subjects of the possessors of hoarded wealth,” and that among
capitalists the money-lenders form an aristocracy, while debtors are
helpless and the servants of the creditors. All this is really quite
unworthy of Mr. Adams, or of anyone above the intellectual level of
Mr. Bryan, Mr. Henry George, or Mr. Bellamy. Any man who has had the
slightest practical knowledge of legislation, whether as Congressman
or as State legislator, knows that nowadays laws are passed much
more often with a view to benefiting the debtors than the creditors;
always excepting that very large portion of the creditor class which
includes the wage-earners. “Producers”--whoever they may be--are not
the subjects of “hoarded wealth,” nor of anyone nor anything else.
Capital is not absolute; and it is idle to compare the position of the
capitalist nowadays with his position when his workmen were slaves
and the law-makers were his creatures. The money-lender, by whom I
suppose Mr. Adams means the banker, is not an aristocrat as compared
to other capitalists,--at any rate in the United States. The merchant,
the manufacturer, the railroad man, stand just as the banker does;
and bankers vary among themselves just as any other business men do.
They do not form a “class” at all; anyone who wishes to can go into
the business; men fail and succeed in it just as in other businesses.
As for the debtors being powerless, if Mr. Adams knows any persons
who have lent money in Kansas or similar States they will speedily
enlighten him on this subject, and will give him an exact idea of
the extent to which the debtor is the servant of the creditor. In
those States the creditor--and especially the Eastern money-lender
or “gold-bug”--is the man who has lost all his money. Mr. Adams
can readily find this out by the simple endeavor to persuade some
“money-lender,” or other “Wall Street shark” to go into the business
of lending money on Far-Western farm property. The money-lender in the
most civilized portions of the United States always loses if the debtor
is loser, or if the debtor is dishonest. Of course there are “sharpers”
among bankers, as there are among producers. Moreover, the private,
as distinguished from the corporate, debtor borrows for comparatively
short periods, so that he is practically not at all affected by an
appreciating currency; the rise is much too small to count in the
case of the individual, though it may count in the long-term bonds
of a nation or corporation. The wage of the working-man rises, while
interest, which is the wage of the capitalist, sinks.
Mr. Adams’s study of the rise of the usurer in India and the ruin of
the martial races is very interesting; but it has not the slightest
bearing upon anything which is now happening in Western civilization.
The debtor, in America at least, is amply able to take care of his
own interests. Our experience shows conclusively that the creditors
only prosper when the debtors prosper, and the danger lies less in
the accumulation of debts, than in their repudiation. Among us the
communities which repudiate their debts, which inveigh loudest
against their creditors, and which offer the poorest field for the
operations of the honest banker (whom they likewise always call
“money-lender,”) are precisely those which are least prosperous and
least self-respecting. There are, of course, individuals here and
there who are unable to cope with the money-lender, and even sections
of the country where this is true; but this only means that a weak or
thriftless man can be robbed by a sharp money-lender just as he can be
robbed by the sharp producer from whom he buys or to whom he sells.
There is, in certain points, a very evident incompatibility of interest
between the farmer who wishes to sell his product at a high rate, and
the working-man who wishes to buy that product at a low rate; but the
success of the capitalist, and especially of the banker, is conditioned
upon the prosperity of both working-man and farmer.
When Mr. Adams speaks of the change in the relations of women and men
he touches on the vital weakness of our present civilization. If we
are, in truth, tending toward a point where the race will cease to be
able to perpetuate itself, our civilization is of course a failure.
No quality in a race atones for the failure to produce an abundance
of healthy children. The problem upon which Mr. Adams here touches
is the most serious of all problems, for it lies at the root of, and
indeed itself is, national life. But it is hard to accept seriously
Mr. Adams’s plea that “martial” men loved their wives more than
“economic” men do, and showed their love by buying them. Of course the
only reason why a woman was bought in early times was because she was
looked upon like any other chattel; she was “loved” more than she is
now only as a negro was “loved” more by the negro-trader in 1860 than
at present. The worship of women during the Middle Ages was, in its
practical effects, worship of a very queer kind. The “economic man” of
the present day is beyond comparison gentler and more tender and more
loving to women than the “emotional man” of the Middle Ages.
Mr. Adams closes with some really fine paragraphs, of which the general
purport is, that the advent of the capitalist and the economic man, and
especially the advent of the usurer, mark a condition of consolidation
which means the beginning of utter decay, so that our society, as a
result of this accelerated movement away from emotionalism and towards
capitalism, is now in a condition like that of the society of the later
Roman Empire. He forgets, however, that there are plenty of modern
states which have entirely escaped the general accelerated movement of
our time. Spain on the one hand, and Russia on the other, though alike
in nothing else, are alike in being entirely outside the current of
modern capitalistic development. Spain never suffered from capitalists.
She exterminated the economic man in the interest of the emotional
and martial man. As a result she has sunk to a condition just above
that of Morocco--another state, by the way, which still clings to the
martial and emotional type, and is entirely free from the vices of
capitalistic development, and from the presence of the usurer, save as
the usurer existed in the days of Isaac of York. Soldiers and artists
have sunk lower in Spain than elsewhere, although they have had no
competition from the economic man. Russia is in an entirely different
position. Russia is eminently emotional, and her capitalists are of the
most archaic type; but it is difficult to say exactly what Russia has
done for art, or in what respect her soldiers are superior to other
soldiers; and certainly the life of the lower classes in Russia is on
the average far less happy than the life of the workingman and farmer
in any English-speaking country. Evidently, as Spain and Russia show,
national decay, or non-development may have little to do with economic
progress.
Mr. Adams has shown well that the progress of civilization and
centralization has depended largely upon the growing mastery of the
attack over the defence; but when he says that the martial type
necessarily decays as civilization progresses, he goes beyond what
he can prove. The economic man in England, Holland, and the United
States has for several centuries proved a much better fighter than
the martial emotionalist of the Spanish countries. It is Spain which
is now decaying; not the nations with capitalists. The causes which
make Russia formidable are connected with the extent of her territory
and her population, for she has certainly failed so far to produce
fighting men at all superior to the fighting men of the economic
civilizations. In a pent-up territory she would rise less rapidly, and
fall more rapidly, than they would; and her freedom from centralization
and capitalization would not help her. Spain, which is wholly untouched
by modern economic growth, suffers far more than any English-speaking
country from maladies like those of Rome in its decadence; and Rome
did not decay from the same causes which affect modern America or
Europe; while Russia owes her immunity from a few of the evils that
affect the rest of us, to causes unconnected with her backwardness
in civilization, and moreover has worse evils of her own to contend
with. The English-speaking man has so far out-built, out-fought, and
out-administered the Russian; and he is as far as the poles away from
the Roman of the later Empire.
Moreover, instead of the mercenary or paid police growing in relative
strength, as Mr. Adams says, it has everywhere shrunk during the
last fifty years, when compared with the mass of armed farmers and
wage-earners who make up a modern army. The capitalist can no longer,
as in ages past, count upon the soldiers as being of his party; he
can only count upon them when they are convinced that in fighting
his battle they are fighting their own; although under modern
industrial conditions this is generally the case. Again, Mr. Adams is
in error in his facts, when he thinks that producers have prospered
in the silver-using, as compared with the gold-using, countries.
The wage-earner and small farmer of the United States, or even of
Europe, stand waist high above their brothers in Mexico and the other
communities that use only silver. The prosperity of the wage-earning
class is more important to the state than the prosperity of any other
class in the community, for it numbers within its ranks two-thirds of
the people of the community. The fact that modern society rests upon
the wage-earner, whereas ancient society rested upon the slave, is of
such transcendent importance as to forbid any exact comparison between
the two, save by way of contrast.
While there is in modern times a decrease in emotional religion, there
is an immense increase in practical morality. There is a decrease of
the martial type found among savages and the people of the Middle Ages,
except as it still survives in the slums of great cities; but there
remains a martial type infinitely more efficient than any that preceded
it. There are great branches of industry which call forth in those that
follow them more hardihood, manliness, and courage than any industry of
ancient times. The immense masses of men connected with the railroads
are continually called upon to exercise qualities of mind and body such
as in antiquity no trade and no handicraft demanded. There are, it is
true, influences at work to shake the vitality, courage, and manliness
of the race; but there are other influences which tell in exactly the
opposite direction; and, whatever may come in the future, hitherto
the last set of influences have been strongest. As yet, while men are
more gentle and more honest than before, it cannot be said that they
are less brave; and they are certainly more efficient as fighters.
If our population decreases; if we lose the virile, manly qualities,
and sink into a nation of mere hucksters, putting gain above national
honor, and subordinating everything to mere ease of life; then we shall
indeed reach a condition worse than that of the ancient civilizations
in the years of their decay. But at present no comparison could be less
apt than that of Byzantium, or Rome in its later years, with a great
modern state where the thronging millions who make up the bulk of the
population are wage-earners, who themselves decide their own destinies;
a state which is able in time of need to put into the field armies,
composed exclusively of its own citizens, more numerous than any which
the world has ever before seen, and with a record of fighting in the
immediate past with which there is nothing in the annals of antiquity
to compare.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[23] The _Forum_, January, 1897.
[Illustration]
XVI
REFORM THROUGH SOCIAL WORK--SOME FORCES THAT TELL FOR DECENCY IN NEW
YORK CITY[24]
Any one who has a serious appreciation of the immensely complex
problems of our present-day life, and of those kinds of benevolent
effort which for lack of a better term we group under the name of
philanthropy, must realize the infinite diversity there is in the field
of social work. Each man can, of course, do best if he takes up that
branch of work to which his tastes and his interests lead him, and the
field is of such large size that there is more than ample room for
every variety of workman. Of course there are certain attributes which
must be possessed in common by all who want to do well. The worker must
possess not only resolution, firmness of purpose, broad charity, and
great-hearted sympathy, but he must also possess common-sense sanity,
and a wholesome aversion alike to the merely sentimental and the
merely spectacular. The soup-kitchen style of philanthropy is worse
than useless, for in philanthropy as everywhere else in life almost
as much harm is done by soft-headedness as by hard-heartedness. The
highest type of philanthropy is that which springs from the feeling
of brotherhood, and which, therefore, rests on the self-respecting,
healthy basis of mutual obligation and common effort. The best way to
raise any one is to join with him in an effort whereby both you and
he are raised by each helping the other. This is what has been done
in those factories in Cleveland, Dayton, Pittsburg, and elsewhere, in
which the betterment of working life has been aimed at, and partially
achieved, through measures beneficial alike to employer and employed.
Any man who takes an active part in the varied, hurried, and
interesting life of New York must be struck, not only by the number
of the forces which tell for evil, but by the number of the forces
which tell for good. Of course most of these are not, in the narrow
sense of the term, philanthropic forces at all; but many of them are,
and among these there is the widest variety. In this paper it is only
possible to touch upon a very few of the ways in which philanthropic
work of worth is being done in New York City. It is necessary to speak
of individuals, because otherwise it would be impossible to emphasize
the widely different kinds of work which can thus be done. These
individuals are mentioned simply as typifying certain phases, certain
methods. There are countless others who could be mentioned; it merely
happens that these particular men have occupied to advantage certain
widely different parts of the great field of usefulness.
Much can be done in downright charitable work, and there are great
fragments of our social life in which the work must be in part or in
whole charitable. The charity workers do an amount of good which in
some cases is literally inestimable. Yet, on the whole, it becomes ever
increasingly evident that the largest opportunity for work along the
lines of social and civic betterment lie with the independent classes
of the community--the classes which have not yielded to the many kinds
of downward pressure always so strong in city life. Sometimes this work
may take the form of an organized effort to secure greater equality of
opportunity. Sometimes the best way to work is the oldest and simplest;
that is, by trying the effect of character upon character.
Political and social conditions are often closely interwoven, and
always tend to act and react upon one another. It is impossible to
have a high standard of political life in a community sunk in sodden
misery and ignorance; and where there is industrial well-being there
is at least a chance of its going hand in hand with the moral and
intellectual uplifting which will secure cleanliness and efficiency in
the public service. Politics have been entered by a good many different
doors, but in New York City Mr. F. Norton Goddard is probably the
only man who ever entered on the career of a district leader by the
door of philanthropy. Mr. Goddard, feeling he ought to do something
serious in life, chose a quarter on the East Side for his experiment,
and he entered upon it without the slightest thought of going into
politics, simply taking a room in a tenement house with the idea of
testing his own capacities and to find out if he was fit to do what
has grown to be known as “settlement work.” He speedily became very
much interested in the men with whom he was thrown in contact, and
also became convinced that he personally could do most by acting, not
in connection with others, but for his own hand. After a few weeks he
joined a small club which met at first in a single room. From this
one room sprang in the course of a couple of years the Civic Club at
243 East Thirty-fourth Street, than which there exists in all New
York no healthier centre of energetic social and political effort.
Very speedily Mr. Goddard found himself brought into hostile and
embarrassing contact with that huge and highly organized system of
corruption, tempered with what may be called malevolent charity, which
we know as Tammany. Every foe of decency, from the policy player to
the protected proprietor of a law-breaking saloon, had some connection
with Tammany, and every move in any direction resulted in contact
of some sort with a man or institution under Tammany’s control. Mr.
Goddard soon realized that organization must be met by organization;
and, being a thoroughly practical man, he started in to organize the
decent forces in such fashion as would enable him to check organized
indecency. He made up his mind that the Republican party organization
offered the best chance for the achievement of his object. As it then
was, however, the Republican organization of the district in question
served but little purpose save to deliver delegates in conventions,
and was under the control of men who, although some degrees above the
Tammany leaders, had no conception of running things on the plane which
Goddard deemed necessary. There were three courses open to him: He
could acquiesce helplessly; he could start an outside organization,
in which case the chances were a thousand to one that it would amount
to nothing; or he could make a determined effort to control for good
purposes the existing Republican organization. He chose the latter
alternative, and began a serious campaign to secure his object. There
was at the time a fight in the Republican organization between two
factions, both of which were headed by professional politicians. Both
factions at the outset looked upon Goddard’s methods with amused
contempt, expecting that he would go the gait which they had seen
so many other young men go, where they lacked either persistency or
hard common-sense. But Goddard was a practical man. He spent his days
and evenings in perfecting his own organization, using the Civic
Club as a centre. He already had immense influence in the district,
thanks to what he had done in the Civic Club, and at this, his first
effort, he was able to make an organization which, while it could
not have availed against the extraordinary drill and discipline of
Tammany, was able overwhelmingly to beat the far feebler machine of
the regular Republican politicians. At the primary he got more votes
than both his antagonists put together. No man outside of politics can
realize the paralyzed astonishment with which the result was viewed
by the politicians in every other Assembly district. Here at last
was a reformer whose aspirations took exceedingly efficient shape as
deeds; who knew what could and what could not be done; who was never
content with less than the possible best, but who never threw away that
possible best because it was not the ideal best; who did not try to
reform the universe, but merely his own district; and who understood
thoroughly that though speeches and essays are good, downright hard
work of the common-sense type is infinitely better.
It is more difficult to preserve the fruits of a victory than to
win the victory. Mr. Goddard did both. A year later, when the
old-school professional politicians attempted to oust him from his
party leadership in the district association, he beat them more
overwhelmingly than before; and when the Republican National Convention
came around he went still further afield, beat out his opponents in
the Congressional district, and sent two delegates to Philadelphia.
Nor was his success confined to the primary. In both the years of his
leadership he has enormously increased the Republican vote in his
district, doing better relatively than any other district leader in
the city. He does this by adopting the social methods of Tammany, only
using them along clean lines. The Tammany leader keeps his hold by
incessant watchfulness over every element, and almost every voter, in
his district. Neither his objects nor his methods are good; but he does
take a great deal of pains, and he is obliged to do much charitable
work; although it is not benevolence of a healthy kind. Mr. Goddard
was already, through the Civic Club, doing just this kind of work, on
a thoroughly healthy basis. Going into politics had immensely helped
with the club, for it had given a great common interest to all of the
men. Of course Goddard could have done nothing if he had not approached
his work in a genuine American spirit of entire respect for himself and
for those with whom and for whom he labored. Any condescension, any
patronizing spirit would have spoiled everything. But the spirit which
exacts respect and yields it, which is anxious always to help in a mood
of simple brotherhood, and which is glad to accept help in return--this
is the spirit which enables men of every degree of wealth and of widely
varying social conditions to work together in heartiest good-will, and
to the immense benefit of all. It is thus that Mr. Goddard has worked.
His house is in the district and he is in close touch with every one.
If a man is sick with pneumonia, some member of the Civic Club promptly
comes around to consult Goddard as to what hospital he shall be taken
to. If another man is down on his luck, it is Goddard who helps him
along through the hard times. If a boy has been wild and got into
trouble and gone to the penitentiary, it is Goddard who is appealed to
to see whether anything can be done for him. The demands upon his time
and patience are innumerable. The reward, it is to be supposed, must
come from the consciousness of doing well work which is emphatically
well worth doing. A very shrewd politician said the other day that if
there were twenty such men as Goddard in twenty such districts as his
New York City would be saved from Tammany, and that in the process
the Republican machine would be made heartily responsive to and
representative of the best sentiment of the Republicans of the several
districts.
The University Settlements do an enormous amount of work. As has been
well said, they demand on the part of those who work in them infinitely
more than the sacrifice of almsgiving, for they demand a helping hand
in that progress which for the comfort of all must be given to all;
they help people to help themselves, not only in work and self-support,
but in right thinking and right living. It would be hard to mention any
form of civic effort for righteousness which has not received efficient
aid from Mr. James B. Reynolds and his fellow-workers in the University
Settlements. They have stood for the forces of good in politics,
in social life, in warring against crime, in increasing the sum of
material pleasures. They work hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, with
those whom they seek to benefit, and they themselves share in the
benefit. They make their house the centre for all robust agencies for
social betterment. They have consistently endeavored to work with,
rather than merely for, the community; to co-operate in honorable
friendship with all who are struggling upward. Only those who know the
appalling conditions of life in the swarming tenements that surround
the University Settlement can appreciate what it has done. It has
almost inevitably gone into politics now and then, and whenever it has
done so has exercised a thoroughly healthy influence. It has offered
to the people of the neighborhood educational and social opportunities
ranging from a dancing academy and musical classes, to literary clubs,
a library, and a children’s bank--the clubs being administered on the
principle of self-management and self-government. It has diligently
undertaken to co-operate with all local organizations such as
trades-unions, benefit societies, social clubs, and the like, provided
only that their purposes were decent. The Settlement has always desired
to co-operate with independent forces rather than merely to lead or
direct the dependent forces of society. Its work in co-operation with
trades-unions has been of special value both in helping them where they
have done good work, and in endeavoring to check any tendency to evil
in any particular union. It has, for instance, consistently labored
to secure the settlement of strikes by consultation or arbitration,
before the bitterness has become so great as to prevent any chance
of a settlement. All this is aside from its work of sociological
investigation and its active co-operation with those public officials
who, like the late Colonel Waring, desired such aid.