American Problems
[Illustration:
Copyright 1910 by Moffett Studio
Theodore Roosevelt
]
American Problems
Theodore Roosevelt
New York
The Outlook Company
1910
Copyright 1910 by
The Outlook Company
New York
All rights reserved
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contents
PAGE
The Management of Small States Which Are Unable to Manage 3
Themselves
A Remedy for Some Forms of Selfish Legislation 11
Rural Life 29
The Progressives, Past and Present 45
The Pioneer Spirit and American Problems 91
The Tariff: A Moral Issue 111
THE CHAPTERS CONTAINED IN THIS BOOK
PRESENT MR. ROOSEVELT’S VIEWS ON
MANY OF THE GREAT NATIONAL ISSUES OF
TODAY. THEY WERE WRITTEN SINCE MR.
ROOSEVELT’S RETURN TO AMERICA, AND
APPEARED ORIGINALLY IN THE OUTLOOK
AS EDITORIALS OR ARTICLES
The Management of Small States Which are Unable to Manage Themselves
In the issue of The Outlook for June 18 there was a quotation from a
letter of an Anti-Imperialist correspondent, who, in speaking of Egypt
and the Philippines, stated that the proper course to pursue was to
protect countries of this nature by international agreement, the writer
citing in support of his theory the way in which many small powers had
their territories guaranteed by international agreement.
The trouble is in the confusion of ideas which results in trying to
apply the same principle to two totally different classes of cases. A
State like Switzerland or Holland differs only in size from the greatest
of civilized nations, and in everything except size stands at least on a
level with them. Such a State is absolutely competent to preserve order
within its own bounds, to execute substantial justice, and to secure the
rights of foreigners. All that is necessary, therefore, is to guarantee
it against aggression; and when the great Powers have thus guaranteed
it, all covenanting to protect it from the aggression of any one of
their own number, their duty is done and the needs of the situation
completely met. In such a State the people themselves guarantee
stability, order, liberty, and protection for the rights of others.
There is not the slightest need of interfering with them, of seeking to
develop them, of protecting them from themselves. The needs of
civilization and humanity are sufficiently met by protecting them from
outside aggression.
There is no analogy at all with what occurs in a community unable to
keep elementary order, or to secure elementary justice within its own
borders, and unable or unwilling to do justice to foreign nations. The
very worst thing from the standpoint of humanity which can happen to
such a community may be to guarantee it against outside aggression. The
condition of Algeria under French rule is infinitely better than its
condition before the French came to Algeria, or than the condition of
Morocco at this moment. The condition of Turkestan under Russia has very
greatly improved. The condition of the Sudan at present, as compared
with the condition of the Sudan under Mahdist rule, is the most striking
example of all. In the same way, Panama has benefited immeasurably from
every standpoint by the presence of Americans on the Isthmus. Any
arrangement which had guaranteed Algeria against the French, or
Turkestan against the Russians, or the Sudan against the English, or
Panama against the Americans, would have been an arrangement against the
interests of humanity and civilization, and against the interests of the
natives of the countries themselves.
Moreover, if there must be interference for the sake of the country
itself, to promote its growth in order and civilization, actual
experience has shown that such interference can only come efficiently by
one nation, and not by many. Untried theorists, or even practical men
who are influenced by national jealousy and are untaught by the lessons
of history, have a curious fondness for trying a system of joint
interference or joint control. Americans forget, for instance, that we
have actually tried this system and found it completely wanting, in the
case of Samoa. We made an arrangement with England and Germany by which
there was a joint protectorate over Samoa. The system worked wretchedly.
It resulted badly for the natives; it was a fruitful source of bickering
among the three Powers. Then we abandoned the system, each Power took
its own sphere, and since then we have gotten along admirably; the only
trouble in connection with Samoa which arose during my entire
administration as President came because we were not able to grant the
earnest request of the natives that we should take real and complete
possession of our part of the islands and really regulate the government
instead of leaving it so much in the hands of the native chiefs.
In the case of the Philippines, there were just two things that we could
do which would have been worse than leaving them under Spanish rule. One
of these would have been to turn the islands adrift to manage
themselves. The second would have been to try to manage them by a joint
arrangement of various Powers. Any such arrangement in the case of as
rich and valuable islands as the Philippines would very possibly have
led to war between the great Powers. It would have certainly led to
jealousy, bickerings, and intrigue among them, would have held the
islands back, would have prevented any development along the lines of
progress and civilization, and would have insured an endless succession
of devastating little civil wars.
When all that is necessary as regards a small State is to protect it
from external aggression, then the great Powers can with advantage join
to guarantee its integrity. When anything more is necessary to try to
develop the people and civilization, to put down disorder, to stop civil
war and secure justice, then a combination of Powers offers the worst
possible way of securing the object sought to be achieved. Indeed, under
such circumstances it is probably better for the State concerned to be
under the control of a single Power, even though this Power has not high
ideals, rather than under the control of three or four Powers which may
possess high ideals but which are put into such an impossible situation
that they are certain to be riven asunder by jealousy, distrust, and
intrigue, and to do damage rather than good to the people whom they are
supposed to protect.
A Remedy for Some Forms of Selfish Legislation
The August number of the “World’s Work” contains an article which is of
interest to all who are concerned in the vital subject to which we give
the somewhat foggy title of “Political Reform.” The article, for obvious
reasons anonymous, is written by a member of Congress who, the editors
of the “World’s Work” say, has served for more than ten years in the
House of Representatives, has acted on many important committees, and
has been successful in “getting things” for his constituency. The
article is described as “showing the reason why the ‘pork-barrel,’
special tariff favors, and private pension bills become law,” the reason
being, to quote the words of the author, that “the dictum of the
constituency to the Congressmen is, ‘Get all you can for US.’ There are
no restrictions placed upon his method of getting it.... Until the
American people themselves become more National and less local, until
constituencies cease to regard their Congressmen as solicitors at the
National Treasury, Congress will continue to enact iniquitous groups of
local favors into National legislation.”
This serious charge against the American people—for which there is
unquestionably altogether too much justification—the author proceeds to
substantiate by relating some of his own experiences with constituents
which, however surprising they may seem to the general reader, will seem
almost commonplace to all who know how the average American constituency
does in actual practice treat its Congressman.
The writer sets forth the fact that, in the first place, ninety per cent
of the letters which a Congressman receives are requests for special
favors to be obtained in some way or other, directly or indirectly, from
the United States Treasury. For instance, while the Payne-Aldrich Tariff
Law was under discussion, this particular Congressman received in May,
1909, the following letter from the secretary of a powerful commercial
association in his district:
I have been instructed by the board of directors of this association
to advise you that at special meeting May 20, a resolution, copy of
which is enclosed, was unanimously adopted, urging our
Representatives in Congress to use every endeavor to have the
present tariff on [mentioning three of the products of the
industries referred to] increased one cent per pound and the present
tariff on [mentioning the other two products] increased half a cent
per pound. I wish to further advise you that we have heard from
Senator —— and he informs us that he will take care of this matter
in the Senate.
When the bill was finally passed, the Congressman succeeded in adding
half a cent a pound to the duty on two of these products and in
preventing any reduction on the others. A year later, when the popular
clamor against the bill had become acute, the same association that had
asked him to vote for increases wrote to the Congressman denouncing the
bill as “the most iniquitous measure ever enacted by Congress” and
requesting him to explain by letter why he had voted with “the
Reactionaries” to pass the bill. When it was pointed out to the
association that it had urged the Congressman to obtain an increase of
duty on the products in which it was interested, it dropped its demand
for an explanation. An influential newspaper published in his district
editorially commended him while the bill was under debate for his
“intelligent efforts” to increase the duty on manufactured articles in
which the district was interested, and a year later the same newspaper
in the same editorial column denounced him as one of “the legislative
banditti responsible for the Payne-Aldrich measure.”
As with the tariff, so with pensions; the Congressman is urged to obtain
local favors without regard to National interests. This is illustrated
by the following letter, which the author prints, and which was written
by the clergyman of a large and wealthy church:
_My dear Congressman_: I received a call from James H. —— several
days ago, and he told me that he had received a very unsatisfactory
letter from you regarding his chances for getting a pension. Now,
Congressman, while I know he deserted during the second year of the
war, yet there must be some way the matter can be covered up and ——
be given a pensionable status. He is at present a charge on my
congregation. Every one seems to be able to get a pension. Why not
he? Do what you can for him, and oblige.
It may be said that this is a unique instance from which it is unfair to
draw a general inference. The confessing Congressman answers, No; that
he has “hundreds of such letters filed away. So has every other
Congressman.”
River and harbor legislation is another field in which local selfishness
busies itself, to the exclusion of National needs. In this case requests
are not made by letter but by delegations which come to Washington
besieging their Senators and Representatives. “There is,” says the frank
writer of this article, “figuratively speaking, between $50,000,000 and
$60,000,000 on the table to be divided. The Committee divides it so that
every one is satisfied, at least to a reasonable extent.” Every one,
that is, but the people at large, the people who have no special
interest to serve, and who feel keenly indignant that the rivers and
harbors of the United States are developed in a fashion so inferior to
that of Europe.
Nor are all the requests for legislation merely. One constituent desired
to have this particular Congressman put his name on the free mailing
list for all public documents. That this would be impossible, because it
would mean delivering to the applicant several tons of documents every
month, does not in the slightest detract from the interest of the fact
elicited by an investigation that the applicant was the manufacturer of
an article made from waste paper, and the public documents would afford
a useful source of raw material.
Is there a remedy for such a state of things? The answer is, yes; and,
moreover, it is a remedy which Congress can itself immediately provide.
There is no complete remedy, of course. No scheme can be devised which
can prevent such a request as that of the constituent last named who
wished public documents to use in his private paper business. Requests
like this merely mean that in every district individuals will always be
found who will request improper favors. As regards these people, all
that can be done is to create a vigorous public opinion—an opinion which
shall not only make it uncomfortable for any man to demand such favors,
but which shall cordially support the Congressman in refusing them and
hold him accountable for granting them. We must trust to individual
integrity to resist such individual and sporadic attempts to corrupt it.
The case is entirely different when we come to the other favors
mentioned. These favors are those which the Congressman describes as
being improperly, habitually, and insistently demanded by large portions
of a given constituency, with at least the acquiescence of the
constituency as a whole. It is futile to expect to cure this type of
evil merely by solemnly saying that each Congressman ought to be good.
It is futile to ask the average Congressman to cut his own throat by
disregarding the requests of his own constituents for special and
improper favors in the matter of tariff legislation, river and harbor
legislation, and pension legislation; even though these same
constituents adopt the beautifully illogical position of expressing a
great—and, curiously enough, often a sincere—indignation that their
Congressman, as the only means of securing for them what they insist he
shall secure, joins with other Congressmen in granting for all other
constituencies the same improper favors which are eagerly demanded by
his own individual constituency. Moreover, under the present system, the
small man, when he asks for something in which his own district is
keenly interested, is told by the big man who represents the big
interest that he can’t have his little favor granted unless he agrees to
stand by those who wish to grant the big favor—and the small man may be
remorselessly “held up” in this fashion, even though the small favor he
asks is proper, and the big favor he is required to grant entirely
improper. When such is the pressure upon the average Representative,
there is certain to be more or less yielding on his part, in the great
majority of cases. It is idle to hope that reform will come through mere
denunciation of the average Congressman, or by merely beseeching him to
reach the height of courage, wisdom, and disinterestedness achieved only
by the exceptional man; by the man who is so brave and far-seeing and
high-minded that he really will think only of the interests of the
country as a whole.
On the other hand, it is just as idle for Congressmen to seek to excuse
themselves as a body by uttering jeremiads as to the improper way in
which their constituents press them to do things that ought not to be
done. The individual Congressman can be excused only by frankly
admitting that the fault lies with the Congressmen taken collectively.
The remedy is simple and easy of application.
Congress has now, and has long had, the power to rid its members of
almost all the improper pressure brought to bear upon the individual by
special interests—great and small, local and metropolitan—on such
subjects as tariff legislation, river and harbor legislation, and
pension legislation. Congress has not exercised this power, chiefly
because of what I am bound to regard as a very shortsighted and unwise
belief that it is beneath its dignity to delegate any of its functions.
By passing a rule which would forbid the reception or passage of any
pension bill save the pension legislation recommended by the
Commissioner of Pensions (this of course to be rejected or amended as
Congress saw fit, but not so amended as to include any special or
private legislation), Congress would at once do away with the
possibility of its members being subject to local pressure for improper
private pension bills, and at the same time guarantee proper treatment
for the veteran who really does deserve to have everything done for him
that the country can afford. The veteran of this stamp has no stancher
friend than the Commissioner of Pensions; whereas he is often the very
man passed over when special bills are introduced, because the less
deserving men are at least as apt as the others to have political
influence.
In the case of the tariff and the river and harbor legislation, what is
needed in each case is ample provision for a commission of the highest
possible grade, composed of men who thoroughly know the subject, and who
possess every attribute required for the performance of the great and
difficult task of framing in outline the legislation that the country,
as distinguished from special interests, really needs. These men, from
the very nature of the case, will be wholly free from the local pressure
of special interests so keenly felt by every man who is dependent upon
the vote of a particular district every two years for his continuance in
public life. Such a river and harbor commission could report, and
probably would report, a great and comprehensive National scheme for
river and harbor improvements fit to be considered by the people as a
whole upon its merits, and not dependent for enactment into law upon a
system of log-rolling designed to placate special interests which are
powerful in each of many score Congressional districts. Such a tariff
commission could get at the facts of labor cost here and abroad by
expert inquiry, and not by the acceptance of interested testimony; such
a commission could consider dispassionately the probable effect upon the
entire social and economic body of all changes in any given branch of
the tariff, and its recommendations would represent the exercise of
careful judgment from a disinterested standpoint. Such a commission
could work in harmony with the Commissioner of Labor, so as to insure
that the laborers for whom the tariff is passed get the full benefit of
it; for the major part of the benefit of a protective tariff should
unquestionably go to the wage-workers.
Even under such conditions of tariff-making errors might be committed,
but they would be merely those errors of disinterested judgment
incidental to every kind of public or, for the matter of that, private
effort, and the work would not be hampered from the beginning by the
need of gratifying private selfishness.
It is only in this way that tariff legislation, river and harbor
legislation, and pension legislation can be treated from the standpoint
of principle and not from the very low standpoint of privilege and
preference. The obstacle hitherto to the adoption of such a method of
treatment has come from the queer dislike felt by so many Congressional
leaders to a course of action which they (quite unjustifiably) feel
would in some way be a limitation of their powers. I think this feeling
is passing. It is simply another instance of the kind of feeling which
makes some executives suspicious about delegating their work to any
subordinate, and which makes many voters, who have not pondered the
matter deeply, desire to elect great numbers of people on a ticket of
such length that it is out of the question for any except professional
politicians to know much about them.
As soon as business becomes at all complex—and nothing can be more
complex than the business of a Nation of a hundred million people—it can
only be performed by delegating to experts the duty of dealing with all
that can properly be delegated. It is only by such delegation that it is
possible to secure the proper consideration of the exceedingly important
business which cannot properly be delegated. The voters, as a whole, for
instance, must necessarily declare directly upon all really vital
issues, and they should do this when the issue is a man just as much as
when the issue is one of legislation. Indeed, in my judgment, there are
certain matters, as to which the voters do not at present have the
chance of thus acting directly, where it is important that the chance be
given them. But they can only exercise such choice with wisdom and
benefit where it is vitally necessary to exercise it, on condition of
not being confused by the requirement of exercising it in the great
multitude of cases where there is no such necessity, and where they can
with advantage delegate the duty to the man they deem most fit to do the
business.
What is true of the voters is equally true of legislators and
administrators the moment that their tasks become sufficiently complex.
The village constable in a small community can do all his work directly.
But the President of the United States can do his work at all only by
delegating the enormous mass of it to his appointees, and by confining
his own share of the purely administrative work largely to supervision
and direction of these employees. When a President appoints a commission
to investigate such a vital matter as, for instance, country life, or
the conservation of natural resources, he does not abdicate his own
authority; he merely faces the fact that by no possibility can he
himself do this important piece of work as well as the experts whom he
appoints to devote their whole time to that purpose. Now, Congress can
with wisdom act in such matters of prime legislative importance as the
tariff and river and harbor improvement, in the same way that the
President acts in such matters of prime administrative importance as
country life and conservation. It no more represents abdication of power
on the part of Congress to appoint a first-class Tariff Commission than
it represents abdication of power on the part of the President to
appoint a first-class Country Life or Conservation Commission, or than
it represents abdication of power on the part of voters to elect as
Governor a man to whom they give all possible power to do his work well.
In each case the body delegating the authority, so far from abdicating
the power, has secured its wise use by intrusting it to a man or men
especially equipped thus to use it well, and this man, or these men, can
in turn be held to the most rigid accountability if it is not well used,
in the exclusive service of the people as a whole.
Rural Life
There are no two public questions of more vital importance to the future
of this country than the problem of Conservation and the problem of the
betterment of country life. Moreover, these two problems are really
interdependent, for neither of them can be successfully solved save on
condition that there is at least a measurable success in the effort to
solve the other. In any great country the prime physical asset—the
physical asset more valuable than any other—is the fertility of the
soil. All our industrial and commercial welfare, all our material
development of every kind, depends in the last resort upon our
preserving and increasing the fertility of the soil. This, of course,
means the conservation of the soil as the great natural resource; and
equally, of course, it furthermore implies the development of country
life, for there cannot be a permanent improvement of the soil if the
life of those who live on it, and make their living out of it, is
suffered to starve and languish, to become stunted and weazened and
inferior to the type of life lived elsewhere. We are now trying to
preserve, not for exploitation by individuals, but for the permanent
benefit of the whole people, the waters and the forests, and we are
doing this primarily as a means of adding to the fertility of the soil;
although in each case there is a great secondary use both of the water
and of the forests for commercial and industrial purposes. In the same
way it is essential for the farmers themselves to try to broaden the
life of the man who lives in the open country; to make it more
attractive; to give it every adjunct and aid to development which has
been given to the life of the man of the cities. Therefore the
conservation and rural life policies are really two sides of the same
policy; and down at bottom this policy rests upon the fundamental law
that neither man nor nation can prosper unless, in dealing with the
present, thought is steadily taken for the future.
In one sense this problem with which we have to deal is very, very old.
Wherever civilizations have hitherto sprung up they have always tended
to go through certain stages and then to fall. No nation can develop a
real civilization without cities. Up to a certain point the city
movement is thoroughly healthy; yet it is a strange and lamentable fact
that always hitherto after this point has been reached the city has
tended to develop at the expense of the country by draining the country
of what is best in it, and making an insignificant return for this best.
In consequence, in the past, every civilization in its later stages has
tended really to witness those conditions under which “the cities
prosper and the men decay.” There are ugly signs that these tendencies
are at work in this nation of ours. But very fortunately we see now what
never before was seen in any civilization—an aroused and alert public
interest in the problem, a recognition of its gravity and a desire to
attempt its solution.
The problem does not consist merely in the growth of the city. Such a
growth in itself is a good thing and not a bad thing for the country.
The problem consists in the growth of the city at the expense of the
country; and, even where this is not the case, in so great an equality
of growth in power and interest as to make the city more attractive than
the country, and therefore apt to drain the country of the people who
ought to live therein.
The human side of the rural life problem is to make the career of the
farmer and the career of the farm laborer as attractive and as
remunerative as corresponding careers in the city. Now, I am well aware
that the farmer must himself take the lead in bringing this about. A
century and a quarter ago the wise English farmer, Arthur Young, wrote
of the efforts to improve French wool: “A cultivator at the head of a
sheep farm of 3,000 or 4,000 acres would in a few years do more for
their wools than all the academicians and philosophers will effect in
ten centuries.” It is absurd to think that any man who has studied the
subject only theoretically is fit to direct those who practically work
at the matter. But I wish to insist to you here—to you practical men,
who own and work your farms—that it is an equally pernicious absurdity
for the practical man to refuse to benefit by the work of the student.
The English farmer I have quoted, Young, was a practical farmer, but he
was also a scientific farmer. One reason why the great business men of
to-day—the great industrial leaders—have gone ahead, while the farmer
has tended to sag behind the others, is that they are far more willing,
and indeed eager, to profit by expert and technical knowledge—the
knowledge that can come only as a result of the highest education. From
railways to factories no great industrial concern can nowadays be
carried on save by the aid of a swarm of men who have received a high
technical education in chemistry, in engineering, in electricity, in one
or more of scores of special subjects. The big business man, the big
railway man, does not ask college-trained experts to tell him how to run
his business; but he does ask numbers of them each to give him expert
advice and aid on some one point indispensable to his business. He finds
this man usually in some graduate of a technical school or college in
which he has been trained for his life work.
In just the same way the farmers should benefit by the advice of the
technical men who have been trained in phases of the very work the
farmer does. I am not now speaking of the man who has had an ordinary
general training, whether in school or college. While there should
undoubtedly be such a training as a foundation (the extent differing
according to the kind of work each boy intends to do as a man), it is
nevertheless true that our educational system should more and more be
turned in the direction of educating men towards, and not away from, the
farm and the shop. During the last half-century we have begun to develop
a system of agricultural education at once practical and scientific, and
we must go on developing it. But, after developing it, it must be used.
The rich man who spends a fortune upon a fancy farm, with entire
indifference to cost, does not do much good to farming; but, on the
other hand, just as little is done by the working farmer who stolidly
refuses to profit by the knowledge of the day; who treats any effort at
improvement as absurd on its face, refuses to countenance what he
regards as new-fangled ideas and contrivances, and jeers at all “book
farming.” I wish I could take representatives of this type of farmer
down to Long Island, where I live, to have them see what has been done,
not as philanthropy but as a plain business proposition, by men
connected with the Long Island Railroad, who believe it pays to
encourage the development of farms along the line of that railway. They
have put practical men in charge of experimental farms, cultivating them
intensively, and using the best modern methods, not only in raising
crops, but in securing the best market for the crops when raised. The
growth has been astounding, and land only fifty miles from New York,
which during our entire National lifetime has been treated as worthless,
has within the last three or four years been proved to possess a really
high value.
The farmer, however, must not only make his land pay, but he must make
country life interesting for himself and for his wife and his sons and
daughters. Our people as a whole should realize the infinite
possibilities of life in the country; and every effort should be made to
make these possibilities more possible. From the beginning of time it
has been the man raised in the country—and usually the man born in the
country—who has been most apt to render the services which every nation
most needs. Turning to the list of American statesmen, it is
extraordinary to see how large a proportion started as farm boys. But it
is rather sad to see that in recent years most of these same boys have
ended their lives as men living in cities.
It often happens that the good conditions of the past can be regained,
not by going back, but by going forward. We cannot re-create what is
dead; we cannot stop the march of events; but we can direct this march,
and out of the new conditions develop something better than the past
knew. Henry Clay was a farmer who lived all his life in the country;
Washington was a farmer who lived and died in the country; and we of
this Nation ought to make it our business to see that the conditions are
made such that farm life in the future shall not only develop men of the
stamp of Washington and Henry Clay, but shall be so attractive that
these men may continue as farmers; for remember that Washington and
Henry Clay were successful farmers. I hope that things will so shape
themselves that the farmer can have a great career and yet end his life
as a farmer; so that the city man will look forward to living in the
country rather than the country man to living in the city.
Farmers should learn how to combine effectively, as has been done in
industry. I heartily believe in farmers’ organizations; and we should
all welcome every step taken towards an increasing co-operation among
farmers. The importance of such movements cannot be over-estimated; and
through such intelligent joint action it will be possible to improve the
market just as much as the farm.
Country life should be as attractive as city life, and the country
people should insist upon having their full representation when it comes
to dealing with all great public questions. In other words, country
folks should demand that they work on equal terms with city folks in all
such matters. They should have their share in the memberships of
commissions and councils; in short, of all the organized bodies for
laying plans for great enterprises affecting all the people. I am glad
to see on such bodies the names that represent financial interests, but
those interests should not have the right-of-way, and in all enterprises
and movements in which the social condition of the country is involved,
the agricultural country—the open country—should be as well represented
as the city. The man of the open country is apt to have certain
qualities which the city man has lost. These qualities offset those
which the city man has and he himself has not. The two should be put on
equal terms, and the country talent be given the same opportunity as the
city talent to express itself and to contribute to the welfare of the
world in which we live.
The country church should be made a true social center, alive to every
need of the community, standing for a broad individual outlook and
development, taking the lead in work and in recreation, caring more for
conduct than for dogma, more for ethical, spiritual, practical
betterment than for merely formal piety. The country fair offers far
greater possibilities for continuous and healthy usefulness than it at
present affords. The country school should be made a vital center for
economic, social, and educational co-operation; it is naturally fitted
to be such a center for those engaged in commercial farming, and still
more for those engaged in domestic farming, for those who live on and by
the small farms they themselves own. The problem of the farm is really
the problem of the family that lives on the farm. On all these questions
there is need of intelligent study, such as marks the books of Professor
Bailey, of Cornell, and of Sir Horace Plunkett’s book on the “Rural Life
Problems of the United States.”
One feature of the problem should be recognized by the farmer at once,
and an effort made to deal with it. It is our duty and our business to
consider the farm laborer exactly as we consider the farmer. No country
life can be satisfactory when the owners of farms tend, for whatever
reason, to go away to live in cities instead of working their farms;
and, moreover, it cannot be really satisfactory when the labor system is
so managed that there is for part of the year a demand for labor which
cannot be met, and during another part of the year no demand for labor
at all, so that the farmers tend to rely on migratory laborers who come
out to work in the country with no permanent interest in it and with no
prospect of steady employment. It is exceedingly difficult to make a
good citizen out of a man who cannot count upon some steadiness and
continuity in the work which means to him his livelihood. Economic
conditions on the farm—in variety and kind of crop-growing, especially
as distributed in time, and in housing for the men—must be so shaped as
to render it possible for the man who labors for the farmer to be
steadily employed under conditions which foster his self-respect and
tend for his development.
Above all, the conditions of farm life must always be shaped with a view
to the welfare of the farmer’s wife and the farm laborer’s wife, quite
as much as to the welfare of the farmer and the farm laborer. To have
the woman a mere drudge is at least as bad as to have the man a mere
drudge. It is every whit as important to introduce new machines to
economize her labor within the house, as it is to introduce machinery to
increase the effectiveness of his labor outside the house. I have not
the slightest sympathy with any movement which looks to excusing men and
women for the non-performance of duty and fixes attention only on rights
and not on duties. The woman who shirks her duty as housewife, as
mother, is a contemptible creature; just as the corresponding man is a
contemptible creature. But the welfare of the woman is even more
important than the welfare of the man; for the mother is the real Atlas,
who bears aloft in her strong and tender arms the destiny of the world.
She deserves honor and consideration such as no man should receive. She
forfeits all claim to this honor and consideration if she shirks her
duties. But the average American woman does not shirk them; and it is a
matter of the highest obligation for us to see that they are performed
under conditions which make for her welfare and happiness and for the
welfare and happiness of the children she brings into the world.
The Progressives, Past and Present
There have been two great crises in our country’s history: first when it
was formed, and then again when it was perpetuated. The formative period
included not merely the Revolutionary War, but the creation and adoption
of the Constitution and the first dozen years of work under it. Then
came sixty years during which we spread across the continent—years of
vital growth, but of growth without rather than growth within. Then came
the time of stress and strain which culminated in the Civil War, the
period of terrible struggle upon the issue of which depended the
justification of all that we had done earlier, and which marked the
second great period of growth and development within. The name of John
Brown will be forever associated with this second period of the Nation’s
history; and Kansas was the theater upon which the first act of the
second of our great National life dramas was played. It was the result
of the struggle in Kansas which determined that our country should be in
deed as well as in name devoted to both union and freedom, that the
great experiment of democratic government on a national scale should
succeed and not fail. It was a heroic struggle; and, as is inevitable
with all such struggles, it had also a dark and a terrible side. Very
much was done of good, and much, also, of evil; and, as was inevitable
in such a period of revolution, often the same man did both good and
evil. For our great good fortune as a nation, we, the people of the
United States as a whole, can now afford to forget the evil, or at least
to remember it without bitterness, and to fix our eyes with pride on the
good that was accomplished. Even in ordinary times there are very few of
us who do not see the problems of life as through a glass, darkly; and
when the glass is clouded by the murk of furious popular passion, the
vision of the best and the bravest is dimmed. Looking back, we are all
of us now able to do justice to the valor and the disinterestedness and
the love of the right as to each it was given to see the right, shown
both by the men of the North and the men of the South in that contest
which was finally decided by the attitude of the West. We can see the
Puritan soldier, the man of the Bible and the sword, embodied again in
Stonewall Jackson, just as we see that Puritan embodied in the stern
soldiers who warred against Jackson. We can admire the heroic valor, the
sincerity, the self-devotion shown alike by the men who wore the blue
and the men who wore the gray; and our sadness that such men should have
had to fight one another is tempered by the glad knowledge that ever
hereafter their descendants shall be found fighting side by side,
struggling in peace as well as in war for the uplift of their common
country, all alike resolute to raise to the highest pitch of honor and
usefulness the nation to which they all belong.
I do not speak of this struggle of the past merely from the historic
standpoint. Our interest is primarily in the application to-day of the
lessons taught by the contest of half a century ago. It is of little use
for us to pay lip loyalty to the mighty men of the past unless we
sincerely endeavor to apply to the problems of the present precisely the
qualities which in other crises enabled the men of that day to meet
those crises. It is half melancholy and half amusing to see the way in
which well-meaning people gather to do honor to the men who, in company
with John Brown, and under the lead of Abraham Lincoln, faced and solved
the great problems of the nineteenth century, while at the same time
these same good people nervously shrink from or frantically denounce
those who are trying to meet the problems of the twentieth in the spirit
which was accountable for the successful solution of the problems of
Lincoln’s time.
John Brown stands to us now as representing the men and the generation
who rendered the greatest service ever rendered this country. He stood
for heroic valor, grim energy, fierce fidelity to high ideals. A great
debt is owed to John Brown because he is one of the most striking
figures in the mighty struggle which was to keep us forever a free and
united nation, which was to secure the continuance of the most
tremendous democratic experiment ever tried. He did much in his life and
more in his death; he embodied the inspiration of the men of his
generation; his fate furnished the theme of the song which most stirred
the hearts of the soldiers. John Brown’s work was brought to completion,
was made perfect, by the men who bore aloft the banner of the Union
during the four terrible years which intervened between Sumter and
Appomattox. To the soldiers who fought through those years—and of course
to a very few of their civilian chiefs, like Lincoln—is due the supreme
debt of the Nation. They alone, of all our people since we became a
nation, rendered to us and to all who come after us a service literally
indispensable. They occupy the highest and most honorable position ever
occupied by any men of any generation in our country.
Of that generation of men to whom we owe so much, the man to whom we owe
most is, of course, Lincoln. Valor, energy, disinterestedness,
idealism—all these were his; and his also was that lofty and far-seeing
wisdom which alone could make the valor, the disinterestedness, the
energy, the idealism, of service to the Republic. Here again, in meeting
the problems of to-day, let us profit by, and welcome, and co-operate
with the John Browns; but let us also remember that the problems can
really be solved only if we approach them in the spirit of Abraham
Lincoln.
John Brown prepared the way; but if the friends of freedom and union had
surrendered themselves to his leadership, the cause of freedom and union
would have been lost. After his death Lincoln spoke of him as follows:
“John Brown’s effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It
was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves in which the
slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the
slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not
succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many
attempts related in history at the assassination of kings and emperors.
An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies
himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the
attempt, which ends in little less than his own execution. Orsini’s
attempt on Louis Napoleon and John Brown’s attempt at Harper’s Ferry
were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to cast
blame on Old England in the one case and on New England in the other
does not disprove the sameness of the two things.”
In our struggle to-day we can study Lincoln’s career purely as an
example to emulate; we can study John Brown’s career partly as such an
example, but partly also as a warning. I think such study is especially
necessary for the extremists among the very men with whom my own
sympathy is especially keen. I am a progressive; I could not be anything
else; indeed, as the years go by I become more, and not less, radically
progressive. To my mind the failure resolutely to follow progressive
policies is the negation of democracy as well of progress, and spells
disaster. But for this very reason I feel concern when progressives act
with heedless violence, or go so far and so fast as to invite reaction.
The experience of John Brown illustrates the evil of the revolutionary
short-cut to ultimate good ends. The liberty of the slave was desirable,
but it was not to be brought about by a slave insurrection. The better
distribution of property is desirable, but it is not to be brought about
by the anarchic form of Socialism which would destroy all private
capital and tend to destroy all private wealth. It represents not
progress, but retrogression, to propose to destroy capital because the
power of unrestrained capital is abused. John Brown rendered a great
service to the cause of liberty in the earlier Kansas days; but his
notion that the evils of slavery could be cured by a slave insurrection
was a delusion analogous to the delusions of those who expect to cure
the evils of plutocracy by arousing the baser passions of workingmen
against the rich in an endeavor at violent industrial revolution. And,
on the other hand, the brutal and shortsighted greed of those who profit
by what is wrong in the present system, and the attitude of those who
oppose all effort to do away with this wrong, serve in their turn as
incitements to such revolution; just as the insolence of the ultra
proslavery men finally precipitated the violent destruction of slavery.
In one of Lincoln’s addresses immediately after his second election, at
a time when any man of less serene magnanimity would have been tempted
to advocate extreme measures and to betray personal exultation, or even
to show hatred of his opponents, he said:
“Human nature will not change. In any future great national affair,
compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as
silly and as wise, as bad and as good. Let us therefore study the
incidents of this as philosophy to learn wisdom from, and none of them
as wrongs to be revenged. May not all having a common interest reunite
in a common effort to save our common country? For my own part, I have
striven and shall strive to avoid placing any obstacle in the way. So
long as I have been here I have not willingly planted a thorn in any
man’s bosom. May I ask those who have not differed with me to join with
me in this same spirit towards those who have?”
Surely such a union of indomitable resolution in the achievement of a
given purpose, with patience and moderation in the policy pursued, and
with kindly charity and consideration and friendliness to those of
opposite belief, marks the very spirit in which we of to-day should
approach the pressing problems of the present.
These problems have to do with securing a more just and generally
widespread welfare, so that there may be a more substantial measure of
equality in moral and physical well-being among the people whom the men
of Lincoln’s day kept undivided as citizens of a single country, and
freed from the curse of negro slavery. They did their part; now let us
do ours.