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 SOCIAL REFORM 
 
 THE CHURCH 
 
 BY 
 JOHN R. COMMONS 
 
 Professor of Economics and Social Science, Indiana University 
 
 Secretary of the American Institute of 
 
 Christian Sociology 
 
 with 
 AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 PROF. RICHARD T. ELY 
 
 NEW YORK: 46 East i4Th Street 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON : 100 Purchase Street
 
 Copyright, 1854, 
 
 BY 
 
 Thomas Y. Crowell & Comi'Any. 
 
 Tyi'esettikg and Electrotyping by 
 C. J. Petebs k SON, Boston. 
 
 Peess-work by S. J. Fabkhill i Co.
 
 1 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Introduction, bv Prof. Richard T. Ely ... v 
 
 Preface, by the Authoii ix 
 
 The Christian Minister and Sociology . . 3 
 
 The Church and the Problem of Poverty . 29 
 
 The Educated Man in Politics 51 
 
 The Church and Political Reforms .... 71 
 
 Temperance Reform 99 
 
 Municipal Monopolies 123 
 
 Proportional Representation 155 
 
 i 
 
 4091 59
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It is but a few months since Professor 
 Commons gave us an important contribution 
 to economic theory in his " Distribution of 
 Wealth," a work which, in my opinion, is 
 destined to exercise a decided influence upon 
 the development of economic thought. The 
 present work fitly supplements the earlier vol- 
 ume in several directions. It is more popu- 
 lar in character, and is calculated to exercise 
 a more immediate influence upon practical 
 affairs. 
 
 The character of the topics discussed in 
 this volume is significant, because political re- 
 forms, as well as social reforms, are urged 
 from an economic standpoint. Adam Smith 
 said long ago, if a rod is bent too much in 
 one direction, to make it straight we must
 
 VI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 bend it as much in the other; and this say- 
 ing illustrates the attitude of social reformers 
 towards politics. Earlier in the century there 
 was a tendency to give undue importance to 
 mere political reforms. The Chartists in Eng- 
 land directed their attention to political re- 
 forms, and many of them seemed to think 
 that these alone would improve the condi- 
 tion of the masses. The Christian Socialism 
 of Maurice, Kingsley, and others in the middle 
 of the century was, to some extent at least, 
 a protest against the exaggeration of political 
 measures. 
 
 Since that day, the interest in politics on 
 the part of the advocates of economic reforms 
 Vy has greatly diminished, \because it has been 
 '^ perceived that politics is concerned with the 
 outward form and not directly with the sub- 
 stance of things. The interesting questions 
 of the day, so far as they have taken hold of 
 the masses of mankind, have been socio-eco- 
 nomic questions, not political questions. The 
 rod has been bent too much, perhaps, in the 
 other direction ; and now we may hope that
 
 INTRODUCTION. Vll 
 
 it is becoming straight, since a comprehensive 
 treatment of the social problems of the day- 
 shows that \ve require ^improvement in politi- 
 cal conditions, in order to supply us with a 
 better political machinery for carrying out vari- 
 ous purposes with respect to the amelioration 
 of social conditions. 
 
 Civil service reform is an administrative 
 measure which has popular economic bearings 
 not sufficiently considered heretofore, because 
 the larger aspects of civil service reform have 
 been neglected by those who have been most 
 prominent as its advocates. But we begin 
 to hear much of direct legislation by the 
 people as seen in the use of two Swiss insti- 
 tutions, the Initiative and the Referendum. 
 Still another political measure with impor- 
 tant economic bearings is proportional repre- 
 sentation, which is so excellently treated by 
 Professor Commons. 
 
 Next in importance to the direct instruction 
 and information conveyed by these essays, is 
 the significance which they have on account 
 of the fact, already mentioned, that they unite
 
 Vlll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 political and economic reforms, looking at the 
 former from tlic standpoint of the latter. 
 
 It gives me much pleasure to welcome this 
 work and to commend it. Opinions may dif- 
 fer in regard to the views presented in this 
 work, as well as in Professor Commons's " Dis- 
 tribution of Wealth;" but there can be no 
 doubt that they both afford an excellent stim- 
 ulus to popular thought, and that they are 
 calculated to awaken men to the true impor- 
 tance of popular questions of the day, and to 
 help get us out of the ruts into which we 
 are so likely to fall. It is a time when we 
 need vigorous thinking, clear thinking, and 
 a right spirit ; and all these are found in the 
 works of Professor Commons. 
 
 Richard T. Ely.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The following essays, except the last one, 
 were read originally before audiences dis- 
 tinctively Christian. Some of them appeared 
 subsequently in print. " The Christian Min- 
 ister and Sociology " was published as a leaf- 
 let by the Christian Social Union in the United 
 States. " The Church and the Problem of 
 Poverty " appeared in the Charities Revietu of 
 June, 1893. "The Educated Man in Politics" 
 was published by the Indiana Student, a 
 monthly periodical conducted by the students 
 of Indiana University. The essays on "The 
 Church and Political Reforms," and "Temper- 
 ance Reform," were read before a sectional 
 conference of the Evangelical Alliance at 
 Chicago, and will probably appear in the pub- 
 lished proceedings of that meeting. The 
 ix
 
 X PREFACE. 
 
 paper on "Municipal Monopolies" is printed 
 here for the first time. " Proportional Rep- 
 resentation " was read at the World's Con- 
 gress on Suffrage, and is here presented as 
 supplementary to the essay on " The Church 
 and Political Reforms." 
 
 JOHN R. COMMONS. 
 
 Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind. 
 
 A'oveinber, iSgj.
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTER 
 AND SOCIOLOGY.
 
 SOCIAL REFORM AND THE 
 CHURCH. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTER 
 AND SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 Sociology is properly the science which 
 deals with society as a whole. It co-ordinates 
 all the special social sciences, such as ethics, 
 politics, and religion. It studies society as an 
 organism, and shows how other social sciences 
 investigate simply different phases of that or- 
 ganism. The sociologist studies the individual 
 man, not as a separate particle, but as an organ 
 intimately bound up in the social organism. It 
 is this organic nature of society which alone 
 furnishes the reason for a science w^hich can be 
 called sociology. The fact that I am depend- 
 ent for the clothes I wear, not on the indi-
 
 4 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTER 
 
 vidual of whom I bought them, but on millions 
 of individuals working together throughout 
 our whole nation, with more or less harmony, 
 teaches me that it is this organism, society, 
 which determines my weal or woe. If I can 
 devote myself to literature and science, if I 
 can worship God in the midst of beautiful and 
 inspiring surroundings, it is because society 
 cares for my bodily wants and leaves my mind 
 free for nobler things. Society gives me my 
 opportunities ; I myself am responsible only 
 for the use I make of them. This brings us 
 to the special significance which sociology has 
 for the Christian minister and the Christian 
 believer. Although sociology deals with all 
 phases of society, yet there are practical prob- 
 lems to-day which give it a special application. 
 Society gives us opportunities ; yet there are 
 great classes of society, including millions of 
 individuals, from whom society withdraws every- 
 thing that we deem worthy of even the name 
 of opportunity. This is the problem of sociol- 
 ogy with which the Christian has most to do : 
 What are the relations of society as a whole
 
 AND SOCIOLOGY. 5 
 
 to the unprivileged classes ? What is there 
 in the social organism that produces these 
 classes ? Can anything be done to give them 
 opportunities for a higher life ? Can they be 
 educated to make good use of improved oppor- 
 tunities ? Whose duty is it to give them these 
 opportunities and to teach them how to use 
 them ? 
 
 In order to put this matter clearly I will pre- 
 sent four propositions which lead logically up 
 to the special purpose of this paper. 
 
 First — TJiere is a social problem. In the 
 last analysis it is none other than the distribu- 
 tion of wealth. 
 
 This is the social side of all our social prob- 
 lems. Our social classes are based on private 
 property and education. But property holds 
 the key. The educated classes themselves are 
 dependent for their livelihood upon those who 
 control the property. As for the classes who 
 depend wholly on their daily wages, access to 
 land and capital is their only means of life. 
 They must find an employer. The man with-
 
 6 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTER 
 
 out an employer is a vagabond and an outlaw. 
 What are the results of this condition ? On 
 the one hand is great wealth, bringing great 
 luxury and extravagance, great haughtiness and 
 little thought for the trials and privations of 
 the unpropertied. On the other is insecurity 
 of employment and a servile dependence en- 
 forced by the whip of hunger, more inexora- 
 ble than all tyrants. The moral effects of this 
 condition are just what we should expect. Pau- 
 perism has become a subject worthy of scien- 
 tific study. Crime has increased. Intemper- 
 ance has become frightful, because life is a 
 dreary burden of work, with no future of relief, 
 and food is poor in quantity and quality. The 
 home is being disrupted, because the working 
 people are crowded into open tenements and 
 the family cannot meet its daily wants without 
 the help of wife and children. And these evils 
 do not tend to right themselves. We cannot 
 placidly rely on any abstraction of natural 
 selection to wipe out crime and intemperance 
 and to preserve the family. Rather do these 
 evils multiply. Evolution is not always devel-
 
 AND SOCIOLOGY. 7 
 
 opment upwards. A new race of men is being 
 created with inherited traits of physical and 
 moral degeneracy, suited to the new environ- 
 ment of the tenement house, the saloon, and 
 the jail, I know there are well-to-do persons 
 who decry such statements as these, who pre- 
 fer to write and read books on the progress of 
 the working classes, who say that the world is 
 growing better. It is true that a part of the 
 world is growing better, that many workingmcn 
 are in better circumstances than were their 
 fathers ; but these are the skilled and well- 
 organized workingmcn. The great mass of 
 workmen, when we consider all their circum- 
 stances, are no better off than they were thirty 
 years ago, and many are worse off. But, after 
 all, men do not compare themselves with their 
 ancestors, but with their contemporaries. You 
 cannot appease a restless workman by telling 
 him how much better off he is than was his 
 simian progenitor. What he feels is his depend- 
 ence on his fellow-man, who is growing richer 
 every day upon the fruits of his own poorly- 
 paid toil. This, then, is the first revelation of
 
 8 THE CIIKISTIAiV MINISTER 
 
 sociology — that there is a social problem grow- 
 ing out of the distribution of wealth ; that 
 through the organic nature of society this 
 problem ramifies in all directions, and appears 
 in the tenement house, the saloon, the jail, the 
 poorhouse, and that under the operation of 
 existing forces this problem is daily becoming 
 more intense. 
 
 Second — Christianity is the cause of our 
 social prohlciiis. 
 
 The spirit of Christ, working in an evil world, 
 has, indeed, brought not peace, but a sword. 
 Thus it has always been and always will be. 
 Why should we look upon the conditions I have 
 described as in any way objectionable.-' Why 
 not simply say, " There are profound laws of 
 nature which cannot be changed, which cause 
 these differences. Let us eat, drink, and be 
 merry, because it is none of our business".'' No, 
 we look upon such conditions as a serious prob- 
 lem. But there would be no problem at all, 
 were it not for our ethical and Christian ideals, 
 which abhor injustice and inequality. Before
 
 AND SOCIOLOGY. 9 
 
 the Christian religion had spread through the 
 world, slavery was considered as the natural 
 lot of four-fifths of mankind. This is the rea- 
 son why slavery was no social problem. Slaves 
 themselves accepted their conditions as wholly 
 fitting. But Christ, without attacking directly 
 the institution of slavery, undermined its foun- 
 dations when he taught the brotherhood of 
 man and the moral dignity of every soul before 
 its Heavenly Father. Slavery could not long 
 exist in a world where the religion of Jesus told 
 every man that he was his brother's keeper. 
 When religious equality became accepted as 
 the faith of mankind, there could be no peace 
 until our laws, our constitutions, and our courts 
 recognized political equality. To-day the prob- 
 lem is the same. The man who has a birth- 
 right in heaven equal to that of any other man 
 must not remain on earth the dependant of his 
 brother. The sword of Jesus will not be 
 sheathed until every man has an even chance 
 here below. Economic equality may never be 
 obtained, and, indeed, it would be undesirable, 
 because the needs of all are not alike. Our
 
 lO THE CHRISTIAN MINISTER 
 
 needs depend upon our education, our culture, 
 our ability to make a good use of worldly 
 goods. But equality of opportunity, free scope 
 for development of such gifts as we have, are 
 the logical conclusions of Christianity. To be 
 tied to the earth by the daily necessities of life 
 when others, with no greater needs, are wasting 
 the fruits of our toil, is the essence of inequal- 
 ity and injustice. Workingmen themselves 
 have eagerly accepted this ideal. But right 
 here they bring a serious charge against the 
 Church of Christ. They say the Church begs 
 them to be quiet under their wrongs in this 
 life, with the hope that they will have their 
 reward in the hereafter. No charge is urged 
 more bitterly than this. If it be true, the 
 Church has utterly perverted the teachings of 
 Jesus, and we have the striking anomaly, a 
 source of constant discord, that while Chris- 
 tianity has awakened higher ideals of life 
 among the masses and made them restless, 
 the Church has opposed the realization of 
 those ideals in the life where they most are 
 needed.
 
 AND SOCIOLOGY. II 
 
 Third — // is tJie failures of Christians that 
 perpetuate and intensify social problems. 
 
 I believe that there is but one solution for 
 social problems. It is the bringing of the two 
 extremes of society together, the wiping out of 
 mutual misunderstandings, and the promotion 
 of mutual acquaintance of each other's feelings, 
 wants, and hopes. In other words, it is the 
 introduction of love into social relations. The 
 present division of classes results in exclusive- 
 ness, ignorance of social conditions, and conse- 
 quent hate. Both sides need to know by 
 personal contact the conditions of the other. 
 Both sides are to blame. Wage-workers mis- 
 understand the rich and hate them. The well- 
 to-do misunderstand the workmen and fail to 
 give them sympathy. The fault of this evil 
 condition is in the Christian Church. Chris- 
 tians possess the wealth and intelligence of the 
 country. It is their duty to make the first ad- 
 vances. They are in the world to obey the 
 command of Jesus, "Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
 bor as thyself." This docs not mean to make
 
 12 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTER 
 
 all the money you can by close bargains with 
 your uncquals and by cutting clown employees' 
 wages, and then to use your money to build a 
 college, or subscribe to some philanthropic so- 
 ciety which doles out alms to your neighboring 
 paupers. It means to go yourself, to get ac- 
 quainted with your neighbors, to pick out some 
 hard-worked mechanic, some shiftless pauper, 
 some slave of drink, and love him. Christians 
 have not loved their neighbors. They have 
 hired somebody else to love them. They have 
 left it to the women. Thus they have inten- 
 sified social antagonisms. They have made it 
 impossible to understand the grievances and 
 the wants of workingmen. They do not study 
 these grievances and these wants, because they 
 do not love the unprivileged and neglected 
 classes. 
 
 Fourth — TJic failures of CJiristians are due 
 to t]ie failures of CJiristian preachers. 
 
 The Christian ministers arc the leaders of 
 Christian activities as well as Christian 
 thought. They give direction to these activ-
 
 AND SOCIOLOGY. 1 3 
 
 ities. The success of foreign missions is due 
 to the frequent exhortations of Christian min- 
 isters. Monthly prayer meetings, with reports 
 from the foreign field, and the general stimulus 
 to this line of work, are due to the activity of 
 the Christian pastor. The minister should do 
 the same for social missions. If he should 
 take a hearty interest in social questions, if he 
 should hear the bitter cry of the home heathen, 
 if he should take it upon himself to present 
 their cause, soon the Church would follow in 
 his steps, and no longer could the blame for 
 social ills be laid at the doors of Christians. 
 Christianity is the only solution for social 
 problems, and society is waiting for the Chris- 
 tian minister to lead the way. 
 
 There are two things which the minister 
 must do at present. The first is to show the 
 facts. This is the urgent need of the hour. 
 His congregation must learn that there are 
 ominous social wrongs to be righted. The 
 preacher should be a student of social science. 
 He should study books. A small library, wisely 
 selected for him by some sociologist, and
 
 14 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTER 
 
 costing from thirty to fifty dollars, would be 
 found amply sufficient for beginning his work. 
 But equally as well should he study persons 
 and families. He should find the facts by 
 personal contact. Then he should present 
 facts prayerfully. Let him avoid sensational- 
 ism as he would sin. He will succeed in this 
 if his purpose be truly to benefit those whose 
 cause he presents. 
 
 The second thing for the preacher to do 
 is to show the responsibility of Christians for 
 these conditions. We have got beyond that 
 age of materialism which ascribes social con- 
 ditions to workings of so-called natural laws 
 which man cannot modify. Social conditions 
 are the result of the human will. This human 
 will finds expression in two ways — in the 
 every-day activities of individuals and in legis- 
 lation. These two facts are the causes of 
 social conditions, and they are simply the 
 manifestations of the human will acting indi- 
 vidually or collectively. In our country this 
 means the Christian human will ; for it is the 
 Christians whose wealth and intelligence con-
 
 AND SOCIOLOGY. 1 5 
 
 trol legislation, and whose wealth and intelli- 
 gence in private affairs outweigh all other 
 private influences. You may say that there 
 are also natural conditions which are the causes 
 of social conditions, such as the fact that a 
 man must work for a living, or that great law, 
 which is the corner stone of political economy, 
 the law of diminishing returns. True, there 
 are natural conditions, but natural conditions 
 have become of inferior significance. A cen- 
 tury ago, or among uncivilized tribes, they 
 were all-important. But the machinery and 
 inventions, the aids to production, all that go 
 to make up the wealth of our country, are so 
 abounding that if the American people seri- 
 ously wished it, there would not be an able- 
 bodied pauper or a tramp among us. If we 
 wished it, there would be no involuntary idle- 
 ness, which is the prolific parent of voluntary 
 idleness. 
 
 Now, I believe it is the duty of Christian 
 ministers to convict sinners of their sins. 
 They must first convict them before conver- 
 sion is possi])le. Here is the great sin of
 
 l6 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTER 
 
 Christians — we do not acknowledge that we 
 are our brothers' keepers ; we do not love our 
 neighbors. We pass by on the other side. 
 We are " exclusive." Here, then, is the crucial 
 duty to the minister, a hard task, indeed, but 
 one that Jesus met ; and he has shown us how 
 to meet it. Christians must learn that they, 
 and they alone, are responsible if the ills of 
 society are allowed to continue. And the 
 preacher is the man to tell them so. 
 
 With the conviction of sins comes the cry, 
 " What must I do to be saved .-* " Here the 
 preacher must be the guide. He must show 
 men how to love their neighbors. With this 
 practical application of Christianity is involved 
 the answer to the question, "How much should 
 the work of the preacher be modified in the 
 direction of sociology .'' " He cannot go too far 
 in showing facts or responsibilities. But he 
 can go too far in practical work. These social 
 problems will soon become political problems. 
 The preacher ought not to become a politician. 
 He should do as Jesus did ; work on the hearts 
 of men, give them right purposes, show them
 
 AND SOCIOLOGY. 1 7 
 
 the evils to be overcome and the end to be 
 reached, and leave to them the ways and means 
 for bringing about the needed legislation. But 
 outside of politics there are many practical 
 activities which the preacher should lead, and 
 thereby show his congregation how to be saved. 
 First — and most important of all — he should 
 lead his people in becoming friends to the 
 neglected classes. He should himself become 
 acquainted with two or three such families. 
 He should be acquainted with the police court, 
 the jail, the workhouse, and the almshouse. 
 He should induce every member of his church 
 to take one family or one individual, and to 
 love that family or individual. They should 
 not limit their work to the poor, the criminal, 
 and the idle alone, but to all who are out of the 
 Church, and whose necessities compel them to 
 live a modest life. Where the poor are con- 
 cerned, let the preacher resolutely stand against 
 giving them alms. The neglected classes want 
 not alms, but friends ; and what a vantage 
 ground the friend has over the almsgiver ! 
 He only can get at the hearts of people whose
 
 1 8 THE CHRISTIAN- MINISTER 
 
 lives have been spent in trying to deceive phi- 
 lanthropists. As a friend he should not limit 
 himself to the single work of converting to 
 Christianity. He should learn from social sci- 
 ence that the body must be saved before the 
 soul. He should give help in every way that 
 is needed — help to get employment, help to 
 economize earnings. He should show them 
 how to buy their clothes and food, how to cook, 
 how to read books, how to enjoy themselves, in 
 fine, how to live. If he love them, he will see 
 where is their greatest need. 
 
 The preacher should see to it that every 
 church member becomes a social missionary. 
 It is usually taken for granted when a proposi- 
 tion like the foregoing is made that the men 
 are to furnish the money and the women to do 
 the work. A heresy more pernicious has never 
 rent the Church. What these people need is 
 often simply business qualities, the ability to 
 save money and to apply their labor more 
 effectually and systematically. Where the hus- 
 band is most to blame for the poor condition 
 of his family, no woman visitor can have any
 
 AND SOCIOLOGY. 1 9 
 
 influence. It needs an energetic, prosperous 
 business man with a heart of love to put a 
 backbone into a man and help him along the 
 lines of his own success. Moreover, the rich 
 man needs this personal contact as much as 
 the poor. He can never have proper ideas 
 of philanthropy, can never learn to love his 
 brother until he knows him. And the main 
 object of the mediating power of Christianity 
 will not be attained if the well-to-do members 
 of the churches are not brought into contact 
 with the opposite extreme of society. Here, 
 then, is a perennial subject for the preacher to 
 bring before his congregation : their responsi- 
 bility for the neglected classes, and methods of 
 meeting that responsibility. 
 
 Second — I do not think it too much for the 
 minister to devote one-half of his pulpit work 
 to sociology. By this I mean not merely the 
 line of exhortation and practical methods just 
 indicated, but also sociology in its broadest 
 sense, as a science, showing the fundamental 
 relations and principles of society. Sociology 
 has rightly been said to be one half of religion ;
 
 20 THE CHRISTIAN' MINISTER 
 
 theology is the other half. Each deals prima- 
 rily with the individual man, but with the indi- 
 vidual in certain relations. Theology considers 
 man in his relations to God ; sociology in his 
 relations to his fellow-men. If, then, ministers 
 instruct their hearers about the nature of God, 
 should they not instruct them equally about the 
 nature of society } If their exhortations be 
 directed towards love for God, should not equal 
 attention be given to love to man ? If they 
 show them how to love God, should they not 
 show them how to love man .-* The Bible gives 
 abundant precedents for this kind of preaching. 
 What a wealth of social philosophy you can get 
 from that book ! What a never-failing source 
 of inspiring sermons can be found in Christ's 
 social and economic teachings ! 
 
 It is true that ministers do devote a very 
 great part of their work to enforcing the duty 
 of love towards our fellow-men. But this is 
 not enough. There is a good love and a bad 
 love. The greater part of the history of Church 
 charities is simply a history of pauperization. 
 People need not only the heart of love, but also
 
 AND SOCIOLOGY. 21 
 
 the knowledge wisely to guide their love. This 
 can be derived only from the science of sociol- 
 ogy. The effects of social activities are far- 
 reaching and occult. No off-hand philanthropy 
 can excuse itself with the plea that the heart is 
 right, therefore God will care for the results. 
 Such a philosophy makes simply fanatics. Here 
 social science can come to our aid. The great 
 object of sociology is to teach us how to love 
 our neighbors. As a science, it is already de- 
 veloped so far that its precepts may be taken 
 as a safe guide. The preacher who has at hand 
 the investigations of its leaders would find that 
 one-half his time is not enough to reveal the 
 wealth of sound practical love to man which they 
 contain. I have sometimes thought that no 
 better use could be made of the Sunday evening 
 service than to devote it to a course of sermons 
 on sociology. Let the minister clothe in Chris- 
 tian eloquence the results of science. He 
 should begin with the organic nature of society, 
 showing that it is based properly on Christian 
 ethics ; then the nature and functions of the 
 State as a mighty force in furthering God's
 
 22 THE CHRISTIAN MIXISTER 
 
 kingdom and establishing righteous relations 
 among men ; then the family and the home 
 as the centre from which radiate all the good 
 and all the evil of our society, where the heri- 
 tage of love or of hate is handed down to future 
 generations along with life itself. From the 
 State and the family, as the two fundamental 
 institutions of society, we advance to the social 
 problems of the day. To all of these Christian 
 ethics should be applied. Marriage and divorce, 
 intemperance, crime, pauperism and poverty, 
 wealth and luxury, are all special phases of the 
 social organism and have their roots deep in 
 the substance of society itself. These can be 
 presented by the minister in a form at once 
 popular and scientific. Throughout all these 
 discourses he should keep in view the main 
 object of Christianity, to bring the extremes of 
 society together in brotherly love. The ablest 
 discussions of sociology will be mere word- 
 making, if they do not tend to this result. But 
 I believe that a community which should have 
 in its midst weekly ministrations of tliis sort 
 for a vcar or more, would be stirred to its foun-
 
 AND SOCIOLOGY. 23 
 
 dations and moved as never before by the love 
 of humanity. 
 
 I long to see the day when the leadership in 
 the social movements of our time will be taken 
 from the lawyer and the newspaper and given 
 to the Christian minister. We cannot expect 
 to have a society based on righteousness so 
 long as our social philosophy is given to us by 
 editors and lawyers. They are put forward to 
 favor special interests. But where is the advo- 
 cate of the masses, of the great brotherhood of 
 man .-' Where is the truly judicial mind, whose 
 purpose it is to bring to pass the kingdom of 
 God on earth .-• The Christian preachers have 
 failed to see their vantage ground, or, seeing 
 it, have failed to take it. They have confined 
 their thoughts to individual righteousness, and 
 have failed to take in the broad field of social 
 righteousness. The people are eager for 
 knowledge on social questions. They need to 
 know what righteousness is, not merely for the 
 individual, but for society. So long has dust 
 been thrown into their eyes by passionate par- 
 tisans, that we may now see them turning in
 
 24 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTER 
 
 disgust and scepticism to their own turbulent 
 impulses. I do not believe the masses of the 
 people are wholly wrong at heart. They have 
 simply lost faith in their would-be leaders and 
 know not where to turn. Here is the oppor- 
 tunity for the preacher of social righteousness 
 — not the man who makes special pleas, but 
 the man who understands the nature of society 
 and believes in God. In the pulpit is where 
 he belongs ; and once a week, more powerfully 
 than editor or lawyer, he can build up about 
 him a community where every man will love 
 and help his neighbor, where happiness will 
 be diffused, and righteousness be easier than 
 sin. 
 
 Third — It is impossible to separate the 
 strictly pulpit work of the minister from his 
 general religious and social work. The pulpit 
 is simply the place for the public expression 
 of his every-day work. The topics which he 
 discusses there grow out of the needs of his 
 congregation and community, as he finds them 
 day by day. The character of his pulpit work 
 depends upon the character of his Church work.
 
 AND SOCIOLOGY. 2$ 
 
 Consequently, it would seem that the Church 
 ought to be organized on such a plan as to give 
 the minister opportunity for social study and 
 social work. By this I mean that the Church 
 ought to take on a popular, week-day character. 
 It should be a centre for amusements, athletics, 
 debating clubs, and reading circles. It should 
 be a people's church in the fullest sense. 
 This idea is becoming a familiar one. In order 
 to carry out successfully a course of sermons 
 on sociology, the preacher needs to stimulate 
 the reading and conversation and co-operation 
 of his parishioners. He needs to bring in out- 
 side elements, workingmen and others, for mu- 
 tual conference. He needs to make his church 
 a recognized centre for social and helpful 
 activities. There should be a church library 
 on social and economic subjects. Prayer 
 meetings should be places for reports from 
 church members as to what they have done for 
 families or individuals whom they are loving. 
 Many other features of Church work will 
 readily be suggested to the preacher who at- 
 tempts to introduce thoughtful sermons on
 
 26 THE CHRISTIAN MINISTER. 
 
 sociology and to inspire his people with the 
 social missionary spirit. 
 
 To sum up this matter of the character of 
 the Church and its life as well as that of the 
 preacher's social and pulpit work — they should 
 all be determined by the great feature of 
 Christianity which I have already emphasized, 
 its mediating power in drawing social classes 
 together. Here is where Christianity strikes 
 at the root of social ills, and there is no other 
 power in the community that can so strike. 
 We must all come around to the simple gospel 
 of Christ, and we must apply this gospel in its 
 right proportions, realizing that religion is love 
 to God, and sociology love to man, and on 
 these two hang all the law and all preaching.
 
 THE CHURCH 
 AND THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY.
 
 THE CHURCH AND THE PROBLEM 
 OF POVERTY. 
 
 The problem of poverty is not an isolated 
 problem. It is a part of all the social ques- 
 tions of to-day — of the questions of labor, of 
 crime, of intemperance. On account of the 
 organic nature of society these problems are 
 laced and interlaced — they act and react on 
 one another. The causes and remedies of 
 poverty can be comprehended only through an 
 understanding of its relations to the whole 
 social organism ; and this involves a thorough 
 acquaintance with human nature, with the laws 
 of psychology and biology. 
 
 It is in this broad aspect that I believe it 
 most profitable to consider this question. And 
 it will be found that the solution of the ques- 
 tion of poverty — if there be a solution — will be 
 also the solution of the questions of labor, the 
 family, city government, crime, intemperance, 
 29
 
 30 THE CHURCH 
 
 Furthermore, the problem of poverty — or 
 any other social problem — to my mind has no 
 significance except as it is a religious problem. 
 Man is made in the image of God, His possi- 
 bilities are divine ; and it is an appalling sight 
 to see the godlike crushed out of such a being 
 by poverty, by crime, by intemperance, by his 
 social and industrial surroundings. When the 
 Christian Church awakes to the daily life in 
 the dark places about her, and understands the 
 essential religious nature of the problems of 
 labor, poverty, monopoly, then may these prob- 
 lems be put in the true way of solution. 
 
 Modern science teaches the unity of human 
 nature. Psychology, physiology, sociology, all 
 the sciences which treat of man, declare that 
 the two elements of which he is composed — 
 body and soul — are not antagonistic but inter- 
 dependent. Yet to-day many of us are holding 
 to that mediaeval doctrine of the eternal opposi- 
 tion between body and soul. It was a doctrine 
 which in its day of ascendency sequestered 
 good men as ascetics and hermits, and left bad 
 men in unhampered control of practical affairs.
 
 AND THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. 3 1 
 
 To-day this doctrine leads the Christian Church 
 to preach salvation only for a future life — 
 salvation for the soul apart from the body. 
 Oppressive and unjust conditions in this life 
 are looked upon as ordained means of grace to 
 discipline the soul and turn its longings towards 
 the hereafter. 
 
 As a result of this doctrine, the Church 
 shrinks from contact with practical life, and 
 has looked complacently on while poverty has 
 increased, crime has leaped forward, intemper- 
 ance has become a giant. I do not say that 
 this is the attitude of the whole Church to-day. 
 But the Church's ignorance of modern science, 
 and her bias toward the old dogma, still appear 
 in the way in which she attacks only the symp- 
 toms and results of social disease, and not the 
 causes. The intemperance question is to be 
 solved simply by abolishing the saloon — re- 
 gardless of the fact that intemperance itself is 
 the result of profound social conditions. Sun- 
 day labor is the only labor problem attacked 
 — and that only in its spectacular and rela- 
 tively harmless occasions — and the irresistible
 
 32 THE CHURCH 
 
 economic necessities of modern civilization 
 which compel Sunday labor are overlooked. 
 Corrupt city government is ascribed, not to its 
 real causes, but to the sinfulness of politicians 
 — whereas the fact is that in city politics all 
 our political and social machinery is so ar- 
 ranged that the best men are, as a rule, barred 
 from success. 
 
 The sciences of man to-day teach us the 
 mutual harmony and afifinity of body and soul. 
 They show how these shape and re-shape each 
 the other. There is no alienation, there is no 
 antagonism between them. The soul is simply 
 the expression and flower of the body. It is 
 that in the body which experiences all the 
 thoughts and emotions, the ideals and aspira- 
 tions. These may be good or bad. They may 
 be emotions and ideals of love or hate, of faith 
 or infidelity, of hope or despair. But, whatever 
 they are, they depend upon the body. Bodily 
 wants are the primal and indispensable wants. 
 With the infant and the child they are the only 
 wants. And how eagerly loving parents attend 
 to the physical wants of the little one, rejoicing
 
 AND THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. 33 
 
 as their reward in the slowly budding signs of 
 affection and aspiration — the beautiful tokens 
 of the unfolding spirit. 
 
 But how shall this soul unfold and develop ? 
 Sociology, based as it is upon the sciences of 
 biology, tells us it is through that univer- 
 sal law of life — adaptation to environment. 
 Adaptation is direct and indirect ; the first is 
 effected through use and disuse of faculties ; 
 the second through heredity. Thus the in- 
 dividual, both in his body and his soul, in the 
 process of generations becomes fitted to his 
 environment. 
 
 Now, it is society that furnishes the environ- 
 ment of the individual. Society determines 
 the conditions under which his physical and 
 spiritual powers shall be permitted to develop. 
 Society creates great social classes, and assigns 
 the individual, even before his birth, and on 
 through infancy, youth, and manhood, to one 
 of these classes. For generations before his 
 birth, and again through the plastic years of 
 childhood, his particular social class is shap- 
 ing and conditioning his physical and mental
 
 34 THE CHURCH 
 
 powers, his appetites, emotions, and ideals. In 
 our day these social classes are based to a large 
 extent on property. It has been possible, here- 
 tofore, for individuals to pass from one social 
 class to another ; but these class lines have be- 
 come more rigid, and the individual, if his lot 
 be in the unpropertied class, is destined, as a 
 rule, to remain there. His economic resources 
 determine, by a resistless pressure, what shall 
 be his social environment. I will indicate 
 briefly some of the main characteristics of this 
 social environment as it has developed in our 
 day, and show its influence upon the individual. 
 The first is that condition of the working 
 classes which can be characterized as none 
 other than wage-slavery. By wage-slavery I 
 mean the dependence of one man upon the 
 arbitrary will of another for the opportunity to 
 earn a living. This is the essential evil in the 
 wide extremes of wealth of to-day. It is the 
 ownership of all the opportunities of labor — 
 the factories, the railways — by single corpora- 
 tions, or corporations acting as one, and their 
 power to discharge workingmen for any reasons
 
 AND THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. 35 
 
 they think fit. This is an imperial power, and 
 may become a tyranny. It can be remedied 
 only by recognizing in man as one of his in- 
 alienable rights, along with life and liberty, the 
 right to employment. We are apt to think that 
 the rights to life and liberty are aboriginal and 
 natural, and we marvel at those who talk of 
 new rights as innovators and disturbers; yet 
 there was a time when our ancestors recog- 
 nized neither the right to life nor to liberty. 
 Among primitive peoples enemies were slaugh- 
 tered as a matter of course, like wild animals. 
 Old and decrepit people, the sick and feeble, 
 the defective infants, were exposed and sacri- 
 ficed simply because they were a burden. It 
 was only through centuries of moral develop- 
 ment that the right to life became a sacred 
 right. 
 
 And so with the right to freedom. When 
 slavery was substituted for slaughter it marked 
 an ethical advance, for it helped men to realize 
 the right to life. Slavery taught habits of in- 
 dustry and made possible the growth of civili- 
 zation ; but in time, when Christianity taught
 
 36 THE CHURCH 
 
 ideas of man's equality and tlie sacredness of 
 the human soul, slavery could no longer exist. 
 Man's moral ideas had advanced too far. Free- 
 dom has now taken its place. But the Chris- 
 tian who believes in the fatherhood of God and 
 the brotherhood of man, and who studies the 
 working classes at first hand, can see that 
 there is still lacking a true and manly freedom. 
 Robert Burns understood the secret when he 
 wrote : — 
 
 " See yonder poor, o'erlabored wight, 
 So abject, mean and vile. 
 Who begs a brother of the earth 
 To give him leave to toil." 
 
 And a friend of mine, an educated man, who 
 has given years of time and strength in the 
 cause of the laborers, has told me that now he 
 understands the problem that Moses faced for 
 a lifetime when he tried to lead a nation of 
 slaves forth to freedom. The workingman of 
 to-day, unless protected by his powerful labor 
 union, is slavish in his instincts. I speak of 
 laborers as a class, for there are noble excep- 
 tions. He is distrustful, jealous, incapable of
 
 AND THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. ^J 
 
 co-operation, treacherous to benefactors and 
 fellow-laborers, and an eye-servant. These 
 pitiful qualities of his soul are but the natural 
 fruit of his unstable, dependent conditions of 
 livelihood. How is Christianity to reach such 
 a man with its noble qualities of truth, love, 
 honor, fidelity, manliness, until it has first 
 created for him those physical conditions of 
 life and true independence out of which such 
 qualities can spring? 
 
 Again, what can we expect to be the soul- 
 life of the millions in our country who cannot 
 find regular honest work to do? The serious- 
 ness of the problem of poverty to-day is not 
 that there are greater numbers of poor, rela- 
 tive to the total population, than ever before, 
 but that greater numbers are constantly on the 
 verge of poverty. The fluctuations of modern 
 industries, the panics and crises and industrial 
 depressions throughout the world, are con- 
 stantly shoving armies of men over the pov- 
 erty line. And even in our best of times there 
 are more men to work than places to work. 
 The problem of the unemployed is a problem 
 
 409159
 
 38 THE CHURCH 
 
 of Christianity. Involuntary idleness and irreg- 
 ular employment are the antichrist of to-day 
 that drives men and women into crime, intem- 
 perance, and shame. 
 
 You may say that the problem of the unem- 
 ployed is the problem of the inefficient. Not 
 wholly true, for there have always been the 
 inefficient ; but lack of employment in our 
 country dates from the close of the civil war 
 and the panic of 1873. Yet suppose your 
 contention be true — does it not prove that 
 the Church has not taken hold of religion in 
 earnest until she has studied the causes and 
 remedies of inefficiency ? 
 
 What, next, can the Church expect the spirit- 
 ual possibilities to be of men who are doomed 
 to long and exhausting hours of labor ; who 
 work seven days in the week, and have no 
 holidays or vacations except those granted by 
 pitiful accidents and sickness ? It is not only 
 absurd, it is cruel, to expect such men to be- 
 come Christians. Yet do we hear the Church 
 or the ministers crying out against tliis worse 
 than chattel slavery } I should have thought
 
 AND THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. 39 
 
 we should have heard the whole Christian 
 Church in America rise in one indignant pro- 
 test when the fact was brought out, in the 
 strike of Buffalo switchmen, that men had been 
 compelled to work in the Buffalo yards for 
 thirty-six consecutive hours. Yet the Church 
 and the ministry as a whole looked on in in- 
 difference, or else rebuked the men for anarchy 
 and for stopping the wheels of commerce. 
 Had the Church done its duty beforehand, and 
 made any effort to know the life of working- 
 men, as Jesus did, there never would have 
 been occasion for a strike, because hours of 
 labor would have been limited to a point con- 
 sistent with Christian manhood. 
 
 Again, there can be no hope for God's king- 
 dom on earth except through the stability and 
 purity of the home. This is the one social 
 institution for which Jesus Christ gave us defi- 
 nite regulations. Yet, to-day, among the poor- 
 est classes, home is a travesty. The mother 
 must work to compensate the father's enforced 
 idleness and low pay, and her children come 
 into the world with feeble bodies, broken
 
 40 THE CHURCH 
 
 nerves, and moral impotence. It has been said 
 that to educate a child you must begin with 
 his great-grandfather. More to the point is 
 it that if you would have a people intelligent, 
 moral, and Christian, you must relieve their 
 mothers and grandmothers from poverty and 
 excessive toil. The home is the place where, 
 most of all, environment tells. Overwork for 
 women and children is the physical basis for 
 crime, intemperance, and vice. The youth, the 
 man, or the woman who has grown up in a 
 home — or the mockery of a home — such as 
 this, can never escape from the prison of his 
 own faltering body. His soul, as long as its 
 physical house endures, is incapable of stead- 
 fast, noble impulses. The appeals of Chris- 
 tianity are incomprehensible to him. And yet 
 who has heard that the Church, in its assem- 
 blies, its pulpit, its press, or its hundreds of 
 committees or sub-organizations, has taken up 
 systematically the cause of the women and the 
 children workers .-* No, her voice has not been 
 heard for reforms that threaten profits. Her 
 appeal has been for men to share their profits
 
 AND THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. 4 1 
 
 with her — to build her magnificent temples 
 and swell her missionary accounts. 
 
 Other features of the modern environment 
 of the working classes might be mentioned. 
 While there are many hopeful features, the 
 majority are depressing. I turn now to one 
 or two specific reforms, which the science of 
 sociology has indicated, and note the reception 
 the church has accorded them. Crime has 
 increased in forty years five times as fast as 
 population. Yet ministers of the gospel know 
 little of that divine science, penology. Our 
 city workhouses to-day contain prisoners who 
 have been committed from fifty to a hundred 
 and fifty times, and very little thoughtful Chris- 
 tian effort is made toward their regeneration. 
 And all this occurs in the same city and within 
 sound of the minister's voice. Yet the minis- 
 ters go their way, week after week, in ignor- 
 ance of these sin-sick souls — in prison, and 
 they visited them not. Now, scientific penol- 
 ogy has already pointed out the way firmly, yet 
 gently, to cure them ; yet how few are the min- 
 isters who know anything about prison reform.
 
 42 THE CHURCH 
 
 The case is similar witli intemperance. It 
 is treated solely as a sin, to be exorcised by 
 repentance and punishment ; but science is 
 showing that it is also a disease, largely the 
 result of industrial conditions — a disease to be 
 treated like insanity. And ministers exclaim 
 against such conclusions, as tending to weaken 
 the springs of duty, and to free men from re- 
 sponsibility ; therefore they strike only at the 
 symptoms of the disease, the saloon, — a crude 
 kind of social therapeutics. Christians, along 
 with others, have made wonderful progress in 
 utilizing the results of physical science, steam, 
 and electricity, but they know little of the 
 results of social science. 
 
 I have insisted, as a lesson of science, on the 
 unity of human nature, and the priority of 
 man's physical organism in all the walks of 
 life ; yet I do not rule out the eternal verities 
 of religion as they are emphasized to-day, — the 
 sinfulness of man, his need of conversion, the 
 transforming power of faith in Christ and im- 
 mortality. Indeed, I believe that true science 
 shows these to be essential to social re<rencra-
 
 AND THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. 43 
 
 tion. Man, after all, is not an animal : he is a 
 being of aspiration ; he rises by his efforts 
 toward the ideal ; he is not to be lifted up from 
 beneath and carried into the realms of manhood 
 and righteousness, but he is to be lured and 
 won and inspired by longings for faith, hope, 
 love ; yet he is at the same time the creature 
 of his environment. The inexorable earthly 
 wants for food, clothing, shelter, press daily 
 upon him. If he be confident that these will 
 be regularly supplied in a self-reliant way, and 
 if in supplying them his bodily and spiritual 
 powers be not basely exhausted, then he may 
 rise above the animal and reach out for the 
 noble joys of the soul ; then, and then only, 
 can religion touch him. 
 
 This is the fundamental error of the Church. 
 She has made her spiritual appeal to men who 
 could not possibly do more than supply their 
 earthly wants, and has made no effort to help 
 them where most they needed help. Is it any 
 wonder that they revile her .■* The Church 
 has left the radical religious question, the bet- 
 terment of social conditions, to atheists and
 
 44 THE CHURCH 
 
 agnostics. Is it any wonder that efforts at so- 
 cial reform hitherto have risen no higher than 
 materialism and mammonism ? The Church is 
 to blame that she has withdrawn from the field 
 where God and duty and the example of her 
 Saviour called her to lead, and left it to those 
 who sought only the loaves and the fishes. In 
 the noble science of sociology, peculiarly her 
 own, she is not the pioneer, but the camp- 
 follower. 
 
 I have pointed out some of the principal 
 evils in the industrial environment of the work- 
 ing classes, and have shown the duty of the 
 Church to consider and remedy them, and the 
 failure of the Church to do so. It will be said 
 that I overlook what the Church is already 
 doing ; no, I recognize gladly the efforts of 
 Christians in many places, especially in many 
 of those overworked and under-appreciated 
 down-town churches, but I affirm that my 
 strictures are true for nine out of every ten 
 churches and ministers in our land. 
 
 Now, I should prove a fruitless and carping 
 Jeremiah if, in addition to what I have already
 
 AND THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. 45 
 
 said, I were unable to point out how the Church 
 is to meet these problems, and to show that it 
 is possible for her to meet them. From what I 
 have said, it follows that the first thing to do is 
 for ministers and church workers to get infor- 
 mation, and to learn general principles. Let 
 them study the science of sociology in all its 
 branches, as they have studied the science of 
 theology. Magnificent work has been done in 
 this science, and its best general and special 
 treatises are safe guides to the student. The 
 causes of phenomena in sociology, as in every 
 other science, lie beneath the surface, and can- 
 not be discovered by the beginning student 
 from his own original observations. He needs 
 the guidance of trained observers and philo- 
 sophical thinkers. With this in view church 
 libraries on sociology should be carefully se- 
 lected, and the books circulated among the con- 
 gregation. The minister should be a guide to 
 the reading and study of his parishioners. Fre- 
 quent addresses could also be secured from 
 specialists in charities, penology, the family, 
 labor, monopolies.
 
 46 THE CHURCH 
 
 But books and lectures can do little more than 
 stimulate and guide. The essential method is 
 to come into actual contact with social condi- 
 tions. For this purpose there is no better way 
 than to adopt the methods and join in the work 
 of the modern scientific charity. A charity 
 organization society means far more than its 
 name indicates. It is not a society for dis- 
 pensing alms, but a society for investigation 
 and friendship. It is organized Christian love, 
 reaching to the very root of all social ques- 
 tions. A charity organization society touches 
 every social problem — the problem of labor, of 
 the unemployed, of long hours, of women and 
 children workers, of city government ; it offers 
 the only true way of getting at the facts which 
 I have dwelt upon. The man who has assisted 
 in this work for even a short time can speak 
 with assurance. He knows the actual condi- 
 tions whereof he speaks. I should not feel so 
 strongly nor know so surely the terrible power 
 of capital over labor, through the denial of the 
 right to employment, had not work in a charity 
 organization society brought me into contact 
 with individual cases.
 
 AND THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY. 47 
 
 There is no position so good as that of 
 friendly visitor in a charity organization soci- 
 ety for getting beneath our industrial system, 
 and understanding its true significance for the 
 hearts and souls of men. Such a position fur- 
 nishes the best possible opportunity for labora- 
 tory work in the science of sociology ; it 
 is the doorway to a real knowledge of social 
 problems. 
 
 If I could prescribe a course of study for 
 every minister and church member, I should 
 say, enroll as friendly visitor in your local char- 
 ity organization society. Have one or more 
 families assigned to you, get acquainted with 
 them, become their friends, help them in every 
 practical Christian way except giving alms. 
 Then, in your weekly meetings with other 
 friendly visitors and the society's trained sec- 
 retaries and agents, compare notes and cases, 
 and discuss plans for reforming individual cases 
 that are practical under existing circumstances. 
 Thus you learn conditions and evils and their 
 causes; you learn what society is doing to meet 
 the evils ; you get an idea of what ought to be
 
 48 THE CHURCH. 
 
 done, and you see how urgent and tremendous 
 is the problem. 
 
 Does it seem a hopeless matter to enlist the 
 churches in this kind of work ? In German 
 cities every citizen is liable to be drafted by 
 the municipal authorities to serve as a friendly 
 visitor, with severe penalties if he refuses. 
 Cannot our Christian church members, filled 
 with the life and example of Christ, gladly do 
 for his little ones these services of scientific 
 love.'* There is to-day in every American city 
 a pressing need for such workers. And I see 
 no other way for the Church truly to awake to 
 her duty and her opportunity, and to learn 
 what to do and how to do it.
 
 THE EDUCATED MAN 
 IN POLITICS.
 
 THE EDUCATED MAN IN POLITICS. 
 
 The current recommendations for the edu- 
 cated man to participate in politics are vague. 
 The preacher, the editor, the reformer, urge 
 him to go to the caucus and see that good men 
 are nominated. Again they tell him to be the 
 independent voter and the scratcher, — the man 
 who is always looking out for something to 
 oppose, — until he is driven to believe that his 
 only part in politics is that of a self-righteous 
 and negative scold. 
 
 But there is something better for the scholar 
 in politics. Not that he should fail to be inde- 
 pendent. This follows necessarily, if we as- 
 sume that he does his own thinking. But 
 there is a difference between independence and 
 stubbornness. Independence is positive and 
 progressive. Stubbornness is negative and sta- 
 tionary. Independence recognizes that politi- 
 51
 
 52 THE EDUCATED MAN 
 
 cal parties are large, cumbersome, unwieldy 
 machines. They accomplish nothing perfectly. 
 Their one inseparable feature is compromise. 
 The independent man should recognize himself 
 as a very small part of an immense enginery. 
 He should try to make his influence positive 
 for good, but he should remember that good in 
 politics is accomplished only by moving mas- 
 sive bodies. 
 
 But what is politics .'' And what is there 
 in politics that should call for the thought and 
 action of the educated man } Is politics a 
 struofecle between ofhce-seekers, or between 
 classes, or sections .-* Practically it is all of 
 these. But to the educated man it is some- 
 thing far deeper. It is assumed that the 
 educated man is the Christian man. It may 
 not be that he is a signer to any formal creed, 
 but if he has rightly grasped the fruits of the 
 highest education he must accept the ethical 
 teachings of Christianity. The Christian is 
 here to benefit his fellows in every possible 
 way, — physically, mentally, spiritually. Two 
 ways for doing this are open to him. First,
 
 lA^ POLITICS. 53 
 
 in his private life he can be attentive to the 
 highest interests of those about him, and by 
 joining with others can form private associa- 
 tions for the benefit of those who are in igno- 
 rance, weakness, and oppression. Thus arise our 
 great charities and benevolences, the home and 
 foreign missionary societies, the temperance 
 unions, the churches and Sunday-schools, the 
 associated charities and prison-reform associa- 
 tions. All these are the efforts of individuals. 
 Now, a very little work of this kind soon 
 teaches that there are powerful underlying 
 evil forces, which individual effort cannot 
 reach and overcome. Evil forces and men are 
 everywhere, and have the same opportunities 
 and liberties as the good. Individuals and 
 associations cannot cope with them. They 
 are increasing in power and terror every day. 
 Consequently, the educated Christian soon 
 finds that he must look elsewhere for some 
 supreme force that can wipe out these evil 
 forces. This is politics. Politics is the co- 
 operation of citizens for employing the sove- 
 reign power of government to crush the evil
 
 54 THE EDUCATED MAN 
 
 and promote the good forces of society. Gov- 
 ernment rests ultimately upon force. It speaks 
 not with tongues, but with the mighty arm of 
 the law. It is the greatest power for good that 
 exists among men. Where individual and vol- 
 untary effort fails because it cannot say " Thou 
 shalt," and "Thou shalt not," individuals can 
 co-operate in politics and summon to their aid 
 the irresistible power of the State, whose com- 
 mands must be obeyed. 
 
 Thus the two ways in which the educated 
 man can use his powers to benefit his fellows 
 are the individual, or voluntary, and the politi- 
 cal, or compulsory. The two are complemen- 
 tary. The voluntary method is first. It can 
 accomplish much. But in most important 
 points it fails. Here the compulsory method 
 must enter, and fill out the measure of good 
 which the voluntary cannot complete. 
 
 What, next, should be the standpoint of the 
 educated man when he enters practical poli- 
 tics .-* We have our answer already. He 
 should take the standpoint of the working 
 classes, that is, of the class whose only
 
 IN POLITICS. 55 
 
 means of livelihood is the daily labor of their 
 hands. 
 
 There are several reasons for this position. 
 The wealthy and educated classes do not need 
 his help. Our governments, local, State, and 
 national, have hitherto been controlled in the 
 interests of the capitalist and land-owning 
 classes. Laws on our statute-books are framed 
 in their interests. Also, the educated classes 
 have been simply the hangers-on of the 
 wealthy. Where do we find the fifty-thou- 
 sand-dollar lawyer except defending the in- 
 terests of monopolies and trusts } Does the 
 powerful lobby — so powerful that it is called 
 the third house — does the lobby that attends 
 our councils, legislatures, and Congress, labor 
 in behalf of the hand-working masses .■' 
 
 But while these upper classes do not 
 need their help, the wage-working classes 
 do need intelligent and friendly counsel. 
 They need powerful influences to be brought 
 to bear for their benefit upon legislatures, 
 courts, and executives. They cannot employ 
 a lobby, they cannot adequately influence law-
 
 $6 THE EDUCATED MAN 
 
 yers, and they themselves must attend plod- 
 dingly to their hours of toil. Where can they 
 look for help but to the educated man, be he 
 lawyer, teacher, minister, or merchant ? And 
 where can the educated man put in heavier 
 blows for his fellows ? 
 
 Besides, the prosperity of the employing 
 classes depends upon that of the wage-earning 
 classes. The latter make up four-fifths of our 
 population. They furnish four-fifths of the 
 markets for what the manufacturer, the mer- 
 chant, the farmer, has to sell. A merchant 
 prefers a prosperous customer to a poverty- 
 stricken one. The former buys more goods, 
 of better quality, pays higher prices, and 
 doesn't have to be dunned every week in the 
 year. So with all the business, employing, 
 and capitalist classes. Their highest pleasure 
 should be to see the bulk of their purchasers, 
 the wage-earning class, get constant work, 
 high wages, and intelligent, moral habits of 
 expenditure. 
 
 Lastly, the burden of unjust laws and cor- 
 x\\\)X. politics falls more heavily on the wage-
 
 IN POLITICS. 57 
 
 earning classes than on any other class. It is 
 this class which is nearest the margin of 
 poverty. If the pressure of bad laws settle 
 down a little more heavily, it crowds great 
 numbers of them just over that terrible dead- 
 line. Pauperism, crime, intemperance, are the 
 result. If other classes lose in one field, they 
 gain in another. A rich man has wide inter- 
 ests and wide opportunities for investment. 
 If one fail, he can withdraw from it and de- 
 velop the others. An educated man can turn 
 his hand and head to many different things, 
 and he is in demand from all sides. But a 
 workingman has but one skill. Daily wages 
 in a single narrow field of industry is his only 
 reliance. The great majority of our popula- 
 tion is destined to be always wage-workers. 
 The large prizes and high places are for the 
 few. A railway can have but one president 
 and one general manager; but it must have 
 ten thousand manual wage-earners. Only one 
 out of ten thousand can possibly rise to the 
 highest place ; the others depend upon their 
 wages ; and if wages fail, their whole life is
 
 58 THE EDUCATED MAN 
 
 shattered. Moreover, the wealthy man can 
 lose a thousand dollars and it means no more 
 than the cutting off a luxury or two ; but with 
 a poor man, it means the loss of his home and 
 the breaking up of his family. Defective laws, 
 corrupt administration, dilatory courts, often 
 prove of advantage to the well-to-do. But they 
 crush the poor beyond hope. 
 
 Taking all these facts into account, the edu- 
 cated man in politics should place himself at 
 the standpoint of the laborer. Laws should 
 be framed and administered, and courts should 
 be guided, with his interests first in view. The 
 educated man is the one to see that this is 
 done. 
 
 Having determined his standpoint, how 
 shall the educated man begin the practical 
 work of politics.'' 
 
 The first thing is to get acquainted with the 
 working classes. Visit them in their homes 
 and workshops. See how they live. Find 
 out what they need to make their homes hap- 
 pier. Are the wife and children compelled to 
 work in order to eke out the family income,'*
 
 IN POLITICS. 59 
 
 Are the hours of work long and the factory 
 surroundings unwholesome ? All social reforms 
 must centre in the home as the pivotal point, 
 if improvement is to be deep and lasting. Let 
 the educated man become an active worker in 
 some charity organization society. The object 
 of such a society is not alms, but friendship. 
 It aims to detect the idle and fraudulent, and 
 to help the honest and unfortunate. Its visi- 
 tors go regularly to the homes of all who need 
 help, they find out what are the defects of such 
 homes and the circumstances of the inmates. 
 
 But how will this assist the educated man to 
 take part in politics .'* A few examples will 
 show. A friend of mine has been visiting a 
 colored family. The head of the family is a 
 hard-working, sober man. Several years ago 
 he managed to purchase a little home on long 
 payments. After it was all paid for he sud- 
 denly discovered that he had not a good title, 
 and now his home has been taken from him and 
 his hard-earned savings have been lost. My 
 friend immediately began to inquire whether 
 it will not be possible to devise a plan for
 
 6o THE EDUCATED MAN 
 
 making real estate titles as safe and simple as 
 the title to a suit of clothes. He soon discov- 
 ered that there is just such a plan in force in 
 Australia and in certain provinces of British 
 America, and that it is being investigated in 
 some parts of our own country. He is now 
 working with others to bring this plan before 
 the legislature of his State. If it can be 
 adopted, many a wage-worker will be encour- 
 aged in habits of thrift and love of home, 
 besides the stimulus it would give to business 
 in general. 
 
 Again, the associated charities of a certain 
 village have been looking up some wayward 
 boys and sending them to the reform school 
 of their State. The association sends its agent 
 to the school annually to look after the boys. 
 The agent discovered that a Democratic ap- 
 pointee had greatly improved the reformatory, 
 and was teaching the boys useful trades far 
 better than had ever been done before. The 
 agent made his report ; and when a Republican 
 governor came into office, a petition was circu- 
 lated and signed by the best Republicans of
 
 IN POLITICS. 6 1 
 
 the village, requesting the Republican governor 
 to retain the Democratic superintendent in 
 office. Thus have friendly visiting and charity- 
 organization reached out for civil service reform 
 in politics. 
 
 Innumerable like cases could be cited. I 
 myself first awoke to the selfish, irresponsible, 
 and fearful power of great corporations when 
 through charity organization work I came 
 across a man who had the following experience. 
 He had been vainly hunting for work for 
 several months. At last he was promised work 
 by the foreman in the stables of a street-car 
 company, and told to come around the next 
 morning at three o'clock. So anxious were he 
 and his family for the work that his wife sat 
 up all night to be sure to waken him in time. 
 He reached the stables and went hard to work. 
 At about ten o'clock in the forenoon the fore- 
 man told him his work was unsatisfactory and 
 that he might leave. He protested and asked 
 the reasons, but could get no answer. In a 
 dazed condition he walked out. Later he asked 
 one of the other men if he could tell him why
 
 62 THE EDUCATED MAN 
 
 he was so suddenly discharged. The answer 
 came that he had neglected to do as all the 
 others had done — pay the foreman ten dollars 
 for the job, and promise, besides, to pay him a 
 dollar a week out of his wages. 
 
 Now, corporations are creatures of govern- 
 ment. They could not exist a day if the sov- 
 ereign power of the State were not back of 
 them, giving them the rights to buy and sell 
 and hold property, and to act as a single aggre- 
 gation of capital, with all the enormous power 
 which this implies. 
 
 If the State creates corporations, it can de- 
 termine the conditions of their existence. It 
 can provide that no corporation can do business 
 which works its employees more than eight 
 hours a day, or which does not guarantee to 
 them the right of employment without fines 
 and perquisites so long as they honestly do 
 their work. Stockholders in corporations at 
 present can easily evade their responsibilities 
 to the working people who make their money 
 for them. They can leave such matters to 
 subordinate superintendents and foremen, and
 
 IN POLITICS. 63 
 
 they themselves need never interfere in the 
 management so long as dividends are fat. 
 Here is a subject for far-reaching political 
 action. In the very nature of the case noth- 
 ing but the coercive power of government can 
 avail. And here is a noble opportunity for the 
 educated Christian to become a practical poli-, 
 tician for the good of his brothers. 
 
 Other means may be mentioned, besides 
 friendly visiting, for becoming acquainted with 
 the working classes. A good way is to join a 
 labor organization, especially the Knights of 
 Labor, wherever there happens to be a district 
 or local assembly. Most educated men would 
 be admitted, for the only classes excluded are 
 lawyers and saloon-keepers. In all cases the 
 educated man should get acquainted with those 
 who are near the poverty line or just over that 
 line. This includes the great mass of un- 
 skilled, unorganized day laborers. It is here 
 where defective and unjust laws accumulate. 
 This marginal zone of poverty includes nearly 
 all women wage-earners ; and here is the field 
 of the educated woman in politics, — to join
 
 64 THE EDUCATED MAN 
 
 working-women's unions, or help organize such, 
 and then to work for laws to protect women 
 and children workers. 
 
 Now, in joining such unions or in going 
 among such people, let the educated man put 
 away all thought that he is going as an instruc- 
 tor or guide. He is first of all a learner, and 
 only a beginner at that. He is perhaps full of 
 book knowledge, which he has acquired in col- 
 lege. There he has learned from the illustrious 
 standard political economists that the working- 
 men are all wrong in their demands ; that they 
 are going contrary to nature, and, since God 
 made nature, they are even atheistic. 
 
 But instead of finding that they are all 
 wrong, he will find that they are more nearly 
 all right. Though they know little of abstruse 
 books, they are in daily contact with things, 
 and soon feel where the shoe pinches. There 
 is some deep reason in the boycott, in the re- 
 fusal to work with non-union men, in the com- 
 plaints against women and child laboi, against 
 the introduction of machinc"y, and against con- 
 tract and prison labor. What these reasons
 
 IN POLITICS. 65 
 
 are the books have not taught ; and the edu- 
 cated man does not know. If he studies them 
 at first hand, he may not be convinced by the 
 workingman's arguments, but he will begin to 
 comprehend that these are real evils which 
 they seek to avoid. He may conclude that 
 the evils can be remedied only by reaching 
 causes deeper and more remote than even 
 the men themselves are able to see; but he 
 will see that the fundamental social wrongs 
 of which they complain can be remedied only 
 through politics. 
 
 He will see, perhaps best of all, that it is 
 not through the great national and spectacular 
 questions which divide parties that the welfare 
 of the workers is to come. Protection and free 
 trade, silver and foreign affairs, are of little con- 
 sequence. But the vital political questions are 
 to be settled in his own village or city, and in 
 his own State, Here is where corporations are 
 created and their rights and duties defined ; 
 here is where prison and contract labor, women 
 and child labor, and hours of labor, are to be 
 determined. Here is where popular education.
 
 66 THE EDUCATED MAN 
 
 temperance, economy, and virtue are to be pro- 
 moted, so far as this can be done tlirough 
 politics. 
 
 In concluding, we may restate some of the 
 points just made in order to show how the 
 educated man may be, not a negative and stub- 
 born element in politics, but a positive element 
 for good. First, by enlisting with the working 
 masses, he is on the side of the voters. And 
 if he steadily refuse to become a candidate for 
 a salaried office, he gains their confidence and 
 avoids the name of demagogue. Second, he 
 discovers that evils which are complained of 
 to-day do not have their source in a single 
 cause, but rather are a network of causes and 
 effects. Long hours and low pay are causes 
 of intemperance and poverty, and intemper- 
 ance and poverty are causes of long hours and 
 low pay. Consequently the educated man 
 should not become enamoured of any single 
 reform. If the working people and political 
 parties are not ready to move against his pet 
 evil, let him take up that reform which seems 
 at the time most likely of success, and to his
 
 IN POLITICS. 6"] 
 
 surprise he will find that he has helped to 
 remove one of the causes for the very evil 
 which he himself has seen most clearly. Then 
 is he in a position, through the confidence he 
 has won and the common-sense he has shown, 
 to point the way to what he himself considers 
 important. 
 
 And, lastly, let the educated man have a due 
 sense of his own insignificance and ignorance, 
 realizing that he is an atom in a huge machine, 
 and that other atoms know as much, perhaps, 
 as he does.
 
 THE CHURCH 
 AND POLITICAL REFORMS.
 
 THE CHURCH AND POLITICAL 
 REFORMS. 
 
 I AM to speak upon the relation of the 
 Church to political reforms. I shall consider, 
 first, What part has politics in the salvation 
 of the world ? Second, Why does politics fail 
 in its mission ? Third, How can politics be 
 made an instrument of social reform ? Fourth, 
 What should be the attitude of the Church 
 toward politics ? 
 
 There is a new idea abroad regarding the 
 relation of the Church to society. The Church 
 should not content herself with saving individu- 
 als out of the world, but should save the world. 
 Society is the subject of redemption. And this 
 not for the sake of any abstraction called soci- 
 ety, but for the sake of the individuals who 
 compose society. It is being recognized that 
 the way to save individuals is not merely to 
 pick out a few through the agencies of tempo- 
 71
 
 72 THE CHURCH 
 
 rary excitement, and thus to obtain a confes- 
 sion of sin and a profession of faith, but it is to 
 gradually develop all that is highest in every 
 son of man, whether he be a believer or not. j 
 This is the meaning of Christ's profound say- 
 ing, that God "maketh his sun to rise on the 
 evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on 
 the just and on the unjust ;" that is, on those 
 who profess him and those who reject him. 
 The Church must do the same. But the 
 Church has worked on the principle that it 
 can do nothing for the unjust, that is, non- 
 church-members. It can build up Christian 
 character only in those who have already come 
 into the fold. 
 
 A deeper knowledge of humanity shows 
 this to be fallacious. Man is a social animal. 
 He is a part of a living, growing organism. 
 He receives life handed down by generations 
 of ancestry. He grows up amidst an all-per- 
 vasive pressure of beliefs, opinions, sentiments, 
 habits, and industrial conditions. He is, there- 
 fore, the creature of his social class. If the 
 members of this class be weak in body, mind.
 
 AND rOLITICAL REFORMS. y^ 
 
 nerve force, and will power, and, therefore, the 
 slaves of their surroundings, he will be also. 
 Hence the reformation of society is a problem 
 of ages, not merely a question of picking out 
 individuals after they are born, but of saving 
 them generations and centuries before they 
 are born. 
 
 There is no remedy known which will cure 
 society in a day or a generation, or even a 
 century — it is the physiological problem of 
 breeding. And the longer the life of the indi- 
 vidual the longer the problem of experiment. 
 j Heredity is potent in any lasting social reform. 
 But heredity can be modified by modifying 
 environment. Almost nothing can be hoped 
 from an adult generation whose parents have 
 lived in surroundings of poverty, crime, and 
 laziness, and whose childhood has been simi- 
 larly nurtured. Little can be expected even 
 from children now living in such surroundings. 
 The Anglo-Saxon displaced the Indian from 
 the land of his fathers, and so in society a large 
 part of the question of reform is not how to 
 reform, but how to displace, the baser elements.
 
 74 THE CHURCH 
 
 At the same time the environment has a 
 most powerful influence on individuals. Given 
 a man with good ancestry, and place him from 
 childhood in such degraded home and neighbor- 
 hood surroundings as exist in every city, town, 
 and rural district of our land, and he will retro- 
 grade. His children will come into the world 
 still lower in the scale, and the evil environ- 
 ment will cumulate its results from generation 
 to generation. It is from the world about us 
 that we get all our soul experiences and our 
 character building. But it is not the physical 
 world that teaches us. It is our social world. \}^ 
 Life is interpreted to us by those with whom 
 we live. If their lives are narrow, over-worked, 
 ignorant, aimless, how can ours be better } 
 And what will be the gain to take a few in- 
 dividuals — even a few children — out of such 
 surroundings, when the surroundings themselves 
 remain.^ Hundreds of children are thrust in 
 for every one that we can get out. The only 
 remedy is to reform the surroundings, — and 
 this means to reform society from top to 
 bottom. The exclusivcness, luxury, ostenta-
 
 AND POLITICAL REFORMS. 75 
 
 tion, of the upper four hundred are but the 
 glossy side of the shield to the herding, depri- 
 vation, and ignominy of the four hundred thou- 
 sand who support them, or feed upon them. 
 
 In a matter like this small measures effect no 
 results — they even make matters worse. By 
 large measures I mean not revolutionary, but 
 scientific and fundamental measures. Science 
 means knowledge, profound knowledge, of forces 
 and tendencies. Without the science of sociol- 
 ogy there can be no reform of society. Chris- 
 tianity means a purpose, an enthusiasm, a 
 devotion, a faith, a love for humanity. Love 
 and knowledge, Christianity and science, the- 
 ology and sociology, must unite to save the 
 world. 
 
 Now, the first thing needed is a careful study 
 of social conditions, and the formation of meas- 
 ures for reform. Human nature must be 
 studied. Social classes must be understood. 
 The characteristics of the defective, dependent, 
 and delinquent classes should be the familiar 
 knowledge of every Christian. Information 
 about labor, monopolies, taxation, money, ought
 
 "jG THE CHURCH 
 
 not to be accepted on tradition, but by study at 
 first hand. Evils must be comprehended before 
 reforms can be suggested. Then reform ex- 
 periments everywhere ought to be examined 
 and compared. Reforms cannot be entered 
 upon without a basis of experience. And in 
 nearly every field this experience is now at 
 hand. Take the matter of profit-sharing. This 
 is a far-reaching, Christian reform. And it is 
 no longer a matter of dreams and theories. 
 Careful students have collected the methods 
 and results of several hundred experiments. 
 Successes and failures have been noted, and 
 their causes analyzed. He who adopts this 
 policy now is like the machinist who builds 
 after an approved pattern, rather than like the 
 inventor who risks all to gain all. So with 
 other reforms. So far advanced is the science 
 of sociology, based upon comparisons of practi- 
 cal experiments everywhere, that almost the 
 only thing needed now is the diffusion of this 
 science among the people at large. 
 
 But there is a radical defect of machinery 
 that stands in the way. As soon as a policy of
 
 AND POLITICAL REFORMS. "jy 
 
 reform is set upon in whatever field, it is found 
 that in order to be fundamental and adequate, 
 the laws of the land must be modified, or new 
 ones introduced. Government is the only- 
 supreme authority among men. It is the only 
 institution which can make its plans comprehen- 
 sive. It is the only means whereby refractory, 
 obstructive, and selfishly interested elements 
 of society may be brought into line with social 
 progress. Run over in your mind all the 
 reforms agitated in these days, and see that 
 nearly every one requires legislation. Child- 
 saving, prisons, charities, taxation, monopolies, 
 money, co-operation, every effective measure 
 for the advancement of society, turns upon the 
 formation and administration of laws. Laws 
 must be framed and executed all the way from 
 those which are merely permissive up to those 
 wherein the government absorbs and monopo- 
 lizes the affair in hand. 
 
 "This work of Christianizing our govern- 
 ments," says Dr. Gladden, " seems indeed 
 a herculean labor; but it is one of the most 
 immediate and most urgent of all our Christian
 
 78 THE CHURCH 
 
 duties." Yet the reasons which Dr. Gladden 
 gives for Christianizing politics are among 
 the minor and incidental reasons. There are 
 indeed very few Christians who comprehend 
 the strategic position held by government as 
 the key to all social reforms and the Chris- 
 tianization of society. Take, for example, that 
 large class of reforms connected with child- 
 saving. This work is mostly voluntary on 
 the part of private societies. But private 
 societies can do nothing without the co-oper- 
 ation of the legislative and the administrative 
 authorities. The rights of children must be 
 defined and enforced as against the rights 
 of parents. The laws of adoption and ward- 
 ship must be modified in harmony with these 
 newly recognized rights. The legislature is 
 the only authority which can create new rights 
 and provide for their enforcement. Then, 
 reformatory institutions must be provided and 
 maintained by the State according to wise 
 principles. It is from the lack of proper legis- 
 lation that the children of the poor are to-day 
 being overwhelmed by crime and vice, and a
 
 AND POLITICAL REFORMS. 79 
 
 race of vagabonds is being brought up in our 
 midst. 
 
 So it is with temperance reform. There is 
 no Christian work which needs more thought- 
 ful and scientific treatment. But nothing can 
 be done without proper legislation. Almost 
 every reform you can name is to-day blocked 
 at the doors of municipal, State, and Federal 
 legislatures. 
 
 What kind of men do we send to our law- 
 making bodies to attend to this most funda- 
 mental part of Christianizing society } I need 
 not describe them. The people and the news- 
 papers are fully informed regarding them. 
 The serious fact is that they are mostly new 
 men. One-half to two-thirds of the members 
 of our legislative assemblies are serving their 
 iirst term as law-makers. Our laws everywhere 
 are being made by a majority who never before 
 tried their hands at law-making. Many of 
 them, too, are incapable. They have been 
 elected because they were amiable nobodies, 
 and perhaps had declared for a reduction of 
 taxes. They of course know little about the
 
 8o THE CHURCH 
 
 progressive interests of the State. They are 
 not alert to reforms that are needed. They 
 give little evidence of scientific knowledge of 
 sociology, of economics, of penology, of public 
 finance. They know not what other States 
 and countries are doing. They even have no 
 conception of a Christianized society. They 
 ridicule such things — unless a powerful polit- 
 ical interest happens to be concerned. They 
 are concerned with rivalries and spoils. 
 
 In modern society we do most of our work 
 by proxy. We carry division of labor to the 
 extremest limit. We cannot attend to all 
 matters ourselves in so complex a civilization. 
 But for that work which we delegate we try 
 to select men appropriately equipped. When 
 you employ a physician you seek out a man 
 of sobriety, intelligence, and scientific knowl- 
 edge of medicine. When you go for a tailor 
 or a shoemaker, you enquire for a man who 
 has learned his trade, and who knows how to 
 measure and fit. Your minister of the gospel 
 must be adapted by cliaracter and training to 
 his work. But when you choose the men who
 
 AND POLITICAL REFORMS. 8 1 
 
 do the most far-reaching and fundamental of 
 your delegated duties — those services which 
 are the prerequsite of all social activities, and 
 without which efforts to save society are but 
 salve for dyspepsia — strangely enough, you 
 select from the ignorance, the vice, and the 
 incapacity of your community. 
 
 With such a body of men elected to legisla- 
 tures and councils, it is not to be expected 
 that the real law-makers will be found among 
 them. The true legislators of America are 
 unknown to the constitution and the law of the 
 land. They are self-appointed, private organi- 
 zations which have grown up with gigantic 
 strength in the past thirty years. The veri- 
 table law-givers, who stand behind the scenes 
 and pull the strings which control the tools on 
 the floor of the legislature, are the managers 
 of the political party machines and the lobby. 
 These are the organizations which have grown 
 up under the forms of our free and representa- 
 tive institutions, and have engrossed the sub- 
 stance of power. To the people remain the 
 husks and the bonfires. The lobby is the
 
 82 THE CHURCH 
 
 creature of the great corporations and the or- 
 ganized financial and saloon interests. It in- 
 cludes the brightest and most capable men in 
 the State. The party machine is the organized 
 clique of spoilsmen who feed upon the public 
 storehouse. And naturally tnough the ma- 
 chine and the lobby are one. They include the 
 same individuals. They sap the corporations 
 and the moneyed interests on the one hand, 
 and they dictate to the law-makers and distrib- 
 ute the spoils on the other. 
 
 I do not say that there are no exceptions to 
 my description of legislative assemblies. In 
 every legislature and municipal council are to 
 be found able, clean, and honest men, sincerely 
 striving to do their duty. But can any one 
 show such a man who will consent to remain 
 in a State legislature or a city council for more 
 than one or two terms } If he is not ousted by 
 machine methods^he will soon voluntarily aban- 
 don his venture. He is made to feel that he 
 is out of his place. He can have no influence 
 over his fellow legislators. He therefore de- 
 clines re-election ; and if his constituency is an
 
 AND POLITICAL REFORMS. 83 
 
 exceptionally good one, another man like him 
 will be elected, only, however, soon to follow 
 his predecessor. 
 
 In the main, it is as I have described it. 
 The lobby and the machine are the rulers to- 
 day of the American people. If we are so 
 foolish as to entertain dreams of what we fondly 
 call the Christianizing of society, at the very 
 threshold of our hopes we are scoffed at by 
 these usurpers pf-the citadel. Here is where 
 the first movement upon the forces of social 
 wrong must be made. The key to social reform 
 is political reform, and the key to political 
 reform is the legislative department of govern- 
 ment. 
 
 It is the custom nowadays for newspapers 
 and those who are alarmed at our political 
 prospects to berate the intelligent and Chris- 
 tian classes of the community for keeping" out 
 of politics. - These classes are in a majority. 
 It is assumed if they would only attend the 
 primaries and go to the polls, they could easily 
 control the elections. But in this complaint, 
 two important facts are overlooked. Politics is
 
 84 THE CHURCH 
 
 a business. The successful politician must 
 give his whole time to the profession. The 
 primaries and the polls are the least part of his 
 work. There must be professional politicians 
 who act as leaders for political interests, just 
 as there are professional doctors, lawyers, 
 teachers. The true problem is not how to do 
 away with professional politicians, but how to 
 get better professionals. The second fact over- 
 looked is that our system of elections is so 
 contrived that reform politicians cannot get 
 elected. We elect a single candidate by a 
 majority or a plurality vote. This narrows the 
 choice down to the two candidates representing 
 the two great political parties — that is to say, 
 representing the two machine organizations, 
 and the professional politicians of those parties. 
 A candidate free from the rule of the ma- 
 chine cannot be elected unless he can get a 
 majority or plurality of the votes. But, as 
 everyone knows, reform movements must grow 
 gradually from little beginnings, and therefore 
 a vote for a third candidate is a vote thrown 
 away, or rather, a vote for the machine of the
 
 AND POLITICAL REFORMS. 85 
 
 opposite party. Now, the reform elements of 
 the country are not always united. " There are 
 several ways of moving," says Sir John Lub- 
 bock, in this connection, "but only one way of 
 standing still." Consequently our system pre- 
 vents reform elements from having almost any 
 political influence whatever. What is needed 
 in order to reform our politics, and give a fair 
 field to all classes of social reforms, is a system 
 whereby these reform elements can elect repre- 
 sentatives and aldermen by less tJiau a viajority 
 or a plitrality vote. That is, they should elect 
 representatives in proportion to their numbers, 
 and not be compelled to wait for representation 
 until they can secure a majority of the voters 
 in one or more districts. That is to say, the 
 key to social reform is some effective kind of 
 minority or proportional representation. 
 
 This is a political reform which has already 
 been adopted in three cantons of Switzerland, 
 that little land of freedom which leads the world 
 in popular government. The reform consists, 
 briefly, in abolishing the district and ward s}'s- 
 tem of electing single representatives, and then
 
 S6 THE CHURCH 
 
 electing all the representatives on a general 
 ticket as our presidential electors are elected. 
 But instead of giving all the candidates to the 
 majority party, as we do with presidential elec- 
 tors, the successful candidates are assigned to 
 all parties in the field in nearly exact pro- 
 portion to the popular vote of those parties. 
 Thus, in a municipal election for aldermen, if 
 fifty are to be elected, a group of reformers 
 numbering only one-fiftieth of the total number 
 of voters can join together, though they may be 
 scattered in all parts of the city, can nominate 
 the ablest man among themselves and can be 
 absolutely sure of his election. If they num- 
 ber five-fiftieths they can elect five aldermen, 
 and so on. Every group of reformers would 
 likewise secure its fair proportion of repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 I cannot now enter into a full discussion of 
 proportional representation.^ Suffice it to say 
 
 ^ See Sir John Lubbock, " Representation," Imperial Parlia- 
 ment Series; " La Representation Proportionnelle," Paris, l888. 
 Also Propoi-tional Representation Re-'iew, Stoughton Cooley, 
 secretary and editor, 22 Fifth Avenue, Chicago, 111.
 
 AND POLITICAL REFORMS. 8/ 
 
 that in a highly complex political structure like 
 ours the method whereby you work is fully as 
 important as the zeai with which you work. In 
 more primitive conditions great reforms might 
 be introduced by a Charlemagne or a Napoleon 
 by mere decree and force of arms. But in a 
 civilization based on popular rule an avenue 
 must be provided whereby reforms can gradu- 
 ally work up from the ranks of the people. 
 Else revolution and reaction ensue. 
 
 Consider how far a legislature constituted as 
 I have proposed agrees with an ideal assembly, 
 and what such an assembly could accomplish 
 for reform. A legislative assembly as a whole 
 should not be more advanced than the people as 
 a whole. A legislature made up altogether of 
 reformers would be ludicrous and short-lived. 
 But all shades of opinion, and all varieties of 
 purpose, among the people at large should be 
 accurately represented as soon as they attain 
 political significance. In this way those who 
 are united on a definite program should secure 
 representation in proportion to their numbers. 
 For this reason the constitution of the leo:isla-
 
 88 THE CHURCH 
 
 ture should be elastic and readily responsive to 
 the growth of popular sentiment. At present, 
 as is well known, reform elements do not get 
 representation until they have almost a major- 
 ity of the people, and are on the verge of com- 
 plete ascendency. Again, the legislature should 
 be composed not of the average intelligence 
 of the community, but of the leaders of the 
 people. If democracy means rule by medioc- 
 rity, then democracy must fail. The ability 
 of the community will somehow find means for 
 ruling. It is the mediocrity rather than the 
 corruption of our legislatures to-day that guar- 
 antees the supremacy of the machine and the 
 lobby. Lastly, the representative leaders of 
 the people should be secure in their seats so 
 long as they truly represent a political fraction 
 of the people. Machine methods, gerryman- 
 ders, distribution of spoils, should not be per- 
 mitted to exclude them as soon as they have 
 gained a little experience in legislation. From 
 one-half to two-thirds of our law-makers to-day 
 are not re-elected, and it is a rare thing to find 
 a member of a State legislature who has served
 
 AND POLITICAL REFORMS. 89 
 
 more than three short terms. Truly this is 
 the secret of legislative incapacity and dull con- 
 servatism. Reform is experiment. Inexperi- 
 enced men do not venture far from the beaten 
 path. They follow the narrow footsteps of 
 their predecessors. 
 
 What now could be accomplished for social 
 reform and the Christianizing of society by a 
 legislature thus constituted .'' Let us take the 
 case of a city council. It would be composed 
 of the ablest men in the city, representing" all 
 interests and opinions. They would mainly be 
 men of experience in municipal affairs, and 
 would feel that they had a life-career before 
 them. Being independent of the sinister in- 
 fluences of the machine and the lobby, they 
 would devote themselves, not to distributins: 
 spoils and favoring private monopolies, but 
 would study carefully the exigencies of munici- 
 pal affairs. They would become well grounded 
 in the principles of economics and sociology. 
 The baser and corrupt elements of the city 
 would indeed be also represented. Gamblers 
 and saloon-keepers would send their leaders to
 
 90 THE CHURCH 
 
 the council ; but instead of getting a majority 
 of the aldermen, as to-day, they would get only 
 as many as were proportional to their numbers. 
 And there is not a city in the land, not even 
 the worst, where the baser elements on a fair 
 count are not far in the minority. 
 
 A council thus composed would be a deliber- 
 ative assembly. It would be the leaders of the 
 people in conference. Let the tenement-house 
 question, for example, come before them. Be- 
 sides the three or four men, perhaps, who were 
 the recognized leaders of this reform in the 
 city, there would be a majority of the council 
 well disposed. The larger number would be 
 well informed as to what other cities in Amer- 
 ica and Europe were doing to meet this mo- 
 mentous problem. At present, if the people 
 of a city want the tenement districts improved, 
 they are compelled to form a voluntary society, 
 to get up petitions, to go before a council wholly 
 ignorant and even ill-disposed, and almost in- 
 evitably to accomplish nothing permanent un- 
 less they can strangely command some political 
 influence. But with a properly constituted
 
 AND POLITICAL REFORMS. 9 1 
 
 council, the leaders of the reform would have 
 seats in the council. They could compel a 
 hearing. Around them the outside sentiment 
 of the city would concentrate. They would 
 speak with authority. Their plans would in- 
 deed be thoroughly scrutinized and perhaps 
 modified by the combined wisdom of all, but 
 in some form or other they would command 
 assent. Thus the reform would have a recog- 
 nized nucleus. Reformers would find encour- 
 agement in their work. Instead of a helpless 
 band of private dreamers, they would be a 
 weighty, growing influence in the city. The 
 reform itself would progress as rapidly as 
 public education prepared the people for it, 
 instead of being blocked by an indifferent, 
 ignorant, and corrupt board of aldermen. 
 
 The same is true of every other reform. 
 Street-cleaning, sewerage, local monopolies, 
 public works, saloons, would all be dealt with 
 in a scientific, progressive fashion. The mu- 
 nicipal council, instead of being an obstacle 
 to municipal reform, would be the wise and 
 experienced leader. Good men would seek
 
 92 THE CHURCH 
 
 places in its deliberations, knowing that there- 
 by they could exert a potent influence in bet- 
 tering the conditions of their fellow-citizens. 
 Applied Christianity could find its true place 
 in municipal reform instead of being ignomin- 
 iously excluded. And when the same princi- 
 ples should be extended to State legislatures 
 and the federal Congress we must surely agree 
 that for the first time the key to the social 
 situation would be held, and that by far the 
 most important practical advance would be 
 made towards realizing on earth the kingdom 
 of God. 
 
 Another legislative reform, which is to-day 
 perhaps nearer adoption than proportional rep- 
 resentation, is the so-called direct legislation 
 of the Swiss cantons and federation. This 
 takes two forms, the initiative and the refer- 
 endum. By the initiative a specified number 
 of private citizens may draw up a bill for enact- 
 ment and present it to the legislature. The 
 legislature cannot modify the bill, but must set 
 a day on which the people are to vote for or 
 against it as presented, just as we vote on con-
 
 AND POLITICAL REFORMS. 93 
 
 stitutional amendments. The referendum, as 
 its name indicates, is the constitutional pro- 
 vision that no act originating in and passed by 
 a legislature shall be valid as law unless the 
 people give a majority vote in its favor at the 
 polls.^ 
 
 Direct legislation would be a powerful in- 
 strument for progressive reform in the present 
 political exigencies. It would largely remove 
 reform questions from party politics, and per- 
 mit the people to vote their real sentiments 
 on important measures. By it many questions 
 which are now pressing, but which cannot get 
 a hearing in legislatures, would be immediately 
 settled. 
 
 But direct legislation alone cannot carry 
 social reform beyond a limited field. It is at 
 best only a powerful check on the legislature. 
 It gives little opportunity for deliberation and 
 compromise in the shaping of measures, which 
 is the essence of legislation and politics. It 
 
 ' See J. W. Sullivan, " Direct Legislation," New York, 
 1S93. Also address E. H. Pratt, Secretary Direct Legislation 
 League, P. O. Box 1216, New York.
 
 94 THE CHURCH 
 
 does not provide for experienced, able, and hon- 
 est leaders in framing laws. The people in 
 voting cannot take into account the details of 
 bills, and in a complex civilization the details 
 of legislation are vital. Consequently, as is 
 found to be the case in Switzerland, the peo- 
 ple do not vote upon the merits of measures, 
 but upon the question of "confidence" or "no 
 confidence " in the legislature which proposes 
 them. Thereby much progressive legislation 
 is defeated. Two-thirds of the laws submitted 
 are vetoed by the people, and many of them 
 afterward in the same form are eagerly adopted. 
 But direct legislation combined with propor- 
 tional representation seems, as already shown, 
 to be exactly fitted to the needs of the political 
 situation. 
 
 Two other reforms in the machinery of gov- 
 ernment are necessary before politics can take 
 its place in a programme of social reform. 
 They are the secret ballot and civil service 
 reform. These are fully as important as those 
 I have described, but are much better known 
 and are rapidly on the road to adoption.
 
 AND POLITICAL REFORMS. 95 
 
 The question, what should be the attitude of 
 the Church toward politics, is already inferred 
 if not answered. But in conclusion let me em- 
 phasize it. In the times of our ancestors the 
 Church and the State were one. Ecclesiastical 
 questions were political questions. The two 
 were deliberated and decided in the same as- 
 sembly. To-day we have wisely separated 
 Church and State. But we have carried it too 
 far. We have separated Christians and poli- 
 tics. Christians are here to save the world, 
 that is, to reform the world. They must begin 
 by reforming politics. They must reform both 
 the machinery and the spirit of politics, the 
 structure and the functions of government. 
 Political reform is not an end in itself. It is a 
 means for attaining fundamental social reforms. 
 It is the doorway to the practical solution of 
 the problems of labor, taxation, crime, pauper- 
 ism ; and these are but the Christian problems, 
 how to save the world, and how to save every 
 individual in the world. First, the people must 
 study these social questions. There is no force 
 in society so able to giv-e them the right direc-
 
 96 THE CHURCH. 
 
 tion in their study as the spirit of Christianity. 
 And having found what is wanted, the next 
 thing is to find how to get it. Legislative 
 reform in the shape of proportional represen- 
 tation and direct legislation is indispensable to 
 facilitate both. These reforms would educate 
 the people as no other institution could do, and 
 would furnish the unfailing machinery for en- 
 forcing the plans which education has led the 
 people to adopt. So important are these as a 
 key to all social reforms, that with their adop- 
 tion we might expect greater social progress in 
 five years than the present bungling methods 
 permit in twenty-five years.
 
 TEMPERANCE REFORM.
 
 TEMPERANCE REFORM.i 
 
 Intemperance is a social problem. To cure 
 it this fact must be recognized. Morselli has 
 said that suicide, insanity, crime, vagabondage, 
 are phenomena of civilization. So is intemper- 
 ance. Ours has been a century of revolution. 
 Old forms of social organization have been sud- 
 denly demolished. Customs and laws which 
 regulated the lives of men have been repealed 
 or disregarded. Every man has been left to 
 his fate or his fortune without any recognized 
 guidance. It has been an age of scramble. 
 In the melee those unable to scramble have 
 gone to the bottom. 
 
 Man differs from other animals mainly in his 
 nervous system. This is the seat of his fecl- 
 
 ^ References: Norman M. Kerr, "Inebriety," London, 
 i8S8; T. L. Wright, M. D., " Inebriism," Bellefontaine, O.; 
 Quarterly yournal of Inebriety, Hartford, Conn. 
 
 99
 
 lOO TEMPERANCE REEORM. 
 
 ings, his intelligence, his will. In his struggle 
 for existence the brute depends upon his teeth, 
 his claws, his muscle. Civilized man depends 
 upon his nerves and his brain. It is with these 
 that he adjusts himself to his surroundings. 
 It is his nervous system that makes him a 
 social animal. When adjustment with society- 
 fails, it is upon his nervous system that the 
 greatest strain occurs. This system is most 
 delicately balanced. It is easily weakened or 
 upset. Society is in a state of convulsion. 
 Maladjustment with such a society is inevit- 
 able. The individual is then on the verge of 
 that nervous degeneracy which the psycholo- 
 gists ascribe to the abnormal man. 
 
 This maladjustment has shown itself in start- 
 ling figures the past forty years. During that 
 time crime has increased five times as fast as 
 population. Insanity has doubled and trebled 
 compared with population. Suicide has in- 
 creased alarmingly. Paupers have multiplied, 
 and tramp is a new word, while intemperance 
 has become so fixed and ascertainable that it is 
 known as inebriety. The consumption of alco-
 
 TEMTERANCE KEEORM. lOI 
 
 holic liquors per capita of the nation at large 
 has more than doubled in twenty years, not- 
 withstanding that the proportion of total ab- 
 stainers has largely increased. Those who 
 drink are more excessive than ever before ; and 
 the proportion of drunkards has also increased. 
 
 What can be done to check this flood of evil ? 
 What can the Church do ? To answer these 
 questions we must first know the nature and 
 the causes of inebriety. When science has 
 taught us these, Christianity and science may 
 point out the remedies. 
 
 From the standpoint of the nervous system, 
 then, what is intemperance .-' It is the exces- 
 sive use of some ancesthetic, either alcohol, 
 opium, chloral, chloroform, ether, or chlorodyne. 
 The craving of the drunkard for this anaesthetic 
 is not owing to any pleasant taste in the mouth. 
 It is an overwhelming demand of the entire 
 nervous system. In other words, inebriety is 
 allied to insanity and epilepsy on the one hand, 
 and hay fever on the other. An unbalanced 
 nervous system, having its origin in many 
 different causes, gives rise to the most intense
 
 102 TEMPERANCE REFORM. 
 
 feelings of unrest, irritability, and a peculiar 
 nagging sensation, as though the whole body 
 were in a state of terrible unceasing agitation. 
 These feelings, accompanied by the memory 
 derived from previous experience on the part 
 of the sufferer, that alcohol or some other an- 
 aesthetic will quiet the nerves, creates the 
 irresistible craving for that anaesthetic. It is 
 a morbid appetite; but it is overwhelming, and 
 is far more inexorable than the simple appetite 
 of taste for some palatable drink. The drunk- 
 ard loathes the taste of whiskey. He washes 
 it out of his mouth with a glass of water. It is 
 not the intoxicant he wants, but the intoxication. 
 The fact that most inebriety among Tuetonic 
 peoples is alcoholic, is an historical accident. 
 The diseased condition of the nervous system 
 is the essential fact. With us it takes the form 
 of alcoholism. With Asiatics it is opium- 
 eating. It may be also chloral, chlorodyne, 
 or ether. But alcohol has an advantage over 
 other anaesthetics in that it is also a stimulant. 
 Its first action is to spur the circulation. It 
 exhilarates and then soothes.
 
 TEMPERANCE REFORM. IO3 
 
 Inebriety, being a disease of the nervous 
 system, should be studied by the physiologist 
 and the physician. The question to be an- 
 swered is, what is the nature of the structural 
 degeneration of nerve walls and nerve cells 
 which causes these feelings of nervous agony ? 
 The medical writers hold that the disease may 
 be very different in character for different per- 
 sons. In one it may be an excessive growth of 
 the nerves and nerve cells, hypertrophy ; in 
 another a defective nutrition, atrophy ; in 
 another an unequal development, especially 
 where the brain has been cultivated at the 
 expense of the nerves. In some it may be the 
 unnatural growth and hardening of the walls of 
 the nerve cells, thus crowding upon the nerve 
 matter itself. Or, there may be a fatty degen- 
 eration of the nerve substance. And finally it 
 may be a constitutional blood-poisoning which 
 has eaten away parts of the nerves. In all 
 cases there is some structural defect in the 
 substance of the nerves or brain. And this is 
 exactly the case in insanity. 
 
 The close relation between insanity and in-
 
 I04 TEMPERANCE REFORM. 
 
 ebriety is a potent revelation from the scientific 
 students of intemperance. I do not refer to the 
 fact that a drunken man acts and talks like an 
 insane man, for the shallowest student can see 
 that ; but to the fact that the causes which lead 
 him to drink are similar to those which impel 
 the insane man to his mad acts. The inebriate 
 is insane while he is sober. 
 
 Dr. T. L. Wright ^ speaks of three kinds of 
 alcoholic inebriates. First, the daily, habitual 
 drunkard, who is popularly believed to drink 
 " simply from motives of baseness, idleness, and 
 reckless diabolism. He is supposed to be wholly 
 in love and accord with evil from choice." 
 
 Second, the moderate drinker, who does not 
 get intoxicated. This man is blamed mainly 
 because of his bad example, and not because of 
 any direct injury to himself or others. " Yet," 
 says Dr. Wright, " it will appear in the sequel 
 that this steady drinker is the unwitting father 
 not only of a dreadful fate to himself, but that 
 from him, especially, through organic nerve 
 changes which eventually become hereditary, 
 
 1 " Iiiolniism," page 34.
 
 TEMPERANCE REFORM. IO5 
 
 spring not the inebriate and the lunatic alone, 
 but not uncommonly the criminal also." 
 
 Third, the periodic or spasmodic drunkard, 
 the man who reforms, signs the pledge, shows 
 deep remorse, and then plunges headlong into 
 the wildest excess of intoxication, again to re- 
 form and repeat the same cycle. " He is," 
 says Dr. Wright, "a standing puzzle, . . . the 
 source of more hopes and more fears, more 
 suspense and dread, more admiration and dis- 
 gust, than any other species of drunkard." He 
 is the true type of the drunkard in his essential 
 nature, and in his make-up will be found the 
 various causes of inebriety. 
 
 The causes of inebriety, like those of other 
 diseases, may be fruitfully classed as predis- 
 posing and exciting. Predisposing causes are 
 " those which render the body susceptible to 
 disease; exciting causes are those which ex- 
 cite an outbreak of the disease in bodies pre- 
 viously predisposed to it."^ We may examine 
 the different causes of inebriety from these 
 standpoints. 
 
 1 Kerr, "Inebriety," page 134.
 
 I06 TEMPERANCE REFORM. 
 
 Of course, the most patent cause of inebriety 
 is alcohol itself. Alcohol is a poison. Its 
 daily moderate use results in abnormal growth 
 and hardening of the connective tissues and 
 cell walls throughout the body, especially in 
 the liver, kidneys, and brain. Plainly, as a 
 result, the inner substance of these organs 
 must be gradually compressed and strangled. 
 The nerve matter is disturbed in its action and 
 degenerates day by day. Finally the point is 
 reached where the balance is upset, and, when 
 an exciting cause is presented, the moderate 
 drinker becomes the outrageous drunkard. 
 The nervous system becomes disorganized and 
 unstable, and nothing can quiet it except his 
 familiar anaesthetic and stimulant. 
 
 But it is agreed by the highest authorities, 
 that the use of intoxicants by a perfectly 
 healthy person is only one of the minor causes 
 of the disease inebriety. Says Dr. Wright, 
 " The greater proportion of the oinomaniacal 
 neuroses is to be found in those who have 
 received them by inheritance, from the epi- 
 lepsy, the insanity, the vices, and misfortunes.
 
 TEMPERANCE REFORM. lOJ 
 
 and physical injuries of a world long since dead 
 and gone." 
 
 Alcohol as an exciting agent must of course 
 always be present, else there could be no intox- 
 ication. Its seriousness occurs where a person 
 already subject to nervous disease through pre- 
 disposing causes, is induced to take the first 
 glass of liquor. In such a person there follows 
 an immediate frenzied seizure upon the intoxi- 
 cant as soon as he perceives that it allays the 
 nervous instability and agony which he suffers. 
 The slightest smell of alcohol will re-awaken 
 the old crave of the reformed drunkard, and his 
 will is powerless before it. Children who have 
 inherited the diseased or unstable condition 
 often show a wild yearning for an intoxicant 
 which once they have tasted. 
 
 Here is, of course, the supreme argument for 
 the prohibition of the liquor traffic. Children 
 and young people must not be allowed the first 
 taste of liquor, and the exciting agent must be 
 removed from the reforming drunkard. 
 
 To physical and mental shocks are ascribed 
 by Dr. Crothers twenty per cent of all in-
 
 I08 TEMPERANCE REFORM. 
 
 ebriety. These are especially " blows on the 
 head, sunstrokes, railroad accidents, and inju- 
 ries which have caused stupor or periods of 
 unconsciousness, or profound wasting dis- 
 eases." 1 The mental shocks are domestic, 
 business and financial trouble, religious hyste- 
 ria, disappointed affections, and fright.^ 
 
 Other diseases which lead to inebriety are 
 those affecting the vital organs and the blood, 
 such as lung disease, dyspepsia, licentiousness, 
 rheumatism, and gout. Shocks and diseases 
 result in abnormal nutrition or degeneracy of 
 the nerves and brain, thus calling for narcotic 
 relief. 
 
 Diet, sanitary conditions, and occupation, 
 combined with heredity, are the most far- 
 reaching of the predisposing causes of intem- 
 perance. The diet of the rich may be too 
 luxurious, that of the poor unwholesome, in- 
 sufficient, and innutritions. The nervous 
 system is not sufficiently nourished, and there 
 is a craving for something to stimulate and 
 soothe. The salted meats and the adulterated 
 
 1 N'orth American Review, Sept., 1891. - Kerr, p.nge iSi.
 
 TEMPERANCE REFORM. IO9 
 
 groceries of the poor, together with their 
 ignorance of cooking, are probably a co-operat- 
 ing cause for more than half our intemper- 
 ance. Children are brought up without 
 wholesome or sufficient food, their bodies are 
 starved and puny, and when they grow older 
 and are compelled to work, their strength 
 cannot withstand the nervous strain. Intox- 
 icating drink is their inevitable refuge. I 
 know of no temperance reform more urgently 
 needed than cooking schools. 
 
 Bad diet is usually found with bad homes. 
 Says Dr. Kerr : " Ill-ventilated and over- 
 crowded dwellings, from the vitiated state of 
 the air within them, occasion a languor and 
 sluggishness which lead to functional derange- 
 ment, and produce a profound feeling of de- 
 pression which, in many cases, predisposes 
 and excites to intemperance in alcohol." 
 Tenement-house reform is profound temper- 
 ance reform. 
 
 Occupation underlies many other causes. 
 
 It determines diet and tenement. In itself 
 
 • it acts in two ways. In the learned profes-
 
 no TEMPERANCE REFORM. 
 
 sions and business enterprises, where there is 
 usually a sensitive nervous organism combined 
 with modern high-pressure competition, ner- 
 vous irritability arouses the craving for intox- 
 icants. Stock-brokers, editors, physicians, are 
 especially liable. 
 
 But these classes usually have variety in 
 their work. Competition with variety often 
 strengthens the mind and nerves. In our 
 insane asylums the largest proportion of in- 
 mates is furnished from farmers' wives. It is 
 high pressure combined with monotony that 
 causes insanity. So with intemperance. The 
 working classes of our day do not learn an 
 all-around trade. They are appendages to 
 machines. Their occupation is cramped ; they 
 work in a groove ; the intellect is not invited. 
 Long hours, heated and unsanitary surround- 
 ings, and no variety in their work, lead to a 
 craving for stimulant and anaesthetic. 
 
 Heredity is wholly predisposing. Dr. Crothers 
 ascribes to it sixty per cent of intemperance. 
 Here we see the close relation between in- 
 ebriety and insanity. A notable fact of hered-
 
 TEMPERANCE REFORM. Ill 
 
 ity is the interchangeability of nervous diseases. 
 Heredity does not necessarily produce identity, 
 it produces like. Dr. Kerr ^ says of the off- 
 spring- of insane parentage, that one child may 
 be an idiot, a second an epileptic, a third 
 becomes insane at puberty, a fourth is an inebri- 
 ate, and a fifth is neuralgic. And so with the 
 families of many inebriates. One member is 
 insane, a second is hysteric, a third is melan- 
 cholic, a fourth is asthmatic, a fifth is an 
 inebriate. 
 
 But it is not necessary that parents be insane 
 or inebriate in order to beget a predisposition 
 to intemperance in their children. Consump- 
 tion, rheumatism, gout, or some profound con- 
 stitutional disease, will do the same. The 
 overwork of mothers in factories and sweat- 
 shops is the very hothouse of drunkenness for 
 generations to come. Whatever bequeathes 
 a defective or deficient nervous system will pre- 
 dispose the inheritor to inebriety.^ 
 
 * "Inebriety," page 29, 
 
 2 Whatever may be the outcome of the present discussion on 
 the question, "Are acquired cliaracters inherited?" it seems
 
 112 TEMPERANCE REFORM. 
 
 To these four causes, bad diet, bad homes, 
 occupation, and heredity, co-operating and cumu- 
 lative, may safely be attributed three-fourths of 
 our modern intemperance. 
 
 Other causes might be mentioned. The vol- 
 untary idleness of the rich and the tramp, the 
 involuntary idleness of the honest workingman. 
 In modern industry long hours of exhausting 
 work alternate with seasons of out-of-work. 
 Intemperance in drinking is the corollary of 
 intemperance in working. 
 
 Our system, too, of popular education, by 
 putting undue strain on the intellect at the 
 expense of the body, and establishing an 
 arbitrary exalted standard which only the bril- 
 liant can attain, results in nerve irritability, and 
 sows the seeds of intemperance. 
 
 With this survey of the causes of intemper- 
 
 probable that the above conclusions will not be overthrown. 
 For, should the question be decided negatively, it would apply 
 only to those characters acquired through use and disuse, while 
 profound constitutional degeneration, affecting the vital organs 
 and the blood of the parent, could by no possibility bequeath a 
 healthy body to the offspring. To inherit inebriety is not to 
 inherit a mouth-taste for liquor, but it is to inherit a debilitated 
 constitution and defective nerves.
 
 TEMPERANCE REFORM. II3 
 
 ance before us, it is plain that no single 
 panacea will effect its cure. The disease is as 
 deep as civilization. The cure is the whole 
 range of social reform. Let us rapidly survey 
 these reforms. The first to notice are those 
 measures which prevent the origin of an un- 
 stable nervous condition. A healthy body and 
 a healthy nervous system are the first requi- 
 sites. The diet can be improved by plain 
 instead of luxurious living on the part of the 
 rich, especially for children, by cooking schools 
 along with common and high schools for rich 
 and poor, and by laws against the adulteration 
 of food. 
 
 Tenement-house reform involves more than 
 inspection. It involves demolition, and it may 
 involve municipal ownership and management, 
 as in Liverpool and Glasgow. Certainly it 
 depends on cheaper street-car fares, and these 
 can be adequately secured only through muni- 
 cipal ownership of lines. Sanitation in dwell- 
 ings and factories will cure intemperance as it 
 lowers the death rate. 
 
 The level of competition in business must be
 
 114 TEMPERANCE REFORM. 
 
 raised. Competition is good ; but excessive, 
 prolonged competition is degrading. Here gov- 
 ernment must intervene. There are needed 
 shorter hours of labor, protection from Sunday 
 labor, Saturday half-holidays, factory laws pro- 
 tecting women and children, and abolition of 
 sweat-shops. 
 
 Wages, too, must be better, especially for 
 the lowest laborers, and there must be secu- 
 rity of employment and better educational 
 methods. 
 
 When all these social reforms are carried 
 out, it will be possible to have universal pro- 
 hibition. This is a preventive measure, but 
 not a positive cure. It should be extended 
 wherever it can be enforced. Sweden and 
 Norway and South Carolina have shown us 
 the next best system. They have taken the 
 element of private profit out of the retail liquor 
 business, and have made it a government mo- 
 nopoly. They have substituted public profit. 
 There is danger that this, in relieving the 
 people from taxes, may operate against further 
 prohibition; but at any rate it is better than
 
 TEMPERANCE REFORM. II5 
 
 our system of high license, which combines 
 the twin evils of private profit and public 
 profit. It seems plain, however, that intoxi- 
 cating liquors ought not to be sold at cost. 
 The profits must then be enormous. Norway 
 has hit upon the plan of turning them in to 
 various charitable, religious, and reformatory 
 institutions. This is the best that can be 
 done, but it looks like a bonus to the saviours 
 of society not to oppose the industry that 
 gives them something to do. 
 
 So much for the prevention of drunkenness. 
 Can the drunkard himself be cured.'' At pres- 
 ent there are two cures that have the approval 
 of the public, moral suasion and imprisonment. 
 Both are sad failures. Notwithstanding the 
 influences of religion and moral suasion, and 
 the periodic cycles of temperance revival, the 
 per capita consumption of liquor has doubled 
 in twenty years. 
 
 Imprisonment, on the other hand, is not 
 only not a cure, it is a powerful stimulus to 
 the disease. It is said that ninety-nine per 
 cent of the drunkards who are committed to
 
 Il6 TEMPERANCE REFORM. 
 
 prison are sure to appear again for the same 
 offence. One woman in England has been 
 committed two hundred and fifty times for 
 drunkenness, and American workhouses have 
 "rounders" whose records run from twenty to 
 one hundred and fifty commitments. This is 
 indeed the climax of that burlesque which we 
 fondly call "justice." We simply clean up the 
 drunkard for fifteen to thirty days, then send 
 him out with a pungent, newly whetted appetite 
 for another debauch. 
 
 When inebriety is recognized as a disease, 
 the chains of morality will not be broken, as 
 many fear, nor will the drunkard be petted and 
 fed with honey, but he will be treated like a 
 madman. Industrial hospitals will take the 
 place of workhouses in the vicinity of large 
 towns and cities, for temporary cases, and 
 there will be one or more State hospitals for 
 their permanent treatment. Admission will be 
 voluntary or compulsory. Treatment will be 
 scientific, military, medical, and hygienic. The 
 inmate will be compelled to work, he will be 
 taught a trade, his surplus earnings will be set
 
 TEMPERANCE REFORM. WJ 
 
 apart for his family and dependents or for him- 
 self on release. He will not be sent up for 
 thirty days, but iDitil cured. Succeeding com- 
 mitments will be cumulative, and the third or 
 fourth will prove him incurable. He will then 
 be confined for life. When in the judgment 
 of the physician and superintendent he is cured 
 he will be released not unconditionally, but 07i 
 parole, with official supervision and monthly 
 reports, to be returned, if he backslides, on a 
 warrant from the superintendent without the 
 intervention of the courts. 
 
 This is the best that medical science and 
 prison science together offer for the cure of 
 drunkenness. But all positive cures have 
 organic relations with preventive measures. 
 The disease is curable, or at least its course 
 can be checked, but there are two indispen- 
 sable conditions : total abstinoice, and freedom 
 from predisposing and exciting causes. The first 
 condition involves prohibition, the second in- 
 volves social reform. As long as men are over- 
 worked, involuntarily idle, have poor food and 
 bad homes, there is no permanent cure for 
 their drunkenness.
 
 Il8 TEMPERANCE REFORM. 
 
 I have not spoken directly of the place of 
 the Church in this matter of intemperance. 
 Yet everything I have said is directly the true 
 work of the Church. There is, however, one 
 profound fact and one unbounded field of work 
 which I have omitted. Human conduct is fun- 
 damentally a movement away from pain. A 
 man drinks because it gives him pleasure and 
 relieves his pain. If he does not drink, it is be- 
 cause he finds greater pleasure elsewhere. But 
 man differs from the brute in this : His pleas- 
 ures may be those of art, literature, politics, 
 religion, benevolence. These are refined and 
 exquisite. They leave no room for drunken- 
 ness. The whole thing is a question of what 
 we call character. The highest character finds 
 happiness in these highest activities; the low- 
 est, only in sensual indulgence. To merely tell 
 a man to quit drinking is mockery. Tell him 
 to quit, and then build up his character so that 
 he can have pleasure in better things. Here is 
 the work of the Church — the old work of char- 
 acter-building, but on a broader basis than ever 
 before. It is not merely conventional worship,
 
 TEMPERANCE REFORM. II9 
 
 but everything that gives the man a better 
 body, a better nervous system, a broader out- 
 look. It is the institutional church in its 
 fullest scope. It is the friendly visitors, 
 organized, intelligent, faithful. I have advo- 
 cated shorter hours and better wages as essen- 
 tial temperance reform. Yet I know these 
 cannot be safely granted to men whose minds 
 are low. It is the duty of the Church to make 
 men worthy of industrial and social reform. 
 Individual reform must accompany social re- 
 form. Each is essential to the other. Intem- 
 perance is a social disease and an individual 
 disease. It must be attacked from both sides. 
 Christianity and true religion are equal to the 
 attack if only they summon to their aid 
 psychology and sociology.
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES.
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 Modern society is marked by three momen- 
 tous but quiet revolutions, which distinguish it 
 from any that have preceded. The first is a 
 moral, the second a technical, the third an 
 economic revolution. 
 
 The moral revolution is that remarkable hu- 
 manitarian wave which is showing itself in 
 religion, politics, industry. The Sunday-school 
 scholar of to-day knows almost nothing of the 
 creeds and catechisms which engrossed the 
 childhood of our mothers ; but he learns about 
 the Man Christ, and scarcely gets a hint at the 
 wrath and vengeance of God. The politician 
 protests by the heavens above and the earth 
 beneath that he is above all the friend of the 
 workingman. In industry the air is rife with 
 schemes for profit-sharing, co-operation, and 
 socialism. 
 
 123
 
 124 MUNICIPAL MONO rO LIES. 
 
 All this is a new way of looking at things. 
 The world has shifted its moral standpoint. A 
 revolution has occurred in the very hearts of 
 men. And a moral revolution is the all-impor- 
 tant one in society. It is the beliefs, the hopes, 
 the ideals of men that transform and renovate 
 their social institutions. Everything else must 
 conform to these new ideas. The standpoint 
 which we shall take to-day on every social and 
 industrial question is determined mainly by the 
 way we look at this revolution in morals. 
 
 The technical revolution consists in the un- 
 paralleled march of science and invention. Na- 
 ture is made the slave of man instead of his 
 master. The locomotive engineer is as mighty 
 as ten thousand Greeks and Romans. This 
 technical revolution effects its greatest results 
 in the means of communication and transporta- 
 tion. It has separated the farmer from the 
 manufacturer by thousands of miles. It has 
 built up cities like condensed empires. It has 
 caused a minute and rigid division of labor. 
 And this, more important than all else, has 
 made men dependent upon each other for their
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 1 25 
 
 very livelihood. No one nowadays supplies 
 all his own wants. He performs one little ser- 
 vice for society at large, and looks to society 
 for his own sustenance. Hence, those indus- 
 tries which are called distributive are the most 
 vital of all. They furnish the only avenues 
 for carrying the products of the individual out 
 to society, distributing them among his fellow- 
 men, and, in turn, of bringing back to the indi- 
 vidual the products which society has made for 
 him. The individual cannot do this. He must 
 rely upon social servants to do it. If I be de- 
 pendent upon you for my life, much more am I 
 dependent upon the means of communication 
 for reaching you. These industries we rightly 
 look upon as public services. They must have 
 special favors from society, and society cannot 
 withhold these because its life depends upon 
 the services. Hence society grants them fran- 
 chises, rights of way, the use of public high- 
 ways, the sovereign powers of eminent domain. 
 From the nature of the case it makes them 
 monopolies. Competition, which presses down 
 on other enterprises, is here unknown.
 
 126 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 City monopolies are a special kind of these 
 general distributive industries. But they are 
 as vital to the city life as are railways and 
 postal service to the nation. Cities cover to- 
 day such wide areas, individuals have their in- 
 dustry so much more minutely divided than in 
 the country, access to the free gifts of nature 
 — like water, sunlight, fresh air — is necessa- 
 rily so denied, competition is so relentless, that 
 the city dweller must look to public servants 
 for necessities which the countryman readily 
 provides for himself. 
 
 The economic revolution is the rise and 
 growth of private corporations. Unquestion- 
 ably the corporations have made possible the 
 present marvellous development of industry. 
 They have opened up the resources of the 
 country on a large scale, have conducted costly 
 experiments, and brought about unnumbered 
 economies. But private corporations in con- 
 trol of the distributive industries of a city are 
 very different from the original experimental 
 corporations. An argument was formerly in 
 vogue to the effect tliat private business was
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 12/ 
 
 always better managed than public, because the 
 proprietor had a personal, immediate interest in 
 the success of his business. He gave his indi- 
 vidual attention to its oversight. He watched 
 the details, took advantage of improvements, 
 sought eagerly to please his customers and to 
 solicit trade. These arguments held true re- 
 garding corporations, because the owners were 
 always the originators and managers of their 
 own business. But for city monopolies this is no 
 longer true. These industries have passed far 
 beyond the experimental stage. They supply 
 necessities. They need none of the costly 
 devices of advertising and bill-posting. Their 
 market is constant. In good times or bad the 
 people must patronize them. They are the 
 safest kind of business that can possibly be 
 entered upon. In this regard they even sur- 
 pass distributive industries in the country at 
 large, like railways and the telegraph. Cities 
 are growing rapidly in size; no competitors 
 can contend with these municipal monopolies 
 for their growing market ; and every increase 
 in sales is accompanied by a diminishing cost
 
 128 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 of production. Whether the business is man 
 aged well or ill, profits must swiftly increase. 
 
 Consequently we find as we should expect, a 
 change in the character of corporations owning 
 these enterprises. The stockholders are no 
 longer as a rule the managers. They have sur- 
 rendered their earlier functions into the hands 
 of salaried presidents, superintendents, and 
 attorneys. These are the men who really con- 
 trol such enterprises and deal with the custom- 
 ers. They are agents. The stockholders are 
 perhaps absentees. They look only for divi- 
 dends. Their agents are responsible for the 
 dividends, not directly for the public services 
 they render. 
 
 With these facts recognized, the conclusion 
 is necessary that these industries must either 
 be controlled or owned by the city. Nobody 
 any longer favors leaving them alone. The 
 moral revolution has gone too far. These enter- 
 prises hold the dearest interests of the masses 
 in their hands. They employ thousands of 
 laborers. And, notwitlistanding the city gives 
 to them tlie most valuable of special privileges,
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 1 29 
 
 there are no employers in the land who work 
 their men so long or pay them so poorly, unless 
 public control forces them into better ways. Be- 
 sides, their charges are nearly always dispropor- 
 tionately far above the cost of their services, as 
 measured by those of other industries. Every 
 city in the land is in a constant fever of com- 
 plaint because of the high charges and shabby 
 services of these favored monopolies. The 
 working girl, receiving only six dollars a week, 
 is forced to stand morning and evening in a 
 cold and crowded street car and deliver to the 
 agents of the company at least one-tenth of her 
 income. She is thus taxed in a relentless way 
 that the government itself dare not attempt. 
 The Manhattan Elevated of New York carries 
 its passengers at the cost of two and one-half 
 cents apiece and charges them five cents for 
 doing it. This is simply the highway robbery 
 of the poor. Gas and electric light are furnished 
 at a prohibitory tariff. 
 
 But there is a corporation which is respon- 
 sive to the demands of morals. This is the 
 city itself. Private financiering is carried
 
 130 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 on for dividends. Public financiering is con- 
 ducted for the good of the public. The moral 
 revolution has passed by the private corpora- 
 tion, and is fast giving us a new goal for the 
 municipal corporation. 
 
 There is a wide-spread complaint about the 
 corruption of city government. Fault is found 
 with the army of ignorant and boss-led voters. 
 But how can a city government be pure and 
 noble, when we look upon its reform merely 
 as a matter of reducing the tax rate .'* Men are 
 better than taxes. We shall never have up- 
 right city government until cities are regarded 
 as means for elevating, widening, and rejoicing 
 the life of the day-laborer, his wife and child- 
 ren. If the city does nothing for your igno- 
 rant voter, why should he not get something 
 else for his vote .-* Let the city renovate the 
 tenement house, even build its own tene- 
 ment houses, as Liverpool and Glasgow have 
 done ; let it regulate and inspect the markets, 
 keep down extortion and pawnbroker's usury, 
 as Berlin has done ; let it furnish cheap trans- 
 portation and carry the children free to school
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 13I 
 
 and back, as Sydney and Melbourne have done ; 
 let it furnish cheap gas, electric light and 
 power, pure water, and even steam heat at 
 cost to all the poorest, as various cities abroad 
 and at home have done ; then should we have 
 a city worth spending enthusiasm upon. Then 
 would city government take hold of the hearts 
 of the meanest voters. At present the work- 
 ingman has nothing at stake in his munici- 
 pality. He is a mere pack-horse, with a 
 precarious shelter-at-will in somebody else's 
 tenement. The city does nothing for him. 
 What interest can he take in it .-' 
 
 You may say this is not business — it is 
 sentiment. Yes, it is sentiment. But he who 
 counts upon ruling out the ethical impulses 
 from politics, religion, or business, is revolting 
 against the one social force that is resistless. 
 
 With this new view of city government 
 arising in the hearts of men, economists are 
 compelled to add new emphasis to the dis- 
 tinction between industries that are public, and 
 those that are private. The distributive indus- 
 tries are public. We are only beginning to
 
 132 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 see how significant tliey are for the welfare 
 of every other enterprise in the city. They 
 must be made servants to them. 
 
 What, then, can public control and regula- 
 tion short of ownership and management do, 
 to make them fulfil their proper purpose.-' 
 Massachusetts has established a State Board 
 of Gas and Electric Light Commissioners with 
 extraordinary powers. Upon complaint from 
 any city, the board can make examination, and 
 can order the company to charge reasonable 
 rates and to establish reasonable conditions. 
 Its decisions are final. The board has been 
 in existence for eight years ; yet in no State 
 in the Union to-day is the demand for public 
 ownership more urgent. Charges have been 
 reduced in but a few cases through the efforts 
 of the board, and then very insignificantly. 
 The companies continue to pay high dividends 
 on inflated stock, and the service, though 
 somewhat improved, is far below that where 
 cities own their plants. The commission 
 protects the companies even more than the 
 public. In many States the companies are
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 1 33 
 
 advocating commissions to stem the tide for 
 public ownership. 
 
 It is one thing to show what ought to be 
 done, and another to show that it can be done. 
 Can cities safely undertake these enterprises .'' 
 Would not expenses be greater .? Would not 
 improvements cease to be added ? Would not 
 political corruption be increased } 
 
 There are four characteristics belonging to 
 these enterprises, as compared with strictly- 
 private business, which render them peculiarly 
 fit for public ownership and management. 
 
 In the first place, they are not experiments. 
 They supply necessities. Unless the city it- 
 self withers away, they are sure to grow more 
 profitable. Government in none of its forms 
 can afford to take risks. If an individual fail 
 in an experiment, he alone goes into bank- 
 ruptcy. But if a government fail, bankruptcy 
 means the beginning of anarchy. Government 
 must be cautious, but cities run no risks what- 
 ever in these industries. 
 
 These enterprises, too, are monopolies. 
 Government cannot safely engage in com-
 
 134 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 petition with private corporations. If gov- 
 ernment did not forbid private persons to 
 carry the mails, the public post-ofhce would 
 prove a failure. This does not mean that 
 public service is inefficient, but that public 
 financiering is based on different principles 
 from private. Its purpose is the development 
 of the country, of the city, the encouragement 
 of industry, the equalizing of conditions, the 
 welfare of the masses. A private post-ofifice 
 would give magnificent service between the 
 great cities and wealthy patrons. It would 
 carry letters in cities for half a cent. But 
 the South and West, the poor and the iso- 
 lated, would have no service whatever, or else 
 would pay extortionate prices. The Atlantic 
 coast and Great Lake regions support the 
 post-office, and pay for all the country. Other 
 sections are served at heavy loss. This can 
 be done only by enforcing a monopoly or 
 by imposing taxes. So it is with a munici- 
 pal enterprise. Like the streets and high- 
 ways, it is a necessary condition and stimulus 
 for private business. It ought not to be
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 1 35 
 
 conducted for profit, but for service. For 
 effecting this result it must be a monopoly. 
 
 Again, these enterprises are pre-eminently 
 simple in their organization. There are no 
 complex, minute details. There is little deli- 
 cacy of adjustment. Not a great amount of 
 skill is required from the workmen. A large 
 number of employees perform the same opera- 
 tion. They can be organized like an army. 
 The accounts are easily kept, and the public 
 can understand them. 
 
 And lastly, the workmen are constantly under 
 the eye of their employers, the public. The 
 public is capable of judging as to the quality 
 of the service. Complaint is easily made. 
 The manager and superintendents are your 
 neighbors. If they are responsible to you they 
 will serve you well. 
 
 These are four advantages which render it 
 presumptive that city governments could suc- 
 cessfully own and operate these enterprises. 
 Experience, also, as far as it can be gathered, 
 realizes these presumptions. City ownership 
 and management, in every known case where
 
 136 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 it has been tried, is superior to private owner- 
 ship and management. I can stop here only to 
 give final results and averages, as far as these 
 enterprises have been studied, and refer you 
 for details to other sources.^ 
 
 According to the census report of 1892, the 
 average annual charge for water for an average 
 dwelling in thirty-six cities owning their works, 
 was $11.50 for an average daily per capita con- 
 sumption of ninety gallons ; while in fourteen 
 cities under private ownership, the charge was 
 $17.42, or an average of fifty-one per cent 
 higher. The lowest charge was for public 
 ownership, $4.50. The highest was for private 
 
 ^ Statistical data following are derived from the "Census 
 Bulletins" of 1890; "Consular Report on Gas in Foreign 
 Countries; " Review of Revieivs, February, 1S93, articles on 
 Municipal Gas-making and Electric Lighting in the United 
 States; The Aegis, Madison, Wisconsin, containing report of 
 a debate on Municipal Ownership; Bemis, " Public Ownership 
 of Gas in the United States," in publications of the American 
 Economic Association. The statistics are ably criticised, how- 
 ever, by Rosewater in publications of the American Statistical 
 Association, 1893, volume iii.. Numbers 21 and 22. Mr. 
 Rosewater apparently does not deny the conclusions to be 
 diawn fnim tlie statistics, since he advocates municipal owner- 
 ship, lie rightly enjoins caution in the use of the figures, 
 e.ipeeiully in the nialt^-r cif averni;us.
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 1 37 
 
 ownership, $31.00. The average cost of the 
 works under city ownership was $21.35 ^^ each 
 head of population, while, under private owner- 
 ship, companies were paying dividends on 1^31.20 
 per capita, being forty-six per cent higher. 
 
 In the manufacture of gas, European cities 
 have gone ahead of American cities. In Ger- 
 many, fifty per cent of the cities own their 
 works, and the charges are, in every case, 
 less than for private services. Berlin clears 
 $1,200,000 a year on her municipal gas, and 
 sells it for $1.00 a thousand. New York, with 
 the same population, pays $1.25 a thousand, 
 and gets nothing but a small lot of taxes and 
 a big lot of bribed aldermen. 
 
 In England, public works have increased in 
 sixteen years twenty-three per cent, while private 
 works have increased ig.88 per cent. The 
 average price charged by public works is 2s. 6d. 
 — sixty cents — the average by private works 
 is 2s. Q/iid. — sixty-seven cents. It is a gen- 
 eral fact that with public ownership the con- 
 sumption of gas and other services is ranch 
 smaller in proportion to the number of con-
 
 138 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 sumers than with private ownership, showing 
 that the public serves the jDOorcr classes. In 
 England, it stands twenty-nine thousand feet 
 per consumer in public works, and fifty-five 
 thousand in private ; while with public works 
 the number of consumers is fifteen per cent of 
 the population, and with private works it is only 
 eight and one-half per cent. 
 
 In the United States there are but twelve 
 cities owning gas-works. Two of these se- 
 cured their works in 1892 and one in 1891. 
 Philadelphia, notwithstanding a worn-out plant 
 and wide areas, manufactures and delivers gas 
 for seventy-six cents per thousand feet ; and, 
 making allowance for extensions, interest, and 
 taxes, the cost would be $1.06. She sells it 
 for $1.50, clears over $1,000,000 a year, and 
 with her water-works reduces the tax-rate on 
 other property sixty cents on the hundred dol- 
 lars. 
 
 The city of Wheeling, with thirty-five thou- 
 sand population, made and delivered gas in 1892 
 for fifty-seven cents per thousand feet, allowing 
 seven per cent for interest and taxes ; sold the
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 1 39 
 
 gas for seventy-five cents to private consumers, 
 furnished free all gas used by the city, and 
 cleared twenty-eight thousand dollars cash. 
 
 The average cost for nine cities which have 
 been in the business for more than two years 
 is sixty-four cents a thousand. The cost of 
 making gas is rapidly falling. Water gas can 
 be made and sold for thirty-five cents. If a 
 city owns its works, it gets the advantage of 
 such improvements. Otherwise no reductions 
 are made. Philadelphia, having her own pipes, 
 buys water gas in the holders for thirty-seven 
 cents. 
 
 The number of consumers in Philadelphia is 
 thirteen per cent of the population. In Wheel- 
 ing ten per cent. In Boston, with private 
 ownership, it is only seven per cent. 
 
 Public works can be duplicated in cities of 
 twenty thousand population and over at a cost 
 of about three dollars per thousand feet of 
 product. As cities can borrow for four per 
 cent, the allowance for interest would be about 
 twelve cents per thousand. In twenty-two 
 large cities the companies are paying hand-
 
 140 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 some dividends on a capitalization of $T.']2 per 
 tliousand feet. If dividends are six per cent, 
 this would be an average monopoly squeezing 
 of forty-six cents on the thousand feet. In 
 Chicago, with a capitalization of $10.63, it 
 would be sixty cents a thousand. 
 
 Electric lighting shows even more startling 
 comparisons. The average cost per light per 
 year of arcs operated by twenty-three cities is 
 $53.04. Making the very liberal allowance of 
 twelve per cent on the total cost of plant and 
 buildings, for interest, depreciation, and taxes, 
 the average cost is $86.64, ^-^''tl, at an allowance 
 of seven per cent the cost is only $75.64. But 
 twenty-nine private companies under substan- 
 tially similar conditions, and for the same lights, 
 receive an average of $106.61 — from twenty to 
 forty per cent higher than public cost. 
 
 There are very few cities, abroad or at home, 
 which own and operate their street railways. 
 But Plymouth, Glasgow, and London have re- 
 cently purchased portions of their lines and 
 have just begun to operate them. Thirty-three 
 English cities own their linos but lease them to
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. I4I 
 
 companies. Toronto operated its lines for six 
 months at a profit of twenty-five thousand dol- 
 lars per month, but has leased them to a pri- 
 vate company for twelve thousand dollars per 
 month. 
 
 The enormous profits of street railway lines 
 is well known, as well as the magnificent stock- 
 watering which is based upon them. The 
 Manhattan Elevated of New York City, cost- 
 ing- ^22,000,000, is bonded and stocked at 
 $70,000,000, pays six per cent dividends, and 
 its inflated stock sells at one hundred and sev- 
 enty dollars. Nearly every city in the country 
 shows these roads paying good dividends on 
 from two to five times their cost. 
 
 Now, what could be done by cities if they 
 owned and operated their railways.-' In the first 
 place, they can borrow money at two-thirds the 
 rate paid by private corporations. They would 
 not seek profits, but could immediately reduce 
 charges one-half. Traffic would be greatly in- 
 creased. Private corporations are often short- 
 sighted in the conduct of their own business. 
 The State of Iowa throuirh its State commis-
 
 142 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 sion reduced the charges for railway freight 
 in that state eighteen per cent. The railways 
 protested, and had the law declared unconstitu- 
 tional by the federal court. But they did not 
 ask to have the judicial decree enforced, be- 
 cause, in the mean time, their net earnings 
 had increased twenty-five per cent. Hungary 
 reduced the passenger charges on her state 
 railways seventy-five per cent, and the traffic 
 increased nearly five hundred per cent, while 
 the net earnings increased thirty to forty per 
 cent. 
 
 Not only would cities lower the charges, they 
 would also improve the service. The poorer 
 districts would receive extensions, cars would 
 be furnished in abundance, warm coaches would 
 be substituted for hay-barns. Better wages 
 would be paid, drivers protected from the cold, 
 shorter hours and holidays would be provided. 
 
 What would be the effect upon the business 
 industry of the city } Every family would save 
 twenty to forty dollars from street-car fares to 
 spend for clothing, groceries, shoes, and amuse- 
 ments. Profits from the street-car business would
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 1 43 
 
 be spent at home instead of in Europe. This 
 would increase the business of a city by liun- 
 dreds of thousands of dollars. Laboring people 
 could live in the country, and own their homes. 
 They would take a personal interest in city gov- 
 ernment. Tenements would not be crowded. 
 Sanitary conditions would be improved and the 
 death-rate lowered. Men out of work could ride 
 in search of employment, instead of wearily 
 tramping the streets. Laborers would be in 
 better health, have better food, do better work, 
 and all city industries would be materially ad- 
 vanced and stimulated. So great are the possi- 
 bilities of cheap transportation that I believe 
 the time will come when cities will carry freight 
 as well as passengers, and will perform this 
 work free of charge, paying the expenses out of 
 taxes. Consider what a blight it would be to 
 have our streets themselves owned by private 
 companies, and every pedestrian compelled to 
 pay toll when going through the turnstile or 
 under the gates. As cities grow in size and 
 become overcrowded, the actual work of trans- 
 portation will become as important, and will
 
 144 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 have to be clone on the same prhiciple, as the 
 present work of merely paving, bridging, and 
 cleaning the streets. 
 
 I need not go further to show what are the 
 possibilities of city ownership and manage- 
 ment. Everybody concedes most of this. But 
 you are doubtless thinking, " All this is very 
 fine, but do you not know that city government 
 in America is the most corrupt thing on earth .-' 
 You want to increase the civil service five or 
 ten times. You want to put thousands of 
 employees in the ranks of spoils. You want a 
 carnival of corruption. You want to bring 
 these important enterprises into politics." 
 
 Now, I ask, can they ever be deeper in pol- 
 itics than they are to-day .■" They, unlike other 
 kinds of business, depend directly upon legis- 
 lation for their franchises. And if we adopt 
 more stringent public control, we but increase 
 their dependence on politics. But, if they be 
 owned by the city, to whose interest would it 
 be to bribe aldermen and legislators .'' What 
 would become of the lobby .'' Would aldermen 
 and leirislators introduce bills in order to black-
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 1 45 
 
 mail them, and then withdraw the bills ? In 
 fact, city ownership takes them out of politics. 
 This is universally the case in the cities of 
 Europe ; and even in our own corrupt cities, 
 the same is true. 
 
 Yet I do not belittle this side of the ques- 
 tion. I agree that city government must be 
 improved before these industries can be safely 
 intrusted to it. In the minds of nearly every 
 one, this is the only stumbling block in the 
 way of city operation. Therefore, here is 
 where our most earnest attention must be 
 directed. 
 
 The question is one simply of choosing 
 agents. The only advantage now possessed 
 by a private corporation over a municipal one, 
 is the greater ability and freedom of private 
 stockholders in selecting managers and opera- 
 tors. They do not attend to the management 
 themselves. They choose others to do it. 
 And this is what a city must do if it operates 
 its own works. 
 
 The problem, then, is one of the civil service. 
 Is it impossible to devise a system of public
 
 146 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 selection which shall choose able and experi- 
 enced men to carry on public enterprises, which 
 shall make them responsible to the people and 
 not to the party managers, and which shall 
 give them secure tenure of office so long as 
 they do their work well ? Private corporations 
 do this. Can public corporations do the same ? 
 
 I do not believe that America need fall 
 behind Europe and Australia in this matter. 
 They have perfect and incorruptible city gov- 
 ernments. Cannot we .-* 
 
 It is not necessary to imitate foreign cities. 
 Our problems are our own. They must be 
 solved in our own way. And he is quite blind 
 who does not see that we are beginning to 
 solve them. First, we have about settled the 
 question of the mayor. We have discovered 
 the secret of individual personal responsibility. 
 We have done nothing yet for councils and 
 boards of aldermen, except to shear them of 
 their power. But the time will soon come 
 when they will be as well under control as the 
 mayor. Why is it that American cities have 
 capable, economical fire departments.^ It is be-
 
 MUNICIPAL MOiYOPOLIES. 142 
 
 cause the insurance companies put up the pre- 
 miums, and the business community is forced, 
 through the nerves of its pocket-book, to bring 
 the fire department into line with upright busi- 
 ness principles. The same can be done for 
 every other department of city government. 
 Let us take the fire department as a model. 
 Let us improve it in places. Let us apply its 
 methods to the entire city government. Then 
 there will be no question of political corrup- 
 tion. 
 
 I will sketch the way in which it seems to 
 me the thing can be done, taking as a model 
 certain features of the fire departments in 
 various cities of the Union. 
 
 Let us suppose that the city has purchased 
 the street-cars and purposes to operate them. 
 First, the mayor is the one responsible head 
 for the city government. He appoints a single 
 head of the department of transportation, who 
 is responsible to him and none other. This di- 
 rector of transportation is appointed only dur- 
 ing the term of the mayor, and is therefore not 
 an operative or superintendent, but a political
 
 148 MUiXICIFAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 officer, who determines the general policy of 
 his department and represents it before the 
 people. 
 
 The director appoints the superintendent, 
 or general manager. This is not a political 
 office, but a kind of technical superintendency. 
 The officer is appointed for life or good be- 
 havior. He must be a scientific expert, ac- 
 quainted with all systems of transportation at 
 home and abroad. He is responsible only to 
 the director, and is the only officer whom the 
 director appoints. 
 
 This superintendent in turn appoints his 
 immediate subordinates, such as foremen of 
 the different divisions. And the foremen ap- 
 point the operatives. Appointments must, in 
 all cases except the lowest, be made by way 
 of promoting individuals who are already in the 
 service. There is thus a regular gradation of 
 responsibility. Every individual in the entire 
 service is responsible to but one man, and that 
 his immediate superior. Every individual is 
 appointed for life or good behavior. Every 
 individual, from the director down to the day-
 
 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 1 49 
 
 laborer, can be summarily dismissed from the 
 service only by his immediate superior. But 
 the only valid reasons for dismissal are incom- 
 petency and such insubordination as is injuri- 
 ous to the service. Every man dismissed has 
 the riijht of public trial before a bench of 
 judges composed, perhaps, of the mayor, the 
 chairman of the city council, and the judge of 
 the circuit court. This bench must summon 
 witnesses, vv^ho must testify under oath, and 
 the dismissed officer must be confronted by the 
 superior who dismissed him. The bench of 
 judges has power to affirm the removal or to 
 reinstate the officer. Proceedings are to be 
 public, and the press, public opinion, and the 
 high standard of the judges, will see that jus- 
 tice is done. 
 
 Every appointee of the service should re- 
 ceive a pension after he reaches the age of 
 sixty or sixty-five, according to the nature of 
 his duties and the state of his health, as is 
 done in fire departments. The fund for this 
 pension should be contributed partly from a 
 tax on the wages of employees, and partly from
 
 150 MUNICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 
 
 the income of the business. Tlie prospect of 
 this pension will be a noble incentive to in- 
 tegrity and efficiency. 
 
 Lastly, we have to-day the secret official bal- 
 lot. This protects every employee in the free- 
 dom of his vote. He is not constrained to vote 
 for the party in power in order to hold his place. 
 
 With a civil service like this there would 
 not be the shadow of a charge of incompetency 
 or corruption. Regulations even less complete 
 render the fire service of American cities an 
 enviable model. No one advocates a return 
 to the days of private fire companies. With 
 the public service conducted in like manner, 
 all the advantages which I have sketched may 
 be expected from public ownership of every 
 public function. But without civil service 
 reform it is better to go along as we are. The 
 two must in truth come together. People will 
 understand the need of the one as it comes 
 with the other. And witli public ownership of 
 the monopolies, city government in America 
 may be expected to take on generally a high 
 plane of morals and efficiency. The best citi-
 
 MUXICIPAL MONOPOLIES. 151 
 
 zens would take greater interest than now. 
 The poorest citizens would look upon them- 
 selves as sharers in the municipal prosperity. 
 There would be no wealthy private corpora- 
 tions, dependent directly upon legislatures and 
 councils, and compelled to resort to sinister 
 influences. A new idea of what the city is for 
 would become current, and with it a new kind 
 of politics, a revived prosperity, and a happi- 
 ness more widely diffused.
 
 PROPORTIONAL 
 REPRESENTATION.
 
 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 
 
 The legislature is the weak point in demo- 
 cratic government. The American people have 
 succeeded fairly well in the organization of the 
 executive, judicial, and administrative depart- 
 ments ; but their law-making bodies are a sick- 
 ening failure. This applies to all grades of 
 legislatures, — municipal. State, and federal. 
 The name alderman is now a synonym for 
 boodler and embezzler. To become a member 
 of a legislature is understood in many States 
 to be an invitation for bribes. The business 
 interests of the country are reported to be in 
 a gasp of agony as long as Congress is in 
 session. 
 
 As might be expected, this distrust has 
 shown itself in many and far-reaching con- 
 stitutional changes. The powers of State and 
 city legislatures have been clipped and trimmed 
 and shorn until they offer no inducements to
 
 I 5 6 PR OPOR no XA L REPRESENTA TIO.W 
 
 upright ambition. The powers of governors, 
 mayors, administrative boards, and judges have 
 been correspondingly increased. The growing 
 popularity of the executive veto is one of the 
 startling facts of the times. I know a city 
 whose people turned out in mass-meeting to 
 illuminate the heavens wMth bonfires in honor 
 of a mayor's veto which had rescued them 
 from outrages perpetrated by their own law- 
 fully elected " city fathers." 
 
 The judiciary has gained materially at the 
 expense of the legislatures, both in the express 
 provisions of constitutions, and in the popular 
 approval. Conscious of the feelings of the 
 people, judges have steadily encroached upon 
 the very fields of legislative discretion, and 
 reluctantly, it may be, have more and more 
 assumed the right to set aside legislative en- 
 actments. This has become boldly apparent 
 in numerous recent decisions overthrowing 
 such peculiarly political statutes as those 
 which redistrict a state for the election of 
 representatives. This interference of the ju- 
 diciary, however justifiable the reasons, can
 
 PR OrOR TIONA L REPRESENTA TIOiV. I 5 7 
 
 only be fraught with clanger to itself. It is 
 thereby forced into the arena where are the 
 heated questions of political expediency, at 
 the expense of its integrity in the field where 
 administration and justice alone are its sphere. 
 The statement is often made that representa- 
 tive government is a failure, especially in cities. 
 But true representative government does not 
 exist. We have a sham representation. It 
 gives a show of fairness. But it is crude and 
 essentially unfair. It does not represent the 
 people. It represents the politicians. We are 
 a law-abiding people. Yet our laws are made 
 by a minority of the people, and by an irre- 
 sponsible oligarchy more dangerous than that 
 our fathers revolted against. The Congress 
 which passed the McKinley bill did not rep- 
 resent the people. There was a Republican 
 majority of three, but according to the popular 
 vote there should have been a Democratic ma- 
 jority of seven. In the succeeding Congress 
 there was supposed to be the most momentous 
 upheaval in the history of American politics. 
 The Democrats had a majority of 119 over all.
 
 I 5 3 rROPOR TIONAL REPRESEXTA 770 N. 
 
 But had the people been represented this ma- 
 jority would have been only 39. In the present 
 Congress the Democrats have a majority of 
 79, whereas (taking the Presidential vote of 
 1892 as a basis) they should be in a minority 
 of 29 ; the People's party should have 32 votes 
 instead of 8, and the Republicans 152 instead 
 of 129. To call our Congress a representative 
 body is the essence of sarcasm. To mention 
 two or three States, Indiana elects 13 Con- 
 gressmen. According to the popular vote they 
 should stand 7 Democrats and 6 Republicans. 
 According to the gerrymander they are 1 1 
 Democrats and only 2 Republicans. In other 
 words, every Hoosier Democrat whom you may 
 meet has an influence on the legislation of his 
 country equal to that of five and two-fifths 
 Republicans, 
 
 In Iowa it goes the other way. With 219,215 
 votes in 1892 the Republicans elected ten Con- 
 gressmen, while the Democrats with 201,923 
 votes elected only one. One Republican of 
 that State is equal to nearly ten Democrats. 
 In Maine Gs,6iJ Republicans elect all the four
 
 PR OPOR TlOiYA L REPRESENTA TION. I 5 9 
 
 Congressmen, though the Democrats cast 
 55,778 votes. In Maryland and Texas the 
 Democrats get them all ; and in Kansas the 
 Democrats have never had a representative 
 since the birth of the State, though they cast 
 from a third to two-fifths of the vote. 
 
 There is similar injustice in State and city 
 legislatures. It is even more glaring than 
 in the national legislature. In the latter 
 there is a kind of counterpoise, since a gerry- 
 mander in a Democratic State is likely to be 
 offset by another in a Republican State. But 
 in a State legislature it goes all one way. In- 
 diana in 1892, taking the presidential vote as a 
 basis, should have elected to the lower house 
 48 Democrats, 46 Republicans, 4 Populists, and 
 2 Prohibitionists. She actually elected 6^^ 
 Democrats and 37 Republicans. In the upper 
 house the vote should have stood, Democrats 
 24, Republicans 23, Populists 2, Prohibition- 
 ists I. Instead of this it was, Democrats 35, 
 Republicans 15. Ohio elected 72 Republicans 
 and 35 Democrats to the lower house. If the 
 people had been truly represented, there would
 
 1 60 PRO FOR TIONAL REPRESENTA TION. 
 
 have been, 51 Republicans, 51 Democrats, 3 
 Prohibitionists, and 2 Populists. 
 
 I have mentioned the gerrymander. This 
 animal is now attracting considerable attention. 
 And he deserves it. Yet he is but a natural 
 growth and a mere incident of the system of 
 electing representatives in all parliamentary 
 countries. This system requires a single rep- 
 resentative, elected by a majority or a plurality 
 vote, to stand for a limited territorial district. 
 The district has no natural boundaries. It 
 must, therefore, be artificially outlined by the 
 legislature. The party in power does this in 
 such a way that its own voters shall have small 
 majorities in a large number of districts, and 
 the opposite party large majorities in a small 
 number of districts. The gerrymander is only 
 an incident of the district system, and one of 
 its minor faults at that. The system itself has 
 become obsolete. 
 
 Public questions which in the thirteenth 
 century, when our present system of repre- 
 sentation originated, were only local and sec- 
 tional, are now national questions. The early
 
 PR OPOR TIONA L REPRESENTA TION. 1 6 1 
 
 problem of representative government was, 
 How to bring together into a single strong 
 government widely separated localities, with- 
 out destroying their local governments ? It 
 was the problem of federation. This problem 
 has now been settled in all free nations. 
 
 Moreover, economic and social questions in 
 those times were class questions. Mercantile 
 law, import and export duties, were determined 
 by representatives of the cities ; the tenure 
 of land by the military tenants ; ecclesiastical 
 law by the church assemblies. But to-day the 
 organic nature of every great nation has made 
 these into national questions of vital interest to 
 every class and section. In the United States 
 we have lately seen citizenship and the rights 
 of property come under federal protection, and 
 federal control has reached out for our two 
 most influential business interests, — banking 
 and railways. Federal interference will be 
 much further extended when national trusts 
 and syndicates become further consolidated. 
 
 In the earlier times there were several rea- 
 sons why the district system fairly represented
 
 1 62 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 
 
 the electors and returned able representatives. 
 There were no national political parties, since 
 there were no national political questions. The 
 earliest parties were divided on territorial lines. 
 In England the Whigs were the city party, and 
 the Tories the country party. Each represent- 
 ative therefore stood for a unanimous constit- 
 uency. In both England and the colonics the 
 legislature was the representative of the people 
 united in opposition to a sovereign or his dep- 
 uty. Political parties, as we understand them, 
 are of recent origin. In the United States 
 they are the growth of the last fifty years, 
 and especially since the civil war have they 
 made their marked advances. The peculiar 
 feature of this development has been the su- 
 premacy of that new force in politics, the 
 " machine." Party organization is an essential 
 element of party government ; but the extent, 
 perfection, and detail of this organization in 
 the United States is bewildering. It controls 
 candidate and voters with an iron grip, and 
 they glory in their subjection. 
 
 To-day the legislature, instead of being the
 
 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 1 63 
 
 united representatives of those who protest 
 against the government, is itself the govern- 
 ment. Within its halls occur the conflicts for 
 the control of tlie fortunes and destinies of 
 the people. There is no outside enemy whose 
 constant presence enforces harmony and mu- 
 tual help. But two great parties, backed by 
 their machines, stand face to face, and which- 
 ever masters the legislature, masters the people. 
 The districts which elect representatives are no 
 longer unanimous, but are usually quite equally 
 divided between the two parties. Hence we 
 have the disproportionate power of small ag- 
 gressive factions with selfish interests holding 
 the balance of power. Here is the long lever- 
 age of saloons, gamblers, and bribers. 
 
 The suffrage, too, has been widened. When 
 a limited, local oligarchy selected a representa- 
 tive, it had all the freedom of choice which is 
 exercised to-day in private business by the 
 directors of a corporation in selecting mana- 
 gers, agents, and attorneys. 
 
 Again, legislation in the olden time was very 
 meagre. The people were satisfied to live ac-
 
 164 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 
 
 cording to the customs of their ancestors. 
 Government was shnply a matter of adminis- 
 tration ; a representative system which could 
 succeed then would fail now when legislation is 
 the most intricate of arts, depending upon the 
 profoundest of sciences, and dominating the 
 most vital of human interests. 
 
 Lastly, the private corporation with its pro- 
 fessional lobby was unknown fifty years ago. 
 The lobby and the "machine" have grown up 
 together like Siamese twins. The professional 
 lobbyists are nearly always the managers of the 
 political machine. They carry in their pockets 
 the political fortunes of the legislators. The 
 "third house" is the legislature. It is not 
 surprising that a representative system which 
 sufficed for an era of isolated, petty industries 
 should wither and rot in a day of private cor- 
 porations with public functions and fabulous 
 resources. 
 
 Proportional representation is presented as a 
 remedy, not only for the gerrymander, but also 
 for the general collapse of legislatures. Ac- 
 cording to this reform, legislative districts
 
 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 1 6$ 
 
 electing single representatives, are to be abol- 
 ished entirely. This is the primitive method 
 unsuited to modern problems. Representatives 
 are to be elected on a general ticket for the 
 city, county, or State, as the case may be. Po- 
 litical parties or groups of voters equal to one 
 per cent of the electorate may put in nomina- 
 tion a ticket or list of candidates containing as 
 many names as they choose, up to the total 
 number of representatives to be elected. The 
 elector votes as at present with the Austra- 
 lian ballot. His votes count primarily for tick- 
 ets, and not for individual candidates, but he 
 may indicate his preferences for individuals on 
 the ticket for which he votes. Should he scat- 
 ter his votes among the candidates on different 
 tickets, a vote for a candidate counts as a vote 
 for the ticket on which the candidate figures, 
 and any unexpressed votes are attributed to the 
 ticket for which he votes as a whole. The re- 
 turning officers determine first the number of 
 votes given to each ticket ; and the proportion 
 which this vote bears to the total vote indi- 
 cates the number of elected representatives
 
 l66 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 
 
 to which each ticket is entitled. The success- 
 ful candidates are discovered by taking those 
 on each ticket who have the highest number of 
 preferences up to the total number of candidates 
 to which the respective tickets are entitled. 
 
 The principle involved, and at the same time 
 the very slight change from present methods, 
 can be shown by a table of votes for presiden- 
 tial electors. I have selected the State of 
 Indiana, and have taken the vote as given in 
 the fall of 1892, indicating the particular can- 
 didates by Roman numerals in the order in 
 which they stood on the respective tickets. 
 
 
 Dem. 
 
 Rep. 
 
 People's. 
 
 Proh. 
 
 I. 
 
 262,270* 
 
 255>6i5* 
 
 22,20S 
 
 13,050 
 
 II. 
 
 260,661* 
 
 253,87s* 
 
 21,861 
 
 12,830 
 
 III. 
 
 260,600* 
 
 253.836* 
 
 21,883 
 
 12,827 
 
 IV. 
 
 260,586* 
 
 253.815* 
 
 21,876 
 
 12,824 
 
 V. 
 
 260,580 
 
 253.799* 
 
 21,873 
 
 12,823 
 
 VI. 
 
 260,560 
 
 253,807* 
 
 21,873 
 
 12,821 
 
 VII. 
 
 260,588* 
 
 253.793 
 
 21,873 
 
 12,821 
 
 VIII. 
 
 260,547 
 
 253,808* 
 
 21,865 
 
 12,820 
 
 IX. 
 
 260,575 
 
 253.787 
 
 21,873 
 
 12,819 
 
 X. 
 
 260,600* 
 
 253.792 
 
 21,873 
 
 12,813 
 
 XI. 
 
 260,591* 
 
 253.777 
 
 21,871 
 
 12,820 
 
 XII. 
 
 260,590* 
 
 253.767 
 
 21,867 
 
 12,819 
 
 XIII. 
 
 260,581 
 
 253.767 
 
 21,867 
 
 12,815 
 
 XIV. 
 
 260,538 
 
 253.770 
 
 21,865 
 
 12,816 
 
 XV. 
 
 260,533 
 
 253.770 
 3,808,791 
 
 21,864 
 328,392 
 
 12,815 
 
 
 3.910,390 
 
 192,533
 
 PROPOKTIONAL representation: 1 6/ 
 
 Of course, under the existing system of 
 majority (or rather pkirality) rule, the 15 Dem- 
 ocratic nominees are declared the successful 
 candidates, seeing that individually each one 
 receives more votes than any Republican can- 
 didate. But with proportional representation, 
 parties rather than individuals must first receive 
 their just deserts. Therefore the following 
 calculation is made: — 
 
 Democratic 3,910,390 
 
 Republican 3,808,791 
 
 People's 328,392 
 
 Prohibition 192,533 
 
 TOTAL 8,240,106 
 
 8,240,106 -f IS = 549,340. 
 
 Since there are 15 representatives to be 
 elected, it would appear that every party should 
 be entitled to one representative for every fif- 
 teenth part which it receives of the total vote 
 cast for all parties. This quotient would be 
 549,340. But since the People's party cast only 
 61 % of this quotient, and the Prohibitionists 
 o'^ly 33 %) they have not attained a fair elec- 
 toral significance (say, 75 % of the quotient), 
 and should be excluded altogether. The cal- 
 culation would then proceed as follows : —
 
 1 68 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 
 
 Democratic 3,910,390 
 
 Republican 3,808,791 
 
 7,719,181 
 7,718,181 ^ 15 = 514,612 = electoral quotient. 
 3,910,390 -i- 514,612 = 7 + remainder 308,106 
 3,808,791 4- 514,612 = 7 + remainder 206,507 
 TOTAL, 14 
 
 The Democratic ticket, having the largest 
 remainder, is entitled to the odd delegate, mak- 
 ing a total representation of 8 Democrats and 
 7 Republicans. 
 
 It now remains to select the individual can- 
 didates on the several tickets. This is easily 
 done by taking the 8 Democrats and 7 Repub- 
 licans who show the highest number of indi- 
 vidual votes. I have indicated these successful 
 candidates by an asterisk. The fact that the 
 7 Republicans who are elected receive each a 
 less number of votes than the 7 Democrats 
 who are defeated may appear at first as a 
 formal objection to the plan. But when we re- 
 member that it is representation of Republican 
 and Democratic voters that we wish, and not 
 primarily the success of candidates, the objec- 
 tion vanishes.
 
 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 1 69 
 
 It will appear from the foregoing distribution 
 of seats that the smaller the number of repre- 
 sentatives to be elected, the more difficult it is 
 to approach equality. Should the election have 
 been held for the fifty members of the Indiana 
 State Senate (the relative standing of parties 
 remaining the same), the result would have 
 been as follows, and the minority parties would 
 not have been excluded : — 
 
 8,240,106 -j- 50 = 164,805 = electoral quotient. 
 Democratic, 3,910,390 -r 164,805 = 23 + remainder 119,875 
 Republican, 3,808,791 -7- 164,805 = 23 + remainder 18,276 
 People's, 328,392 -r 164,805 = i + remainder 163,587 
 
 Prohibition, 192,533-^164,805= i + remainder 27,728 
 TOTAL, 48 
 
 There remain two senators to be assigned 
 to the parties having the highest remainders. 
 When this is done the Senate stands : — 
 
 Democrats 24 
 
 Republicans 23 
 
 Populists 2 
 
 Prohibitionists I 
 
 TOTAL, 50 
 
 There are, indeed, various plans proposed for 
 proportional representation besides the forego- 
 ing, but the differences are minor. They all
 
 I/O PROPORTIO.\AL REPRESENTATION: 
 
 agree in the abolition of districts, and the 
 substitution of election at large. The argu- 
 ments for the adoption of one will serve for all. 
 In the first place, the gerrymander would be- 
 come impossible. Mathematical justice between 
 parties would be assured. But, more important 
 than all, legislative bodies would be transformed 
 from inefficient and corrupt bands of spoilsmen 
 into capable, upright, and representative assem- 
 blies of law-makers. The power of the ma- 
 chine, the boss, and the lobby would be broken. 
 Bribery would be rendered fruitless, and repre- 
 sentative government would become what it 
 has been only in name — free. 
 
 The secret of most of the evils under the 
 modern highly organized political system is the 
 factitious importance given to organized mi- 
 norities and groups which hold the balance of 
 power. This is the necessary result of a sys- 
 tem which elects single public officers by a 
 majority or plurality vote. 
 
 Now, plainly, as human nature happens to 
 be constituted, very few men will "bolt" their 
 party nominees, no matter how bad they may
 
 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. I/I 
 
 be, when they know that the turn of a few 
 votes means the success of the opposite party. 
 Practically, there are never but two candidates 
 to choose between. A third party, except in 
 times of political earthquake, has no chance 
 whatever. Nothing to the American is so cul- 
 pable as " throwing his vote away." Conse- 
 quently, the American way of bolting a ticket 
 is to stay at home ; and this only fortifies the 
 more the party machine. 
 
 Freedom from the rule of the machine means 
 first, power on the part of the voters to con- 
 trol the nominations of their party, and second, 
 power to defeat obnoxious candidates of their 
 own party without endangering the success of 
 the party. 
 
 Power to control nominations involves re- 
 form of the primaries and conventions. As it 
 is well known, these are in the hands of the 
 professionals, and here is the source of their 
 power. The main ground of machine rule in 
 primaries and conventions is the system of ex- 
 clusive majority election. The chairman is 
 elected by a majority vote. He names com-
 
 1/2 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 
 
 mittees, of course, only from the majority fac- 
 tion. Delegates, also, to conventions are 
 elected only by the majority vote. This is 
 wholly irrational. Why should a majority fac- 
 tion have all the delegates and the minority 
 none .-* A simple device of proportional voting 
 would remedy this serious evil. There would 
 then be no " cut-and-dried " tickets. Anti- 
 machine delegates and candidates could have 
 some hope of nomination, and their support- 
 ers would have a motive for attending the 
 primaries. 
 
 But suppose the elector finds that his party 
 ticket has been put forward wholly in the in- 
 terests of the party machine ; that there is 
 no candidate offered to him whom he deems 
 worthy of election. Under the district system 
 he must vote for the party nominee or else 
 stay at home, or cast his vote in such a way 
 as to benefit the opposite party. Proportional 
 representation enables him to "bolt" the party 
 ticket without bolting the party. 
 
 Of course, in order to do this, he must join 
 with other protestants against the machine and
 
 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 1 73 
 
 nominate a new candidate and a new ticket. 
 He can do this by petition, providing one per 
 cent of the voters join him. 
 
 With all the tickets printed on the Austra- 
 lian ballot, the independent voter has now be- 
 fore him the ticket nominated by his party 
 organization and another ticket of the same 
 party nominated by petitioners outside the 
 machine. Suppose he votes for the indepen- 
 dent ticket. He does not endanger the success 
 of his party as a whole, but only of one candi- 
 date out of the entire ticket ; and he runs no 
 risk of throwing his vote away, providing as 
 many as a single quotient of the voters of the 
 State cast their ballots with him. Under the 
 district system his vote would be wasted unless 
 the voters for the independent were a majority 
 or a plurality of the voters in the district. In 
 other words, the present system pens up a 
 minority of independent voters in narrow dis- 
 tricts under the whip of the party managers, 
 but proportional representation tears down the 
 fences, and enables them to combine through- 
 out the State without risking the success of 
 the opposing party.
 
 174 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 
 
 The importance of a reform like this which 
 would make the legislature independent and 
 capable can hardly be exaggerated. We are 
 living in a day of agitation for industrial and 
 social reform, yet there is scarcely a reform 
 proposed which does not sooner or later involve 
 legislation. The legislature holds the purse, 
 the life of the State. No wonder that in our 
 country there is a marked tendency to deprive 
 these bodies of even discretionary powers, and 
 to bestow such powers on mayors, governors, 
 judges, and administrative boards. Yet why 
 should we expect anything better of our repre- 
 sentatives when we make them the tools of 
 local politicians, and when one-third to two- 
 thirds of the members of city councils, State 
 legislatures, and the national Congress are men 
 serving their first term as law-makers.-* 
 
 It is not maintained that proportional repre- 
 sentation alone would cure all our modern legis- 
 lative ills. The late Professor de Laveleye, of 
 Belgium, has well said that the remedies for 
 partisan abuses in representative government 
 are three: Proportional representation, secret
 
 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 1 75 
 
 ballot, and civil service reform. Indeed, these 
 reforms are complementary and co-operative. 
 The secret ballot has prepared the way for a 
 simple application of proportional representa- 
 tion, giving the movement an advantage which 
 it by no means possessed when it was ably ad- 
 vocated twenty-five years ago. Again, legisla- 
 tive reform of this kind is impossible in the 
 presence of a spoils system. It would result 
 in constant deadlocks. United States senators 
 could no longer be elected by legislatures. But 
 spoils are not the proper quest for law-makers. 
 
 With these three reforms co-operating there 
 need be no fear of popular government. They 
 are not make-shifts nor palliatives. They reach 
 the sources of power. A reformed legislature 
 would be the mightiest of engines for handling 
 every other reform. It controls all other de- 
 partments. It is nearest the people. With 
 proportional representation it would include 
 the best wisdom, integrity, and enterprise of 
 the people. It would represent the opinions 
 and wishes of the people in the same propor- 
 tions in which they exist at large. It would be
 
 176 PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. 
 
 the people themselves in conference. It would 
 be a deliberative body in the truest sense, and 
 not a side-show of puppets worked by the party 
 machine and the lobby. It would harmonize 
 all social interests. It would promote a spirit 
 of compromise instead of partisan advantage. 
 It would give power to the majority, a hearing 
 to the minority, each in the persons of their 
 ablest advocates.
 
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