A A 8 2 1 6 5 2 Sii-&-M%<;;>i-:<<:4 '.>yo»>'//-&>:<''ff/f://Zfy' THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Progress From Experience By Edward Selden Hyde Cochrane Publishing Companj Tribune Building New York 1910 Copyright, 1910, by Edward Selden Hyde. 4,4 Progress From Experience 1521847 CONTENTS Chapter Page I. Progress in Progression . - - - 9 II. Industrial Progress ----- 16 III. The Survival of the Fittest - - - 22 IV. Present Industrial Tendencies - - - 25 V. Trusts and the Tariff - - - - 35 VI. Industry and the State ... - 42 VII. The Socialization of Industry - - - 48 VIII. The Root of all Evil - - . - 56 IX. Socialism in relation to Christianity and De- mocracy -..--- 61 X. Current Social Tendencies - - - - 68 XI. Religion and Progress . - - - 74 XII. The Puritan Succession - - - - 79 Progress From Experience CHAPTER I. PROGRESS IN PROGRESSION. The most constant, evident and general fact of civi- lization is progress, the forward movement. Recogniz- ing this we as promptly become aware of a backward facing, wistful or well considered. The romancer finds rich material in the palmy days before the war, in the homespun age of New England and in the brave days of old when knighthood was in flower; while the seri- ous student discovers that all revolutions have been too revolutionary, that part of that which was thought to be destroyed returns unbidden, or that men set about with earnest purpose to restore something of that which was overthrown. The change and advance which no man's hand may stay may be the bringing in of a bet- ter order of things in the general estimation or in reality, yet a very human clinging to the past is so large a characteristic of most of us that few words of our daily vocabulary bear to the understanding such an equivocal meaning as progress. No need to divide the human family into the two camps distinguished as conservative and progressive when even those who know their own minds find reason and justification for both sentiments and both attitudes. Really, the abso- lute conservatives and the out-and-out progressives are 9 10 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE not to be taken seriously. The temperamental outlook on life is inconclusive. We are cheered by the optimis- tic without being convinced while we receive the warn- ings of the pessimistic without illumination. There are the best of reasons why both conservatism and pro- gressiveness should be universal qualities of the human mind. Without conservatism progress could have neither point of departure nor permanency; would be mere change having but momentary significance ; wouM as often be retrogression. Without progress conserva- tism would weigh doM^n aspiration and circumscribe every human purpose and endeavor. Forces which make for progress? without which pro- gress would be impossible? Assuredly; but in social dynamics as in the division of mechanics the applica- tion of power is as large a question as that of the power itself. If progress were an involuntary process or ten- dency of human society then simple awe or complacent acquiescense, either implying a state of irresponsibility on our part, would be justifiable. But if instead of .-i process progress be a result of influences and tendencies in which each and all are intimately concerned, and in which individual aims and purposes become the com- mon motive of considerable groups counting as factors among others, then the average person's equipment of two or three general facts, half a dozen specific facts and a temperament, is inadequate for arriving at the full understanding which the matter demands. For we must do ourselves both the honor and the justice to suppose that that which sums up the final results of liv- ing is not to be compassed without the smallest chal- lenge of our exercised faculties and with no quickening of the keenest of our endowments. PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 11 Is there really any such thing as progress? And does that of the present time merely consist in follow- ing the downward slope? There are those who con- sider that the world was not intended to be very good, and that it is quite useless trying to make it better; but that a man has the chance of making his account with the world as it is on terms fairly satisfactory to himself; and so we are never without the company of the cheerful pessimist. We might have worse. Those results of ages of living which gave men's minds the idea of progress are most naturally related to the experiences of past and present generations out of which they grew. As each new generation comes to consciousness it discovers that with its recognized force of will its only escape from abject and paralyz- ing ignorance is to avail of the store of past experience condensed in textbooks, teachings and example ; at the same time it finds that all that this piled up experience has done or can do is to enable those in the stress and endurance of life to make the best of the limitations and hindrances with which they are beset. Then find- ing that the good within reach is neutralized by the bad which has never been gotten rid of, and that the best which is just out of reach is kept out of reach by its own limitations, each generation is spurred by these dissatisfactions to sort over the old experiences and match them up with its own in the endeavor to increase the efficiency of its working theory. It is in the nature of things that where dissatisfac- tion is felt it should be keener in the case of experi- ences still fresh in memory than in the case of older and half-forgotten ones ; and out of this arises an alter- nating in experimental tendencies which gives the pes- 12 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE simist his opportunity to say that it is all an endless and meaningless swinging of the pendulum wherein action and reaction are equal. Where there is shifting and displacement it is inevitable that some admirable things should suffer or lose their relative value, even while real progress is the outcome. That there is noth- ing new under the sun, however, is the expression of a sentiment rather than of a fact. Each generation faces a dawn of rising possibilities, glimmering theories and cheerful expectations, overshot by bars of hope and imagination reaching towards the heights of heaven. In so far as these theories, propo- sitions and imaginings come into practice and are made trial of, they become experience, and through this medium may contribute to progress. Of course it is the fond fancy of those devoted to new ideas that such thought out propositions constitute progress with- out much regard to the experience bom of them, but the natural order is otherwise. If original ideas, ex- perience and progress not only follow each other in order, but in uniform and corresponding ratio, then let theories come thick and fast and let the experience mill be pushed day and night to the accompaniment of buzz-saw, trolley and pneumatic riveter; but uniform- ity ends with the order of succession and that's what makes the game interesting. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and we linger on the shore of reflection in the stillness of whose air the recurrent fall of the waves of the flowing tides conduces to mental assimila- tion rather than to forcing processes of what kind so- ever. Meantime conservatism which is stationary is merely pessimism in another form. It amounts to the asser- PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 13 tion that experience can teach us nothing, and there- fore might just as well not be. "We must do as our fathers did because that's the way. If we fall to ex- amining their experience we shall discover wherein they came short and wherein possibly we might do better. Some people never learn by experience. Some peo- ples do not learn by experience, and so we have the un- progressive races, whose experience is for the profit of others than themselves. "The tendency of the age" has ever been on men's lips. In proportion as we realize that the tendencies of the past have given place to those of our o^\'n time must we be persuaded that present tendencies are not destined to last; that in fact their present authority may be the essential mark of their transitory character. A man not in sympathy with his age subjects himself to deprivation and limits the influence which he might exert; at the same time in proportion as we are domi- nated by the currents of our own time do we cease to be heirs of the ages except in dumb, unconscious fashion. The most brilliant achievement in discovery resulted from acting on a theory; and yet if Christopher Co- lumbus had been correct in his theory he would have perished with his crew long before reaching the desti- nation aimed for, and instead of an immortality of fame rewarding his heroic boldness one more pathetic tradition would have been added to the slumbering an- nals of men's tragic failures. The men of the expedi- tion were fully justified in their mutinous disposition. They had gone sailing with a navigator who did not know how far it was to Cochin China nor whether his provisions would hold out. No base of supplies on the 14 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE way could be counted on, and apparently none was counted on. The little scientific learning of the day was a dangerous thing. The driftage brought in by prolonged westerly gales was a safer dependence than the theory that the world was round. If Columbus had headed westward on the theory that the world was flat and in the confidence that tree-trunks cast up by the sea had not grown in the mountains of the moon, and that Avhere they had drifted his ships could sail, he would have made the same discoveries and would have as fully earned the conspicuous honor which now at- taches to his name. To do the business, however, a motive was needed more than a theory, and in far Cathay were known to be riches and plunder, whereas a new world might offer mines of Peruvian silver or a Labrador with no cod- fishing. From a has la feodalite to the supplanting of the theory that nature abhors a vacuum there have been so many reversals of earlier beliefs and principles of action that it is not very surprising if people fall in with the easy notion that the main need of the hour is to remove the rubbish of the past in order that the car of progress with its impossible mainspring of perpetual motion may move along at an easy gait: all that which the past holds out with its failing arms with the morn- ing's experience does not at once confirm, or towards which the crudeness of ytnith is unsubmissive, being accounted rubbish. Now there is something of a true instinct in the dis- position of youth to look in the face the forms of disci- pline with which compliance is exacted. The discipline which was best for the grandfathers and better for the PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 15 fathers than anything perfected since, may become an alien thing for the grandchildren in their season of opening to the sunlight. Discipline of choice or neces- sity, accepted or imposed, without which no man ever amounted to anything, there still must be, and on no diminishing scale; and to modify and yet preserve, to replace while eliminating, is Dame Nature's ever press- ing disciplinary problem with her adolescent children. That which stands by virtue of experience stands, were the experience old, new or continuous. Those things which stand partly by experience and partly by assumptions from experience which is one-sided and incomplete await the coming of the larger experience to be recast in a more perfect mould. And so, as progress consists not in cutting loose from the past but in sifting the experience of the past, to cast off as mere irksome restraint the guiding and controlling principles handed down from the past without first making sure of some- thing better, is the denial of progress. CHAPTER II. INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS. It is in truth sufficiently obvious that the industrial and material development of which all are witnesses is the outcome of practical experience. This prodigious modern development occupies the centre of the stage and chiefly exercises the imagination of the average man, filling him with pride, wonderment, complacency, envious alarm or moral foreboding according to his temperament or his opportunities. In the main the po- litical, social and ethical problems now astir in the world are those evoked by its presence. General inter- est in religion wanes and we have ceased wondering at discoveries in science. Flying is a matter of experi- mental tests and not an elaboration of scientific prin- ciples. And is all discovery and invention then to be sum- marily merged with experience in form of trust or oth- erwise? Here, indeed, is a difference which exists, a dis- tinction which must be made. Mechanical improve- ments are naturally proportionate to thoroughness in technical training and engineering knowledge, which, coupled with inventive skill, often produces what is patentable as well as serviceable. But beyond all this there is a faculty for invention, whether differing in kind or in degree, which is accounted genius, at whose productions men marvel as at a pure creation which seems to set all previous experience at defiance. 16 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 17 But all discussion as to the part of experience in the invention may be at once stilled. The originality of the discovery or invention alone will not keep it alive. It is still through the channel of experience that any industrial progress will result. The inventor originates his plan — task the first, works out his drawings; task the second, completes his model at infinite pains if his means hold out, or if he finds a partner with the cash to pay for the most ex- pensive kind of hand-work in its making — task the third. In the inventor's mind the invention is worth nothing; on paper it is worth little or nothing; its value must be demonstrated in a working model. If it ever happens that the first model completed suffices to dem- onstrate the utility of the invention the fact remains that the inventor must generally count on making sev- eral models before a demonstration is arrived at which is satisfactory even to himself. Let it be inventive genius plus experience or experience plus inventive genius, by inventor we must really understand an ex- perimenter seeking experience outside of current prac- tice by the slowest, costliest and most disheartening of methods. Herein lies the tragedy of the inventor's life, the tragedy of the history of invention. But besides the case of the unsuccessful inventor of a successful invention we hear it said now and again that such and such an inventor, successful at all points, stole his ideas from so and so. Here again we may have the unfortunate inventor unable from lack of means to perfect his discovery, which escapes from him in conse- quence and is availed of by another, or we may be con- fronted with the case of the originator who, through 18 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE lack within himself of practical experience or engineer- ing knowledge, of powers of concentration and coor- dination, fails to reduce his ideas to the status of an invention. Who steals the inventor's purse with or without assuming his debts, steals trash ; and he who filches his idea takes that which only remotely may en- rich him, and which in the case supposed at least leaves the inventor no worse off than he could possibly be otherwise. The thief knows what to do with the con- tents of a purse, but not what to do with the possibili- ties of an idea if he be but a thief. While the matter of individual justice must be dealt with on its merits in each particular case, the industrial world will be beholden to the man who reduces the idea to experience, were he originator, legitimate assignee or the most shameless and detestible of poachers. But what of the relation of industrial progress to general progress? Of the progress of civilization in its material elements with its progress morally and so- cially? Between the frank materialist with whom ma- terial civilization is paramount to all else, the muddled materialist for whom material progress is a substitute for moral and intellectual progress, the anxious moral- ist who declares that material expansion is swallowing up or grinding to powder the ethical part of civiliza- tion, and the limited of apprehension who cannot dis- cover that material development involves any moral quality or implication, it is not easy to pose a happy medium. That material expansion and adaptation which is the outcome of and which is stamped with the genius of a people bespeaks the moral quality of that people. That which cannot be divested of its human impress can hardly be divested of all moral implication : PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 19 what is not to be confounded is also not to be disso- ciated. Is our absorption in material things too great for our higher good? Concentration on one object must be at the expense of other objects. The era of industrial expansion being also an era of specialization, it is inevi- table that this absorption should be extreme with a large proportion of the industrial community. How- ever, excluding the number of those equally absorbed in liberal professions and pursuits it is not obser^'ed that the proportion of the whole that is less absorbed in the world's work contributes in greater degree to the world's advancement in any direction. It is likewise inevitable in such an era that this strik- ing industrial development, which includes the marvels of applied science, should exercise a dominating influ- ence on men's minds, and it is in the nature of all dominating influences to dominate to excess. In a world of eras and epochs, the spirit of industrial enterprise, enthusiasm for scientific research, religious earnestness, intellectual supremacy, severally and at best can be the distinctive characteristic of only one age at a time. "Whatever their respective influence they cannot be con- currently the dominating influence of our own wonder- ful age nor of more or less wonderful ages past or yet to come. It is casting no slur on any of these things from the first to the last of them to recognize this fact, whether or not we see evil in it or a remedy for it. "What will be a thousand years from now the most persistent aspect of present day civilization? Or by what means will the master impulse of our race be re- vealed to the peoples of that distant time? It accords with our common thinking to suppose that the discov- 20 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE eries, inventions and combinations of the future will make those now going seem crude and disconnected in comparison, and this, indeed, is the safer assumption. It lies within the possibilities, however, that the reverse of this should come about; or if not the imagination can easily enough picture our successors as a highly intelligent race, but entirely bereft of the faculty or passion for invention and originality. The existing in- dustrial plants and organizations would continue in use without deterioration with the facility in operation gained by occupations become traditional and acquired faculties hereditary, while the reflecting and inquiring of mind would regard with undiminishing interest this inheritance from the formative period of general utili- ties, repeating our mental attitude towards broken Roman aqueducts and colosseums and defaced Egyptian temples; or as we look upon the works of the old mas- ters as achievements not to be equaled by our own cre- ative powers. Those who now lament the destruction wrought in Greek temples would lament beyond measure if what remains of Grecian art and architecture were to be finally swept away ; yet the vital message of Greece to succeeding races of men would still remain without es- sential impairment. It would contribute to our appre- ciation of the message held from the Land of Judea if we possessed Solomon's Temple or the Jerusalem of Herod; yet the message as it stands is complete Qnd the means for understanding and interpreting it ade- quate without such archeological treasures. However valuable the historical information supplied by the Egyptian hieroglyphics they bear to us no message from the soul of departed greatness. If the monuments PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 21 of the Nile valley say to us, Build thee more stately mansions, my soul, it is our finding a voice for a dumb and groping past, whose feeling, expressed in massive constructions and in preserving and protecting the bodies of the dead, was for imperishability rather than for immortality. But whatever the message it is the monuments and temples alone that are eloquent, while the hieroglyphics are but the alphabet of feeble- ness. Alike if our permanent place in history be that of pioneers or of those whose genius created standards for the uses of material civilization, our utmost achieve- ment will still be something less than the best within the compass of our whole endowment and determina- tion. It will not be glory enough. The consciousness of earlier inspirations wrought under the pressure of an original environment will return to our later reck- oning to test anew the quality of so much accomplish- ment. CHAPTER III. THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. It is easy to use this phrase with the accustomed familiarity without considering that its full direct meaning is the non-survival both of the unfit and of the less fit ; that we are in fact invited to recognize therein the same kind hatchet face that had already smiled on us in the doctrine of election, in the dictum that the many were made to serve the few and in the common slang of the devil take the hindermost; with- out considering also that the specific use which made the term famous was its application to the origin of species through the survival of the fittest in the strug- gle for existence. We need to look a little at this struggle for existence, for we shall find that biologically, as erstwhile theo- logically, life, and more abundant life, comes out of death. That higher types should be evolved in such a struggle seems natural enough, but that forms of life in greater variety and ever increasing divergence, with at least no diminution of the teeming life itself, should be the result leads away from the first simple notion of a struggle for existence. We are also to remember that this struggle for existence operates in the elimina- tion of the less fit mainly as between races rather than as between individuals of the same race. Although it is the weaker members of any species which fall vic- tims to their natural enemies, it appears that this merely serves to prevent deterioration, as we are not presented with general facts to establish that once the 22 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 23 type becomes fixed and the habitat remains unchanged the operation of the law of the survival of the fittest results in increasing the size, strength or sagacity of the individuals of the species; and common observation leads to the assumption that the tendency is towards the establishment of an average standard. This aspect of the matter is further illustrated by the large and significant part which the social instinct bears in the field where the struggle for existence is the controlling factor. The tendency to herd together can hardly be an advantage in securing pasture, while for creatures dependent on fleetness for security the herd can afford but slight protection against their more ferocious enemies; and as to the advantage from leader- ship dependence on leaders would appear to be as much an effect as a cause. The social instinct is manifest even where gregariousness does not prevail, as in the case of birds which pair and nest and cheerfully hie to the round-up after the brooding season is past, for the fall migration or for the winter foraging. Either this social instinct must constitute a fitness or the fit- ness in other regards must enable its possessors to in- dulge their social inclination without loss. At all events, in the forest, on the plains and in the briny, feathered flocks, browsing herds and finny shoals flourish and multiply and suffer no degeneracy. But man's interest in the survival of the fittest is neither academic nor zoological. It is because he rec- ognizes therein a principle which touches him in all his concerns. That the principle should be operative between races and tribes accords with the order of na- ture. If, however, the law of the survival of the fittest operates to create active competition between persons of the same race in a general struggle for existence then 24 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE we are bound to recognize a law of human nature rather than a law of universal nature. Starting with the primitive struggle for existence without, good lack, leaving it behind and getting rid of it, man sets about accumulating acquired necessities quite as imperious if less fundamental than the primi- tive ones. In other words, he continually sets up new objects to strive for in his middle distance and on his far horizon, thus calling forth new standards of fitness for surviving in the struggle thus extended and in- tensified. With such conditions prevailing individuality arises, and when efficient tends to become generalized as a fitness, leaving the way prepared for more originality yet. But we are not done with paradoxes. The social instinct also constitutes a fitness. "When the struggle for existence comes to exceed a contest with the soil and with the wilderness it becomes mainly an affair of human relations and of the social units; and indi- viduality which is anti-social or which is pushed to the extreme of antagonism with society is self-destructive in such a field. Society stands for self -protection and cooperation, and is amenable to leadership, which when efficient is serviceable and beneficial in general and in particular. That society where individuality is lacking will be deficient in leadership, and will be un- progressive and decadent. Where individuality dom- inates society to its detriment it weakens the stimulus needful for the proper development of both and impairs its own environment. Fitness for association is a surviving fitness. Un- fitness for association from incapacity, selfishness, un- trustworthiness or excessive and perverted individual- ity can be nothing less than want of surviving fitness. CHAPTER IV. PRESENT INDUSTRIAL TENDENCIES. By a process analogous to that by which a word sig- nifying the crown of womanhood was transformed into the adjective of feminine ugliness did a term ex- pressive of confidence and security come to stand for distrust and detestation. As we have it that there are good trusts and bad trusts, unfaltering trusts and mis- placed trusts, remember that what you take on trust is taken on your own trust, good, bad, misplaced or un- faltering, and not on mine of like undetermined con- sistency. "What were the underlying conditions which made possible the formation of large industrial combinations and which made the proprietors of established and suc- cessful enterprises more than willing to lead or follow in the general movement? Under free competition the fittest to survive proved to be the largest and best equipped concerns. This drove the business, so far as ownership and management is to be understood, into the hands of the few. The constant need for increasing plants and installing new machinery and processes kept up the need for more capital. At the same time there was an increase of capital seeking investment in the hands of a growing investor class comprising the descendants of fortune builders, those who had sold out after meeting with success and all who had made accumulations by what- 25 26 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE ever means. The sons of founders of industries felt a diminishing desire to follow aggressively their fathers' careers or found the problem confronting them that of keeping and maintaining what they already had of for- tune, income or acquired proportion of an existing trade. The pioneer work was mostly done, trade con- ditions were more settled, the personal rivalries and distrusts of the pushing formative period had mostly gone out with the light of those they had animated, or, like ambition itself, had been transferred to a larger field. Business and industry were become impersonal in character. The cautious investor, not wishing to put all his eggs in one basket, invested his money in the stocks of sev- eral railroads and industrial corporations. These being in competition one with another he found his dollars employed in fighting each other instead of in earning the best possible returns. So far as he had any influ- ence it would be exerted in bringing such competition to an end. The conservative investor, and most large investors are conservative, is attracted by security of principal and certainty of income rather than by chances of large returns. If you wish to secure capi- tal for an enterprise subject to competition while of- fering the possibility of large profits, seek a man of grit who is prepared to back up his venture when it becomes necessary to do so, and think not to attract idle money loaning at two per cent. IIow competition may effect future profits is beyond any man's predic- tion, and all past showings possess little value ; whereas with the probabilities of competition minimized, some basis for a calculation exists. The business man who embarks in a competitive PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 27 enterprise on equality of terms depends on his own ca- pacity to become a successful competitor, and whoever may be disposed to contribute capital in any manner invests in his personality as much as in the undertaking on its merits. It is obvious that the financial resources of such a man beyond his very own are strictly lim- ited, and the bigness of his enterprise or its being in- corporated makes little difference. On the other hand, an industry organized on the basis of a common own- ership, management and control, legitimately capital- ized and with men of reputation at the head, attracts investors without distinction or restriction, and so is in a position to obtain the capital necessary for its de- velopment in more liberal supply and at lower rates. Thus the supreme direction and control gets into still fewer hands while ownership is extended. Indeed, it is control that is sought and not exclusive owner- ship. The man who grasps after control must be grasping of control and, therefore, cannot afford to grasp the whole. Instead of the grasping money-lender it is the money-lender grasping or otherwise, lender of his own or of the deposits of other people, that he con- stantly has recourse unto and with whom he pledges both his securities and his reputation as a financier. Instead of the smug bourgeois carefully piling up the dollars, the type is that of the general of imperial de- signs seeking new worlds to conquer. The market value of the earlier success must be the credit basis for car- rying out new ventures. But to establish market value, stock must be bought and sold. To sell part of the stock ownership in the established success, therefore, not only brings in cash, but improves the standing of the remaining stock held as banking collateral. Again, 28 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE ownership is extended and much needed capital is brought in. It would be more generous to invite the general in- vestor in on the ground floor at the start. But the project is not an investment, but a speculation at this stage, and while the investor becomes a partner, the one thing the speculator can be depended on doing is to desert and throw his stock on the market at the very time when his support would be most appreciated. All new undertakings are in a measure speculative, and few industrial leaders are strangers to speculation. Some industrial concerns have been over-capitalized, and some have been brought out essentially for specu- lative purposes. Nevertheless, the difference between speculation which is incidental to industrial develop- ment and industrial development which is merely a basis for speculation is very great. Razor-strops are sometimes made to sell and not for use, and stocks are sometimes made to sell and not for legitimate capital requirements. These things are characteristic of pres- ent industrial tendencies by so much as they stand for common human tendencies at all stages of the game. Given the essentiality of the matter the facility for securing capital for any industrial organization consti- tutes a surviving fitness, and such a signal advantage for any industry benefits that industry as a whole, and apart from collateral advantages and disadvantages benefits all who are dependent on it or are served by it to the farthest radius of its operations and commerce. There are also disadvantages and limitations. Not all industrial combinations have been successful, not all industries lend themselves to organized control, pos- sibly in no case is such control complete. In many divisions of industry price competition is secondary to PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 29 that between the suitability and adaptability of ma- chines, processes and products to varying requirements, needs and tastes, upon which combination has little ef- fect. The main objection, of course, is that combination lessens or puts an end to competition. Competition means small profits for manufacturer and dealer, but not necessarily low prices for the consumer. It may hinder cheapening in the cost of production. It has always been public policy to preserve a free field for competition. Nothing has happened to call for or jus- tify any change in such public policy. The problem presented is how to compel people to compete who do not want to compete and who have found out how to avoid competing, by means of laws which shall be gen- eral and equal in their nature and operation. Doubt- less the thing can be done ; but with what results ? The traditional objection to monopoly is against monopoly in restraint of trade, it being assumed that all mo- nopoly must be in restraint of trade. The only other kind of general restraint of trade ever considered has been restraint of foreign trade for the benefit of do- mestic trade, which has always been a contentious sub- ject. The idea has been advanced that no one concern should be allowed by law to control more than, say, fifty per cent of the product of any given industry. This idea has been pronounced crude, but the significant thing is that no other mode of dealing with the matter by general laws has been forthcoming. Shall the pro- posed restriction be based on nominal capacity, or on actual production? To restrain production regardless of capacity would be restraint of trade by statute to make any old-time anti-monopolist gasp. Restriction 30 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE according to nominal capacity must be intended. It would not be extraordinary, however, if the concern with legal warrant for controlling one-half the nominal capacity, by superior skill and enterprise and by work- ing double shifts, should presently be found doing from sixty to seventy-five per cent of the business. Very well; this will mean the active competition which ful- fils the aim of the proposed measure. But the certain consequence of such active competition will be to drive some weak competitor out of business with the result that the successful competition of the large concern will be visited on its own head, for behold the wiping out of the concern unable to compete reduces the propor- tion of the whole in the hands of independent con- cerns and increases the relative proportion of nominal capacity of the larger concern in excess of the legal lim- it. There is only one course for it to pursue — raise its prices and "hold the umbrella" over the crippled com- petitor in order to maintain its own legal status; other- wise it will be compelled to dispose of part of its plants on the basis of profits and valuations established by its own destructive competition. The smaller competitors may get together to follow the lead of the big producer, or they may remain di- vided by mutual jealousies. There is precedent for both suppositions. In either case improvements in methods and deviooa will most naturally accrue to the best managed concern, which can afford also to pay the best, so that the time will not be distant when the fifty per cent concern will secure seventy-five per cent of the trade on its own terms. Or, possibly, ninety per cent of the business may be divided between two large corporations leaving a mea- PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 31 ger ten per cent scattered. The company producing, say, forty-eight per cent of the output issues its price- lists to the trade. The manager of the concern whose output is a scant forty per cent of the whole considers what course to pursue. If he quotes lower prices he will presently find his company exceeding the legal limit with disastrous consequences. If he names the same prices he may have to answer a charge of con- spiracy. On the whole, the safer course is to quote higher prices. His larger competitor dare not exceed his already full proportion and, therefore, must decline further orders, and as his customers must be able to rely on deliveries and uniformity of grade, they can- not afford to do business with irresponsible parties. In any case, as the laws aimed at him are not those against rebating, there is always a way of coming to terms with his customers and holding his trade. Then let us try a twenty-five per cent limit and have small competitive concerns instead of large ones of more economical operation. But to limit size is to limit all incentive for building up. Enterprise and improvements must have the result of upsetting the legal status of the most enterprising and pushing. The "trusts" have put some people out of business. Free competition has done the same. There is nothing appealing to the heart about the good old times of un- restricted competition in prices, as it is vidthin the memory of aU that the ecjqjresged formula of that period was "every man for himself and the devil take the hindermost." And as to looking forward, with the de- velopment of industry under competition as its domi- nating principle, competition more merciless must ac- company each advancing step. 32 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE But such vast consolidations involve concentration of power, and all concentration of power is dangerous. This repeats the contention of fifty years ago in rela- tion to railway consolidation. The formation of rail- way systems, however, is not work that anyone to-day would think of undoing. Transportation problems have occupied a leading place in the economic discussions of all these years, yet it may be said that the railroads have worked out these problems from their own ex- perience with small contribution from outside sources. There has been much railroad legislation, yet such leg- islation has made no man's reputation in public life. Beyond enforcing the basic principles as to common carriers, practically the only laws from which any ef- fectiveness is looked for to-day are those framed out of an abundant past experience to prevent palpable and indefensible abuses. The abuses of power complained of on the part of the "trusts" have been mostly those which exposure sufficed to correct. The principle of all's fair in love and war having been more or less prevalent in the world of business for two or three generations, not to say time out of mind, enlarged opportunities for its exer- cise did not at once bring an enlarged sense of account- ability, and those who had not learned a different les- son in their day of small things found being the goat in the day of groat things all the more uncomfortable. When a man reaches the point where he is no longer shielded by his insignificance, higher standards of busi- ness conduct are forced upon him. The accepted notion of an "industrial combine" is one controlling from sixty to seventy-five per cent of the total product of a given industry, which in conse- PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 33 qnence is a dominating factor in that industry. Com- petition, therefore, is not eliminated, but instead of the dominating factor remains as a corrective. Another and larger factor remains. The policy of increasing the capacity and efficiency of units of pro- duction in order to lower productive costs still con- tinues, thus increasing the total output and calling for constantly expanding markets to absorb the increase. Markets must, therefore, be fostered in every way and every encouragement extended to promote consumption. No industrial ''combine" feels sure enough of its po- sition to neglect improvements in machinery and pro- cesses; in other words, it is still under the law of the survival of the fittest. Reference is often made to the fact that the ulti- mate effect of labor-saving machinery is to increase the employment of labor. The extension of this principle is that all increase in the efficiency of industry leads ultimately to increase of employment among all classes, alike in the lower and the higher ranks, whatever tem- porary disturbance may take place in consequence. The "trusts" have not been prolific of labor disputes and strikes. If the charge holds that these consolidations raise prices, this serves to protect the "American scale of wages" at least as well as protective import duties. As between our trust medicine and our protection to home industry syrup we know the kind we have always had won't kill us; and if we find that taking both to- gether results in our paying twenty-five to fifty per cent above the prices at which some leading products are supplied from home factories to foreign countries, the great moral lesson to be drawn is that it is for the in- telligent voter to enlighten his Congressman and not to 34 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE depend on the inward light which guides the latter. Stock ownership will naturally extend with the growth of confidence in the permanency of the big cor- porations. That it docs not extend faster is either because corporate securities already enjoy all the credit they are entitled to, given the basis of capitalization, or because stock exchange speculation pushes the price too high. If trust magnates keep their stocks it is not evidence of their grasping disposition but of the ju- dicious caution of the investors. CHAPTER V. TRUSTS AND THE TARIFF. That industrial past is not yet remote when the proposition to merge into a single interest the already enormous independent concerns engaged in a given pro- ductive industry would not have seemed the outcome of a practical mind. From no one would this com- mentary have come as a final pronouncement more surely than from the practical men at the head of the business world. Enactments to make effective the com- mon law prohibition of agreements in restraint of trade had occasionally to be invoked, but created monopolies in actual operation, apart from those resulting from patented inventions, were practically undiscoverable. The great change which has come about in a single generation is perhaps realized. But, after twenty years of discussion, is it to be said that the transforma- tion wrought in the conditions of the business world upon which the observed change is based is fully grasped? The only embodiment into law of the general realization of the change is what was intended to be a flat-footed prohibition of anything savoring of indus- trial concentration, which, expressing the popular dis- trust and alarm in view of the manifest tendency to- wards monopoly, so far from being evidence of appre- ciation of the changed factors in the case, evidenced a determination not to consider the nature and implica- tions of such changes at all. Do such industrial changes 35 36 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE portend alteration either of present political institu- tions or of the existing social order? It were better that the possibilities in these directions should be ex- aggerated rather than underestimated if thus alone is thorough examination and comprehension of the matter to be attained. This purpose to forbid all industrial consolidation, on the honest face of it, ignored alike changing condi- tions and working principles of development, past, present and future. One thing only was considered and aimed at, the abuses of monopoly. But one large fac- tor directly concerned, both with monopoly and its abuses, was already wholly within the province of leg- islative enactment and control — the protective tariff. Now two main theories touching the relation of the tariff to the trusts have been advanced. One, that the tariff created the trusts and is responsible for their continuance; the other, that removing the tariff would end the existence of the smaller concerns still keeping up the struggle and leave the trusts alone in their su- premacy. Obviously the admission of either argument falsifies the other. And yet industrial conditions can- not be reviewed without considering the tariff, trust or no trust. An understanding of the tariff question, therefore, becomes essential whatever the conclusion re- specting monopolies. From the days of mingled chronicle and myth, the advisability of getting what one wants by giving in exchnnge what one does not need, has been evident to the untutored minds of Eskimos, Algonquins, dwellers in Papua and on the Congo, their predecessors and suc- cessors in civilization's hintr-rland; while among peo- ples devoted to civilized industry the advisability of PKOGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 37 trading ^\]:^di cdn be produced advantageously at home for what can be produced to greater advantage by oth- er peoples in other lands has not seemed to require demonstration. Hence the natural strength of the free- trade position. But, ran the argument, the free-trade position supposes all the industrial nations to have adopted the principle in practice, and further supposes all the industrial nations to have attained substantially the same degree of industrial development. Free-trade England is a tight little island devoted mainly to man- ufacturing, banking and commerce, having indeed the advantage of an abundant coal supply, but in great measure dependent on foreign raw materials, and espe- cially dependent on foreign markets in disposing of her industrial products. America, on the other hand, is a continental empire, of diverse natural resources in process of development, and offering the most extensive domestic consuming market in the world. In other words, people of the same race in the land of their origin and in the land of their expansion find them- selves in a diametrically opposite situation as regards conditions of industry and supplies and as regards the relative importance of domestic and foreign markets. The familiar arguments as to protection of home in- dustry during the development stage, and the advan- tages of a diversity of industries which in turn eon- tributes to create a home market, are all understand- able enough ; but the point to be kept in sight is that whatever their validity they are necessarily subordinate to the main proposition, that commerce, or the inter- national exchange of products, is the fundamental economic law of the industrial world. Modifications of and exceptions to a general principle in no wise over- throw such principle, or even weaken it. 38 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE Protection against price competition means keeping up the price in all cases. "Where protection is not need- ed and where the price is determined by domestic com- petition, the protective law as such becomes inopera- tive. But, again runs the argument, the higher price fosters domestic industry, the domestic market and diversity of employment, and the payer of the higher price is compensated through the general prosperity thus brought about. That he receives compensation in this manner is true beyond question; that he is fully compensated thereby is the question which remains without a final answer. Protective duties are not at a uniform rate, but are graduated to afford, in theory at least, a necessary de- gree of protection without excess. Whatever they ac- complish they cannot be defended on any other theory. Articles of general use in a finished state are subject to a protective duty, let us say, of from twenty to sixty per cent on the wholesale value; the extremes of pro- tection not now concerning us nor the question of rates being more than enough to the declared end. Is the man who pays the higher price for the twenty per cent protected article fully compensated therefor in the in- direct manner stated? "Whatever the nature of the demonstration, if he be open to conviction, the difficulty of satisfying him may not be great. Is the man who pays the addition to the price corresponding to the sixty per cent rate of protection fully compensated therefor in the general and indirect manner claimed? As pro- tection the sixty per cent rate may be more needed than the twenty per cent rate, but that is beside the mark. The demonstration required is to show to somebody's PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 39 satisfaction that the man who without choice or pref- erence represents not the industry but its consuming market is not paying ten cents for a five cent ride. For it is not for the consuming market aforesaid to seek enlightenment ; it is for the industry claiming the sixty per cent protection to demonstrate the profitable- ness thereof for those who must accept its exactions thereunder. It is always possible to pay too much for the best of good things. The supposition that an in- dustry which may exist with sufficient protection de- serves to be encouraged at whatever cost to the major- ity is a denial both of the basic principle of benefit in the exchange of commodities and of the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number. And what has experience to say touching the point? That in a country of cheap cotton and dear wool, "all wool" ranks among luxuries to be taxed, while mixed cotton and wool is bought, paid for and worn by voters for protected prosperity who have not the courage of their convictions. For if their Avorks corresponded to their economic faith, they would surely insist on paying the exaggerated price for the much protected wool in the confident expectation that the tax for prosperity thus invited will presently reappear in their pay en- velopes without the intervention of a strike or even of a grievance committee. It is not denying virtue and advantage for the pro- tective tariff to point out that its avowed purpose is the restriction of competition, unrestricted domestic compel iticn l^eing the essential condition depended on for its justification. Historically and by inherency the tariff was responsible for the rise of monopoly only in so far as through furnishing the basis for the abuse 40 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE of monopoly did it encourage and stimulate combina- tion. Recasting the tariff would not break up industrial combinations, but would minimize the opportunities for the abuse of monopoly; would place such combinations strictly on the basis of the survival of the fittest. If, on this basis, the smaller concerns appealing for pro- tection succumb, it will mean that their restraint of monopolistic tendencies has been of the most moderate kind and that they have been making a living under the trust's umbrella. The alternative course is the continuance of a system artificial in both directions; namely, the protection of domestic industry against foreign competition coupled with the protection of the domestic consumer against domestic monopoly rendered formidable by the first half of the policy undertaken. As an abstract propo- sition it should be at once apparent that the first half of the program is more easily carried out than the sec- ond half ; that it is easier to make a tangle than to un- tangle, to get into metaphorical hot water than to get out again, wittingly or unwittingly to do an injury than to redress it. Whatever may be said about the customs administration, as an instrument of protection it accomplishes its object thoroughly ; while what to do and how to do it in the matter of protection against home-made monopoly has met with no satisfying solu- tion for either side of the controversy. The official tar- iff makers represent their constituents in theory. It is not to be wondered at if this means that in fact they represent that portion of their constituents which knows what it wants and is most insistent, consistent and united in its demands. But neither in theory or in fact, neither in pretense nor by ascription, are they PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 41 to be held as experts in the matter of tariff policy and schedules and industrial results consequent thereupon. Ihe sphere of their activities is either too general or too limited to permit of their becoming such qualified experts. Neither have these lawmakers so far qualified as ex- perts on the subject of the continuous industrial devel- opment of the last twenty years in relation to the gen- eral interests involved. Waiting for a popular mandate and not presuming to popular guidance and leadership has been the role commonly adopted. Industrial combination is not an artificial system springing up within artificial tariff barriers, nor yet a creation of artful and designing schemers in defiance of all economic law, but is the natural outcome, as legiti- mate as inevitable, of industrial development and economic conditions led by men of the stamp, experi- ence and expertness who in all ages have been found at the front of important enterprises. With these general factors in the case the nearest ap- proach practicable to non-obstruction of the natural course of trade and industrial development is the safer policy. Whatever may be the teachings of experience under such natural conditions the conclusions will be more free of obscurities and vexatious complications. With self-preservation and the security of the capital invited through concentration of aim and effort as the motive for industrial combination, instead of the incen- tive of promotion profits made possible from high capi- talization apparently justified by earning power shown, a healthier basis will be established for the adjustment of the mutual interests of a completely interrelated industrial commonwealth. CHAPTER VI. INDUSTRY AND THE STATE. We live under a complex industrial civilization, some- times mistermed an artificial civilization from the fact that so large a proportion of humankind is occupied in providing or procuring other than essential needs. For instance, according to the United States Census for 1900, about thirty-five per cent of the population of this country was engaged in agriculture, including those engaged in sheep and cattle raising and in cotton growing; the proportion having fallen from forty-four per cent in 1880. Add to this the fact that our exports of agricultural products still greatly exceeded in bulk, value and importance all other products in our for- eign commerce in either direction; in other words, sub- stantially one-third the population were producing a large exportable surplus of the raw materials of food and clothing. The wants of civilized man grow principally in other directions than in that of food supply, and industry with its vast and complex organization is the outcome. The wants and desires of man, growing with his growth in civilization, are the motive force which has created and built up this ever extend'ng industrial and com- mercial fabric. Men labor and strive to keep the wolf from the door, to provide for the future, to supply their primary, secondary and tertiary necessities, to improve their condition, to fulfill their ambition, to win the 42 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 43 prizes of life; and the wheels of industry spin under the well-directed and always growing impulse. Labor produces wealth ; therefore, wealth is produced by labor. So let it be. Historically, however, what labor aided by thrift and native intelligence produced was the homespun age of sentimental memory. But the preacher who today looks forward instead of backward to a homespun age, idealized or revitalized, finds few to give him heed. Labor, with increased intelligence, fortified by tech- nical skill and the contributions of scientific knowledge and directed by expert management and enlarged busi- ness capacity and experience, has produced a very dif- ferent industrial order, bringing with it changed social conditions and aspects. The gains from successful industry accrue in largest measure to the "business end" — i. e., to the business management and to the capital ventured in establish- ing and making a success of the enterprise ; next, to the expert talent employed; next, to the skilled workers; and, last, to the unskilled laborers. The difference be- tween the business profits on the above basis and the wages earned at the bottom of the scale is immense, and would be immense under any possible theory of rela- tive "social service." But on the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number, why should not industry be conducted for the benefit of the workers or of society at large for its chief object? And why should not the State, in which all are equal partners, take the place of capital- ist, private owner and business manager? The motive force which has erected the edifice is undisguised selfish- ness, whether enlightened by altruism or refusing 44 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE the light; while a world from v>hich grinding poverty and burdens greater than can be borne on the one hand and on the other the arrogance of power and possession are forever banished, is the aim and hope of the noble- hearted. This is one statement of the matter. Another statement of the matter is that while a de- veloping and expanding industry is requisite for the profit of the rich it is still more necessary for the sub- sistence of the poor, and that the cessation of profits to the rich does not at all make up to the poor for a stagnant or declining state of industry. In other words, the same effects must be obtained by totally different causes and motives. The proposed substitution of in- dustrial motive is not a transition, but a reversal. The paralyzing of the hitherto industrial motive is the one certainty in the case ; the success and efficacy of the new principle of action will remain problematical. Meanwhile the trusts are leading the way and sim- plifying the problem of ultimate government owner- ship of all industry. Yes; on the supposition that the captain of industry presses the button and the cor- porals and privates do the rest; not otherwise. If any one is disposed to question the statement that the trusts are subject to the law of the survival of the fittest, there can be no question that the men at the head of their management get and keep their places by virtue of that law. Men of inherited wealth only are not found in such positions. And why not the survival of the fittest with our politicians and representaives? Why did "Webster, Cal- houn, Clay, Douglas and Seward fail of the Presidency? Why does history record that most of the important PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 45 measures passed by Congress have been compromise legislation? The answer which may explain the facts will not change the facts. For the success of any large industrial enterprise, whether measured in dollars and cents or by any other standard, the prime essentials are executive capacity, expert or engineering talent, and business judgment and direction. The relative order of importance need not be considered. The first two essentials named are measurably ascertainable quantities, but business abil- ity escapes all attempts at exact analysis, offers no basis upon which given results may be predicated, and has no criterion save success. Therefore, has it come about that for the business man it has been thought necessary to suppose a "secret of success;" and al- though the business man and his secret of success are a good deal less of a mystery to his associates, even they are often surprised at the successes scored by him apart from the chance, luck or good fortune which contrib- ute their share, and in most cases at least they would be stumped to formulate the explanation of his ex- ceeding the measure of success attained by others, them- selves included. Furthermore, does it happen with the man of business that past successes warrant in less de- gree the expectation of similar success with new enter- prises undertaken on larger lines or with unfamiliar conditions than in the case of the engineer and the executive organizer. The need being evident, the Government is able to obtain good executive and engineering talent for its purposes. It is conceivable that with the necessity, the means and singlenes?. of purpose it might obtain the best. As to the more difficult proposition of ob- 46 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE taining good business ability, not because of its scar- city but because of the greater difficulty attending its determination, the Government so far has not made a beginning. At the time of the agitation for civil service reform, "running the Government on business principles" was a phrase constantly made use of. The truth is, Govern- ment business not being "business" at all, it cannot be run on business principles. If departmental business had been somebody's business instead of everybody's business, the spoils system would never have taken hold, or would have been easily disposed of. And if it were to become somebody's business the saving civil service rules would at once be found inadequate, su- perfluous and a hindrance. If the Government were to go into business and were to put its business affairs in the hands of business men subject to Governmetal regulation, supervision and restrictions, it would be amazing to expect the same results as in the case of private business. If the Gov- ernment were to go into business and were to call in the ablest business men to take charge of its business with absolute freedom and discretion as to the conduct of the same and as to the business policy to be pursued or varied from time to time, all for account and risk of whom it might concern, and answerable only for their personal honesty, this would be indeed a case of trust in both the ancient and the modern sense of the most tremendous and unparalleled sort. It would be thrusting reign by plutocracy on the plutocrats with all the potentialities of the case; for the present power of the plutocrats lies in their power to make use of oth- er people's money, and with the resources of the nation PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 47 gathered in by the Government and placed at the dis- posal of its business managers these might well forego their present gains. In other words, what they might suffer in opportunities for personal accumulation would be more than made up to them in direct and ab- solute power and empire. This much is warranted by the experience of the past. The experience of the future may be different, but it is not now available. CHAPTER VII. THE SOCIALIZATION OP INDUSTRY. If industrial socialism ever becomes the order of the State it will come about through settled conviction on the part of a clear working majority of those exercis- ing political power that such an order must permanent- ly improve and guarantee their industrial condition generally and severally. The establishment of consti- tutions and the enactment of laws will be the work of representative assemblies wherein will take place the needful adjustments and compromises between con- flicting theories and supposed interests, after the man- ner familiar and current in the world of Democracy. As in all previous formative periods men of command- ing leadership will come to the fore and will impress their personality upon their age, while their advocacy of measures will powerfully affect the course of legis- lation on all important matters. It is not to be sup- posed, therefore, that any preconceived program can be accepted in advance as the socialistic order finally to be put in operation. However, in the formative stage of general opinion regarding the matter, when the thoughts of many are turning from the present towards the future, both the possibilities and the impossibilities of a future of such positive realities still take form before the mind in keeping with the causes, motives and happenings of the world of our common experience. While, therefore, 48 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 49 the thorough-going Socialist may prefer to discard every vestige of the existing industrial organization and build from his own foundations, the new order is more likely to proceed by the line of least resistance. The establishment of a socialized industrial common- wealth involving the least destruction in preparing and availing of existing means of operation would give us an industrial order based on present commercial principles and instrumentalities ; that is to say, on money, credit, good faith and scrupulous regard for all property rights; the essential change consisting in the fact that all means of production and sources of sup- ply are in the hands of the State, and are operated and held for the benefit of the State as representing the in- dividual members composing it. Our premises assume that all these agencies of production and distribution shall have been acquired by the State through condem- nation proceedings and the issue of its interest-bearing bonds in payment of the appraised value. The op- eration will, of course, exceed a thousand fold in mag- nitude and complexity all financial and governmental adjustments ever put through, but that is not declar- ing it impossible of accomplishment. In any case, its being successfully accomplished is precedent to the inauguration of government ownership on the basis in- dicated. Every man who works deals in futures. He must harvest his crop or finish his locomotive before he can make delivery and receive payment. He must get into a stout pair of trousers and go about his day's work on the strength of a good breakfast before he can claim his day's pay. He must have either money or credit, and money today is mostly credit currency. The 50 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE socialized industrial State then must be his banker, and will serve him well according as its credit is un- questioned. As to the laborer's compensation this may be accord- ing to a wage scale subject to frequent readjustments as the most convenient method of apportioning him his share of the results of his labor, but there will be no employer. The State will merely preside and keep order at the counter, labor exchange or employment bureau where the collective and special bargaining is conducted between the representatives of the organized trades, guilds or unions become part of the machinery of government, for the respective share in the whole product to be assigned to the members thereof, from the top to the bottom, including laborers, operatives, mechanics, foremen, superintendents, engineers, supply and distributing agents and business managers ; money being the most convenient medium for all adjustments. Business is business and business management is es- sential for the obtaining of economic results, called profits or by any other name, whether for account of capitalist, stockholder or cooperative proprietor. If good business results are desired good business talent must be employed. If the best results are desired the best business talent must be secured. You will not get better talent permanently than you pay for, al- though you may pay for better talent than you get. It is the avowed object of socialistic proposals to re- duce the returns to the heads of the business world as being excessive. This accords with the lament heard now for several generations, that the best talent of the country has been attracted to commercial, in- dustrial and financial pursuits by the largeness of the PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 51 rewards attainable, while political life has been made distasteful and repellent to the same class. "When the business career has been circumscribed and made as distasteful and as indifferently rewarded in comparison as public life there will obviously be less push to in- dustry, although the country generally may gain by a return of part of its talent to the career of the states- man, which will be warranted by the enlarged scope of the activities of the State. The best that can be hoped for the average worker from the scheme there- fore is a larger proportion of diminished returns from industry, which still is only a hope. But will not men work harder, better and more cheerfully when working for themselves, and so pre- vent any slackening of the industrial pace? They will not be working for themselves. So long as industry needs men of superior skill and capacity and accord- ing to the law of supply and demand must compensate such men more liberally than those less skilled and in- dustrially valuable, so long will laborers find them- selves working for the advantage of someone else. That is to say, if the rule of social service is to apply all alike will be working for the advantage of others, and the question of the relative social value of the service rendered and of the compensation to be accorded there- for will no more vanish under one system than under another. Industry must continue its present contribution to the support of the Government increased by the great- er expense entailed by the enlarged functions of Gov- ernment. The amount of private property left may be large or small in the aggregate, but will afford an insufiScient basis for a revenue by taxation in any case. 52 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE All taxes must come out of somebody's income and the final basis for taxation is ability to pay taxes. When profits come to an end, therefore, taxes must come out of personal earnings, out of each person's share in the results of industry. In like manner, whether directly or indirectly, each person's share will be subject to the necessary deduction to provide for the interest on the debt created in acquiring the industrial plants and other property from the owners. In other words the nationalized industries must be completely self-sustain- ing. It will not be possible to make up deficits from any source. The rights of property are not sunerior to the rights of man. and what corresponds strictly to living waees must be paid before sums can be set aside to meet interest. But those who seek a new social-in- dustrial nrdpr are seekin'? something better than mere waires. Their eyes behold the fruits of modern industry ar-d they can by no means ignore the potent causes of the success of modern industry and so cannot afford to ignore credit public and private. The breaking down of public credit under the new form of business man- agement will mean collapse without remedy and dis- astor for all. With good credit born of good management and good intent, the bond interest rate ought to be low in the absence of any other way of investing private funds, which otherwise will continue to be subiect to taxa- tion. Modern industry is now the world's battlefield. Indifference to financial obligations is treachery or cowardice, things fatal past all hope; yet bad general- Bhip. otherwise bad management, loses more battles. The next important item to provide for is industrial expansion, if warranted by the outlook. If there are PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 53 still funds to invest and the public credit is maintained, it may be practicable to place bonds for the purpose. But unlimited expansion is good for no one's credit, so contribution must be made out of earnings to a sinking fund to meet the maturity of bonds, or direct to a cap- ital expansion account. The industrial expansion, in- cluding commercial and agricultural development, which is such a striking feature of our era, comes from the reinvestment of profits in expectation of fur- ther profits. This is the really impressive fact of the existing industrial world and not the lavish expendi- ture which excites the beholders. Under a system de- vised to end or minimize returns on capital, who will be interested in supplying capital for additional work- shops? There will always be people of a saving dispo- sition who must invest their savings at whatever rate may be obtainable ; but such a disposition comes far short of the spirit of enterprise. There will be not only no private enterprise, there will be no enterprise at all. The only persons interested in the extension of produc- tion will be those out of employment, who will be equal- ly out of money. The majority being out of employ- ment means trade stagnation or industrial disorganiza- tion, for which expansion is not a remedy ; but with the majority at work there is no apparent prospect of bet- ter returns to them in the establishment of additional factories and appliances, which may lead to overpro- duction and decrease of earnings under the new system as under the old. The Government can only do what the voters authorize it to do and what the workers make it possible for it to do. It is one thing for Con- gress and the Legislatures to vote money raised from import duties or from a taxpaying minority, but when 54 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE it comes to voting money directly from the earnings of a whole constituency there will be a good deal more cau- tion exercised. And as to new designs, inventions and processes, and the practical application of scientific dis- coveries, which call for the risking of fresh capital, and which when successful send whole installations to the scrap heap and wipe out hitherto paying investments, besides depriving workmen who have learned a particu- lar trade of their accustomed occupations, such things will of course be taboo. Innovations are taken up by the venturesome few, and in proportion as the working of the national or- ganization proves generally satisfactory, and in pro- portion as the responsibility of the representative to the members of his constituency is effective, will conser- vatism prevail over recklessness, experimental projects and original enterprises alike. Any private under- taking would be in competition with the State, and therefore could not be allowed. As in these respects so with regard to old age pen- sions, provision for the incapacitated and the unfor- tunate, for hospitals, libraries, art galleries, etc., pri- vate benevolence being practically at an end. The pres- sure on public authority alike from the constitutionally improvident and from those who prefer to make their own provision for the future will be in the direction of affording the highest possible direct and immediate re- turns to the mass of the workers of the results of their productive activity. Thus we have the socialized industrial common- wealth. It would doubtless mean the end of plutocracy, but by no means the end of poverty nor of social ine- quality. It would set limitations to individualism with- out ending it. PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 55 Socialism is something else. Socialism is a thin':? projected from the dissatisfactions, the deprivations and the failures of the past and not from the successes and the progress of the past. For a more positive basis a human nature must be supposed divested of both the weakness and the strength which have marked its achievements up to the present time. Confidence is in fact asked in a proposition wanting in the principle of continuity and at variance with the process of suc- cessive steps in the course of human experience. CHAPTER VIII. THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL. It is not money, but the love of money, which is the root of all evil, a statement to be taken comprehensively as including love of the things that money will buy and of the things which the possession of money pro- cures, which again are not themselves evil, but which easily become the fruitful sources of evil. Again, as the romantic lover loves his love and distinguishes not, and as the experienced ones hold the bewitching damsel measurably responsible for her adorer's state of mind, so a similar mutuality arises between money and the love of it. The Scriptures were written to teach us wisdom and not to inform us specifically whether money apart from the love of it is evil or good. It ought not to take a large measure of wisdom, however, to conclude that if money is a power in the hands of men moral possibili- ties must attach to it. It appears that those who object to private fortunes find this power of money a thing so essentially evil that they would abolish money itself in order to free the world of that which by no means can be reformed. The multi-millionaire is not rich and powerful because he possesses unlimited cash, but because he has in abund- ance that which can be turned into cash, which affords him ample credit. Money and the ability to pay money, liquid assets and the reputation of the owner are the 56 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 57 bases of commercial credit, which is an extension of the power of money and the force which moves the busi- ness world today. Destroy money and you destroy credit. The rich man remains with all that money can buy whereas com- merce is reduced to barter, in which form it is certain to continue. If, on the other hand, commerce, trade and exchange are the evil thinc^s to be utterly done away with they must be strangled by some other means, whereupon gold and silver money will be of little more consequence than wampum. Plowever, as an undoubt- edly practical way of bringing down two birds of prey with one stone, the rich man and the means whereby he is enriched, the abolition of money is clearly to be commended. The killing can then be attended to at leisure if thought necessary. For a blessing of this magnitude the rest of the com- munity will surely be more than content to forego the uses of money and accommodate itself to store orders in place thereof. As to store orders being better than money for any purpose whatever, the cheap money ar- gument is out of date, and Don Quixote's first bill of ass colts (second unpaid) was never held a valuable suggestion. But and if everything to be bought is supplied by one storekeeper, and if everything supplied is to go only to those who labor and render social service, store or- ders will suffice for such limited transactions, will be in fact a sort of money. Will be money of a sort, cheap money, which having no intrinsic value, will yet pos- sess an exchange value, while the left over things and remnants in the public store have any value or are worth buying. In other words, even accumulated store 58 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE orders on the house that Jack bnilt will possess a prop- erty value proportioned to the amount and quality of its merchantable contents, and with the abuses of ac- cumulated money limited by the simple expedient of limiting its uses, the crime of property will still sur- vive. In order that store orders shall escape becoming cur- rency they must be non-transferable. In order not to become property they must be good for this day only, or at least be good only for a week or a month. To pre- vent hoarding of the necessaries of life they must be exchangeable in a fixed proportion for food, clothing and general articles or objects. In order that the most needy shall be supplied first store orders must be hon- ored from the most recent date backward, back orders being given the status of deferred orders, only good after the newer ones are filled. Thus, and thus only, can security be had against the evil of personal accu- mulations. Then with money dead credit will be deader. The reason for ending money by whatever means and substituting something or nothing, is essentially a re- pressive reason. The system of which such a proposi- tion is the centre, whatever its objects and intentions and whatever the evils it aims to correct, is essentially a repressive system. Laws are largely repressive; in- stitutions may be repressive or the reverse. The en- thusiasm and earnestness of those who adopt a system cannot be shared by all upon whom that system is im- posed, and in any case cannot insure success. It is not enthusiasm for freedom which has made a success of free institutions. This enthusiasm is as much re- sponsible for the defects of popular freedom as for its PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 59 virtues. The success of free institutions results essen- tially from the free scope and incentive afforded to the individual, including freedom of association for com- mon ends. As already pointed out, after the suppression of trade as anti-social men will continue to barter (a practice wherein the knowing and the astute have the advantage over the uninformed and the inexpert) until absolutely rigorous means are put in force to stamp out all contraband and clandestine exchanges. So long as the issuing of personal supplies, necessities and trin- kets cannot be avoided, a thorough-going system of pub- lic inspection and accounting must be kept up to pre- vent the weakly and the heedless from letting go pos- sessed necessities in acquiring more unsubstantial de- lights from enterprising contraband traders. There will be a revival of interest in smugglers' caves and an enlarged comprehension of the local significance of "moonshine." Turning to the collateral effects to be anticipated, why should the repression of the individual for the good of society promote brotherhood among men? Men's relations, dealings and interdependencies are to be less personal and more collective. Involuntary asso- ciation is to take the place of the associations of choice. Do masses of men find now that back of the superin- tendent, the manager, the president with whom they must deal, there is an impersonal power which they can- not reach? The reality is the notorious fact that there is most frequently a dominating personality in the di- rection of the modern corporation. The nearer one gets to the governing centre the more personal is the control found to be. But with the abolition of personal direc- 60 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE tion of affairs under the socialized order of things di- rection and control must be impersonal and personally ind'fferent in direct proportion as the theory is carried into effect. The concerns of the average man will thus be not with his fellow, but with the State, a mechan- ism so vast and complex with the expansion of its func- tions that all sense of contributing to his own destiny through any influence which it will be possible for him to exert on the direction of public affairs will utterly disappear. Rather than a sense of brotherhood it will be the spirit of fatalism which will take possession of the uni- versal consciousness. Hope will cease to spring eternal in the human breast. CHAPTER IX. SOCIALISM IN RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY AND DEMOCRACY. Was Jesus Christ a Socialist? The questicn reminds one of the discussion of fifty years ago as to whether the New Testament recognized slavery. The slavery question was settled without reference to the New Tes- tament, and in the reorganization of society greater heed thereunto is not likely to be given. Not a Socialist, but a Communist, will be the conclusion if certain striking sentences recorded in the gospels be taken with- out qualification and as conclusive. "Who made me a judge or a dvider among you?" The disclaimer holds against making Christianity a party to a question not religious nor ethical, and whose good humanitarian intentions are not the point of the contention. Christ fed the multitudes, not because they were poor, but because an unusual situation brought about by the novelty of His mode of preaching made this necessary. The sender of the rain on the just and on the unjust fed the hungry of these open-air meetings without discrimination and without humiliation for any, yet the time came around for telling them plainly that to follow Him for the sake of unearned victuals was not at all to their credit. To the rich, then. He preached the gospel of giving and of self-sacrifice, and to the multitudes He preached. Seek ye first the king- dom of God and His righteousness and all these things 61 62 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE shall be added unto you ; and to all alike, that which was the necessary complement of the same gospel, Love your enemies and do good to them that despitefully use you. These teachings are social in their effect rather than socialistic in their intention. "What He said concerning wealth and its possessors was emphatic, and certainly was not intended to be otherwise. A camel cannot go through the eye of a needle. Neither can a mosquito. If, however, it were said that it is easier for a mosquito to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the king- dom of heaven no one would be impressed, while some would be misled into supposing that the statement of a fact were intended. But the camel and the needle's eye involve a degree of exaggeration which cannot be mis- taken for anything else, the only legitimate use of ex- aggeration being to convey emphasis. Hence that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God ex- pressed what Jesus wished to say, whereas that a rich man can no more enter the kingdom of heaven than a mosquito can fly through the eye of a needle does not express what He wished to say. but expresses some peo- ple's understanding of what He wished to say. The astonished query of the disciples, Who, then, can be saved? reveals the attitude of the common mind at that period. If the attitude of the common mind had been that riches were clear evidence of the rascality of the possessor, Christ's attitude would have been the same, but His utterances would as surely have been different. Was there and is there necessity for such emphasis? Has it, or has it not, been a common thing for men to PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 63 sink every ennoblinj:? quality and even every instinct of humanity in the pursuit of gain? Consider also that if there is a quarter of the globe where wealth is synony- mous for sordidncss and heartlessness it is the Gorgeous East. Also that the possession of wealth affords dan- gerous opportunities for self-indulgence, contributes to a man's self-complacency and tends to become a sopo- rific as regards intellectual and ethical interests. These being the facts, Christ's words fit the facts wherever and whenever they exist. But they are not all the facts, and the question of whether the possession of riches is incompatible with nobility of character is an- swered by facts of which Christ's words do not consti- tute a denial. ]\rilitant Socialism does not make much account of Christianity. The reasons are not far to seek. For one thing religion easily becomes a conservative factor in society even without state establishment. But there is another weighty factor. The Christian religion by inculcating fidelity, diligence and self-control brings the degree of prosperity commensurate to these quali- ties to a large proportion of its adherents, or links them as dependable material with the general pros- perity of the community. Property conservatism therefore is largely developed among them as a con- sequence, quite apart from any theory regarding prop- erty to be attributed to the teachings they aim to fol- low. The faithful steward of the mammon of unright- eousness professing godliness has of old time been twitted for inconsistency in not preferring present poverty while reading his title clear to mansions in the skies, and now he must faoe the additional reproach of blocking the millennium. Too good for this world, 64 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE because too good for the good of the cause, which re- quires not salt but pepper. If Socialism is ever to be tried, inasmuch as its car- rying out will depend more on loyalty than on the force of law, Christianity will be an even greater ne- cessity than under the present social order. On the opposite side from religion the question of changing the present basis of society overlaps that of the existing Democracy, which is the unfinished busi- ness before the American people. In the field it covers Democracy has accomplished much ; it has not accom- plished everything. It is not capable of accomplishing all that we desire; it is capable of accomplishing much more than has been accomplished. In so far as Socialism may mean the continuance or the extension of Democracy the failings of Democracy must be the failings of Socialism, plus. The average law-maker or the average public execu- tive as compared with the business man of equal rep- resentative character, is inferior in capacity, in thor- oughness, in character and in foresight, and in conse- quence is not a match for him. I include character. Take the matter of the bribery direct and indirect of those charged with public responsil)ilities, which has been a feature of our industrial development. Is not the bribe-giver as guilty as the bribe-taker? In mor- als, yes. But in current business ethics the sin for which repentance will not avail is that of selling out one's partner or one's principal. The bribe-taker therefore is on equal terms of suppressed distinction with his fellow on the score of bribery, and in addition is guilty of treachery and betrayal of trust towards his principal, the public whose interests he betrays. PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 65 The weight of contempt falls on the bribed, while hu- miliation only is the portion of those who submit to blackmail. In the matter of public appointments under Democ- racy the question presents itself: Is the candidate suf- ficiently competent not to bring discredit upon the ap- pointing power? In private business the question is asked : Is this the best man we can find to promote our interests? The difference between the two methods of making choice is the difference between dividends and a receivership in the case of the business corporation, and in the case of the public corporation it is the dif- ference between government for the people and gov- ernment for the benefit of a coterie. The good corporation manager is good because he looks first to the good of the corporation that he man- ages, that is, to the good of the stockholders therein. The bad corporation manager is bad because he looks rather to his own personal profit and uses the corpora- tion which he directs for the personal ends of those in control. It is incumhont on both to keep the law. It is incumbent on neither to expend his energies first and principally for the common weal, and in the second place only for the weal of his stockholders. In the business world a man is not asked to represent two in- terests which may be conflicting. Owing their promi- nence to business success and not to any gift or train- ing in statesmanship, the managers of large business interests are not always the best judges of public policy. The foregoing implies and sufficiently explains a one-sided development of the industrial common- wealth. By what means is improvement to be brought about? The material rewards of public life never can 66 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE equal those of a successful business career. But men are still moved by ambition, and in proportion as pub- lic office, which cannot bestow honor upon mediocrity, shall afford opportunity for a distinguished career will it attract men of the right metal. Is it true that first-rate ability is not recognized and appreciated by democratic constituencies? According to the composition of the electorate in given localities this doubtless is the case; but on an extended scale where extremes of one sort are compensated in other directions there is abundant recognition of public serv- ice of high quality. Of course, it is to be fully recog- nized that there are serious obstacles to be dealt with both on the side of the voting public and from the standpoint of the person entering the political field; but other pathways in life lead up hill, too. It is equal- ly true that other qualifications must be possessed be- sides the strict qualifications for statesmanship; but after all other qualities and qualifications are found needful besides strictly professional ones, for success in the professions, and personality counts enormously in a successful business career. Under the existing systems of party organization electoral campaigns are mainly won by virtue of "the head of the ticket"; to wit, the candidate heading the ticket is nominated to insure success. The will of the people is therefore approximately made effective in placing him in the executive chair, while those dragged into office in his wake are looked upon with relative indifference by the voters. Theoretically or actually representative they are scarcely held as representing them by the mass of their constituents, and are actually looked upon askance by the constituents of their fellow PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 67 members in the legislative body, which commands di- minished confidence and credit in consequence. Thus the constitutional balance of powers is disturbed tem- porarily at least. In the long run, however, such uneven working under the constitutions, state and national, finds its own corrective. "What most needs to be em- phasized, however, is the manifest fact that greater ca- pacity for practical affairs, with independence and hon- esty of purpose, must qualify the administrators of government before the much-needed equilibrium be- tween the public and private conduct of affairs can pos- sibly be realized. This is the chaff, the grain, the sticks and straw "and small dust of the floor" which Democracy is engaged in threshing out, for which purpose Democracy is a better threshing-machine than Socialism, because sim- pler and not designed to do so many things at once. To pile up the tale of its required performance would be to overload it for carrying on its present tasks and render it unfit for the assuming of new ones. CHAPTER X. CURRENT SOCIAL TENDENCIES. As the interweaving and extending of the network of modern industry goes on the inter-relation and in- ter-dependence of men, groups of men, associations of men, classes of men, becomes more and more an evident fact. The solidarity of the race becomes a phrase with meaning. The brotherhood of man sounds better and carries a meaning at once deeper and more kindling, all the while that it remains a hope of the future and therefore a present unreality. Sentiments are things to be reckoned with, but in solidarity we have a princi- ple operative in the affairs of men and something which is pushed forward and made real by the main currents of the industrial world. The peddler and the huckster try to make all they can out of each particular customer. The director of large undertakings, possibly not more honest and a shrewder schemer, must concern himself with consum- ing markets and with the purchasing power of com- munities and States, purchasing power which is pro- portionate to the productiveness, well-being intelli- gence and progreesiveness of such communities and States. A financial panic is a tremendous demonstration of the solidarity of industrial communities and classes, and the extreme bitterness with which the responsible au- thors are sought and pointed out emphasizes the reali- 68 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 69 zation that the breaking down of prosperity is a social failure, due to the weakness and recklessness, the in- competence or the falseness, of important members of the social structure in which all are included. Solidarity is not a substitute for brotherhood, but a practical means of bringing it within reach. Within reach of whom? Not within our reach, nor within reach of our children. Then we want something quicker in its action, something which we can at least directly bring nbout for our children if not for ourselves. The marvelous accomplishments of machinery, invention and organization have set the pace for our thinking, and we think to bring about our desires and arrive at our ends by similar made-to-order processes. It derives from the same mental attitude which supposes that ma- terial and industrial progress renders culture, religion and ethics superfluous to come to the quick conclusion that social engineering and devising can successfully pull down and reconstruct without regard to the slower evolutions of which present-day human society is the outcome. Alike in times of unconscious preparation, in times of ineffectual unrest, and in the social brew- ing and chalk-marking of the age of industrial pre- occupation, the mills of God grind slowly. Then does fatalism again confront us? The lessons of the past are luminous. Out of the tremendous im- pulses of the ages which terminated and succeeded the middle ages good and lasting fruits have surely come: out of the very midst of confusions and misdirected movements which no one would wish to see repeated. The impulses of present-day humanity will doubtless bear fruits both sweet and bitter, but our children's children will have the power of choice as we have and 70 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE exercise the power of choice of that which is set before us of earlier harvests and vintages. And so each gen- eration must bring its grist to the slow grinding mill, be our confidence what it may. While the rich are growing richer and the poor are growing poorer the middle classes are between the up- per and the nether millstone, and are being cracked, rolled, ground, hulled, polished, anything you please except eliminated. Considering the exacting conditions of their existence and that they are not favored or pro- tected by combinations, exemptions or legal enactments of any sort, the most distinctive fact concerning them is assuredly their persistence. If the birthrate among them is low the death rate is correspondingly low, while they are constantly recruited from the lower ranks by the energetic and industrious who rise, and from the upper circles, not by the victims of degeneracy, who are not landed half way down the descent, but by those of diminished fortune resulting from financial reverses or from the subdivision of estates. And so these same striving, studying, contriving and arriving multiples of their respective sorts, half way successful and three-quarters prosperous by any standard other than their own, without encouragement or invitation, not only continue to exist, but unaided by great fer- tility multiply and replenish the suburbs. The vast accumulations and the concentrated industrial control in the hands of the few constitute the most striking feature of the present era; but even more character- istic if less spectacular is the rise in the standard of liv- ing and the ability of vast and rapidly increasing mul- titudes to meet the increased requirements, in an un- broken series from those whose lives are indeed a strug- PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 71 gle up to and including the uncounted and unlisted rich, who are not rich enough to be in the public eye twenty miles from their country places scattered over the land in all manner of unexpected and unfashion- able localities. Those of medium condition, antecedents and attain- ments, whether termed the middle classes or the bour- geoisie, are taxed in France with selfishness and lack of generous ideals, in England with commonplace if not vulgarized standards, and in America with social pre- tentiousness and all uncharitable pettiness, with a per contra for middle-class virtues which is as often scorned as gratefully accepted. The average person being born to mediocrity, the following may appear relevant to the matter in hand: "He that is down need fear no fall." Those at the bottom of the ladder either have little ambition or their ambition is in the direction of material success, which they not infrequently achieve. In other lands persons of such origin may have an artistic gift and tempera- ■ ment, but not in Anglo-Saxondom. Those upon the ladder find it uncomfortable to sit down. They look down with shrinking and above them with envy, long- ing or determination. Their inherited means are in- sufficient to the undertaking of any considerable en- terprise requiring capital; more often they have none. Self-development is the law of their existence and it would be strange if the intellectual careers and the intellectual progress of the nation were not essentially of this origin. At the same time they contribute their full share to the material prosperity of the community. While distinotion and eminence are attained by the few the raising of the general standard is not only de- 72 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE sirable from every point of view, but in especial con- tributes to the creating of a stimulating environment in place of one which is depressing, that is of great ac- count to the developing possibilities of those who later must be looked to for intellectual guidance and leader- ship. Culture is of slower growth and requires heredity for its perfecting; nevertheless hereditary culture presup- poses ancestors in whom this cherished grace, however valued, was incidental to far more positive aims. The advantage of a leisure class is that general culture may be promoted rather than that which is the accompani- ment or the by-product of concentration in a definite pursuit. And yet there is something wanting in cul- ture which is its own end, still more in that which must adorn or be the justification of living not in itself of a nature to win commendation. In the nature of the case, as a social factor at least, the possessor of a fortune is hardly separable from his possession. That is to say, any scheme of life which leaves his fortune out of account must partake more or less of the nature of a fad rather than of a veritable life pursuit, except in the rarest cases. As social factors rich men are part of the natural order, and are to be regard- ed as special phenomena about as much as rivers which may turn mills or flood villages, or as gunpowder which would be good for nothing if it could not blow up. Are the poor growing poorer? Under the increasing competition between individuals, nations and classes, resulting in more exacting requirements in all direc- tions, the difficulty of gaining a livelihood presses harder and harder on the poorly equipped, while cre- ating new opportunities for the well equipped all along PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 73 the line. The hopelessly poor are getting more hope- less ; the chronically poor are getting more chronic ; the riffraff of great cities is increased in its total. It is not shown, however, that the numbers of the poverty- stricken are increasing in proportion to the whole popu- lation. If men are going down in the struggle for ex- istence it is equally apparent that others are bettering their condition and raising themselves in the scale of being. While humanity continues to be human the problem of poverty will continue to be a problem. Ef- forts to solve the problem are in order, but proposed solutions must be judged in the light of experience as to the consequences to be anticipated, and not by the hopes, good intentions or ingenuity of those who would remodel all human society with the prime object of remedying one phase of it. CHAPTER XI. RELIGION AND PROGRESS. Science as now understood and the modern develop- ment of industry are the young giants of the present scheme. Or, measured in world history, their majority is less that of years than of precocity and stimulus. For the old things of human history and experience which yet possess vitality we turn to art and religion. The science of war is another old thing, but like vol- canic energy in the cosmos, in spite of the most terrible outbursts war is admittedly a diminishing factor in the destiny of nations. In the elder manifestations of man's spirit as in the younger the sequential relation of progress to experience is apparent, whatever complexities and vicissitudes may have intervened to prevent an unbroken advance. Art and religion as elements of civilization have been asso- ciated both with its advance and its retrogression. First religion is found leading civilization, then civilization is found leading religion. The arts constituted a strik- ing manfestation of the earliest civilizations, declining with the fall or the decadence of the nations of their origin. The religion of the Nazarene Christianized the declining Roman Empire, but hardly strengthened it to withstand overthrow by the victorious barbarian hosts. It was again successful in Christianizing the barbarians; more successful in Christianizing them than in the slower process of civilizing them. Itself 74 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 75 the conservator of civilization, the Church could not wholly escape the conquering barbarism of the period. Not having an hereditary priesthood it was dependent for its existence on the material supplied by the pre- vailing civilization, which presented the case of succes- sive generations of men engaged in conscious and in un- conscious struggle with an environment in which par- tial victory, although a great victory given the condi- tions, could only mean partial yielding on their part for themselves and for their descendants. Under the recip- rocal effects of the contending influences the barbarians were both Christianized and raised in the scale of civi- lization, while Christianity failed to maintain its earlier standards. As the crude and sluggish civilization of the middle ages gained in stability, art, Gothic art, became the her- ald of a new dawn. Step by step intellectual activity manifested itself in the revival of art, wherein the value of the ancient models was presently recognized; in renewed interest in learning, which meant, first of all, acquiring the learning of more fruitful ages than those immediately preceding ; and in the pursuit of the sciences as developed, more particularly the sciences of astronomy and navigation. These things generally met with ecclesiastical encouragement in greater or lesser degree, notable exceptions to the contrary notwith- standing. But so far from being the leader in the gen- eral movement, whether as represented by the Church or as an independent force in human society, it was religion's turn to learn in the severe school of experi- ence. And so in the religious world there has been experi- ence enough and to spare. Has there been correspond- 76 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE ing progress? "Of a truth," will be the impressive and fervent response of many. But that is a matter of standards. For others again are filled with horror, aversion or disquietude by the very thought of such a thing as progress in religion as represented in their minds. What account, then, has Christianity to give of itself in this regard? We have as connected and dependent facts that the Founder of Christianity presented Himself as an in- novator and bringer in of a new dispensation and re- ligious order, destined to revolutionize the world in its aims, purposes and guiding principles; while He reas- serted the value and authority of those who in the his- tory of the nation had spoken and striven for God and righteousness; stating with all clearness that He had come not to destroy but to fulfill. Certainly He did not discourse of progress and development, any more than the messengers of the Highest preached recovery of sight to the blind and the acceptable year of the Lord in the times of the Judges. Instead, He taught his fol- lowers to pray for the coming of a kingdom which, be- ing within them, was ever coming yet never come. Continuing through the Apostolic Epistles we find with stress laid upon keeping the faith and on growth in spiritual apprehension the declaration that we are called to liberty. It is to be hoped the Apostle knew what he was talking about in settjng forth such diverse and paradoxical principles, principles destined in prac- tice to part company many times. The paradox, to be sure, is on the hands of the man individual or collec- tive who must apply the principles in question of set purpose. In the penetrating mind to which we owe them there was no discord nor limitation except with PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 77 regard to the fact that we are composite beings and not purely spiritual beings. Conflicting or otherwise, keeping, holding or maintaining the faith and spiritual and intellectual freedom may exist as coequal opera- tions of the human mind, but not as things subordi- nate one to the other. When faith must be maintained by the exercise of authority, traditional or ecclesias- tical, liberty is not restricted to narrow bounds; it ceases to exist ; and herein lies the kernel of all the religious contention which has vexed the souls of men. As to growth in spiritual apprehension this is in- separable from growth in knowledge and intellectual discernment. Early Christianity had its contests with heathen philosophy both as an opponent and as an in- vading influence, but it is instructive and significant that the Christian thinkers were not slow in appropri- ating the philosophy of the master minds of the earlier period of Greek intellectual ascendancy. Hence the original claim of universality as an attribute of the Church. But the universality of the sixth century ceased to have the quality of universality ere the pass- ing of the sixteenth, as the universality of the sixteenth century ceased to have the universal quality before the advent of the twentieth. In other words, knowledge based on experience and on demonstrations having the value of experience must affect the viewpoint of every normal free mind. If the authority or the authorities sought to be set up by the Protestant reformers had been effective the newer forms of religious diversity were as surely predestined to archaism as the earlier forms, with less hold on the more changeful and pro- gressive world of their calling forth. Civilization ever stands in need both of conservative 78 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE and progressive elements. Without the one stability, ripeness and influence are wanting. "Without the other stagnation and decay ensue. Religion has shown itself in both roles. Can it be counted on both for conser- vatism and progressiveness in human society? Not when the principle of intellectual and spiritual freedom is withheld. CHAPTER XII. THE PURITAN SUCCESSION. The history of New England might be characterized as the history of theories and 'isms which, undoubted failures as such from the first to the last of them, yet have had an extraordinary way of producing thorough- going and far-reaching effects. The great mother of them all was Puritanism. As an attempt to set up the Kingdom of God in Massachusetts, Puritanism was a dismal failure; in fact, that must have been the origin of the expression. But taken in its class as an 'ism, taking its origin in an age when the right to think, the enwrapped seed of the future, must be asserted and maintained or shrivel in the clutch of established au- thority which, deriving from the past, must always be the defender and sustainer of the past ; comparing its training of a race with the purposes and standards of its militant competitors instead of with those of its most enlightened advisers, it shows a record of accom- plishment which compels recognition and which still carries today. Mankind is not led today by its most enlightened advisers. The Pilgrims invited themselves into the shivering wilderness of a strange continent to achieve religious and civil liberty for themselves and for the like-minded who would join them, and not for anybody else. But the wolf-haunted wilderness was the path of destiny for others besides those who took up their abode in it, 79 80 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE and what the Pilgrims there achieved for themselves they necessarily achieved for their race. Thenceforth getting possession might be slow, but the case was won. According to the merits of the case honor and distinc- tion are for those who originate or foresee what others achieve, while the credit and glory of the achievement, in this and in any other world of which we have present knowledge, are for those who do the achieving, even without foresight or full choice of what they would achieve. "What is well and effectively done in the world as it goes is what we do for ourselves, noble ex- amples to the contrary notwithstanding. What we do best for ourselves and what is best worth doing, is that which benefits others besides ourselves; and the wails of altruism because direct motives and methods in its behalf do not succeed like direct ones, but die away in thin air. At a great price obtained they this freedom that their children might be born free, and the price paid for freedom to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences made the thing so honorable in the eyes of all men that no more effective appeal could be forthcoming thereafter when men found themselves in need of a defence in any question with a religious concern. The spirit of Puritanism was narrow ; life in the Puritan colonies was narrow; the Puritans themselves were narrow. But the narrow . stream of Puritanism had a current. In a community where the religious motive bulked large and where the current religion ap- pealed to the head at least as much as to the heart, it was not mental stimulus that was lacking. Without seeking to encourage free inquiry Puritanism provoked PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 81 discussion and laid stress upon conviction. While faith may be the child of authority conviction cannot be. With plentiful stimulus, abundant experience and the constant aim to improve the mental equipment of the generality ultra conservatism and immobility were well provided against. Outside influences counted for little. If the attempt at a theocracy could not be maintained Puritanism nev- ertheless felt itself to be successful, and in spite of the aversion of those unfriendly to it the land of the Pil- grim's pride was not without prestige both at home and abroad. The success of the Puritan commonwealths tended to render them impervious to adverse criticism and made for stability rather than for progressiveness on the religious side. The liberalizing of Puritanism therefore proceeded essentially from within, springing from its o^\ti unquenchable sources. In the sister colony of Maryland the principle of full religious liberty was at once declared by the enlight- ened founders who were the ornament of the religious system to which they owned allegiance rather than the consistent exponents of its general policy and attitude as exhibited elsewhere on a wider scale. This enlight- ened policy of the proprietaries insured the success of their colonial pro.ieet. which otherwise would have been doubtful, and furnished a shining example for Catho- lics and Protestants alike, which was followed by neither. It cannot be that so fine an example was thrown away even on the world of the seventeenth cen- tury ; yet it is not apparent or demonstrable that Mary- land exerted by virtue thereof any influence or guid- ance among her sister communities out of proportion to her general importance and moral weight. 82 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE Thus while New England was backward in apprecia- tion of the rights of the other side, she possessed the latent forces of progress and accomplishment in her moral earnestness and cultivation of the reasoning powers. When the broadminded of a broadened age, alive to the value of historical retrospection, recall the narrow- ness of a narrow age, it is something more than charity for others that withholds them from making this nar- rowness a reproach to those who created standards for their own and the succeeding age, including standards the bettering of which is our chosen criterion for meas- uring our own advance. They were and we are the ma- terials of the same evolution, an evolution proceeding on the psychological plane by a selection in part natural and unconscious and in part highly intentional and determinative. The Puritans did not misjudge in hold- ing their present the father of a future ; and if this led them to an excessive sense of responsibility for that fu- ture we their descendants in safety and by resolve shall be guilty in no such manner and degree. By the evidence of their accomplishment and by the constantly accumulating evidence of what force of char- acter counts for in human affairs are we held to the realization that broadness is not the sole requisite, whether in the matter of broad views, broad a's or broad acres. If our broadness shall be the one essen- tial quality in justification of standards which may be found not at all commanding by our successors upon the scene, then this all-sufficiency of broadness will it- self constitute a narrowness. The sea is wide. It is also deep and clear. The desert, too, is wide and at times simulates the ocean, and its depth is of no par- ticular consequence. PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 83 The time came for weighing and judging this Puri- tanism, its works, its results, its vestiges, without par- tiality on the safe basis of an historical record free of ambiguity and in complete liberation from its dominat- ing influence ; a process joined in both as to judicial quality and the quality of uncritical severity and aver- sion by successors of the Puritans themselves as those having least cause to forget it. This time came so long ago that the time must come for considering the stand- point, the sources and the finality of the judgment so passed in its turn. The theory that the natural man is sin, having abundance of gross and palpable evidence to support it, the repression of the natural man was the simplest solution to aim at — a solution of a real question too easy to be the right one. It was a foregone conclusion, therefore, the direction which the revolt against Puritanism would take, as also the general impress which would remain as the heritage of such a contest. It is this attempted repres- sion of our impulses and pleasures which constitutes our most settled grudge against Puritanism in tradi- tion or in any of its otherwise lingering manifestations. The marks of bloodstained fingers on the hem of its garment and the dealings of dissenters with dissent do but lend force and conclusiveness to this our chief in- dictment. And now the day with its superfluous sunshine and the night which needlessly offers its ancient mantle of darkness alike reveal a prevailing and extending Epi- curianism of a Puritan cast and a humanitarian slant — either this or the same old Epicurianism without dis- tinction or originality whatever. In this day, this hey- day of transformed voltage and magnified candle- 84 PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE power, it is this rejuvenated Epicurianisin which feels the greatest self-assurance, and discerns no cloud upon the horizon, if, indeed, it ever looks around for such a thing as an horizon. There also remains in presence, equally sharing the spirit of the present and not of any exclusive deriva- tion, a willingness to believe that the inspiration of an heroic past is a good thing today and will be a good thing tomorrow; and that what is second-rate, ill-ad- vised or outgrown in such a past may be eliminated while conserving and fortifying what is of undoubted value and rightfully enduring. But those of this wil- lingness find the prestige of Puritanism, whose vitality quickened that heroic past, of scant support or com- fort; rather that the ready taunt of Puritan or puri- tanic will be the assured reliance of the contrary- minded. One or the other of these tendencies or dispositions must gain with the passing years. What do reflecting men, impressed with the waxing and waning of earlier civilizations, foresee in the universal prevalence of the all-for-present-enjoyment disposition? Total ruin and final collapse? Such is at best a hasty reading of his- tory. Equally deducible therefrom is the evidence that sooner or later men recoil from emptiness and excess of vanity, while pessimism, the fate of the modern mind, with its attractive and authoritative pendulum theory, would fully warrant the forecast that the inevitable re- action must take the form of a new Puritanism, how- ever cured of preaching and however unfamiliar its features, which will still be as unwelcome and scorching to the unprotected sensibilities of the future subjects for heroic treatment as the last recorded kind. Truth PROGRESS FROM EXPERIENCE 85 to say the prospect does not fill us with alarmed appre- hension, but this is because we are really not pessi- mists, although we sometimes think we are, and stoutly disbelieve in the completion of the first half of the cycle, and not because we do not see that those who will not learn from the unloved yet fruitful past are furnishing the dynamics for reactions which do not come. Thrice happy the people who have no history. Their contemporaries, heroic and unheroic, will be undis- turbed in their chosen courses by insistence on some other course, their remote descendants will not re- proach them their making of history, neither will they have wit enough to reproach them their lack of his- tory-making qualities. The End. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 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