and a loose term, and that the self-styled Socialists are of many
and utterly different types. If we should study only the professed
apostles of radical Socialism, of what these men themselves like to
call “scientific Socialism,” or if we should study only what active
leaders of Socialism in this country have usually done, or read only
the papers in which they have usually expressed themselves, we would
gain an utterly wrong impression of very many men who call themselves
Socialists. There are many peculiarly high-minded men and women who
like to speak of themselves as Socialists, whose attitude, conscious or
unconscious, is really merely an indignant recognition of the evil of
present conditions and an ardent wish to remedy it, and whose Socialism
is really only an advanced form of liberalism. Many of these men and
women in actual fact take a large part in the advancement of moral
ideas, and in practice wholly repudiate the purely materialistic, and
therefore sordid, doctrines of those Socialists whose creed really
is in sharp antagonism to every principle of public and domestic
morality, who war on private property with a bitterness but little
greater than that with which they war against the institutions of the
home and the family, and against every form of religion, Catholic
or Protestant. The Socialists of this moral type may in practice
be very good citizens indeed, with whom we can at many points
co-operate. They are often joined temporarily with what are called
the “opportunist Socialists”――those who may advocate an impossible
and highly undesirable Utopia as a matter of abstract faith, but who
in practice try to secure the adoption only of some given principle
which will do away with some phase of existing wrong. With these two
groups of Socialists it is often possible for all far-sighted men to
join heartily in the effort to secure a given reform or do away with a
given abuse. Probably, in practice, wherever and whenever Socialists
of these two types are able to form themselves into a party, they will
disappoint both their own expectations and the fears of others by
acting very much like other parties, like other aggregations of men;
and it will be safe to adopt whatever they advance that is wise, and to
reject whatever they advance that is foolish, just as we have to do as
regards countless other groups who on one issue or set of issues come
together to strive for a change in the political or social conditions
of the world we live in. The important thing is generally the next
step. We ought not to take it unless we are sure that it is advisable;
but we should not hesitate to take it when once we are sure; and we can
safely join with others who also wish to take it, without bothering our
heads overmuch as to any somewhat fantastic theories they may have
concerning, say, the two hundredth step, which is not yet in sight.
There are many schemes proposed which their enemies, and a few of
their friends, are pleased to call Socialistic, or which are indorsed
and favored by men who call themselves Socialists, but which are
entitled each to be considered on its merits with regard only to the
practical advantage which each would confer. Every public man, every
reformer, is bound to refuse to dismiss these schemes with the shallow
statement that they are “Socialistic”; for such an attitude is one of
mere mischievous dogmatism. There are communities in which our system
of State education is still resisted and condemned as Socialism; and
we have seen within the past two years in this country men who were
themselves directors in National banks, which were supervised by the
Government, object to such supervision of railways by the Government on
the ground that it was “Socialistic.” An employers’ liability law is
no more Socialistic than a fire department; the regulation of railway
rates is by no means as Socialistic as the digging and enlarging of
the Erie Canal at the expense of the State. A proper compensation law
would merely distribute over the entire industry the shock of accident
or disease, instead of limiting it to the unfortunate individual on
whom, through no fault of his, it happened to fall. As communities
become more thickly settled and their lives more complex, it grows
ever more and more necessary for some of the work formerly performed
by individuals, each for himself, to be performed by the community
for the community as a whole. Isolated farms need no complicated
system of sewerage; but this does not mean that public control of
sewerage in a great city should be resisted on the ground that it tends
toward Socialism. Let each proposition be treated on its own merits,
soberly and cautiously, but without any of that rigidity of mind which
fears all reform. If, for instance, the question arises as to the
establishment of day nurseries for the children of mothers who work in
factories, the obvious thing to do is to approach it with an open mind,
listen to the arguments for and against, and, if necessary, try the
experiment in actual practice. If it is alleged that small groups of
farmers have prospered by doing much of their work in common, and by a
kind of mutual insurance and supervision, why of course we should look
into the matter with an open mind, and try to find out, not what we
want the facts to be, but what the facts really are.
We cannot afford to subscribe to the doctrine, equally hard and
foolish, that the welfare of the children in the tenement-house
district is no concern of the community as a whole. If the child of
the thronged city cannot live in decent surroundings, have teaching,
have room to play, have good water and clean air, then not only will
he suffer, but in the next generation the whole community will to a
greater or less degree share his suffering.
In striving to better our industrial life we must ever keep in mind
that, while we cannot afford to neglect its material side, we can even
less afford to disregard its moral and intellectual side. Each of us is
bound to remember that he is in very truth his brother’s keeper, and
that his duty is, with judgment and common sense, to try to help the
brother. To the base and greedy attitude of mind which adopts as its
motto, “What is thine is mine,” we oppose the doctrine of service, the
doctrine that insists that each of us, in no hysterical manner, but
with common sense and good judgment, and without neglect of his or her
own interests, shall yet act on the saying, “What is mine I will in
good measure make thine also.”
Socialism strives to remedy what is evil alike in domestic and in
economic life, and its tendency is to insist that the economic remedy
is all-sufficient in every case. We should all join in the effort to
do away with the evil; but we should refuse to have anything to do
with remedies which are either absurd or mischievous, for such, of
course, would merely aggravate the present suffering. The first thing
to recognize is that, while economic reform is often vital, it is never
all-sufficient. The moral reform, the change of character――in which law
can sometimes play a large, but never the largest, part――is the most
necessary of all. In dealing with the marriage relation the Socialist
attitude is one of unmixed evil. Assuredly woman should be guarded
and honored in every way, her rights jealously upheld, and any wrong
done her should be regarded and punished with severe judgment; but
we must keep in mind the obvious fact that equality of consideration
does not mean identity of function. Our effort should be to raise the
level of self-respect, self-control, sense of duty in both sexes, and
not to push both down to an evil equality of moral turpitude by doing
away with the self-restraint and sense of obligation which have been
slowly built up through the ages. We must bring them to a moral level
by raising the lower standard, not by depressing the high. It is idle
to prattle against the “economic dependence” of woman upon man. In the
ideal household――an ideal which I believe, though very far from being
universally realized, is yet now more generally realized than ever
before――there is really complete economic interdependence, as well
as the high spiritual and moral interdependence which is more nearly
attained in happy wedlock, in a permanent partnership of love and duty,
than in any other relation of life which the world has yet seen. Rights
should be forfeited by neither partner; and duties should be shirked
by neither partner. The duty of the woman to be the child-bearer and
home-keeper is just as obvious, simple, and healthy as the duty of the
man to be the breadwinner and, if necessary, the soldier. Whenever
either the man or the woman loses the power or the will to perform
these obvious duties, the loss is irreparable, and whatever may be
the gain in ease, amiable softness, self-indulgent pleasure, or even
artistic and material achievement, the whole civilization is rotten and
must fall.
So with our industrial system. In many respects the wage system can
be bettered; but screaming about “wage slavery” is largely absurd;
at this moment, for instance, I am a “wage slave” of The Outlook.
Under certain conditions and in certain cases the co-operative system
can to a greater or less degree be substituted with advantage for,
or, more often, can be used to supplement, the wage system; but only
on condition of recognizing the widely different needs occasioned
by different conditions, which needs are so diverse that they must
sometimes be met in totally different ways.
We should do everything that can be done, by law or otherwise, to keep
the avenues of occupation, of employment, of work, of interest, so open
that there shall be, so far as it is humanly possible to achieve it,
a measurable equality of opportunity; an equality of opportunity for
each man to show the stuff that is in him. When it comes to reward, let
each man, within the limits set by a sound and far-sighted morality,
get what, by his energy, intelligence, thrift, courage, he is able
to get, with the opportunity open. We must set our faces against
privilege; just as much against the kind of privilege which would let
the shiftless and lazy laborer take what his brother has earned as
against the privilege which allows the huge capitalist to take toll to
which he is not entitled. We stand for equality of opportunity, but not
for equality of reward unless there is also equality of service. If the
service is equal, let the reward be equal; but let the reward depend
on the service; and, mankind being composed as it is, there will be
inequality of service for a long time to come, no matter how great the
equality of opportunity may be; and just so long as there is inequality
of service it is eminently desirable that there should be inequality of
reward.
We recognize, and are bound to war against, the evils of to-day.
The remedies are partly economic and partly spiritual, partly to be
obtained by laws, and in greater part to be obtained by individual and
associated effort; for character is the vital matter, and character
cannot be created by law. These remedies include a religious and
moral teaching which shall increase the spirit of human brotherhood;
an educational system which shall train men for every form of useful
service――and which shall train us to prize common sense no less than
morality; such a division of the profits of industry as shall tend to
encourage intelligent and thrifty tool-users to become tool-owners;
and a government so strong, just, wise, and democratic that, neither
lagging too far behind nor pushing heedlessly in advance, it may do its
full share in promoting these ends.
Quack Cure-Alls for the Body Politic
The best lesson that any people can learn is that there is no patent
cure-all which will make the body politic perfect, and that any man
who is able glibly to answer every question as to how to deal with
the evils of the body politic is at best a foolish visionary and
at worst an evil-minded quack. Neither doctrinaire socialism, nor
unrestricted individualism, nor any other ism, will bring about the
millennium. In the last analysis the welfare of a nation depends on
its having throughout a healthy development. A healthy social system
must of necessity represent the sum of very many moral, intellectual,
and economic forces, and each such force must depend in its turn
partly upon the whole system; and all these many forces are needed to
develop a high grade of character in the individual men and women who
make up the nation. No individual man could be kept healthy by living
in accordance with a plan which took cognizance only of one set of
muscles or set of organs; his health must depend upon his general
bodily vigor, that is, upon the general care which affects hundreds of
different organs according to their hundreds of needs. Society is, of
course, infinitely more complex than the human body. The influences
that tell upon it are countless; they are closely interwoven,
interdependent, and each is acted upon by many others. It is
pathetically absurd, when such are the conditions, to believe that some
one simple panacea for all evils can be found. Slowly, with infinite
difficulty, with bitter disappointments, with stumblings and haltings,
we are working our way upward and onward. In this progress something
can be done by continually striving to improve the social system, now
here, now there. Something more can be done by the resolute effort
for a many-sided higher life. This life must largely come to each
individual from within, by his own effort, but toward the attainment
of it each of us can help many others. Such a life must represent the
struggle for a higher and broader humanity, to be shown not merely in
the dealings of each of us within the realm of the State, but even
more by the dealings of each of us in the more intimate realm of the
family; for the life of the State rests and must ever rest upon the
life of the family and the neighborhood.
The Japanese Question
There are certain elementary principles all of which should be kept
steadily in view if a nation wishes to act justly both by itself and by
others. It must insist upon what is necessary for its own healthy life,
and this even at the cost of a possible clash; but this insistence on
what is due to itself should always be accompanied by all possible
courtesy to and fair dealing with others.
These are the principles upon which the people of the United States
should act as regards the question of the immigration of the Japanese
into this country. The Japanese are a highly civilized people of
extraordinary military, artistic, and industrial development; they are
proud, warlike, and sensitive. I believe that our people have, what I
personally certainly have, a profound and hearty admiration for them;
an admiration for their great deeds and great qualities, an ungrudging
respect for their national character. But this admiration and respect
is accompanied by the firm conviction that it is not for the advantage
of either people that emigrants from either country should settle in
mass in the other country. The understanding between the two countries
on this point should be on a basis of entire mutuality, and therefore
on a basis which will preserve unimpaired the self-respect of each
country, and permit each to continue to feel friendly good will for
the other. Japan would certainly object to the incoming of masses of
American farmers, laborers, and small traders; indeed, the Japanese
would object to this at least as strongly as the men of the Pacific
Coast and Rocky Mountain States object to the incoming in mass of
Japanese workmen, agricultural laborers, and men engaged in small
trades. The Japanese certainly object to Americans acquiring land in
Japan at least as much as the Americans of the far Western States
object to the Japanese acquiring land on our soil. The Americans who
go to Japan and the Japanese who come to America should be of the same
general class――that is, they should be travelers, students, teachers,
scientific investigators, men engaged in international business, men
sojourning in the land for pleasure or study. As long as the emigration
from each side is limited to classes such as these, there will be no
settlement in mass, and therefore no difficulty. Wherever there is
settlement in mass――that is, wherever there is a large immigration of
urban or agricultural laborers, or of people engaged in small local
business of any kind――there is sure to be friction. It is against
the interests of both nations that such unrestricted immigration or
settlement in mass should be allowed as regards either nation. This
is the cardinal fact in the situation; it should be freely recognized
by both countries, and can be accepted by each not only without the
slightest loss of self-respect, but with the certainty that its
acceptance will tend to preserve mutual respect and friendliness.
But in achieving this policy we should bear steadily in mind that it
is our duty to combine the maximum of efficiency with the minimum
of offensiveness. Only the National Government can carry out such
a policy effectively, and the surest way to do harm is for State,
municipal, or other local governments to pass laws which would be
ineffective to obtain the real object and yet would produce intense
irritation. The best of all possible ways in which to achieve the
object is that which the governments of the two countries have now
by common agreement adopted; for the Japanese Government has on its
own initiative and of its own accord undertaken to prevent the coming
hither in any appreciable numbers of Japanese of the classes to which
I have referred. This agreement during the last year or thereabouts
has worked so well that actually more Japanese have left the country
than have come into it, and there has therefore been a diminution of
their numbers. If this continues, all difficulties will cease without
the need of further action, whether by treaty or by legislation. On the
one hand, it is for the common interest of both countries that Japan
should effectively and rigorously carry out this policy. On the other
hand, it is not only the interest but the duty of America to take no
further action until it can be seen whether this policy is successful;
and this is just as wise, just as incumbent on us, whether we do or
do not believe that it will be successful. The success of the policy
must be gauged by its actual results; that is, by the extent to which
it arrests the immigration of large bodies of Japanese. If the Japanese
Government proves unable to carry its policy through, then undoubtedly
this Government, by treaty or by legislation, must protect itself and
secure the desired result on its own initiative. But in such a case it
would be doubly incumbent upon us to take the action in the way that
would provoke the least possible friction and cause the least possible
hard feeling. Moreover, we should make it evident that the recognition
of the fact that it is to the interest of both races that the masses
of both races should be kept apart is in no way incompatible with the
heartiest feelings of mutual respect and admiration between the two
races.
The fact that all really patriotic and far-sighted Americans insist
that hand in hand with a policy of good will toward foreign nations
should go the policy of the upbuilding of our navy is often interpreted
by well-meaning but short-sighted men as being a threat toward other
nations, or as being provocative of war. Of the two assumptions the
first is utterly unwarranted, and the second is the direct reverse of
the truth. We have the right to say, for instance, what immigrants
shall come to our own shores; but we are powerless to enforce this
right against any nation that chooses to disregard our wishes, unless
we continue to build up and maintain a first-class fighting navy.
The professional peace advocate who wishes us to stop building up
our navy is, in reality, seeking to put us in a position where we
would be absolutely at the mercy of any other nation that happened to
wish to disregard our desires to control the immigration that comes
to our shores, to protect our own interests in the Panama Canal, to
protect our own citizens abroad, or to take any stand whatever either
for our own international honor or in the interest of international
righteousness. Moreover, those well-meaning but fatuous advocates of
peace who would try to prevent the upbuilding of our navy utterly
misread the temper of their countrymen. We Americans are ourselves
both proud and high-spirited, and we are not always by any means
far-sighted. If our honor or our interest were menaced by a foreign
power, this Nation would fight, wholly without regard to whether or not
its navy was efficient. In the event of a crisis arising, the peace
advocates who object to our building up the navy would be absolutely
powerless to prevent this country going to war. All they could do
would be to prevent its being successful in the war. A strong navy is
the surest guaranty of peace that America can have, and the cheapest
insurance against war that Uncle Sam can possibly pay.
Tolstoy
One of the comic features of the political campaign last fall was the
letter which Count Tolstoy wrote on behalf of Mr. Bryan. In this letter
Count Tolstoy advocated the election of Mr. Bryan on the ground that
he was the representative of the party of peace, of anti-militarism.
From the point of view of American politics, the incident possessed
no importance beyond furnishing material for the humorous columns of
the newspapers. But it had a certain real interest as indicating Count
Tolstoy’s worth as a moral guide. He advocated Mr. Bryan on the theory
that Mr. Bryan represented peace and anti-militarism. Now there was
but one point in the platform of either political party in 1908 which
contained any element of menace to the peace of the world. This was the
plank in the Bryanite platform which demanded the immediate exclusion
by law of all Asiatic laborers, and therefore of the Japanese. Coupled
with it was the utterly meaningless plank about the Navy, which was,
however, intended to convey the impression that we ought to have a
navy only for the defense of our coasts――that is, a merely “defensive”
navy, or, in other words, a quite worthless navy. Now I have shown
in a preceding editorial that at this present time there is neither
justification nor excuse for such a law――and this wholly without
regard to what the future may show. The exclusion plank in Mr. Bryan’s
platform represented merely an idle threat, a wanton insult, and it was
coupled with what was intended to be a declaration that the policy of
upbuilding the Navy, which has been so successfully carried on during
the past dozen years, would be abandoned. Any man of common sense,
therefore, ought to perceive the self-evident fact that the only menace
to peace which was contained in any possible action by the American
Republic was that contained in the election of Mr. Bryan and the
attempt to put into effect his platform. That Count Tolstoy did not see
this affords a curious illustration of his complete inability to face
facts; of his readiness to turn aside from the truth in the pursuit
of any phantom, however foolish; and of the utter fatuity of those who
treat him as a philosopher, whose philosophy should be, or could be,
translated into action.
Count Tolstoy is a man of genius, a great novelist. “War and Peace,”
“Anna Karénina,” “The Cossacks,” “Sebastopol,” are great books. As
a novelist he has added materially to the sum of production of his
generation. As a professional philosopher and moralist I doubt if his
influence has really been very extensive among men of action; of course
it has a certain weight among men who live only in the closet, in the
library; and among the high-minded men of this type, who, because of
their sheltered lives, naturally reject what is immoral, and do not
have to deal with what is fantastic, in Tolstoy’s teachings, it is
probable that the really lofty side of these teachings gives them a
certain sense of spiritual exaltation. But I have no question that
whatever little influence Tolstoy has exerted among men of action has
told, on the whole, for evil. I do not think his influence over men
of action has been great, for I think he has swayed or dominated only
the feeble folk and the fantastic folk. No man who possesses both
robust common sense and high ideals, and who strives to apply both
in actual living, is affected by Tolstoy’s teachings, save as he is
affected by the teachings of hundreds of other men in whose writings
there are occasional truths mixed with masses of what is commonplace
or erroneous. Strong men may gain something from Tolstoy’s moral
teachings, but only on condition that they are strong enough and sane
enough to be repelled by those parts of his teachings which are foolish
or immoral. Weak persons are hurt by the teachings. Still, I think that
the mere fact that these weak persons are influenced sufficiently to
be marred means that there was not in them a very great quantity of
potential usefulness to mar. In the United States we suffer from grave
moral dangers; but they are for the most part dangers which Tolstoy
would neither perceive nor know how to combat. Moreover, the real and
dreadful evils which do in fact share in his denunciation of an attack
upon both good and evil are usually not evils which are of much moment
among us. On the other hand, we are not liable to certain kinds of
wickedness which there is real danger of his writings inculcating; for
it is a lamentable fact that, as is so often the case with a certain
type of mystical zealot, there is in him a dark streak which tells
of moral perversion. That side of his teachings which is partially
manifested in the revolting “Kreutzer Sonata” can do exceedingly little
damage in America, for it would appeal only to decadents; exactly as
it could have come only from a man who, however high he may stand in
certain respects, has in him certain dreadful qualities of the moral
pervert.