SOCIAL SANITY SCOTT NEARING UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES ■Xj SOCIAL SANITY BY THE SAME AUTHOR SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT THE SUPER RACE A SOLUTION OF THE CHILD LABOR PROBLEM WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES ETC., ETC. SOCIAL SANITY A PREFACE TO THE BOOK OF SOCIAL PROGRESS BY SCOTT NEARING WHARTON SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY Or PENNSYLVANIA NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1913 COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY MOrFAT, YARX) AND COMPANY To those who believe : — In the fundamental integrity and nobility of human nature ; That knowledge should be placed before prejudice in the analysis of social problems ; That man has a kingdom of opportunity, duty, responsibility, effort, joy, and life; and That the golden age of the world lies in the present and in the future— not in the past, this book is dedicated. 208136 PREFACE A QUESTIONING age lays bare the innermost secrets which the scalpel of critical analysis will reveal. Nothing is so sacred, nothing so holy that it may claim exemption from the ordeal. Every available nook and cranny of life is searched, and the results of the investigation appear in the daily press. Publicity reigns. Nevertheless, when all is said, there must be some guiding idea behind analysis and criticism, else their best efforts lead nowhere beyond the desert of skepticism and disillusionment. Hence the necessity for seeking out and enunciating some precepts by the aid of which the course of society may be guided. Where is the North Star of Social Progress? By what unit shall men measure the Sanity of Social Action? Can there be devised a body of social metrics by means of which the course of society may be fairly judged? 8 PREFACE It is the part of a sane society to ask these questions, at the very least. Perhaps there falls, too, within the boundaries of its obligation the duty to seek diligently till they be answered. CONTENTS CHAPTER INTRODUCTION I. THE LIFE STREAM II. THE SPIRIT OF SCIENCE III. THE KINGDOM OF MAN IV. PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM V. LIFE AND LIVING VI. THE GOSPEL OF WELFARE VIL HUMAN RIGHTS VIII. LIFE AND LABOR IX. THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY X. THE SPIRIT OP REVOLT XI. THE PASSION FOR PROGRESS XII. THE QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIAL SANITY PAGE 11 21 43 60 91 105 133 145 160 191 214 237 260 INTRODUCTION SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL SANITY Whatever the modern sociologists may have failed to do, they have at least emphasized the existence of a social psychology. The thought is, to be sure, not new. William Shakespeare had it in mind when he pictured Brutus and Mark Antony pleading their cause before the fickle mob of Romans. In all forms of society, ancient and modern alike, the " social mind " is a commonplace. A baseball world series; a run on a bank; a Spanish- American war; a great catastrophe at sea; a panic; a strike of a hundred thousand, with its wild disorders, its braveries, its fierce, free contentions, and its display of human savageness and grandness, all afford ample laboratories for the study of social psychology. The thing lies at our doors in the shape of a daily paper; parades the streets on Memorial Day; cries out gleefully that the old year is dead, — ' ' Long live the New Year." The spirit of the crowd is more than, and is different from, the spirits of all of the in- dividual people who compose it. It is not an 11 12 SOCIAL SANITY aggregation of individual spirits, but a creation, a new being, — the group spirit. One who has sat under the spell of a great orator, who has seen him face a hostile audience, soothe their irri- tation, laugh away their enthusiasm for some cause, gradually identify himself with that cause, and then, by a rapid sweep of rhetoric, place things for which he is contending at the forefront of the cause in which the audience has been believing, has witnessed a typical dis- play of social psychology in its most primitive form. The words which Shakespeare makes Mark Antony address to the Romans show a keen insight into the psychology of an excited crowd. Mark Antony began by praising the conspirators, and ended by sending the mob to burn their houses. Meanwhile he had made the cause for which he stood a common cause. He had swept his deft fingers over the heart- strings of his audience, readily converting the emotions which he aroused into a demonstra- tion of ferocious hatred. After calming the anger of the crowd, Mark Antony stepped down to the hearse in which Caesar's body lay, with the words " If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. ' ' He showed the mantle which Caesar had first worn on the day of a great victory; showed the rent made in it by the daggers of the conspirators; showed the place where Caesar's blood rushed out of doors to see whether Brutus *' so unkindly knocked, or INTRODUCTION 13 no "; and at last showed the body *' marred with traitors." " 0, now you weep," he says, '' and I perceive you feel the dint of pity; these are precious drops." At that point Mark Antony had won the day. The tear stain is next of kin to the blood stain, and Mark An- tony was reckoning on that fact. In its elementary form, social psychology is based on the emotional side of human nature. Crowds are won through smiles, tears, yearn- ings, beliefs. With the spread of education the aspect of crowd psychology has changed radically. The newspaper, and the magazine, the easily ob- tained, readable books and pamphlets which are so widely circulated through private sources and in libraries, have enabled men in the re- motest parts of the country to keep in touch with the latest event and the newest idea. Before such people attend a meeting, they have thought, and discussed the subject in many of its aspects ; hence the modern orator must needs have more than a bare emotional appeal if he would win support. Even among those who do not or who cannot read has gone an agita- tion for social reform, in one of its many guises, impelling their intelligence, compelling their thought. As knowledge of facts and ideas has been universalized, the appeal to men's minds must be likewise universalized, hence the crowd psychology of the emotional town 14 SOCIAL SANITY meeting house is transformed into the in- tellectual social psychology of towns, states, and nations. To be sure, a species of provincial psychology still manifests itself. The New Yorker returns home with the story of spending a week in Philadelphia the day before yesterday; the Pittsburger works madly with the Chicagoan, from early morning until late at night, to ac- complish he knows not what ; in Cleveland, civic spirit conquers a seemingly impossible traction situation, communicating, meanwhile, its en- thusiasm to Cincinnati; the Wisconsin spirit burns strong in the breast of her statesmen, who believe in keeping pre-election pledges after they have once been made ; and Bostonians regard with an air of infinite satisfaction the institutions of Boston. Yet there are not want- ing many signs of change, even in the most settled of these ideas. The Wisconsin idea in- fused into the United States Senate, in the form of one of its leading exponents, has revivified and purged that body, mightily; the spirit of hurry is giving way to a recognition of the relative values in life; provincialism is on the wane; and the traveler looking through the window of the sleeper in the gray of the early morning is greeted everywhere by the same fantastic advertising signs, and the same cut of Chicago-made clothes. The same fruits and cereals appear on the breakfast table too, and INTRODUCTION 15 waiters of the same race are equally obsequious under the stress of anticipation. The social mind, the public conscience, public opinion, — call it what you will, — has a more intelligent foundation and wider reach with each setting sun. Moreover, as it becomes more cosmopolitan, it becomes more elastic and tol- erant. Let no one suppose that the mind of the Roman mob, or of any similar group, is either elastic or tolerant. From the very nature of its composition, it has no basis for either qual- ity. Swayed with every wind of doctrine, it is the apotheosis of spineless bigotry. Any crowd which assembles to be spellbound by a past-master of oratorical chicanery can be swept from its feet and led to lengths of which its members little dreamed. It is from the citizen, conning the paper by the fire of an evening, or wrangling with his boon companions over a political or economic issue, that sane judgments may be expected. Could the popu- lation of the United States be assembled in one convention, it might be led to any lengths of irrational decision and conduct. Spread over wide areas, learning the issues of the day in- dividually, or in small knots, the public aban- dons the narrow, emotional psychology of the mob, and adopts, instead, the intellectual co- ordinated public opinion, bearing all the ear- marks of careful thought and sound judgment. 16 SOCIAL SANITY Social psychology in the United States appears in the form of a public opinion whose impulse is guided by reason. Nowhere, perhaps, has the quality of Ameri- can public opinion been better revealed than in the present campaign against unfairness and dishonesty. From railroad magnate and dive keeper alike, the public is demanding square treatment. Oj^en, frank, plain dealing has also been the rule of business. The grafter must go! There is no longer a place for him any- where in the organization of pubhc life. Hon- esty is being enthroned, — an attitude which bodes well for the future, since it reveals the possibility of intelligent, sane group action. It is a long step from the Roman mob, venting its fury with sword and brand, to the American citizenry, presenting their mandates at the polls. The modern molder of progress may work with tools far superior to any known in the past. General intelligence he has, backed as it usually is by a virile enthusiasm and a reso- lute belief in the future, which leads ine\atably from retrospection to outlook. Granted that these things be true, or reasonably true, they may be applied readily enough to a discussion of social sanity. There is a vast body of classified knowledge relating to insanity, but it is as difficult to in- terest scientists in sanity as it is to interest INTRODUCTION 17 pedagogues in normal children. No limit of funds and infinite pains are available for the insane person or the sub-normal child, but for the sane person or the normal child it is fre- quently difficult to secure either sympathy or attention. Nevertheless since the normal is the only sure basis for progress, it behooves us to see to it that the normal things in life receive due consideration. A sane, healthy, sound, or normal man is one who displays the typical qualities of mankind; who possesses the type attributes, and acts in the type manner. The phrase, " Oh, he's crazy," is used to describe a person who has departed, to any considerable extent, from con- ventional standards; who, in other words, is not acting as people ordinarily act. When Judge Brack cries out, after Hedda's suicide, *' Good God! People don't do such things! " he is giving vent to the conventional viewpoint. He might have put the matter concisely by say- ing, " Good God, she's crazy! " The sane man is the man who does the things that people are ordinarily expected to do. Any radical de- parture from this standard is non-sane or non- sense. Even those departures which are made by geniuses are described as insane until the crowd learns the viewpoint that prompted the action. Sanity, as the word is ordinarily em- ployed, consists in an attitude of mind which prompts the individual to follow such generally 18 SOCIAL SANITY approved lines of action as will enable men to fulfill their desires. Using the broad generali- zation that the two fundamental desires of mankind are for self-preservation and for self- perpetuation, it may be said that sanity is evi- denced by those acts which will best guarantee the fulfillment of these desires; whereas in- sanity is a condition of unsoundness, a tendency away from the things that make for self-pres- ervation and self-perpetuation. Whereupon, sanity appears as a purely relative term, con- noting only the degree of removal from a state which insures the most complete self-preserva- tion and self-perpetuation. Society, like the individual, lives. Although the analogy between an individual and society may not be in all ways fortunate, the fact re- mains that society is an organism, and that the social mind is prone to abnormality as is the individual mind. Such pathological conditions as are clearly revealed in the decadent epochs of past civilizations, might be described as so- cial insanity, without any violence to language. Then to extend the analogy to normal condi- tions, social sanity would appear as that state of the social mind which would assure the pres- ervation and perpetuation of society. Accepting for the sake of argument this idea of sanity, it becomes at once apparent that so- ciety may do itself violence by taking an insane attitude, or may assure social advance by choos- INTRODUCTION 19 ing sanely. Hence the vital importance of so- cial sanity. Before attempting to measure the sanity of some modern social tendencies, it may be well to emphasize certain principles of social action which are related to the question of social san- ity. In the first place, since social sanity is that state of the public mind which will lead to a form of action that will best insure the self-preservation and self -perpetuation of soci- ety, a democracy, in which the interests of the majority are dominant, will, if it be acting sanely, devote its energies to conserving major- ity welfare, no matter what hardships such ac- tions may impose upon the minority. This rule is obviously subject always to the law that an abuse of power by a democratic majority in- evitably leads to its overthrow by the opposing minority, which becomes in its turn the major- ity, and is subject to similar limitations. The sane actions of a democratic society would therefore be those actions which were directed toward satisfying the wants and supplying the needs of the majority. At the same time, in order to insure social stability, the majority will adopt those measures which afford a max- imum advantage to the majority, while at the same time they inflict a minimum of hardship on the minority. Acting thus, the democratic majority will insure the greatest present wel- |are and the soundest future for society. 20 SOCIAL SANITY The importance, to a troubled, questioning, partially disillusioned, unrestful, discontented age, of realizing that a society with an unbal- anced mind (public opinion) may be as danger- ous to itself as an individual with an unbalanced mind, can scarcely be over-emphasized. The church, the industrial system, the institutions of representative government, the system of education, and the present type of family, have all been made the object of recent criticism. This generation will without question be called upon to determine the character of some of the changes which will be made in these insti- tutions. What principles shall govern their decisions? Is the path leading toward social betterment plainly marked? Certain things at least may be taken for granted. First, the facts, in so far as they are available, must be ascertained ; second, they must be made a part of public knowledge; and third, society must act in such a manner that the welfare of the majority is insured, while that of the minority, wherever possible, is conserved. Careful in- quiry, through publicity and sane social action, — on these three foundation stones the struc- ture of a sound social progress may be erected. THE LIFE STREAM On some well-remembered day you may, per- haps, have sat beside a brook, watching the brown waters of late October hurrying along, with here a flake of foam, and there a clump of birch leaves, swept down by the current. Each moment the appearance of the water changed. Each new aspect was more fascinat- ing than the last. You bent, spellbound, over the brown rock, weaving fancies with the glid- ing movements of the brook, whose troubled current was ever passing, passing, — framing pictures, gurgling songs, whispering poetry, telling tales. Sitting there, forgetful of your- self and of the world, your being flowed on with turbulent free-moving water and your soul joined with that other. For an instant, recog- nizing the kinship, you became again what you were as a child, — an unconscious drop in the great eddying life stream of the universe. Not alone in the October brook does the world move forward. Not alone in changing water forms is the transformation of the universe de- picted. On every hand lie evidences of the potency of change, — each new day, and each 21 22 SOCIAL SANITY new deed are tributes to its omnipresent power. Last spring we made a garden, partly be- cause fresh vegetables are very delicious, partly because they are hard to buy, and partly — I sus- pect mostly — because we loved to see things which were our own, grown from seed to fruit. We planned the garden and prepared the soil with the utmost care. Smooth quick-grow- ing peas went in early in April together with radishes, lettuce, carrots, beets, and potatoes. A week later these were followed by stringless green beans and the taller wrinkled peas; and in another fortnight by cantaloupes, early corn, and lima beans. Last of all tomato plants, egg-plants, late corn, and bush lima beans com- pleted the crops. By that time it was the middle of May. The month of April, in the neighborhood of this garden, was a sad, tearful month, remind- ing one of the reply which the driver in a Scotch Highland coach made to a passenger who, after a week of drizzling Scotch weather, was making unsuccessful efforts to dodge the drops from two umbrellas. " Does it always rain here? " groaned the passenger. " No, sir," answered the driver, " sometimes it snaws." If there were any days in this particular month of April when it did not either rain or snow, the sun may have shone, but they were THE LIFE STREAM 23 so few as to be easily forgotten. The sun re- mained sulky until the middle of May, then, bursting out of the six-weeks-old cloud-bank, it did double duty, starting that part of the crop which had survived the wet, cold weeks into joyous growth. Early beets failed to come up, lima beans and early corn were planted two or three times before the semblance of a stand could be secured; nevertheless, by the end of May, there really was a garden, filled with gentle shadings of green, dotted here and there with the red of a beet leaf or the white of a pea or a potato flower. June, having no inkling of April's melan- choly, gave long hot days and balmy nights to the anxious crops and added a glamor to coun- try life which soon brought city visitors. Some among the uninitiated did not wake up to the existence of the garden until dinner time, but for the most part they meted out warm praise in such forms as, — '' Isn't it wonderful! " '' How did you do it? " " Hasn't the weather been perfect for gar- dens? " '' Where did you get such beans? " " What splendid luck you have had! " Among all the myriad of city dwellers, scarcely one said, — ' ' I see that nature and you have been at work," because scarcely one of them realized that, during the drenching rains 24 SOCIAL SANITY in April, when it was next to impossible to cultivate and keep out the weeds, only the most careful attention could maintain a garden at all. Scarcely one of them understood that had May followed April's example, there would have been no crops. To them the garden was a thing, a creation, a being. They admired it as they would have admired a piece of fine china, or a new suit, or a landscape in the alcove of some museum, but they did not understand it. One of them, coming a second time, looked at the garden in amaze, crying: *' How your garden has changed! " Yes, it had changed, otherwise it would not have been a garden. The chiefest thing about a garden is the fact of its change. Look at it to-day, it is one garden ; look at it next week, and it is another. More than that, from day to day — even from hour to hour and from minute to minute — the garden changes both its appearance and its form. Look at it, turn your back, then look again, and if your eyes were of microscopic precision, you could see that in that infini- tesimal space of time the garden was already a different place. Listen! city-folk, gardens do not happen. They are not built — Aladdin-like — in a single night. They grow. They become, or rather they are becoming, a process which alters with each advancing unit of time. THE LIFE STREAM 25 All analogies are susceptible of abuse, nor can one pretend that the garden analogy is an exception to that general rule, yet more clearly than the voice of the brook it tells the story of the life stream, for the whole universe and every part of it is like the garden, a process of transformation from the thing that is to that which is to be. From the smallest amoeba, sub- dividing to make two of its kind, to the fearful chase of our planetary system across the heavens, the universe is undergoing change. The mushroom shoots in a night ; the oak grows in a century; the sperm cell and ovum uniting produce a snake, or a turtle, or a frog, or a brown thrush as the case may be; the little creature fresh from the egg grows up and in its turn helps to form new life ; the desert sands shift with the wind; the mountains, yielding to the onslaughts of the water drops, flatten them- selves into plains. The springs empty their tiny rivulets into vast oceans, which, rolling inces- santly against the shore, are building or tear- ing down; the antelope crushes the succulent grass against its flat grinders; the tiger springs and the antelope has perished; the mosquito hums his song of a day; and man is born and lives and at threescore and ten renders up the ghost. With what fidelity does William Cullen Bryant picture these changes among men: — 26 SOCIAL SANITY " Yet a few days, and thee The all-beholding sun shall see no more In all his course/' ^' Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim Thy growth, to he resolved to earth again." " The gay ivill laugh when thou art gone, The solemn brood of care Plod on, and each one as before will chase His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave Their mirth and their employments, and shall come And make their bed with thee.'' The universe, like the garden, is a process, — a changing thing. Never for a moment does it cease its tireless transformations. It was, it is, it will be different. From that idea has grown up, among other things, the philosophy of evolution. The time has passed when it is necessary to apologize for believing in change. The work of Darwin, Wallace, Spencer, Huxley, Haeckel, and a myriad of less known men has established beyond cavil the principle that the world of biology is a world of constant progression. Spencer compares organic evolution to the de- velopment of an individual organism. '' Each organism," he writes, " exhibits, within a short space of time, a series of changes which, when supposed to occupy a period indefinitely great, THE LIFE STEEAM 27 and to go on in various ways instead of one way, give us a tolerably clear conception of organic evolution in general."* Elaborating the same idea, Huxley wrote in Ms usual virile English: " The hypothesis of evolution sup- poses that in all this vast progression there would be no breach of continuity, no point at which we could say, ' This is a natural process,' and ' This is not a natural process '; but that the whole might be compared to that wonderful process of development which may be seen go- ing on every day under our eyes, in virtue of which there arises, out of the semi-fluid, com- paratively homogeneous substance which we call an egg, the complicated organism of one of the higher animals. That, in a few words, is what is meant by the hypothesis of evolu- tion." t The idea of change — of evolution if you will — sounds the keynote of modern thought. The field of biology, presenting boundless oppor- tunity for laboratory study, has yielded the most concrete, satisfying testimony regarding the character of those changes which seem to be an attribute of the whole universe. J. A. Thomson writes in his brilliant popularization of modern biologic theory: — * " Principles of Biology," H. Spencer. New York;. D. Apple- ton & Co., 1897. Vol. I, p. 349. \ " American Addresses," T. Huxley. London : Macmillan & Co., 1877. Pp. 10, 11. 28 SOCIAL SANITY II There is an intricate, beautiful, rational pattern before us in nature; are we to think of it as woven, thread by thread, by invisible hands in a way past finding out scientifically; or was there so much mind put into the original institution of things — an apparently simple loom — that thenceforth the web has been worked out automatically in a manner that admits of scientific formulation? . . . It is a simple but eloquent fact that the genealogical record in the fossil-bearing rocks shows the gradual ap- pearance of higher and higher forms. At a certain stage in the history of the earth all the animals were invertebrates; then fishes ap- peared, then amphibians, then reptiles, then birds and mammals. As the ages have passed, life has been slowly creeping upwards. The rock-record corresponds in its sequences with those deducible from comparative anatomy and embryology. . . . What can be securely said is this, that all biological facts can be used as evidence of evolution if we know enough about them, and there are no biological facts which are inconsistent with it, so far as we know." * The animate world undergoes constant change. Individual organisms develop. In the last analysis, the whole realm of biology is a complex process of continual change. Although it is in the field of biology that the * " Darwinism and Human Life," J. A. Thomson. New York : Henry Holt & Co., 1910. Pp. 19-26. THE LIFE STREAM 29 most effective work, experimental and deduc- tive alike, has been carried on, the principle of evolution is applicable not alone to things biologic. There is every reason to believe that the institutions of human society, like the in- dividual beings in the biologic world, are under- going constant modifications. Consider, for ex- ample, the family, — perhaps the oldest of social institutions. All available facts point to the conclusion that the family has undergone radical modifications through the ages. Even those who deny the evolutionary principle on the basis of Christian teachings will find in the Bible the very clearest evidences of family change. The patriarchal family under Jacob, with his numer- ous slave-wives and wife-slaves, would scarcely be regarded as a model to-day. Solomon's con- jugal relations could not now be made a matter of discussion except among scandalmongers, yet Solomon was the blessed of the Lord. A great gulf exists between the crude family forms of the old Hebrews and the family existing to- day; yet the Hebrews were a civilized people. Go back of them to the barbarians and back of them again to the savages, and observe the marked difference in the relations of men and women. In his painstaking work on " The Evolution of the Family," Letourneau writes : — ** In a remarkable book, which has not yet had all the success it deserves, Lewis Morgan be- lieves he has recognized five stages in the evo- 30 SOCIAL SANITY lution of the family: 1st, the family is consan- guineous — that is to say, founded on the mar- riage of brothers and sisters of a group; 2nd, several brothers are the common husbands of their wives, who are not sisters; 3rd, a man and woman unite, but without exclusive co- habitation, and with facility of divorce for one or the other ; 4th, then comes the pastoral family of the Hebrews, the marriage of one man with several women; but this patriarchal form has not been universal; 5th, at last appeared the family of civilized societies, the most modern, characterized by the exclusive cohabitation of one man and one woman. Not taking this clas- sification too literally, and reserving a place for varieties and exceptions, we have here five stages which mark tolerably well the evolution of the family in humanity. ' ' * The best known and by far the most accessible of discussions on the evolution of the family exists in the Old Testament. There are set down, in great detail, the marriage customs of the Hebrews. Under the patriarchs, the family was avowedly polygamous, — there was one man, with many wives. As the civilization developed, the prophets and teachers began to discourage this form of union, until, in the teachings of the New Testament, there stands clearly out *" The Evolution of Marriage and of the Family," Ch. Le- tourneau. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1904. P. 347, THE LIFE STREAM 31 the modern form of monogamy, the exclusive cohabitation of one man with one woman. Walter Rauschenbusch, writing from the pre- cincts of a theological seminary, depicts the change by imagining that, in the year 4000 b.c. a Syrian village had fallen asleep, and was awakened to life to-day. The people take np the affairs where they left them, discussing the social unrest, and its dangers to their civiliza- tion, when they are interrupted by the pastor of " a staid Pennsylvania town " " who prides himself on being untainted by radical social notions." After listening to their tales of woe, he expounds the orthodox conception of the American family as the true solution, " advis- ing them to treat the wives as their equals, to live for their children, and to give the servants one night off per week. ' ' Patiently they explain to the stranger " that his views are Utopian; that authority would be undermined if a man could not beat his wife "; " that polygamy is an index of high morality, since the best citi- zens have the most wives, and you would have to change human nature to make monogamy compulsory; that slaves would have nothing to eat if they had no masters to feed and employ them, that a father, being the author of a child's life, has a right to take its life if he considers it superfluous. The American, aglow with Christian indignation, describes how wisely his wife manages the common finances and selects 32 SOCIAL SANITY his neckties ; how he sends his girls to Vassar " ; and how he would hate himself if his family- regarded him as a tyrant. ' ' But he sees dark frowns gathering on the faces and ominous whisperings running about. He pales as he hears the ancient Hittite equivalent for ' .socialist and anarchist ' applied to him- self."* Whatever the field of study, the conclusion is ever the same. The family has changed dur- ing historic times. Under the impetus of an evolutionary process called civilization the loose conjugal relations of primitive society have been gradually replaced by the more binding forms of modern social relations. No social institution is exempt from this law. The present idea of private property is accepted as an established fact, men and women take its presence for granted, as they do the presence of any common social usage. Yet the modern idea of property has developed in comparatively recent times. Only in those countries which are under the sway of Western civilization is the current idea of property accepted. Among the tribes at present on the earth may be found every practice from the most complete commu- nism to the most utter individualism, though the communistic forms of property are far more *" Christianizing the Social Order," Walter Rauschenbusch. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1912. Pp. 132-133. THE LIFE STREAM 33 common. Like every other social usage the modern ideas of property have grown. In his series of daring essays on the " Evo- lution of Property," Laf argue traces the prop- erty idea through its various phases of primitive communism, family collectivism, and feudal property, to the present forms of bourgeois property. While there may still be some ques- tion regarding the exact limitations of La- f argue 's classifications, there can be little doubt that the contrast between feudal property, held " for God and the king," and modern private property, demised " to him and his heirs for- ever," is a fundamental one. The king is no longer regarded as the liege-lord; the church has lost the power which once permitted her to dominate property transactions. The law alone now sanctions while the property passes from man to man. Letourneau summarizes his scholarly work on property with this statement — " At first they [property rights] were born and devel- oped beneath the shelter of the communal clan, then of the village community, guaranteeing all its members against abandonment, but permit- ting no one to monopolize what belonged to all. Under such a system population everywhere abounds; the increase is enormous, and gener- ally it overflows into neighboring countries. In Russia, for example, the system of the mir im- pels to marriage and is opposed to Malthusian- 34 SOCIAL SANITY ism, because eacli family has a right to a larger portion of land the larger the number of work- ers it contains, and the most numerous family is in consequence the richest. As security increased, property has become more individual and movable, and there has been formed what economists call ' capital, ' that is to say, a mass of accumulable values representing work." * As in the case of the family, so in the case of property, the records of history show changes of the most fundamental nature. Perhaps these social institutions, their origin shrouded in the " dim mysterious past," may not prove con- vincing arguments in favor of the principle of social evolution. Turn then to an evolution that has gone on under the eyes of your father, or if you are very young, of your grandfather. Study the transformations wrought in the course of three short generations by the forces of modern industry, and be convinced of the wonders of social changes. As late as 1850, in a now prosperous section of New York State, the farmer's boy rose with the dawn, hitched a team of oxen to a wagon loaded with sacks of wlieat, and started for the mill. All of that day he traveled, and in the late afternoon reached a town in which there was a mill. The next day the miller, a long, * "Property; Its Origin and Development," Ch. Letourreau. London : Walter Scott, 1901. Pp. 369, 370. THE LIFE STREAM 35 pale man, poured tliis wheat into his hopper, taking as his toll one bag in every four, and the farmer's boy, loading the flour into his wagon, made ready for an early start the next day. By nightfall he was at home again with his wheat transformed into flour. Then his mother, making her own yeast and potato water, kneaded and set her bread over night, and in the morning the boy built a hot fire in the old stone oven, heated the stones well, raked out the fire, and put the bread in its place to be baked. How different the process to-day ! The wheat carried in a freight car from Dakota to Min- neapolis is converted into flour and shipped by rail to Buffalo. There it goes to a baker, is tested, and turned into a machine which auto- matically measures the proper quantities of the various ingredients, mixes them, kneads them, divides them into loaves, and delivers them to the oven. In one day this child of human in- genuity makes fifty thousand loaves of bread. It is tended by five boys who merely watch the machine to see that all goes right. The reaper, the thresher, the elevator, the railroad, the power mill — all of these, and all of the thou- sands of tools and appliances which make them possible — are the product of half a century. During the progress of an ordinary life, the whole world of industry has been transformed through the process of industrial evolution. Nothing is exempt from its sway. The nails^ 36 SOCIAL SANITY boards, shoes, caps, coats, chairs, carpets, but- tons, wagon-wheels, forks, pocket-knives — all of the things which were formerly made by hand — are now factory products. Each year the scope of the factory widens and each year the variety of its products increases. Industry has revo- lutionized society. This evolution of industry differs from the evolution of other social in- stitutions only in this, that it has come with great rapidity and that it has been in large measure a product of conscious human activity. Did space permit illustrations might be mul- tiplied. The church, the school, the state, and the home are all the product of a long series of changes, definitely traceable through the ages. They are a part of that process by which barbarism and savagery have been re- placed by the civilization of the past five thou- sand years, — a civilization which history shows to have been in a continual state of evolution. Every phase of the mechanism of life re- veals the presence of changes. " The central idea of evolution is that the present is the child of the past and the parent of the future," writes Thomson; '' it is the idea of progressive change from phase to phase without loss of continuity. A process of Becoming leads to a new phase of Being — whether in solar systems or in social institutions or in living creatures. But in the first the continuity is sustained in identity of substance, in the second by tradition THE LIFE STREAM 37 and social registration, and in tlie third by the hereditary linkage of successive generations." Ideas, like institutions, have developed with the passing centuries. Augmented, here a little and there a little, they present, at last, the imposing picture reflected in modern civiliza- tion. Summarizing a well-made study of the development of society, Morgan writes, '' The latest investigations respecting the early con- dition of the human race, are tending to the conclusion that mankind commenced their career at the bottom of the scale and worked their way up from savagery to civilization through the slow accumulation of experimental knowledge." * Ideas, the backbone of civiliza- tion, have grown like all else, and still society moves forward, accumulating knowledge as it goes. Up to a certain point society changed, no man knew how or why. Then with dawning intelligence, man took upon his own shoulders the burden of altering institutions, in exactly the same way that he took upon himself the burden of changing plants and animals. The race horse, the cart horse, the King Charles, the greyhound, the Jonathan apple, the Hol- stein cow, the lima bean, and the plum tomato are all the products of human interference with natural processes. The facts of life change. •"Ancient Society," L. H. Morgan. New York: Henry Holt & Co. (First ed. 1877.) Edition of 1907. P. 3. 208136 38 SOCIAL SANITY Hence it is that ideas, founded on knowledge, are as much subject to change as biologic spe- cies. The fervent beliefs of one era are brushed aside by the skepticism of the next. Crusading ardor gives place to commercial activity; the slave holding agricultural era bows before the epoch of machine controlling freemen. Here the church and the state are one ; there they are as far apart as the east and the west — neither knowing nor caring what the other may essay or accomplish. The spirit of the West is a spirit of changing ideas. Holding but lightly the traditions of the past, it rejects an idea as soon as a more serviceable one can be found to take its place. " Edward A. Filene of Boston, who in his own large establishment has put many advanced ideas into operation, observes that, ' Ideas go into the scrap heap about as often as machines,' and it is a mark of health in the present age that it shows unusual willingness to change both."* The individual is as much subject to change as is society. From youth to old age ideas are in process of alteration. It is as unnatural to find in youth the conservatism of old age, as it is to find in age the radicalism of youth. Mr. Stevenson in his incisive comments on " Crabbed Age and Youth " sums the matter * " Industry and Progress," Norman Hapgood. New Haven : Yale University Press, 1911. P. 33, THE LIFE STREAM 39 up by saying, '^ All my old opinions were only stages on the way to something else." But such doctrines are the apotheosis of inconsist- ency. Well, and what of that? ''A foolish consistency," cries Emerson scornfully, '' is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Out upon your guarded lips ! Sew them up with pack-thread, do. Else, if you would be a man, speak what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon-balls, and what to-morrow tliinks in hard words again; though it contradict everything you said to- day." * Those who oppose the idea of change in form or thought resemble the chairman of a recent national political convention, who, as Mr. Dooley remarked, was '^ one of them that would like to make the temporary organization of the world permanent." Returning for a moment to a former illus- tration, each thing in our garden was a product of human selection. The weeds, the only natu- ral things which made an appearance there, were ruthlessly destroyed. The vegetables, man-made, supernatural, are so wholly the product of human activity that they are unable to care for themselves. Left alone, the beet * Essay on ' ' Self -Reliance. " 40 SOCIAL SANITY would jDroduce small roots, the corn would shoot thin and yellow, Man's products need man's protection. The weeds may not compete, — the plants must have an absolute monopoly. The spray-pump must not stay its activities, other- wise the beetle devours the cantaloupes, the black-rot ruins the tomatoes, the leaf-gall afliicts the grapes, blights and rusts attack beans and potatoes. What man has made he must guard against the natural afflictions which assail each unnatural product. The same principle holds true in the case of social institutions. Man has built up sys- tems of government, education, and industry. They are splendid monuments to his intellect, but let him for a moment relax his vigilance and they decay as did the earlier civilizations of the East. The blights and rusts of idleness and licentiousness gain a foothold; the bacteria of graft germinate; and the institutions totter and fall. Eternal vigilance is the price of a civilization as it is of a garden. What man has made, man must protect and maintain. Social institutions, like biologic species, are processes. The whole universe is a becoming. Even while we turn our backs and look again, it has changed and always will be changing. '' That which lies beyond the human race," writes Huxley, " is a constant struggle to main- tain and improve, in opposition to the State THE LIFE STREAM 41 of Nature, the State of Art, of an organized polity, in which and by which man may develop a worthy civilization, capable of maintaining and constantly improving itself. ' ' * So much then lies in the life stream, which, whether in its changing species, institutions, or ideas, is an exemplification " of Nature's great progression, from the formless to the formed — from the unorganic to the organic — from blind force to conscious intellect and will."t The time never has been, the time can never be when the question before men is, '' Shall we change or shall we not change? " There is no other issue — no other possibility. Man may guide the stream of becoming — even though he may not stop it. He cannot change the path of the stars, but he can straighten the streets of old cities and build the streets of new ones straight. He cannot reshape the earth, but he can so renovate his social system that the earth will be a better dwelling-place for his children than it has been for him. Man cannot dictate, but he can counsel. He cannot create, but he may direct. He cannot dam the life stream, but he can build jetties and levees along the banks. Herein lies the basis of the problem of a ♦"Evolution and Ethics," T. H. Huxley. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1902. P. 44. t" Man's Place in Nature," T. H. Huxley. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1903. P. 151. 42 SOCIAL SANITY changing universe, a changing society, a chang- ing institution, — in what respects can man's conscious actions modify those changes so that they make the world a better dwelling-place for him and for his children 1 n THE SPIRIT OF SCIENCE The life stream is understood through sci- ence — which is another word for classified knowledge. Always the life stream has flowed on, from everlasting to everlasting, but man failed to grasp its meaning, until, by the use of language, of story, of writing, of printing, of tools and instruments, he gradually collected a body of knowledge about the world in which he lived. Then it became apparent that there were great laws of life and of death, — princi- ples which were inherent in all natural phe- nomena. While man was an unthinking being, com- parable to the most primitive races of the present day, he left no monument. Each gen- eration disappeared, leaving no mark of its pas- sage save that which was made by the presence of its descendants. Such is the life of most animals. Such for eons of time must have been the life of man. In this primitive life, nature, so careful of the race-stream, so apparently careless of the single being, swept generation after generation 43 44 SOCIAL SANITY ruthlessly aside, as a child might build block houses, and, tumbling them down, rebuild them again day after day. Yet the child learns by building, making each new castle better than its predecessor. So, too, in nature's building, each new generation was built out of the flower of the old, since the fittest survived to be the parents of the future. As the ages passed, it became apparent that the fittest was an in- dividual organism, in a very advanced stage of development, — an individual who should ulti- mately be put before the race to which he be- longed. At first this individual was one select indi- vidual — the chief, or patriarch, whose life counted for more than the life of the whole clan or family. For all men this life was sacred, since the welfare of all depended upon its con- tinuance. Then, in the course of ages, the be- lief grew up that the lives of all men must be considered sacred, since no man was inherently better than another; and to-day, when a great liner sinks at sea, the best men step aside, leaving the way to safety open to the most humble women and children. The individual — not as a leader, or king, or lord, but as an in- dividual — has been recognized. As man became individualized he began to take thought — thought for the morrow and thought for others. The very act of taking thought made him still more of an individual. THE SPIRIT OF SCIENCE 45 Thus the two forces — the one developing a being capable of independent thought and ac- tion; the other, increasing individualization through individual thought and action, — acting and reacting, — erected, gradually, a type of man who had both foresight and altruism. Let no one suppose that these are exclusively human attributes. Many animals exhibit fore- sight. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard," coun- sels the sage, " consider her ways and be wise." In times of plenty, she lays in a store against the time when nature is less bountiful. How much more intelligence does this display than some primitive races, who have in the language no word which will convey the idea, " the day after to-morrow," because it has never been necessary for them to think so far into the future. Whether foresight is the outgrowth of the necessity for some check on the emotions, or of some other equally important advantage, need not delay the argument. The fact remains that men begin to survey the past, analyze the present, and speculate on the future. Thus his- tory, science, and philosophy have their rise out of man's attempt to measure the forces of the universe and to adjust himself to his sur- roundings. Besides these thought develop- ments which are involved in the provision of a livelihood for his own maintenance and that of those dependent on him, man expresses the con- structive and esthetic side of his nature in the 46 SOCIAL SANITY creation of objects which he considers useful and beautiful, the former assisting in the pro- curing of a living; the latter pleasing the eye. As society advances, first the mother and then the father take upon themselves a more active responsibility for the care of their young until there is developed that altruism which is one of the most far-reaching forces of civilization. Although primitive man lives essentially in the present, it is a noteworthy fact that careful thinking, both as to the future and the past, preceded careful thought about the present. As far back as historic records afford evidence, men were speculating about things other than those concerned with the immediate present. In the Middle Ages this spirit had attained so great an impetus that the learned men who could give an intimate description of the narrowest confines of hell, and furnish an accurate account of the actions of the different angels of the celestial regions, had not the remotest idea about the physical geogra- phy of their own country, or of the chemical composition of the foods which they ate. Dwell- ing continually in a realm of metaphysical ab- stractions, the purveyors of knowledge foisted upon the uninitiated intellectual commodities more monstrously misbranded than any which the wildest dreams of nineteenth century com- mercialism could have devised. Not only has the flimsiest speculation about the past sold under THE SPIRIT OF SCIENCE 47 the guise of authenticity, not only did prognos- tications about the future pass as current coin of the spiritual realm, but the speculation of the past and the prophecy over the future dominated the thought of the present, until the man who failed to agree with Aristotle, or who denied the infallibility of the Apocalypse, was a candidate for the torment, the dungeon, and the stake. It remained for the nineteenth century to apply the speculations of earlier ages to the life of the present, and through the institution of a scientific a+^*tude toward the world in which we live, to reshape civilization. The Egyptians and Babylonians and Greeks were at one time definitely scientific in their attitude toward life, but for centuries the spirit of sci- ence slumbered, — half awaking, now and again, when some choice soul proclaimed the eternal verities as he saw them. Throughout the epoch of reverence of the past and awe of the future, dogma and tradi- tion, throttling the spirit of investigation, dark- ened the ages with the blackness of barbaric ignorance. Slowly their hold loosened, how- ever, until, in the nineteenth century, a premium was laid on scientific ability and the world reaped, and is still reaping, a great harvest of scientific achievement. The spirit of science is the spirit of progress, demanding of each phenomenon an explanation 48 SOCIAL SANITY of its significance and potency. Science has no preconceived answer. Instead it questions the facts in each case, frankly asking " Howl " and ' ' Why ? ' ' — investigating, discovering, ana- lyzing, and proclaiming. Science knows neither right nor wrong. She seeks the truth. Science deals with the life stream as it is, — its ingredients, its velocity, its gradient, its direction, its quays, and its docks. The dogma of past ages holds neither attraction nor terror for the scientist, — he merely questions the liv- ing present; scorning bigotry, seeking enlight- enment, and bespeaking progress. Science would tell man, first, what the life stream is, and second, how it may be used to the greatest human advantage. In its broadest sense, the spirit of science is a spirit of frank recognition of the world as it is, and of an equally frank endeavor to use it to greater human advan- tage. How fatal are the results of an unscientific attitude in every walk of life ! How bitter the visitations of disappointment, how swift the punishments which Nature metes out to him who ignores her! Science holds out a hand of glad hope to mankind. How soon will he see and understand? " Come," I asked a small farmer, late in March, " plow this piece of land for me." " Now see here," he protested, " you can't plow land this early, it's full of water." THE SPIRIT OF SCIENCE 49 ** Well, I'm paying you for your time, and the risk is mine." The good fellow, fearful of doing me an in- jury, shook his head, got out his plow, and obeyed. The plow was rusty, not having been used before that year, but after two or three furrows, the land broke beautifully, and in one harrowing was pulverized almost to the con- sistency of ashes. My friend stopped his horses, took off his hat, and exclaimed in a disappointed tone, *' Well, I never see land plow so well this early in the spring. It sure is remarkable." Truly there was nothing remarkable about the performance. The land in question was in a high state of cultivation — loamy and full of humus. It naturally plowed easily. Further, while the normal amount of rain had fallen that spring, nearly every storm had been so torrential that a large part of the water had run off without sinking into the soil. These facts had escaped my good friend's attention. Without thinking about the matter at all, he had been unwilling to experiment because ' ' you can't plow land this early." His grandfather and father had plowed at a certain date. In the course of his bounden duty, he honored his father by plowing at the same time. The idea of plowing earlier — well, it had never even occurred to him. Strange, it will undoubtedly sound to many 50 SOCIAL SANITY persons concerned in making a living out of the soil, but there is just one way to determine whether land will plow at a given time — that is to run a furrow and see what happens. The question is purely a question of fact, — of the consistency of the soil, of the amount of mois- ture it contains, of the lay of the land, and of the weather. There is no opportunity for spec- ulation or dogma. Either the land will plow or it will not. The city-born man will doubtless appreciate this countryman's ignorance of facts, — how stupid countrymen seem to be ! Yet how easily may the countryman reciprocate ! " Who is that chap who sold you the bogus stock? " asked one farmer of another. " That," answered the other, " is the city fellow who is paying fifty cents a gallon for crystal spring water out of my mill pond." The countryman is not alone in ignoring facts. The ignorance of people everywhere would be laughable if it were not so pitiful. The city population is prone to forget that many of the vital affairs of life, heretofore dependent on tradition or custom, are likewise susceptible of scientific analysis and report. How many city folks of your acquaintance pay five cents for a trolley ride, never once dreaming of making a protest. Protest? Why should we protest, has not the fare always been five cents? How could it be otherwise? In large towns THE SPIRIT OF SCIENCE 51 and small cities — everywhere people give up five cents. In some cities they receive free transfers, in others they pay for them. There was one city, Cleveland, which, in an inquiring state of mind, asked first itself, and later the traction company, how much it really cost to carry passengers. As a result of the inquiry, passengers are carried in Cleveland — which, by the way, is a city of half a million, spread out for miles along the lake front — for three cents, universal transfers are given, and the company makes six per cent on its investment. Nothing like that was ever done before ! No, but it will be duplicated many times when city folks grasp the spirit of fair-minded science. The Cleveland street-car situation was typ- ical of that in most other large American cities. People were paying five cents for a ride while the actual cost of carrying passengers, based on a fair valuation of the property and a fair return on the investment, was almost exactly three cents per passenger. No witchcraft was employed to obtain that answer. Accountants, engineers, and traction experts made a study and a report. If people could be carried at a fair profit for three cents, why pay more! Why indeed! The people of Cleveland an- swered the question by paying no more. You can travel to that city to-morrow, purchase five tickets for fifteen cents, get a free transfer on all intersecting lines, and ride in a splendidly 52 SOCIAL SANITY built car over as smooth a roadbed as you will find anywhere in the United States. Street-cars are not the only public conveni- ences in American cities. There are gas, tel- ephones, steam railroads, and electricity. How much do these things cost? The question is a question of science; the answer is a scientific answer. Then, too, there are the larger issues, — Who benefits by the tariff? What governs the price of beef? Who gains through increased land valuations? These and a score of other pressing public questions can be answered in terms of neither dogma nor tradition. They are scientific questions, demanding scientific ex- positions. Social sanity can be based on nothing less than a scientific attitude toward the facts of social life. By what other means may society protect and preserve itself than by determining in each case the true relations existing between various social things? Not once nor twice every year, a student comes to me railing against socialism. It will destroy the home; it will break down society; it is a menace to morals; it is organized rob- bery! To all of which I reply with the per- tinent question, — '' What is socialism? " First the lad bluffs, next he side-steps, then he apologizes, and finally, driven to bay, he grudgingly admits that he never heard anyone explain the principles of socialism; that he THE SPIRIT OF SCIENCE 53 never read a book by any leading socialist; that he never Imew anybody who had read such a work; that his father had told him that so- cialists were dangerous to the social order ; that he had never talked with any really intelligent member of the socialist party, and that, in short, while he knew nothing about socialism or social- ists, he was thoroughly opposed to both. At this point, the average student, without more suggestion, will get a couple of books and read up on the matter before he attempts to discuss it further. The question of socialism, like the question of soil friability or of street-car fares, is first of all a question of fact. No fair-minded man attempts to discuss such matters, or any other matters of fact, until he is thoroughly conver- sant with the facts. In place of " fair-minded " read scientific, and the statement is still true, for the spirit of science requires the individual to confront all issues in a frank, open-minded way, with an entire willingness to accept the logical conclusions derived from things as they are. We laugh pityingly in the twentieth century when we hear that Christopher Columbus was forced to spend years arguing theories before he was allowed to test the facts. Was the earth round or flat? Would a ship, sailing off to the west, fall into a bottomless abyss? No one could answer because no one had tried, and 54 SOCIAL SANITY although the learning of the fathers showed very clearly that Columbus and his brave followers must perish, they came back, safe and sound, after discovering a new shore. With what astonishment do we regard the assaults made upon the Darwinian theories im- mediately after their publication. Darwin him- self was the object of bitter personal at- tacks. Even so profound a thinker as Ruskin sneered at this presumptuous meddler, who like a hazy comet was wagging his phosphorescent tail against the eternal stars. The world jeered, laughed, protested, expostulated. What had Darwin done? He had merely col- lected a group of facts, and, after viewing them in every possible light, had drawn certain con- clusions from them. Was he right or wrong? In order to decide that question, the beginner must take Darwin's facts, set beside them the facts at his disposal, analyze, deduce, and draw his conclusion. It is of no avail to call such a man an " atheist " or a " brutal scientist." Sixty years before, when Thomas Malthus published his essay on ' ' The Principles of Pop- ulation," a similar controversy was raised. Malthus showed that the world was speeding toward over-population and consequent starva- tion. Instantly, he was proclaimed as an enemy of church and state, a stirrer up of discord, a profaner of God's beautiful world. Malthus re- plied, and the controversy raged for years. THE SPIRIT OF SCIENCE 55 Malthus was wrong. He overlooked, or rather, he under-estimated the potency of the preventive checks on the increase of popula- tion. Marriages are made at a later and later age. The birth-rate is being restricted in all sections of the population. These are facts, and they constitute the only effective answer to Malthus' propositions. Whatever the point at issue, if the affirmative be based on fact, — and no scientific controversy is tenable in which the affirmative is not based on fact, — the opposition can meet the issues in no other way than by proving the unsoundness of the opposing facts, or of the arguments built on them. A minister one day stood in his pulpit with '' Science and Health " in his hands, for five minutes discussed its seven hundred closely written pages, and dismissed it for good. ' ' Sci- ence and Health " has vulnerable points, but instead of assailing them, this man sought, by abuse and ridicule, to answer an elaborate state- ment. But surely these statements have no applica- tion to us. We are tolerant and broad-minded. You are no doubt convinced of that, yet how many of you who are in charge of educational institutions would follow the example of a city superintendent of schools, whose reply to any teacher with a new theory invariably is, — " Try it. There is no other way in which the truth or falsity of an educational theory can be dem- 56 SOCIAL SANITY onstrated "? How many school superintendents would have referred to the educational authori- ties of the past two centuries and with fine phrases, and oft-spun arguments, dismissed the matter ! Yet, broadly speaking, the spirit of science has found a place in the wellspring of intelli- gent twentieth century thought. " Science is simply a higher development of common knowl- edge; and if Science is repudiated, all knowl- edge must be repudiated along with it. The extremest bigot will not suspect any harm in the observation that the sun rises earlier and sets later in summer than in winter; but will rather consider such an observation as a useful aid in fulfilling the duties of life. Well, As- tronomy is an organized body of kindred ob- servations, made with the greatest nicety. . . . That iron will rust in water, that wood will burn, that long-kept viands become putrid, the most timid sectarian will teach without alarm, as things useful to be known. But these are chemical truths. . . . And thus it is with all sciences. They severally germinate out of the experiences of daily life." * On these and sim- ilar experiences scientific deductions are based. All scientific method is the same, namely, — *' 1. Observation of facts — including under * "First Principles," Herbert Spencer. New York : The Mac- millan Co., 1909, Pp. 14, 15. THE SPIRIT OF SCIENCE 57 this head that artificial observation which is called experiment. " 2. That process of tying up similar facts into bundles which is called Comparison and Classification— the results of the process, the ticketed bundles being named General Proposi- tions. '' 3. Deduction, which takes us from general propositions to the facts again, teaches us, if I may so say, to anticipate from the ticket what is inside the bundle. And finally — '' 4. Verification, which is the process of ascertaining whether, in point of fact, our an- ticipation is a correct one." * Yet the scientist must not forget that " not only is there ' a soul of goodness in things evil, but very generally also ' a soul of truth in things erroneous."! The spirit of science is a spirit of fair-mindedness, straight dealing, and truthfulness. The three necessary quali- fications for a scientist, Sir Michael Foster con- tends, are truthfulness, alertness, and courage. (1) " The seeker after truth must himself be truthful, — truthful with the truthfulness of na- ture." (2) ''He must be alert of mind, ever on the watch, ready at once to lay hold of Nature's hint, however small, to listen to her whisper, however low." (3) " Scientific in- * " Science and Education," Thomas H. Huxley. New York : D. Appleton & Co., 1901. P. 52. f "First Principles," op. cit., p. 3. 58 SOCIAL SANITY quiry has need of moral courage — not so much the courage which helps a man to face a sudden difficulty, as the courage of steadfast endur- ance." * In the same strain Huxley writes, — '' If there is a young man of the present generation who has taken as much trouble as I did to assure himself that they are truths, let him come out with them, without troubling his head about the barking of the dogs of St. Eunulphus. ' Veritas prgevalebit ' — some day; and even if she does not prevail in his time, he himself will be the better and the wiser for having tried to help her. And let him recollect that such great re- ward is full payment for all his labor and pains." t Meanwhile each passing year demonstrates more surely that the spirit of science which is possessing the modern world, is a broader spirit than any that has gone before. More tolerant, more human, more pregnant with hope for the future. Under it the old forces of ignorance and bigotry are ground into jDOwder. In a few well chosen words does Shaw expound the whole plii- losophy. Larry, an Irishman, resident in Eng- land, is excusing himself for having failed to visit his father in eighteen years. ' ' Think of me and my father," he exclaims. '' He's a Nation- aUst and a Separatist. I'm a metallurgical *" Darwinism and Human Life," op. cit., p. 32. f " Man's Place in Nature," op. cit., p. xi. THE SPIRIT OF SCIENCE 59 chemist turned civil engineer. Now whatever else metallurgical chemistry may be it's not national. It's international. And my business and yours, as civil engineers, is to join coun- tries, not to separate them. The one real polit- ical conviction that our business has rubbed into us is that frontiers are hindrances, and flags confounded nuisances." * Let no one infer that speculative philosophy and religion have no place in the new scheme of things. Their field is ever broadening. They still direct the work of science, suggesting and leading into untried fields. Yet in cases, and their name is legion, where demonstration is possible, argument and protest have no place. Why judge, why condemn, why scoff, or sneer, or ridicule? Rather prove or disprove, for this is the spirit of science. Questions of fact are still questions of fact, though they overthrow our most cherished be- liefs. When an issue of fact and logic is raised, it can be answered in only one way — by fact and logic. Every issue which is susceptible of in- terpretation in these terms must be so inter- preted. Honesty, courage, fairness — such is the spirit of science. * ' ' John Bull's Other Island. " Act I. Ill THE KINGDOM OF MAN The boundaries of man's power to direct the life stream are the boundaries of his kingdom. Within these limits, he is monarch; without, darkness and old night play havoc with his feeble powers. The kingdom of man is a grow- ing kingdom. Little by little, man, the mon- arch, has extended the boundaries of his domain, — conquering the land, the water, the lightning, and now, in these latter days, even the air. Is it too much to suppose that as time flies he will likewise take possession of the kingdoms of metaphysics, babbling in the language of the fourth dimension? Whatever the final out- come, no one can, after the achievements of the past five thousand years, presume to set bounds upon the things that man may do. The tools with which man must subdue his kingdom are the tools of science. Wherever the boundaries are extended, the work is done through the use of classified knowledge. The land, the water, the lightning, the air are brought to do man's bidding only through the use of the accumulated wisdom of the ages. Without science, man is an animal, hunted from 60 THE KINGDOM OF MAN 61 lair to lair by the larger and stronger brutes, uncertain of food or shelter. Armed with the power that science brings, — weapons, tools, fire, formulas, machines, and the forces of the earth, water and air, man passes as a conquering hero over the plains and through the jungles that formerly bespoke danger and death. Sorcery has played no part ; the conjurer has been dis- pensed with; the ascertained facts alone remain. This knowledge, wielded at the behest of beliefs and of theories, has enabled man to win his throne, and proclaim himself the unchallenged lord of the beasts and birds, and of many of the forces of nature as well. A prejudice still lingers against the idea of a kingdom of man. The thought is so new, and its multitudinous applications through the realm of science have been made so recently, that it has scarcely been made a part of popular knowledge. Men, in times past, have worshiped the Kingdom of God, and they have trembled before the terrors of Satanic Despotism, but man's kingdom, until recent years, has never attracted their attention. Yet man has a king- dom, which upon due consideration appears to be in every way remarkable. Perhaps our forefathers had some ground for emphasizing the baser qualities of man, — in pointing out that he was " a mere worm," *' the dust of the earth," " a rude clod," and the like. Nevertheless, such careful natural scientists as 62 SOCIAL SANITY Linnaeus, Buffon, Darwin, and Huxley have in- sisted, — apparently with excellent reason, — that there are certain well marked dilTerences between the genus homo on the one hand, and worms, dust, and clods on the other. Indeed, a reading of these and other equally reputable authors, leads even the skeptic to the conclusion that man is not so base a creature, after all, but one of the most complex, best working or- ganisms of which nature affords a record. Furthermore, — and therein lies the truly signifi- cant part of the business, — man alone among the creatures of the earth has built himself a kingdom. No other being, so far as we know them, can utilize the forces of mighty Mother Nature, combining them and directing them to meet the varying needs of his life. Nature has produced, in man, a rival of no mean power. When she produced man, she sur- passed herself. He is her prodigy— perhaps, who knows, her Frankenstein as well. In him Edwin Markham sees, first of all, the contem- plative spirit: — '' Out of the deep and endless universe There came a greater Mystery, a Shape, A something sad, inscrutable, august — One to confront the worlds and question them." Markham thus venerates the spirit of philoso- phy. He might have emphasized, with equal justice, the spirit of science. THE KINGDOM OF MAN 63 Whether nature is concerned about man we cannot tell, but we do know that, among his own kind, he has been the object of no little analysis and speculation. His origin, his na- ture, his power, his virtue, his grandeur, and his destiny have been the source of endless dis- cussion. In the realm of science this discussion has led to careful studies and comparisons. Man has been taken to pieces, treated chem- ically, and subjected to tests psychological and anatomical. The conclusion of the matter lies in a series of explanations which show, more and more clearly with the lapse of time, the qualifications which enable man to assert his royal prerogatives over the animate world. Nowhere, perhaps, have man's physical qual- ifications for kingship been better set forth than in that most readable treatise by Thomas Hux- ley on " The Nature of Man." Man, an ambi- dextrous biped, to use the phraseology of Car- lyle, stands erect on his feet, — almost never depending upon his hands for locomotion. This upright posture, although its importance has probably been greatly over-emphasized, has cer- tain marked advantages over the horizontal pos- ture of most animals, and even over the posture of those apes, like the orang-outang, the chim- panzee, and the gorilla, which, while standing on their feet, depend upon their hands for aid in locomotion. The man standing firmly on his feet, his hands free for use in offense or defense, 64 SOCIAL SANITY possesses a striking advantage over all other members of the brute creation. The real anatomical superiority of man over the other creatures lies in two directions, — in the first place, he has one finger on each hand (the thumb) set at right angles to the remain- der of the hand and operating independently in such a way that its end may come in contact with the ends of all of the other fingers. This structure in the hand, which enables man to grasp " 'twixt thumb and finger," places him on a vantage ground occupied, otherwise, by only a few of the higher apes. All four feet of most mammals are built around a bony struc- ture, like that of the human foot, which must move in unison or not at all. The hand of man with its thumb is the exception, and it is this exception, coupled with man's second advantage — a large frontal development of the brain — which has enabled him to build his kingdom. The frontal lobe of the brain apparently con- tains its administrative offices. Like the super- intendent's office in a factory the frontal lobe co-ordinates the mental functions and powers. Where the frontal lobe is destroyed, as it has been in a few rare cases, the man loses his sense of proportions and values, failing, largely, in the control of his actions. Couple these two things together, — the hand with its thumb, and the brain with its elaborate department of ad- ministration, — and in the creature possessing THE KINGDOM OF MAN 65 both there lies the potentiality of world mas- tery. The mastering of the world? Nay, more, the mastering of two worlds,— first, the world of external things; second, the world of animate Hfe lying within man himself. Thus has arisen a man having dominion over the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, and the gold and silver under a thousand hills; thus has arisen likewise man having dominion over himself, shaping, in large measure, his own destiny and the destiny of the race of which he is a part. Eeview, for a moment, the history of man's declaration of independence from dogma and tradition during the past half-dozen centuries. Society was ruled, during the Middle Ages, by arbitrary laws, enacted by the church, or by the state, acting (theoretically) for the church. The light of the semi-democratic civilization of Greece and Rome had faded from the political horizon. Despotism, the patron saint of the time, reigned supreme with Fate, her next of kin. Here and there a bold spirit arose, con- tending with authority, questioning theological dogma, and calling men to thought and freedom. Cells and gibbets harbored many such. Above them, the bulwarks of social tradition loomed stolidly, proclaiming abroad the noisome doc- trine that, while a true believer might slay twenty Mohammedans in the name of Jesus, 66 SOCIAL SANITY lie might not tliink one original thought in the name of truth. Yet the light broke. From questioning the infallibility of the church, men turned to ques- tion the infallibility of the Scripture. They would at least read for themselves! So theo- logical dogma was thrust aside here and there, by the braver hearts who began to ask of all things : — 1. What is it! 2. Why is it? 3. How can we employ it for our advantage ? Similar questions had arisen in classical days, but the age of faith had overshadowed them. Now they were asked again, with redoubled vigor. Gradually the answers were formulated. The first question resulted in classification, which is the foundation of constructive thought. The question " Why? " gave rise to evolutionary science. The world, demanding fact as well as faith, was replacing theological dogma by sci- entific deduction. Although it was freed from theological dogma, the progressive thought of the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries was still domi- nated by the idea that laws of some kind were a human necessity. The social atmosphere still tingled with the spirit of past despotism. Hence, without a protest, men passed from the dominion of theological to the dominion of nat- THE KINGDOM OF MAN 67 ural law. Even the ablest thinkers sought for principles which, like Newton's law of gravi- tation, would underlie and control all phenom- ena. The protest, " Back to nature," was merely a demand that the world leap from the frying-pan of theological absolutism, into the fire of nature-tyranny. Yet the thought of the eighteenth century teems with this demand. The Physiocrats voiced it; the natural theo- logians preached it; Rousseau popularized it. Its logical flower was the French Revolution, which was a blind effort to pour the new wine of emancipated thought from the old bottles of political despotism into almost equally nar- row bottles of political pedantry. In the process much wine was lost. " Natural law " dogma bound the thought of eighteenth century think- ers in exactly the same way that the '' divine right " dogma had bound the thought of their ancestors. Nowhere is the transition better shown than in the development of the new world science of economics. Economics was born in the eighteenth century, — born of natural theology and physiocratic philosophy. Hereditarily, eco- nomics suffered from in-breeding. Environ- mentally, it was hedged in by the narrowest of narrow concepts — that of subjection to '^ higher powers." Was economics to become a science? Adam Smith and his contemporaries hoped that it 68 SOCIAL SANITY was. How well marked, then, was the path? All sciences were founded on natural laws. If economics was to be raised into the hierarchy of sciences, a great natural law must be found which would explain economic phenomena. The economists, therefore, applied the tests of sci- ence to their doctrines in order to establish their scientific nature. To the question, " What is it? " they replied, " A science of Wealth." To the question, " Why is it? " they answered, " Because of intelligent self-interest," " the law of supply and demand," '' competition," and the like. The third question they did not ask because the eighteenth century accepted and obeyed nature's laws instead of trying to utilize them for human advantage. Nevertheless, the third question must be an- swered. Of all things men will ultimately ask, '' How can we employ these for our advan- tage? " The basis of the answer was laid in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when free thought had largely escaped from theolog- ical dogma; when knowledge had ceased to be the right of the few, and had become the privi- lege of all. In the eighteenth century the ques- tion was asked of government. Men challenged the divine right of kings, and, on both sides of the Atlantic, democracy replaced monarchy. During the nineteenth century, experimental science asked the same question of natural law; estabUshed the power of human thought; forged THE KINGDOM OF MAN 69 the tools with which the work must be done; and bent immutable nature to the service of man through applied science. Thus knowledge, government, and natural phenomena have been turned to human service. The twentieth cen- tury voices a demand that economics undergo the same process of transformation from a sci- ence which serves laws to a science which serves society. On the one hand, science has demonstrated that all so-called laws may be employed to serve men, or else, if their influence is harmful, coun- teracted and offset. Gravitation has ceased to be an enemy; lightning holds few terrors; the waterfall is harnessed; the plague stayed; the desert blooms; time and space have lost their vastness; men have triumphed everywhere through the mastery of human thought. What- ever laws economics may depend upon are no more changeless than these overwhelmed laws of nature. We are no more subject to the laws of eco- nomics than our ancestors were subject to the laws of military tactics ; than we are subject to the laws of education ; or than our descendants will be subject to the laws of the sanitary sci- ence which we are creating. There are formulas of thought called " laws " in all sciences, but Napoleon overthrew and remade the laws of military tactics; Froebel restated the laws of education; and Pasteur created the science of 70 SOCIAL SANITY sanitation. There is an economic lawgiver — man, who can unmake or remake that which he has made. The economists in the past have asked *' What I " and " Why? " of economic phenom- ena. The time has now come when they must face the third question and discover how eco- nomics may be made to serve mankind. The discovery that opportunity largely shapes the life of the average man, determining whether he shall be happy or miserable, has led to an insistence that the economists part company with the ominous pictures of an over-populated, starving world, prostrate before the throne of *' competition," " psychic value," " individ- ual initiative," " private property," or some other pseudo-god, and tell men in simple, straightforward language how they may com- bine, reshape, or overcome the laws and utilize them as a blessing instead of enduring them as a burden and a curse. The day has dawned when economists must explain that welfare must be put before wealth ; that the iron law of wages may be shattered by a minimum wage law ; that universal over-population is being prevented by a universal restriction in the birth-rate; that overwork, untimely death, and a host of other economic maladjustments will disappear before an educated, legislating public opinion ; and that combination and co-operation may be employed to silence forever the savage demands of un- THE KINGDOM OF MAN 71 restricted competition. In short, the econo- mists, if they are to justify their existence, must provide a tlieory which will enable the average man, by co-operating with his fellows, to bear more easily the burden and heat of the day. How shall this be? What relief may eco- nomics — " the dismal science " — afford? Per- haps the matter can best be stated in an analogy suggested by Euskin. Suppose that five men were to take a tract of a thousand acres for the purpose of running a general farm. Learned in the art of scientific agriculture, these men provide the necessary tools, equipment, fertilizers, and seeds, prepare the ground, sow the crops, harvest the grain, potatoes, fruit, and vegetables, and take them to market. Where they find their land too wet— they drain it ; if, perchance, the tract is too dry, they irri- gate; and if a test shows that a certain field needs lime, they promptly apply lime. These men are farming the land. They do not wait for the land to produce a living for them, but instead, they use the land in every conceivable way. Suppose that, instead of fertilizing, irrigat- ing, and draining, these men, upon discovering that one plot was very fertile, farmed only that plot, leaving the less fertile parts of the farm untilled; suppose that, when water stood in a field, they invoked the aid of physics and mathe- matics, ascertained that this field was low, and 72 SOCIAL SANITY therefore bound to be wet; suppose that they abandoned a hill plot which would not raise tobacco without even attempting to ascertain whether it would grow buckwheat ; suppose that after venturing timidly to try a few minor ex- periments, these men, discouraged and forlorn, should assemble around a stone, and, raising their hands to the sky, should beseech some higher power to make water run up-hill or tobacco grow on buckwheat land. Or, instead of praying, imagine their hopeless, hang-dog air as they gazed dejectedly over their thousand acres, exclaiming, — '' Alas, the law of gravita- tion makes our lowland wet; tobacco will not grow on the highland ; yonder field contains no lime for our clover crop, and even the cattle in the hill pasture suffer from lack of water." *' What a picture!" you cry, contemptu- ously. '' What sane men would talk so? " you demand. " The illustration approaches the ridiculous. Beseech a power! Bemoan the law of gravitation? Fiddlesticks! Irrigate, drain, lime, water, fertilize, and the land will bring forth in abundance." True, true, but listen ! Ninety million people, some of them intelligent men and women, living in one of the most fertile regions of the whole earth, possessed of boundless natural resources, of knowledge, and of energy, have suffered for a century from devastating industrial depres- sions; have watched little children work their THE KINGDOM OF MAN 73 fingers raw in the coal breakers ; have witnessed an exploitation of women that has required two hundred thousand of them to sell their bodies ; have tolerated sodden misery, poverty, vice, criminality ; have permitted one small group in the community to possess itself of the natural resources on which all depend, and to exact a monopoly price, from all, for the use of those resources; and now, after generations of this grewsome motion picture, these sane, strong men and women raise their hands to a higher power, or slink dejectedly into their caricature homes, making scarcely an effort to throttle their taskmasters — Hunger and Emulation — or to stay the hand of the grim reaper who annu- ally sends seven hundred thousand of them to premature graves. Irrigate! Drain! Lime! Fertilize! Aye, farmer, do these things, and you will reap a plenteous harvest. You possess the knowledge and the tools, — then bend enthusiastically to your task! Educate! Legislate! Eeorganize! Adjust! Aye, citizen, do these things and you will gain a satisfying livelihood. You possess the knowl- edge, the wealth, the tools, — then bend enthusi- astically to your task! Man has heard the behests of great, moving, virile ideas, and ceasing to bow before difficul- ties, he has swept forward like a conquering monarch, establishing his kingdom, destroying. 74 SOCIAL SANITY with the blazing torch of science the superstruc- ture of tradition and bigotry; holding in his hand the tool, mechanics, and directing his ac- tivities by the exercise of judgment and reason he has built a newer, nobler structure than the one which he destroyed. Mechanics! That one word lies at the foun- dation of all civilization. The kingdom of man is built on mechanics, and since man is the only creature with mechanical possibilities, it neces- sarily follows that man alone could have con- structed such a kingdom. The beavers ! the beavers ! We have forgot- ten the beavers, and the ants, the bees, the birds, the rodents. They all build, and in the case of beavers and ants, build in a fashion truly marvelous. Yet, think — they have no thumb and no tools! Apparently, they are in- capable of making or of using tools. Man's mechanical genius has turned toolward, and it is on tools that his kingdom depends. He has been well called " the tool-using animal." From the time when he employed one stone to shape another, until the time when one tool measures, mixes, sorts, and bakes his loaves of bread for him, all without the touch of his hand, man has been building his kingdom — building it with the tools which his mechanical genius enables him to devise. Nay, you protest, but it is not in tools alone that man's supremacy lies. No, not in tools THE KINGDOM OF MAN 75 proper, — not as you would say exactly tools, — unless you take " tools " in its broadest aspect, and include in it the tool of language, and those signs which have gradually become let- ters and numbers. They, too, are tools — de- vices for increasing the effectiveness of human thought. Whatever view one may hold concerning bi- ologic evolution, however opposed one may be to the concept of the growth of species, — there can be no question as to man's evolution of the tool. Primitive tribes still use clubs and stones ; even the bow and arrow — a tool used at a com- paratively early time — is unknown to the abo- rigines of Australia. The tool is a product of evolution. Printing presses, locomotives, sew- ing machines, double-bitted, tempered steel axes were not made in a year, nor were they found already made. Under the eyes of our grand- fathers and of our fathers, they have been cre- ated — created by the combination of mechanical ability and scientific knowledge. The mechan- ical ability was founded in the tools which man had made ; the scientific knowledge was set down and accumulated by means of letters and fig- ures. No one man created a tool, but each, labor- ing perhaps for a lifetime, made some slight improvement in the thing which his ancestors had handed to him. What untold ages may have elapsed between the rude stick, broken by brute 76 SOCIAL SANITY force from a tree, and used as a weapon, and the spear, with carefully made handle and stone or metal head attached! We cannot tell the years in numbers — ^we can merely surmise them, yet they passed. With what weary steps did the savage reach the throw-stick, the boom- erang, the blow- gun, and the bow and arrow! Yet these are some of the simplest tools which man has made. No less significant is the evolution of the use of fire, first for warmth, or for cooking, then for such industrial uses as the smelting of metals and the manufacture of glass, and finally for power. Civilization has been built with fire. Consider the evolution of the wheel. A simple device which you take for granted, yet until it was thought out pack- animals and man's shoulders were the only methods of carrying. With the wheel for trans- portation, came the demand for roads — first wagon roads and now railroads. All of these things have come slowly, bit by bit, into the consciousness of mankind. With their coming has come civilization — the product of man's handiwork. About many of these developments we must surmise, but in our own times we see creations surpassing in their marvelousness aught that has preceded them. It is little more than a century since Benjamin Franklin was playing electricity with kite-strings and keys. The elec- tricity of Franklin's time was the plaything of THE KINGDOM OF MAN 77 men of science. In a brief hundred years — a passing moment in the history of the human race — electricity has entered every branch of science and industry, revolutionizing transpor- tation, communication, power methods, and forms of amusement and recreation, medicine, and a thousand other things — and electricity is but one of scores of wonders of the modern mechanical world. We know these things, yet we often fail to recognize in them the all-important fact that all are the outcome of evolution. Each has been made piece by piece, here a little and there a little. Though some occasional scientist like Pasteur or Edison contributes many original ideas, the fact remains that his contributions are based on those of his predecessors, and that they constitute one link in the line of discovery which has led to the thing which we look upon as completed and as wonderful. Yet, continu- ing, what may not the future hold in store? Even the most prolific and original genius can- not rise out of the life stream of ideas, dis- coveries, and creations, of which he is a part. He can direct the stream though, adding to it, meanwhile, elements which it never contained before. The contributions which the past has made to civilization are wonderful. Yet, continuing for the next five thousand years the rate of de- velopment which has characterized the past 78 SOCIAL SANITY five thousand, especially the past two hundred years, what may the future not hold in store? There is no ascertained limit to the growth of mechanics, there are no set boundaries to science, there is therefore no known restriction on the kingdom of man, because human reason may work new wonders in each new century. Better than all, man's wisdom rests on an ac- cumulated knowledge of the ages which man can hand down, from generation to generation, in his books. The communication of ideas by means of symbols which might be likened to mortar, ce- menting the triumphs of one age upon those of another, is likewise the product of an evolu- tionary change, — a current in the life stream of the world. Walk into Central Park and lay an evening paper against the foot of the obehsk. The contrast is grotesque, yet the obelisk is one tiny step, carefully executed at an enormous expenditure of human effort, in the develop- ment of language. On all of its great stone surface there is less than we can to-day put in a single newspaper, book, or magazine. Since the obelisk was chiseled, men have learned to employ an alphabet, to use paper, to print with types and to make cheap books. "Whatever the origin of language, ages un- doubtedly elapsed between the use of spoken and the use of written speech, and we know that between the use of writing and the us§ THE KINGDOM OF MAN 79 of printing — the popularizer of knowledge — ages more passed. The education of which we are so proud is the product of phonetic speech, of writing with symbols, and of printing with movable type. The work of centuries at last bears its fruition in the text-book, with its half-tones and its printing. If it was true in Solomon's time that '' much study is a weari- ness to the flesh, and of the making of books there is no end," how much more horrified would the good sage have been could he have gazed upon twenty million school children, many of them bespectacled, poring over hun- dreds of millions of books, while, from every hand, the printers, publishers, editors, and authors grind out millions more. The human race moves, after ages of effort, along a life stream which has been trans- formed by the hands and brains of man. Man, the reasoning being, aided by mechan- ics, has built a new world. Nature has never duplicated the work of man. The effort is his and the glory : the throne is his and the obliga- tions of kingship. In this last century man has set upon the throne of his kingdom, himself — the democracy. Will it then prove fit for the task of government? Can it control this won- der-world of the ages? As civilization sweeps forward and upward, can man giiide its hurry- ing course? Literally, can man make out of his own image and likeness a ruler worthy to 80 SOCIAL SANITY govern his kingdom? Therein lies his second great task. Like the task of creating civiliza- tion it must be based upon the word of science. Like that task too, it must move from the known of the present into the unknown of the future, creating, with each passing year, men and women more competent to direct advancing civ- ilization. Nietzsche writes of this second great task of man, ' ' I teach you beyond man. All hitherto have created something beyond themselves." ** In your children's children ye shall make amend for being your fathers' children. Thus ye shall redeem all that is past." The self-centered egotist will find that the vibrations of Nietzsche's philosophy grate un- pleasantly on his ear. He had regarded him- self as the finality, now he learns, perhaps, for the first time, that he is not Omega, nor even Alpha, — that he is naught, in effect, but an infinitesimal atom. It is a disquieting thought, this relegation of the lord of creation to a sec- ondary place in the infinite scheme of things. Yet, after all, ' ' What, then, are we ? " Nietzsche replies with brutal directness that we are milestones, that we are signboards, point- ing toward progress, that we are half-way houses, built, as if by accident, on the path which leads to the super-race. ' ' What is great in man," the brilliant German exclaims, '' is that he is a bridge and not a goal." We of to- THE KINGDOM OF MAN 81 day are a part of the structure on which is erected the superstructure of to-morrow. Like the coral insect, we lay down our lives in the foundation of the present that the future may rise, palm crowned, above the white and green of the lapping water. Man may be no more, yet there is that within his soul which would transcend this involuntary submission to a process, — something which would rise above the dead level of fatalistic doubt, declaring that while it is true that the twentieth century man is a bridge — or perhaps, better, one plank in a bridge — connecting the Alpha and Omega of the human species, he is as much more than the mere passive agent as the bridge-builder is more than the bridge. For man differs from the bridge in this, that with deliberate consciousness he is building the bridge to the Omega of the race. We are the bridge, — we are also the bridge-builders. Anyone who has seen a cantilever construc- tion in process of erection will appreciate the thought. Tied with iron bands to a foundation erected on the bank, the great structure projects out, sheer over the water, without any apparent means of support, while piece by piece the girders and beams are added. Yet, it is not in the bridge itself that we glory, so much as in the fact that we have the power to erect such a structure. Man has always been a bridge, and a bridge- 82 SOCIAL SANITY builder too. Since he learned that a connection exists between sex and reproduction, he has built consciously, though never so badly. To- day, more scientific in our knowledge, we may deliberately determine the character of the hu- man bridge which we construct. If modern science speaks correctly — and we have no reason at all to doubt its testimony in this matter — the racial qualities are handed down from one generation to the next through the germ-plasm or life stream of the human species. While it is practically impossible to alter the characteristics of a germ cell, it is possible to influence the future, radically, by the choice of parents, because on the character of the two parental germ cells depends abso- lutely the character of the offspring. Within each germ cell lie a group of microscopic lines called chromosomes, which contain the charac- teristics of the germ cell, and hence of the future being. When the new organism is formed from the union of the two parental cells, the lines in the parental cells group themselves in pairs, — twelve pairs in the human species, — and this grouping determines the characteristics of the offspring. The Hebrew woman utters a glad cry, — '' I have gotten a man from the Lord." A new beam has been laid — a new unit in the completed bridge of the human race. Is the beam well tempered? Strong? Elastic? Rightly shaped? THE KINGDOM OF MAN 83 Ask that child's parents, for upon them and upon them only rests the responsibility for its qualities. They are among the bridge-builders. Every marriage means potential bridge ma- terial. Will this new supply be structurally safe? Such a question can be clearly, and nay, almost conclusively, answered by an analysis of three or four preceding generations on either side. Such matters are scarcely open even to quib- bling, to-day. Robust, healthy, virile parentage and grand-parentage will almost surely mean vigorous, energetic offspring, while defective parental stock shows itself in the offspring in a way more or less predictable. Perhaps the Mendelian formula does not apply with abso- lute precision. What then? We still have on the one hand long lines of able men and women, exemplified in the Hohenzollern family in Ger- many, and the Jonathan Edwards family in the United States, while, on the other hand, inves- tigation shows, in scores of cases, long lines of defect such as is exhibited by the Zero family abroad, and by the Jukes at home. Why clarify crystal spring water? Any man who has dealt with genetics in any form will assure you that parental ability or parental defect are handed on from one generation to the next with marvelous precision. How optimistic is Whitman when he thinks of the coming race! '' I will make the most 84 SOCIAL SANITY splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon," he writes. In like lines does Yeats refer to '' The great race that is to come." Euskin believes that " There is as yet no ascertained limit to the noblesse of person and mind which the human creature may attain." And Ellen Key voices a prophecy of " A state of culture which will be that of the depths, not, as here- tofore, of the surface alone ; a stage which will not be merely a culture through mankind, but a culture of mankind." Genus homo, bridge-builder, incorporated in the form of civilization, equipped with modern scientific knowledge, and supplied by nature with the tools for his task — ^nay, compelled by nature to perform the task unless he is willing to sacrifice the right of self-perpetuation. Genus homo — the bridge-builder to the future — drawn pell-mell by the storm of forces rag- ing within him to this perilous task, erecting the structure of the human race. Tell us, O philosopher, as you stand over the abyss, gaz- ing out into the unknown, where shall we lay our next span? You too, scientist, testing the materials as they are brought forward, tell us, tell us! Will they stand the strain? After all, you can but prophesy, but whether we will or no we are building. Let us hope that the philosopher advises well. Let us believe that the scientist finds the materials testing high, else philosophy and science alike may crash THE KINGDOM OF MAN 85 together into tlie great unknown, tumbling to destruction with the struggling remnants of Western civilization. Will man rule sagely and grandly in his two kingdoms? Can he conquer genus homo, as he has conquered electricity, light, and the lesser creatures, — discarding the qualities which lead away from his goal, and amplifying those which he can advantageously employ? He has given the scepter to his descendants, the de- mocracy. Are they of a stock which can wield scepters? Is Emerson right when he says: — *' When the statesmen plow Furrows for the wheat, When the Church is social ivorth, When the State house is the hearth, Then the perfect State is come, The republican at home." * We believe so! Confident in our power to make a king as we have made a kingdom, we press forward to the task. Yet the brain of the democracy must be vig- orous and its hand supple, if it is to rule suc- cessfully. This is no sinecure, — this rule over the kingdom of man. Hear E. Ray Lankester : — " This is, indeed, the definite purpose of my discourse: to point out that civilized man has proceeded so far in his interference with extra- * Essay on " Politics." 86 SOCIAL SANITY human nature, has produced for himself and the living organisms associated with him such a special state of things by his rebellions against natural selection and his defiance of Nature's pre-human dispositions, that he must either go on and acquire firmer control of the conditions or perish miserably by the vengeance certain to fall on the half-hearted meddler in great affairs. We may indeed compare civilized man to a successful rebel against Nature who by every step forward renders himself liable to greater and greater penalties, and so cannot afford to pause or fail in one single step. Or again, we may think of him as the heir to a vast and magnificent kingdom, who has been fiinally educated so as to fit him to take posses- sion of his property, and is at length left alone to do his best; he has willfully abrogated, in many important respects, the laws of his mother Nature by which the kingdom was hitherto gov- erned; he has gained some power and advan- tage by so doing, but is threatened on every hand by dangers and disasters hitherto re- strained: no retreat is possible — his only hope is to control, as he knows that he can, the sources of these dangers and disasters. They already make him wince; how long will he sit listening to the fairy-tales of his boyhood and shrink from manhood's task? " * ♦"Nature and Man," E. R. Lankester. Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1905. P. 27. THE KINGDOM OF MAN 87 Yet, standing as we do, facing the past, and contemplating the present, we are forced again to the conclusion that civilization is a Becom- ing, not a Being. Under our very eyes, while we gaze upon it, our kingdom is transformed, — the motor races ahead of the horse, the aero- plane glides into the air, the moving picture takes us among the wild beasts of the African jungle, the voice of the prima donna resounds under our humble roof, the switches, interlock- ing automatically, protect us as we speed away into the night, the grocer offers us string-beans and strawberries in February, and industry, burning and whirring, pours into our hands a flood of things which our minds have never been taught to covet. Civilization is becoming, grow- ing, changing, and whether we like it or not, we are a part of the change which is occur- ring. How idle to kick against the pricks! How profane to imagine that you or I, one micro- scopic unit in a vast moving stream, can stem the tide by standing still and gazing at the past ! Imagine a soldier in the front rank of a charg- ing battalion of cavalry, stopping his horse and standing still. Still? He would be swept to destruction. Three conservative Elders controlled the pol- icy of a church in a small country town. Each year the spirit of unrest grew. Each year it became evident that if this church was to hold 88 SOCIAL SANITY its congregation, it must march in step with the times, nevertheless the Elders remained obdurate and the church stood still. These Elders were, as the name suggests, old men. In their moments of crass optimism, they im- agined that they might hold on forever and prevent the spirit of change, which was steal- ing into every other church, from gaining an entrance into theirs; but in their saner times, they remembered that, all flesh being grass, their turn would surely come, and their hearts told them that no sooner were they gone and rid of, than the progressive element in the church would adopt every one of the reforms against which they had fought for so many years. The plight was maddening. They must go ; they could not take the church with them ; so that, at last, with the assistance of the great reaper, their enemies would triumph. In their hopeless rage, they gnashed their teeth. Per- haps, following the suggestion of Job's com- forter, they cursed God for having made such a mess of things. They had never learned that the world is a progression, and that every insti- tution in the world — even the church — must re- adjust itself to the changing times. When the English weavers stormed the early factories, tearing out the machinery and de- manding that the handicraft system of industry be retained, they were building a dam across the stream of progress. In their time, the THE KINGDOM OF MAN 89 stream was running very strong, and their dam was like a wisp of straw in a spring freshet. Sometimes these dams have held for a time. The Feudal System, for example, stayed in France until the end of the eighteenth cen- tury, when it was swept aside by a great rev- olution. The Caste System remains in India, even to-day, although the mutterings from be- neath now threaten its existence. Time was when the Feudal System and the Caste System benefited mankind. In their inception they were more desirable types of social organization than the type which preceded them, but, in the course of advance, civilization has swept beyond them and they go down under the tide of progress. The part is not greater than the whole. No segment of the human race can stand perma- nently in the path which leads toward the wel- fare of the majority. Social structure always has and always will change in response to the immutable law that socially advantageous insti- tutions always replace those which are of less social advantage. Meanwhile we as the present rulers of the kingdom of man bend earnestly to the task before us. The stream of life we see. Its direc- tion, its control, we take upon ourselves as our fathers lay down the burden. How shall we meet the responsiblities of our kingship? How shape the present, and mold the future 1 90 SOCIAL SANITY The past has spoken ; the present is heard ; the future waits, a limitless silence. Life has de- creed that we shall fill it with the sounds and with the echoes from voices. Are our children not entitled to uplifting harmonies? iv: PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM What spirit shall breathe in man as he looks upon his kingdom? How shall he regard the eddying, swirling life-stream-current of which he is a part? What thought shall be upper- most in his mind as he wields the scepter of his authority? Some vision, some forward look, there must be, else the people perish. Some- times the two angles from which life may be looked upon are described as pessimism and optimism. Are you an optimist? If you are, you believe in the kingdom of man, in the widening of its borders, in the deepening of its thought, in the strengthening of its feeling and of its vision. Do you believe that, through science, man may direct the life stream of his existence and of the civilization to which he belongs? If you are an optimist, you believe in the possibilities of the future. Are you a pessimist? If you are, you have no faith in the kingdom of man, in its extent or quality. You have no faith in man 's ability to direct the life stream. You who are pessimists believe in the possibilities of the past. The 91 92 SOCIAL SANITY optimist is a near-king, for Ms optimism rests upon' his potential achievement, his possible greatness. The pessimist is of the earth, earthy, failing in aspiration and in the spirt of light. Hear Victor Hugo, the great-minded optimist of French literature, as he finds hope, even while looking into the shadows which enshroud many corners of the kingdom of man. *' And yet some of those who follow the social clinics shake their heads at times, and the strongest, the most tender, and the most logical have their hours of despondency. Will the future arrive? It seems as if we may almost ask this question on seeing so much terrible shadow. There, in a somber face to face meeting of the egotist, we trace prejudices, the cloudiness of a caste education, appetite growing with intoxi- cation, and prosperity that stuns, a fear of suffering which in some goes so far as an aver- sion from the sufferers, an implacable satis- faction, and the feeling of self so swollen that it closes the soul. In the wretched we find covetousness, envy, the hatred of seeing others successful, the profound bounds of the human wild beast at satisfaction, and hearts full of mist, sorrow, want, fatality, and impure and simple ignorance. Must we still raise our eyes to heaven? Is the luminous point which we notice there one of those which die out? The ideal is frightful to look on thus lost in the depths, small, isolated, imperceptible, and bril- PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM 93 liant, but surrounded by all those great black menaces monstrously collected around it; for all that, though, it is in no more danger than a star in the yawning throat of the clouds." * Men may not overlook the shadows which lurk on this side and on that. Misery, crime, disease, poverty, vice, bespeak their own hid- eous possibilities too clearly to be forgotten. Yet even in their delineation, man may read the uncompleted record of his own greatness — the record of that which might have been and is not : the record of that which still may be. Pessimism is the philosophy of the old world; optimism is the philosophy of the new. Pessimism is a philosophy of misery and deficit ; optimism is a philosophy of joy and surplus. Pessimism is the last wail of the jail bird on his way to the gallows; optimism is the song of the man who feels in his soul that he can behave himself well enough to keep out of jail. Pessimism means stagnation; optimism means joyous activity. Are you a pessimist? Is your golden age in the past? Must men walk with the head al- ways over the shoulder? Is there nothing in front save oblivion or the pangs of hell fire? Are we destined to be broken on the wheel of fortune whether or no? If you answer these questions in the affirmative, surely you are a pessimist. • " Les Miserables," Part IV, Ch. ccv. 94 SOCIAL SANITY The old world was a world of pessimism. The savage lives in a state of constant terror. On every side the forces of nature present over- whelming odds to his cowering soul. He sac- rifices, propitiates, hopes, and fears. He is " in the fell grip of circumstance," so firmly that by the utmost effort he cannot move a hair's breadth. If the gods decree — he dies, with no more say in the matter. For how many centuries has man continued under the domination of this fear of nature! How has he fawned, truckled, wept, and im- plored! With what consequences? Either his god did not hear or else he was away hunting, for heaven was silent. Conceive the pall under which men must have lived ! In western Europe, less than three hun- dred years ago, the plague swept away the population at the rate of forty, fifty, and sixty persons in each hundred. At one dread breath of the pestilence, — in so many weeks, — whole villages were left desolated, uninhabited. The people had repented of their sins; they had cried aloud to Heaven; they had petitioned, begged, — all was useless. With appalling reg- ularity, these frightful agents of destruction reaped young men and old. Why? Simply be- cause they were dirty. The cities of those times had no effective means of sewerage or of garbage disposal. The streets were badly paved. Offal and refuse PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM 95 of every description piled up and rotted for years. A visitor to a modern Asiatic city can gain an excellent idea of what the medieval city must have been. One hot dry summer, when everything was ripe for its reception, the bacteria would be brought into the country, and, carried by the flies or by the vermin on the rats — both flies and rats fed on the offal in the streets — the plague spread with great rapidity. In China and India, similar experiences occur to-day. What wonder that such people are pessi- mists ! Who would not, under similar circum- stances, look gloomily into the future? Neu- ralgia is bad enough; dyspepsia drives toward pessimism; and the worst that we can conceive is a combination of rheumatism and St. Vitus' dance. We do not know plague. The East still stoops before the blows of fate, saying patiently, "It is the will of Allah! Allah's will is mine." With such grand forti- tude, such calm resignation to the inevitable wretchedness, do they take what comes, silently, without uttering a cry. What can be done? Nothing can be done, — " It is the will of Allah." To the Western mind, such fatalism is utterly beyond belief — yet it is a logical part of the pessimism which must exist so long as man, failing to appreciate his greatness, fails to take complete possession of his kingdom. The answer of the West to this pessimism 96 SOCIAL SANITY of tlie East is clear and sliarp. Writing of the lords, knights, and squires of England, a humble workman says: — " If Providence ordain' d them fat An' me the lean, I'll answer that. If that is true, then Gawd's a cheat! 'Ave they the right to drink an' eat At my expense? Wat's Providence a-playin' at? Ain't 'e no sense? *' I'd he a better Gawd myself! I'd chuck no man upon the shelf Who 'ad an ounce o' manly grit, Or 'alf an ounce o' manly wit To earn 'is keep, An' save a modest store o' pelf Ere 'is larst sleep. " That Gawd, 'e ain't no Gawd at all! I wouldn't 'ear the babies call Fer grub, or see the muvvers pine, Then style meself a Poiver Divine, Fer if 'e bids No sooty London sparrer fall, — Wat price the kids? '* The golden streets, beyond the grave, We do not very greatly crave, We'd rather in a 'eaven abide Jest lyke our English countryside — So drat the 'arp PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM 97 'An' all that gag; but, 0! to save — Dear Gaivd, look sharp! " The old world bred pessimists because of the utter failure of man to control his kingdom. Looking backward to the Garden of Eden, which had been beautiful once upon a time, or forward into the distant future, where they should sing psalms, or carouse, or hunt, or ful- fill some other ideal dream, men forgot the world in which they lived. Their contempla- tion of ethereal bliss won by some such simple act as dying, led them to forget the possibilities of creating bliss in the world by working. Scarcely had it occurred to them that it was not necessary to die in order to win. In the present they saw no possibilities of blessedness, nor any hope of salvation, short of a future beyond the grave. Science sounds the death knell of pessimism. If the world is a process ; if Nature always ex- presses herself in change; if man may direct this change, securing continual improvement, why the need for pessimism? The back- ward look must give place to the forward vision. The pessimist, seeing that the world went wrong in spite of all he could do, lived and mused in a slough of despond, too benumbed by doubt, to make even a pretense at consistent effort. The optimist, already on the foothills 98 SOCIAL SANITY of hope, sees the valleys and mountains of pro- longed effort before him, but he also sees in these valleys and mountains possibilities, — possibilities in the present world. He may bridge, tunnel, cut, fill, — Science tells him that. The effort is immense, but the goal! Toward these possibilities the spirit within him impels him to strive. In this realization he will sac- rifice his energy, his time, even his life, if need be, since he sees, somewhere on the far horizon, better things than any that have yet been known. Contrast the treatment of the plague in medieval Europe with the treatment of yellow fever in Cuba and on the Panama Canal Zone. Yellow fever was as much a part of Cuban life as mosquitoes, sugar cane, or the lazy blue of the ocean. The Americans occupied Havana, and yellow fever disappeared. An isolated case, once in three or four years, is all they have to report. How was this marvel achieved? How was a city, plague ridden for centuries, cleaned of its disease? By the simple process of cleaning the streets and catching the mos- quitoes who carried the microbe of yellow fever, before they clambered out of their native marshes. In the Middle Ages, such a trans- formation would have been looked upon as a Heaven-sent blessing. To-day, it is recognized as the logical effect of man's advancing dom- inance over his kingdom. PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM 99 The optimist is not sure of success, but lie is hopeful. He eschews fatalism as he would any word of the devil. Always he is a thinker and a believer. Carried to the extreme, optimism may be as fatalistic as the most absurd pessimism. '' Everything is bound to go right," exclaims the enthusiastic student of social affairs. " Events will shape themselves so that finally all will be well." Quickly, then, let us relax in vigilance in the Canal Zone, permit mosquitoes to breed, allow the hookworm to continue its ravages, and the typhoid bacillus to work destruction. Let man take his hand for one moment from the throttle, and chaos reigns. Almost in a twinkling, chaos replaces order and civilized man reduced to the status of the savage, buffeted by Nature, fearful always for his very life, would cease to drive close bargains with Fate, and instead, grovel at her footstool. The sentiment will hardly find a response in the thoughtful mind any more than Browning's '' God's in His heaven, all's right with the world " meets with the approval of the thinker. Such crass op- timism leads nowhere. It is but another way of saying,—" It is the will of Allah. Allah's will is mine." After describing this and another type of optimistic fatalism, Professor Patrick describes what he terms " The New Optimism," — an 100 SOCIAL SANITY optimism based on science and belief, and lead- ing to virile effort. This true optimism of the twentieth century " might be called dynamic, or practical, or psychological optimism. It concerns itself with no theoretical questions as to whether the world is the best possible one or not. It has for its motto — The world is pretty good, and we will make it better." This optimism of progress repudiates the idea of the good old times. " In the museum at Constan- tinople the writer saw an inscription upon an old stone. It was by King Naram Sin of Chal- dea, 3800 b.c, and it said : — '^ ' We have fallen upon evil times And the world has waxed very old and wicked. Politics are very corrupt. Children are no longer respectful to their parents.' *' This old and ever recurring complaint," comments Professor Patrick, '' does not depend upon any deterioration of the times, for the times are constantly growing better. It comes usually from older people whose outlook may be biased by subjective conditions due to de- caying powers and by the tendency to regard all changes as changes for the worse."* *" The New Optimism," G. T. W. Patrick. Popular Science Monthly, May, 1913, Vol. LXXXII, p. 493. PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM 101 Change then will be inevitable. Man may say only what form that change shall take. Man's kingdom is a good kingdom, but over it, suspended by a hair, hangs the sword of Damocles. A moment of relaxed vigilance — a generation of dissipated indifference, — vermin have bred on the offal of civilization, a rat has gnawed the hair by which the destruction was suspended, the sword falls, shattering the mighty triumphs of the Western world and hurling man again into an abyss of darkness. Civihzation hangs suspended by the veriest hair of human effort. Eternal activity is the price of dehverance. Eternal activity, aye, until, one day, who knows? May not a solution be compounded in which the sword of civilization's danger may be dissolved and scattered far and wide over the face of the deep? Civilization, in this dilemma, turns to the optimist for the words of life, for in optimism lies social salvation — not the salvation of the idler, but that of the enthusiastic worker. " If we will," cries the optimist, as he sur- veys the Augean Stables of Civilization, " if we will, we may." He may — nay, he must, — for the spirit of his task drives him to his labor. The optimist cannot bear the world as it is. His very nature forces him to make it what he believes it ought to be. Nor does he, like Hercules, waste more than he creates. The optimist has learned that 102 SOCIAL SANITY beauty grows from the most repulsive ugliness, hence, as he labors he employs every atom of filth from the stables for the raising of roses, lettuce, corn, and dahlias, mignonette, and vio- lets, to minister to the body and soul needs of those who bear the burden of life's day. Pessimism is social suicide. The crass op- timism which believes that everything must turn out right is nothing less. Sane optimism is the spinal column of social progress. The true optimist is a worker — frankly recognizing the magnitude of the task before him and as frankly believing that it is within his power, and that of his descendants, to accomplish that task. The optimist relies on knowledge, but he re- lies no less absolutely upon belief. In the dis- tance, he sees the vision of a nobler race, living in an environment superior to anything hitherto known. They are the descendants of his gen- eration. They are reaping the fruits of his effort. He glories in their nobility, in the rich- ness of their lives, and with the eyes of his spirit on this vision, he labors. Thus has every artist, poet, scientist, statesman labored, look- ing forward, hopefully, toward the goal which the eyes of his inner consciousness saw in the distance and toiling toward it with the enthu- siasm of a child or of a genius. Optimism is a belief in the possibility of preserving the race and raising its standards through successive generations. PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM 103 In the past, the standards of life have been constantly raised, through successive stages. The biologic world has been improved genera- tion after generation by means of a process which eliminated the unfit and allowed only the fit individual members of a species to sur- vive and propagate their fitness. In exactly the same way social institutions have been im- proved by replacing the worthless elements with newer and more worth-while forms. With- out such a selection of the best, no species and no society could endure. By means of it, the best in each generation is preserved for the future, while the rest is cast away. This is nature's method of protecting her- self against deterioration. Hence all who raise the " back to nature " cry should welcome it with glad hearts, recognizing it as the conceiver of progress, the savior of civilization. In so far as man is to make a success of civilization. Nature's task of selection must be his method too. Everywhere, without regard to individual hardship, he must reject the worthless, and re- tain only that which is worth while. Only thus will the instruments of civilization and progress be continually improved. The primitive man used a tool or a weapon because it had been used by his father. The modern manufacturer throws away a more de- sirable tool than any ever possessed by the savage, because he has found a better one. The 104 SOCIAL SANITY modern navy discards expensive, intricate, mur- dering devices because more effective ones are to be iiad. The school teacher turns from the old method to the new. The doctor lays aside his dirty ways and practices antiseptic surgery. The farmer, no longer guided by the moon or the planets, reaps a rich reward from the adop- tion of scientific methods of agriculture. Each man is learning that the law of nature is im- mutable because it is right, — the more worthy alone may remain; the less worthy must dis- appear. Whether in science, education, industry, or politics, this truth is getting fast hold of men's souls. They are learning that, since life is a becoming and since man may will to direct it, guided by his visions of the future, could all possess an optimistic attitude toward life, soci- ety might readily preserve itself in the pres- ent, and continually raise its standards through succeeding generations. Hence, at the basis of social sanity lie optimism and vision applied through the preservation of the best in each generation; hence at the basis of man's king- dom lies a staunch belief in man's potentialities. LIFE AND LIVING The pessimism or optimism of world vision is reflected in each life. As the man believeth in his soul, so is he. Those who look hopefully into the future — who have faith in the possi- bilities of the kingdom of man — cannot but re- flect such beliefs in a buoyant spirit of effective living. Those who, on the other hand, dwell perpetually in the " good old times " must fail in effectiveness because they fail in stimu- lus to sane living. The life-spirit makes the man. Each individual who dwells in the kingdom of man plays a part in making and directing the life stream of the kingdom. Each one lives a life. It is not possible that the spirit of a kingdom can rise above the spirit of its citi- zens. The spirit of the kingdom of man is the spirit of its citizens, hence the sanity of life in this kingdom must, in the last analysis, rest back upon the individual lives of which the whole life stream of the kingdom is composed. Accepting the statement made in an earlier section, that sanity is a relative idea, having 105 106 SOCIAL SANITY as its basis the thought of self-preservation and self-perpetuation as it is revealed in the feelings of the normal man, let us ask our- selves frankly the question, — Is American life sane? Does the individual live in a manner which he believes to be best calculated to in- sure his preservation and the preservation of those who are to come after him? He is a citizen of the kingdom; a part of the life stream of society; how sane is his individual life? Does he believe that it is sane? Do we believe that it is sane? To each individual the test must ultimately be applied. Is he pursuing in his actions and dealings the course that a policy of sanity would dictate ? As a part of a great pulsing world, he moves forward toward — what? He strives for — what? Are his ends and his methods such as a spirit of individual and social sanity would sanction? Let us see. Perhaps the simplest of all the facts which men have to face is the fact of living. The simplest? Well, no, it is rather the most com- monplace. In truth, men are apt to take living, like breathing, as a matter of course. After a few years of keen sensory pleasure in living, it becomes a reflex. Living has formed the subject of many a Puritan homily and Cavalier romance, yet no- where has more been said, in short space, than by Eobert Louis Stevenson, in his little essay — ** Aes Triplex." Stevenson, unlike most of his LIFE AND LIVING 107 fellows, lived, organically at least, from hand to mouth. Having one foot in the grave, urged on by the oft-repeated assurance of his physi- cians that he would last but so many days or weeks, he naturally acquired an interest in life. Hence the poems, songs, and essays that he wrote reflected, in a peculiar sense, the soul of a man who was enraptured with life and living. He writes of both as something outside of himself, yet sympathetically, and in a kindly spirit that makes a universal appeal. He be- gins his essay on death by stating it as his opinion that men do not fear death; they are interested in life. Nor are they deeply con- cerned with life as the philosopher sees it. Ab- stract philosophy, Stevenson says, " has the honor of laying before us, with modest pride, her contribution towards the subject; that life is a Permanent Possibility of Sensation. Truly a fine result ! A man may very well love beef, or hunting, or a woman ; but surely, surely, not a Permanent Possibility of Sensation ! He may be afraid of a precipice, or a dentist, or a large enemy with a club, or even an undertaker's man ; but not certainly of abstract death. We may trick with the word life in its dozen senses until we are weary of tricking; we may argue in terms of all the philosophies on earth, but one fact remains true throughout — that we do not love life, in the sense that we are greatly preoccupied about its conservation; that we do 108 SOCIAL SANITY not, properly speaking, love life at all, but liv- ing." The closing paragraph of this brief essay contains a spirited statement of his philosophy of life. " It is better to lose health like a spend- thrift than to waste it like a miser. It is better to live and be done with it, than to die daily in the sick-room. By all means begin your folio; even if the doctor does not give you a year, even if he hesitates about a month, make one brave push and see what can be accom- plished in a week. It is not only in finished undertakings that we ought to honor useful la- bor. A spirit goes out of the man who means execution, which outlives the most untimely end- ing. All who have meant good work with their whole hearts have done good work, although they may die before they have the time to sign it. Every heart that has beat strong and cheer- fully has left a hopeful impulse beliind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of man- kind. And even if death catch people, like an open pitfall, and in mid-career, laying out vast projects, and planning monstrous foundations, flushed with hope, and their mouths full of boastful language; they should be at once tripped up and silenced ; is there not something brave and spirited in such a termination? And does not life go down with a better grace, foam- ing in full body over a precipice, than miser- ably straggling to an end in sandy deltas! LIFE AND LIVING 109 When the Greeks made their fine saying that those whom the gods love die young, I cannot help believing they had this sort of death also in their eye, for surely, at whatever age it over- take the man, this is to die young. Death has not been sutfered to take so much as an illusion from his heart. In the hot-fit of life, a-tiptoe on the highest point of being, he passes at a bound on to the other side. The noise of the mallet and chisel are scarcely quenched, the trumpets are hardly done blowing, when, trail- ing with him clouds of glory, this happy-starred, full-blooded spirit shoots into the spiritual land." Although dying daily in his sickroom, Steven- son could pen his deathless Requiem, — " Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie; Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me doivn with a will." What more splendid fortitude could issue from the strongest soul! What higher view of life could man take, — to live gladly; to die gladly! Truly, here was a philosopher! Yet Stevenson does not stand alone — far from it, — the same buoyant enthusiasm which charged his spirit may be met on every street corner. Stevenson was a man ; Stevenson could use his 110 SOCIAL SANITY pen in an incomparable manner, hence Ms phi- losophy comes to ns clothed in lucid rhetoric. How many there are who believe his philosophy, and daily practice it, unheralded to the world! Years ago, I knew a boy who overflowed with the joy of enthusiastic life. His energy carried him everywhere and carried his fellows with him. There was a spirit, in his frank, clear blue eyes, that made him irresistible, so that even his worse pranks were forgiven. Loved and loving, he was the pride of all of us. Never have I met a being more filled with potential power. A few days since, I sat beside the bed where he has been lying for nearly three years, gripped, through no fault or carelessness of his, by a bacterial poison which has affected every joint in his body. When I saw him, he had just undergone a severe operation which meant life- long lameness. Before he underwent the operation, he wrote to a friend, '^ If I pull through the operation, I will get well and you will hear from me. If I don't live through it, father will write to you." Such words come nobly from a boy of sixteen, and when I talked with him I found him no less valorous than his words implied. Although he has slipped forward and backward, on his slow road to recovery, he faced the fu- ture in the same hopeful spirit. The operation, severe in the last degree, did not cure him, as LIFE AND LIVING 111 he had anticipated, yet he greeted me with all the cordiality which our years of separation might have warranted. While I sat there, before the spirit of this superman, he showed me his camera, and told me how, from his bed, he took pictures, devel- oped and printed them; showed me his man- dolin, which lay under his pillow, and told me how he had learned to play; described to me, in detail, his experiments in crocheting (I have since had an opportunity to see some of his work, which is extremely tine) ; told me more than I had ever heard before of the science of aeronautics ; named all of his old friends by name, sending them all sorts of messages ; and then, when train time was cutting short our visit, told me in parting that he was fairly con- fident now that he was on the road to recovery, that if he recovered he was going to college, but that if, in the end, things turned against him, he was satisfied that way too. If he had a life before him, he would live it full, but if he had not, why, then, he would live his best until the end came. May I say, without offense, that I felt, when I left that boy, as Moses might have felt after his encounter with the spirit of God in the burn- ing bush ? Why not ? Had not I too encountered the spirit of the Living God? Should you regard such a case as exceptional, ask any physician of a wide experience, and 112 SOCIAL SANITY he will duplicate it a hundred times. Such strong souls — such manly men — are men at their best. The crass part of existence has fallen away from them. Standing on the threshold betwixt life and death, facing the issues of living as they are presented, they choose life, so long as they may live, — taking its richest, fullest essence, — and when they may no longer live, they accept death with the same glad spirit in which they accepted life. It is so that Leon- idas and his men lived and died at Thermop- ylae — dressing themselves with scrupulous care, going gladly into battle, and at last, betrayed and taken in the rear, dying with a dignity which became their lives. Thermopylae is not alone. The Japanese soldiers who walked up to one of the gates of Pekin, set down a great charge of dynamite, and stood there, defending it against a sortie, until it exploded, were no less brave. Each campaign supplies a host of similar instances. Peace, too, has her victories for the human soul. Socrates, Jesus, and Galileo tasted the cup of martyrdom for the mere assertion of their beliefs. The scientist who studies yellow fever at first hand, and dies discovering the remedy for the scourge, deserves no less a name. Not alone on the field of battle, not alone in the laboratory and the rostrum, not alone on the sick-bed do men formulate and adopt a philosophy of life. All men cannot be soldiers LIFE AND LIVING 113 or scientists or even invalids, but all men live with that strong fortitude which becomes man- hood. Granting the splendor of the human soul, is our life sane? Admitting the possibilities of human grandeur, are our lives and the lives of those about us worthy the title? Ah! You hesitate. Is there then some doubt? How in- evitable! People looking through the eyes of the East doubt. G. Lowe Dickinson writes: — " And when I look at your business men, the men whom you most admire; when I see them hour after hour, day after day, year after year, toiling in the mill of their forced and unde- lighted labors; when I see them importing the anxieties of the day into their scant and grudg- ing leisure, and wearing themselves out less by toil than by carking and illiberal cares, I reflect, I confess, with satisfaction on the sim- pler routine of our ancient industry, and prize, above all your new and dangerous routes, the beaten track so familiar to our accustomed feet that we have leisure, even while we pace it, to turn our gaze up to the eternal stars." To be sure. Western Civilization is moving. Whither? Ah! we had not thought of that. We were in too much of a hurry. Inoculated with the American " rush " bacteria, we hasten on, and on, and on. Consider this case of a man who lived in a suburb of New York. One train, leaving his 114 SOCIAL SANITY suburb at 7:58, made the run to Jersey City without a stop. Each day the man planned to take this train. He rose at 6:45; began his breakfast at 7 :20 ; and at 7 :50 climbed into his carriage and started for the station. Most people allowed ten minutes for the drive to the station, but our friend always saved two min- utes in the last quarter-mile. Eegularly, each morning, the 7:58 pulled into the station, and the hurrying commuters turned their heads to see, two hundred yards down the street, a pair of handsome bay horses, plunging full gallop toward the train. The carriage reached the train as it was starting, the man leaped out, grasped the handles of the last coach, and swinging himself aboard with a sigh of relief he settled back in his seat to peruse one of the morning papers. The first stage of his day's work was over. At Jersey City, a hurried dash— a hundred yards at least — took the gentleman to the ferry. Once on the New York side, another dash of a hundred yards took him to a cab, which, driven fast by the fee-promised cabman, soon reached the office where the commuter, divest- ing himself of his street garments, sat down, read two other papers, and then went about the office work of the day. At five the hurry- ing process was reversed, although the drive from the station to the house was peaceful. So he lived all of his days, cutting the corners LIFE AND LIVING 115 close in order to save time, yet always in a hurry. *' What a number of time-saving devices you have here," said a visitor to a New Yorker. The New Yorker, expanding with pride, showed the elevated, the subways, the surface lines, the tubes, the elevators, and the mail chutes. The visitor was greatly impressed, yet as a reasoning creature he must put one ques- tion. '' Just the same," he demurred, '^ with all of your time-saving knick-knacks, I never was in a place where people had less time. What do you do with all of the time that you save ? ' ' " Why," stammered the cosmopolite, " why, we " '' I see," interrupted the provincial, " you use it in making more devices to save more time, which you can again use to make more devices and so on until, having saved time in all possible directions, you have not a particle of time left. Queer, isn't it? " Isn't it queer? In the place where the most time is saved, men have the least. Nor is the time-saving mania confined to men. Women too save time in many little ways, and then squander these savings in many other little ways, reaching the end of the day with a heavy deficit. American women have kept the pace, vali- antly. Let any man who thinks that he is in 116 SOCIAL SANITY training for crew or track, attach himself to a busy woman, follow her through breakfast; through the intricacies of a toilet that baffles description or duplication; into street habili- ments; to the station; into town on a nerve- racking train; into the shopping district for two hours of standing and pushing which would exhaust a vigorous street-peddler; to the li- brary; to the music store; to luncheon; to the hair-dresser's; to the extension lecture course; to the store again for a forgotten pattern; to the station, the train, and the home ; into a din- ner costume; to a five-course dinner; to a friend's house for the evening. Think, you robust, well-trained athlete, of the condition of utter fatigue which would grip your frame at ten the next morning. But does the woman mind it? Not at all. To-morrow she will do it over again, relieving the monotony by a dash of suffrage, a changed costume, a tea, a dinner call, or some other diverting activity. '' Broken nerves? " " Yes." '' Dyspepsia? " *' Certainly." '' Shattered health? " *' Of course, but everybody " Yes, everybody is doing it. Why? For two reasons. First, because it is such fun to hurry that before you know it you are in the hurry- ing spirit, moving along so fast that it is im- LIFE AND LIVING 117 possible to stop short of the happiness which all are hurrying to find; and second, because men think that by hurrying they will be able to amass things, goods, lands, homes, fur coats, Swiss watches, automobiles, and all of the long train of useful articles and bootless trumpery which fills the store windows and the lives of those who can afford to buy them. Probably, if the truth were said, the desire for things lies at the bottom of the hurry and turmoil of American life. Pause a moment, analyze the goal toward which the hurrying throng is moving. They, of course, have never paused, for they have had so little time ! What value have things f Only this, that by supplying men's wants, they make for happiness. The wants of men, yearning toward happiness, give rise to a demand for things. Wants may be natural — those which involve the necessaries of existence: food, clothing, and shelter — or they may be acquired. Most wants are acquired, — their acquisition depending upon education and circumstances. The knowledge of new tilings brings with it new wants. For the table cover, we need a table; for the table a room; for the room a house; and for the house a new lot. To be sure, the process may be reversed, but there follows, in the train of each want satisfied, a series of new wants, made larger by each suggestion of the possi- 118 SOCIAL SANITY bilities of more things. Thus the satisfaction of wants carries with it, as a necessary corol- lary, the creation of new wants, so that as civ- ilization progresses, and the number of things to be had increases, the wants of the individual increase, if not in a geometrical, then certainly in an arithmetical, progression. The things upon which the satisfaction of wants depends can be secured in only one legiti- mate way, that is through income, hence upon income depends the possibility of want satis- faction. Does income, like wants, increase in an arithmetical ratio? Well, perhaps your ex- perience differs from that of most of us. Our incomes crawl forward at a ratio that savors not so much of mathematics as of the snail. The difference between wants and income measures the extent of a man's dissatisfaction, — misery. Dr. Patten calls it. If a naked sav- age wants two fish for breakfast and can catch only one, he is miserable; if a fine lady wants a diamond tiara to wear in the opera box, and cannot secure it, she is miserable; if a farmer has a buggy and wants an automobile which he cannot afford to purchase, he is miserable. All of these dissatisfactions result from the discrepancy which exists between wants and the means of satisfying wants, — income. Hence, wants minus income equals dissatisfaction. Consider the next point. Wants are limitless. If experience teaches anything it is that there LIFE AND LIVING 119 is no end to the variety of things which man can make and advertise to his fellows; hence there is no limit to the number and variety of things which he may desire to have. On the other hand, there seems to be no imme- diate limit to the number of things which a certain individual may want. Income, however, is definitely limited — for the greater part of the population — to an amount which will buy the bare necessaries of life. Even in the case of the middle class — of all, in fact, except the ex- travagantly wealthy — income does not increase appreciably in proportion to the increase in wants. "What follows? If wants are limitless, and increasing faster than income, which is limited, and if the difference between wants and income measures the extent of dissatisfaction, or mis- ery, then, so long as men seek their satisfaction in material things, relying upon goods for hap- piness, they are pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp which flies from them faster than they can ever pursue. The quagmires of despond yawn before them. Unless they forego their pursuit, and seek satisfaction in some other form, they have a life-sentence of progressive misery. The gates of joy have closed on them forever. If you grant the premises the conclusion is inevitable. On all sides, too, it is bulwarked by the testimony of fact. Look at those who have expected happiness to flow from wealth. 120 SOCIAL SANITY They surround themselves with luxury of every description, grasping eagerly at each new ob- ject or fad, as a drowning man grasps at a straw. Yet for all their wealth of things, they are keenly unsatisfied — probably farther from the real satisfaction of life than they were before their fortunes were amassed. A college Freshman was once expounding his philosophy of life. He must make a million dollars. A million dollars, — nothing else would do. ^' Why," he was asked, " do you want a million dollars'? " *' Because I would be happy." *' And why would you be happy? " '^ Because," was his prompt reply, '' I would have a million dollars." Basing his life on this circular philosophy, the youth was pressing confidently forward. He had a goal. He saw it clearly and expected to attain it. Perhaps, in his small way, this boy epitomized the philosoj^hy of life which has gripped a part of the American population — the philosophy: " Be rich and you will be happy. ' ' How absurd does this attitude seem to an outsider, or to one who, like G. Lowe Dickin- son, writes as an outsider. Note the analysis which he makes of the hurry and get rich phi- losophy. " You will answer, no doubt, that we shall gain wealth. Perhaps we shall; but LIFE AND LIVING 121 shall we not lose life? Shall we not become like you? And can you expect us to contem- plate that with equanimity? What are your advantages? Your people, no doubt, are better equipped than ours with some of the less im- portant goods of life; they eat more, drink more, sleep more; but there their superiority ends. They are less cheerful, less contented, less industrious, less law-abiding; their occu- pations are more unhealthy both for body and mind ; they are crowded into cities and factories, divorced from Nature and the ownership of the soil." By way of contrast, Mr. Dickinson points to the obverse of the picture. '' A rose in a moonlit garden, the shadow of trees on the turf, almond bloom, scent of pine, the wine-cup, and the guitar; these and the pathos of life and death, the long embrace, the hand stretched out in vain, the moment that glides forever away, with its freight of music and light, into the shadow and hush of the haunted past, all that we have, all that eludes us, a bird on the wing, a perfume escaped on the gale, — to all these things we are trained to respond, and the response is what we call literature. This we have; this you cannot give us; but this you may so easily take away. Amid the roar of looms it cannot be heard; it cannot be seen in the smoke of factories ; it is killed by the wear and the whirl of Western life." 122 SOCIAL SANITY Such words must challenge even the fastest hurrier. They must give pause, even to those who have believed, with a simplicity akin to the faith of little children, that they and their life were, while all others might become. The unbiased observer is struck by the failure of such men to gain a tolerant viewpoint; by the unwisdom of the American " Hurry " and '' Things " philosophies; by the great gap — the gulf — which yawns between modern life and personal contentment; by the muchness of life and the littleness of living. A proud Indian Chief, who had been urged to work by a missionary, penetrated far into the things — sophistry. ' ' You must enter the shop and work, ' ' urged the missionary. ''Why? " asked the Chief. '' Well, if you work hard, you will be pro- moted and your wages raised." '' And then? " " Well, you will be made a foreman, if you do very well. ' ' " And then? " the Chief persisted. " Keep moving," continued the mission- ary, " and you may be appointed superinten- dent." " What then? " '' Well, if you are successful, you can estab- lish a shop of your own, and have many people working for you." LIFE AND LIVING 123 " Ah," exclaimed the Chief, " then I wouldn't have to work myself, would I? " '^ Certainly not," the missionary exulted. *' Well," mused the Chief, " I don't have to work now." We have wants, we learn, we hurry, we get things, new wants, more things, and yet more wants, and so at last, having reached a point where our wants are infinitely beyond our in- comes, we are more miserable than we were at the beginning; or else, if we are among the favored few whose incomes are so vast that we cannot want their full compass, we surround ourselves with a myriad of things, and at last, blase and weary of the never ending pursuit of objects, retire to a bungalow in the Cana- dian Rockies, catch trout, grill them over a fire of pine knots, and, while we wash our own tin dishes, thank God for a few blessed hours of free life. Well sayest thou, Philosopher, '' Vanity of vanities, — all things are vanity." From its inception to its consummation the worship of things leads to naught save vanity and vexation of spirit. Yet, the fullness of time holds more than one solution of life's destiny. In truth, there are three kinds of living, — puppy living, living for the sake of living, and living for a pur- pose. Most individuals pass through these stages, civilization has passed through them, 124 SOCIAL SANITY or is passing tlirougli them. The universe, too, in so far as sentient life is concerned, has ex- perienced them. The same individual may live all three lives in one day or one hour of the day, yet some one of them usually dominates his life at a given time. Puppy living is the life of physical energy. The puppy, sporting in the sun; the child, cavorting about among the haycocks, are illus- trations of puppy life^ — the life of surplus ani- mal spirits. The life of undeveloped beings, or of developed beings in moments of utter forgetfulness of those things which differen- tiate them from undevelopment. With advancing years — with adolescence, and the coming of the emotions, a new life sweeps into the individual existence. It is then that people live for the sake of living. The truly appreciative drunkard lives for the sake of living. Fiery, foolish Romeo, so sore pierced with love's shaft that he could not soar with his light feathers, lived for the living. The mountain climber, the hunter, and fisherman live for the living. Strongly contrasted with these two forms of life, is life for a purpose. It is only lately, in the history of the world, that life for a purpose was possible. Man, like nature's other crea- tures, lived his puppy stage, and then lived to live — having no other purpose than to drive off his enemies, assure himself against starva- LIFE AND LIVING 125 tion, and to propagate his kind. To-day the pur- poseful element in life has overshadowed all else — making of life a round of ' ' duty, " " ought, ' ' '' should," and like commands of purpose. To be sure the purpose may be tawdry enough. One may labor to earn a hundred dollars in order that he may bet on horses ; a woman may dress herself in a fashion established by Parisian tailors, in order to be beautiful. Men and women, otherwise sane, may conform to a thou- sand petty tyrannies which society imposes upon them, in order to be socially successful. On the other hand, a scientist may, with unflagging zeal, devote his entire life to the pursuit of one family of bacteria; a mechanic may live and die in the attempt to create a new form of motive power; a zealot may labor for years in a jail, teaching and preaching to the prisoners ; a woman may devote herself to rearing her family; a doctor may devote himself unre- servedly to the welfare of his patients. Such lives are lives with a purpose. Purposeful lives are continually held up be- fore children for their emulation. Washington, Lincoln, Cromwell, and Garibaldi were purpose- ful patriots. As such they are lauded and re- membered. They are our examples. Men and women who ' ' do things ' ' command our respect. The emotional appeal of purpose is immeasur- able and omnipotent. The world stands aside 126 SOCIAL SANITY to let a man pass who knows whither he is going. Living must be purposeful if man is to have a kingdom, for the kingdom must be ruled, — ruled by strong purpose. Doers as well as hearers of the word must arise if man is to remain upon his throne. What follows? Must all living be purpose- ful? Shall men abandon living for living's sake and the joy of expending surplus energy in puppy life? Merely because these things are not connected with " duty " and " ought," must they be left behind in the quick advances of progress? God forbid! Life must be lived. Neither as an emaciated ascetic nor as a boisterous libertine does a man fulfill the demands of Hfe. Sane living differs from all of these, because the sane life, while making due allowance for all of the impulses which direct the activities of men, denies the necessity for excess in any direction. '' Noth- ing too much," cries the Sage. Could the boundaries of sane living be de- fined; could they be set down in general terms which would apply to one individual as to an- other, they would include these seven things: To live. To express. To enjoy. To understand. LIFE AND LIVING 127 To believe. To grow. To increase life. How would anything less than these seven ac- tivities be included in the scope of sane living? Men are alive — it is not a shame to live. Bodies are ours. Then why should we shrink from them, treating them as though they were a disgrace? It is enough that the bodies are here; it is enough that they demand care; it is enough that impulse carries us fast and far. To live — yes, just to live, — to lie softly under a budding tree, basking in the spring sunshine ; to shout aloud an old, melodious song; to run, leap, play, gambol; to plunge into cool swift water on a burning hot summer afternoon, — merely to live, and to rejoice in being alive. What more sane! What more sure pathway to the salvation of body and mind? Then to express. What thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might — with the whole im- pulse of thy heart. Express! Express!! Whether in music or mechanics, express the inner thought of a being endowed with an in- finite power of expression. Through expres- sion men grow. In the furnace of hot effort, the dross is burnt away. When the surges of a soul mount like a great tidal wave of energy and enthusiasm, there is expressiion, unfolding, growth. Bring together these two, live, express — and 128 SOCIAL SANITY a third follows as the night the day — enjoy. Man had won half the fight for his kingdom when he learned to laugh. Longfellow assures us that " Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, is our destined end or way; but to act, that each to-morrow find us farther than to-day." Alas, then, what shall we do on this journey? May men never take from life its joy? May they never feel the thrilling glow of exhilaration that wells up with the surplus of life within? May men never glory in the infinite satisfaction which comes with expression? Look! Yonder man has laid himself this last hour in the sun- shine, while I have made a song of rare beauty, — may we not both enjoy our life? Not the end, mayhap, but a device for insuring the ease and convenience of travelers as they journey. We dare not dispense with joy! Withal, there must be understanding. Life is not all cool water-brooks, nor songs, nor virile enthusiasm, nor rollicking fun. It is given to men to combine these things by virtue of their judgment and their reason. Thus is it necessary, also, to understand. It is a strange fact, though none the less true, that he who lives all of his life merely to live, is, in the end, as dissatisfied with it as he who lives it only to express or only to en- joy. Here Judgment, the wise mentor, asserts her omnipotence, — ' ' Hast thou expressed with- out joy? " she protests. " Then, for all these LIFE AND LIVING 129 years of narrowing existence, which thou hast chosen, I condemn thee henceforth to joy with- out expression. Thy whole soul shall surge within thee, without showing itself even in thine eyes." So are we eternally cursed if we choose the narrow way. At a fearful price Darwin paid for his science — at the cost of his music, his poetry, and his art. How much better a man of science might he not have been had these stayed with him during his later years ? Do you not understand ? It is the straight and narrow way which leadeth to the prison cell, to repres- sion, bitterness, damnation. Said my friend to me, ' ' I was never a child. When my maiden aunt had kept me seven years, though I was but twelve on the calendar, I was three hundred, as men measure life. Thus, I have experienced life's joy; I never learned what it meant to live. Can you wonder that as a man of middle age, I try, now and then, to drop my business, throw it all aside, and catch up with some of that youth which is fleeing farther and farther from me? " Why, good friend, should we wonder? Do men gather figs of thistles? 'Tis the understanding which must balance the affairs of life. But the understanding which brings men to know other men is the most precious of all. All other things which men can desire are incomparable with that knowl- edge of other men's souls which comes with 130 SOCIAL SANITY an understanding of them and theirs. We walk, sit, talk, think, and laugh together. We under- stand. We are friends. What more, what bet- ter can we ask? Yet the understanding heart must believe, since many things rest as much on belief as on the understanding. The teacher, believing in his pupils, sees with pride the marks they make in the world. The scientist, believing in his work, sees at last the fruits of belief in the triumph of his thought. The friend, believing in his friend what he can neither understand nor prove, rejoices in the confirmation of his belief. Belief is the soul of living. Transcend- ing the bounds of judgment and understanding, it carries men sheer into the environs of Para- dise. Out of all these things, — out of living, ex- pression, joy, understanding, and belief shall come growth. Rather, these things are growth, — the growth of the well-rounded man. In these things he portrays the body, mind, and soul which is in him. Through his portrayal, he learns, and again portraying, scores each time a greater triumph. Last of all, because he has grown, he may himself increase life. Because he has lived to manhood, he may add to the race of which he is a part. Because he understands and believes, he may say to his friend, '' Friend, I say unto thee, arise," and the friend will rise, and in LIFE AND LIVING 131 the strength of a new might which has been thus given to him, shall he go forth and conquer. It is glory enough for one day — nay, even for one life — to have added to the life stream of the race, and to the courage of a friend. This is living. In these realms lie those things which are most worth while in life, be- cause they serve for the expression of the in- dividual soul of to-day, and for the unfolding of the individual soul of to-morrow. These things we learn slowly. At its rapid- est, our pace is aught but speedy. Glance at yesterday, and to-day seems painfully similar; look to Hellas and to the Seven Hills, the change is but small ; glance back again to Egypt and Babylon, there is surely some progress now ; and if the mind travels farther still, grasp- ing the chasm which yawns between civilization and barbarism, and the still wider abyss be- tween barbarism and savagery, it seems that, after all, men are learning how to live. Per- haps, in twenty centuries, the world will use a term like " barbarism " to apply to this civ- ilization. Still does the race advance. Still does it press on toward its goal — increasing the breadth and meaning of living for all who will. Still does mankind move up and up in its reali- zation of the fuller meanings of life. At first, like the beasts, living to feed, and feeding to live and propagate their kind ; now, in these later 132 SOCIAL SANITY years, advancing to the consciousness of a larger life, in which purposeful effort plays a leading part, mankind is learning what life means — in its sane fullness. When we have learned these sayings, and pondered them diligently in our hearts, one further thought must we remem- ber, — that in none of these matters can you and I live sanely until that other, over yonder, en- joys similar opportunities for sane life. VI THE GOSPEL OP WELFARE Welfare is plural for sane living. It is some- thing more than that too, for it connotes an opportunity for individuals to lead sane lives. More than a century ago, a group of men, writ- ing an instrument of government which they called " The Constitution of the United States of America," set forth in their preamble an intention " to promote the general welfare." Although, judges, lawyers, and even laymen have indulged in heated disputes over the power granted to the Federal Government by the gen- eral welfare clause, it seems perfectly clear that the words " general welfare " are there used to mean an aggregation of individual welfares, — that is, the living of sane, normal lives, and further the opportunity so to do. Nor should " wealth " and " welfare " be regarded as identical. Wealth and welfare are not synonymous terms, nor is welfare always purchasable by wealth. Welfare is an end in itself, — non-material, to be sure; based on the satisfaction which the individual is securing from life. Since individual satisfaction de- 183 134 SOCIAL SANITY pends upon the sanity or normality of life, rather than upon the amount of wealth pos- sessed, welfare is conditioned upon sane living. Neither is it possible to apply the term '^ welfare " where the life of one individual is to be conserved at the expense of the other. The man whose chickens feed on his neighbor's lettuce; the woman who idles on the overwork of her husband ; the man who hires men to work for him, and pays them less than they earn; the man who lives at ease, while the community works to supply him a living, — the term welfare cannot be applied to these, because the pros- perity of one depends upon the adversity of another. Welfare has, therefore, both a per- sonal and a social signification. Personally, welfare refers to sane living; socially it refers to an opportunity for such living in the com- munity at large. Not only are wealth and welfare not syn- onymous, but where they appear as ends or ob- jects of endeavor, they are actually contradic- tory. Wealth is one end, welfare another. Be- tween them there stretches an arid plain of dissatisfaction. Few men of wealth succeed in crossing this plain because of the infinite difficulties involved in serving God and Mam- mon. Nevertheless, many must start from the Mammon side, and either construct a passage- way across, or else take a running start and leap the sheer abyss. THE GOSPEL OF WELFARE 135 The relation of wealth and welfare has been one of vital concern ever since the opulent Sol- omon rhapsodized over the blessings of poverty. Perhaps sanity lies at neither extreme. While money may, indeed, be the root of all evil, it is likewise the trunk on which the branches of progress, the twigs of satisfaction, and the fruits of welfare appear. Note this interesting succession of concepts. Men may strive for 1. Money. 2. Wealth. 3. Wants. 4. Progress. 5. Civilization. 6. Welfare. A man may strive for money, the counters of the life-game, and, like the miser, hoard them and gloat over them. In this way, during a lifetime, he may amass a great " pile," stand- ing out alone among his contemporaries, — en- vied by the mediocre, cursed by the discontented,, and pitied by the few. Or he may overlook the counters and work for the things which the counters represent, — the wealth of society. In- stead of surrounding himself with counters, he surrounds his life with luxury — living alone amidst his wealth, and thus, by the possession and use of the wealth, satisfies the wants which led him to expend his effort. In his straggle 136 SOCIAL SANITY for money, — either as an end in itself, or as a means to wealth, and thus to the satisfaction of wants, the man has been working for him- self only, animated primarily by the wish to protect himself or to satisfy his personal de- sires. Broadly speaking, the man who strives to obtain either money or wealth to satisfy his wants, is seeking wealth, or the things that wealth will buy. On the other hand, an indi- vidual may aim toward welfare. In that case, he devotes a part of his energy to progress, — a forward movement for the entire group to which he belongs. Either he devotes his ener- gies primarily to social advance, or else, seeing in social advance his own greatest welfare, he strives, through the progress of society, to further his own interests. If many persons be of his mind, so that a large group is striving for progress, civilization will be advanced, and the welfare of each member of the group will be increased. Thus men learn that where each is for all, all are for each. In order to insure progress and civilization, it will be necessary to use money and wealth to satisfy the wants of the individual, yet there is just as wide a difference between working for wealth and working for welfare as there is between play- ing baseball for scores and playing to play a good game. In the first case you work for THE GOSPEL OF WELFARE 137 counters; in the second you work for growth and skill. Economic and social endeavor must have some goal. Shall it be wealth or welfare? The social scientists who wrote in the eigh- teenth and early nineteenth centuries were in- clined to the view that the chief aim of national as of individual life should be the acquisition of wealth, hence the question of welfare held a very minor place in their pliilosophies. Sim- ilar workers in the last half of the nineteenth century have completely revised this judgment, and, since John Stuart Mill evolved from a clas- sical economist into a social reformer, they have replaced the " Science of Wealth " by a '' Sci- ence of Welfare." Early writers maintained that economic goods were the logical end of endeavor; that the nation which produced eco- nomic goods in great abundance was the suc- cessful nation, irrespective of any other test. The newer school holds, on the other hand, that social progress lies, not in the production of goods, but in the developing lives of men and women, and that, while this end may be achieved through the production of goods, the produc- tion is merely incidental to the development of manhood and womanhood. Production, therefore, ceases to be regarded as an end in itself, and becomes a means to welfare. Some thinkers have even gone so far as to say with John Ruskin, '' There is no wealth but life," 138 SOCIAL SANITY meaning that the real reliance of a nation must be placed, not on the amount of its economic goods, but on the number of ' ' bright-eyed, full- chested men and women " which it can boast. Where the rights of wealth clash with the welfare of men, wealth is being ignored to a greater and greater degree. The twentieth cen- tury is rapidly developing into a "Welfare Cen- tury. The struggle for wealth still continues, but it is everywhere tempered by the growing insistence on the primal importance of welfare. With a clearing vision men are realizing that wealth and welfare must, sooner or later, come into conflict. When they do, with legislatures, courts, administrative offices, tariff debates, and diplomatic negotiations, the ultimate test is that enunciated by Abraham Lincoln, — '^ We are for both the man and the dollar; but in case of conflict we are for the man before the dollar." A man has no real opportunity to live unless some means can be devised whereby his welfare is to be assured. Social sanity and social prog- ress both depend upon it, because social in- tegrity is impossible in the absence of indi- vidual well-being. Furthermore, and for the purpose of this discussion, the wholly important point lies here : man must guarantee this welfare to himself. His kingdom — the civilization which he has built through the centuries — fails in all if it THE GOSPEL OF WELFARE 139 fails in this. Since civilization is the conver- sion of nature's forces to serve human needs — to conserve welfare, social evolution means merely an additional control over old or new forces, for the service of man. Thus the process of securing welfare — the process of adjustment it is sometimes called — is a continuous one. In each age the problem differs, but the necessity for adjustment re- mains. Adjustment may be learned at first hand from Nature, since she is continually shaping old facts to fit new needs. Nature is a born reformer. In her domain harmony must prevail. But har- mony is natural, you protest. Aye, harmony — adjustment is natural. What a pity that we do not paraphrase Rousseau's behest, and raise the cry " Back to harmony — back to adjust- ment! " Nature has set plainly before us her exam- ples. She respects neither age nor tradition, but acts as the need of the hour demands. The things which are old are not sacred to her. " The hills, rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun," are swept away before her commanding pres- ence. Her waters are continually at work, erod- ing, adjusting their paths to the changes in earth formation. A mountain range is thrown up, and the waters begin their downward trickle and sweep, tearing away the earth and stone, until the river has worn down its bed to a nor- 140 SOCIAL SANITY mal gradient and created a canon of the Colo- rado. Adjustment is not yet complete. The river continues its work, cutting away the sur- rounding hills until it flows through a great plain like the Mississippi Valley. If another line of hills appears, the water, undiscouraged, begins again, working eternally to accomplish its end, — an adjustment to gravitation. The river is seeking to establish a normal gradient, and before this attempt to secure ad- justment even the hills must succumb. Soci- ety, like the river, seeks to adjust itself to the changing contour of the environment by wear- ing it away and smoothing it down until a normal relation is established between men and their surroundings. Cascades, rapids, and whirlpools are abnor- mal in rivers, hence Nature strives to eliminate them and, secure a regular, uniform river-bed. Premature death, accidents, overwork, and mis- ery are abnormal in society, hence a sane group strives to eliminate them and secure a more perfect adjustment to the normal life. The river works blindly — naturally — to secure its end; men work intelligently — consciously — to secure theirs. Could the river employ gun- cotton, electric power, reinforced concrete, and structural steel, how much more effective would be its work! The river accomplishes its purpose by means of many particles of water, all flowing in the THE GOSPEL OF WELFARE 141 same direction, — co-operating for the accom- plishment of a set purpose. Society accom- plishes its end by means of many men and women, all aiming at the same goal, — co-operat- ing, — removing, one by one, the obstacles to progress. The river seeks adjustment to the normal through the laws of nature; man seeks adjustment to the normal by combining nature's laws and adding to them a touch of human genius. The river is a part of the kingdom of nature. Society is a part of the kingdom of man. In both kingdoms there are unmeas- ured possibilities for the adjustment of means to ends and of material things to human wel- fare. Adjustment is the normal condition of a sane society. Hence, men and women, whose ideals include welfare, aim to remold social institu- tions in such a way that every life may be joyous and effective. Some of the institutions which bar the path of progress are venerable and hoary with age; others are of such late origin that they have scarcely entered the pale of respectability. To both classes of institu- tions, however, the same test must be applied. *' Do you augment or diminish welfare? " By this fruit we know and judge them. By this criterion we justify or condemn. The activities of a small group of earnest men who demand social adjustment are called ** agitation, " but when the movement has grown 142 SOCIAL SANITY to great proportions, that stigma is forgotten, and enthusiastically, reverently, men speak of ^' reformation." If the movement is strong and well directed, so that a large measure of adjustment is secured; if all antiquated and barbaric institutions are replaced by institu- tions that meet the needs of a newer civiliza- tion; if the full possibilities of society are re- alized; then adjustment is complete. Society has reached a normal gradient, has become sane, — providing always for its preservation and perpetuation in the best attainable manner. But the normal is constantly changing. One generation creates an ideal; the evolution of the succeeding age makes this ideal the normal. Thus the ideal of one age becomes the normal of the age that follows. In no age, therefore, can adjustment be complete; at no time is man's kingdom wholly subjugated. Each forward step necessitates another step. Each act makes necessary other acts. Welfare too is a becom- ing, evolving with each age greater possibilities in the age which follows. Social adjustment in any age is an approximation to the normal; but with invention and progress, education and evolution, the possible development of each age is a step in advance of the possibiUties of the preceding age. As possibilities increase the normal standard of society moves forward. Each age, to complete its adjustment, must re- alize all of these possibilities. Plato dreamed THE GOSPEL OF WELFARE 143 of a time when machinery should replace slaves. This was merely an ideal, unattainable in Plato's age. But machinery has been invented which, with human direction, creates masses of wealth undreamed of at an earlier epoch ; hence, the possibilities of civilization, — the scope of welfare, the boundary of man 's kingdom, — have advanced since Plato wrote; and machinery has brought to our society new opportunities which must be utilized before welfare is attained. The test of modern welfare is, therefore, not the narrow, slave-supported possibilities of two thousand years ago, but the widespread, ma- chine-made opportunities of to-day. It is not enough that we leave our institutions as our fathers shaped them. They knew little or nothing of the conditions which we face. Sufficient unto the age is the work thereof. It is not the right of any generation to project its will into the future, but it is the duty of each generation to adjust its institutions to meet its own needs. Men need not wait until death to realize many of their ideals. They can have things here on earth which their fathers associated with the millennium. They need no longer overwork, nor go cold and hungry, nor suffer from pestilence or even famine. Machinery has provided the possibilities of a new life. When all of these possibilities are realized,— when no one is over- worked, or cold, or hungry; when all are lead- 144 SOCIAL SANITY ing joyous, purposeful lives, — adjustment will be complete, — welfare will be universal. Observe that there is, in this whole discussion of welfare, no word concerning philanthropy. Despite their use as synonymous, the words differ both in meaning and in spirit. Philan- thropy does not connote welfare. Neither for the man who gives nor for the man who re- ceives is welfare assured. The spirit " let us help them " is of assistance to neither party. The philanthropist violates every law of man- kind, — he reaches down. Man's nature looks and reaches across or up. Welfare will not be assured when all of the rich are generous. Not until men and women have an opportunity to live sane lives is welfare really attained. Neither to-day, nor yet to-morrow, will wel- fare be secured. We, in our own age, and our children after us will still fight the good fight for progress. Yet to-day has gained a victory over the things of yesterday, and to-morrow hath its triumphs even more notable than those of to-day. Welfare is a becoming. In each generation, we secure of it a greater measure which will be augmented by those who follow us. VII HUMAN EIGHTS The life stream of civilization leads forward toward, — sane living for the individual ; adjust- ment and welfare for society; the inviolability of human rights. These things total to social sanity. A false doctrine has possessed our minds with regard to human rights — false because it was founded on guess and not on science. Dur- ing long centuries men accepted without ques- tion the belief that the aristocracy had a fiber superior to that of the common people. Even to-day one race calls itself dominant; one na- tion feels the infinite space that separates its talents from those of another; one group of people, styled " middle class," looks down from its height of conventional discomfort upon the '' working class," as they would look upon some inferior beings. Pride of birth still holds sway in the minds of men who yet have to learn from Nietzsche that the children's land, not the fatherland, is the end of human endeavor. How large a measure of man's character is the product of the opportunity which he has 145 146 SOCIAL SANITY had in life, and how large a part is due to the man himself, none can finally say, but it seems to be increasingly plain that the real differences between most men are small indeed. The time has therefore passed when men and women can blame one another for what they do and what they are. Who knows? After all, it may prove to be true, yet after centuries of training it is hard to realize that in most cases people are not " to blame." Blame? Should that word ever be employed, or should men, learning the po- tency of opportunity in shaping the average life, come into the belief that blame cannot rest upon most individuals? If Lester F. Ward is correct, and his painstaking analysis seems wor- thy of credence, then, " There is no need to search for talent. It exists already and every- where. The thing that is rare is opportunity, not ability." Heredity plays its part, of course. Through heredity is derived the raw material which the environment must shape. True it is, that " Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," with this addition, that if he is thorough about his preparation of the soil and his cul- tivation, he will have a greatly increased chance of securing a good crop. The student of human rights soon wanders into the barren fields of eighteenth century con- troversy. When all is said and done, are there HUMAN RIGHTS 147 such things as human rights? All thinking men recognize, of course, that those eighteenth century philosophers were mistaken who as- sumed that men were born with certain rights attached to their persons, very much as the fingers were attached to their hands, or the lashes to their eyelids. So far as logical proof is concerned, human beings have no inherent rights. Nevertheless, society has reached the point of recognizing the validity of the claim of each individual to certain privileges. In short, society recognizes certain rights where none actually exist. The result is the same, however, and every child born into the kingdom of man has certain well-defined rights which civilization may not deny without violating all of its own experiences. Frequent use has been made of the analogy between the body as an aggregation of living cells, and society as an aggregation of living individuals. The body, as it has been pointed out, is more than an aggregation of cells, — it is an organism, functioning as a unit. Turn for a moment to the field of mechanics. Here are twoscore belts, gear wheels, pulleys, and levers, so co-related as to constitute a machine lathe. All of these units, functioning together, turn a shaft, or a cylinder. Nevertheless, it is pos- sible to have every one of these units in work- ing order, and running separately, without cre- ating one unit of product. The real value of 148 SOCIAL SANITY the machine lies in the co-operation of the vari- ous parts in the processes of the machine. Sim- ilarly, in the case of society, the item of real importance is the cohesion and co-operation. The social body, functioning as a unit, is in reality something more than an aggregation of individual parts. Society, like the machine, depends for its effectiveness on the effectiveness of the indi- vidual units which compose it. Among their other good qualities, where they have a ''so- cial " or '' co-operative " spirit strongly devel- oped, the group spirit will take a much higher form than it could where the social side of the individual man was less highly organized. In the last analysis, the quality of society rests on the quality of its component parts. The river is no higher than the drops of which it is composed. Society is no more advanced than the individuals composing it. How patent then seems the statement that the standard of any given society is determined, for each generation, by the generation imme- diately preceding, since each generation sup- plies the heredity, and prescribes the environ- ment out of which the succeeding generation grows. This idea is open to serious miscon- struction. It becomes clear only when men learn to think of generations as indistinctly blended with one another. Accustomed as most persons are to dealing with the successive gen^ HUMAN RIGHTS 149 erations in a family, they find it difficult to con- ceive of the infinite blending that goes to the making of a generation in society. Imagine a picture of the present generation taken on the first day of January. Here would be an octogenarian, taking leave of his friends with the death rattle already sound- ing from his flattened chest; there a youth and maiden, swearing to love and cher- ish one another through all eternity; yonder a baby girl who utters her first piping wail, while in the next operating room, a great sur- geon, by a false stroke of the knife, frees a soul of thirty summers from a broken body; that virile man of fifty is dominating the railroad world ; this maiden lady crochets aimlessly, un- decided whether to wait a little longer or to teach school. Bearing, loving, marrying, hurry- ing, burying, — all the thousand phases of life would be revealed if one could look through society. One generation does not stop where the next begins. Society is a continuous stream, slipping almost imperceptibly past the stones which mark quarter-centuries. To-day, the new generation is being born; to-day the past gen- eration is shaking off worn-out bodies; to-day the present generation is toiling to maintain itself and to build the future, while it makes pleasant the expiring days of the past. Like the life stream of evolution, the life stream of society glides forward, endlessly. 150 SOCIAL SANITY Social evolution differs from biologic evolu- tion in one respect, however — society is becom- ing more and more conscious of potential king- ship, feeling the fuller powers of human noble- ness. Primitive man never dreamed of his greatness. It remained for the later members of the species to evolve a consciousness of their power, and with this consciousness, the power itself. To-day society, in increasing degree, is directing its own evolution. Kellicott has coined an excellent title — " The Social Direc- tion of Human Evolution." Society is at work making society. The two dominating attributes which are peculiarly characteristic of sentient life, — the desire for self-preservation and for self-per- petuation, — translated into social ideas, lead each generation so to organize the social struc- ture in the present that the individuals consti- tuting it may have the largest opportunity for individual expression, and so to shape the social structure in the future that, in increasing de- gree, such an opportunity may be afforded to all of its members. Self-preservation and self-perpetuation may be made the first law of social as they are of biologic nature. They lie at the basis of evo- lution. To preserve and perfect its structure is the sane, normal function of society. If so- cial sanity involves anything, it involves the application of these principles to social advance. HUMAN RIGHTS 151 Since, however, the social standard is deter- mined by the standard of the individuals in society, social preservation and perpetuation necessarily implies raising the standard of the individuals of which society is composed. Hence society, in its efforts to attain sanity, must insist on certain human rights, such as the right to be well born, the right to normal childhood, and the right to an opportunity for the free expression of individuality. The right to be well born is based on the necessity for maintaining a high race standard. In no other manner can ultimate social stand- ards be preserved, since the hereditary quali- ties of the individual play a significant part in determining individual achievement. Be- fore all else, heredity must be right. Nature, through all ages, has insisted on good heredity by a process known as natural selec- tion. Under the impetus of this process, each species produces a surplus of offspring. Since there are more individuals born than can sur- vive, the unfit die, leaving the fit to be the parents of the new generation. Thus is the standard of the race preserved, by guarantee- ing parenthood to the fittest. Only among men do defective individuals live; in human society alone can degeneracy be the product of the sur- vival of the unfittest. Yet in human society this is so, and children are born into the world who are a burden to 152 SOCIAL SANITY themselves and to their fellows. Perhaps it was not Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes who made the original remark, but it is credited to him that he said, referring to a case of serious illness : — " There should have been a consultation." '' Is it too late. Doctor"? " asked the anxious mother. " Yes, madam," replied Dr. Holmes, " the consultation should have been held before the marriage of his grandfather." It was too late, because this child had in his system the ancestral taint. An act which in- fuses into a new creature the taint of hered- itary defect is an anti-social act. It is an act against which a sane society should vehe- mently protest. Hereditary defect, transmitted through generations, develops a stock which is forever defective. From its scourge society has but one recourse, — elimination. The extent to which this taint may operate to the detriment of society has been revealed by some recent investigations of heredity. One of these investigations concerned itself with two families of the same name, living in one part of the country. The first family was highly respected and wealthy, numbering among its members some of the leading men of the state. The other family was shiftless, lazy, vicious, and criminal. The first family traced its de- scent proudly to a man prominent in the latter HUMAN RIGHTS 153 part of the eighteenth century. The descent of the second family appeared untraceable until at last an investigation revealed the fact that the progenitor of the good branch had, in his youth, become involved with a very pretty, half- Avitted girl, who bore him a child and gave it his name. The entire second family, with its train of vice and misery, was traceable to the off- spring of this mating between a man of the highest standard and a defective woman. This illustration is merely typical — duplicable at will wherever the subject of heredity has been care- fully dealt with. Science has definitely established the trans- missibility of feeble-mindedness, epilepsy. Dal- tonism, and a number of other defects, through the channels of heredity. Persons marrying with such defects are practically sure of hand- ing them on to some of their descendants. At this point then the issue is squarely raised. " Has the child a right to be well born? " If he has, persons with transmissible defects have no right to parenthood, and a sane society, in its effort to maintain its race standards, would absolutely forbid hereditary defectives to pro- create their kind. Aside from any question of race elevation, — a very real question, by the way, and one that, in the next century will rise to a problem of the first magnitude — the present standard of the race is at stake so long as its defective elements are permitted to 154 SOCIAL SANITY transmit their defect to future generations. It is, therefore, the part of a sane policy of social preservation to segregate or sterilize those members of the social group who show signs of hereditary defect. Hardship? To be sure such a process works individual hardship in the present, but it fends off individual hardship and social misery in the future. No less emphatic than this prohibition on the transmission of hereditary defect should be the prohibition on the mating of those who suffer from communicable disease. Although radically different in origin from hereditary defect, disease may play no less havoc with life. Although science has pretty definitely estab- lished the non-hereditary quality of bacterial diseases, a specific tendency toward certain diseases may be transmitted, opening the way for the activity of disease germs. This par- ent with weak lungs has contracted tubercu- losis. Will these weak lungs— not, mind you, the tuberculosis — be transmitted to the child? Like any other hereditary quality they may be so transmitted, and the child in an atmosphere rank with tuberculosis bacilli will contract the disease. A disease, on the other hand, like syphilis, which infects the offspring before birth, is as deadly as hereditary defect, since it pervades the whole parental organism and is commuiii- HUMAN RIGHTS 155 cated to the new life almost as soon as life begins. Like all others suffering from disease dangerous to the new generation, syphilitics should be denied the right to procreate. Society, depending for its continuance on robust men and women, must crush out with an iron hand every tendency which makes against virility, in order that the child may be well bom. What less could a rational society ask than that its children begin their lives with the best possible hereditary qualities? After birth, during years of comparative weakness and incapacity, the child is dependent upon environment for his development. The child, as Burbank has put it, absorbs environ- ment. At the point of conception, heredity has done its work, and from that point on en- vironment alone plays its part. It is during this period that the child has a right to demand normal life, that is, a chance to grow physically, mentally, and spiritually, and a chance to work and play. Psychologists having established a pretty definite connection between growth and play, it remains for society to insure the one by guaranteeing the other. Platitudes! Platitudes! so trite and so old that they must be good. Written and spoken for centuries, and yet unlearned. Shall we write and speak them again? A boy was bom into a household, perhaps a little below the ordinary in point of income. 156 SOCIAL SANITY His father was a skilled man engaged in a trade where work was precarious. Consequently, he spent considerable time warming his shins by the fire at home. The mother, an irascible woman, somewhat jealous by disposition, and possessed of a tongue that might have stayed the doughtiest word-bandier, first learned to direct her abuse at her too-frequently idle hus- band. If a dish broke, he was scolded; if the cat stepped in the rising bread, it was his fault; when the grocer was late, the torrent of words shifted from the retiring delivery boy to the man by the stove. Being a man of great equa- nimity and of a calm demeanor, the husband took the abuse in the same manner that he took sugar in his coffee. It became a part of his daily fare. When the mother turned her atten- tion to the boy, however, she encountered unex- pected obstacles, for he had a disposition much like her own. His tongue was quick and ready, so when she scolded, he reviled, and when she swore, he went one better. He never raised his hand against his mother, however, and she, finding in that her only recourse, van- quished him with a shower of blows, driving him from the house. The boy was not a bad boy, and, moreover, he was quick to learn, so that, in the course of three years, he had acquired a great deal of information from his long sojourns with the boys of the streets. He could appropriate milk HUMAN EIGHTS 157 from door-steps, rob " drunks," and break slot machines with the most adept. Then, too, he made the acquaintance of several vicious women, who liked his vivacity, and paid him well for doing their bidding. So he grew, and at fifteen there was not a tougher specimen of boyhood in that part of the town. By chance, in one of his escapades, the lad fell into the clutches of the police, went to the committing magistrate, and then to a small farm school for delinquent boys, where he was set to hard work. He labored for weeks, and at last, one day, as he was harrowing up a newly plowed field, he said to the head of the school : — *' Do you know, I believe I could do better if I stayed here. When you see the harrow breaking up the lumps, you can't help thinking good thoughts." In the city, this boy was a robber. In the country, he was a philosopher. Surrounded by his gang, and beset with temptations, driven from home, and without interest in school, he had faced toward the penitentiary and plunged along at breakneck speed. A new environment gave him a new viewpoint. He became another boy. The great mass of men are born neither de- fectives nor geniuses. They are shaped by their environment. Given a normal childhood, they will develop into normal adults, but in the face of a subnormal childhood, their adult life will 158 SOCIAL SANITY be misshapen and distorted. The vast majority of criminals are not born but made. Any or- dinary man, placed in their environment and surrounded by their temptations, would have done as they did. Child labor, street life, un- tidy homes, dissolute parents, low wages, over- crowding, and a score of other forces, play their part, molding the child into an unlovely crea- ture, individually superfluous — socially danger- ous. Hence the need for a normal childhood. Following this, when the child has become adult, a new need gives rise to a new right. The individual must have opportunity first for self-expression and then for self-perpetuation. It is so that the present is ennobled and the future is perfected. The life of a man is the expression of him- self. If his childhood has been normal, he has been trained to adequate self-expression in the home and in the school. First of all, he has been taught to engage in some income-yielding activity — to do some constructive thing well. Thus, he is provided with a vocation which en- ables him to express whatever constructive in- dividuality may be his. Then he has been given an interest in some secondary occupation — some avocation — in the pursuit of which he may express another side of his constructive nature. In addition to this, he has been taught the value of civic, political, and industrial co-operation. All of these accessories furnish him with the HUMAN RIGHTS 159 means of doing his life-work. One other thing he needs, — that is opportunity for their exer- cise. Each man must, if he is to be a completed man, express his individuality in constructive work. Each man must, to be effective, as a member of the social group, have an oppor- tunity to co-operate thus effectively with his fellows. As a product of this activity, he must have an income sufficient to enable him to afford for his children a normal childhood. Could the individual, in justice to himself, ask for less than a good heredity, a normal childhood, and opportunity for self-expression? Can society, in its efforts to preserve and per- petuate itself, require a lower minimum than this for its individual members? If social san- ity leads to social preservation and perpetua- tion, a sane society will ever insist that these three simple rights belong to every member of the race: — 1. The right to be well born. 2. The right to a normal childhood. 3. Opportunity for self-preservation and for self-perpetuation. Nor will social effort be stayed until this insistence has flowered into full realization. vin LIFE AND LABOR The various eras in history — the bends and reaches in the life stream — are characterized by certain great issues. To the world of to-day those issues are epitomized in the system of industry. Science has been bent industryward ; knowledge is knowledge of industry; thought is largely of industrial problems ; the profound modifications which the past century has made in the aspect of the physical world are, for the most part, modifications due to the new methods of making a living. The path to sane living is as plainly marked as a path could be. What normal man, aiming to support himself and to live his life as a nor- mal man should, can miss the goal? What man indeed? Of course the answer rests in a meas- ure with the man himself. Then, too, it is determined by his training. Most of all, per- haps, it is conditioned by the opportuni- ties which present themselves for earning a living. It is pleasant as well as satisfying to ex- pound life-philosophy. What could be more simple than a plea for welfare and for human 160 LIFE AND LABOR 161 rights? They are sufficiently removed from the world of affairs to be inconsequential to all except those who have leisure and ability for analysis, deduction, and contemplation. There are other things in life, however, which play so intimate a part in the affairs of to-day and to-morrow, that they are regarded by everyone — sometimes with dread, sometimes with mis- giving, sometimes with joy, sometimes with anger and hate. Among these things, nothing plays a larger part in the lives of modem men than does labor. There is, of course, a handful of people to whom labor is but a word. Living lives of ease, shielded from the world, removed from all pos- sible hardships or satisfactions, they exist like imported animals, caged from all except their like, in an atmosphere with a regulated temper- ature, surrounded by keepers whose duty it is to see that they do not escape or come to harm. Luckily, a census of the kingdom of man shows only a few such unfortunates. They exist only in sufficient numbers to act as a warn- ing to their virile fellows, of the abysses which life may hold for the well-born. The great majority of men and women must labor for their daily bread. At least as much time is spent in earning a living as is spent in sleep. Where labor is the sole source of income, the welfare of man and family alike revolves about the livelihood contest. Can the 162 SOCIAL SANITY man succeed? Will he fail? Wliat are the facts of his life? May he live sanely and still work, or are the world of modern industry and sane life mutually exclusive terms? Weighty questions these, and pertinent too, in view of the^ widespread unrest and discontent with the present system of production. A little reflection on the good old song written by the man who had been working on the rail- road all the livelong day for the sole purpose of passing away the time, leads pretty directly into the philosophy of work. Did the monas- teries make a contribution to the progress of the world when they taught the stalwart pagans of western Europe that labor was above all things worthy? Certainly one of these sturdy dwellers in the forests would have disposed of any dozen of his tubercular tenement-dwell- ing descendants. Why should work be holy? What blessing rests upon the head of the industrious? The proud American Indian expressed the same contempt for a worker that the European did for a scalper. Was he wholly wrong? The primitive savage with no idea of the morrow, nor any thought save for the enjoy- ment of the moment, never can understand the philosophy of work; but since it has become apparent that leisure depends on production, which, in turn, depends on work, sages have counseled the human race to labor. " He who LIFE AND LABOR 163 will not work, neither shall he eat, ' ' proclaimed one of the founders of the New World. Solomon thus adjures the idle, *' Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise," yet it is perhaps in the writings of Rus- kin and Carlyle that the modern work philoso- phy is best expressed. '' There is a working class," Ruskin writes, '' strong and happy — among both rich and poor; there is an idle class, — weak, wicked, and miserable — among both rich and poor."* It is with work and with work alone that the worker is to be con- cerned. '^ I think the object of a workingman's ambition should not be to become a master, but to attain daily more subtle and exemplary skill in his own craft." t So does Carlyle hurl aside the pursuit after mere happiness. " There is in man a Higher than love of Hap- piness; he can do without Happiness, and in- stead thereof find Blessedness." t Again, " Be no longer a Chaos, but a world or even world- kin. Produce ! Produce ! Were it but the piti- fullest infinitesimal fraction of a Product, pro- duce it, in God's name. 'Tis the utmost thou hast in thee ; out with it, then ! Up, up ! What- soever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy whole might. Work while it is called To-day; for the Night cometh wherein no man can work. ' ' § * " Crown of Wild Olive." t " Sartor Resartus." f " Time and Tide." § " Ibid. 164 SOCIAL SANITY Brilliant as philosophy, such doctrines have been applied in the most extreme form in the world of modern industry, until work has be- come a shibboleth, a sign in which men hope to conquer. Success is set high upon a golden pedestal, and men, seeing the image from afar, bow down to worship, then, inspired by the dazzling brightness, they fall to " hustling," sure that in time they too may attain success. Work-mad, the world sacrifices every better thing in life for labor. Before pleasure — work; before happiness — work; before blessed- ness — work ; before life itself— work ! Success ! success ! thou mightiest of all gods, we thy hum- ble servants, pausing for a moment in our haste to contemplate thy wondrous forms, pledge our lives, our fortunes, our families, and our sacred time to thee and thy cause. Great God, we will work ! This is the pledge, and listen ! There is the humming of machines in tens of thousands of sweatshops ; the clatter of the coal breaker ; the roar of the blast furnace. That stench? It is the stockyards. They are at work. Hark, a man is screaming! He has been caught in a fast moving machine, hurled aloft, thrown to earth, hurled aloft again, against the ceiling. His human shape is gone, — battered, lifeless, an inert mass drops from the fly wheel— dead ! Great God, help him ! he can never work more. Faced by the mad rush to labor, what won- LIFE AND LABOR 165 der that men react violently? Who has seen a man, crushed out of the semblance of human form, carried to his simple home; or met a toiler after twelve hours of labor; or watched the fingers of young girls fly over an endless line of tiny threads; and not felt if only for a moment a tinge of remorse? The brilliant Paul La Fargue feels it strongly, and in his '' Right to Be Lazy " voices the protest: — " A strange delusion possesses the working classes of the nations where capitalist civiliza- tion holds its sway. This delusion draws in its train the individual and social woes which for two centuries have tortured sad humanity. This delusion is the love of work, the furious passion for work, pushed even to the exhaus- tion of the vital force of the individual and his progeny. In capitalist society work is the cause of all intellectual degeneracy and of organic de- formity. Compare the thoroughbred in the Rothschild's stables, served by a retinue of bi- peds, with the heavy brute of the Norman farms which plows the earth, carts the manure, hauls the crops. Look at the noble savage whom the missionaries of trade and the traders of re- ligion have not yet corrupted with Christianity, syphilis, and the dogma of work, and then look at our miserable slaves of machines. The Greeks in their era of greatness had only con- tempt for work; their slaves alone were per- mitted to labor; the free man knew only ex- 166 SOCIAL SANITY ercises for the body and mind. Jesus, in His Sermon on the Mount, preached idleness : ' Con- sider the hlies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of those.' " La Fargue then discusses the results of work, describing the long, hard days of the working children ; of the factory girls and women, ' ' pale, drooping creatures with impoverished blood, with disordered stomachs, with languid limbs." He shows how these people live in their pseudo- homes, and concludes his analysis with the state- ment, " Our epoch has been called the century of work. It is in fact the century of pain, mis- ery, and corruption." Concluding, La Fargue cites the views of the ancients regarding work. ' ' The ancient philos- ophers had their disputes upon the origin of ideas, but they agreed when it came to the abhorrence of work. ' Nature,' said Plato in his model republic, ' Nature has made no shoe- maker nor smith. Such occupations are by their very condition excluded from political rights. As for the merchants accustomed to lying and deceiving, they will be allowed in the city only as a necessary evil. The citizen who shall have degraded himself by the commerce of the shop shall be prosecuted for this offense. If he is convicted, he shall be condemned to a year in prison; the punishment shall be doubled for LIFE AND LABOR 167 each repeated offense.' " '^ What honorable thing can come out of a shop? " asks Cicero. " What can commerce produce in the way of honor? Everything called shop is unworthy an honorable man. Merchants can gain no profit without Ij^ng, and what is more shame- ful than falsehood? Again, we must regard as something base and vile the trade of those who sell their toil and industry, for whoever gives his labor for money sells himself and puts him- self in the rank of slaves." Throughout the more advanced civilizations of the past. La Fargue finds the same contempt for work. Summarizing his philosophy, he writes, — *' Aristotle's dream is our reality. Our ma- chines with breath of fire, with limbs of un- wearying steel, with fruitfulness, wonderful, in- exhaustible, accomplish by themselves with do- cility their sacred labor. And nevertheless the genius of the great philosophers of capitalism remains dominated by the prejudice of the wage system, worst of slaveries. They do not yet understand that the machine is the savior of humanity, the God who shall redeem man from the sordid artes and from working for hire, the God who shall give him leisure and liberty." Here stand the two extremes. On the one side Carlyle, the apostle of work; on the other La Fargue, the apostle of leisure. With what subtle strength does Nietzsche combine the two ideals, — sneering at the overworker; praising 168 SOCIAL SANITY idleness ; yet glorying, too, in a well-chosen ef- fort. " Ye also to whom life is stormful labor and unrest, are ye not wearied of life? All of you to whom stormful labor is dear, and what is swift; what is new and what is strange are dear, ye bear yourselves ill; your industry is retreat and will to forget itself. If ye had more belief in life ye would yield yourselves less to the moment. But ye have not enough substance within you to enable you to wait, not even to idle." Thus does Nietzsche storm against the all-absorption in industrial pursuits. Yet he believes firmly in some form of work, for when all is said, at the end of his profession of faith, he writes,—" My woe and my pity, what matter? Do I seek for happiness? I seek for my work! " * No one will question the truth of the protest that " Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do." The proverb is, indeed, self- destructive, since really idle hands are as rare as hen's teeth. Nevertheless, the statement may be accepted on its face without accepting the reverse proposition that busy hands are never used by the devil. It is, of course, a trite observation that some of the hardest w^orkers carry in their jeans a through ticket to the nether world. One thing may be asserted, however, with a * ' ' Thus Spake Zarathustra." LIFE AND LABOR 169 fair degree of certainty, — the disuse of an or- ganism which has potentialities for action in- evitably means degeneration. Parasitism in the biologic world always brings its own doom in the decadence of the parasite. This biologic truth is universal in its application. Idlers degenerate. The wages of inaction, like the wages of sin, is death. The emphasis on idleness is in no real sense fair, however, because idleness is not the sole alternative to work. The true antithesis of work-time is not idleness but leisure-time, — time during which a person may act at will. This action may take the form of football, or some other strenuous physical exercise ; it may take the form of painting, writing, or some artistic pursuit; it may be employed in crafts- manship work; or it may be devoted to the study of science. Whatever its form, the fact is the same — the time is occupied at the will of the person concerned, in some occupation other than that involved in the gaining of a livelihood. Thus defined, leisure becomes one of the greatest heritages of the human race — one of the choicest fruits of a progressive civilization. In leisure lies the very wellspring of progress, for, as Lester F. Ward has shown in his " Ap- plied Sociology," most of the great contribu- tions to human progress have been made by 170 SOCIAL SANITY men who were temporarily released from the livelihood struggle. Whether through legacies, pensions, royal bounties, generous relatives, or some other source, these men were freed from the crass struggle for bread, and had their en- tire time free for the pursuit of their life-work. Napoleon may have been in error when he contrasted work and vice. Euskin and Carlyle may not have analyzed these problems beyond the possibility of cavil. Is La Fargue right after all? Where Hes the truth? Euskin was an artist and a craftsman. With Carlyle, a man of letters, he spent his youth in those years of the nineteenth century which preceded the Civil War in the United States. Aside from the drudgery of agricultural la- bor, the kind of work which Carlyle and Euskin saw was handicraft work. Starting as appren- tices, men learned their trades, journeyed about the country practicing them, and at last settled somewhere as master craftsmen who must, in turn, hire their apprentices and jour- neymen. Thus did men in the pursuit of their calling secure a thorough education in some trade, and see the country before establishing a permanent home. Industry was hand-indus- try, and hand-industry involves growth and education. The nineteenth century witnessed the anni- hilation of handicrafts. The plumber, painter, glazier, and plasterer still remain, but they con- LIFE AND LABOR 171 stitute only a tiny minority of the vast army of factory and shop workers, whose mechanical tasks have been created by a minute subdivi- sion of labor and a widespread introduction of machinery. Out of this industrial reorganiza- tion, there has evolved a type of factory indus- try to which the early nineteenth century was an utter stranger. The laborer of to-day confronts a situation essentially different from any which has ever been known heretofore. As a small unit in a great industrial enterprise, he fails to produce a finished product. The dresser of bolt-heads never sees the engine of which his bolts become a part. The silk-worker in Scranton cleans bob- bins, which, when filled, are sent to the weavers of Paterson, where they are converted into broad-silk. The ballast heaver, on the four- track main line, comes his nearest to creating a product when he makes a smooth bed over which the great west-bound express may glide. Eeview the industrial army from vanguard to camp follower; pass through the great factories from top to bottom; examine the shops and mills ; analyze the work of any one person, and you will find that it is but one liliputian ele- ment in the output of the plant. Here and there is an industry, like plumbing, stained glass making, fine cabinet work, jewel cutting, and the like, in which craftsmanship still exists. Even here, however, it is giving place to the 172 SOCIAL SANITY factory metliod, — each man to his little task in the great organized scheme. Because men have ceased to turn out com- pleted articles, because craftsmanship has dis- appeared, men have lost their pride of work- manship. Not one person in fifty can point to a finished article saying, " I made it, I am proud of my work! " With the disappearance of craftsmanship has gone one of the chief in- centives to activity — the glory of the individual workman in doing a good piece of work. In the multitude of specialized and subdivided factory processes, what reward shall take the place of this pride of a man in his own work? Further, the modern worker does not use the things which he produces. If he makes sausage, it is for someone else to eat; he who builds Pullman cars, builds them for others to ride in ; the producer of farm wagons and machinery is no farmer; the employee in a chocolate fac- tory loathes the very smell of chocolate; the engine builder never runs an engine, nor does the worker in automobiles run a machine. One makes; another uses; while a third man takes the profits. Where in the alchemy of twentieth century thought can be found a method of es- tablishing an interest in work which never cre- ates an entire product, and the product of which, when it is created by a thousand inter-working processes, goes to others than those who made it? LIFE AND LABOR 173 Review the workers, — this shipping clerk, with a wife and two bonnie children at home, checking up cans of malted milk from early morning until late at night. Here is a sales- girl who came to the city to be an actress, and failing in that, she has been endeavoring to make an honest living at some trade or other. Now she retails notions. Can you see how the passing of bone buttons, tape, pins, and crochet needles over a counter should make the hot blood of enthusiastic interest course fast through her veins? Watch a " press-hand " placing bits of paper under a form of type, to make hand-bills for a chain of yellow trad- ing-stamp grocery stores. Can you observe any touch of inspiration on his face or in his eyes? Yonder coal-dumper has turned a hun- dred tons of coal from the little mine cars into the great railroad cars since half-past seven this morning, yet he thinks that his family of eight may be both hungry and cold unless there is more work in December than there was in October and November. There are men in responsible positions, there are skilled workers, who do work that is attrac- tive and educative; but the vast majority of occupations offered to those who would earn a livelihood are mechanical, monotonous, never- ending, wearisome, stale, and commonplace to the last degree. That is the tale of modern labor; that the 174 SOCIAL SANITY opportunity which twentieth century industry offers to most of its workers. Unskilled or semi-skilled, unrelated to the product which they assist in creating, dealt with in masses of hundreds and of thousands, known by de- partment and by number, the employees of mod- ern productive enterprises exchange a half to three-fourths of their waking hours, three hun- dred and odd days each year, for a wage that shall buy them a living. Furthermore, and this is perhaps the most insidious force now operating in the world of work, — industry has been utterly dehumanized. Once upon a time the master sat with his ap- prentices and journeymen, coat off, and toiled like them all day. At noon the master's wife summoned them all to dinner, which they ate around a common board. First names passed from mouth to mouth. All were human beings, and all were on a level, humanly. Then, as the factory replaced the home shop, master and men went from home to work. Still they walked to and fro ; still they used the first name ; still they knew when grandmothers were sick and when babies were born ; still they dealt with one another man to man. Still they were human. Finally, with the growth of industry, with specialization, with centralized finances, the change came which has placed the laborer where he now is, — a cog in a whirling mechanism. LIFE AND LABOR 175 The master goes to his office in an automobile, — an office often located in another part of town, or in another city from the factory. He break- fasts at seven or eight, lunches at the club, and goes home early. Sometimes he does not come in on Saturdays. Even where he works twelve hours a day, he seldom sees his working people. He is the president of a corporation which owns the mill. Is the corporation human? No, it is a legal personality ! Do the workers know the master 1 Of course not, they may not even know his face on the street. The worker reports to the time-clock; he has a number; he deals with the foreman or with the superintendent. From the relations between master and men the de- velopments of modern industry have taken every element of human relationship. Last of all comes scientific management to tie up, with card systems and tape of blood hue, the wreckage of individual interest and enthu- siasm which passes in the train of present-day toil. Efficiency is its catchword. To efficiency the world is turning for leisure — for salvation. No word in recent years has sprung so gen- erally into popular favor as " efficiency." Con- noting, in a peculiarly direct manner, the spirit of American enterprise, the word has become a shibboleth. Books appear with " efficiency " in the title or sub-title; magazines are devoted to its praise; teachers conjure with it; min- isters adopt it; and business men deify it. 176 SOCIAL SANITY *' Efficiency " is the standard-bearer of indus- trial, educational, civic, social, and religious advance. Efficiency is the capacity to attain given ends with the least possible expenditure of means. The lawyer can be more efficient in preparing his brief; the doctor in interviewing his pa- tients; the hod-carrier in climbing the ladder; the shoemaker in driving pegs; the teacher in pointing up a lesson; the salesman in present- ing his goods; the housewife in cooking and preparing dinner ; the official in making out tax bills; the nation in its appropriation and ex- penditures of moneys. Employed in this broad sense, efficiency, like charity, covers a multitude of sins. This is not, however, the sense in which the term is generally applied. In in- dustry, where the word has been most widely used, efficiency takes the form of scientific management. In the eyes of the scientific man- ager, there is no " best " way. Each method, each department, each job, each operation is susceptible of a continuous process of change, aimed always at the ultimate goal of securing the product with the least expenditure of cap- ital and labor. No existing process is sacred. All methods, formulas, and systems are open to criticism and reorganization. The primary advantage of such a doctrine is the utter break from tradition which it implies. When an individual institution is organized on LIFE AND LABOR 177 a basis of respect for old methods, progress is next to impossible. Only when the scientific spirit of experimentation grips the minds of men can changes be made. Thus underlying sci- entific management is the fundamental principle that the present is ever subject to analysis; and further that industry must accept and act upon the results of such analysis, no matter what they may be. The other essential element in scientific man- agement is the elimination of waste. Efficiency and waste are the antipodes of industrial proc- esses. The presence of one necessarily implies the absence of the other. Proceeding on these two principles — the fear- less challenging of the present and the elimina- tion of waste — the advocates of scientific man- agement have performed wonders in the reor- ganization of industry. Armed with stop- watches and time-cards, cost-systems, visible indexes, job-sheets, and the like, the forerunners of a new industry have prepared to revolution- ize the old system of producing goods. Some of the most apparent instances of increasing efficiency are furnished by the work of Fred- erick W. Taylor, the pioneer of scientific man- agement. One of Mr. Taylor's first large-scale adventures in scientific management was that in the works of the South Bethlehem Steel Com- pany. In a field adjoining the mills was 80,000 tons of pig-iron, piled in small piles along a 178 SOCIAL SANITY railroad siding. An inclined plank was placed against the side of a car, and each man picked up from his pile a pig of iron weighing about ninety-two pounds, walked up the inclined plank, and dropped it on the end of the car. The company had a pig-iron gang consisting of about seventy-five men, who were in charge of an excellent foreman, who had been a pig- iron handler. " This gang was loading on the average about twelve and one-half long tons per man per day. We were surprised to find, after a scientific study of the men at work, that a first-class pig-iron handler ought to handle between forty-seven and forty-eight long tons per day, instead of twelve and one-half tones. . . . Once we were sure that forty-seven tons was a proper day's work for a first-class pig- iron handler, it was our duty to see that the 80,000 tons of pig-iron piled on the open lot was loaded on to the cars at the rate of forty- seven tons per man per day, in place of twelve and one-half tons. And it was further our duty to see that this work was done without bringing on a strike among the men, without any quarrel with the men, and to see that the men were happier and better contented with loading at the new rate of forty-seven tons than they were when loading at the old rate of twelve and one-half tons." * * " The Gospel of Efficiency," The American Magazine. March, 1911. Vol. XXL, p. 577. LIFE AND LABOR 179 The first practical step, therefore, was the scientific selection of the workmen. With great care Mr. Taylor elaborates on the method which he employed in picking men who could handle forty-seven tons of pig-iron daily. They must be dealt with individually; they must be docile. The language which Mr. Tay- lor quotes himself as using is harsh. He ex- cuses himself in these words: — " This seems to be rather rough talk. And indeed it would be if applied to an educated mechanic, or even an educated laborer. With a man of the mental type of Schmidt, it is appropriate and not un- kind." It is not an equal, not even an " in- telligent laborer," to whom Mr. Taylor's method appeals. It is a man who will not re- sent abuse, and who will have no will of his own, — a paid mechanic in human form. Mr. Taylor's scheme worked. At the first trial Schmidt loaded forty-seven and one-half tons of pig-iron. After that day '^ he practi- cally never failed to work at this pace and to do the task that was set him during the three years that the writer was at Bethlehem. And throughout this time he averaged a little more than $1.85 per day, whereas before he had never received over $1.15 per day, which was the rul- ing rate of wages at that time in Bethlehem. One man after another was picked out and trained to handle pig-iron at the rate of forty- seven and one-half tons per day, until all of the 180 SOCIAE SANITY pig-iron was bandied at this rate, and all of this gang were receiving sixty per cent more wages than other workmen around them." The output was quadrupled; the wage ad- vance sixty per cent. Each pig-iron handler did the same task four times oftener during each eleven hours. To be sure he was scien- tifically guided ; his steps were counted and his time was watched, but the weariness incident to the sameness of his work was intensified perhaps ten-fold. Mr. Taylor is a plausible writer. How splen- did his scheme for Schmidt's welfare sounds, yet it is perfectly conceivable that Schmidt, at $1.15 per day, loading twelve and one-half tons of pig-iron, would be a longer-lived, happier man, beside being a better husband and a more useful citizen. Mr. Taylor really confesses as much when he adds : — '' It is a fact that in this gang of seventy-five pig-iron handlers, only about one man in eight was physically capable of handling forty-seven and one-half tons per day. With the very best of intentions, the other seven out of eight were physically unable to work at this pace. Now, the one man in eight who was able to do this work was in no sense superior to the other men who were working on the gang. He merely happened to be a man of the type of the ox — no rare specimen of humanity, difficult to find, jand therefore very highly prized. On the con- LIFE AND LABOR 181 trary, lie was a man so stupid that lie was unfitted to do most kinds of laboring work even. ' ' * What is this? Is it the ox-type of man who best performs Mr. Taylor's scientific bidding? This is the type of which Markham writes : — " Who made him dead to rapture and remorse, A thing that grieves not, and that never hopes. Stolid and shunned, a brother to the ox? " It is not of such material that good fathers and useful citizens are raised up. Beware, Mr. Efficiency-advocate, lest in your pursuit of efficiency you trample upon the human spirit, putting a premium on thoughtless machines in- stead of virile men. Yet this gospel of efficiency, like many an- other gospel, is fraught with hope for man and for mankind. Efficiency pays; efficiency leads to leisure. Leisure spells opportunity. In efficiency, therefore, lies the hope of democracy. There can be no question but that increased efficiency means a greater production of goods, which may or may not involve a greater ex- penditure of human energy. In any case it effects an enormous increase in the productive potentiality of the community. This increase in potential productiveness may * Supra, p. 579. 182 SOCIAL SANITY be turned in tlie direction of future production, — that is, it may be used as capital; or it may be employed to decrease the number of working hours per day, or of days per week. If the former result obtains, the wealth of society is increased; the latter result gives additional leisure, and, therefore, additional opportunity for sane living. It would be difficult to overestimate the im- portance both to the individual and to the com- munity of this extension of opportunity. In every form of activity from a foot-race to the most distinguished career, opportunity is nec- essary to achievement. The runner requires a fair race over a good course, to show his fleet- ness. The citizen requires a fair chance in a normal society to develop his best qualities. If the runner is continually tripped and jostled by other contestants, his race is spoiled in ex- actly the same way that the life of an able man who lacks fair opportunity is spoiled. Op- portunity is the open door to individual and social welfare. Opportunity is an equal chance given to the members of each generation to become unequal. Far from signifying equality, opportunity in- volves only the thought that each person have an equal start, and a fair course over which to run. The " starter " who shoots the pistol for the mile race does not make the runners equal when he insists that each start at the LIFE AND LABOR 183 same time from the same mark; on the con- trary, he gives the contestants a fair chance to show how unequal they really are. Those who urge the necessity of opportunity are do- ing no more than the starter, — insisting that each contestant in the race of life shall start fully prepared, with an equal chance to do good work. America to-day presents rare opportunities. The immense strides made in productive effi- ciency supply ample amounts of goods. Over- work is no longer necessary ; leisure is possible for all. The possibilities for opportunity were limited in the eighteenth century by the limita- tions of ignorance, lack of wealth, shortage of tools and appliances, and capacity must de- velop as best it could. In the twentieth cen- tury the possibilities for opportunity have in- creased a hundred-fold. Each widening of the borders of the kingdom of man signifies a widening of man's opportunities. It is not enough that we do as our fathers ; the increased possibilities for effective living which present themselves to us to-day demand that we better their instruction. Industrial efficiency is the greatest boon which the modern world offers to mankind be- cause out of it may develop leisure and oppor- tunity on a scale heretofore undreamed of. Productive efficiency pours into the coffers of society a stream of wealth which assures a sup- 184 SOCIAL SANITY ply of economic goods for everyone, at the same time removing forever the necessity for the twelve-hour day, for the overwork of women, or the labor of children. Productive efficiency permits the economic reorganization of modern society. Efficiency must go beyond production, how- ever, if it is to play its full part in the progress of civilization. The vast industrial machine which the nine- teenth century reared around us is efficient in the creation of economic goods. The reaper does in one day the work of fifty men; the traction engine plows twenty furrows at the same time; iron ore is dug from the ground and thrown into cars by a steam shovel, trans- ported to the steamer by a locomotive, shot into the ore hold by gravity, picked up by a grab-bucket that seizes ten tons at a grab, loaded again into cars, hauled to the ironworks, dumped from the cars, and carried up into the blast furnace without the exertion of human muscles. The electric crane saves human backs. The railroad spares horses' legs. The motor sings its song of mechanical power ; the loom rattles ; the hammer shouts; the blast furnace roars. Daily they unite in proclaiming the efficiency of inventions driven by mechanical power. Yet the thread of life is drawn out and the shears of fate are lifted against that nation LIFE AND LABOR 185 which is not efficient in the consumption and distribution as well as in the production of wealth. The production of goods does not insure welfare. We who are engaged in sedentary pur- suits continue to eat great quantities of meat, thus decreasing our efficiency and shortening our lives. Our houses are too large; we have shut out air and sunshine and shut in tuberculo- sis germs. We clothe ourselves in conformity to a European mode, neglecting the demands of our own climate. We have not as yet learned the lesson of efficiency in consumption. Nay, more, we are hopelessly untutored in distributive efficiency. Are those growing children still living on white bread soaked in tea! This worker's house is broken and unsanitary. That baby is drink- ing formalin with its milk, while its mother stretches a stationary wage over a steadily rising cost of life. These people have not enough goods to satisfy the bare necessities of life — they suffer and despair — because in the distribution of the products of industry they were forgotten. Enough was produced, and to spare — efficiency was responsible for that; but some grabbed more than their share, and the balance did not go around. There is therefore gross inefficiency in the system of distribution. Productive efficiency alone will not suffice unless there is established and maintained effi- 186 SOCIAL SANITY ciency in consumption and distribution; even productive efficiency cannot be maintained, as an isolated phenomenon, since the workers, on whom productive efficiency must finally depend, are deprived of the means of maintaining effi- ciency standards of living. Productive efficiency is well ; efficiency in con- sumption is better; but an efficient system of distribution is best of all, since it makes possible efficiency throughout all parts of society. Efficiency in production makes democracy an attainable norm instead of an unattainable ideal. With an efficient system of production, all may secure education and enjoy leisure in which to think and grow. Efficiency in con- sumption and in distribution assures this edu- cation and leisure to all, thus laying the founda- tion for prosperity and for democracy. This discussion has been aimed at the essen- tial characteristics of modern industry. So many discussions of the industrial issues are complicated by passion ! So often the inciden- tal matters connected with the system lead the thought from the main issues, that all refer- ence to those non-essential phases of industrial life have been omitted. Here is no mention of the tens of thousands of little children who live and atrophy in the cotton mills and the glass houses ; no word has been said of women speeded up to the last de- gree of human endurance, working long hours LIFE AND LABOR 187 for starvation wages ; no emphasis has been laid on the overwork and low wages of hundreds of thousands of semi-skilled and unskilled men who constitute such a large portion of the rank and file of the industrial army. Read the report of the Industrial Commission, of the Federal in- vestigation into the work of women and children, of the investigation into wages and hours in the steel industry. Turn the pages of the Pittsburg Survey. Examine any one of a hundred books which have recently appeared, describing the baser side of the lives of those who labor, — the unsanitation of houses and factories, the over- crowding, overwork, accidents, and underpay in occupations, some of which, like work in lead and phosphorus factories, and structural iron and steel work, involve an extraordinary risk to life and health. Tens of thousands of pages have been filled with the record of these things, yet they are not a necessary part of the present industrial system, and therefore, they have been omitted from the discussion and attention called only to the regular tasks — the ordinary things — in the lives of the workers. Considered thus, in its most favorable light, the system of modem industry appears as a dismal, somber, lowering, murky defile through which men and women pass. For long hours each day they put forth effort on tasks which in the wildest reach of the imagination could have no permanent interest for a sane person; 188 SOCIAL SANITY the product of these tasks they do not, cannot use. Their work is meaningless as far as re- sults go; it bears no apparent relation to fhe work of the rest of the industrial world; it is uneducative, and in the last degree monotonous. Yet in this barren defile called modern industry are created the products which adorn our houses and satisfy our lives. Is this blessedness? Do men gather forti- tude, nobility of spirit, and enthusiasm from such labor? They make nothing entire; they cannot consume the fruits of their own indus- try; they are not even recompensed in propor- tion to the amount which they produce; for long hours, surrounded by jarring sights and discordant sounds, they toil to create wealth. What think you if a man, having twelve hours in a day free from the necessary duties of liv- ing, spends ten of these in the doing of a thing which in its very nature cannot be interesting to him! Is such a man blessed? Mayhap, if blessedness have a new meaning, but if the old meaning is still attached to the word, then such a man is damned, not blessed, for damnation consists in doing those things which are hate- ful, because into them men cannot put their whole hearts. In the evolution of industry, a point has been reached where the vast majority of those who labor have for their tasks clock-watching occu- pations. The hours never fly — they crawl. LIFE AND LABOR 189 Each sixty minutes which passes is sixty min- utes nearer quitting time — the time of rest and freedom. In such labor there is no joy. In such monotony there can be no satisfaction. Highly specialized factory work is hell raised to the n^'^ power. With every nerve taut, with every fiber stretched to the limit of its capacity, these workers strain to make, in their day, enough pieces, — perhaps a hundred, perhaps five hundred, — to buy only this— their daily bread. The present system of industry will not last forever. It represents only one scene of the great industrial panorama which has been un- folding since man first learned to use tools. No man can say what the future holds ; yet so long as specialized industry remains what it is — a hopeless treadmill for the great mass of the workers; so long as hate and loathing, not joy and blessedness, are involved in its processes; so long as each additional hour of labor counts one additional hour of pain; then the less of it the better. No sane person can continue in- definitely to demand of men eternal service of a machine. No sound thinker can expect that human beings will love that in which there is no joy. Modern specialized industry — a task-mas- ter armed with the sharp thong of hunger — drives men and women and even children to do things which they prefer not to do. How soon — men and women — leaders of the great march 190 SOCIAL SANITY toward social sanity, shall we rob industry of its fangs'? One question a sane society will ask — *' In how many hours of such labor can men make enough goods to supply themselves with the necessaries and comforts of life? Can it be done in ten hours? Then ten hours must be the day's labor. Can it be done in eight hours? Then set the labor day at that amount." It is the enthusiasm and joy of leisure, not the nerve- racking misery of factory labor, which is the goal of sane living. That leisure may be gained in one way — by working long enough to provide for everyone the necessaries and comforts of life. Each invention, each scientific discovery, each improved process, each new method which increases the efficiency of industry, should, in like measure, reduce the time during which men must labor. Of those who labor, this alone remains to be said, — industry was made for man. When in- dustry has so wrought that it will serve the needs of man, uninteresting labor must cease. IX THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY The present age like every other bases its permanence on human effort. To-day, however, that effort has assumed a form which is new to history. Machinery, labor-saving devices, power, and great factories such as those which cover the industrial districts are the product of this age and this alone. Men and women, laboring in the workshops of the twentieth cen- tury, create immense sums of wealth, — the fruits of industry. Since they sacrifice so much in misery and pain for the purpose of producing this wealth, one might expect that their share of it would be great indeed. The fruits of American industry are vast — unthinkably vast. The wealth which modern industries create, pouring forth in a never ending stream, clothes and feeds the body; pro- vides shelter; beautifies the home; facilitates travel; opens schools; creates boundless stores of luxury. All of the marvels of the ancient world are not to be compared with this. The seven wonders become the merest commonplace. With a magician's wand we create the things which we need and enjoy. 191 192 SOCIAL SANITY Yet questions are raised. Malcontents utter their dismal voices in the streets, appealing, objecting, warning. '' The producers of this wealth never receive it," they cry. " The fruits of industry go to those who played no part in bringing them into existence. In this — your vaunted kingdom of man — there are gaping injustices. Man may be king, but his throne is a machine, and his royal robe is of rags." So loud, so insistent, has this complaint grown, that at last it has been listened to, here and there. The listeners have thought, ques- tioned, investigated, analyzed, discussed, and concluded that in certain respects the malcon- tent is right. That there is, in truth, a grievous unfairness in the manner of dividing up the fruits of industry. The wealth of society, the result of its pro- ductive system, is the outcome of natural re- sources, tools, and human effort. The present productive system in the United States is based first upon an unexcelled store of natural re- sources. Coal, copper, iron, water power, tim- ber, fertile soil, rivers and harbors, challenge the world for duplication. These resources were here when our forefathers made their suc- cessful trip in the Mayflower: they had been here then for countless ages. No man was re- sponsible for bringing them into being: no hu- man effort had created them. Like the world in which men live these resources were a part of THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY 193 the heritage of the human race — a part of man's kingdom. The great wealth-producing power of the nation is due, in the second place, to the store of tools without which any extensive exploita- ti( n. of the natural resources would have been impossible. From the day when Watt har- nessed steam, through all of the succeeding years of invention and scientific discovery, men and women have been completing the tools of present-day industry. Steam shovels, electric cranes, automatic envelope machines, knitters, printing presses, sewing machines, gas engines, traction plows, reapers and binders, power sprayers, electric traction, are all part and par- cel of the productive mechanism which has been perfected during the last century and a half. No one man was responsible for any of these tools. The inventions of each inventor rested upon the inventions which had preceded, as the bricks of one tier rest on the bricks of the tier below. Without the electrical discoveries of the early nineteenth century, Edison's work would have proved impossible. It is only with the scientific achievements of his predecessors as a background that Burbank can remake veg- etation. The tools of production are a social product, — the creation of millions of burning brains and eager hands. The resources came, no man can say whither, but the productive tools — the agents of mechanics — are a part of 194 SOCIAL SANITY the kingdom which man has been building since he learned to use a stick or a stone to shape other sticks and stones for his uses. In the third place, industry rests upon in- dustrial effort, which is the one really personal element in wealth production. Even effort can- not be wholly individual, however, because no one person can use modern tools. They are so vast, so completely inter-dependent, that only through co-operation in industrial activity can men hope to create the fruits of the industry. The factory is manned by a thousand, the mine by five hundred. Modern tools are group tools, usable only by groups. Thus of the three factors in the production of wealth — resources, tools, and effort, — two are a common heritage, while the third, though in a measure individual, cannot be truly effective unless socially employed. Productive processes are therefore primarily social processes, de- pending for their effectiveness upon the work- ing together of masses of men and women. Furthermore, since no wealth can be created without resources, tools, and effort, and since resources and tools are passive agents rather than active participators in industrial activity, it follows that the motive force in industry comes through human effort. More than that, the productive processes are carried forward in order that people may have the things which they want to use. Neither the resources nor THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY 195 the tools are ultimately to be considered. The whole productive machinery centers around the consumer, the user. It were idle to make a harvester if no one used flour. Silk mills would be inactive did all cease wearing silk. Pro- duction aims at and depends upon consumption. Wealth is produced that people may use it. In any rational discussion of income these facts must be borne constantly in mind — the passive character of resources and tools; the active character of effort; the social nature of all three factors; the importance of co-operation; and the finality of consumption. For each portion of wealth produced, some human effort must be, or must have been ex- pended. Under the old handicraft productive system, the worker with his hammer, or needle, or shuttle, or saw, did the work directly upon the thing which he made. Under the present system of production, nails, buttons, bolts, candles, socks, and steel rails are made by machines, but these machines were made by men, assisted by other machines made by other men. All wealth represents, directly, or in- directly, some portion of crystallized labor. Handicraft labor was crystallized directly. Factory labor is crystallized indirectly. Yet the result is the same. The vast output of present-day industry is due, primarily, to co-operation. Resources and tools have existed for ages, but it is only during 196 SOCIAL SANITY the last century that men learned the true value of co-operative or social tools. Let us say that under the old system one hundred shoemakers, each working individually, could produce one hundred pairs of shoes in a day. At the present time, forty of these men are engaged in making machines with the aid of which ten shoemakers can turn out a hundred pairs of shoes in a day. The other men are absorbed into some new industry, or, if they cannot adapt themselves they join the ranks of the casually employed. For the time being hardship results. In the end, the number of labor hours required to make a pair of shoes is reduced to a fraction of its former amount. The farmer of the eighteenth century cut his grain with a scythe and thrashed it with a flail. Had he possessed a reaper and binder and a steam thrasher, he would have produced twenty times as much grain with the same expenditure of effort. The tools of the old-time society were individual, hand tools, — hammers, hoes, mattocks, hand looms, chisels, saws. All could be owned by the worker. All were light and easy to handle. The tools of modern industry — the tools with which the men of the nineteenth century broadened their kingdom — are social tools, — steam shovels, railroads, carpet fac- tories, department stores, banks, steel mills. No one man can use such tools. They are essentially dependent on co-operative activity. THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY 197 Neither can the worker own his tools; he must use the tools owned by some other person or by all of the workers, co-operatively. The wonders of modern efficiency, the fruits of industry, cannot be expressed in figures or words, yet some idea of modern productiveness may be gained by examining these statistics of production issued by the Federal Govern- ment. During 1911, the production of agricul- tural crops was : — * Bushels Corn 2,531,488,000 Wheat 621,338,000 Oats 922,298,000 Barley 160,240,000 Rye 33,119,000 Buckwheat 17,549,000 Potatoes 292,737,000 Tons Hay 47,444,000 Bales Cotton 11,965,000 Similar statistics for the manufacturing indus- tries show the total value of the products in 1909 to have been : — f * " Agriculture in the United States," Department of Commerce and Labor, Washington, D. C, 1910. P. 1. f " Statistics of Manufactures," Department of Commerce and Labor, Washington, D. C, 1910. P. 8. 198 SOCIAL SANITY Value of Products All industries $20,672,052,000 Slaughtering and meat packing 1,370,568,000 Foundry and machine-shop products 1,228,475,000 Lumber and timber products 1,156,129,000 Iron and steel, steelworks, and rolling mills 985,723,000 Flour-mill and grist-mill prod- ucts 883,584,000 Printing and publishing 737,876,000 Cotton goods, including cotton small wares 628,392,000 Clothing, men's, including shirts 568,077,000 Boots and shoes, including cut stock and findings 512,798,000 Woolen, worsted, and felt goods, and wool mats 435,979,000 Tobacco manufactures 416,695,000 Cars and general shop con- struction, and repairs by steam-railroad companies . . 405,601,000 Bread and other bakery prod- ucts 396,865,000 Iron and steel, blast furnaces 391,429,000 Clothing, women's 384,752,000 Smelting and refining, copper 378,806,000 Liquors, malt 374,730,000 Leather, tanned, curried, and finished 327,874,000 THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY 199 Value of Products Sugar and molasses, not in- cluding beet sugar $279,249,000 Butter, cheese, and condensed milk 274,558,000 Such are the fruits of industry expressed in general terms. The totals are far too stupen- dous for the mind to grasp; nor is it neces- sary or desirable that the mind should grasp them. The significant question — the only ques- tion of real importance — is, '' What happens to this wealth? " Does it go to the producers — the motive power to which it owes its being? There are, strictly speaking, no classes in the United States. That is, there are no hard and fast caste lines within which men are com- pelled to move. Yet from the standpoint of industry and income, there are two classes — those who work and those who do not. He who labors expends his effort in a manner intended to create something that will supply his wants or the wants of his fellows. The idler makes no such use of his faculties. Both classes receive enough to sustain life. Since wealth depends upon industry, and since the vitalizing element in industry is labor, it would seem that in the division of the fruits of in- dustry those who labored should receive the lion's share of the income and of the pleasures of life, while those who idled should receive 200 SOCIAL SANITY almshouse fare, — the bare necessaries of living. Anomalous though it may appear, no such relation exists between the lives of those who labor and of those who idle. It is not true, in American society, that luxury, ease, satis- faction, and enjoyment attend on the lives of the workers, while hardships and privation await the idlers. No longer is the proverb held, — '* He who will not work, neither shall he eat." Indeed sometimes the exact reverse holds true. He who never worked eats abun- dantly of the choicest fruits of the land. A man recently died in the prime of life. To be sure, he died a gallant death, yet never during his life had he been a worker. Behind him he left a son to whom there attached, of the wealth which his father had helped in no way to create, three million dollars. When this boy comes of age, three millions will go un- conditionally to him. If he had earned five dollars every working day in the year since the time when Jesus taught in Galilee, he would not have earned so much as three millions of dollars, yet at the age of twenty-one this is his, — his without effort, or privation, or pain. The thing which he has is wealth, not dol- lars. Perchance he may own land, bonds, stocks, mortgages, or some other form of in- vestment. Should he wish to convert this three millions into dollars, he might do so, but he has no such thought, because the dollars would be THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY 201 idle, whereas the bonds and mortgages bring interest. If the current rate be paid — five per cent — then three millions will return each year to their owner one hundred and fifty thousand dollars of income. He may live in St. Louis or in Shanghai, yet this income pursues him. It is his because he holds the titles to three millions of wealth. Even the three millions may increase. If a part of it be invested in land, and the demand for the land grows greater, the value of the land rises, and this lad, come of age, may find four or even five millions where his father left him but three, because of the increased value of the properties which he holds. From whence is this income and this in- creased value derived? Truly it must be from those who labor! There is no other source of wealth. Suppose the bonds which are held in trust for this boy be those of a railroad company. Each year they pay him five dollars for each one hundred dollars of bonds which he holds. This five dollars is the product of labor. From the meanest track walker up to the president of the system, this railroad has been, through- out the year, a great hive of industry. These men have worried, fretted, striven, sweated, and died that the railroad might perform its service successfully. This labor has its reward in the success of the road, and a part of the success 202 SOCIAL SANITY — the earnings — is paid to the bond-holders in the form of interest. This lad's bonds earn that kind of interest. If all men on the railroad stopped working, there would be no interest to pay. It is because tens of thousands of men have been working on the railroad that the bond- holder realizes an income. All income from stocks and bonds is similarly derived. A num- ber of workers create wealth, a part of which is turned over to the stock and bond-holders, be- cause they hold title to the stocks and bonds. The increase in the value of the land which this boy holds is due to a like cause. Men have organized business, built buildings, paved streets, attracted commerce, developed trans- portation, and in all of the surrounding dis- tricts the value of land has increased because the locality is more desirable as a place in which to do business. The increased land value is due to labor. Yet since this lad has never labored, the increase must be, as indeed it is, due to the labor of others. They expend effort. He receives a part of the product of that effort. Throughout his life, this boy may be an idler. He may never raise a finger to do aught beside hunt, court, laugh, play, travel, and spend. Yet he is destined, so long as his prin- ciple remains intact, to receive an income of at least one hundred and fifty thousand dollars each year. Travel to Newport; spend days and nights THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY 203 in the great hotels of New York and Chicago; journey on expensive ocean liners; listen to the talk at social functions; and you will find that this lad is a rule, and not an exception. A whole section of the American population lives in idleness — lives on income. The apartment hotels are thronged with idle men and women who, from the day of their birth to the day of their death, contribute in no way to the labor of the community. True, the class is small. True, it is philanthropic. True, it is less than in Europe. Yet the class is there — spenders who do not labor, living lives of luxurious ease. How then do the workers live? They pro- duce the wealth. Are they likewise children of ease? Some of them are. The successful managers, the superintendents, buyers, sellers, heads of departments, foremen, and the like live well. While they do not come into direct contact with the processes of industry — neither shifting the levers, hammering the iron, twisting the threads, picking the coal, drilling the holes, nor shaping the castings — they perform a function of rare value when they bring together the men necessary to carry on their activities and direct them at their work. Such men are well paid. They form, however, but a small percentage of the total number of workers. In all of the manufacturing industries of the United States, 204 SOCIAL SANITY for example, 7,678,578 persons are employed, of wliom six in each hundred are proprietors and officials, eight are clerks, and eighty-six are wage-earners. Thus the industrial system has evolved to a point where more than four out of five of those engaged in its processes are wage-earners. Some of those who come into direct contact with the productive processes are also well paid. The skilled railroad men, steel workers, and employees in the building trades receive good incomes. Yet this group is also a com- paratively small one. Perhaps one wage- earner in ten, engaged in American industry, has what might be called a skilled occupation.* The great majority of those engaged in Amer- ican industry do work which is semi-skilled or unskilled work — work typifying monotony and exhaustion — and receive for it a wage which barely enables them to live. Consider the railroad employees again : — t Class Average Daily Wage General officers $13.27 Other officers 6.22 General office clerks 2.40 Station agents 2.12 Other station men 1.84 Engine-men 4.55 ♦ " Wages in the United States," Scott Nearing. New York : Macmilliau Co., 1911. Chapter IX, f " Statistics of Railways in the United States." Government Printing Office, Washington, 1912. P. 38. THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY 205 Class Average Daily Wage Firemen $2.74 Conductors 3.91 Other trainmen 2.69 Machinists 3.08 Carpenters 2.51 Other shopmen 2.18 Section foremen 1.99 Other trackmen 1.47 Switch tenders, crossing tenders, and watchmen . . . 1.69 Telegraph operators and dis- patchers 2.33 Employees — account floating equipment 2.22 All other employees and laborers 2.01 Some of the railroad positions are very well paid, yet in these positions are a fraction of one per cent of the total number of employees. The skilled men, — conductors, engine-men, and the like, — receive good wages, but the vast ma- jority of railway employees receive wages which are ludicrously small. Take the case of the employees in the iron and steel industry. An extended investigation into the wages paid to workers in the industry shows results very similar to those already cited for the railroad industry. '' Of the total of 172,706 employees, 13,868, or 8.03 per cent, earned less than 14 cents per 206 SOCIAL SANITY hour, 20,527, or 11.89 per cent, earned 14 and under 16 cents, and 51,417, or 29.77 per cent, earned 16 and under 18 cents. Thus 85,812, or 49.69 per cent of all the employees, received less than 18 cents per hour. Those earning 18 and under 25 cents per hour numbered 46,- 132, or 26.71 per cent, while 40,762, or 23.61 per cent, earned 25 cents and over. A few very highly skilled employees received $1.25 per hour ; and those receiving 50 cents and over per hour numbered 4,403, or 2.55 per cent of all employees." * '' Similar evidence is furnished by the state bureaus of labor. While these facts are often unreliable, and while most of the states do not furnish facts at all, the conformity of state figures with those already cited is remarkable.! When allowance is made for unemployment,! it is probable that nine-tenths of the male work- ers in American industry receive less than $800 a year, that three-fourths receive less than $600 a year, and a half are paid less than $500 a year.§ Are not such facts surprising? More surpris- ing still is the contrast between these wages * " Summary of the Wages and Hours of Labor," Report on Conditions of Employment in the Iron and Steel Industry, Wash- ington, 62d Congress, 2d Session, Senate Document 301, 1913. P. 10. f" Wages in the United States," Scott Nearing. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1911. Pp. 210-212. X Ibid. , Chapter X. % Ibid., p. 214. THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY 207 and the amount which is sufficient to buy a living. On Manhattan Island, the exhaustive investigation made in 1907-8 permitted Dr. Chapin to conclude that, " an income of $900 or over probably permits the maintenance of a normal standard at least, so far as the physical man is concerned. Whether an income between $800 and $900 can be made to suffice is a ques- tion to which our data does not warrant a dog- matic answer." * At the same time the Federal Government issued a careful study in which the authors decide that in Fall River, Mass., '' the total cost of the fair standard for the English, Irish, and Canadian-French family is $731.99 and for the Portuguese, Polish, and Italian family it is $690.52." f In small Georgia and South Carolina mill towns, " The father must earn $600.74 in order to support himself " ac- cording to a standard which *' will enable him to furnish them good nourishing food and suffi- cient plain clothing. He can send his children to school. Unless a prolonged or serious illness befall the family, he can pay for medical atten- tion. If a death should occur, insurance will meet the expense. He can provide some simple recreation for his family, the cost not to be over *"The Standard of Living," R. C. Chapin. New York: Charities Publication Committee, 1909. Pp. 245-246. \ ' ' Report on Condition of Women and Child Wage Earners in the United States," Vol. XVI, " Family Budgets." Govern- ment Printing Oflace, Washington, 1911. P. 245. 208 SOCIAL SANITY $15.60 for tlie year. If this cotton-mill father is given employment three hundred days out of the year he must earn $2 per day to maintain this standard. As the children grow older and the family increase in size, the cost of living will naturally increase. The father must either earn more himself or be assisted by his young children." * These statements relate to a man, wife, and three children under fourteen. If they are true, and there appears to be no good reason to doubt their accuracy, a large proportion of the people who are carrying forward the pro- ductive processes of the United States are not receiving a living wage. These are the laborers —these the people upon whose activity industry depends — these the vine growers and the gar- deners, who have tended and watched that the vineyards of industry might be brought to per- fection. These are they who labor, toil, spin, yet Lazarus, in all of his wretchedness, was not less fittingly arrayed than they. Meanwhile, be- hold. Dives — he who does not work — fattens on the choicest fruits of the industrial system. Meanwhile, the school cries out for efficiency; the church preaches industry; the rostrum gloats over prosperity. Efficiency — is labor; industry — is effort; and prosperity, — after these have become efficient, applying themselves •Supra, pp. 152-153. THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY 209 arduously to the tasks, another who has never labored, snatches the prosperity from them. It is recorded of a good dame — one Mother Hubbard — that she went to the cupboard to get her poor dog a bone, but when she got there, the cupboard was bare, and so of course the poor brute went hungry. How about Mother Hubbard, though? If the cupboard was bare, perhaps she went hungry too. Even the best intentioned philanthropy does not supply the larder. Turn for a moment to the little baby who came into a three-million-dollar fortune on the day he was born. Each year one hundred and fifty thousand dollars came to him. One hun- dred and fifty thousand is three hundred times five hundred. This child, who has never lifted his hand, except to play, baby fashion, has now an income equal to that of three hundred men at five hundred dollars each a year. Truly, it is strange. Anon, one wonders how such things may be. The idler, well supplied; the worker with a bare pittance. One man secure in a life without labor ; another assured of a life of labor without security. The fruits of industry are marvelous in the mass. Yet they cannot insure prosperity unless they are divided among those who need them. A nation may have an economic surplus, and yet not be a prosperous nation. Since welfare is the measure of economic success, the indi- 210 SOCIAL SANITY vidual as well as the nation must share in real prosperity. The United States is immensely wealthy; great quantities of additional wealth are produced each year; and capital is being continually augmented, and thus the possibili- ties of producing more wealth are increasing. But it is not enough to state that the country is rich. What becomes of those riches? In " Hard Times," Mr. McChoakumchild, the schoolmaster, says: *' Now this schoolroom is a nation. And in this nation there are fifty millions of money. Isn't this a prosperous nation? Girl number twenty, isn't this a prosperous nation and ain't you in a thriving state ? ' ' And in telling the story Dickens makes girl number twenty, the daughter of a circus clown, say that she doesn't know whether it is a pros- perous nation or not and whether she is in a thriving state or not, unless she knows who has the money and whether any of it is hers. Is America prosperous? Is it in a thriving state? Hardly! True, the coffers of some are overflowing, but they are overflowing with the portion of many who are plunged in the depths of adver- sity — the denizens of our jails, our workhouses, our houses of prostitution, our slums, and our sweat shops, unprosperous, unlovely, degraded in the midst of industrial prosperity and com- mercial glory. THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY 211 The fruits, of industry go not to the indus- trious, but to the fortunate. He who labors receives not, for all of his working, while the idle man and the idle woman, holding titles to capital or to land, reap rich harvests of wealth, and leisure. We, the well-housed, may be con- tent with our comfort and security, with our prosperous condition and our thriving state; we may boast of our national industry and pros- perity; we may preach and condemn and punish from behind our bulwarks of laws and consti- tutions and institutions; but until the unnatural sloughs of adversity are made dry by the leveled mountains of unearned prosperity, the nation will never be truly prosperous. Finally, is this sanity? Can anyone suppose that when the workers — the producers of wealth — realize the extent to which their products are being absorbed by the drones, they will tolerate the continuance of such conditions? Then, whence will come the incentive to addi- tional effort; when additional effort means ad- ditional w^ealth to the unemployed well-to-do? Why cry, '^ Peace, peace," when there is no peace ? The life stream of civilization has flowed abundantly to this day; applied science, earnest effort, painstaking, soul-racking activity have built up man's kingdom; at the touch of the human hand, vast machines convert the gifts of nature into forms which satisfy man's de- 212 SOCIAL SANITY sires; what an opportunity for life, in its rich- est abundance! What a glorious harvest of leisure, growth, achievement! What additions to the grandeur of the kingdom of man ! Alas! Between the production of wealth and its use, between the expenditure of effort and the receipt of income stretch the traditions of individual ownership, which take from him who produces and give to him who holds titles to property. How wondrously have men learned to create wealth, in myriad forms, how stupidly do they blunder in the sharing of the wealth produced. Sanity! Sanity! Sanity imperatively de- mands fairness in distributing the fruits of in- dustry. After ages of experimentation human society has found that finally the only sane rule of conduct in dealings between man and man is the rule of equity, of justice, of fairness, of doing to that other as you would have him do to you. Stripped of its incidental elements, apart from its traditions and its glamor, the present scheme for dividing the fruits of industry ap- pears in its bald unjustness. Lay aside your preconceived ideas of property and property rights, look sanely, carefully into the matter from the eyrie of intellectual honesty, and find, if you can, a justification for giving to him that labors a pittance; to him that idles a compe- tence. In that direction social sanity does not THE FRUITS OF INDUSTRY 213 lie. Inequality in distributing the fruits of in- dustry is the broad way that has led many nations to destruction. The path to social san- ity lies along a narrow way, through a straight gate, over which is written the saying — * ' Social Justice." THE SPIEIT OP EEVOLT The genus of modern life, stripped of its gay finery, appears as an exploiter of the many, and a pauperizer of the few. Man has estab- lished his kingdom in wondrous guise. Armed with that keen weapon, science, he has bent the powers of nature to his services after a manner wholly past the beUef of earlier ages. No longer subject to pestilence and famine, freed from the fear of beasts, overcoming the sources of conflict between man and man, civilization has laid down a basis for sane living and social welfare. Here are clothing for the naked, food for the hungry, houses for the shelterless, books for the unlearned. Here then is unusual prosperity and sane living? Alas! no. The naked do not always receive the clothing; the food goes to him who is surfeited; houses are built for those who already enjoy shelter; and the books with uncut leaves lie on the shelves of the over- fed. Not always, it is true, but often society fails to establish a sane relation between the things a man needs and the things he receives. 214 THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT 215 The fruits of industry are not wisely appor- tioned. The material blessings of life follow bank accounts, when they should follow human needs. It is this fact which leads to the spirit of revolt, — to the feeling that the method of adjusting life to men and women might be rad- ically improved to the advantage of everyone. There is, in each breast, a potential spirit of revolt, because each human being recognizes some code of morality. Cross the threshold of that moral temple, and revolt follows. Each man recognizes and accepts some standard of justice, of truth, of spiritual belief. It is his shibboleth, his doctrine, his creed. Violate that creed at your peril ! Whatever the origin of moral ideas, whatever the source of human beliefs, the fact remains that from the lowest villain that ever swung from the gallows to the worthiest saint that died for a faith, this fact holds true, — each sets a standard for which he will fight either with the tools of physical warfare, or with that ter- rible weapon, non-resistance. How plainly does this fact stand out in all of the biography, all of the personal incident which the world records ! Further back than human history, the spirit of revolt extends. Snatch a morsel of food from the beasts, threaten the young of any animal mother and bide the issue ! The animal world also has a code to which it adheres with 216 SOCIAL SANITY rigorous exactitude. It will enjoy the food which it has taken. The female will protect her offspring. In the defense of either of these causes, the beast lays down its life. Among men the same brute instincts prevail. The man who goes hungry for three days will lie; hungry for three days more he will steal; hungry for three more he will commit murder. Take away a man's food, deprive him of the physical necessities of life, and he becomes dan- gerous. The speeding up of prices without any corresponding increase in wages, of which the past twenty years has been so painfully con- scious, resolves itself finally into a problem of short food supply for many families. Why should they not revolt? The human mother, sacrificing, striving for the welfare of her child, is also displaying a primitive instinct. Like the beasts she will die, gladly, for her offspring. There is, among the more advanced races of mankind, another cause of revolt, — an ac- quired characteristic, perhaps. The fight for food, the defense of offspring, are universal traits. The spirit of justice, of equity, of fair play, are largely human attributes. Further- more, the higher men rise in the scale of human development, the keener becomes their sense of fairness, until in emotionaUsts like Amos and Savonarola; or in thinkers like John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Euskin, or William THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT 217 Morris, the ideals of equitableness between man and man are set high and any violation of this ideal is a cause for drastic reaction. When Horatius, wounded, and wearied with hard fighting, turned from his valiant defense of the bridge, all armed as he was, and plunged into the yellow Tiber, *' No sound of joy or sorrow, Was heard from either bank, But friends and foes in dumb surprise, With parted lips and straining eyes, Stood gazing where he sank; And when above the surges They saw his crest appear. All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry. And even the banks of Tuscany Could scarce forbear to cheer,'* While Horatius was manfully battling with the swollen current, Macaulay makes the traitor Sextus say: — ^' Will not the villain drown? But for this stay, ere close of day, We should have sacked the town.'* But the leader of the opposing forces, whose plans Horatius had thwarted, a man of totally different fiber, retorts : — 218 SOCIAL SANITY ^' ' Heaven help him,' quoth Lars Porseno}, ' And bring him safe to shore, For such a gallant feat at arms. Was never seen before! ' " Lars Porsena had the spirit of fair play de- veloped to so high a degree that he enjoyed seeing a man, even though an enemy, do a gal- lant deed. If Lars Porsena could have sat on the bleachers of a baseball field, cheering the home team on to victory, he would have ap- plauded with the lustiest when the visitors en- gineered a brilliant double steal or fielded a hard fly. The American prides himself on nothing more highly than the fact that he has the spirit of sport, of fair play, of joy over a well-earned victory, whether of friend or enemy. Even children fail to see any fun in a one-sided, un- fairly played game. Someone has described a typical Western farmer as a man who would gladly give a brace of steers to anyone who was down on his luck, and never so much as hope for a return. Yet, if a stray cur, yellow and mongrel, was adopted by this farmer and called " mine," a deputy marshal backed by a company of regulars com- ing to take the cur, would find the farmer well posted with his Winchester, ready to shoot or to be shot down in the defense of the dog. Hav- ing rights and believing in them, this type of THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT 219 man does not hesitate to stake his life on the outcome. The " Spirit of '76 " was a spirit of revolt based on a belief in " rights," and it has never been entirely refined out of the American temperament. Perhaps the average American would not set up his private judgment against that of a company of regulars, but he would fight for his own whether he did it with a re- peater, or a law brief. Furthermore if he found that some small dog in his immediate neighbor- hood not his own was being denied a '' square deal," he might put in a word for him too. It has been written that the minority have no rights which the majority is bound to re- spect. Yet, if the minority be a helpless one, it will receive more than its share of justice from most Anglo-Saxons, whose traditions lead them to sympathize with the under-dog, to cheer him, and even to assist him if occasion demands. This insistence on fair play for the under-dog is the saving grace in many American institu- tions. Were it not for the strongly developed spirit of good sport, there might be less modern revolt to reckon with. The spirit of sport is there, however, and the kindly feeling for the under-dog is there — two things which dominate the spirit of revolt. The revolt of the under-dog is no new thing. Of course, he growls, cries out, whines, protests, strikes back. No one expects him to take a thrashing without making a fight for it — he 220 SOCIAL SANITY would be a despicable dog if he did. Strangely enough, however, in the great game of industrial conflict, others besides the under-dog are taking a hand in the protest. Even the dog on top snarls, vigorously, that it isn't a good game — this business of condemning children in their cradles to lives of monotonous, under-nourished ineffectiveness. Then, too, the keepers who take the gate receipts at the great game are pro- testing. They are the beneficiaries, to be sure, but why can't they have a decent game, even if it does tell a little on the cash register? The spectators, of course, are demanding fair play — they have always done that, and now, even the women have joined the party of the mal- contents, insisting upon a good game, open to all on equal terms. This demand for honest deal- ing, this spirit of revolt against the old methods of carrying on affairs, is the dominant spirit in America to-day. The index of a fundamen- tally sane attitude of mind, the spirit of revolt has communicated itself rapidly to all elements of the population. The spirit of revolt has developed side by side with the consciousness that fair play is no longer the rule of the economic road. Men and women interested in the growth of life and the maintenance of sanity are learning that, under the industrial conditions which saw the nineteenth century out and the twentieth cen- tury in, sane living is impossible for the great THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT 221 mass of the population. Under this system: — 1. Many of those who labor have neither the time nor the energy to enjoy life after the work- day is over. 2. Welfare is the lot of so few — opportunity is so painfully restricted. 3. Aside from any nobler aim in life, such a situation does not even permit of efficiency, since those best fitted to do certain tasks do not necessarily have a chance to do them. 4. Most grotesque of all, society has per- fected an automatic device which takes from the producer a great part of the product, leav- ing him in a vast number of cases not even a decent livelihood; sets the laborer to making lace, and automobile bodies, when his children and the children of his friends need shoes, hats, dresses, and shirts; and finally which pours countless riches into the laps of an idle few. No one can longer doubt that there are in- dustrial and social burdens which press most heavily on the backs which are least able to bear them. Who can question the unfairness of bad milk, dark rooms, child-labor, overwork, premature death, and the host of other vultures which prey upon the common man's chance of life? The exploited has a clear case against the exploiter. The very clarity of the issue lends weight to the protest which the exploited makes. The real wonder of wonders is not the revolt of the exploited, but their failure to revolt. 222 SOCIAL SANITY The man who leaves his miner's shanty at day- break, and, entering the bowels of the earth, labors there in the darkness and danger, in order that he may earn five or six hundred dollars a year, — a bare living for his family, and in order that some well-to-do man in the metropolis may add a new car to his crowded garage or send his wife to the dressmaker's for a five-hundred-dollar gown or to the jeweler's for a gracefully arranged cluster of diamonds, to Europe as a pastime, — such a man is not likely to be in the best imaginable frame of mind when he finds that his most earnest efforts will supply only the bare necessites of life for his wife and children, while they provide ex- travagant luxuries for someone who has never known a day of toil. Further, when hard times or sickness come — as they inevitably do — forc- ing the wife and children into the mill, the contrast becomes even greater. Why should he, the worker, skimp and starve, while she, the idler, tells the divorce court judge that she cannot possibly run her household under ninety thousand dollars a year? Men have starved, — died of hunger, — ere now with grim-set faces and calm souls, but never has one section of the population been satisfied with a loaf of black bread, while another section gorged itself on dainty viands, pouring out choice wine in liba- tion to its pleasures. The contrast — ^not the status — cries aloud for remedy. THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT 223 History records myriad protests against this contrast. The Helots of Greece; the Roman slaves; the Plebeians; the Peasants in the Middle Ages, and the rabble in France rose against exploitation. In the nineteenth century the revolutionary movements of the thirties and forties, the labor movement, the socialist move- ment, and now, last of all, the movement toward syndicalism are instances of the same great protest against the unfairness of things as they are. Walter Rauschenbusch, bespeaking the spirit of revolt as it appears to the teacher of religion, quotes Fronde's famous statement, " The en- durance of the inequalities of life by the poor is the marvel of human society," and then writes, — '' I read of the increasing inclination to use * direct action ' and ' sabotage ' with a sinking of the heart, not only on account of the immediate damage that will be done and the spread of lawlessness, but because of the harm it will do to the cause of labor. I am Christian enough to believe that evil cannot be overcome with evil and that the recoil of violence will usually more than offset any immediate advan- tage gained by it. But I do not wonder that men resort to physical force. My wonder is that men whose physical force is the only force they know how to handle have used it so little. They have been slower to resort to violence than women in the agitation for the suffrage. 224 SOCIAL SANITY If we could pick out a thousand employers who in some way have been conspicuous for their opposition against organized labor, put them all in one mill-town together, subject them to the average conditions of industrial workers, leave them just as able and energetic as they are now, but somehow deprive them of the hope of escaping from their condition and lot, they would have a rampant labor organization in running order inside of a week, and the world would listen to an explosion before a month was up. If they could not longer use the phys- ical force of constabulary, deputy sheriffs, Pink- ertons, and militia, they would fall back on their own physical force, and organizers of the American Federation of Labor would come in to counsel steadiness and peaceable methods." * The old-time organizations of workers for the most part seem to have reached the zenith of their power. They have improved working conditions, decreased hours of labor, regulated sanitation, helped to eliminate child-labor and the sweat-shops, but they have been totally unable to secure, even for most trade union members, a larger share in the products of industry. During the last two decades, prices have risen steadily, faster than wages. At the end of a ♦"Christianizing the Social Order," Walter Rauschenbusch. New York : The MacmiUan Co., 1912. Pp. 191-192. THE SPIEIT OF REVOLT 225 period of phenomenal prosperity, many a worker is less able to supply himself with the necessaries of life than he was at its beginning. As an instrument for improving the conditions surrounding the lives of the workers, the union has succeeded, but as a means for securing a more equitable distribution of the means of livelihood, it has failed. In recognition of this failure, the union members are everywhere turning from indirect to direct political action — from unionism to socialism. This change of attitude does not at all involve the abandonment of the union. Indeed, entire unions, like the Western Federa- tion of Miners, vote the socialist ticket. The change does involve, however, a fundamen- tal change in attitude. Instead of waiting for the representative of some other interest to do his work for him, the socialist sends his own representative to the legislature. The socialist has a programme which is much larger than that of the unionist. The latter insists upon a readjustment of working condi- tions, while the socialist demands a reorganiza- tion of society — a reorganization which he pro- poses to effect through the use of the ballot. Socialism, therefore, finds its logical outcome in the formation of a political party. Hinted at by Fourier, Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, and the other communists of the early nineteenth century, restated and symtematized 226 SOCIAL SANITY by Karl Marx and the host of co-workers who have written and spoken during the past forty years, sociaHsm is now a factor to be con- sidered in any statement of political tendencies. In Germany, the socialist vote is larger than that of any other party; in France it is increas- ing rapidly; in Belgium it is in entire control of some districts. Even in the United States, it is doubling with each presidential election, while socialist mayors, aldermen, and legisla- tors no longer excite comment. Socialism is an organized protest against the present system of distributing income, coupled with an organized effort to establish a new sys- tem, whereby income may be more rationally distributed. It has probably had more influ- ence on the thought of the masses and on the political tactics of the ruling parties than any other single movement in the nineteenth cen- tury. Whether the syndicalist movement must be taken seriously, no man can yet say. The rad- ical wing of the Socialist Party, tired of the failure of their leaders to reorganize the in- dustrial system in cases like that of Germany where they are in power, propose direct action. '' Parliamentary government," they cry, " is a failure. The workers must take what they want by direct means." These means, — first, the general strike, and finally the literal appro- priation of the productive machinery, — have THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT 227 been advocated freely in Europe, and the gen- eral strike has been used with telling effect. Unionism, socialism, and syndicalism are the three current channels along which the revolt of the worker is taking place. Thus far, these movements have been reasonably quiet — almost dignified in fact. What does the future hold for them? A group of successful young business men sat at lunch, discussing the Lawrence textile strike, when someone made this proposal, — *' Suppose you were a textile weaver, destined to be a weaver till you died. You couldn't be- come a mill-owner; you couldn't earn more than a certain wage ; you would have to live as those fellows live ; and when they reached the age of fourteen, you would have to see your children go into the mill." ^' Well," said a lawyer, with a strong jaw, ' ' I should be the leading agitator of the crowd, and so would everyone else who had red blood in his veins." Every man at the table agreed with the law- yer. Every man acknowledged fairly that the worker must fight his own fight. Each one saw that protest, if protest was to be made, could be made most effectively by the workers them- selves. The secretary of a child-labor committee was organizing a protest against child-labor in a textile district. To one of the members of 228 SOCIAL SANITY the textile union, who was not enthusiastic over the proposition, the secretary said; — << Why don't you take a more active part in this matter? You are interested in protecting the children, aren't you? " To which the textile worker made this crush- ing reply : — " My God, man, they're our children! " They were — his children — his flesh and blood, who were being taken from schools where they learned little, and placed in factories where they learned less. They were denied higher education. They were denied opportunity and leisure, because his wage was the merest pit- tance. Some may wonder when the exploited protest. The real wonder of wonders is that they do not revolt. So patent is this fact becoming, that even the exploiters — the masters — are leading re- volts against industrial and social injustice. Tom L. Johnson of Cleveland, a past-master at the game of getting rich, lost his fortune, his health, and finally his life, in his struggle with the vested interests. Whatever men may say or think of Johnson's methods, no one will question the sincerity of his intentions. He entered the field, made his big fight in a big way, and died at the moment of victory. Equally spectacular is the change in the atti- tude of George W. Perkins, formerly of the THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT 229 firm of J. P. Morgan & Company. Reared in the citadel of exploitation, Mr. Perkins, who had proved himself a tower of strength to the great financial interests, suddenly left the finan- cial arena, with the announcement that he pro- posed to spend the remainder of his days in disposing of his fortune for the betterment of mankind. The story is whispered that Mr. Perkins' machine broke down in an East Side tenement district, and that, while it was being repaired, Mr. Perkins had an opportunity to see, at first hand, life in the tenements. He had heard, but now his eyes burned the facts into his soul. Certainly the most interesting of the revolt- ing masters is Joseph Fels — a single taxer and multimillionaire. " I purpose," cried Mr. Fels, in one of his speeches, " to use my for- tune in overthrowing the damnable system which enabled me to acquire it." Mr. Fels means it, too. Patents and copyrights have been the chief source of Mr. Fels' fortune, though he tells, with charming frankness, of his successful land speculations. The patent office has backed him ; the tariff has protected him, yet Mr. Fels is vigorously opposed to both. During the Eng- lish Budget campaign, when the chief issue was the taxation of land values, Mr. Fels was financial backer, political engineer, and stump speaker. He has toured the United States from 230 SOCIAL SANITY coast to coast, delivering single-tax addresses. No one who lias heard his ringing denunciation of the present social system and his brilliant pleas for his panacea, can for a moment doubt that Mr. Fels is in dead earnest. No three revolting masters are better known in the United States, yet, while their prominence lends publicity to their acts, they are merely representatives of a great movement of dissat- isfaction among the masters of capital. Uni- versity endowments, libraries, laboratories, pension funds, and charitable gifts are all in- dications of the spirit of revolt which is work- ing among the very men who have profited most by the system of society against which they protest. If the revolt of the masters is deep-seated and widespread, the revolt of the beneficiaries is even more marked. The old generation, the original captains of industry, is dying, leaving the bulk of its vast fortunes to heirs who took no part in fortune-making. Some of these heirs, awakened to the facts of life, as they are, frankly refuse to continue the fortune-getting of their fathers, and instead, turn their atten- tion to some social pursuit. Notable among this group is the heir to the Rockefeller fortune. Able, public-spirited to a degree, and deeply concerned in social matters, this man is one of the leading spirits in the fight against pros- titution, and against the forces that lead toward THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT 231 prostitution, too. Stokes of New York, and Patterson of Chicago, both wealthy by inherit- ance, and both ardent socialists, are interesting examples of the extreme reaction which is tak- ing place among the sons of the rich men. Gifford Pinchot, at the end of his college course, faced the choice between club life in New York and Washington, and an occupation. He chose an occupation, went abroad, made himself con- versant with the forestry problem, and returned to put his knowledge into practice. Since that time he has been rising higher and higher in public estimation, until he is regarded as one of the most useful citizens of the nation. There are certain things in which Mr. Pinchot believes. It is for these things that he works. If the vested interests are in the way of his ends, he says so, boldly. He has succeeded in con- structing, for the United States, a conservation policy, which applies not alone to forests, but to every other natural resource. While it is undoubtedly true that the rich man's daughter usually idles in society, and the rich man's son ordinarily takes up a profession or business career, there is an increasing tendency on the part of both sons and daughters to ask *' Where? " and " Why! " of their unearned in- comes. When the masters and the beneficiaries ques- tion, and even condemn, is it any wonder that the spectators take sides against a grotesquely 232 SOCIAL SANITY unjust system of wealth distribution? True, there are editors who are purchased, teachers who are silenced, magazines which are muzzled, and lecturers who, serving God and Mammon, frequently forget God. On the whole, however, the newspapers, magazines, lecturers, teachers, and social workers are questioning the validity of things as they are. These doubting Thomases may go no further than a discussion of the implications arising out of the increased cost of living; they may decry results without seeking for causes; they may vilify the trusts and fail to suggest any constructive policy ; they may sentimentalize on " the interests " and " Wall Street " without caring to be more specific, — the facts remain none the less true that a perusal of the leading newspapers and magazines, attendance on lectures, the pursuit of college courses, talks with social workers, and even church attendance, would lead the average man to question the validity of many present social arrangements. No thoughtful man can pass through, much less visit, a city slum, without questioning. Blatant display challenges dull poverty in such certain tones that even the hard of hearing cannot fail to attend. Why should one man — no demi-god — be in a position to give away ten millions of dollars'? Perhaps the most patent fact of all is the discrepancy between static wages and a rising cost of some of the chief necessaries of THE SPIRIT OF REVOLT 233 life. Hence the spectator questions, suggests, insists, demands. Of all the revolts, the most spectacular is the revolt of the women, who, for ages, have been taught to accept the thing which is, and to be content with it. Traditionally, the judgment of women is subject to that of men in industry, education, literature, philosophy, and science. Practically in all of these fields the achieve- ments of women have been slight. Yet the last two generations have witnessed a complete overturning in the attitude of women as a group. Prior to that time a few scattering women had agitated this or that reform, but society still believed implicitly that the home was woman's place and that unless some untoward circumstance called her from it, she should stay there. In the transformation of social life which has forced women out of the home into spheres of varied usefulness, no factor has had a more potent influence than the woman's col- leges. '* When I went to college," laughed a middle- aged woman, " only freaks registered. We were a queer lot — there was hardly a girl among us who did not have some outlandish streak in her make-up. Now, however, it seems to be quite the thing." Since it is quite the thing, women are flocking to colleges by the tens of thousands. Some study professions. Some take special courses in preparation for various 234 SOCIAL SANITY lines of teaching, but by far the greater pro- portion gain from their college course a wider view and a spirit of co-operation, which takes them far from the traditional home of their ancestors, out into the stirring life of the world. Such a student was Carola Woerishoffer, Class of 1907, Bryn Mawr, whose recent tragic death forced baldly, upon public attention, the story of a life * which comes very near to typi- fying the spirit of revolt among a certain group of women. After receiving her degree, this girl went directly into social work in New York, " to learn and to help," she said, " she was open- minded and open-hearted. She feared no one, she was insatiable in her curiosity and her love of adventure. She was full of passionate en- thusiasm—a fiery patriot— a worshiper of everyone who did things." The descendant of public- spirited parents, with large funds at her command, this young woman threw herself enthusiastically into the maelstrom of New York social problems. First she provided a large part of the money neces- sary to finance a congestion exhibit, which showed to New York some of the sore spots hidden for so long. Then, for four months, she worked as a novice in the city's laundries in order to make a report on the conditions sur- rounding the women workers there. When the ♦ " A Noble Life," Ida M. Tarbell. American Magazine, July, 1912. Pp. 281-287. THE SPIEIT OF REVOLT 235 shirtwaist workers struck, she provided bail bonds up to the sum of ninety thousand dollars for the host of girls who were arrested for street picketing. Appointed to a post in the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, she took up that work with the same vigor that had char- acterized her other activities. It was in the course of one of her inspection trips that she was thrown from a machine and killed. Carola Woerishoffer was an example, but she was also a type — an extreme type, perhaps — of the women who have come to realize that some of the problems lying without the home are as much of her business as those strictly domestic duties to which she has been accus- tomed. She felt, saw, and did. She was edu- cated, she was intelligent. She was rich, but before all, she was a member of present-day society. Together with an increasing army of earnest women, she took her membership duties seriously. Illustrations might be heaped together to establish the point. They abound on every side. A woman who was studying the regulation of prostitution in New York, was seeking to in- terest the wives of a number of influential men in her plan to be arrested as a street walker, in order that she might gain a most intimate knowledge of the problem. She hoped that, if these women stood by her, most of the unpleas- ant consequences of arrest might be avoided. 236 SOCIAL SANITY So she explained the advantages of her scheme and the dangers incident to it. One of the ladies, who had been listening intently to the discussion, leaned forward, suddenly. " Don't do it just yet," she begged; '' wait until I can go with you." The campaign for suffrage, for clean streets, pure milk, sanitary housing, safe factories, de- cent hours, wise regulations of the work of women and children are all part of the women's revolt. The traditionally weaker sex has be- come strong; the supposedly passive part of the human race has become aggressive. Women have awakened to the needs of the day, re- sponding nobly to the call for action. A cen- tury ago, women were hardly counted in the scheme of things. Starting from a life sur- rounded by numberless restrictions and tradi- tions, the women have moved fast and far in their campaign for a keener social justice and a higher social morality. The spirit of revolt has not been felt by everyone. There are men and women in all walks of life who are thoroughly satisfied with things as they are. Yet there is not a single group in the modern world from the weariest toilers to the weariest idlers which has not somewhere in its ranks a band of " reformers," ** progressives," or " radicals " who preach enthusiastically the doctrine of revolt. XI THE PASSION FOR PROGRESS The spirit revolt is the negative pole of which the passion for progress is the positive. Finding the injustice of the present intolerable, the soul turns the eye of faith to the future, believing that there lies something greater and better than anything that has been. In the full- ness of time, with the growth of man's king- dom, these greater, better things will come to pass. To-day paves the road over which to- morrow will journey to a brighter future. Al- ready the revolters of the present sense the grandeur of that future; already they feel the grip of its sure fulfillment; and although they may never see, with the eyes of the flesh, the consummation of those things for which they have labored, although they will never hear, as did the anxious-watching Columbus, the cry of *' Land, land! "; they may yet ascend Mount Horeb, and with the eyes of the spirit view the promised land. The passion for progress is a human passion of gripping power. Once this passion has secured possession of a soul, until that soul 237 238 SOCIAL SANITY parts from the body, it may rest neither by night nor by day. One thing alone remains, — it must strive, ardently, incessantly, for the thing which the spirit has seen. The passion for progress is to its votaries a religion, deeply felt, fiercely believed. The passion for progress leads men to the stake and to the gallows. It compels, ennobles, inspires. Shelley, high priest among the poet-prophets of the nineteenth century, writes in his Preface to " Prometheus," — " Let this opportunity be conceded to me of acknowledging that I have, what a Scotch philosopher characteristically terms, ^ a passion for reforming the world.' . . . For my part I had rather be damned with Plato and Lord Bacon, than to go to Heaven with Paley and Malthus." It is no less an enthusiasm which fills his poetry with its un- surpassed human fire, which thrilled through his life from boyhood until his death. Always he found it better to be damned with the choice spirits of change than to be saved among the worshipers of things as they are. To the pas- sionate lover of freedom and progress no less a choice was open. His world was a becoming world, and his soul, fired with the grandeur of what is and with glory of what might be, cried out always, in vehement protest. His spirit breathes in Prometheus 's reply to those who are lamenting over his prospective torments. Bound to the precipice, because of his love for THE PASSION FOR PROGRESS 239 mankind, and his service for the human race, he has been sentenced to torture by the furies. Even the messenger whom Jupiter has sent to inflict the torture cannot conceal his admira- tion of Prometheus, but exclaims : — ^' Mercury. — Alas! I wonder at, yet pity thee." " Prometheus. — Pity the self -despising slaves of Heaven, Not me, within whose mind sets peace serene. As light in the sun, throned. How vain is talk! Call lip the fiends." The fiends appear, threaten Prometheus, and then torture mankind, for whose welfare Prome- theus has sacrificed so much. The conflict is a terrible one. The soul of Prometheus, who rep- resents the new order of love and faith, and the spirit Jupiter, who is the god of the old, struggle for mankind. Jupiter, for the moment victori- ous, yet fears one thing: — " The soul of man, like unextinguished fire. Yet burns toward heaven with fierce reproach and doubt, And lamentation and reluctant prayer. Hurling up insurrection, which might make Our antique empire insecure, though built On eldest faith, and hell's coeval, fear." 240 SOCIAL SANITY Nor is his dread groundless, for Eternity comes to lead the ruler of heaven to the Abyss, where he must dwell in darkness for evermore. Jupiter curses, threatens, cries for mercy, and then, feeling the pinions of defeat upon him, he laments that Prometheus cannot be his judge, for despite all of the torture which he has in- flicted upon him he well knows that " He would not doom me thus. Gentle, and just, and dreadless, is he not The monarch of the world? " No sooner has the spirit of Prometheus tri- umphed than a great change comes over the face of the world. Crass exteriors, evil, wrong, hate, misery, and vice, lose their grip on men and things so that in a twinkling the light of Prometheus 's victory is all-pervasive. It is this vision which the Spirit of the Earth de- scribes : — '' My path lately lay through a great city Into the woody hills surrounding it: A sentinel ivas sleeping at the gate: When there was heard a sound, so loud, it shook The towers amid the moonlight, yet more siveet Than any voice hut thine, sweetest of all; A long, long sound, as it would never end: And all the inhabitants leapt suddenly Out of their rest, and gathered in the streets, THE PASSION FOR PROGRESS 241 Looking in ivonder up to Heaven, while yet The music pleaded along. . . . and soon Those ugly human shapes and visages Of ivhich I spoke as having ivrought me pain, Passed floating through the air, and fading still Into the winds that scattered them; and those From ivhom they passed seemed mild and lovely forms After some foul disguise had fallen, and all Were somewhat changed, and after brief sur- prise And greetings of delighted ivonder, all Went to their sleep again : and tvhen the daivn Came, wouldst thou think that toads, and snakes, and efts. Could e'er he heautifulf yet so they ivere. And that with little change of shape or hue." Nowhere in literature is there a passage which surpasses this in portrayal of the world as it will be when men have replaced fear and hate by love and hope. No poet better than Shelley could have penned such a prophecy, because in him the prophetic spirit ran deep and strong. Shelley is not alone in his hope for the fu- ture. The passion for progress breathes in other men. The great French idealist, like the English poet, believed in the future. At a mo- ment of fateful import, just before the dawn 242 SOCIAL SANITY which marked the time of his execution, Gauvain looked into the future. His crime was one against the Republic, — he had aided the escape of a prisoner whose calm bravery in a terrible crisis had won his love and esteem. In these last moments of his life, spent with his much loved tutor, Gauvain spoke of the future, appraising its indescribable possibilities. " This is my thought, constant progression. If God had meant man to retrograde he would have put an eye in the back of his head. Let us look always toward the dawn, the blossom- ing, the birth; that which falls encourages that which mounts. The cracking of the old tree is an appeal to the new." " Let us be a human society, greater than Nature? Yes. If you add nothing to Nature, why go beyond her? Content yourself with work like the ant; with honey, like the bee. Remain the working drudge instead of the queen intelligence. If you add to Nature, you necessarily become greater than she ; to increase is to augment; to augment is to grow. Society is Nature sublimated. I want all that is lacking to bee-hives, all that is lacking to ant-hills — monuments, arts, poesy, heroes, genius. To bear eternal burdens is not the destiny of man. No, no, no ! No more pariahs, no more slaves, no more convicts, no more damned ! I desire that each of the attributes of man should be a symbol of civilization and a patron of progress ; I would THE PASSION FOR PROGRESS 243 place liberty before the spirit, equality before the heart, fraternity before the soul. No more yokes ! Man was made not to drag chains, but to soar on wings. No more of man the reptile. I wish the transfiguration of the larva into the winged creature ; I wish the worm of the earth to turn into a living flower and fly away? " * So shines the hope of the future in the soul of poet and idealist. Time was when they alone might justly claim these domains. So far away they seemed that when men thought of them at all it was in terms of a paradise, where ease and luxury should replace the hardships and nig- gardliness of a too unwilling world. To-day, the spirit of progress has made its home in the breasts of men in many walks of life. On all sides the ranks of the children of the established order are giving place to a new company, — the cliildren of the forward look. Or rather say that these latter children have forced them- selves, sometimes in the face of the most vigor- ous opposition, into the place once occupied by the established order. They are full of anima- tion, enthusiasm, vitality, life. " These Chil- dren of the Forward Look are the really sig- nificant part of society. They make it worth while. They dance on ahead with light feet and merry hearts and high purpose, — the leaders, prophets, poets, artists, heretics, protestants, — singing one song in many places and in many *" Ninety-Three," Victor Hugo : " The Dungeon." 244 SOCIAL SANITY tongues — the Song of the Beyond-Man. It is this life-giving hope which keeps our merry company of free spirits in such high good hu- mor. They are not dull and overfed and con- tented. They are alert with the wine of life. They are hungry for more life. They are con- tented, not with the present, but with the fu- ture." * Everywhere the cry is heard, — the cry of these hopeful ones. On all sides it arises. So far has it penetrated the atmosphere of the times, that dull scientists, touched with its spirit, burst strong and full-bodied into poetic splendor of language and of thought. Restive' under the prescribed bonds of pure science, the great Huxley speaks from the heart of the things of this life for the science of the future, — ' ' But in every age, one or two restless spirits, blessed with that constructive genius, which can only build on a secure foundation, or cursed with the spirit of mere skepticism, are unable to follow in the well-worn and comfortable track of their forefathers and contemporaries, un- mindful of thorns and stumbling-blocks, strike out into paths of their own. The skeptics end in the infidelity which asserts the problem to be insoluble, or in the atheism which denies the existence of any orderly progress and govern- ance of things: the men of genius propound * " Pay Day." C. H. Henderson. Boston : Houghton Miflflin, 1911. Pp. 3, 4. THE PASSION FOR PROGRESS 245 solutions which grow into systems of Theology or of Philosophy, or veiled in musical language which suggests more than it asserts, take the shape of the Poetry of an epoch." * How splendid such a view, coming, as it does, strong-scented with the odors of the dissecting table and the lecture room! Even from the least of these, — even from the deductive ana- lysts, tearing in pieces the kingdoms of earth, and rejecting the kingdom of heaven, if for no other reason than because it will not yield itself to the edge of the keenest scalpel, — from among such arise prophetic ones who see in the materialism of their science a faint reflection of the spirituality of all things. Although Hux- ley dealt admirably with the minutiae of the kingdom of the world, the idea of the great whole never escaped him. Always his vision transcended the immediate present, revealing to him a future rich in endless possibilities. '' Healthy humanity finding itself hard-pressed to escape from real sin and degradation will leave the brooding over speculative pollution to the cynics and the ' righteous overmuch ' who, disagreeing in everything else, unite in blind insensibility to the nobleness of the visible world, and in inability to appreciate the gran- deur of the place Man occupies therein, "f *" Man's Place in Nature," T. H. Huxley. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1902. Pp. 77, 78. \Ibid., p. 154. 246 SOCIAL SANITY Hear the voice of one other philosopher of the future,— Nietzsche, called " brutalist " by those, the children of the established order, be- cause he saw a vision which their narrower souls could not compass. " What? " he cries in indignant protest. '' A fatherland. Thither striveth our rudder, where our children's land is. Out thither, stormier than the sea ; our great longing storm- eth." " Unto my children shall I make amends for being the child of my fathers ; and unto all the future shall I make amends for this pres- ent! " "0 my brethren, not backward shall your nobility gaze, but forward! Expelled ye shall be from all fathers' and forefathers' lands! Your children's land ye shall love, (be this love your new nobility!) *' The land undiscovered, in the remotest sea! For it bid your sails seek and seek! " " All those who do not wish to live unless they learn to hope again, unless they learn from thee, ! Zarathustra, the Great Hope! " * The classic civilizations died when they lost hope. Having subjected the world to their polit- ical sway, they retired, blase, to the feast halls, or else, satiated with conquest, languished for other worlds to subdue. Limited to military glory and speculative philosophy, they early reached the final possibilities of each, and then ♦ "Thus Spake Zarathustra." THE PASSION FOR PROGRESS 247 left them, almost gladly, to the hands of the barbarians. How has our world broadened! Experimental science and mechanics open the way to the vaster reaches of metaphysics; ex- perimental democracy holds untold possibilities for future efforts, and the world, tied close with threads of steel and invisible bands of electric discharge, presses eagerly forward, its eyes fixed on the future, searching, searching, for life, joy, satisfaction. Not alone among the mighty, outside the vale of culture and hered- itary greatness, this passion has taken firm hold upon the minds of men. It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but surely, surely, the future holds many things grander than the things of to-day. The fire of progress burnt out among the ancients, for lack of fuel. For us, the re- sources seem limitless, and the fire burns bright and strong — sometimes even raging. Greatest factor of all perhaps, in the world- sweep of the passion for progress, is the con- sciousness that society may in large measure grant or withhold the most essential of all of the factors in progress — opportunity. Oppor- tunity is in the hands of men. The kingdom of man may be made either a garden of oppor- tunity, or a desert of fatalistic determinism, and men do the work. Yet once more the doubters storm the citadel of hope. Time was when in answer to any argu- ment for progress, they could recline luxuri- 248 SOCIAL SANITY OTisly on the down cusMons of an easy faitK and reply, — " Let be ! It is the will of God," — a dirge which has lulled to sleep thousands of rising consciences ; a requiem moaned over the corpse of many a long cherished hope. In the bitterness of her rebellious spirit, Glad, on be- ing admonished to heed the will of God, cries : — " When a dray run over little Billy an' crushed 'im inter a rag, an' 'is mother was screamin' an' draggin' 'er 'air down, the curick 'e ses, ' It's Gawd's will,' 'e ses— an' 'e ain't no bad sort neither an' 'is fice was white an' wet with sweat — ' Gawd done it,' 'e ses. An' me, I'd nussed the child, an' I clawed me 'air sime as if 'was 'is mother an' screamed out, ' Then damn 'im j ' " * There is still an intrenchment, behind which the children of the established order make a determined stand. No longer able to shoulder the results of social misdoing upon a merciful God or a convenient devil, they answer " Alas, that is human nature. ' ' Human nature ! What is human nature? Is it the same yesterday, to-day, and forever more! There is then no beyond man, no forward look? Humanity alone of all the great universe is standing still. Each other thing is changing with the times. Man remains. What more hopeless or absurd concept than that human nature does not change. Man, like * " Dawn of a To-morrow," Francis H. Burnett. THE PASSION FOR PROGRESS 249 every other being, was, and he becomes. His life is a continuous transformation. Contrast the human nature of western Europe with the hu- man nature of the Caledonian savages. In every line man differs from man. There are certain things common to all humanity — five fingers on each of two hands; two eyes; the power of speech; emotions; rage; fear; hate; sex passion; judgment and reason. Compare each of these things, and you will find that, even in these, the two groups of men differ. The atti- tude, the thoughts, the spirit of their living — by far the most important element in a civilization — have utterly changed. The Caledonian, the Tasmanian, — they know nothing of love, of altruism, of science, — con- cepts which are a part of the heritage of the Western races. Notwithstanding the exceptional cases of abnormal inhumanity man has ad- vanced; human form and human nature have both evolved. In the future lie yet greater triumphs. The " will of God " w^as a bogey, used to frighten half -tutored savages. '^ Human na- ture " is a shibboleth, having for its justifica- tion about the same elements of truth and error as does any other shibboleth. Attend! while the passion for progress speaks of the future, made possible through the will of man. xn THE QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIAL SANITY Though we are imbued with the passion for progress, though we feel within us the spirit of revolt, we would be sane. Each issue as it is presented we would face in the spirit of sci- ence; each new day we would begin in the at- mosphere of virile, sound living. We would en- large, with all of the power that lies in us, man's kingdom. Within the boundaries of that king- dom we would insure welfare and guarantee human rights. As a community we would be sane — sane in living, sane in labor, sane in thought, sane in belief. We covet social sanity. Yet how clearly does it appear, even to our dull senses, that a living for one is not truly sane until a living has been assured to all. Above all else, how obvious does it seem that each child that comes into the world must be given a legitimate chance to develop whatever power lies within him. If people were born with a fatalistic curse upon their lives, pre- destined to wrongdoing; if total depravity were an inherited thing, the product of the degen- 250 QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIAL SANITY 251 eracy of past ages, progress would be impos- sible. During the centuries when such ideas were held, little progress was made because each person felt the impossibility of a forward move- ment. The last few years have witnessed a transformation in this attitude. Thinkers have turned from the total depravity theory to the universal capacity theory. Now, on all sides, they vigorously maintain the possibility of im- provement if opportunity is made universal. Why afford opportunity? Why, indeed? Why seek welfare in adjustment? It is true that some men are born to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, born without ambition or capacity, born without the qualities which make men run steadily. Nevertheless, the chil- dren of these men may, and frequently do, have ambition, capacity, and quality. It is for them that we provide universal opportunity. It is because of the infinite, unknown possibilities of each soul that we seek to start each man at the same mark, well equipped for the race of life. He may drop out of the race before he has completed his first lap, but he may go to the end, — a triumphant victor. The possibility that he may be worthy is the ground on which we demand opportunity for him. The scientific discoveries of the past fifty years have led inevitably to the conclusion that the great majority of men are born with rela- tively equal capacities. The real differences in 252 SOCIAL SANITY the achievements of their lives are made by the variations in opportunity. This necessitates a revision of the old social code, and the adop- tion of the newer, broader standard. Some men are depraved, sinful, wicked; na- ture's man is a good man: therefore, " Back to nature," cried Rousseau. " Humanity is iden- tity," insisted Hugo. There is in every man a spark which the light will cause to develop, but which, in the darkness of ignorance, is crusted and blackened until its radiance is well- nigh extinguished. Emerson in like spirit con- tended that, " Every man is a divinity in dis- guise." And later Lester F. Ward, analyzing the problem at length in his " Applied Sociol- ogy," contends earnestly that in a great major- ity of cases opportunity makes the man. Two children are born on the same day — born with equal power of body, mind, and soul. One is carefully fed, well clothed, and housed, taken to the mountains in summer, surrounded by cul- tured men and women and by congenial play- mates, sent through school and college, and at the age of twenty-two established in a law office with the best of recommendations and i^rospects. The other child, badly fed and housed, grows up in an atmosphere of neglect. His body is anemic ; his mind is untrained. His father, who never earned more than a pittance, falls sick; so at twelve the undeveloped, neglected boy is sent, without encouragement or outlook, to tie QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIAL SANITY 253 threads in a cotton mill. At twenty-two he is earning nine dollars a week. At times the am- bition to study law has flitted across his mind, but who would support mother and the children while he was at his books? He dismisses the thought, and goes on with his work. If the first boy had been similarly reared, he would be in the cotton factory. The start was uneven; one boy had a handicap of physique, mental train- ing, soul expansion, and ten years of freedom to play and grow. The other boy was damned in his cradle. It is for his sake, — for the boy who might have been a brilliant lawyer, — that we preach the doctrine of opportunity. An overwhelming majority of people are nor- mal at birth, and if given an opportunity will lead normal, happy lives. Were opportunity provided, adjustment would be assured. Each new generation presents the same spectacle. Children are born with capacity. Congestion, low standards of food and clothing, overwork, — all of these things crush the qualities which make for achievement. Society abounds in ca- pacity which is latent — unused — because of the lack of opportunity for its development. This capacity is needed, and its development, a social responsibility, is intimately dependent upon the socializing of opportunity. In order to secure this universality of oppor- tunity which will insure individual development, some changes must be made in the environment. 254 SOCIAL SANITY Families are underpaid and badly housed; the children are sent into the mills at fourteen ; the school system does not prepare its pupils for life ; men die at an early age because of indus- trial accidents, sickness, and other preventable causes of death. In these and a thousand other ways, the opportunity of the individual is cur- tailed by a defective environment. Regarding these conditions advocates of progress are in virtual agreement, — they may all be reshaped, adjusted, if society wishes to advance. Disadvantageous social conditions are the work of man. No divine will has placed them in the path of progress. They are the creation of human society, and as such may be socially eliminated. Further, they are being rapidly changed through the activity of a public opinion, aroused by the reformers, insurgents, or progressives, — by whatever name they are called. Seeing the path clear before them, these believers in progress are insisting upon a com- plete adjustment of the environment to the needs of man. Read where you will in the writings of those who believe in progress, and you will find that, — (1) opportunity is the goal; (2) all people are worth while; and (3) adjustment is possible. With such a basis of agreement as to ends, but one thing remains, — the reformers must agree upon the method necessary for their attainment. Agreement has been reached regarding all the QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIAL SANITY 255 important premises on which progress is based. The only real disagreement relates to the method of insuring progress. Even as regards method a measure of unison prevails. It is generally admitted that improve- ments are made through evolution rather than through revolution. Sudden disturbances do not effect important changes, either biologic or social. Revolutions do occur, — providing much food for thought. Nevertheless, no man can conceive of a revolution which would result in changing the methods of thought or the motives of activity of any one generation of people. The incoming of the factory system and the enunciation of Darwin's concept of evolution, are good illustrations of revolutionary changes. In both of these cases, the change in popular opinion has required decades for its comple- tion. The pages of biologic and of social his- tory are written in terms of slow change. An even more perfect agreement exists among reformers on the subject of education. Each concludes his programme with the state- ment, ' ' If you will but educate the popular mind to a point of intelligent thinking, it will rec- ognize the fundamental worthiness of my scheme for reform. Education must, however, precede conversion." This idea of the neces- sity of education underlies the work of every reformer, who sees plainly that education lays the foundation for progress. 256 SOCIAL SANITY Here lies the path toward opportunity. Here, ready at hand, are the means, — capable men and women, educational machinery, and a be- lief in the possibility of improvement. Does mankind still hesitate! Do intelligent beings still pause! Does anyone dream that there is not need for drastic readjustment? Hardly! Then why wait longer? This is surely the ac- ceptable time! Why wait? Only because the traditions of the past hamper the movements of large bodies. Only because, things having been done in a cer- tain way for a time, it becomes anti-social even to suggest that they be done in another way. These methods have been used in past ages; they have been tested and tried; they are at least workable ; why change ? What validity attaches to such an argument? How much of truth does such a doctrine hold ? We are bound to the past — how strictly? Here be our declaration of faith in yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow: — We are living, breathing, aspiring, believing women and men, standing upright, looking hope- fully, fearlessly, into the future. In our beings surges the spirit of the twentieth century — our century. To the warnings, predictions, and be- hests of the past we pay this much heed — they built, they formulated, they aspired, they hoped ■ — for all of these things we respect them. Where the foundation which they built was QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIAL SANITY 257 stropg and sound, we erect upon it our super- structure; those of the formulas which have proven of value, we accept ; their prophecies we observe with critical interest; their hopes — the hopes of progressing humanity — we honor. But we, too, are human beings. We build. We formulate. We aspire. We hope. We, now, in the tense, vital, full-starred present, live our lives, — lives which they in the dead past cannot share ; lives which those others, yearning to us out of the plastic future, will bless or curse ac- cording as we shape them. Good is it that thou sayest, '' I am the child of my fathers." Better is it that thou sayest, " I am a man among men." Best of all it is when ye shall join your voices in a mighty anthem of thanksgiving, crying unto the uni- verse, " We are the progenitors of an unsur- passed future." The past lived and died in the past. Ours is the present — the time in which we re-plight our faith with the spirit of the living God in us; in which we beget and bear noble children; in which we pledge ourselves to a new declara- tion of life wherein it shall be written that every child born into the world must have an equal chance to share the good things which the world holds in store. Misery, vice, starvation, low wages, unearned fortunes, squandered luxury, blackest inhumanity, are in the past. Let them die there. For we, in our generation, have here 258 SOCIAL SANITY highly resolved that when the day comes that our bones shall be laid to rest beside those of our fathers, the world in which we lived and labored and loved will be fuller than it has even been before of the joy in noble living. The time has come to organize a sane society, — a society of men and women who are educated, efficient, cultured ; a society in which health and life are conserved; a society of which justice is the corner-stone, with ennobled manhood and womanhood the central dome, reaching to high heaven. Full of hope the world is turning to the fu- ture, enthusiastic, prophetic, in the faith of its appeal. Surmounting their narrower selves, men have come to feel that : — ** We build the ladder by which we rise From the loivly earth to the vaulted skies, And mount to the summit round by round. )f No longer are we depending upon the hands of some other. Each day must the rungs be shaped and placed, and each day it is the hand of man that must do the work. Through the upbuilding of the race, through the reconstruc- tion of civilization, by means whereof the mind of man has not yet even dreamed, shall man build beyond-man! Pessimism, gripping men in bygone days, had led everywhere to the backward look. Unsat- QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIAL SANITY 259 isfied humanity gazed longingly into the past, then turned to look hopelessly into the future. " Time was," whispers the demon within them, and deaf to any other voice, lost in contempla- tion of glories long s-ince passed away, these men of little vision have felt the present fall from them like a garment; the future withers away, hopeless and meaningless; while the light of the golden ages long passed has flooded the aching heart and gladdened the empty, somber chambers of their lives. Upon such a field of desolation, — a kingdom which man was giving over to the fowls of the air, the beasts of the field, the goblins of black despair, and the will-o'-the-wisp of the golden ages long gone by, — the spirit of science has led optimism. In a twinkling the face of the world changes. Through the eyes of faith, man sees beyond the structures of the present into the golden wonders of an untried future. In the chaos of a struggling civilization he sees the partially completed records of his greatness and the greaterness of his children's children. Delusion vanishes; and afflicted man, rousing himself from his lethargy, learns to believe that the hope of the present is not in the past, but in the future. The world is becoming — ^becoming under his guidance. The gates of his kingdom are thrown wide before him. Shall he enter in? He may continue to gloat on the past, reclining in his easy chair 260 SOCIAL SANITY of prejudice, bigotry, and tradition, — Canute- like, commanding the waves of the spirit of progress to refrain from lapping his feet ; or he may make himself a part of the spirit of the times, and, thrilled with the passion of progress, strive ardently to broaden the borders of the kingdom of man. This book is DUE on the last date stamped below m 6 \95^ Form L-9-15ot-7,'32 \^, 3 ^ UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 823 378 5 pMJ'f IH- UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA UBRAKY