremes ; and it implants everywhere a kind of unassuming stoicism and respect for the rules of the great game — Life. Through its unconscious ex- ample and through its cult of games it has vastly influenced even the classes not directly under its control. The Englishman must have a thing brought under his nose before he will act ; bring it there and he will go on acting after everybody else has stopped. He lives very much in the moment because he is essentially a man of facts and not a man of 2 52 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS imagination. Want of imagination makes him, philosophically speaking, rather ludicrous ; in practical affairs it handicaps him at the start, but once he has "got going" — as we say — it is of incalculable assistance to his stamina. The Englishman, partly through this lack of imagination and nervous sensibility, partly through his inbred dislike of extremes and habit of minimizing the expression of everything, is a perfect example of the con- servation of energy. It is very difficult to come to the end of him. Add to this unimaginative, practical, tenacious, modera- tion an inherent spirit of competition — not to say pugnacity — so strong that it will often show through the coating of his "Live and let live," half-surly, half-good-humored manner; add a peculiar, ironic, "don't care" sort of humor, an under- ground but inveterate humaneness, and an ashamed idealism — and you get some notion of the pudding of English character. Its main feature is a kind of terrible coolness, a rather awful level-headedness. The Englishman makes constant small blun- ders but few, almost no, deep mistakes. He is a slow starter, but there is no stronger finisher, because he has by tempera- ment and training the faculty of getting through any job that he gives his mind to with a minimum expenditure of vital energy ; nothing is wasted in expression, style, spread-eagleism ; everything is instinctively kept as near to the practical heart of the matter as possible. He is — to the eye of an artist — distressingly matter-of-fact, a tempting mark for satire. And yet he is in truth an idealist, though it is his nature to snub, disguise, and mock his own inherent optimism. To admit en- thusiasms is "bad form" if he is a "gentleman," and "swank," or mere waste of good heat, if he is not a "gentleman." Eng- land produces more than its proper percentage of cranks and poets ; it may be taken that this is Nature's way of redressing the balance in a country where feelings are not shown, senti- ments not expressed, and extremes laughed at. Not that the Englishman lacks heart ; he is not cold, as is generally supposed — on the contrary, he is warm-hearted and feels very strongly ; but just as peasants for lack of words to express their feelings become stolid, so it is with the Englishman, from sheer lack of the habit of self-expression. Nor is the Englishman deliberately UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 253 hypocritical ; but his tenacity, combined with his powprlessness to express his feeHngs, often gives him the appearance of a hypocrite. He is inarticulate ; has not the clear and fluent cynicism of expansive natures wherewith to confess exactly how he stands. It is the habit of men of all nations to want to have things both ways ; the Englishman is unfortunately so unable to express himself even to himself that he has never realized this truth, much less confessed it. Hence his appearance of hypocrisy. ARISTOCRACY IN ENGLISH LIFE^ Gilbert Murray [George Gilbert Aime Murray (1866- ), one of the most famous of English scholars and poets, was born in Australia, but was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School and at Oxford. Since 1908 he has been Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford. He is widely known for his unequaled translations from the Greek, especially his renderings of Euripides into English verse of superb felicity and eloquence. The discussion which follows is part of an article entitled "The Pale Shade."] In Great Britain the king and the House of Lords are both survivals. They are relics of a form of government and a structure of society that have both passed out of existence. In other countries they would have been swept away by a clean- cut revolution about the years 1 830-1 848, but the English habit in reform is never to go further than you really want. If your eye offends you, try shutting it for a bit, or use a little ointment or lotion, or give up reading by artificial light. But do not be such a fool as to have it taken out until you are perfectly certain you must. And still more, if your neighbor offends you try to put up with him, try to get round him, try to diminish his powers in the particular point where he is most offensive ; but do not hang him or shoot him unless he ^ Copyrighted by the North American Review, from an article entitled "The Pale Shade," September, 191 7. Reprinted by permission. 2 54 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS absolutely insists upon it, and if you must fight him do not for- get that you will have to live with him or his friends afterwards. It is this characteristic which has won for England two reputations which seem at first sight contradictory. She is known as the most liberal of European nations and also as the most conservative. Both statements are fairly true, and they both mean almost the same thing. She is liberal because she believes in letting people do as they like and think as they like ; she hates oppression and espionage and interference except where they are absolutely necessary for the public safety, and for that very same reason she is conservative. She adapts herself to new conditions with as little disturbance as she conveniently can, and never destroys institutions or worries individuals for the sake of mere logical consistency. The people who praise her for being liberal would seldom claim that she was specially progressive. Those who call her conservative would never think of her as reactionary. The fact is that for various reasons she has enjoyed greater security, both inside and out, than •most European nations, and being free from fear she could afford, as a general rule, to be patient and good-natured. "This is all very well," an American reader may say. "It may be that your king has no political power and your House of Lords is having its claws clipped at the moment, so far as the poor things needed clipping. But you are an aristocratic nation. We know it in our bones. We feel it when we meet Englishmen. The first thing they ask about a man is whether he is or is not a 'gentleman,' — it is the all-important question. And the answer to it seems to depend neither on the man's moral qualities, which we would respect, nor on the size of his income, which we could at least understand, but on the abstruse points connected with his pronunciation and his relatives and the way he wears his necktie. Your aristocrats are supposed to have exquisite manners, but as a matter of fact they often offend us. They are too much accustomed to deference from common people ; they stand aside and expect to be waited on. And when we go to England we may not see as much gross luxury as in New York or Newport, but we do see that life is UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 255 made extraordinarily comfortable for the 'upper classes,' and for them alone. They do no doubt care about the ' poor ' ; they are charitable and they are public-spirited, but they de- spise, or at any rate they exclude from their society, whole classes of people who seem to us just as good as they are — commercial men, wealthy shopkeepers, leaders of industry and others — just because they have not the same way of talking." Now there is some truth in this, and some falsehood. And it is exceedingly difficult to unravel the two, even in the rough- est and most elementary way, I should not dare to attempt it if I were a born Englishman, educated at Eton or Winchester. Because in that case I believe I should think it mere nonsense. But having come to England from Australia, and been at one time a stranger to the well-to-do English public-school society which sets the tone in the British upper class, I think I can understand the criticism. It is a fact that in Great Britain the aristocracy, which America on the whole shook off when it shook off the British connection, still survives and is in some ways still powerful. And I think, perhaps, in no way more than this : that its standard of behavior and minor morals is more or less accepted as a model by the whole nation. It is true that Englishmen, more than other nations, do consider whether a man is a gentleman ; and the average Englishman of all classes normally considers that he himself is a gentleman and expects to be treated as one. This may sound like mere servility or class worship, but of course it is not that. It does not mean that the average man tries to behave exactly as he has seen some earl or viscount behave or as he reads that such persons did behave in the eighteenth century. It means that a certain ideal has been formed of the way in which a "gentleman" ought to behave, and that practically every self-respecting British citizen feels himself — theoretically at least — bound to live up to it. It is in part a class imitation and in part a genuine moral standard ; it is based in part on snobbishness and in part on idealism. That is just what gives it its power. It appeals to every kind of person. No doubt it would be far better to aim 256 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS at being a philosopher or a true Christian, but thousands of people who have no ambition in either of those directions will be very strong on conducting themselves like gentlemen. And some will do it in a superficial way and some in a sincere and searching way. THE FRENCH FLAME OF PATRIOTISM ^ Maurice Barres [Augusta Maurice Barres (1862- ) was bom in Lorraine and was educated at the Lycee at Nancy. Since 1883, when he went to Paris and entered literary and political life, he has devoted himself to efforts to arouse the French people to patriotic and nationalistic feeling. In 1906 he was made a member of the French Academy. The present article is only part of an address delivered in London at the Hall of the Royal Society under the auspices of the British Academy on July 12, IQ16. Barres's writings on the "Spirit of French Youth," as he calls his address, are filled with soldiers' letters, of which the following is an example.] December 25, 19 14 It is midnight, Mademoiselle and good friend, and in order to write to you I have just removed my white gloves. (This is not a bid for admiration. The act has nothing of the heroic about it ; my last colored pair adorn the hands of a poor foot-soldier, — piou-piou, — who was cold.) I am unable to find words to express the pleasure and emotion caused me by your letter, which arrived on the evening follow- ing a terrific bombardment of the poor little village which we are holding. The letter was accepted among us as balm for all possible racking of nerves and other curses. That letter, which was read in the evening to the officers of my battalion, — I ask pardon for any offense to your modesty, — comforted the most cast down after the hard day and gave proof to all that the heart of the young girls of France is nothing short of magnificent in its beneficence. iprom "The Undying Spirit of France," translated by Margaret W. B. Corwin. Copyrigiit by the Yale University Press. Reprinted by permission. UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 257 It is, as I have said, midnight. To the honor and good fortune which have come to me of commanding my company during the last week (our captain having been wounded), I owe the pleasure of writing you at this hour from the trenches, where, by prodigies of cunning, I have succeeded in lighting a candle without attracting the attention of the gentlemen facing us, who are, by the way, not more than a hundred meters distant. My men, under their breath, have struck up the traditional Christmas hymn, "He is born, the Child Divine." The sky glitters with stars. One feels like making merry over all this, and, behold, one is on the brink of tears. I think of Christmases of other years spent with my family ; I think of the tremendous effort still to be made, of the small chance I have for coming out of this alive ; I think, in short, that perhaps this minute I am living my last Christmas. Regret, do you say? . . , No, not even sadness. Only a tinge of gloom at not being among all those I love. All the sorrow of my thoughts is given to those best of friends fallen on the field of honor, whose loyal affection had made them almost my brothers — Allard, Fayolle, so many dear friends whom I shall never see again ! When on the evening of July 31, in my capacity of Pere Systeme of the Class of 19 14 (promotion), I had pronounced amidst a holy hush the famous vow to make ourselves conspicuous by facing death wearing white gloves, our good-hearted Fayolle, who was, I may say, the most of an enthusiast of all the friends I have ever known, said to me with a grin: "WTiat a stunning impression we shall make upon the Bochesl They will be so astounded that they will forget to fire." But alas, poor Fayolle has paid dearly his debt to his country for the title of Saint-Cyrien ! And they are all falling around me, seeming to ask when the turn of their Pcre Systeme is to come, so that Montmirail on entering heaven may receive God's blessing with full ranks. But a truce to useless repinings ! Let us give thought only to our dear France, our indispensable, imperishable, ever-living country ! And by this beauteous Christmas night let us put our faith more firmly than ever in victory. 258 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS I must ask you, Mademoiselle and good friend, to excuse this awful scrawl. Will you also allow me to hope for a reply in the near future, and will you permit this young French officer very respectfully lo kiss the hand of a great-souled and generous-hearted maiden of France? On the eighth of April, 1915, came his turn to fall. FRENCH LIBERTY^ Emile Boutroux [Etienne, Emile Marie Boutroux (1845-1921) was professor of philosophy in the University of Paris and one of the most dis- tinguished of French philosophers. He served as Exchange Pro- fessor at Harvard University and was in 1912 elected to the French Academy, He published, among other works, "Education and Ethics" (19 13) and lives of Pascal and of William James. This is part of an address delivered on December 5, 1915, before the Con- ference de Foi et Vie in Paris. In its presentation of the double origin of the French ideal of government and attitude toward life and the perfect combination of the two tendencies, it is a valu- able contribution to an understanding of European principles of government.] The French idea of liberty is not a modern invention. It is the blossoming of a double tradition : the Graeco- Roman and the Christian. Opposed to the Orient, which subjected man and the world to an absolute empire of transcendent powers and indeter- minable fatalities, ancient Greece considered the world to be self-animated and as tending to realize its own destinies within itself. The directing ideal of Greek thought is Art. Now, in a work of art such as the Greeks conceived it, matter and form are so exactly adjusted to one another that one is unable to say whether form is the result of the spontaneous develop- ment of matter, or whether matter has been purely and simply disciplined by form. In the eyes of the Greek artist matter 1 Translated by Morris Edmund Speare from "L'Idee de Liberte en France et en Alleraagne." Paris, 191S. UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 259 and form are one. It is neither a foreign force nor an oppres- sive one which develops matter under the laws of form. Ac- cording to the voice of Amphion's lyre there arise, of their own accord, pliable materials which develop into walls and towers. The great blind man of Maeonia^ opens his mouth, . . . and the ancient boughs already Incline their foliage softly and in cadence ! If nature in general possesses within itself the power of elevating itself toward the ideal, by a much stronger reason is human nature capable of manifesting the attributes of the true, the beautiful, and the good, and of its own accord pressing toward them. When he loves and seeks for knowledge, man thus constitutes morality, convention, the social life, and the political life. From thence springs the Hellenic ideal of edu- cation. To uplift men is not, according to the Platonists and the Aristotelians, to impose upon them any plan which one might judge useful, without taking into consideration their natures and their aspirations ; it is, on the contrary, to con- summate their most intimate wishes, to help them to reach the goal which they themselves aim for. Art, says Aristotle, makes masterpieces with which Nature should be content. It is so with Education, which is the supreme art. If Greece, above all other things, puts forth the powers of initiative and of perfection which reside in the nature of man, the more peculiarly practical genius of Rome expressly de- duced from this notion of man the moral and the juridical consequences which it embodied. Capable of self-mastery and of reflecting upon his own acts man is subjected to the law of Duty. He is not only a plant which blossoms through liberty. He is a will which must obey. And capable of assuming dignity and moral worth, he possesses as an essential attribute that eminent quality which we call Right. As the Graeco-Latin civilization conceives him, man is thus a being capable of personally fashioning himself, of aspiring to the true, the beautiful, and the good, subject to the higher laws 1 Andre Chenier, L'Aveugle. 2 6o VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS which impose upon him duties, and he is provided with essential rights which are born out of this very dignity of his. If French thought comes out of this so-called classical tradi- tion, it is also heir to the Christian tradition. The latter does not contradict the classical ideal at all. But while the Greeks and the Romans had considered above all things Reason in man, reason through which all men tend to mold themselves into a single being, universal and impersonal, Christianity exalted, in particular, the individual, with his conscience and with his own traits of character. It gives first importance, in God and in man, to love, sentiment, — that is to say, to the peculiarly individualistic element of the soul. It is not simply the human species which, according to the doctrine of Christ, is privileged to approach God and to commune with him ; it is every man taken separately, however humble his condition and however limited his vision. "Behold," says Jesus, "this poor widow casting thither, into the alms-box, her two mites. Of a truth I say unto you that she hath cast in more than they all. For they have cast of their abundance ; but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had." Such are the examples that Jesus gave to his disciples ; such are the servants of God to whom he promises the first places in the kingdom of heaven. Every individual, according to this doctrine, is called upon as such to save himself from sin and from death and to live in God. And the salvation of all, taken every single one, is equally dear to the Father, who is all-powerful and all-good. Nourished upon this twofold tradition, French thought has affirmed an ideal of liberty which is vitally identical in the conscience of the people and in the writings and speeches of scholars and statesmen. Liberty, according to this way of looking at things, implies a power of disposing of oneself, of desiring, of thinking, of acting for oneself which belongs to the individual as an in- dividual. This power is expressed by the phrase " free agent," which, according to the French point of view, designates a faculty at the same time very genuine and very superior. Each man, through this free agent, is like a personal empire UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 261 within a universal empire. His very conscience, in fact, is not an insignificant secondary phenomenon but an original and efficacious reality. Through it each individual is somehow master of himself. Not that the individual is sufficient unto himself nor has the right to regard himself as superior to all laws. French thought does not ratify the exaggerated assertion of Rousseau attributing to the individual " an absolute existence and a naturally independent one." Man finds in his own con- science with irresistible clearness the laws of justice and of humanity. He considers himself, therefore, as under obligation to his kind and to the universal order of things. The aim which he should impose upon himself is in this sense not to differentiate between an absolute individual sovereignty and an absolute abdication but to conciliate within himself the liberty and the right of the individual with the right of the ideal and the sovereignty of moral laws. If every individual is by some means an entire being, it is perforce an entire being that individuals ought to consummate by their union. So that the problem of moral life for French conscience is the very problem which a Greek poet put forth in these words : XIo)? 8e /xoi €V TL TO. TrdvT iarai ''How can we so bring it about that the All be One, and at the same time that each member possess an individual existence ? " The conception of liberty in the individual is, according to the French doctrine, determined by nations, in the measure that these latter can be held responsible as you would hold people responsible ; that is to say, in the measure with which they are endowed with a national conscience and possess the necessary elements for self-government. They also belong to themselves, and must be masters of their own destinies ; they also, at the same time, must recognize the existence of a univer- sal justice for the realization of which they are in duty bound to collaborate with all the others. 2 62 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS THE MODERN ITALIAN ^ William Kay Wallace [William Kay Wallace (1858-1916) was an American who spent many years in Italy and knew the Italian people intimately. During much of the World War he was with the Italian troops at the Front. His chief book is a survey of modern Italy entitled "Greater Italy" (1917)-] Of all the modern Europeans the Italians have hitherto been the least understood. To many of us Italy is still the land of orange blossoms and blue skies, of museums and old masters, of hill towns and tenors, of beggars and bandits — the land of the jar niente, where golden days are passed in a flood of eternal springtide, where work is left until tomorrow and nothing is done today. Even those of us who have spent some time in Italy outside of its art galleries and museums are long in realizing the true temper of present-day Italy. Why then this misunderstanding? The Italian people are plain-spoken. What they have ac- complished during the past half-century speaks straightfor- wardly, eloquently. What a galaxy of heroes mark the milestones of the struggles for Italian liberty and national unity ! INIazzini at Rome, Manin at Venice, blazed the trail. Then came Garibaldi, the warrior champion of liberty, whose mighty blows forged the last links in the chain of Italian unity. Italian unity meant Italian liberty. For in order that Italy might become a united nation the corrupt, despotic govern- ment of the Bourbon kings of the two Sicilies had to be over- thrown. Rome and the surrounding territory of the patrimony of St. Peter had to be wrested from the grip of the pope, who clung with desperate tenacity to his temporal sovereign rights. Tuscany was a duchy ruled by an Austrian princeling, as were the duchies of Parma and IModena, while Lombardy and 1 Copyrighted by Scribner's Magazine, December, 191 7. Reprinted by permission of Charles Scribner's Sons. UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 263 Venetia, conquered provinces incorporated in the Hapsburg empire, groaned under the yoke of the despised Austrian. No more thrilling and, at the same time, vital episode in the history of the nineteenth century can be found than that of a king of the most ancient and aristocratic royal house in Europe enlisting in his service that stanch republican Gari- baldi, who had always loudly affirmed that he never had been a partisan of kings, but convinced that the princes of Savoy had the liberation of Italy at heart, gladly gave his own and his followers' service to the king of Piedmont in order that Italy might be free. Then we find Victor Emmanuel placing himself at the head of armed revolutionaries, overthrowing the other sovereign princes of Italy, including the pope, and creating the united Italian state. The unification of Italy was thus brought about by the active, intimate, and constant collaboration of the most radical revolutionary as well as the most aristocratic and conserva- tive elements of the country. This must be constantly borne in mind in considering the fundamental forces of present- day Italy. Italian unity — the dominant preoccupation of all patriotic Italians for the past three hundred years — owes its actual accomplishment to the strong hand and daring initiative of the royal house of Savoy. It was the head of this ruling house, guided by the wise counsel of his able minister, Count Cavour, who presented the question of Italian unity to the attention of Europe, thus securing the active assistance of Napoleon III and the cooperation of the French, without which the task of driving out the Austrians would have been impossible. This is the debt that Italy owes its present ruling dynasty. And though republican sentiment is still strong throughout the peninsula, and the impelling force in the creation of united Italy, "love of liberty," still remains, the kings of the house of Savoy have reconciled themselves so well with this modern spirit that today they are not to be considered constitutional monarchs in the much-diluted form as in England, but rather what may be justly called representatives of "royal republicanism." 2 64 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS With so involved a political origin, it is not surprising that from the very beginning the aims and motives of the new united Italian state, though they have contributed fundamentally in shaping the course of the history of our epoch, should have been disregarded, neglected. Students of international affairs, whether statesmen or pub- licists, keenly critical in their scrutiny of the plans and policy of England, Germany, France, Austria, Russia, Japan, and even of the Balkan States, were in the habit of passing by very casually all reference to Italian participation in world events. The world at large still preferred to dwell upon the Italy of the past ; on the Rome of the Empire ; on the Italy of the Renaissance. The Italy of the present seemed of lesser interest. This is in a measure accounted for by the fact that Italy as a nation came into being the petted godchild of Europe. All the older nations were in a festive mood at her christening. Even the rictus of Austria seemed like a smile. For it was a new experiment in nation-building that was being inaugurated : a state founded on racial unity ! Cavour, assisted by King Victor Emmanuel of Piedmont, held the infant state at the fount, while Napoleon III, looking not unlike Don Quixote and feeling much as the gallant knight must have felt when he returned from tilting with the windmills, was at hand already busily planning how best that which he had given might be taken away. Pompous British statesmen hovered in the background and smilingly gave their blessing to the new Italy ; while in the sandy marshes of Brandenburg, in the then provincial city of Berlin, Bismarck was whispering to his Hohenzollern master, "The Savoy princes have begun; go thou and do thou likewise." The Italians had at last, after countless reverses, won na- tional independence. The long-cherished theory that all men of the same language, customs, and traditions have the right to form a separate political entity was realized. Nor must we fail to record that they were the first to demonstrate that this great experiment in statecraft, which was to become the direct- ing force in nation-building during the ensuing decades, was wholly practical. UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 265 Italy was the first great state to assert boldly this principle of nationality as the basis of the modern state. Nationalism as interpreted by the Italians was soon to become one of the most important single factors of political development of our times. As France a century before had lit the torch of individual liberty, so Italy first championed successfully the belief that national liberty, which is merely the extension of the idea of individual liberty to include all individuals of a kindred race, is the most valuable asset of mankind. The European war is a struggle for the preservation of this principle. The Allies are maintaining the right of national independence of smaller states against the Germanic idea of a state composed of a motley of races, marshaled under the hegemony of the strongest. During the ensuing years the work of unification continued, and the growth of Italy as a united nation was rapid. So that when two decades later Victor Emmanuel the Liberator, as he came to be called, died in 1878, the first king of united Italy, he was not buried in the Superga, the small chapel which crowns the soft green hill above Turin, the burial place of his house, but in the Pantheon at Rome, built in the days of the Caesars, an imperial resting place. The people of Italy, no longer ruled over by petty despots chiefly of foreign origin, began to think nationally, to feel themselves a part of a greater universe. This broadening of point of view brought about an increase in moral stature, a strengthening of the spiritual fiber of the nation. The Italians were now eager to enjoy a share of the material well-being which other peoples possessed. The fecund soil of northern Italy was no longer rich enough to support the teem- ing millions who under a beneficent and enlightened govern- ment were at last permitted to have a share of this wealth and well-being. Great industrial enterprises sprang up. Piedmont, Lombardy, and Venetia were quickly dotted with a vast network of thriving industrial centers. Italy prospered. She even acquired a colonial domain in the face of jeering onlookers. But the growth of her prosperity 2 66 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS did not keep pace with her increase in numbers, more particu- larly in the south of Italy, where the debilitating effects of centuries of corrupt government still showed deep traces in the backwardness of the population. Soon the surplus began to spread over the New World. In South America, though late comers, the Italians quickly won their way to positions of wealth and influence in the republics of the River Plate and Brazil. Elsewhere they kept to humbler occupations, and built with their own hands the great network of railways, bridges, aqueducts, which spread over the face of the earth. Whether at home or abroad, the Italians were building, toiling, moiling ceaselessly. Yet throughout these years to the casual observer Italy remained the land of the jar niente, the land of romance. In reality few races are possessed with such dynamic creative energy as are the Italians. The far niente is but a thin veneer, like the patina on an antique bronze ; the hard, durable metal lies beneath the iridescent surface. For twenty centuries Italy has been the cultural focus of western Europe. No other race of men can show so long a line of preeminent genius. The civilization of the West owes its present direction to the impulse received from Italy. In all fields of human endeavor Italy has stood forth the master ; the Western world has listened obediently, learned, and then followed the current of the mighty stream of civiliza- tion which rose beyond the Alps, among the hills of Rome, in Umbria, Tuscany, Lombardy, and Venetia, to spread over Europe and the world. Letters, art, and science, religion, jurisprudence, war, all owe to Italy the tribute of their most luminous flowering. Caesar the conqueror, Cicero the orator, Virgil the poet, and the long line of Romans who were the first Italians belong to the first epoch of Western history. Then, after a period of darkness, out of the night, in letters of indelible purity and beauty, shine the names of Dante and Petrarch, the precursors of a new era. Painting is revived and finds a Giotto, whose art is carried to a climax by a Leonardo and a Titian. Galileo revolutionizes the accepted concepts UXDERSTAXDIXG OTHER NATIONS 267 of cosmography, and a Christopher Columbus discovers a new world. This same race of men brought forth a Lucrezia Borgia and a St. Catherine of Siena ; a Benvenuto Cellini, a Machiavelli, and a St. Francis of Assisi. There followed a period of relative decay, until from the north came Winckelmann and Goethe, Shelley and Browning. Italy still remained the teacher ; the past became sanctified, glorified by these new disciples. Then came the invasions of Ruskin and his phalanx, who made of Italy a shrine. The new votaries from all parts of the world sang paeans of praise of the Italy of the past and gave to the Italy of the present no thought. Like a race of servile pygmies modern Italians trod among the Titan figures of the past. iSIen refused to consider Italy in any other light than as a treasurehouse of ancient glory ; the holders of a sacred trust, the Italians must aspire to no other role. The dank romanticism of the early nineteenth century, though swept aside by a ruthless realism in other countries, Still lingered in association with the name of Italy. National independence in Italy had been achieved ; by her new strength Italy had begun to assert her position as a world power, but to the world at large Italy remained a museum. "We have made Italy; we must now make Italians," was the spontaneous outcry after the great ordeal of unification had passed. Oppressed by the grandeur of the past, by their long and illustrious heritage, vexed at the condescension of foreigners toward their aspiration for modern development, already during the first days of national existence a few Italians realized that Italy, in order to develop nationally, must trample underfoot the ever-present past. Italy must become something more than a haven for dilettante art critics and artists, the birthplace of tenors, the refuge of idyllic lovers. The Italians were sick unto death at hearing the glories of the Renaissance discussed and commented upon by foreign observers ; sated by the universal and eternal repetition of the "Cinque Cento," as though Italy 268 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS had ceased to exist since the days of Michelangelo. WTiile the world prattled on about Italian art and thought of modern Italy in the same old romantic strain, the Italians, by a stern realism, by closing their eyes to the past, by concerning them- selves with the present, and by looking to the future, rung by rung were winning their way up to recognition as a world power. Though many refused to consider the Italians other than as an old, worn-out race, the people of Italy were daily more vigorously and lustily asserting their rejuvenescence. More than this, the hardness of the Italians, in the Xietz- schean sense of the word, made it possible for them to combat with success, in moments of grave crisis, the various extraneous influences which sought to undermine the fabric of the state. At the same time it led them to face political problems with the keenest realist perception. It is only by a clear understanding of this phase of Italian ideology that we can arrive at an explanation of Italy's en- trance into the Triple Alliance — the making friends with her despised enemy, Austria. To appreciate fully the real import of this act it must be borne in mind that this alliance was as unpopular and distaste- ful to the majority of the Italian people as an alliance with Germany would have been to a Frenchman. So that at a time when the world at large was still considering Italy in the old romantic manner, Italian statesmen, by adopting a rigorous realism in their conduct of international affairs, entered upon an alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, believing that this policy served the best interests of the state. With peculiar clearness of vision the people of Italy perceived that the Prussian system of efficiency and organization in all spheres of human activity — commercial, industrial, military, technical, and scientific — would lead most rapidly to the eco- nomic and social development of the state. Success had become a god in Italy as much as in any other country. Furthermore, it must be remembered that Italy as a nation was young and fired with all the exuberant enthusiasms of youth. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the Italians were cheerfully UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 269 willing to work under no matter what master as long as the work was lucrative and brought with it material well-being, the outward token of success. Politically there was a strong motive for this whole-hearted espousal of Germanism. Italy feared her elder Latin sister, France. France, regretting the assistance given to the people of Italy to liberate them from the yoke of the Austrian in 1859, a very few years later delayed the further aggrandizement of the kingdom by preventing the incorporation of Rome within the new Italy. When after the battle of Sedan and the overthrow of the Napoleonic regime the Italians occupied Rome, the new French republic continued the policy of hostility toward Italy and thwarted the first imperial longing of the Italian people by inconsiderately snatching the rich colonial plum — Tunis — out of Italian hands when all Italy was already boisterously rejoicing that the bejeweled bauble across the Mediterranean was to be hers. Within a year thereafter Italy had become a partner in the Triple Alliance, and a new orientation in world politics was inaugurated. For many years the Italian people could not forgive the affronts they believed they had suffered at the hands of the French, and henceforth the paths of France and Italy lay far apart, while the Italians, the junior partners in the Triple Alliance, drew closer and closer to Germany. Three decades later Italy had become Germanized. Talented pupils, the Italians had quickly learned all that their German teachers could teach them, and had profited greatly thereby. Yet in their youthful eagerness they made one grave error. In swinging wide open their doors to Germany the Italians had snapped off the hinges and the Germanic hordes from the north poured in unchecked. Within a few years Italian commercial, industrial, and even political life was honeycombed with German and pro-German agents. But Rome has witnessed so many barbarian invasions all traces of which soon vanished, while Rome stands eternally imperial ! 2 70 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS This Germanic invasion was, however, the more insidious, in that prosperity followed in the wake of the invaders whom the Italians themselves called in. Few Italians realized that their new German friends and allies who flocked in such great num- bers to Italy were carrying on a methodically planned and carefully executed program of ''peaceful penetration" as part of a larger plan of German world dominion. It was only natural that the Italians should imagine that because Italy was prosperous, because her commerce and indus- try were increasing relatively more rapidly than those of any other country, this prosperity was their own. So busy were they piling up what was for them undreamed-of riches that, though a government in power, in protecting Italian interests, now and then "flirted" mildly with France, England, or Russia, the nation remained faithful to its German taskmaster. All too late was it perceived that the Germans had fixed themselves lecherously at the heart of Italy and intended to remain. At the outbreak of the European war in August, 19 14, Italy awoke suddenly to the perils of her position. The mass of the people at large were still ignorant of the plight of their country. Those who could gauge rightly the real condition of affairs were afraid to tear out with one mighty wrench the German parasite. By a series of operations as skillfully conceived as they were to be deftly executed, Italy made ready to rid herself of the German. Italy had linked her fortunes with Germany for the purpose of growing strong and self-reliant, in order that the state might be in a position to stand secure as an independent nation. The people of Italy now began to realize that their paramount interests de- manded that they detach themselves from the Central Empires, and by a close study of events adapt policy to circumstance. During the nine months of neutrality, from August, 1914, to May, 1915, by a slow and cautious mode of procedure Italy one by one cut the ties which bound her to her former allies. Notwithstanding the fact that the Triple Alliance had endured for a generation, in those few months the vast superstructure of German penetration in Italy was undermined and, at a given signal, crashed to earth. UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 271 It is no exaggeration to say that no country entered the war in the face of such desperate attempts made, within its own boundaries, to prevent it. It was then that a leader was found in the person of the great poet d'Annunzio, who returned to Italy at this juncture and, by his flaming appeals to their nobler sentiments of patriotism, loyalty, and love of liberty, bade his countrymen take up arms on the side of the Allies, in defense of those sovereign rights of national independence which the Italian people had so valiantly championed half a century before. THE INTELLIGENTSIA AND THE PEOPLE IN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION^ By Moissaye J. Olgin [Moissaye J. Olgin (1874- ) has been intimately acquainted with Russian conditions during the present century and has known many of the leaders of the revolutionary movements of the present and the past. He has written "The Soul of the Russian Revolution" (1917) and "A Guide to Russian Literature" (1920). He is a native of Russia, but has spent his recent years in the United States.] A tragedy lurked at the bottom of Russian life, a discord fraught with dangers for the future of the nation. All through Russian history the "plain people" never understood the man of education and culture, and he hardly ever succeeded in fathoming the "dark" sea of the masses. Both lived side by side in the same country ; both bore the suffocating burden of a monstrously overgrown autocracy ; yet through storm and quiet, through lean and prosperous years, they remained dif- ferent camps, almost different races : the bdrin and the nardd, the "gentleman" and the "black people." It was due to the cunning precautions and scrupulous watchfulness of a "scientific" bureaucracy that no coalition be- tween the intelligentsia and the people was possible through iprom the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. LXXXIV, July, 1919. Reprinted by permission. 2 72 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS generations. It was a consistent policy in Czar-ridden Russia to keep the peasants and workingmen away from education and to keep the man of knowledge away from the masses of the people. Neither side was to blame, yet here they were, sepa- rated by insurmountable barriers of ideas, conceptions, modes of living, fundamental experiences of existence. It was the intelligentsia who made supreme efforts to ap- proach the people or at least to imbue them with progressive ideas. It was a group of thinkers and dreamers, army officers and civilians, who on December 14, 1825, started an open army revolt in the streets of St. Petersburg in the expectation of finding support among the people. It was a host of intellectuals, young men and women of the well-to-do class, who early in the 70's of the nineteenth century undertook a crusade "into the heart of the people," ready to sacrifice all privileges of birth and education, to live with the plain man and to share with him their ideas. It was again a well-organized circle of in- tellectuals who late in the 70's and early in the 8o's startled Russia with terroristic attempts on high Russian dignitaries, including the Czar, in a vain hope thus to remove autocratic pressure from the shoulders of the people. When a revival of revolutionary activities began in the 90's followed by the first signs of a broad mass movement, we find the intelligentsia everywhere — in the factories, in the shops, in the villages, in schools — organizing, educating, enlightening, paving the way for a conscious, systematic revolution of the people. When the long-coveted mass movement at last convulsed the huge body of Russia in the abortive revolution of 1905-1906, it became evident that the intelligentsia had no power to control the Russian masses. The peasants in the villages burned and looted the landlords' estates, contrary to all advices and appeals of the thinking radical leaders. The workingmen in the cities started the colossal strikes of 1905, with the crowning unprece- dented general strike of October, which was contrary to the expectations and beyond the regulating influence of the in- tellectuals, who formed the various socialist factions. The sea of the people was too vast and the moments of contact with the intellectual elements far too few and brief to allow for a UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 273 broad, sympathetic cooperation between the narod and the radical man of learning. The revolution of 1905-1906 had no leaders. In Petrograd, a soviet to conduct the affairs of the revolution was created by the imperative need for leadership recognized by the masses. However, it was of brief duration and died with the death of the revolution. The period following 1 905-1 906 demonstrated the basic difference in the attitude of the intelligentsia and the people toward the revolution. The masses needed revolutionary changes to remedy elemental economic evils ; the intelligentsia expected the revolution to create political freedom. The masses could endure no longer the archaic land system and arbitrary power of autocracy ; the intelligentsia could live and prosper, both materially and spiritually, even under autocratic pressure. The intelligentsia could easily adapt itself to the semiparliamentary system, that crude European varnish on the surface of a blunt, unwavering tyranny which prevailed in Russia with the estab- lishment of the Imperial Duma. The process of adaptation on the part of the intelligentsia to the seemingly inevitable order of things was in reality very rapid. Even before the last shot of the "punitive expeditions" reechoed in the Russian villages, the intelligentsia was already disappointed in revolutionary ideas. Even at a time when dozens of fighters for freedom were hanged daily before dawn, the majority of the former intellectual revolutionists were turning to new gods. The in- telligentsia had failed to stand by the revolution to the very end. It had failed to assume leadership in the great mass upn heaval. Now it was reappraising all social and spiritual values. At this time certain characteristics of the Russian intelligentsia appeared in sharp relief. Highly idealistic, but inclined towards doctrinairism ; readily inflamed, yet easily disillusioned ; full of self-sacrificing aspirations, yet lacking in vigor and endurance ; hating autocracy, yet ready to "settle down" for practical work under an autocratic regime; loving "the people" with an abstract love, yet principally interested in the intelligentsia group ; believing in the people, yet convinced beyond any doubt that the intelligentsia was destined to lead. And the greatest of these is the last because one of the reasons for 2 74 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS intellectual hatred of autocracy was that the intelligentsia was barred from leading the nation. Both the spiritual and the material aspect of the intelli- gentsia underwent a marked transformation after the abortive revolution. Spiritually, the intelligentsia, tired of self-denial, of self-sacrifice, of an excessive interest in political formulas, turns towards mysticism and theosophy, becomes absorbed in the problems of sex, gropes for an assertion of man's inner self away from the clatter of political events. ]\Iaterially, the in- telligentsia becomes hungry for external comfort and success in life. Gone are the days when it was deemed unworthy of a "decent man" to lead a ''bourgeois" existence. Almost legend- ary appear the times when men refused to finish their univer- sity studies, eager to work in a dark village under the zemstvo auspices for a miserable salary, or in a revolutionary organiza- tion with the prospect of imprisonm-ent and exile. Men became more "practical" after the strain of 1905-1906. This coincided with new opportunities offered by the indus- trial development in the twentieth century. Russia was rapidly introducing modern capitalism. New banks needed clerks, ac- countants, branch representatives ; new factories needed engi- neers and other specialists ; new stock companies needed hosts of intellectual workers. A large part of the intelligentsia, for- merly leading an ephemeral existence, became absorbed in com- mercial and industrial establishments, became a live factor in the new economic order. This in itself had a "sobering" effect on many. The idea of a revolution gave way to the hope for peaceful evolution. Quite different seems to have been the spiritual and material aspects down below, among the huge strata of the plain people. There was little comfort for the poor peasant in the fact that measures tending to his annihilation bore the stamp of approval of the Imperial Duma. It was slight relief to the workingman to know that ministers guilty of shooting down hundreds of strikers received a vote of confidence in the Tauric Palace. The agrarian situation became even more ruinous for the needy peasants after Stolypin's agrarian reforms of November 9, 1906. The workingman in the cities were practically outlawed UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 275 by an unscrupulous bureaucracy wreaking vengeance upon its recent enemies. There was no calm, no peace, no feeling of security, no prospect of a settled existence for the masses. At the same time people were hungrily learning. The revolution had shattered the stronghold of censorship. Hundreds of periodicals were circulated in town and village. Books found their way to the remotest hamlets. The younger generation was going to schools, which were opened everywhere. Many a zemstvo introduced even compulsory education for all children of school age. Political and social ideas were steadily pouring into the minds of the people, putting fire to the fuel of dis- content. The Imperial Duma, powerless and humble as it was in the face of autocracy, had to tolerate a left wing that used the high tribunal for nation-wide propaganda. Thus, while the intelligentsia was accepting the situation as final in its main outlines ; while few believed in a near revolution, and fewer were ready to become instrumental in revolutionary move- ments ; while the revolutionary organizations were steadily losing their intellectual members and only the most stubbornly optimistic remained faithful to the old banners, the masses of the people were accumulating the fury of hatred, the lava of repressed energy, the poison of corrosive disgust, which only wait for an opportunity to burst forth. The general political strikes of 1913 and 19 14 in the capital and in other industrial centers came as a surprise to intellectual Russia. The gulf between the man of culture and the plain people was deeper than ever. The war did not bridge the gulf. The intelligentsia saw in the world conflict a struggle for democratic principles ; the masses saw in it a sacrifice in blood and treasure for things they did not understand. The intelligentsia had a vision of a strong, powerful nation emerging from a victorious peace ; the masses had the immediate experience of millions dead and wounded, of millions of households losing their best working force. The intelligentsia rallied to the support of the existing government in the conduct of the war, convinced that to win the war was of infinitely more importance than to change the form of government ; the masses, even those plain men who 276 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS were able to think, were unable to understand the possibility of cooperation between progressive forces and the government of the Czar. The government in its turn exerted every effort to manifest the futility of such cooperation. Inefficiency, vicious recklessness, coupled with an increase of oppression, marked the conduct of the war by the old regime administration. The revolution of March, 191 7, came not as a result of con- scious efforts on the part of the thinking elements but as a spontaneous outburst of despair on the part of the masses. Before INIarch, 1917, the intelligentsia did not expect and did not wish a revolution. What it demanded with full vigor was a cabinet appointed by the Czar from the majority of the Im- perial Duma. When the masses went out into the streets of Petrograd clamoring for bread and peace, they were not led by intelligentsia organizations. When army units, for the first time in Russian history, refused to suppress the riots by force of arms, it came as a result of war-weariness and general dissat- isfaction among the masses and not as a result of systematic propaganda. When councils ( Soviets) of workingmen, soldiers, and peasants were formed in every province and district of Russia to represent the plain man, it was not the execution of a clearly conceived plan but an outburst of spontaneous activity on the part of the narod. From the very first days of the revolution there were two centers of power in Russia, two bodies speaking with authority — the provisional govern- ment supported by the intelligentsia, and the soviet organiza- tion supported by the masses. The chasm between them was never spanned. The thinking of the masses was elementary and concrete. The peasants wanted the land. The provisional government, determined as it was to confiscate the land of the nobility and to introduce a radical agrarian reform, became entangled in theoretical controversies and practical difficulties. INIonths passed without marked progress. The provisional government was well meaning, yet it could not win the confidence of the masses, who were hungry for immediate improvements. The workmen's and sol- diers' Soviets insisted upon a speedy convocation of the Con- stituent Assembly. The provisional government, hampered by UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 277 subtleties of electoral systems, was losing precious time and evoking unwarranted suspicions. The provisional government deemed all internal readjustments and improvements secondary to the main issue of the time — the continuation of military activities at the Front. The Front loomed in the eyes of the intelligentsia as the object of the most generous national sacri- fices and as a duty of the Russian revolution to civilization. Here it entered into a sharp and irremediable conflict with the masses. The intelligentsia failed to see that war-weariness was the very cause of the revolution. It failed to realize that the yearn- ing for peace, both at the Front and in the rear, was over- whelming. It failed to hear the cry of anguish coming from exhausted millions who had never seen the glory of an ideal in the war. It overlooked the cruel fact that, with the industries of the country rapidly collapsing, with transportation deterio- rating, with the entire economic fabric weakening day after day, there was hardly any possibility of maintaining millions at the Front. The intelligentsia remained isolated from the masses. It had no way of meeting the implacable realities of a situation. It had assumed leadership without that closeness to the cur- rents of popular sentiment which guarantees success. It lacked the ability of molding public opinion and wisely directing mass energy into carefully drawn channels. It had not put before the masses a great, luminous ideal, potent to make them forget pain and cheerfully endure privation. The intelligentsia re- mained what it had been for generations : idealistic, impracti- cal, prone to take its own experiences as the measure of life, convinced of its inborn quality to be the leader of man. When that leadership slipped out of the hands of the intelli- gentsia, its consternation was not less acute than had been its joy over the March revolution. The intelligentsia saw the man of the bottom rising, and was appalled. The man was uncouth, blunt, unwieldy. He had no manners, and in his rush to quench his material and spiritual hunger he broke all laws of politeness. He lumbered straight ahead without respect for traditions, for rank, for titles. He had a strong, ironclad idea which he pro- ceeded immediately to put into operation. Worse than that, he 278 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS mocked at the intelligentsia with its doubts and scruples. The intelligentsia saw in him the rising Beast of the Apocalypse. The intelligentsia had loved "the people" ; it had loved its love for the people. \A'hen the people came, with crude energy, with passions, with cruelty and with beauty, the intelligentsia became frightened. It is now sending out clarion calls to the rest of the world to save it from the Black People, even through bloodshed and famine if need be. This is one of the most profound tragedies of the Russian revolution. History avenges itself. Russia is paying for the sins of autocracy. The revolution was deprived of the knowledge and technical skill accumulated within the intelligentsia. The in- telligentsia was deprived of an opportunity for inspiring con- structive work. Can the historic gulf be bridged ? And if so, how soon? On the answers to these questions depends much in the future of free Russia. THE FAR-EASTERN PROBLEM ^ J. O. P. Bland [J. 0. P. Bland (1863- ) is an English journalist and author who has spent most of his life in the Far East. He has been con- nected with the Chinese Customs Service, been the London Times correspondent at Shanghai, and was in Peking from 1907 to 1910. He has also traveled extensively in Japan since 1887, and during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 he assisted the Japanese secret service in China. His wife is an American. The present article, from which some paragraphs of temporary interest have been omitted, furnishes an interpretation of Japanese aims in the Far East, which, while not entirely unchallenged, is helpful in forming American opinion on this vexing question.] Japanese statecraft, whether displayed in Manchuria, in Magdalena Bay, or in the Marshall Islands, points to a per- fectly consistent and legitimate policy, which has only to be rightly appreciated in order to remove all immediate prospect 1 Reprinted with the permission of the Century Magazine. Copy- righted, January, 1916. UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 279 of serious friction between Nippon and Anglo-Saxon peoples. The Japanese, who would not hesitate for a moment to exclude from their country Chinese or other cheap labor, are fully alive to the economic necessity which has compelled America, Canada, and Australia to frame their Asiatic exclusion acts. Beyond all question they recognize the legitimate protective purpose of these acts ; what they object to, and very properly, is the implied assumption of the racial and moral superiority of the white races. They are well aware that the objection to Chinese laborers in the Pacific States and to Japanese children in the Californian schools is just as directly due to economic causes as the anti-Semitic movement in Russia. They know that the Asiatic is excluded not because he would contaminate but simply because he would devour the white man in open- labor competition. England, which professes to believe in free trade and unrestricted immigration, can hardly meet the Japanese on this question in the spirit of " frank and full con- sultation" for which the text of the alliance provides. Frank- ness must stultify either the British government or the acts of the dominions overseas. Similarly, with its IMonroe Doctrine for America and its open door for Asia, with its professed belief in the right of every human being freely to change his na- tionality and domicile, the United States is not in a position to discuss the exclusion acts with Japanese statesmen on its accustomed lofty ground of political morality. The Anglo- Saxon's ultimate argument, conceal it as we may, lies in the stern law of self-preservation, backed by force. Now if there is one fact which stands out more prominently than any other in the history of the last ten years, — that is, since the conclusion of the Treaty of Portsmouth, — it is that Japanese statesmen are prepared to recognize and accept these self-protective activities of the Anglo-Saxon races, provided only that Japan also is allowed to follow her own national instincts of self-preservation on the lines of geographical gravi- tation dictated by her economic necessities ; that is to say, by expansion into China's thinly peopled dependencies of Man- churia and Mongolia. Even a cursory study of the recent history of the Far East points clearly to this conclusion. Japan 2 8o VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS is not prepared to accept the Monroe Doctrine and the Asiatic exclusion acts and, at the same time, to acquiesce in the tradi- tional policy of the commercial powers, which insists on main- tenance of the status quo in China. It is true that by the terms of the Portsmouth Treaty and other conventions Japan pledged herself to abstain from any encroachments on the territorial integrity and sovereignty of China ; but her diplomacy, trained in the best European tradi- tions, is unsurpassed in the gentle art of treaty-making and treaty-breaking. It has learned to a nicety the time and place for "extra- textual interpretations" and the conclusive value of the jait accompli. As far as China is concerned, the protective clauses of the Portsmouth Treaty, greeted with intense satis- faction in America, w^ere never likely to be effective in Man- churia even had Russia and Japan remained on guard against each other in their respective spheres. Those who hoped and believed that China, in accordance with that treaty, would be allowed to develop the resources of this fertile region without interference and for her own benefit knew little of the imper- ativ-e necessity which had compelled Japan to fight Russia for Port Arthur. The same necessity led her, immediately after the conclusion of the Portsmouth Treaty, to come to terms with Russia for a division of the spoil under conditions which vir- tually insured the benevolent acquiescence of England and France. Upon the conclusion of this pact of spoliation, diplo- matically known as an entente, the Portsmouth Treaty became a dead letter ; it had never been more than a time-and-face- saving device. The results were many and important. Not only was China not permitted to develop her commerce in Manchuria by the extension of her northern railways, not only did Russia and Japan separately and jointly veto the construction by English and American capitalists of the Chinchou-Aigun trunk line ; but they went much further, asserting and extending their special rights and interests over China's loosely held depend- ency of Mongolia, forbidding its colonization by Chinese subjects, and establishing their usual trading and mining monopolies. By the end of 19 lo China's sovereignty throughout UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 281 all the region north of the Great Wall was evidently doomed. Mr. Secretary Knox, under the direction of American financiers, made spasmodic but futile attempts to prevent the inevitable by his scheme for the neutralization of Manchurian railways, by forlorn excursions into dollar diplomacy, and by earnest appeals to the open-door pledges of all concerned ; their only result was to draw Russia and Japan more closely together in the bonds of a most profitable pact. In 19 10 Korea, whose independence had been solemnly guaranteed by Japan and by all the powers, was "persuaded" to sign away the remnants of her sovereignty and become an integral part of the Japanese Empire. The scraps of paper, which were consigned to oblivion by the European and American chancelleries at this passing of the Hermit Kingdom, had ceased to represent either actualities or vital interests. This being so, the forces of geographical gravitation met with no resistance, and the disappearance of an economically unprofitable nation evoked only perfunctory valedictory articles in the press. . . . Deeply as we may sympathize with the Chinese, we should not hastily criticize or condemn the expansionist policy of Japan. In considering the causes and possible results of that expansion, certain fundamental truths are often overlooked by writers who approach the Far-Eastern question from a senti- mental point of view. In the first place, it must be borne in mind that the Japanese nation differs radically from the typi- cally passive oriental races of India and China. It is, in the words of John Stuart Mill, an "active, self-helping" people, a people inspired not only by ideals of imperialism but possessed of strong martial instincts. When in India or China the pres- sure of population upon food supplies becomes acute, the patient toiling millions accept death with fatalistic resignation. By thousands and tens of thousands, almost uncomplaining, they go to their graves as to beds, accepting plague, pestilence, and famine as part of the inevitable burden of humanity. Only in the southern maritime provinces the more virile inhabitants in China have endeavored to lessen this burden by emigration, by seeking work and wealth overseas ; but individually and col- lectively the race is lacking in the "self-helping" instinct which 282 \^TAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS solves such problems of expansion by warfare and the survival of the fittest. In the second place, it must be remembered that Japan's vital need of wider frontiers, new sources of food supply, and new markets for her industries has been in very great measure forced upon her by the policies and example of the Anglo- Saxon peoples. In self-defense they have learned from us the organization of machine labor in cities ; following our example they have passed swiftly from the condition of an agricultural to that of an industrial nation. With these economic changes came the modern science of sanitation, the immediate result being an increase of population far greater than that which had taken place when the country lived by and for agriculture. In 1875, before industrialism had set in, the population of Japan's 150,000 square miles was thirty-four millions ; last year it was fifty-four millions, and the average annual excess of births over deaths is roughly seven hundred thousand. The Elder States- men of Japan anticipated long ago, as all their unswerving policy has proved, the consequences to their country of the ever-increasing fierceness of industrial competition. They real- ized that, as the number of countries that depend for their very existence upon the exchange of manufactured goods for food- stuffs and raw materials increases, and as the countries with surplus food supplies become fewer and fewer, Japan must face the alternative either of emigration on a large scale or of finding in territorial expansion new sources of supply and an outlet for her surplus population. The Anglo-Saxon peoples, by their Asiatic exclusion acts, have shut the door on emigration to those parts of the world where Japanese labor might have reaped a rich harvest. Small wonder, then, that the eyes of Japan's wise rulers became fixed upon Korea and the fertile, unpeopled regions of jManchuria and Mongolia, that the pos- session of these lands became the be-all and end-all of Japanese policy, the goal toward which all the hopes and energies of the nation have been unswervingly directed. "Eastern Asia," said Count Komura in the Diet three years ago, ''is the only safe field for Japanese emigration." Like Prince Ito and other UNDERSTANDING OTHER NATIONS 283 makers of modern Japan, Count Okuma has never had any illusions on this subject. If at times the Japanese have seemed to be desirous of testing the resistant strength of the Monroe Doctrine in California and in IMexico ; if they have displayed activity in Vancouver and Honolulu and cast their eyes toward island outposts in the southern seas, these have been political side issues, deliberately planned and pursued in order to create opportunities for application of the principle of do ut des. Long before the Russian invasion had been swept back from the shores of the Yellow Sea, w^hile still the Japanese people were working patiently and with undivided patriotism to master the mechanical and military sciences of the Western world, the whole nation knew that its destinies depended upon the struggle for Korea and the Manchurian hinterland. Eastern Asia could not become a safe field for Japanese immigration so long as Russia remained undefeated and in possession of Port Arthur, but it was always the only possible field in sight. Every page of Japanese history since the Treaty of Shimonoseki reveals the conscious purpose of the nation's rulers to make that field both safe and fruitful at the earliest possible moment. Their policy of expansion, unlike that of Russia, has been from first to last dictated by recognition of the supreme law of self- preservation. We may deplore the fact that Japanese emigra- tion to eastern Asia can be carried out only by inflicting grave injustice and suffering upon millions of defenseless Chinese. We may assume that debarred from colonizing Mongolia, gradually reduced in Manchuria to the position of a subject race, prevented from developing the resources of their country for their own profit by the vested rights and monopolies of the predominant power, the Chinese must find the struggle for life greatly intensified. Nevertheless the Anglo-Saxon, whose whole history has been one of expansion in anticipation of the actual and future needs of the race, can assume no moral grounds for criticizing or condemning the policy of the Japanese. The law of self-preservation, as applied between nations, recognizes no scope for altruism ; red men, and yellow and brown, being unfit to survive in the struggle for places in the sun, have been 284 VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS eliminated by the European. To oppose Japan's actions and intentions on grounds of self-interest, as by treaties and con- ventions has been done in the past, may be justifiable, but to oppose them on high moral grounds is hypocritical and futile. British interests in this Far-Eastern question are partly com- mercial, partly political ; Japan's are national and vital. APPENDIX QUESTIONS FOR CLASS USE [Questions followed by dates are actual questions of the College Entrance Examination Board for the year mentioned.] GENERAL QUESTIONS FOR USE WITH EACH SELECTION What is the central thought of the selection ? Give a short outline of the main ideas. Summarize the selection in a paragraph. What Daragraphs begin with topic sentences ? What types of sentences are used ? Compare the diction of the selection with that of other selec- tions better and worse. What other selections discuss related ideas ? To what extent is the effectiveness of the selection due to w-ell- chosen illustrations ? How are the ideas made concrete ? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION WITH THE SELECTIONS L The Meaning of America Eliot, page i: Write for a foreign-language newspaper an article entitled "What makes a Good American" (1920). Root, page 5.- What amendments to the Constitution have been added in recent years ? Prove by the history of one of these that Americans move slowly to change legislation. Show from some laws recently passed by your city or state that we adapt or change laws to meet the changing times. Hughes, page 7: Name some living Americans who exemplify the writer's ideal. Compare the essay with G. W. Curtis's "The Leadership of Educated Men." The duties and privileges of citizen- ship in the United States (1Q20). Roosevelt, page 14: What did Roosevelt do while president to free the government from control by moneyed interests ? Does his idea of securing "equality of opportunity" agree with anything in the first essay by Eliot ? What regulations concerning hours of labor are now in force in your city or state ? Wood, page 26: Did Roosevelt have the "right attitude for the American citizen"? Explain. Memorize his last public message. ii VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS II. National Resources and Activities Turner, page 34: Name the various Old World peoples who now inhabit large areas in the United States. Royce, page 45: Characterize the principal physical features of your state. Show how these have influenced the character of the citizens. Discuss: The best section of the United States (1917). La7ie, page 48: Explain the changes in modern life that have been brought about by some important invention (1920). Choose a fitting occasion and audience and write a speech on "Why I am proud to be an American" (1919). Clark, page 54: Describe the governmental agencies that deal with conservation, naming the officials in charge. Roosevelt, page 62: In what products of the soil do we lead the countries of the world, and to what nations do we export them ? Houston, page 65: W'hat advantages would come to the country if some of the population of congested cities were willing to become farmers ? What advantages in character come to a farm owner ? Roberts, page 6g: W^hat is the present situation about canceling our loans to the European Allies ? Discuss the present tariff in its relation to our commercial relations with European countries. Paine, page 76: What is the Shipping Board, and is it still in existence ? Where do American ships go today ? Dunn, page 84: Write out a brief for an argument on government ownership of railroads, using material in the selections. How are the railroads managed today? How far government-controlled? III. Some Problems of Readjustment Hoover, page gj: The place of the general public in labor dis- putes (1920). Fisher, page Q5: Give some examples from your own reading or experience of industries that have been '"humanized." Which in- stincts appear most neglected in industry today ? Are there any well-known exceptions to this neglect ? Parker, page 103: Give some examples from your own community of industries that show mechanization or specialization. Compers, page no: What strikes have recently occurred, what did the workmen demand, and how were the strikes finally settled ? Rockefeller, page 114: Apply the idea of personal contact to the ideas of the other writers on capital and labor in this section. Kahn, page 119: W^ould all agree with the writer about the reward due to men exercising the "directive faculty"? Bourne, page 131: What is our real American culture? Weyl, page 134: Explain the present rules regarding limitation of immigration. Suggest ways to Americanize immigrants who are not APPENDIX iii yet citizens. Explain the work of Americanization in your com- munity. The problem of the immigrant in my town (1920). IV. Education.'vl Aims and Valves Eliot, page 150: Describe the various forms of cooperative effort in your community. Discuss the influence of the war on men who have come back as you have personally seen these effects {1920). Write to a London newspaper explaining what in your opinion has been the most important effect of the war upon America (1919). Vincent, page 155: Which vocation serves the community most? Which least ? Do athletics serve the social ideal of education ? Crocker on, page 163: Tell your experience at the hardest phys- ical work you ever performed. What is the value of manual-training courses to students preparing for professions? Which writer — Eliot, Vincent, Crocheron — emphasizes the chief need of your community ? Tajt, page i6j: The opportunity of women in politics (1921). The part that women played in the war (1918). V. The Essentials of World Peace Root, page 176: Give the constitutional provisions that prevent secret treaties in the United States. Give recent illustrations to show the unwillingness of democracies to incur large military ex- penses in time of peace. Democracy in the European War (1917). Lodge, page 180: The question of "preparedness" (1916). Wilson, page 183: How has each of the Fourteen Points fared since 1917? What advantages, if any, would the United States gain from the adoption of them ? Plan a settlement of European bound- aries and affairs in accordance with the Fourteen Points. Colby, page 186: What are some of the chief principles of "inter- national justice" ? Coolidge, page i8g: Let the class act as a peace conference which is to arrange the boundaries of Turkey on the principle of nationality. Let someone plead the case of each nationality and the class decide the final arrangement. VI. The League of Nations Smuts, page iQS- What have been the success and work of the League of Nations since 1918? Wilso7i, page igg: The United States and world peace (1921). Reservations, page 204: Explain, as to citizens just naturalized, the attitude of the United States to European politics. The League of Nations as an aid to permanent peace (1919). Article X, page zog: Express your opinion on Article X, and fmd analogies in school and community life. iv VITAL FORCES IN CURRENT EVENTS VII. Latin America and the Philippines Wilson, page 221: How can Americans visiting Latin America pro- mote good feeling ? The relations of the United States and Mexico (iQi?)- Wilsofi, page 22q: Do these same tests apply to school organiza- tions which wish greater freedom from faculty control ? What do we owe to England? (1918). Why and how should students share in the government of your school? (19 16). Brent, page 2jy: What is the value of literary societies for train- ing in self-government? Are small nations safer today than in 1914? A new conception of colonial administration. (1919.) VIII. Understanding Other Nations Ferrer 0, page 245: Do changes in buildings in your community indicate an improvement in architecture ? Describe the industrial development of Germany, Russia, and Italy since 1870. Galsworthy, page 250: Do the Tom Brown stories agree with the writer's characterization of life in the English public schools ? Did the British in the World War show the qualities here ascribed to them? Murray, page 253: Is a community benefited by the presence of a few persons above the rest in education and wealth ? Does your school or club have a standard such as that of "gentleman"? What qualities must its members possess ? Barres, page 256: How would an American lieutenant have written ? Is the letter sincere ? Where does the American stand in relation to the French and English as to displaying emotion? Boutroux, page 258: Compare this ideal with Wilson's test for self-government. How far should the state go in imposing rules on the citizen : such as compulsory education, compulsory voting, com- pulsory labor ? At what point is liberty violated ? Wallace, page 262: Does modern Italy emphasize, to use the terms of Ferrero, quantity or quality? What were Italy's services to the Allies? Olgin, page 271: What produced the unfitness of the Bolshevists for leadership in 191 7? Apply the article to the wisdom of select- ing all officers of school organizations from one class. Bland, page 278: Characterize the Japanese as a nation. Trace parallels and contrasts in methods of expansion by Germany, Eng- land, America, and Japan. Debate : Resolved, "Japan should be allowed to administer China," and "Japan should be allowed to expand into Siberia." 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