OLD HOME WEEK
Isn't it about time we had an "Old Home Week" for ideas? For the past
few years our thoughts, quite naturally and rightly, have been abroad,
and we have been grappling with world problems because they were more
vital to us than the problems of our every day lives. But a time has
come when we can safely come back to our individual interests.
Just now I am inclined to sympathize with the plain citizen who recently
found himself obliged to spend an evening with a number of high-thinking
friends who were having an improving conversation about world affairs.
While the high talk was in progress the plain man was examining his
rough and toil-gnarled hands, and he took advantage of a lull in the
conversation to ask:
"Can any of you fellows give me a real and sure cure for warts?"
It was a dreadful anticlimax, but it expressed a feeling of weariness
with great things that is becoming very common. We are in need of a
mental rest. As Bill Nye phrased it, we are in danger of "spraining our
thinkers" by grappling with things that are beyond our grasp. Every
morning the papers have articles about such subjects as "A League of
Nations to enforce World Peace," and so on, and so on. In order to deal
with such things intelligently we must think for the planet. A country
or an empire is no longer big enough for us. Every scheme for the good
of humanity is a world scheme, and the world must be organized to fit
it. No wonder the plain man loses his grip on it all and begins to think
about his warts.
The curse of the present time is organization. Our civilization has
woven about itself a web of organizations that will destroy it as
certainly as the poisoned shirt of Nessus destroyed Hercules. It is
organization that makes Business Success possible, and it is under the
exactions of Business Success that the whole world is writhing. Much, if
not all, of the present-day unrest can be traced back to organized
greed--either to the greed of capitalists or the greed of classes. By
organizing they get power, and when they get power they abuse it to
gratify their own selfishness. The trouble is not due to the principle
of organization, but to the fact that we have allowed organization to
degenerate into conspiracy. And conspiracy would not be possible without
secrecy. If every organization formed under the protection of that one
big organization, the Government, of which we are all a part, were
subjected to a publicity as pitiless as the Day of Judgment, we would
have no cases of three hundred and ten per cent and over. And I can see
no sound reason why the workings of business and the operations of
capital generally should not be subject to the closest public scrutiny.
The Government is forced to do business in public, under the constant
criticism of a hostile Opposition, and yet it manages to get along. Even
kings and presidents live in the white light that beats upon a throne,
and every act that affects the welfare of citizens is open to
examination. But the Kings of Industry and all the operations of Big
Business must be shrouded in darkness and mystery. Nonsense! Honest
business can bear the light of day just as well as honest government.
Our Captains of Industry all claim to be serving the public. That is the
excuse for the privileges they demand. Then why not let us see how they
are serving it? Is it that they are too modest? I am afraid their
modesty is much like that of Artemus Ward's noble Red Man who stole a
blanket and a bottle of whiskey and then rushed whooping to the
wilderness to conceal his emotion. Our Kings of Big Business are very
anxious to conceal their emotion--and other things. It is true that they
do a great service in building up our countries; but the difficulty is
that they want the title to all the buildings in their own names.
It doesn't seem to be quite right to be talking about organizations and
big organizers this way. I know that a great many people will be
offended because they are quite sure they will never get to heaven
unless they are organized and belong to exactly the right organization.
Nevertheless and notwithstanding, I repeat the assertion that
organization is the curse of our time--though it should be a blessing.
All organization that is secret in its operations is a menace to the
welfare of the people and should have the light turned in on it. It is
in secrecy that abnormal profits are piled up. If a cheese factory can
be run with the fullest publicity and yet make a decent success, I fail
to see why a cloth factory or shoe factory should not be run on the same
basis. We are allowing ourselves to be bluffed by the leaders of Big
Business and we should be ashamed of ourselves. Few of the men we are
cringing before have any real ability. They employ it. All they have is
a ruthless greed, and as ninety per cent fail it is probable that most
of the ten per cent who succeed owe their success to luck. Turn in the
light on the whole lot! We can then do honor to those who are conducting
a fair business and rendering service for the rewards they are
taking--and we can attend to the others. Implacable publicity would
probably do more to correct the high cost of living than anything else.
And no organization should be allowed to exist without the fullest
publicity regarding all its actions.
Before the outbreak of the war, Judge Brandeis, of the United States
Superior Court, wrote a paper about "The Curse of Bigness," which I
would like to re-read just now if I could only remember who borrowed it
from me. It is rather amusing to remember that he was dealing with
trifling little matters such as the Standard Oil Company, railroad
mergers, industrial corporations, trusts, and such things. Compared with
the schemes that are in the air to-day they were like nursery games.
Yet he argued with much logic that when organizations get beyond a
certain size they become inefficient and wasteful. Instead of serving
the purpose for which they were organized they stifle progress and
development. Big organizations do not encourage new ideas as little ones
do. Being beyond competition, they become sluggish and reactionary. I
cannot help wondering if we shall not have the same difficulty with the
big schemes that are being promoted just now. After all they will have
to be run by human beings, and there is a limit to human powers. Judge
Brandeis showed that business schemes could become too big for even the
colossal business brain of J. Pierpont Morgan, and it is just possible
that there may be schemes of statecraft too big for the brains of Lloyd
George and Mr. Wilson and the others who are grappling with them. And
the trouble is that we are all grappling with them and overlooking the
fact that the biggest achievement possible to democracy is to give
every individual freedom to direct his own affairs. At the present time
people have altogether too many ideas about fixing up the world, and too
few ideas about the homely tasks of ordinary citizenship. Let us call in
our far-reaching thoughts and see what we can find to do right at home.
If all of us would do that, the need for world-shaping schemes would
probably disappear.
I am afraid there is another check on big schemes that is being
overlooked. Even before the war Captains of Industry were finding it
hard to get men for their higher command. Only the other day I read an
article which bemoaned the lack of men capable of filling five thousand
and ten thousand dollar a year jobs. It was asserted that jobs of this
kind are going begging because men of the right capacity cannot be
found. There are too many men who are fitted for ordinary routine jobs,
but only now and then is it possible to find men fitted for big
executive jobs. When the work of reconstruction is undertaken in
earnest, it will probably be found that the dearth of the right kind of
men is greater than ever. The war called for just this kind of men and
they have been destroyed by the thousand. Even those who had it in them
to do great executive work, and were not fated to lay down their lives
in the cause of humanity, have had their energies turned into other
channels, and it is possible that many of them will not be able to
resume work where they left off. The best brains of the rising
generation have been diverted by the war, and the supply of competent
executives is likely to prove smaller than ever, just at the time when
schemes are developing that will require them more than ever. It is easy
enough to find dreamers who can think out schemes for the benefit of
humanity, but it is very hard to find men with the necessary executive
ability to put them into force. It is quite possible that we must give
up some of our finest dreams for the lack of the right kind of men to
carry them out. Humanity's losses in material wealth and man-power may
be estimated, but its loss in mental and spiritual force is beyond
computation. In the meantime the big ideas are being pushed forward, but
we must not be too much disappointed if we are forced to return to a
"day of little things"--which we are told is not to be despised.
Organizations, no doubt, have their value, but when overdone their
effect is more than questionable. At the present time individual
initiative, which is probably the greatest force for good in our
civilization, is being benumbed and stifled by the mad passion for
organization. In the matter of food production we constantly get news
about this and that great organization that is arranging to investigate
and take action, and the ordinary man gets an entirely wrong idea into
his head. He thinks that with all the Government committees and
commissions and public-spirited organizations at work, it is entirely
needless for him to undertake the little he might be able to do by his
own efforts. This is a serious misconception; many great movements are
started that are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." While
organized effort, properly directed, will undoubtedly accomplish great
things, individual initiative has been the foundation of practically
every success our country has known. This tendency to flock together
into organizations whenever there is anything to be done is not an
entirely healthful sign. Some recent experiences have led me to mourn
the disappearance of an effective though somewhat undesirable type of
citizen known in the past. In trying to define the kind of man I am
thinking of, I remember a report of a scene in the police court in New
York some years ago. A lawyer was examining the badly battered
plaintiff.
"What did the defendant say to you on that occasion?"
"He said he would knock my head off."
"And what else?"
"He said he would mop the floor with me."
"And what else?"
"Er--also he done it."
There would be a great deal of progress in this world if it could be
said after the plans suggested by each man--"also he done it." The
trouble just now is that we all organize and nobody gets his head
knocked off and the floor doesn't get mopped up.