back scarcely a hundred years. Formerly nations were made up of the
subjects of this or that gracious majesty and were regarded by their
God-given rulers as beasts of burden or slaves or, in more amiable
moods, as children. The same forces that have given rise to modern
democracy have made it possible for vast groups of people, such as
make up France or the United States, to be held together more
intimately than ever before by the news which reaches them daily of
the enterprises of their government and the deeds of their conspicuous
fellow-countrymen.
In this way the inhabitants of an extensive territory embracing
hundreds of thousands of square miles are brought as close together as
the people of Athens in former days. Man Is surely a gregarious animal
who dislikes solitude. He is, moreover, given to the most exaggerated
estimate of his tribe; and on these ancient foundations modern
nationality has been built up by means of the printing press, the
telegraph, and cheap postage. _So it has fallen out that just when the
world was becoming effectively cosmopolitan in its economic
interdependence, its scientific research, and its exchange of books
and art, the ancient tribal insolence has been developed on a
stupendous scale._
The manner in which man has revolutionized his environment, habits of
conduct, and purposes of life by inventions is perhaps the most
astonishing thing in human history. It is an obscure and hitherto
rather neglected subject. But it is clear enough, from the little that
has been said here, that since the Middle Ages, and especially in the
past hundred years, science has so hastened the process of change that
it becomes increasingly difficult for man's common run of thinking to
keep pace with the radical alterations in his actual practices and
conditions of living.
* * * * *
VII
Peace sitting under her olive, and
slurring the days gone by,
When the poor are hovell'd and
hustled together, each sex, like
swine,
When only the ledger lives, and
when only not all men lie;
Peace in her vineyard--yes!--but
a company forges the wine.
--TENNYSON.
Could great men thunder
As Jove himself does, Jove would
ne'er be quiet.
For every pelting, petty officer
Would use his heaven for thunder;
Nothing but thunder!
... Man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he's most
assured,
His glassy essence, like an angry
ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before
high heaven
As make the angels weep; who, with
our spleens,
Would all themselves laugh mortal.
--SHAKESPEARE.
14. "THE SICKNESS OF AN ACQUISITIVE SOCIETY"
It is so difficult a task to form any correct estimate of one's own
surroundings, largely on account of our very familiarity with them,
that historical students have generally evaded this responsibility.
They have often declared that it was impossible to do so
satisfactorily. And yet no one will ever know more than we about what
is going on now. Some secrets may be revealed to coming generations,
but plenty of our circumstances will be obscure to them. And it
certainly seems pusillanimous, if not hazardous, to depute to those
yet unborn the task of comprehending the conditions under which we
must live and strive. I have long believed that the only unmistakable
contribution that the historical student can make to the progress of
intelligence is to study the past with an eye constantly on the
present. For history not only furnishes us with the key to the present
by showing how our situation came about, but at the same time supplies
a basis of comparison and a point of vantage by virtue of which the
salient contrasts between our days and those of old can be detected.
Without history the essential differences are sure to escape us. Our
generation, like all preceding generations of mankind, inevitably
takes what it finds largely for granted, and the great mass of men who
argue about existing conditions assume a fundamental likeness to past
conditions as the basis of their conclusions in regard to the present
and the still unrolled future.
Such a procedure becomes more and more dangerous, for although a
continuity persists, there are more numerous, deeper and wider
reaching contrasts between the world of to-day and that of a hundred,
or even fifty, years ago, than have developed in any corresponding
lapse of time since the beginning of civilization. This is not the
place even to sketch the novelties in our knowledge and circumstances,
our problems and possibilities. No more can be done here than to
illustrate in a single field of human interest the need of an
unprecedentedly open mind in order to avail ourselves of existing
resources in grasping and manipulating the problems forced upon us.
Few people realize how novel is the almost universal preoccupation
with business which we can observe on every hand, but to which we are
already so accustomed that it easily escapes the casual observer. But
in spite of its vastness and magnificent achievements, business, based
upon mass production and speculative profits, has produced new evils
and reinforced old ones which no thoughtful person can possibly
overlook. Consequently it has become the great issue of our time, the
chief subject of discussion, to be defended or attacked according to
one's tastes, even as religion and politics formerly had their day.
Business men, whether conspicuous in manufacture, trade, or finance,
are the leading figures of our age. They exercise a dominant influence
in domestic and foreign policy; they subsidize our education and exert
an unmistakable control over it. In other ages a military or religious
caste enjoyed a similar pre-eminence. But now business directs and
equips the soldier, who is far more dependent on its support than
formerly. Most religious institutions make easy terms with business,
and, far from interfering with it or its teachings, on the whole
cordially support it. Business has its philosophy, which it holds to
be based upon the immutable traits of human nature and as identical
with morality and patriotism. It is a sensitive, intolerant
philosophy, of which something will be said in the following section.
Modern business produced a sort of paradise for the luckier of
mankind, which endured down to the war, and which many hope to see
restored in its former charm, and perhaps further beautified as the
years go on. It represents one of the most startling of human
achievements. No doubt a great part of the population worked hard and
lived in relative squalor, but even then they had many comforts
unknown to the toiling masses of previous centuries, and were
apparently fairly contented.
But escape was possible, for any man of capacity or character at
all exceeding the average, into the middle or upper classes, for
whom life offered, at a low cost and with the least trouble,
conveniencies, comforts, and amenities beyond the compass of the
richest and most powerful monarchs of other ages. The inhabitant
of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed,
the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he
might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his
doorstep; he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure
his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any
quarter of the world, and share, without exertion or even trouble,
in their prospective fruits and advantages.... He could secure
forthwith, if he wished it, cheap and comfortable means of transit
to any country or climate without passport or other formality, could
dispatch his servant to the neighboring office of a bank for such
supply of the precious metals as might seem convenient, and could
then proceed abroad to foreign quarters, without knowledge of their
religion, language, or customs, bearing coined wealth upon his
person, and would consider himself greatly aggrieved and much
surprised at the least interference.
And most important of all, he could, before the war, regard this state
of affairs as
... normal, certain, and permanent, except in the direction of
further improvement, and any deviation from it as aberrant,
scandalous, and avoidable. The projects and politics of militarism,
and imperialism, of racial and cultural rivalries, of monopolies,
restrictions, and exclusion, which were to play the serpent in this
paradise, were little more than the amusements of his daily newspaper,
and appeared to exercise almost no influence at all on the ordinary
course of social and economic life, the internationalization of which
was nearly complete in practice.[21]
This assumption of the permanence and normality of the prevailing
business system was much disturbed by the outcome of the war, but less
so, especially in this country, than might have been expected. It was
easy to argue that the terrible conflict merely interrupted the
generally beneficent course of affairs which would speedily
re-establish itself when given an opportunity. To those who see the
situation in this light, modern business has largely solved the
age-long problem of producing and distributing the material
necessities and amenities of life; and nothing remains except to
perfect the system in detail, develop its further potentialities, and
fight tooth and nail those who are led by lack of personal success or
a maudlin sympathy for the incompetent to attack and undermine it.
On the other hand, there were many before the war, not themselves
suffering conspicuously from the system, who challenged its
beneficence and permanence, in the name of justice, economy, and the
best and highest interests of mankind as a whole. Since the war many
more have come to the conclusion that business as now conducted is not
merely unfair, exceedingly wasteful, and often highly inexpedient from
a social standpoint, but that from an historical standpoint it is
"intensely unusual, unstable, complicated, unreliable, and temporary"
(Keynes). It may prove to be the chief eccentricity of our age; quite
as impermanent as was the feudal and manorial system or the role of
the mediaeval Church or of monarchs by the grace of God; and destined
to undergo changes which it is now quite impossible to forecast.
In any case, economic issues are the chief and bitterest of our time.
It is in connection with them that free thinking is most difficult and
most apt to be misunderstood, for they easily become confused with the
traditional reverences and sanctities of political fidelity,
patriotism, morality, and even religion. There is something
humiliating about this situation, which subordinates all the varied
possibilities of life to its material prerequisites, much as if we
were again back in a stage of impotent savagery, scratching for roots
and looking for berries and dead animals. One of the most brilliant of
recent English economists says with truth:
The burden of our civilization is not merely, as many suppose, that
the product of industry is ill-distributed, or its conduct tyrannical,
or its operation interrupted by bitter disagreements. It is that
industry itself has come to hold a position of exclusive predominance
among human interests, which no single interest, and least of all the
provision of the material means of existence, is fit to occupy. Like
a hypochondriac who is so absorbed in the processes of his own
digestion that he goes to the grave before he has begun to live,
industrialized communities neglect the very objects for which it is
worth while to acquire riches in their feverish preoccupation with
the means by which riches can be acquired.
That obsession by economic issues is as local and transitory as it is
repulsive and disturbing. To future generations it will appear as
pitiable as the obsession of the seventeenth century by religious
quarrels appears to-day; indeed, it is less rational, since the object
with which it is concerned is less important. And it is a poison which
inflames every wound and turns each trivial scratch into a malignant
ulcer.[22]
Whatever may be the merits of the conflicting views of our business
system, there can be no doubt that it is agitating all types of
thoughtful men and women. Poets, dramatists, and story writers turn
aside from their old _motifs_ to play the role of economists.
Psychologists, biologists, chemists, engineers, are as never before
striving to discover the relation between their realms of information
and the general problems of social and industrial organization. And
here is a historical student allowing the dust to collect on mediaeval
chronicles, church histories, and even seventeenth-century
rationalists, once fondly perused, in order to see if he can come to
some terms with the profit system. And why not? Are we not all
implicated? We all buy and many sell, and no one is left untouched by
a situation which can in two or three years halve our incomes, without
fault of ours. But before seeking to establish the bearing of the
previous sections of this volume on our attitude toward the puzzles of
our day, we must consider more carefully the "good reasons" commonly
urged in defense of the existing system.
15. THE PHILOSOPHY OF SAFETY AND SANITY
So far we have been mainly engaged in recalling the process by which
man has accumulated such a mind as he now has, and the effects of this
accumulation on his mode of life. Under former conditions (which are
now passing away) and in a state of ignorance about highly essential
matters (which are now being put in quite a new light) he established
certain standards and practices in his political, social, and
industrial life. His views of property, government, education, the
relations of the sexes, and various other matters he reaffirms and
perpetuates by means of schools, colleges, churches, newspapers, and
magazines, which in order to be approved and succeed must concur in
and ratify these established standards and practices and the current
notions of good and evil, right and wrong. This is what happened in
the past, and to the great majority of people this still seems to be
the only means of "safeguarding society". Before subjecting this
attitude of mind to further criticism it will be helpful to see how
those argue who fail to perceive the vicious circle involved.
The war brought with it a burst of unwonted and varied animation.
Those who had never extended their activities beyond the usual routine
of domestic and professional life suddenly found themselves
participating in a vast enterprise in which they seemed to be
broadening their knowledge and displaying undreamed of capacity for
co-operation with their fellows. Expressions of high idealism exalted
us above the petty cares of our previous existence, roused new
ambitions, and opened up an exhilarating perspective of possibility
and endeavor. It was common talk that when the foe, whose criminal
lust for power had precipitated the mighty tragedy, should be
vanquished, things would "no longer be the same". All would then agree
that war was the abomination of abominations, the world would be made
safe for right-minded democracy, and the nations would unite in
smiling emulation.
Never did bitterer disappointment follow high hopes. All the old
habits of nationalistic policy reasserted themselves at Versailles. A
frightened and bankrupt world could indeed hardly be expected to
exhibit greater intelligence than the relatively happy and orderly one
which had five years earlier allowed its sanctified traditions to drag
it over the edge of the abyss. Then there emerged from the autocracy
of the Tsars the dictatorship of the proletariat, and in Hungary and
Germany various startling attempts to revolutionize hastily and
excessively that ancient order which the Hapsburg and Hohenzollern
rulers had managed to perpetuate in spite of all modern novelties. The
real character of these movements was ill understood in our country,
but it was inevitable that with man's deep-seated animistic tendencies
they should appear as a sort of wicked demon or a deadly contagion
which might attack even our own land unless prevented by timely
measures. War had naturally produced its machinery for dealing with
dissenters, sympathizers with the enemy, and those who deprecated or
opposed war altogether; and it was the easiest thing in the world to
extend the repression to those who held exceptional or unpopular
views, like the Socialists and members of the I.W.W. It was plausible
to charge these associations with being under the guidance of
foreigners, with "pacificism" and a general tendency to disloyalty.
But suspicion went further so as to embrace members of a rather small,
thoughtful class who, while rarely socialistic, were confessedly
skeptical in regard to the general beneficence of existing
institutions, and who failed to applaud at just the right points to
suit the taste of the majority of their fellow-citizens. So the
general impression grew up that there was a sort of widespread
conspiracy to overthrow the government by violence or, at least, a
dangerous tendency to prepare the way for such a disaster, or at any
rate a culpable indifference to its possibility.
Business depression reinforced a natural reaction which had set in
with the sudden and somewhat unexpected close of the war. The unwonted
excitement brought on a national headache, and a sedative in the form
of normalcy was proffered by the Republican party and thankfully
accepted by the country at large. Under these circumstances the
philosophy of safety and sanity was formulated. It is familiar and
reassuring and puts no disagreeable task of mental and emotional
readjustment on those who accept it. Hence its inevitable popularity
and obvious soundness.
And these are its presuppositions: No nation is comparable to our own
in its wealth and promise, in its freedom and opportunity for all. It
has opened its gates to the peoples of the earth, who have flocked
across the ocean to escape the poverty and oppression of Europe. From
the scattered colonies of the pre-revolutionary period the United
States has rapidly advanced to its world ascendancy. When the European
powers had reached a hopeless stalemate after four years of war the
United States girded on the sword as the champion of liberty and
democracy and in an incredibly short time brought the conflict to a
victorious close before she had dispatched half the troops she could
easily have spared. She had not entered the conflict with any motives
of aggrandizement or of territorial extension. She felt her
self-sufficiency and could well afford proudly to refuse to join the
League of Nations on the ground that she did not wish to be involved
in European wrangles or sacrifice a tittle of her rights of
self-determination.
The prosperity of the United States is to be attributed largely to the
excellence of the Federal Constitution and the soundness of her
democratic institutions. Class privileges do not exist, or at least
are not recognized. Everyone has equal opportunity to rise in the
world unhampered by the shackles of European caste. There is perfect
freedom in matters of religious belief. Liberty of speech and of the
press is confirmed by both the Federal Constitution and the
constitutions of the various states. If people are not satisfied with
their form of government they may at any time alter it by a peaceful
exercise of the suffrage.
In no other country is morality more highly prized or stoutly
defended. Woman is held in her proper esteem and the institution of
the family everywhere recognized as fundamental. We are singularly
free from the vices which disgrace the capitals of Europe, not
excepting London.
In no other country is the schoolhouse so assuredly acknowledged to be
the corner stone of democracy and liberty. Our higher institutions of
learning are unrivaled; our public libraries numerous and accessible.
Our newspapers and magazines disseminate knowledge and rational
pleasure throughout the land.
We are an ingenious people in the realm of invention and in the
boldness of our business enterprise. We have the sturdy virtues of the
pioneer. We are an honest people, keeping our contracts and giving
fair measure. We are a tireless people in the patient attention to
business and the laudable resolve to rise in the world. Many of our
richest men began on the farm or as office boys. Success depends in
our country almost exclusively on native capacity, which is rewarded
here with a prompt and cheerful recognition which is rare in other
lands.
We are a progressive people, always ready for improvements, which
indeed we take for granted, so regularly do they make their
appearance. No alert American can visit any foreign country without
noting innumerable examples of stupid adherence to outworn and
cumbrous methods in industry, commerce, and transportation.
Of course no one is so blind as not to see that here and there evils
develop which should be remedied, either by legislation or by the
gradual advance in enlightenment. Many of them will doubtless cure
themselves. Our democracy is right at heart and you cannot fool all
the people all the time. We have not escaped our fair quota of
troubles. It would be too much to expect that we should. The
difference of opinion between the Northern and Southern states
actually led to civil war, but this only served to confirm the natural
unity of the country and prepare the way for further advance.
Protestants have sometimes dreaded a Catholic domination; the Mormons
have been a source of anxiety to timid souls. Populists and advocates
of free silver have seemed to threaten sound finance. On the other
hand, Wall Street and the trusts have led some to think that corporate
business enterprise may at times, if left unhampered, lead to
over-powerful monopolies. But the evil workings of all these things
had before the war been peaceful, if insidious. They might rouse
apprehension in the minds of far-sighted and public-spirited
observers, but there had been no general fear that any of them would
overthrow the Republic and lead to a violent destruction of society as
now constituted and mayhap to a reversion to barbarism.
The circumstances of our participation in the World War and the rise
of Bolshevism convinced many for the first time that at last society
and the Republic were actually threatened. Heretofore the socialists
of various kinds, the communists and anarchists, had attracted
relatively little attention in our country. Except for the Chicago
anarchist episode and the troubles with the I.W.W., radical reformers
had been left to go their way, hold their meetings, and publish their
newspapers and pamphlets with no great interference on the part of the
police or attention on the part of lawgivers. With the progress of the
war this situation changed; police and lawgivers began to interfere,
and government officials and self-appointed guardians of the public
weal began to denounce the "reds" and those suspected of "radical
tendencies". The report of the Lusk Committee in the state of New York
is perhaps the most imposing monument to this form of patriotic zeal.
It is not our business here to discuss the merits of Socialism or
Bolshevism either from the standpoint of their underlying theories or
their promise in practice. It is only in their effects in developing
and substantiating the philosophy of safety and sanity that they
concern us in this discussion.
Whether the report of the so-called Lusk Committee[23] has any
considerable influence or no, it well illustrates a common and
significant frame of mind and an habitual method of reasoning. The
ostensible aim of the report is: