money-changers from out the temple court. It was not for the purpose of
doing them harm. It was rather to do them good by driving home to them
in some tangible and concrete form, through the skin and flesh of their
bodies, what the thick skins of their moral natures were unable to
comprehend. The resistance of wrongdoing is not opposed to the law of
love. As in community life there is the occasional bully who has
sometimes to be knocked down in order that he may have a due
appreciation of individual rights and community amenities, so among
nations a similar lesson is sometimes necessary in order that it or its
leaders may learn that there are certain things that do not pay, and,
moreover, will not be allowed by the community of nations.
Making might alone the basis of national policy and action, or making it
the basis of settlement in international settlements, but arouses and
intensifies hatred and the spirit of revenge. So in connection with this
great world crisis--after it all then comes the great problem of
reorganisation and rehabilitation, and unless there comes about an
international concord strong and definite enough to prevent a recurrence
of what has been, it would almost seem that restoration were futile; for
things will be restored only in time to be destroyed again.
No amount of armament we know now will prevent war. It can be prevented
only by a definite concord of the nations brought finally to realise the
futility of war. To deny the possibility of a World League and a World
Court is to deny the ability of men to govern themselves. The history of
the American Republic in its demonstration of the power and the genius
of federation should disprove the truth of this. Here we have a nation
composed of forty-eight sovereign states and with the most heterogeneous
accumulation of people that ever came together in one country, let alone
one nation, and great numbers of them from those nations that for
upwards of a thousand years have been periodically springing at one
another's throats. Enlightened self-government has done it. The real
spirit and temper of democracy has done it. But it must be the
preservation of the real spirit of democracy and constant vigilance that
must preserve it.
Prejudice, suspicion, hatred on the part of individuals or on the part
of the people of one nation against the people of another nation, have
never yet advanced the welfare of any individual or any nation and never
can. The world war is but the direct result of the type of peace that
preceded it. The militarist argument reduced to its lowest terms amounts
merely to this: "For two nations to keep peace each must be stronger
than the other."
Representative men of other countries do not resent our part in pressing
this matter and in taking the leadership in it. But even if they did
they would have no just right to. There is, however, a very general
feeling that the American Republic, as the world's greatest example of
_successful federation_, should take the lead in the World Federation.
This is now going to be greatly fostered by virtue of one great good
that the world war will eventually have accomplished--the doom and the
end of autocracy. Dynasties and privileged orders that have lived and
lived alone on militarism, will have been foreclosed on. The people in
control, in an increasingly intelligent control of their own lives and
their own governments, will be governed by a higher degree of
self-enlightenment and mutual self-interest than under the domination or
even the leadership of any type of hereditary ruling class or war-lord.
In some countries autocracy in religion, through the free mingling and
discussions of men of various nationalities and religious persuasions,
will be again lessened, whereby the direct love and power of God in the
hearts of men, as Jesus taught, will have a fuller sway and a more holy
and a diviner moulding power in their lives.
It was during those long, weary years coupled with the horrible crimes
of the Thirty Years' War that the science of International Law began to
take form, the result of that notable work, "De Jure Belli ac Pacis," by
Grotius. It is ours to see that out of this more intense and thereby
even more horrible conflict a new epoch in human and international
relations be born.
As the higher powers of mind and spirit are realised and used, great
primal instincts impelling men to expression and action that find their
outlet many times in war, will be transmuted and turned from destruction
into powerful engines of construction. When a moral equivalent for war
of sufficient impelling power is placed before men, those same virile
qualities and powers that are now marshalled so easily for purposes of
fighting, will, under the guidance and in the service of the spirit, be
used for the conserving of human life, and for the advancement and the
increase of everything that administers to life, that makes it more
abundant, more mutual, and more happy. And God knows that the call for
such service is very great.
* * * * *
And even now comes the significant word that the long, the too long
awaited world's Bill of Rights has taken form. The intelligence and the
will of righteous men, duly appointed as the representatives of fourteen
sovereign nations, has asserted itself, and the beginning has been made,
without which there can be neither growth nor advancement. The
Constitution of the World League has taken form. It is not a perfect
instrument; but it will grow into as perfect an instrument as need be
for its purpose. Changes and additions to it will be made as times and
conditions indicate. Partisanship even with us may seek to defeat it.
There is no question, however, but that the sober sense of the American
people is behind it.
One of the most fundamental results, we might say purposes of the great
world war, was to end war. It means now that the world's unity and
mutuality and its community of interests must be realised and that we
build accordingly. It means that the world's peace must be fostered and
preserved by the use of brains and guided by the heart; or that every
brute force made ghastly and deadly to the n_th_ degree that modern
science can devise, be periodically called in to settle the disputes or
curb the ambitions that will disrupt the peace of the world.
The common people the world over are desiring as near as can be arrived
at, some surety as to the preservation of the world's peace; and they
will brook no interference with a plan that seems the most feasible way
to that end. The whole world is in that temper that gives significance
to the words of President Wilson when a day or two ago he said: "Any
man who resists the present tides that run in the world will find
himself thrown upon a shore so high and barren that it will seem as if
he had been separated from his human kind forever." Unless, he might
have added--he has and can demonstrate a better plan. The two chief
arguments against it, that it will take away from our individual rights
and that it will lead us into entangling alliances, no longer hold--for
we are entangled already. We are a part of the great world force and it
were futile longer to seek to escape our duties as such. They are as
essential as "our rights."
It is with us now as a nation as it was with that immortal group that
gathered to sign our Declaration of Independence, to whom Franklin said:
"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
It is well for Americans to recall that the first League of Nations was
when thirteen distinct nationalities one day awoke to the fact that it
were better to forget their differences and to a great extent their
boundaries, and come together in a common union. They had their thirteen
distinct armies to keep up, in order to defend themselves each against
the other or against any combination of the others, to say nothing of
any outside power that might move against them. Jealousies arose and
misunderstandings were frequent. So zealous was each of its own rights
that when the Constitutional Convention had completed its work, and the
Constitution was ready for adoption, there were those who actually left
the hall rather than sign it. They were good men but they were looking
at stern facts and they wanted no idealism in theirs. Good men, some
animated by the partisan spirit, it is true, earnest in their
beliefs--but unequipped with the long vision. Their names are now
recalled only through the search of the antiquarian.
Infinitely better it has been found for the thirteen and eventually the
forty-eight to stand together than to stand separately. The thirteen
separate states were farther separated so far as means of communication
and actual knowledge of one another were concerned, than are the nations
of the world today.
It took men of great insight as well as vision to formulate our own
Constitution which made thirteen distinct and sovereign states the
United States of America. The formulation of the Constitution of the
World League has required such men. As a nation we may be proud that two
representative Americans have had so large a share in its
accomplishment--President Wilson, good Democrat, and Ex-President Taft,
good Republican.
The greatest international and therefore world document ever produced
has been forged--it awaits the coming days, years, and even generations
for its completion. And we accord great honour also to those statesmen
of other nations who have combined keen insight born of experience, with
a lofty idealism; for out of these in any realm of human activities and
relations, whatever eventually becomes the practical, is born.
XIV
THE WORLD'S BALANCE-WHEEL
It was Lincoln who gave us a wonderful summary when he said: "After all
the one meaning of life is to be kind."
Love, sympathy, fellowship is the very foundation of all civilised,
happy, ideal life. It is the very balance-wheel of life itself. It gives
that genuineness and simplicity in voice, in look, in spirit that is so
instinctively felt by all, and to which all so universally respond. It
is like the fragrance of the flower--the emanation of its soul.
Interesting and containing a most vital truth is this little memoir by
Christine Rossetti: "One whom I knew intimately, and whose memory I
revere, once in my hearing remarked that, 'unless we love people, we
cannot understand them.' This was a new light to me." It contains indeed
a profound truth.
Love, sympathy, fellowship, is what makes human life truly human.
Cooperation, mutual service, is its fruitage. A clear-cut realisation of
this and a resolute acting upon it would remove much of the cloudiness
and the barrenness from many a life; and its mutual recognition--and
action based upon it--would bring order and sweetness and mutual gain in
vast numbers of instances in family, in business, in community life. It
would solve many of the knotty problems in all lines of human relations
and human endeavour, whose solution heretofore has seemed well-nigh
impossible. It is the telling oil that will start to running smoothly
and effectively many an otherwise clogged and grating system of human
machinery.
When men on both sides are long-headed enough, are sensible enough to
see its practical element and make it the fundamental basis of all
relationships, of all negotiations, and all following activities in the
relations between capital and labour, employer and employee, literally a
new era in the industrial world will spring into being. Both sides will
be the gainer--the dividends flowing to each will be even surprising.
There is really no labour problem outside of sympathy, mutuality,
good-will, cooperation, brotherhood.
Injustice always has been and always will be the cause of all labour
troubles. But we must not forget that it is sometimes on one side and
sometimes on the other. Misunderstanding is not infrequently its
accompaniment. Imagination, sympathy, mutuality, cooperation,
brotherhood are the hand-maidens of justice. No man is intelligent
enough, is big enough to be the representative or the manager of
capital, who is not intelligent enough to realise this. No man is fit to
be the representative of, or fit to have anything to do with the
councils of labour who has not brains, intelligence enough to realise
this. These qualities are not synonyms of or in any way related to
sentimentality or any weak-kneed ethics. They underlie the soundest
business sense. In this day and age they are synonyms of the word
practical. There was a time and it was not so many years ago, when heads
and executives of large enterprises did not realise this as fully as
they realise it today. A great change has already taken place. A new era
has already begun, and the greater the ability and the genius the more
eager is its possessor to make these his guiding principles, and to
hasten the time when they will be universally recognised and built upon.
The same is true of the more intelligent in the rank and file of labour,
as also of the more intelligent and those who are bringing the best
results as leaders of labour. There is no intelligent man or woman today
who does not believe in organised labour. There is no intelligent
employer who does not believe in it and who does not welcome it.
The bane of organised labour in the past has too often been the
unscrupulous, the self-seeking, or the bull-headed labour leader.
Organised labour must be constantly diligent to purge itself of these
its worst enemies. Labour is entitled to the very highest wage, or to
the best returns in cooperative management that it can get, and that are
consistent with sound business management, as also to the best labour
conditions that a sympathetic and wise management can bring about. It
must not, however, be unreasonable in its demands, neither bull-headed,
nor seek to travel too fast--otherwise it may lose more than it will
gain.
It must not allow itself to act as a shield for the ineffective worker,
or the one without a sense of mutuality, whose aim is to get all he can
get without any thought as to what he gives in return, or even with the
deliberate purpose of giving the least that he can give and get away
with it. Where there is a good and a full return, there should be not
only the desire but an eagerness to give a full and honest service. Less
than this is indicative of a lack of honest and staunch manhood or
womanhood.
It is incumbent upon organised labour also to remember that it
represents but eight per cent of the actual working people of this
nation. Whether one works with his brains, or his hands, or both, is
immaterial. Nor does organised labour represent the great farming
interests of the country--even more fundamentally the backbone of the
nation.
The desirable citizen of any nation is he or she who does not seek to
prosper at the expense of his fellows, who does not seek the advancement
of his group to the detriment of all other groups--who realises that
none are independent, that all are interdependent.
He who is a teacher or a preacher of class-consciousness, is either
consciously or unconsciously--generally consciously and intentionally--a
preacher of class-hatred. There is no more undesirable citizen in any
nation than he. "Do you know why money is so scarce, brothers?" the soap
box orator demanded, and a fair-sized section of the backbone of the
nation waited in leisurely patience for the answer. A tired-looking
woman had paused for a moment on the edge of the crowd. She spoke
shortly. "It's because so many of you men spend your time telling each
other why, 'stead of hustling to see that it ain't!" He is a fair
representative of the class-consciousness, class-hatred type. Again he
is represented by the theorist constitutionally and chronically too lazy
to do honest and constructive work either physically or mentally. Again
by the one who has the big-head affliction. Or again by the one
afflicted with a species of insanity or criminality manifesting of late
under the name of Bolshevism--a self-seeking tyranny infinitely worse
than Czarism itself.
Its representatives have proved themselves moral perverts, determined to
carry out their theories and gain their own ends by treachery, theft,
coersion, murder, and every foul method that will aid them in reducing
order to chaos--through the slogan of rule or ruin. Through brigandage,
coersion, murder, it gets the funds to send its agents into those
countries whose governments are fully in the hands of the people, and
where if at any time injustice prevails it is solely the fault of the
people in not using in an intelligent and determined manner the
possessions they already have. Or putting it in another way, on account
of shirking the duties it is morally incumbent upon them as citizens of
free governments to perform.
In America, whose institutions have been built and maintained solely by
the people, our duty is plain, for orderly procedure has been and ever
must be our watch-word. Vigilance is moreover nowhere required more than
in representative government. Whenever the red hand of anarchy,
Bolshevism, terrorism raises itself it should be struck so instantly and
so powerfully that it has not only no time to gain adherents, but has no
time to make its escape. It should be the Federal prison for any
American who allows himself to become so misguided as to seek to
substitute terrorism and destruction for our orderly and lawful methods
of procedure, or quick deportation for any foreigner who seeks our
shores to carry out these purposes, or comes as an agent for those who
would do the same.
Organised labour has never occupied so high a position as it occupies
today. That the rank and file will for an instant have commerce with
these agencies, whatever any designing leader here and there may seek to
do, is inconceivable. That its organisations will be sought to be used
by them is just as probable. Its duty as to vigilance and determination
is pronounced. And unless vigilant and determined the set-backs it may
get and the losses it may suffer are just as pronounced. The spirit and
temper of the American people is such that it will not stand for
coersion, lawlessness, or any unfair demands. Public opinion is after
all the court of last resort. No strike or no lockout can succeed with
us that hasn't that tremendous weapon, public opinion, behind it. The
necessity therefore of being fair in all demands and orderly in all
procedure, and in view of this it is also well to remember that
organised labour represents but eight per cent of the actual working
people of this nation.
The gains of organised labour in the past have been very great. It is
also true that the demands of organised labour even today are very
great. In true candor it must also be said that not only the impulse but
the sincere desire of the great bulk of employers is in a conciliatory
way to grant all demands of labour that are at all consistent with sound
economic management, even in many cases to a great lessening of their
own profits, as well as to maintain working conditions as befits their
workers as valuable and honoured members of our body politic, as they
naturally are and as they so richly deserve.
For their own welfare, however, to say nothing of the welfare of the
nation, labour unions must purge themselves of all anarchistic and
destructive elements. Force is a two-edged sword, and the force of this
nation when once its sense of justice and right is outraged and its
temper is aroused, will be found to be infinitely superior to any
particular class, whether it be capital or whether it be labour.
Organised labour stands in the way to gain much by intelligent and
honest work and orderly procedure. And to a degree perhaps never before
equalled, does it stand in a position to lose much if through
self-deception on its own part or through unworthy leadership, it
deceives itself in believing itself superior to the forces of law and
order.
In a nation where the people through their chosen representatives and by
established systems of procedure determine their own institutions, when
agitators get beyond law and reason and lose sight too completely of the
law of mutuality, there is a power backed by a force that it is mere
madness to defy. The rights as well as the power of all the people will
be found to be infinitely superior to those of any one particular group
or class--clear-seeing men and women in any democratic form of
government realise that the words mutuality and self-interest bear a
very close relationship.
The greatest gains in the relations between capital and labour during
the coming few years will undoubtedly be along the lines of
profit-sharing. Some splendid beginnings are already in successful
operation. There is the recognition that capital is entitled initially
to a fair return; again that labour is entitled to a good and full
living wage--when both these conditions are met then that there be an
equal division of the profits that remain, between the capital and the
skill and management back of the capital invested on the one hand, and
labour on the other. Without the former labour would have no employment
in the particular enterprise; without the workers the former could not
carry on. Each is essential to the other.
Labour being not a commodity, as some material thing merely to be bought
and sold, but the human element, is entitled to more than a living wage.
It has human aspirations, and desires and needs. It has not only its
present but its own and its children's future to safeguard. When it is
thus made a partner in the business it becomes more earnest and reliable
and effective in its work, less inclined to condone the shiftless, the
incompetent, the slacker; more eager and resolute in withstanding the
ill-founded, reckless or sinister suggestions or efforts of an
ill-advised leadership.
Capital or employer is the gainer also, because it is insured that loyal
and more intelligent cooperation in its enterprise that is as essential
to its success as is the genius and skill of management.
Taking a different form but proving most valuable alike for management
and capital on the one hand, and its workers on the other, is the case
of one of our great industrial plants, the largest of its kind in the
world and employing many thousands of workers, where already a trifle
over forty per cent. of its stock is in the hands of the workers. Their
thrift and their good judgment have enabled them to take advantage of
attractive prices and easy methods of payment made them by the company's
management. There are already many other concerns where this is true in
greater or less proportion.
These are facts that certain types of labour agitators or even leaders
as well as special pleaders for labour, find it convenient to forget, or
at least not to mention. The same is true also of the millions that are
every year being paid out to make all working conditions and
surroundings cheerful, healthful, safe; in various forms of insurance,
in retiring pensions. Through the initiative of this larger type of
employer, or manager of capital, many hundreds of thousands both men and
women and in continually increasing numbers, are being thus
benefited--outside and above their yearly wage or salary.
A new era in connection with capital and labour has for some time been
coming into being; the era of democracy in industry has arrived. The day
of the autocratic sway on the part of capital has passed; nor will we as
a nation take kindly to the autocratic sway of labour. It is obtaining
a continually fuller recognition; and cooperation leading in many lines
to profit-sharing is the new era we are now passing into.
Though there are very large numbers of men of great wealth, employers
and heads of industrial enterprises, who have caught the spirit of the
new industrial age upon which we have already begun to enter, and who
are glad to see labour getting its fairer share of the profits of
industry and a larger recognition as partners in industry, there are
those who, lacking both imagination and vision, attempt to resist the
tide that, already turned, is running in volume. They are our American
Bourbons, our American Junkers. They are, considering the ominous
undercurrents of change, unrest and discontent that are so apparent in
the entire industrial and economic world today, our worst breeders and
feeders of Bolshevism and lawlessness.