Pass J'lj zn I 
 
 COFmiGHT DEPOSm 
 
PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 BY 
 MOORFIELD STOREY 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 Ut'bt iDibecjtfibe pre^^ ^TambriDge 
 
 1920 
 
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 5^5 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY MOORFIELD STOREY 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 J.^'^o 
 
 OCT -9 1920 
 
 ©CLA597701 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 In the year 1903 certain friends of Edwin 
 L. Godkin, desiring "to express their admira- 
 tion and gratitude for his long and disinter- 
 ested service to the country of his adoption 
 by some suitable memorial, which should per- 
 petuate his name and stimulate that spirit of 
 independent thought and unselfish devotion 
 to the public good which characterized his life 
 and distinguished his career" gave to Harvard 
 College a fund of which the income should "be 
 used in providing for the delivery and publi- 
 cation of lectures upon 'The Essentials of Free 
 Government and the Duties of the Citizen,' 
 or upon some part of that subject, such lec- 
 tures to be called 'The Godkin Lectures.'" 
 
 This volume contains the Godkin Lectures 
 delivered in March, 1920. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. The Use of Parties i 
 
 II. Lawlessness 54 
 
 III. Race Prejudice 103 
 
 IV. The Labor Question 149 
 V. Our Foreign Relations 203 
 
PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 THE USE OF PARTIES 
 
 The future of the United States during the next 
 half-century sometimes presents itself to the mind 
 as a struggle between two forces, the one beneficial, 
 the other malign, the one striving to speed the nation 
 on to a port of safety before this time of trial arrives, 
 the other to retard its progress, so that the tempest 
 may be upon it before the port is reached. 
 
 So wrote Lord Bryce ten years ago. The 
 
 time of trial to which he referred is the time 
 
 when all the arable land in this country will 
 
 be occupied, and he continued: 
 
 The question to which one reverts in touching on 
 the phenomena of American politics is this. Will the 
 progress now discernible towards a wise public 
 opinion and a higher standard of public life succeed 
 in bringing the mass of the people up to the level 
 of what are now the best districts in the country, 
 before the days of pressure are at hand? Or will 
 the existing evils prove so obstinate and European 
 immigration so continue to depress the average of 
 intelligence and patriotism among the voters that, 
 when the struggle for life grows harder than it now 
 is, the masses will yield to the temptation to abuse 
 
2 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 their power and will seek violent, and because vio- 
 lent, probably vain and useless remedies for the 
 evils which afflict them? 
 
 When these words were written the wisest 
 man could not have foreseen what has hap- 
 pened since, or for a moment have imagined 
 how much more difficult the problems of 
 government would become even in a single 
 decade. The great empires of the world 
 then seemed so firmly rooted as to defy 
 attack, but they have fallen like Babylon. 
 The monarchs of Russia, Austria, Germany, 
 and China are dead or in exile. The self- 
 styled Czar of Bulgaria, the King of Bavaria, 
 Princes, Grand Dukes, great nobles and 
 lesser potentates innumerable are banished 
 and only seeking to escape the public gaze 
 in which they were wont to rejoice. Autoc- 
 racy is dead for all time so far as man can 
 see, and no one knows what is to follow. 
 Russia is in the throes of violent and bloody 
 revolution, and its government in the hands 
 of men who respect neither life nor any law 
 
THE PRESENT SITUATION 3 
 
 save their own will. Germany is a problem, 
 and while the great conflagration seems ex- 
 tinguished, the embers of war are blazing in 
 many places, and wherever we look the pros- 
 pect is clouded, and the future uncertain. 
 
 Our own country is the theatre of conflicts 
 between various forces whose comparative 
 strength it is difficult to estimate. New 
 theories of government are proposed, racial 
 prejudices are cultivated, the people are 
 broken into various factions, industry is dis- 
 turbed, and as we look back, life fifty years 
 ago seems wonderfully simple as compared 
 with the disorganization and confusion 
 which prevail to-day. Never in our history 
 were unselfishness, courage, wisdom, pa- 
 tience, and public spirit more needed in the 
 conduct of our public affairs. There was 
 never a greater opportunity for men of high 
 ideals and generous ambitions. 
 
 The Godkin Lectures, which I am ap- 
 pointed to deliver this year, by the terms of 
 the foundation are to deal with "the essen- 
 
4 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 tials of free government and the duties of 
 the citizen," which must as a rule be the 
 same whatever side the citizen takes on pub- 
 lic questions as they arise. The lecturer is 
 to present the setting of the stage, not to 
 determine the roles of the actors. No mat- 
 ter how strong may be his views on the issues 
 of the day, this is not the time or place to 
 express them. I shall endeavor in what I 
 say to respect these conditions. 
 
 Every young man as he prepares for life 
 must needs ask himself. What is my duty? 
 How can I best serve my country and help 
 to solve her problems? Or, to put it more 
 simply, What part must I take in politics ? 
 
 The answers must vary with the man and 
 his circumstances, but whatever one seeks 
 to accomplish in public service, he must be 
 in a position to do what he thinks right. He 
 must be relieved from the danger of being 
 driven to lower his standards or be false to 
 his principles by the needs of himself or his 
 family, or by "entangling alliances," as bad 
 
THE CITIZEN'S POLITICAL DUTY s 
 
 in a small way for the man as they may be 
 in a large way for the nation. He must be 
 his own man and stand on his own feet. 
 
 Let us take first the problem as it presents 
 itself to the young man who does not inherit 
 a competence, and who finds that his first 
 duty is to earn his living. If, as he should, 
 he marries, he adds the support of others to 
 his burdens, and unless he proposes to live 
 upon charity he must, as we used to say, 
 " pull his weight in the boat." To be of any 
 service in the world, and not be a burden 
 upon it, he must support himself and his 
 family. This should not, however, take all 
 his time. There are few men who are not 
 interested in public questions and who have 
 not time enough to study them, and the first 
 duty of the voter is to make up his own mind 
 as to what the public interest requires. You 
 may recall the verse in one of the operas, 
 " Every child that is born alive, is either a 
 little Liberal or else a little Conservative." 
 One's political views are very apt to be in- 
 
6 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 herited, imbibed in childhood from the con- 
 versation of one's parents or their friends, 
 and these inherited notions are afterward 
 held with extreme tenacity as a part of the 
 family faith. Like the little superstitions 
 which we learn in the nursery, they have 
 deep roots. This is unfortunate, for party 
 names change their meaning gradually, and 
 it may well be that a party will reverse its 
 attitude completely, as the Democratic 
 Party, formed to maintain human freedom 
 by that apostle of liberty, Thomas Jefferson, 
 became in time the party which defended 
 and sought to extend human slavery, while 
 the Republican Party, which began as the 
 opponent of slavery, became the party of 
 high protection and imperialism. To-day 
 adherence to either party may lead one into 
 positions which cannot be defended success- 
 fully, for old political alignments were not 
 made upon the questions of to-day. The 
 world changes faster than men change their 
 prejudices. 
 
THE CITIZEN'S POLITICAL DUTY 7 
 
 The problems of taxation were simple 
 when a billion-dollar Congress horrified the 
 people, but when the activities of the Gov- 
 ernment call for many billions, it needs far 
 more wisdom, experience, and courage to 
 distribute the burden justly, and to guard 
 against the extravagant expenditure of 
 money, which is easily raised from a rich 
 country. When the United States held a 
 population of five million people separated 
 from Europe and Asia by seas which it took 
 weeks to cross, when cables, wireless teleg- 
 raphy, and fast steamships were unknown, 
 the relations of the United States with for- 
 eign nations presented very different ques- 
 tions from those which we must deal with as 
 a world power, raising larger armies than 
 ever existed before to fight on European 
 battle-fields, and extending our sway over 
 Asiatic peoples thousands of miles from our 
 shores. 
 
 When differences between employer and 
 employed affected only the parties immedi- 
 
8 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 ately concerned, we thought we could afford 
 to disregard them, but when they threaten 
 by stopping the operation of our railroads to 
 arrest the business of the country, and to 
 deprive whole regions of the food and the 
 fuel which the people who dwell there must 
 have in order to live, we realize that the 
 public must act in self-defence. No existing 
 party was formed to deal with questions like 
 these, and every party finds its members 
 divided when such issues are raised. 
 
 It is clearly the duty of every man, and 
 especially of every educated man, to study 
 the situation of the country, to master the 
 facts and decide what must be done to meet 
 the difficulties which confront us. Some at 
 least of the time that is spent in games or 
 desultory reading might be devoted to this 
 study with far better results to the student 
 himself as well as to the State. Among the 
 multiplicity of issues there is probably for 
 every man one or perhaps two which interest 
 him especially. If so, he should throw his 
 
THE CITIZEN'S POLITICAL DUTY 9 
 
 strength into these and work to have them 
 rightly dealt with, for by concentration of 
 effort the best results are obtained, and the 
 man who does or helps to do one thing well, 
 deserves the gratitude of his fellows. In 
 politics as elsewhere a jack-of-all-trades is 
 apt to be the master of none. 
 
 But far too many of our educated and 
 successful men sneer at politics, are content 
 to let them be managed by " practical men," 
 as they are called, think that they degrade 
 themselves and waste their time by taking 
 part in political struggles, and that they can- 
 not afford to divert time and energy from 
 their business. A little reflection would 
 make these men realize that good govern- 
 ment is an essential part of their business. 
 The fortune heaped up by years of constant 
 labor may be swept away in a single night 
 by a fire which proper building laws and an 
 efficient fire department would have pre- 
 vented. Every large city in the country, 
 New York, Chicago, Boston, Baltimore, to 
 
10 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 name only conspicuous examples, has had 
 this experience. There is scarcely a city 
 to-day which does not contain districts that 
 may at any time be the starting-place of a 
 great conflagration. The men who suffer 
 from these disasters have allowed the gov- 
 ernment of their cities to fall into incom- 
 petent hands. They have neglected an im- 
 portant part of their business. 
 
 A man may devote himself to acquiring 
 wealth for his children, may educate them, 
 house them luxuriously, give them every 
 accomplishment that will fit them to adorn 
 society, only to see them die before his eyes 
 because the city water which they drank, 
 polluted through the neglect of city officials, 
 has brought disease into his very home. 
 They may contract some contagious dis- 
 order in the theatre or the crowded store or 
 the public conveyance, and he will learn too 
 late that the Health Department fell into 
 the hands of uneducated politicians, because 
 he did not attend to his business. 
 
THE CITIZEN'S POLITICAL DUTY ii 
 
 The public schools, the police, the high- 
 ways, all the services to the citizen which 
 the public provides concern every citizen, 
 not merely the poor man to whom they are 
 vital, but the rich who will find that when 
 their poorer neighbors suffer, sooner or later 
 they must suffer also. 
 
 The waste of the people's money, whether 
 due to corruption or to incompetence, means 
 increasing taxes, which heighten the cost of 
 living and foster public discontent with all 
 that it implies. A change in the tariff, made 
 perhaps in return for contributions to a 
 campaign fund, may enrich one body of 
 manufacturers, ruin others, and impose im- 
 proper burdens on the whole community. 
 Every business man to-day feels the load of 
 taxation which cripples his efforts, and as 
 a mere matter of business he is as much 
 interested in having a proper tax law and 
 public economy, as he is in reducing any 
 other expense which enters into the cost of 
 doing business. 
 
12 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 An unwise foreign policy may embroil us 
 in needless war, and send our nearest and 
 dearest to die in tropical deserts or in arctic 
 regions far from home, while a public debt 
 and a long pension list are left to be carried 
 by our children and grandchildren upon 
 whom the sins of the fathers are thus visited. 
 
 In a word, government is a business in 
 which every citizen is a partner and to 
 which he must attend, if only as a matter of 
 business. He can no more neglect it with- 
 out suffering for his neglect than he can 
 neglect his housekeeping, the expenses of his 
 factory or his store, or cease to care whether 
 his employees are honest or competent. The 
 banker who does not see how his clerks do 
 their work, or whether their accounts bal- 
 ance, faces ruin. The public treasury is the 
 bank of us all, and under self-government 
 the voters are the bankers. The neglect 
 which spells disaster to the private banker, 
 spells disaster to us just as inevitably in one 
 case as in the other, though the public takes 
 
THE CITIZEN'S POLITICAL DUTY 13 
 
 longer to find it out. Says a student of pub- 
 lic affairs : 
 
 In my reform labors I have found that the most 
 dangerous enemies of reform have not been the 
 ignorant and poor, but men of wealth, of high social 
 position and character, who had nothing personally 
 to gain from political corruption, but who showed 
 themselves as unfitted to exercise the right of 
 suffrage as the lowest proletariat, by allowing their 
 partisanship to enlist them in the support of candi- 
 dates notoriously bad who happened by control of 
 party machinery to obtain the "regular" nomina- 
 tions. 
 
 I have said that the citizen is apt to leave 
 the business of the community to be run 
 by "practical men." The result may be em- 
 phasized by an anecdote. 
 
 Some years ago two Americans, who had 
 both been spending the summer in Europe 
 met for the first time on the home-bound 
 steamer. The first night out they were 
 walking the deck together when one turned 
 to the other and said, "You live in the city 
 which is governed by the meanest, dirtiest, 
 most corrupt political gang in the United 
 
14 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 States." The other, after a moment's re- 
 flection, said, "Yes, that is so." Then, sud- 
 denly reflecting further, he went on, "But 
 how do you know where I Hve?" "I don't 
 know" was the reply. 
 
 Look where you will. In New York you 
 will find Tammany somewhat improved 
 perhaps since the days of Tweed, but still no 
 supporter of honest government. Philadel- 
 phia is described as "corrupt but contented." 
 We have our own vivid recollection of the 
 experience through which Boston has 
 passed. St. Louis has added its chapter of 
 shame exposed by Folk. The Golden Gate 
 admits the traveller to a city which has no 
 association with any golden age. As a rule, 
 wherever the community is too large to be 
 governed by a town meeting or its equiva- 
 lent, the story is the same. Like causes 
 produce like results. 
 
 Our whole government is conducted on 
 the amazing theory that no matter what a 
 man's education or character may be, he 
 
PUBLIC OFFICERS 15 
 
 is fit to fill any public office. To quote 
 Lord Bryce again, 
 
 The fact is, that the Americans have ignored in 
 all their legislative as in many of their administrative 
 arrangements, the differences of capacity between 
 man and man. They underrate the difficulties of 
 government and overrate the capacities of the man 
 of common sense. 
 
 If a son is to undertake the management 
 of his father's mill, he must begin at the 
 beginning in the process of manufacture and 
 work his way up, until, familiar with every 
 step, he is competent to direct the whole. 
 In private life training is required to fit a 
 man for any work but simple manual labor, 
 as the plumber who mends your pipes must 
 now hold a certificate of fitness. But when 
 the whole public is to be served, as by the 
 postmaster when certain and prompt deliv- 
 ery of mail is of the greatest importance to 
 the community, or by the superintendent of 
 some great public essential like the sewerage 
 of a city, neither education, experience, nor 
 fitness for the work is the first thing con- 
 
i6 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 sidered, and the place is turned over to some 
 untrained person because he has rendered 
 efficient political service to the "practical 
 men" who have been trusted with the power 
 of selection by their fellow-citizens. The 
 appointee may prove efficient, but no pains 
 are taken to insure that result. The "prac- 
 tical men" are indeed very "practical" and 
 accomplish their objects with almost uni- 
 form success, but those objects are per- 
 sonal : — power and personal emolument, 
 with only so much attention to the wants of 
 the community as is necessary to prevent 
 the popular uprising which once in so often 
 drives bad administrators into private life. 
 The young man of high public spirit must 
 recognize his duty to do his share towards 
 securing good government for his country, 
 his state, and his city, but the most sordid 
 citizen if he has eyes to see must learn that 
 as a mere matter of self-interest he must do 
 likewise. 
 
 I remember that when I was a student 
 
EVERY MAN HAS INFLUENCE 17 
 
 here I was taught about the resultant of 
 forces. When an object is pushed by oppos- 
 ing but not diametrically opposing forces at 
 the same time, it advances upon a line which 
 is the resultant of them all. Each force has 
 its weight in affecting its course, and not 
 even the least is without some influence. So 
 it is with voters. No man and no party can 
 have his or its own way absolutely, but 
 every one who chooses to exert his influence 
 by voice or vote affects the national policy 
 somewhat. The harder his push the greater 
 the eflfect, but if he does not push at all the 
 resultant is deflected against him; the 
 course of public affairs is more or less 
 affected by his non-action. He must not 
 expect to control, but it is his duty to exer- 
 cise his just influence. 
 
 Besides the young man with his living to 
 earn there is, however, another and an in- 
 creasing class, the young men of fortune, 
 who, born independent, can devote their 
 lives to the public service, and who wish 
 
1 8 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 to do their duty by their country, while 
 at the same time they are not without the 
 hope of achieving fame for themselves. The 
 problem presented to them is somewhat dif- 
 ferent from that which confronts most of us, 
 and the difference must be recognized, but it 
 is not so great as to prevent our considering 
 the duty of the two classes together. 
 
 Every one will admit that whatever one's 
 object in politics, it is best accomplished by 
 some organization. The most gifted man 
 preaching the clearest truth can do little 
 while he stands alone. He must gather 
 disciples, he must have followers willing to 
 support his cause, or he accomplishes noth- 
 ing. There is no dearth of organizations 
 ready to welcome new adherents. There are 
 first the two great national parties, the Re- 
 publican and the Democratic, and a varying 
 number of small parties. Labor, Socialist, 
 and the like, among which, however, the 
 Prohibition Party is not likely to be counted 
 much longer. There are next a variety of 
 
ORGANIZATIONS NECESSARY 19 
 
 organizations formed to promote definite 
 causes, like the Civil Service Reform 
 League, the Tariff Reform League, and 
 others more or less permanent, while there 
 are also ephemeral organizations of various 
 kinds which accomplish their object and dis- 
 band, or become discouraged and die. These 
 parties and leagues each have their place 
 and are to be treated as tools to be used 
 when occasion serves, as a carpenter uses 
 now a saw and now a plane, and he who 
 surrenders himself to any single association 
 is like the mechanic who has only a single 
 tool. 
 
 So far as the smaller parties, usually 
 called "third parties," are concerned, they 
 are valuable in that they afford an oppor- 
 tunity for "conscientious objectors." Those 
 who on national issues vote for the candi- 
 dates of these parties make a more or less 
 vain protest, and they may draw away 
 enough votes from one great party to give 
 the victory to its rival. Sometimes, when 
 
20 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 neither party presents an acceptable candi- 
 date, men vote a third-party ticket rather 
 than abstain from voting altogether. These 
 votes may indicate to party leaders where 
 danger lies, but otherwise they are ineffect- 
 ual and the results of third-party move- 
 ments are negligible. Unless some great 
 issue rouses the moral sense of the people 
 and neither great party rises to the occasion, 
 as when the Republican Party was founded, 
 the enormous expenditure of money and 
 time which is necessary in order to create 
 and maintain a party organization prevents 
 the success of such movements. In a great 
 crisis only can a great party be born. 
 
 Does it follow that a voter should join 
 one or the, other of the great parties ? In 
 my judgment "no." The opinion of an in- 
 telligent foreigner is history, and no for- 
 eigner has studied our political life more 
 thoroughly and with greater intelligence 
 than Lord Bryce. Consider the great issues 
 of the day, and then listen to these words : 
 
THE GREAT PARTIES 21 
 
 Neither party has, as a party, anything definite 
 to say on these issues; neither party has any clean- 
 cut principles, any distinctive tenets. Both have 
 certain war cries, organizations, interests enlisted 
 in their support. But those interests are in the main 
 the interests of getting or keeping the patronage of 
 the government. Tenets and policies, points of 
 political doctrine and points of political practice, 
 have all but vanished. They have not been thrown 
 away, but have been stripped away by Time and 
 the progress of events, fulfilling some policies, blot- 
 ting out others. All has been lost, except ofiice or 
 the hope of it. 
 
 An eminent journalist remarked to me in 1908 
 that the two great parties were like two bottles. 
 Each wore a label denoting the kind of liquor it 
 contained, but each was empty. 
 
 When life leaves an organic body it becomes use- 
 less, fetid, pestiferous; it is fit to be cast out or 
 buried from sight. What life is to an organism, 
 principles are to a party. When they which are its 
 soul have vanished, its body ought to dissolve, and 
 the elements that formed it be regrouped in some 
 new organism. 
 
 How much of truth is there in this indict- 
 ment ? 
 Let me first recall to you Lincoln's words : 
 
22 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 The legitimate object of government is to do for 
 a community of people whatever they need to have 
 done but cannot do at all or cannot do so well for 
 themselves in their separate and individual capaci- 
 ties. I think a definition of "popular sovereignty" in 
 the abstract would be this: that each man shall do 
 precisely what he pleases with himself, and with 
 those things that exclusively concern him . . . that 
 a general government shall do all those things which 
 pertain to it and all the local governments shall do 
 precisely as they please in respect to matters which 
 exclusively concern them. 
 
 The General Government deals with the 
 questions which concern the whole country, 
 federal taxation, the tariff, interstate com- 
 merce, the army and navy, the postal service, 
 the currency and the like. 
 
 The State deals with a wholly different 
 class of questions, the punishment of ordi- 
 nary crime, the administration of charities, 
 water-supply, public services of various 
 sorts, such as street railways, savings banks, 
 roads, the enforcement of state laws, the 
 local courts of justice, and other matters of 
 the same sort. 
 
PARTIES AND LOCAL AFFAIRS 23 
 
 The city or town officers deal with purely 
 local affairs, such as protection against fire, 
 clean streets, good sewerage, the keeping of 
 public records like those of birth, marriages, 
 and deaths, the public health, public parks 
 and baths, and all the various things which 
 make the life of \he citizen pleasant and 
 healthy or the reverse. 
 
 Now it is perfectly apparent that two men 
 may differ widely on questions of tariff or 
 currency, and yet may be equally anxious 
 to have clean streets and good sewers. They 
 may or may not agree as to universal mili- 
 tary service or the prevention of strikes, and 
 yet be equally desirous to have able and 
 upright courts of justice. They may differ 
 on one cardinal question of national policy 
 and be in absolute accord on every state and 
 municipal matter. 
 
 The first objection to the party system 
 now prevailing in this country is that it uses 
 one organization to deal with every question 
 arising either in the nation, the state, or the 
 
24 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 city. The National Democratic Party pre- 
 sents its ticket for mayor of New York and 
 for the judges who preside in the courts of 
 that city as regularly as it asks for support 
 when the President of the United States is 
 to be chosen, and both parties pursue the 
 same course all over the country. Republi- 
 cans and Democrats may be partners in 
 business, may sit together as directors of 
 the same corporation, may belong to the 
 same church or the same club, and in all 
 these relations agree perfectly. Both un- 
 doubtedly want clean streets in their city, 
 but let an election come and instead of com- 
 bining to elect a man competent to keep the 
 streets clean, they vote against each other, 
 each supporting very likely a man of whose 
 fitness he knows nothing, because he is 
 nominated by the national party which he 
 has joined on account of its attitude on the 
 tariff. Why should not two men who agree 
 in all matters of private business get to- 
 gether when questions of public business on 
 
PARTIES AND LOCAL AFFAIRS 25 
 
 which they also agree are to be determined? 
 When the national, state, and municipal 
 elections are held on the same day, as they 
 often are, there are presented to the voter 
 two party ballots containing the names of 
 candidates for national office who are to deal 
 with national questions, candidates for state 
 offices who are to deal with state questions, 
 and candidates for local offices who are to 
 deal with local questions, and the voter who 
 is Republican or Democrat on national 
 issues is expected to vote the whole ticket, 
 often in entire ignorance of the views enter- 
 tained by the candidates for state and local 
 offices as well as of their character and 
 efficiency. As illustrations, we have had in 
 Chicago a ballot two feet, two inches by 
 eighteen and a half inches, with 334 names ; 
 in New York a ballot two feet, four inches 
 by eight and a half inches, with 825 names. 
 It is as if the judge presiding in some 
 court were to say to the jurymen at the 
 opening of a term, "Gentlemen, there will 
 
26 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 come before you for trial at this term a 
 great variety of cases. There will be suits 
 against railroads for damages caused by 
 accidents, there will be suits against various 
 parties on promissory notes, there will be 
 actions of libel, there will be suits by build- 
 ers to recover for their work in erecting 
 houses, there will be contests over wills, and 
 others too numerous to mention. The 
 parties in each case will be different, the 
 merits of the cases will vary, the questions 
 raised will differ widely, but you must ad- 
 here to one simple rule. In the first case you 
 must render your verdict according to the 
 evidence after due deliberation, but that 
 verdict will govern the verdict in every other 
 case. If in that first case your verdict is 
 for the plaintiff, it must be for the plaintiff 
 in every other case tried before you. If for 
 the defendant you must find for the defend- 
 ant in every case." Such a charge would be 
 deemed the quintessence of absurdity, yet it 
 is the practical rule on which a majority of 
 
HOW PARTIES ARE CONTROLLED 27 
 
 the voters all over the country have been 
 wont to act. 
 
 The treaty of peace with Germany affords 
 an excellent illustration of the way in 
 which the party system works. The ques- 
 tions which it presents are national ques- 
 tions, and however they are decided, the de- 
 cision affects every citizen of the United 
 States alike. If the treaty makes war more 
 probable. Republicans and Democrats alike 
 must fight in our armies and share the sac- 
 rifices and expenses which war entails. If 
 Japan ought not to have the rights jand 
 privileges in China which for brevity we call 
 Shantung, no Republican gains or loses by 
 a decision either for or against her, anything 
 that his Democratic neighbor does not also 
 gain or lose. Yet with few exceptions we 
 find the Senate dividing on party lines and 
 ignoring the sound rule that in dealing with 
 foreign countries party contests should cease 
 at the seashore. 
 
 These results are due to the fact that these 
 
28 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 great party organizations fall under the con- 
 trol of men who are willing to give their 
 lives or a considerable part of their lives to 
 the business of running them, many from 
 personal ambition, many to gain office as a 
 livelihood, or influence which can be made 
 profitable, and some from a laudable desire 
 to serve the public. Whatever the original 
 motive, the first two classes know that their 
 future depends on the success of the party 
 which they have chosen to join, and the 
 members of the third class soon learn to 
 sympathize with those who have acted with 
 them in great campaigns, and to distrust 
 those who have opposed them. They are 
 easily led to look through partisan spectacles 
 unless at any time the issue is peculiarly 
 clear. 
 
 The view of the party leader is expressed 
 crudely in the article from a Tennessee 
 newspaper, from which I quote the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 The Record laments with all its sorrowful soul 
 
PARTISANSHIP 29 
 
 the breaking-up of partisan Democracy, the decay 
 of militant organization, the loose-jointed ram- 
 shackleness of doctrine. This paper believes in 
 organization, in loyalty to party, in following the 
 leaders, in the party whip, in intolerant force to 
 keep the ranks closed, in old-time allegiance, in bet- 
 ter sticking to principles, in reading men out when 
 they flicker or rebel. 
 
 It's the only way to win ! And to stay won ! If 
 you do not believe in them, go and join something 
 else. If you cannot stand square up to the rack, get 
 out of the stall and let somebody eat the fodder. A 
 party to win wants men it can count on every day in 
 the week. 
 
 It is the only fault in Woodrow Wilson. If he 
 had drawn the bull whip he could have forced the 
 Democratic senators to eat out of his hand. As it is, 
 he and every man-jack of them has his own stan- 
 dard of Democracy. He had no business congratu- 
 lating a Republican for beating a Democrat for 
 Governor of the State of Massachusetts. He sets an 
 example of recalcitrancy. He is the leader of the 
 Democratic Party, elected by that party, and It is his 
 bounden duty to stand by that party. The party 
 committed a blunder in Massachusetts, but are you 
 going to kill your goose because it misses laying a 
 golden egg every time.? It was our party leader's 
 business to pat them on the back and tell them not 
 to blunder again. There are a thousand other virtues 
 in the Democratic Party in Massachusetts that are 
 
30 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY . 
 
 worth fostering, and a thousand other vices in the 
 Republican Party that condemn it, and are you 
 going to judge them by only one act? 
 
 The word "partisan" has been brought into un- 
 merited disrepute somehow, when the God's truth is 
 that it is not only right and righteous, but it is 
 the only right way to win. Stand by the colors ! 
 
 The party leaders wish well-discipHned 
 armies, and they recognize the fact that it is 
 dangerous to let their followers act with 
 their opponents at all. It is the essence of 
 Republican faith that all Democrats are bad 
 and unfit to be trusted with power, while 
 Democrats are taught to regard Republi- 
 cans as supporters of privilege and plutoc- 
 racy, combined in what is gracefully called 
 a "plunderbund." These beliefs would be 
 rudely shaken if Republican and Democrat 
 should work side by side in a city or a state 
 election. They would learn to know each 
 other, to find points of agreement, to recog- 
 nize that they really want the same things, 
 and the leaders could no longer count on 
 the constant support of their followers. 
 
PARTISANSHIP 31 
 
 I recall a very indignant letter from a dis- 
 tinguished Republican leader to me after 
 Seth Low as an independent candidate had 
 sought to wrest the control of New York 
 City from Tammany Hall and had been 
 defeated because the Republican organiza- 
 tion, instead of supporting him, had nomi- 
 nated a Republican candidate and so divided 
 the vote against Tammany, in which my 
 correspondent said that Mr. Low ought "to 
 be spanked from one end of Broadway to 
 the other." Mr. Low would have made and 
 afterward did make an admirable mayor, 
 and was an eminent Republican, but he was 
 not the candidate of the national organiza- 
 tion, and so deserved condign punishment. 
 My correspondent was a Massachusetts 
 man, but he thought he knew better than 
 New York Republicans of equal standing, 
 who was a proper candidate for mayor in 
 New York City. 
 
 Another motive which induces the na- 
 tional parties to insist on controlling state 
 
32 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 and local elections is found in the patronage 
 of state and city which can be and is used 
 to reward political service. If the local elec- 
 tion turned on the question whether the 
 streets of the city should be kept clean and 
 well-paved, the candidates would probably 
 be selected because of their executive ability 
 and their experience in street-cleaning, and 
 whichever was elected the street-cleaning de- 
 partment would be organized and run so as 
 to do well the work for which it was created. 
 The result would be better for the streets 
 and those who use them, but so much pat- 
 ronage would be lost to the party. Hence 
 it is important that men should be led to 
 vote for candidates according to their views 
 on the tariff without regard to their fitness 
 as street-cleaners. 
 
 It should be obvious that the wishes of 
 the party organization and the interests of 
 the voters in these matters do not coincide, 
 and that while organization is necessary in 
 order to accomplish a public object, it 
 
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT 33 
 
 should be an organization formed with that 
 object in view and it should invite all to join 
 who sympathize with its purpose. In the 
 city it should be a "clean-street," "pure- 
 water" party — in the state, perhaps, as 
 lately in Massachusetts, a "law-and-order" 
 party, or a party formed to secure good state 
 government. The voter whose object is to 
 secure some definite public good should be 
 careful to see that his vote is so cast as to 
 accomplish that object and is not thrown 
 away on a false issue. 
 
 In passing, let me make a few practical 
 suggestions. If, as should be the case, you 
 seek to improve conditions in your own city 
 or town, to secure for yourself and your 
 fellow-citizens an honest and efficient ad- 
 ministration of your local business, there 
 are two things to be borne in mind. 
 
 One is that there is no royal road to good 
 city government. There are many who 
 think that if they can get a good city charter, 
 they can go off and leave it to work auto- 
 
34 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 matically. To such let me quote the words 
 of Carl Schurz: "If Gabriel draws your 
 charter and Lucifer administers it, your 
 government will be bad. If Lucifer draws 
 your charter and Gabriel is called upon to 
 administer it, your government will be 
 good." We often speak of the forces which 
 govern us as "the machine." The compari- 
 son is misleading. There is no machine, but 
 a combination of men, often called "a com- 
 bine." As the best machine needs human 
 hands to work it, and if the hands are good 
 will accomplish good results, while in bad 
 hands it is easily wrecked or useless, so the 
 powers which a charter gives must be trusted 
 to honest men or the best charter fails to 
 accomplish its purpose. 
 
 The second thing is that good city govern- 
 ment is only won by hard and persistent 
 work. The men who form "the combine" are 
 regulars. They are working for their living 
 every day in the year, and they cannot be 
 defeated by volunteers who enlist for a cam- 
 
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT 35 
 
 paign of a few weeks preceding an election. 
 The machine must be met by a well-organ- 
 ized force ready to do all the work which is 
 needed, remembering, however, that a force 
 so working for right need not work quite so 
 hard as one which is working for evil — 
 "Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel 
 just." 
 
 The trouble with organizations formed to 
 secure good municipal government too often 
 is that they lack initiative. Instead of se- 
 lecting candidates of their own and calling 
 upon their fellow-citizens to help elect them 
 because they will make good officers, they 
 yield so far to the party system that they 
 let the little coteries of politicians who call 
 themselves Republican or Democratic com- 
 mittees make their nominations, and then 
 take "Hobson's choice," never an inspiring 
 alternative. The result is such an announce- 
 ment as was made a few weeks ago by the 
 Good Government Association of Boston 
 which was as follows : 
 
36 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 We do not find in the entire list of candidates 
 anyone whom, according to our standard of charac- 
 ter and experience, we can recommend for election. 
 We feel, however, that we owe a duty to the voters 
 to point out at least those of the candidates who 
 in our opinion are most likely to render some service 
 in, the council. Our list, therefore, must be consid- 
 ered not one of recommendation, but merely as the 
 best under all the circumstances. 
 The statement says further that the candi- 
 dates 
 
 are as great in number, with few exceptions, and 
 less in quality, with no exception, than in any year 
 since the new charter was inaugurated. 
 
 Efficient municipal government is not 
 likely to be secured by men whose labors 
 produce such a result as this. We need men 
 who will lead and are not content with a 
 choice of evils. 
 
 Pursuing our investigation we must be 
 struck with the fact that great parties do 
 their work, accomplish the object for which 
 they were formed, and then tend to become 
 mercenary armies. The Republican Party 
 was formed to keep slavery out of the terri- 
 
PARTISAN FEELING 37 
 
 tories, and was forced to fight the Civil War 
 in order to abolish slavery and to reconstruct 
 the Union. This done its work was done, 
 but its organization continued, and for a 
 while lived on the feelings and prejudices 
 created by the war. "There's another Presi- 
 dency in the bloody shirt" was the pithy 
 saying of a Presidential candidate who never 
 realized his ambition, but it stated the tie 
 which kept the party together. The Demo- 
 cratic Party had opposed the Government, 
 had declared the war a failure, and it took 
 years to recover from the odium of having 
 tried in the interest of slavery to defeat the 
 effort to restore the Union, while the Repub- 
 lican Party lived because the people did not 
 trust its rival. 
 
 The end of the reconstruction period, 
 which may be said to have come during the 
 administration of President Hayes, practi- 
 cally left the parties without an issue, and 
 since then they have been seeking an issue 
 for each election; as, for example, lately 
 
38 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 when Republican leaders proposed that the 
 treaty of peace with Germany should go 
 unratified and the whole world be left to 
 suffer for a year and very likely two in order 
 to create an issue for the next Presidential 
 election. 
 
 A little reflection will open your eyes to 
 the truth. It is not difficult to read in the 
 party platform what passed when the party 
 leaders met to frame it. We need not be 
 present at the meeting. They do not come 
 together determined to state clearly some 
 great purpose and to consider how best they 
 can present it to the people and lead them 
 to support it. On the contrary, their atti- 
 tude is that of followers, not leaders. They 
 seek to discover what the voters want and 
 promise that, having in view the various 
 bodies of voters whose wishes are often 
 opposed, and trying to attract them all. 
 Their discussion proceeds somewhat in this 
 way : "We must have a plank or two on the 
 labor question so drawn as to get the labor 
 
HOW PLATFORMS ARE MADE 39 
 
 vote without antagonizing the employers to 
 whom we must look for contributions to the 
 campaign fund. We need some strong prom- 
 ises to the veterans, or we may lose the 
 soldier vote. Such promises if kept mean 
 increased taxes and higher cost of living, but 
 the cost falls on the public, and we must 
 therefore have another plank insisting on 
 the strictest economy in the expenditure of 
 public money and promising to reduce the 
 cost of living." So the debate proceeds, and 
 the careful student who examines the oppos- 
 ing platforms of the great parties for a series 
 of years and compares promise with per- 
 formance will find much to amuse him, and 
 be left with the conviction that the voter is 
 less intelligent than he thinks himself and 
 more easily fooled. 
 
 The Republican Party records with pride 
 that it freed the slave and made him a citi- 
 zen, with all the rights of a citizen, by 
 the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth 
 Amendments to the Constitution. We 
 
40 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 know that in a large part of the country the 
 negro's rights are denied. When has there 
 been in any RepubHcan platform a clear-cut 
 demand that those rights shall be recog- 
 nized? Why does the party leave its great 
 work unfinished? The answer is simple. 
 There is danger that such a declaration 
 would cost some doubtful states. 
 
 In 1852 both Whigs and Democrats in- 
 sisted that the Compromise of 1850 had 
 settled the slavery question. The country 
 was on the eve of civil war, but the party 
 leaders closed their eyes to the situation and 
 a new party sprang into being. The party 
 managers say to each other, "Find some 
 issue, some slogan, some cry like 'Tippe- 
 canoe and Tyler too,' which will appeal to 
 the hysterical public, and frame our plat- 
 form accordingly." We all know that they 
 have in mind the votes of various classes, the 
 soldier vote, the labor vote, the woman 
 suffrage vote, the Irish vote, or the German 
 vote, and that their platforms are drawn to 
 
REFORMS AND THE PARTIES 41 
 
 attract them, though comparatively little 
 effort is made to fulfil the platform promises. 
 Hence the saying that political platforms are 
 like the platforms of railroad cars, "made to 
 get in by, not to stand on." Men whose 
 only object is to win an election are not the 
 men to lead a great country in a great crisis. 
 We want men who would rather risk defeat 
 than fail to face a threatening danger. We 
 never hit high by aiming low. 
 
 It is a significant fact that the names of 
 men prominent as leaders during years of 
 public life are rarely associated with any 
 great reform or wise law. The great changes 
 in our government which are embodied in 
 recent amendments to the constitution are 
 not the work of the parties. The popular 
 election of senators was brought about by a 
 demand coming from members of both par- 
 ties. National prohibition was never a party 
 issue, but was secured by an independent 
 organization formed for that purpose, and 
 against the private desire of many legislators 
 
42 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY ' 
 
 who voted for it, if not of a majority. In 
 like manner woman suffrage has been won 
 by the efforts of persons most of whom were 
 not even voters. If any great reform is to be 
 accompHshed, it cannot be left for any ex- 
 isting party to push it. We must have an 
 organization formed to support it. 
 
 So it is with minor reforms. The Civil 
 Ser\dce Reform law was passed in the second 
 session of a Congress. In both Houses of 
 Congress there was a Republican majority 
 and at the first session the reform was openly 
 flouted by the party leaders. "Snivel service 
 reform" and like opprobrious epithets were 
 used to describe it, and though both parties 
 in their platform had professed great regard 
 for it. Congress would have none of it. An 
 independent association or series of associa- 
 tions was formed to promote it. The ques- 
 tion was carried into the elections. Some 
 civil service reformers were elected, the Re- 
 publicans lost their majority, and as soon 
 as the second session of Congress opened 
 
REFORMS AND THE PARTIES 43 
 
 they hastened to pass the law, not even tak- 
 ing time to debate it in the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 The Australian ballot and other political 
 reforms have been carried by like organiza- 
 tions, and we cannot doubt that the future 
 will repeat the past. 
 
 Assuming that every man means that his 
 vote shall do some good, that he does not 
 vote for the mere sake of voting or because 
 it is the fashion to vote, it is clear that he 
 must have in mind some object and decide 
 for whom to vote in order to attain it. The 
 men who are Republicans or Democrats be- 
 cause their fathers were, who vote against 
 the peace treaty because their fathers voted 
 for the abolition of slavery, have little in- 
 fluence in elections. They are the capital of 
 the "bosses," the men upon whose support 
 they can rely no matter what the issue or 
 how bad the candidate. They subscribe to 
 the doctrine thus announced by a Republi- 
 can governor of Massachusetts : 
 
44 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 We are engaged in a prolonged political warfare 
 in this country. Two great political armies are 
 arrayed against each other . . . and each man's duty 
 is to stand by the flag that symbolizes his political 
 faith and yield loyal support to the man who has 
 been selected to bear that standard. 
 
 In short, he must surrender his judgment 
 and his conscience to the party managers, 
 the "practical men." 
 
 The country once applauded the senti- 
 ment, "He serves his party best who serves 
 his country best." This doctrine reverses it 
 and makes service to one's party the best 
 service to one's country. It is to say, "Our 
 party right or wrong." No party magnates 
 need concern themselves about the votes 
 which they cannot lose. It is the doubtful 
 votes for which they must bid, the votes 
 which they are likely to lose. They make 
 one plank for the soldier vote and another 
 for the labor vote. If we want to use a great 
 party to accomplish some reform, we must 
 have a reform vote so large and in the hands 
 of men so much in earnest that they cannot 
 
THE PARTIES BID FOR VOTES 45 
 
 be disregarded. The larger such a vote is 
 and the more thoroughly it is organized, the 
 more each party bids for it, and the party 
 which keeps its platform promises — whose 
 acts support its words — makes the best bid. 
 It is not by slavish adherence to any party, 
 but by willingness to act independently, that 
 a body of voters exercises an influence on 
 policies and makes party an effective tool. 
 The labor vote passes an Adamson bill, the 
 soldier vote gets enlarged pensions. We 
 must have a citizen's vote which will get 
 wise legislation for the public as a whole. 
 
 It is not, therefore, by joining a party and 
 adhering to it through thick and thin that a 
 citizen exercises his proper influence in pub- 
 lic affairs. It is by enlisting for a cause in 
 some organization formed to advance that 
 cause, and making that organization so 
 strong that the parties must bid for its vote, 
 that one really works to some purpose in 
 politics, and this is the course which experi- 
 ence commends to a public-spirited man. 
 
46 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 A few words more and I shall leave this 
 branch of my subject. There are men who 
 starting in life are attracted by politics and 
 enlist in some organization, relying on the 
 prospect of salaried office for support. As 
 a rule he who yields to this temptation faces 
 disaster. For a while, perhaps, everything 
 runs smoothly and promotion is rapid. On 
 the strength of success the young man mar- 
 ries and adds to his own the expenses of a 
 family. If he holds an elective office, sooner 
 or later his party is defeated or some more 
 popular candidate takes the nomination of 
 his party away from him, and perhaps when 
 he is too old to begin a new career, and when 
 his expenses are at their maximum, he finds 
 himself without support, compelled to beg 
 for some appointment or some employment 
 from political friends who would like to for- 
 get him. If he holds by appointment the 
 same misfortune may overtake him when 
 his term expires or his office is abolished, or 
 a change of parties drives him out. After 
 
OFFICES FOR LIVELIHOOD 47 
 
 each national election we hear of "lame 
 ducks" in Washington. These are Congress- 
 men who have lost their seats. They stay in 
 Washington seeking some appointment 
 which will pay them enough to support 
 them. They are to be pitied as they limp 
 from office to office. Some are relieved for 
 a while by an appointment, but many are 
 lamed permanently. It is the sad end of an 
 ambitious life. 
 
 Moreover, if the party of an official who 
 lives by his salary adopts a policy or nomi- 
 nates a candidate to which his conscience 
 objects, he must silence his conscience or 
 abandon his livelihood. He cannot oppose 
 his party and retain its support. This de- 
 pendence on party turns many a man who 
 might have been a brave and conscientious 
 citizen into a miserable coward, or so far 
 blunts his perception that he gradually 
 comes to support men and opinions that at 
 the outset of his career he would have 
 scorned. Almost unconsciously step by step 
 
48 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 he goes down until if he recognized his de- 
 scent he would say with Satan, "Farewell, 
 remorse! All good to me is lost. Evil, be 
 thou my good." 
 
 The small class of men who do not depend 
 on office for support may not meet with such 
 complete ruin, but it is very hard for them 
 to turn their backs upon their party and all 
 it offers of honor and consideration to him 
 who serves it faithfully. The man who has 
 once tasted the sweets of power lays it down 
 reluctantly, and the highways of politics are 
 strewn with men who have sacrificed their 
 ideals, or, as the phrase goes, have "sold their 
 souls" for political preferment. 
 
 The temptation which proved too much 
 for these men is one of which he who aims 
 at real success must always beware. Let him 
 choose some cause worthy of high effort and 
 devote himself to that, in office or out of 
 office, never sacrificing it for any personal 
 gain, and though the party builders reject 
 him, thus and thus only can he become "the 
 
CAUSE GREATER THAN PARTY 49 
 
 headstone of the corner." He who betrays 
 his cause may get the "ribbon to stick on his 
 coat," but the reward is worthless in the eyes 
 of a real man. Whatever else you do as 
 voters or as the holders of public office, do 
 not follow him "who to party gave up what 
 was meant for mankind." 
 
 If you must be partisan, be the partisan of 
 some great cause which is worthy of support, 
 not the tool of the "practical men" who 
 count on your ignorance and appeal to your 
 prejudice. The citizen in his political action 
 must, as Wendell Phillips said of the agi- 
 tator, have "no bread to earn, no candidate 
 to elect, no party to save, no object but the 
 truth," if he would really serve his country. 
 
 May I conclude as I concluded a discus- 
 sion of this subject many years ago : 
 
 "Whatever his field, however, let him who 
 decides to seek a career in politics remember 
 that in such a career office is an accident, 
 and not an end. When he has made him- 
 self the exponent of a cause, or has shown 
 
50 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 conspicuous ability to deal with some public 
 question, he may find himself called to 
 office, but the office is only an opportunity 
 — a position of advantage from which to 
 carry on the battle. In so doing he may 
 incur odium, and may lose his office, but 
 he should not therefore abandon the fight. 
 'His Majesty's Opposition' is as necessary 
 to good government as the Ministerial 
 Bench. It is not success to be on the win- 
 ning side. It is not success to get and keep 
 office, if only the incumbent of the office is 
 profited thereby. Nor is success to be de- 
 termined by the issue of this or that election, 
 or the results of a single decade. 
 
 "It is success to fight bravely for a prin- 
 ciple, even if one does not live to see it 
 triumph. 
 
 "He who would take part in politics, 
 whether he merely wishes to do his duty, or 
 desires a brilliant career, must learn to wait. 
 He must plant him&elf on the historical 
 standpoint and not expect to accomplish 
 
WHAT IS POLITICAL SUCCESS? 51 
 
 great results in a single campaign. When 
 Fremont was defeated it seemed to many as 
 if the cause of freedom was lost forever, but 
 in less than ten years slavery had ceased to 
 exist. In 1864 many believed the war a 
 failure, and a great party so pronounced it, 
 but in a few months came Appomattox. 
 When Hannibal was at the gates of Rome 
 few of its citizens could look forward to 
 Zama. The strong forces in human society 
 are truth and courage, and they are sure to 
 triumph in any contest with fraud and error, 
 though it may take long to win the victory." 
 
 There is wisdom in the words of Horace 
 Mann when he saw a measure, to the prep- 
 aration and support of which he had given 
 years, defeated in the Massachusetts legis- 
 lature, "The truth is that I was in a hurry 
 and God is not." 
 
 Political progress is a slow process of 
 growth. It is the result of educating a whole 
 community. For a while it seems as if noth- 
 ing were accomplished ; but constant, patient 
 
52 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY , 
 
 clTort gradually prepares the public mind, 
 and iinally some trifling circumstance, some 
 peculiarly clear case of abuse, produces a 
 popular outburst, and thenceforth the path 
 of reform is easy. 
 
 At such a crisis the man who has long been 
 identified with an unpopular cause may sud- 
 denly lind himself a leader, and perhaps 
 compelled by public demand to take office. 
 If he regards it as an opportunity and con- 
 tinues the fight all the more vigorously, his 
 future is secure. If he falters and compro- 
 mises with his principles for fear of losing 
 his popularity and his office, he learns to 
 realize the truth of the stern text: "Whoso- 
 e\or Mill sa\'e his life shall lose it." Our 
 national pathway is lined with the graves of 
 men who have failed at the supreme moment 
 and have died repeating that ''Republics are 
 ungrateful," when to them at least their 
 Republic has been only just. 
 
 ]^\er>' citizen who honestly studies the 
 political questions of his time will reach 
 
HIGHEST TYPE OF CITIZEN 53 
 
 definite conclusions as to how those ques- 
 tions should be dealt with. If he will en- 
 deavor actively to have them settled as he 
 thinks they should be, and will give to the 
 work a very moderate portion of his leisure 
 throughout the year, he will not only do his 
 duty as a citizen, but he will be surprised at 
 the interest which he takes in the work and 
 at the results which are accomplished. He 
 will find that his horizon is broadened and 
 his whole life made fuller and richer. This is 
 in itself a sufiicient reward, if he wins no 
 other. But if he is only true to principle, 
 sooner or later his fellow-citizens will de- 
 mand his service. If he is fitted to fill ofiice 
 the ofiice will seek him. The highest type 
 of the citizen is Cincinnatus. In the words 
 of Heraclitus, which are as true in politics as 
 in every other human pursuit : "Character is 
 destiny." 
 
LAWLESSNESS 
 
 In this lecture I propose to discuss what 
 every citizen who would help his country is 
 bound to respect — and that is the law. 
 
 Laws are the rules which regulate the re- 
 lations of men to society and to each other, 
 which determine the rights of the citizen and 
 his obligations to every other citizen and to 
 the community at large, represented by city, 
 state or nation. It is hardly too much to say 
 that civilization is the process of restraining 
 the will of the individual by law, that the 
 liberty of a people depends on its success in 
 curbing by a written or unwritten constitu- 
 tion the power of its rulers, and that the 
 cause of justice in the world is advanced by 
 observing the law of nations. 
 
 The law is the judgment of the community 
 as to what is necessary or convenient, and 
 when it ceases to accord with the needs of 
 the community, the law itself prescribes how 
 
LAWS DEFINED 55 
 
 it may be changed. Whenever a citizen in 
 pubUc office or in private life asserts the right 
 to break the law, whatever his reason, he 
 substitutes his own judgment for the judg- 
 ment of the community. Such a man con- 
 stitutes himself the legislature, and- makes 
 laws not only for himself, but for his neigh- 
 bors at his pleasure. The wisest and most 
 temperate cannot claim this power without 
 conceding it to his most youthful, most care- 
 less, most intemperate fellow-citizen. The 
 power of making laws is in the legislature, 
 and any one, be he President or schoolboy, 
 who claims this power for himself and at 
 his own pleasure breaks a law, opens the door 
 to disorder and riot. 
 
 As President Roosevelt well said: 
 
 The corner-stone of this Republic, as of all free 
 governments, is respect for and obedience to the 
 law. Where men permit the law to be defied or 
 evaded, whether by rich man or poor man, by black 
 man or white, we are by just so much weakening the 
 bonds of our civilization and increasing the chances 
 of its overthrow and of the substitution therefor of 
 
56 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 a system in which there shall be violent alternations 
 of anarchy and tyranny. 
 
 Laws are of different value, but at any 
 given time in a country like ours they rep- 
 resent the wisdom of the majority, and they 
 vary with the public opinion of the day. 
 Some are passed to meet an emergency, 
 some seem dictated by momentary hysteria, 
 some are experiments, most of them are 
 passed in haste. Often the lawmakers yield 
 against their own judgment to a noisy public 
 opinion, or hope to gain support from some 
 body of voters who will profit by the legisla- 
 tion. To the trained student of public affairs 
 many laws seem unwise, many seem dan- 
 gerous, many seem sure to fail, but against 
 the soldier vote, or the labor vote, or the 
 temperance vote, resistance seems hopeless. 
 The wise man knows that many will prove 
 futile and become dead letters, that public 
 opinion will change and recognize the folly 
 of others, and not infrequently he may find 
 that his own wisdom was at fault, and that 
 
WISE AND UNWISE LAWS 57 
 
 what seemed to him bad laws have worked 
 well in practice. An experiment has suc- 
 ceeded which he thought sure to fail. 
 
 Nearly seventy years ago the Common- 
 wealth of Massachusetts woke up one morn- 
 ing to find that the control of her government 
 had been secured by a secret organization 
 called "the Know Nothings," a party 
 founded on a feeling against foreign-born 
 citizens and destined to enjoy a very brief 
 existence. "The Know Nothing Legislat- 
 ure," as it was called, proceeded diligently 
 to legislate amid the scorn and ridicule of the 
 defeated party leaders, and its work excited 
 the liveliest apprehension among the con- 
 servative citizens of the state. A very emi- 
 nent lawyer told me some years ago that 
 he had taken the pains to read through the 
 statutes which that legislature passed and 
 was amazed to find how very large a propor- 
 tion of them had been embodied in the 
 permanent legislation of Massachusetts, and 
 how few were really foolish. 
 
58 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 The statesman and the scholar may find 
 much to criticize in the laws at any time in 
 force, but good or bad, wise or foolish, there 
 is only one course open to the citizen and 
 that is obedience to the law, while it is the 
 law. "The best way to secure the repeal of 
 a bad law is to enforce it," was the pithy 
 saying of a great American. If it is bad the 
 citizen may agitate against it by pen and 
 tongue, may unite with others to educate his 
 fellow-citizens so that they may recognize its 
 folly or its dangers and' so secure its repeal, 
 but he must none the less obey it until it is 
 repealed. Any other course is anarchy. 
 
 I hear that some modern thinkers would 
 persuade you that if a law does not commend 
 itself to your conscience, it is your duty to 
 disobey it. This is a most dangerous doc- 
 trine, on no account to be accepted. It is, 
 of course, possible to put extreme cases 
 where a man should obey his conscience 
 rather than the law, but such cases are ex- 
 tremely rare. The rule is that a man must 
 
LAW AND CONSCIENCE 59 
 
 speak the truth, but casuists can always put 
 cases where the rule must yield, as when bad 
 news is concealed by falsehood from a very 
 ill person for fear that the truth may cause 
 the patient's death. One may in like manner 
 imagine laws which a man would rather go 
 to the stake than obey, but any advice 
 founded on such imaginings is most un- 
 sound. 
 
 Conscience is an elastic term which may 
 mean very different things to different men. 
 One man will speak of conscience when he 
 only means his dislike to a law which curtails 
 his pernicious activities, or interferes with 
 his convenience. One man thinks that his 
 constitutional rights are invaded by a law 
 which the majority of his fellow-citizens con- 
 sider essential to public safety. If he resists 
 he will put it on the ground that his con- 
 science forbids obedience. A great many 
 people of both sexes are confident that the 
 customs laws are tyrannical and unjust in 
 forcing them to pay duties on their pur- 
 
6o PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 chases abroad, and conscientiously feel 
 
 bound to evade them. With exceptions so 
 
 rare as to be negligible no citizen can refuse 
 
 to obey the law and justify his disobedience 
 
 by appealing to his conscience. He must 
 
 yield to the will of the majority in this as in 
 
 much else when he lives in a republic. There 
 
 is much wisdom in the oft-repeated verse of 
 
 John Trumbull, 
 
 "No man e'er felt the halter draw 
 With good opinion of the law." 
 
 One of the greatest dangers which now 
 confronts us is the growing tendency to ig- 
 nore or disobey the law. There is a law- 
 abiding instinct in every man of true Ameri- 
 can stock, and it finds expression in the 
 commonplaces of our speech. If a man is 
 annoyed by some discourtesy of his neighbor, 
 or by what seems a public abuse, he exclaims, 
 "There ought to be a law against such 
 things" ; while on the other side the offender, 
 when brought to book, takes refuge in the 
 remark, "Well, I guess there isn't any law 
 
MR. GOMPERS AND STRIKES 6i 
 
 against it." Our legislatures every year are 
 overwhelmed with demands for new laws, 
 until the volume which contains the new 
 legislation of a single year in one state far 
 exceeds in size the volume which contains 
 the legislation of Parliament for the whole 
 British Empire. But notwithstanding this 
 inborn sentiment, men in practice disobey 
 the laws that they do not like, while insist- 
 ing that their neighbors shall obey the laws 
 which they do like, or, as Hudibras put it, 
 
 "Compound for sins they are inclined to 
 By damning those they have no mind to." 
 
 Let me call your attention to conspicuous 
 examples of dangerous lawlessless. Some 
 months ago Mr. Gompers, the eminent 
 leader of organized labor, said to a com- 
 mittee of the United States Senate that if 
 a law were passed making strikes by railroad 
 employees illegal and punishable, he should 
 not hesitate to defy the law. His statement 
 probably defines the attitude of two or more 
 
62 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 millions of men, who practically can arrest 
 the business of the United States, and thus 
 presents a very serious question. No state 
 can interfere with interstate commerce in 
 any way, but these men claim a power which 
 is denied to New York or Ohio, and which 
 the people would never by law entrust to 
 any one. 
 
 If it is desired that there should be in 
 every community men with power to arrest 
 its business until some question between 
 an employer and workmen is settled, should 
 not that power be intrusted to public offi- 
 cers.? Imagine the attempt of a legislature 
 to frame a law giving to one or more persons 
 such a power. The very idea is ridiculous, 
 but if the attempt were made, would not the 
 legislature guard such a power jealously.? 
 Would it not insist on a clear statement of 
 the question at issue, would it not provide 
 for careful investigation and public hearing, 
 before the power was exercised.? If such a 
 law were passed, would not the men chosen 
 
STRIKES AND THE LAW 63 
 
 to exercise the power be selected very care- 
 fully? They would be chosen by the votes 
 of the whole community to exercise powers 
 which would affect gravely the whole com- 
 munity. Do you not see that no such pow- 
 ers would ever be given even to the most 
 responsible men? Yet these powers are 
 freely exercised to-day whenever they see fit 
 by men who do not represent the public. 
 
 A general strike by the railroad employees 
 of the country would work more injury to 
 the whole people than an invasion by a for- 
 eign army. The movement of food and fuel 
 essential to the lives of the citizens would 
 be arrested, the workmen who go by rail to 
 their work would at least be delayed, the 
 machinery and supplies of all kinds which 
 our factories require would soon fail, and 
 no one knows how many men and women 
 would be thrown out of employment. The 
 children in the nursery, the sick in the hos- 
 pital, every man, woman, and child in the 
 country would suffer, the strikers would 
 
64 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 spend their substance, starvation, disease, 
 and riot would beset the nation, and all be- 
 cause some question of wages, hours, or 
 accommodations, probably a question of 
 arithmetic, had arisen upon which the rail- 
 road managers and the labor unions could 
 not agree. 
 
 Salus populi suprema lex. Is it possible 
 that the community is powerless to protect 
 itself against such a calamity? The State 
 may call millions of men into its military 
 and naval service against their will by con- 
 scription. For their service the conscripts 
 are paid thirty dollars a month and are 
 forced to encounter hardships and perils of 
 life and limb which grow every day more 
 serious. Once in the service disobedience of 
 orders by any man, and of course by a com- 
 bination of many to disobey, is mutiny, and 
 may after trial by court-martial be punished 
 by death. Yet a mutiny in the army would 
 in all but very exceptional cases not seriously 
 affect the mass of our people. The soldier 
 
COMBINATIONS AND THE LAW 65 
 
 cannot strike because the laws made for the 
 government of citizens in the miUtary ser- 
 vice forbid. The Articles of War derive all 
 their authority from laws made by Congress, 
 and the soldier cannot claim any constitu- 
 tional right to strike. 
 
 Many things that a single man can do, a 
 combination of men cannot do. A single 
 manufacturer or merchant may raise the 
 price of his goods at will. If, however, a 
 combination of manufacturers is formed to 
 prevent competition and enhance the price 
 of goods, the law steps in and dissolves the 
 combination, punishes its members as crimi- 
 nals, and gives all parties injured a right to 
 claim damages from them. 
 
 The Constitution knows no classes of citi- 
 zens, and their rights do not vary with their 
 employment. If men cannot combine to 
 raise the price of goods, it would seem that 
 they cannot combine to raise the price of 
 labor. Certainly the legislature which can 
 prevent their combining to raise the price of 
 
66 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 service as soldiers can forbid their combin- 
 ing to raise the price of other service even 
 more important to the public. What is 
 necessary to the safety of the people must 
 be legal. 
 
 But the argument does not end here. The 
 avowed object of criminal law is the main- 
 tenance of the public peace. If one citizen 
 owes another money or has wronged him in 
 any way, the injured party is not allowed to 
 collect his debt or redress his injury by 
 attacking the other in the public streets. 
 This is not because the public cares for the 
 wrongdoer, but because this method of 
 asserting one's rights disturbs the peace. A 
 burglar finds when indicted that he is 
 charged with having done certain acts 
 "against the peace of the Commonwealth." 
 One who threatens violence to another is 
 bound over by the court "to keep the peace," 
 not to refrain from attacking his enemy. 
 
 The various movements to prevent war by 
 arbitration treaties or by a league of nations 
 
THE PUBLIC PEACE 67 
 
 originate not so much in the desire to pre- 
 vent war between the actual combatants as 
 to prevent the disturbance of the world's 
 peace and the inevitable injury to neutral 
 countries. It has been found that no matter 
 what nations are fighting, the whole world 
 suffers and therefore statesmen try to avert 
 that suffering. 
 
 If nations and individuals cannot fight 
 because their contests break the public peace, 
 why should not the same rule be applied 
 to disputes between bodies of citizens.^ 
 A strike resulting from a dispute between 
 the miners and the mine owners, between 
 the railroad companies and their employees, 
 between the manufacturers of a city like 
 Lawrence or Fall River and their workmen, 
 or between the longshoremen and the ship- 
 owners in a city like New York which 
 affects the commerce of the nation, disturbs 
 the public peace almost infinitely more than 
 a fight between two men on the street. The 
 employees or others who are willing to work 
 
68 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 are beaten or blown up in their houses, 
 destruction of property almost invariably 
 occurs, and only the presence of troops pre- 
 vents the most serious disorders. 
 
 Nay, more, the strikes are aimed at the 
 public. The strikers believe that by para- 
 lyzing the business of the country or of a 
 city and bringing the public face to face with 
 starvation, cold, disease, and riot, they will 
 force the public to bring such pressure upon 
 the employers as will make them yield. 
 They propose by injuring the public to win 
 their battle, and, as in Boston by the police 
 strike, they put the public to enormous ex- 
 pense and loss. The striking policemen in 
 Boston counted on so much disorder in the 
 unprotected city that the frightened people 
 would call them back. If they had sup- 
 posed that there would be no increase in 
 crime they would have known that such 
 continued peace would only show that police 
 were not needed. The policy of such strikers 
 cannot be distinguished from that of a man 
 
THE RIGHTS OF THE PUBLIC 69 
 
 who should break the windows of all his 
 neighbors to make one of them pay a debt. 
 
 Has not the public the right to protect 
 itself against such injuries? The railroads, 
 for example, are public highways. To con- 
 struct them the public has given the builders 
 the right of eminent domain. Grants of 
 public land and loans of public money were 
 made to build the transcontinental lines, and 
 cities and towns helped lines which were 
 built to serve them. They are engaged in 
 interstate commerce which Congress has the 
 right to regulate, a right which is exercised 
 through the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
 sion in fixing rates, and by Congress through 
 such bills as the so-called Adamson bill. 
 Can Congress control what one citizen must 
 charge for transporting goods, and is it pow- 
 erless to fix what another must charge for 
 his work in carrying on such transportation ^ 
 
 It is not necessary to go so far. Congress 
 has the clear right to say that, as disputes 
 between individuals must be settled by a 
 
70 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 court, so must disputes between bodies of 
 citizens be determined. Questions of wages, 
 hours, accommodations, privileges, and 
 rights are no more difficult to decide than 
 the very complicated and difficult questions 
 involved in the public and private contro- 
 versies which courts have always dealt with. 
 Strikes such as Mr. Gompers proposes 
 approach the dimensions and threaten the 
 consequences of civil war, and the time has 
 come when public or private war as a means 
 of determining rights must be regarded as 
 a relic of barbarism. If men cannot settle 
 their own disputes, the State must settle 
 them. This principle has been adopted by 
 the legislature of Kansas, and so far the law 
 has worked well. 
 
 It is the duty of every good citizen to set 
 his face against the lawlessness which is now 
 preached by labor leaders and their sympa- 
 thizers. Direct action, sabotage, syndical- 
 ism, and the like are different names for 
 criminal violence, and unless adequate laws 
 
CONSCIENCE AND THE LAW 71 
 
 are passed and inflexibly enforced against 
 them, the consequences to our civilization 
 will be disastrous. When a man like Mr. 
 Gompers, as the leader of perhaps millions 
 of men, defies Congress and threatens civil 
 war if it exercise its undoubted power in a 
 way which he does not approve, he should be 
 made to realize that his attitude is hardly to 
 be distinguished from treason. 
 
 I have dwelt at some length on the issue 
 presented by Mr. Gompers because it is a 
 clear illustration of the spirit which is 
 abroad in the nation. He doubtless thinks 
 that he would be obeying his conscience in 
 disobeying the law which he was discussing. 
 He would really be resisting the law because 
 it deprived him of a weapon which he threat- 
 ened to use in such a way as to injure the 
 public. He wants to have the right so to 
 use it, but he is not an authority on consti- 
 tutional law, and he does not propose to let 
 the courts decide whether or not he has the 
 right which he claims. His threat is to defy 
 
72 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the law and the legislature, and his attitude 
 shows at once the danger of letting each 
 man decide for himself what the law is, and 
 the danger of confounding unreasonable or 
 reasonable objections with conscientious 
 scruples. 
 
 But the labor leaders are not the only 
 offenders. It was not long ago that the 
 authorities in Arizona arrested a number 
 of striking miners and carried them by rail- 
 road into a neighboring state where they 
 were deposited on a plain which was more or 
 less a desert. It is clear that one state has 
 no right to send its undesirable citizens into 
 another state, and it is equally clear that the 
 men thus banished were dealt with illegally 
 and brutally. Such methods return to plague 
 the inventors, and all methods of punishing 
 citizens for anything they do except by pro- 
 cess of law are indefensible. 
 
 During the recent war mob violence was 
 resorted to in order to make people buy Lib- 
 erty bonds, or to prevent their discussing 
 
MOB VIOLENCE 73 
 
 public questions in ways which the neigh- 
 bors did not approve, just as recently certain 
 military and other organizations have un- 
 dertaken by violence to prevent Mr. Kreisler 
 from playing at concerts. All such things 
 are deplorable, and unless they are checked 
 by public opinion, they demoralize the com- 
 munities where they occur and many others, 
 for bad examples are very contagious. Men 
 of property and standing who take part in 
 such lawless proceedings, or even by silence 
 seem to approve them, are teaching the poor 
 and ignorant portion of society a very dan- 
 gerous lesson in destroying that respect for 
 law which is the main protection of their 
 own lives and property. What has happened 
 in Russia may sooner or later threaten the 
 United States, and when the danger arises, 
 the surest bulwark against it is respect for 
 law and lawful methods planted deep in the 
 hearts of the people. 
 
 Especially does this practice endanger the 
 right of free speech. During the anti-slavery 
 
74 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 contest men like Garrison were mobbed, 
 meetings were broken up, agitators like 
 Lovejoy were killed, and the attempt was 
 made to prevent by mob violence the ex- 
 pression of unpopular truth. The right of 
 free speech means the right to utter what 
 men do not like to hear. No constitutional 
 provision is needed to secure the right of 
 any man to express popular views. The 
 demagogue needs no protection against mob 
 violence. He speaks what he knows the 
 public likes, and suits his opinion to his 
 audience. 
 
 We are constantly told that the way to 
 do away with any abuse is to educate the 
 people, to make them realize what are the 
 reasons against its continuance, and why 
 reform is necessary. Popular education is 
 impossible if the men who undertake the 
 task are denied a hearing. No man who 
 believes in a government like ours should 
 for a moment tolerate any curtailment of 
 a free press and free speech, because those 
 
IMPORTANCE OF FREE SPEECH 75 
 
 rights are the corner-stones of republican 
 government. We all know how intolerant 
 one is tempted to be of foolish or intemper- 
 ate words, or of mischievous propaganda, 
 but violent repression is not the remedy. 
 Passion does not distinguish between truth 
 and error, and an excited mob cannot be 
 trusted to tell which is which. Upon every 
 citizen rests the duty of combating false 
 views by speech if he can speak, by writing 
 if he can write, by conversation and by ex- 
 ample if he can do nothing more, and none 
 the less must he uphold the right of the 
 foolish speaker to express his foolish ideas. 
 Otherwise he may find not only that his 
 own wisdom may be counted foolishness by 
 others, but that he is mobbed for teaching it. 
 But there is lawless speech as well as law- 
 less action. It is lawless because it is for- 
 bidden by law, and the remedy is given by 
 law. The transgressors should be arrested 
 by the police, tried and punished as the law 
 directs. This course protects the com- 
 
76 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 munity against incitement to riot, and 
 protects the speaker in the exercise of his 
 rights if his speecli was lawful, no matter 
 how unpopular. Voters in a republic must 
 learn to think clearly and whatever happens 
 seek the redress which the law gives. 
 
 There never was a time, perhaps, when it 
 was more difficult to follow this course, but 
 the Constitution is made for just such emer- 
 gencies, and unless good citizens who re- 
 spect the Constitution obey its mandates, 
 how can we expect the men who threaten 
 our peace to respect a constitution which 
 does not protect their rights ? 
 
 There is sound wisdom in the practice of 
 the English authorities who allow men to 
 speak freely in Hyde Park, for they realize 
 that foolish speech produces little effect, and 
 unless the authorities regard it, excites little 
 attention, but all attempts at repression ad- 
 vertise it, give it an undue importance, and 
 create a sympathy for the speaker and prob- 
 ably for his views which his own speech 
 
THE PROHIBITION AMENDMENT 77 
 
 could never win. It was a marvelous ex- 
 ample of this toleration when the self-styled 
 vice-president of the Irish Republic was 
 allowed to preach disloyalty to the Govern- 
 ment of the British Empire to an audience 
 of thousands in London. 
 
 We are now face to face with a great con- 
 test between law and lawlessness. The 
 amendment to the Constitution which pro- 
 hibits the manufacture and sale of spirits, 
 wine, and beer, strikes at a well-nigh uni- 
 versal taste, at the unbroken habits of cen- 
 turies, at traditions embalmed in prose and 
 poetry and associated in men's minds with 
 much that is pleasantest in their lives. It 
 invades what have seemed to be inalienable 
 rights, it renders much property valueless, 
 it calls upon us to change at once the cus- 
 toms of a lifetime. I am not dealing with 
 the question whether this legislation is wise 
 or foolish. I am merely emphasizing the 
 radical change which it makes in established 
 habits, and its far-reaching effects. 
 
78 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 For many years in the states such laws 
 have been passed, modified, repealed, and 
 passed again as public opinion has veered 
 between prohibition, license, local option, 
 and other methods of dealing with a recog- 
 nized evil. Experience has shown that ab- 
 solute prohibition has never been enforced, 
 and many have felt that the attempt to 
 enforce it was unwise because, when any 
 law is openly disregarded, all law is more or 
 less brought into contempt. It is now pro- 
 posed to attempt it in a much larger area, 
 and to put the whole power of the nation 
 behind the attempt. It is an experiment 
 which strains the law-abiding spirit of our 
 people to the utmost. 
 
 We shall have an army of officers, na- 
 tional and state, to ferret out offenders, to 
 look for liquor, to enforce the laws. It is 
 not a work for which men of the first class 
 are likely to volunteer, and the opportunities 
 for corruption will be unlimited. To the 
 temptations which will be offered many 
 
ENFORCING PROHIBITION 79 
 
 officials will yield, as they yield now in every 
 large city. Many will sympathize with the 
 drinkers, and will not find it in their hearts 
 to expose them. A situation may well grow 
 up in which the law will become ridiculous, 
 and those appointed to enforce it merely use 
 their power to blackmail those who break it. 
 Experience has not proved that our people 
 are incorruptible. Juries will be slow to 
 convict, and from one end of the country to 
 the other the would-be drinkers and their 
 opponents will be pitted against each other 
 in internecine warfare. 
 
 No one familiar with the history of the 
 attempt to control by law the universal de- 
 sires and passions of men can fail to regard 
 this experiment with grave forebodings. 
 Very few believe that it is supported by pub- 
 lic opinion, notwithstanding the ease with 
 which the amendment was adopted by Con- 
 gress and ratified by the states. No one who 
 has considered the question can fail to rec- 
 ognize the strength of the arguments in favor 
 
8o PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 of prohibition, whatever his opinion may be 
 as to its wisdom, but it has ceased to be a 
 question whether the amendment is wise 
 or not. It is the law, and as such good citi- 
 zens must support it, and in my judgment 
 they will be wise if they support its spirit 
 and not merely its letter. They must not 
 set an example to those who would break 
 the law. The experiment must be tried 
 fairly. 
 
 Some time ago in reading an article upon 
 class feeling in England I was struck with 
 the author's statement that the introduction 
 of automobiles had contributed materially 
 to increase the dislike of the general public 
 for the moneyed classes. This feeling finds 
 expression in such words as these which I 
 take from the novel "John Ingleside," by 
 Mr. Lucas: 
 
 Socialism never had so powerful an ally as the 
 motor car. The motor car is the most brutally vivid 
 symbol of the callousness, the oppressiveness, and 
 the luxury of the rich that was ever devised, and 
 
RICH AND POOR 8i 
 
 every new motor car that is put on the road is 
 another nail in the coffin of plutocracy. 
 
 Most of you will remember the incident in 
 "A Tale of Two Cities" when the child is 
 killed by the coach horses of the marquis, 
 and its consequence. 
 
 We all know and at times share this feel- 
 ing, and we even cannot help feeling a little 
 insolent ourselves when we are in the car. 
 If that seems too strong a statement, let me 
 say that we at least share the pride of the 
 fly on the coach wheel in the fable. Mr. 
 Ford has done much to distribute the re- 
 sponsibility of the motor driver, and so 
 perhaps to modify the hatred of those who 
 run cars, but on the other hand, the length- 
 ening list of deaths from reckless driving 
 steadily neutralizes his efforts. I allude to 
 this feeling because prohibition presents a 
 new danger of widening the breach between 
 rich and poor. 
 
 The law permits a man to keep in his own 
 house and there use the fluids which cannot 
 
82 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 be made, sold, or transported. It is hard 
 and perhaps useless to say that a man 
 who has inherited or acquired a fine cellar 
 shall refrain from using it, when the law 
 allows him to do so, but it must be borne in 
 mind that when rich and poor have the same 
 taste, and the former can gratify it while the 
 latter cannot, the contrast does not make for 
 harmony, and to-day harmony between all 
 classes of our people is needed as never be- 
 fore. He who claims a right under the law 
 must uphold the letter on which he relies, 
 and do what he can to uphold the hands of 
 those whose duty it is to enforce it. If ex- 
 perience justifies our fears and proves the 
 law bad, repeal will be hastened by vigorous 
 enforcement. The privileges and luxuries 
 of the rich are secured by law, and they of 
 all men must be careful that it is not used 
 to oppress the poor, or to emphasize invidi- 
 ous distinctions. Do not flaunt wealth or its 
 evidences in the faces of those who do not 
 share it. 
 
THE ABUSE OF PATRONAGE 83 
 
 The power to appoint the army of em- 
 ployees which will be needed to enforce the 
 law is in itself a dangerous thing. The 
 abuse of patronage to perpetuate the power 
 of a party or to insure the election of a 
 candidate had become so flagrant forty years 
 ago that the Civil Service Reform law was 
 passed to protect the public against its own 
 servants. Now the friends of patronage are 
 gaining, and the Volstead law puts the men 
 who will fill the offices that it creates outside 
 the Civil Service law, so that they will be 
 selected by tainted methods to do a work 
 which only the most honest of men can be 
 trusted to do, and an enormous control over 
 voters is placed in the hands of the politi- 
 cians who for the moment have the power of 
 appointing or removing these officers. It 
 may well be used to defeat the wishes of the 
 people at a close election. 
 
 This danger would be increased were the 
 Government given the ownership and con- 
 trol of public services which hitherto have 
 
84 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 belonged to private citizens. We are wit- 
 nessing the results of such ownership. For 
 years the railroads of the United States have 
 been prosperous as a rule, and have yielded 
 a large revenue to their owners. Their 
 shares and bonds have been the favorite in- 
 vestments of savings banks, life insurance 
 companies, trustees for widows and orphans, 
 and many individuals of small resources as 
 well as of rich men. The fortunes of a 
 great many people, depositors in savings 
 banks and holders of life insurance policies, 
 representatives of every class in the com- 
 munity are dependent on their future. The 
 Government of the United States thinking 
 it necessary for public reasons assumed con- 
 trol of them, and we are now witnessing the 
 result in much increased expense and re- 
 duced efficiency. 
 
 The explanation is simple and the result- 
 ing peril is clear. Governmental control is 
 inevitably political control. The powers are. 
 exercised by politicians anxious to keep their 
 
GOVERNMENT CONTROL 85 
 
 party in power and to alienate no voters. 
 The railroad employees are voters, well or- 
 ganized and affiliated with other labor 
 organizations. The private employer can 
 discharge or discipline a negligent or un- 
 faithful employee without running any per- 
 sonal risk. The employee is more afraid of 
 his action than he is of the Government, for 
 he knows that the heads of the party in 
 power will be slow to provoke a conflict with 
 his union. Let now a close election approach 
 and let the railroad employees say to the 
 Government, "We must have higher wages 
 and shorter hours or we shall strike, or vote 
 for the opposite party." How do you think 
 this threat would be met? It need not be 
 made publicly ; it can easily be suggested in 
 the right quarter and be very effectual. Nay, 
 it need not be made or suggested at all. 
 The party in control may feel that to avoid 
 the possible loss of votes a raise in wages had 
 better be made, and explained on grounds 
 which it will be hard to dispute. I do not 
 
86 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 say that this has happened. I make no 
 charge against any one, but I say that in the 
 long run it is sure to happen, and that it is 
 very dangerous to put into the hands . of 
 poHticians the power over voters and the 
 temptation to use it at pubHc expense, which 
 government control of railroads inevitably 
 creates. Such a relation between the Gov- 
 ernment and a large army of workmen into 
 which new recruits can constantly be mus- 
 tered is dangerous. The railroad unions 
 would become a new Pretorian Guard, a 
 new body of Janissaries, and it is not difficult 
 to see that the inevitable outcome would be 
 disaster. The so-called Reds, whom the 
 country now regards with suspicion, are not 
 so dangerous as the labor unions might well 
 become under such a system, with Mr. 
 Gompers or a successor defying the law, and 
 the country's peace or a party's power at 
 stake. 
 
 Nor does the case end here. The wages 
 paid the railroad workers create a standard, 
 
ILAILROAD WORKERS AND WAGES 87 
 
 and the power to fix these is the power to 
 fix the wages of all wage-earners through- 
 out the country. Our recent experience has 
 shown us that when wages are raised in one 
 employment, wages in others follow suit. 
 What emperor ever had such power over his 
 subjects as may be created under govern- 
 ment ownership, and what burdens may not 
 the citizen be compelled to bear ! And when 
 to the power of fixing wages is added the 
 power of increasing at pleasure the number 
 of men employed, consider how likely it is 
 that the pressure for employment will be 
 resisted by the politicians in power. 
 
 This is no imaginary danger. Let me 
 quote the statement of facts made by Mr. 
 Atterbury, the vice-president of the Penn- 
 sylvania Railroad Company, long regarded 
 as the best-managed of American railroad 
 corporations : 
 
 The Pennsylvania Railroad to-day has in its em- 
 ploy 168,892 persons, as against 147,718 before we 
 went into the war, or an increase of 14 per cent. At 
 
88 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the same time the traffic units fell from 16,800,000,- 
 000 to 15,000,000,000, or a reduction of 11 per cent 
 in the business. Fourteen per cent more men did 
 11 per cent less work. Or, expressing it in a little 
 different way, it took 127 men in 1919 to do the 
 work of 100 men in 1917. •«• 
 
 What we manufacture is tonnage, and tonnage 
 per man employed has fallen off, notwithstanding 
 the continued introduction of heavy locomotives and 
 other instruments of increased efficiency. The av- 
 erage number of traffic units per employee has fallen 
 from 113,932 to 89,308. 
 
 In the early part of 1917 we were on a ten-hour 
 basis. During 1919 we have been on an eight-hour 
 basis, A 20 per cent reduction in time alone, had 
 we worked with exactly the same effort that we did 
 in 1917, would have moved in an eight-hour day 
 91,145 units. As a matter of fact there were moved 
 only 89,308 units. The advocates of the eight-hour 
 day claimed an increase in efficiency. In reality 
 the results prove just the opposite — that there has 
 been a reduction in efficiency. 
 
 Prior to our entrance into the war the men were 
 on a piece-work basis, as well as working on a ten- 
 hour day. When the government took over our rail- 
 road piece-work was stopped. The output per man 
 per hour fell from 100 per cent to 75 per cent. The 
 shops were put on an eight-hour basis. This cut the 
 output an additional 15 per cent, so that the output 
 per man per day in our shops is but 60 per cent of 
 
GOVERNMENT AND RAILROADS 89 
 
 what it was before we entered the war. In other 
 words, it takes ten men to-day to do what six men 
 did before the war. 
 
 What is the pecuniary result? Instead of 
 a profit large enough to pay dividends on 
 most of the railroads, the loss of the Govern- 
 ment in twenty-three months is $548,000,- 
 000, though the rates have been increased 
 some thirty per cent and the business done 
 has increased enormously. The November 
 revenues showed an increase of $149,200,000 
 as compared with the average for the month 
 in the three-year test period before the war 
 by which the compensation for the use of 
 the roads to be paid by the Government was 
 fixed, but expenses and taxes have increased 
 more than $213,000,000. This is ruinous 
 business, and is due in large part to the 
 causes which Mr. Atterbury points out, in- 
 crease of wages, increase of men employed, 
 and decreased efficiency. If they do these 
 things in the green tree, what shall be done 
 in the dry .'* 
 
90 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 It is not merely on economic grounds, but 
 to save the Government itself, that the dis- 
 position to place the control of men's tastes 
 and business in the hands of men elected on 
 political grounds should be resisted. The 
 dangers may not be recognized now, but the 
 prudent man looks ahead, and need not be 
 exceptionally wise to realize what threatens. 
 It is because human nature is weak that we 
 all pray, "Lead us not into temptation." 
 
 I have dealt with the more conspicuous 
 instances of disregard for the law, and there 
 is another which I shall treat in my next 
 lecture, but everywhere in our daily life, if 
 we look we can see how little the law is 
 respected. We have careful statutes in re- 
 gard to automobiles, their lights and their 
 speed, and the care with which they must be 
 operated, but how little are they respected, 
 and how rarely is any breach of the law 
 punished. Some years ago a magistrate 
 whose duty it was to enforce the law, but 
 who was himself the owner of an automobile 
 
DISREGARD FOR THE LAW 91 
 
 said to me, "No man would drive a motor 
 car if he could not violate the law." Vio- 
 lations put all our lives in jeopardy and 
 make the use of the public highways dan- 
 gerous both for those who are in and those 
 who are out of these cars, but none the less 
 the community does not disturb itself, and 
 the combined force of dealers and owners 
 prevents proper legislation, and proper en- 
 forcement of such laws as are made. 
 
 Some time ago I spent several summers in 
 Germany and saw cherry-trees loaded with 
 fruit standing by the side of the streets un- 
 protected by any fence, but absolutely free 
 from depredation, as free as if there were a 
 policeman and a dog at the foot of each tree, 
 but near any of our large cities gardens and 
 orchards are constantly raided, and if the 
 trespassers are caught, the lower courts, 
 from mistaken sympathy, fail to impose any 
 adequate punishment; and as a result we 
 find the cultivation of fruits and vegetables 
 abandoned because the cultivator wishes to 
 
92 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 feel that he can enjoy the crops which his 
 labor has created, and if he cannot he will 
 not work for the benefit of thieves. Unpun- 
 ished theft sets an example and produces 
 disrespect for the law, and it would be better 
 for us all if examples were made of those 
 who steal fruit, and who if unpunished may 
 become more dangerous malefactors. I 
 could give you many more illustrations of 
 lawlessness, but I must leave some open for 
 your memory and imagination. These are 
 only a few out of many examples. 
 
 Lawlessness has other avenues of attack 
 upon constituted authority. Nothing can 
 overthrow the law so completely as the over- 
 throw of the courts. We must all agree that 
 the best way of settling disputes between 
 men or nations is by submitting the question 
 at issue to some court or board of arbitration 
 composed of men as impartial as the lot of 
 humanity will permit. Experience has 
 shown that the better course is to establish 
 a tribunal fitted to deal with all disputes. 
 
IMPARTIAL COURTS ESSENTIAL 93 
 
 rather than to wait until the question arises 
 and then endeavor to create a special tri- 
 bunal to deal with that case. It is inevitable 
 that when the parties to a dispute seek to 
 agree upon those who are to judge between 
 them, each side will try to get judges who by 
 disposition or supposed sympathies will be 
 likely to support its view, and thus decide 
 the case. Each side inevitably suspects the 
 choice of the other in selecting the judges, 
 and there is too much room for jockeying. 
 The court should be constituted of able, im- 
 partial, trained men, fit to deal with any 
 disputed question, and should await the 
 case. 
 
 All who are familiar with courts must 
 agree that the judges should be removed 
 from all influences likely to affect their de- 
 cision, that they should hear the arguments 
 of the parties and reach their conclusion 
 deliberately. The traditional figure of Jus- 
 tice is made blindfold to indicate that she 
 must not see the contestants, but only hear 
 
94 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the case and decide, not knowing the parties 
 and dealing equal justice to rich and poor, 
 friend and enemy. 
 
 Within ten years dissatisfaction with the 
 judgments of courts has led the defeated 
 parties to urge that judges be taken from the 
 bench by popular vote, or at least that an 
 appeal to the people should lie from their 
 decisions. The recall of judges and the re- 
 call of decisions each has its advocates, and 
 the last is urged as an easy way of amending 
 a constitution. Recent experience would 
 lead us to believe that amending the consti- 
 tution is made easy enough, but at any rate 
 existing methods give time for thought and 
 argument. In dealing with either proposed 
 recall it is well to remember that neither 
 remedy is likely to be invoked save in cases 
 of great public interest where some question 
 as to the constitutionality of law is involved. 
 
 We must not lose sight of the fact that 
 constitutions are made to protect the people 
 against the tyranny of officials, or to protect 
 
DANGERS OF THE RECALL 95 
 
 the rights of the minority or the individual 
 against the tyranny of the majority. If now 
 a decision which accompUshes this purpose 
 and protects the rights of a minority can by 
 any process be submitted to a popular vote 
 and reversed if a majority so decides, the 
 whole object of the constitution is defeated, 
 and men's rights, property, and lives are at 
 the mercy of the majority, which at the 
 moment may be as passionate, as preju- 
 diced, as hysterical as was the Parisian mob 
 in 1790. Any such system substitutes popu- 
 lar clamor for deliberate judgment, and the 
 feeling of the moment for those settled prin- 
 ciples upon which civilized government must 
 rest. It is an appeal from the court to the 
 mob. 
 
 The recall of judges strikes at that se- 
 curity which is essential to justice. If a 
 judge is made to feel that an unpopular de- 
 cision may cost him his seat on the bench, 
 leave him and his family without the means 
 of support at a time of life when he will find 
 
96 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 it hard to make a living, two things must 
 result. Strong men will decline to become 
 judges if they must decide not as their judg- 
 ment and conscience dictate, but as the pop- 
 ular feeling demands on pain of losing their 
 positions, and weak men will follow the pub- 
 lic demand at the expense of justice. Either 
 form of recall strikes at the very root of our 
 judicial system, and establishes lawlessness 
 on the bench. Every good citizen must 
 realize that upon good judges the law de- 
 pends. We want high character, sound 
 judgment, courage, conscience, and ability. 
 Weak or incompetent courts bring the law 
 and its processes into contempt. When a 
 man who accepts a judgeship must take the 
 vow of poverty and deny his family the op- 
 portunities which he could give them if he 
 did not take it, the Bench must suffer. 
 These are obvious truths, but the law suffers 
 because the public refuses to recognize them. 
 The people of the United States need the 
 best courts that the country can give, and 
 
AN ELECTIVE JUDICIARY 97 
 
 they cannot afford poor courts. The decisions 
 of our judges affect the whole scope and 
 power of the Government and deal with vital 
 questions. The position of judge should be 
 made attractive to the best men in the coun- 
 try, and the office should seek the man. We 
 cannot get such men as we need unless we 
 offer fair compensation and assure them 
 against any influences which will tend to 
 destroy their absolute independence. 
 
 Men contrast an appointed with an elect- 
 ive judiciary, but there is no elective judici- 
 ary. All judges are appointed, possibly by 
 some group of political leaders in return for 
 the contribution to the campaign fund of a 
 sum equal to a year's salary, as was once the 
 practice in New York, possibly by a com- 
 mittee of lawyers, but the people as a whole 
 cannot select intelligently. It is better to 
 have the appointment made openly by a 
 governor who must bear the responsibility 
 for a bad choice than by an irresponsible 
 man or knot of men acting in secret. The 
 
98 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 elected judge knows that sooner or later he 
 must come again to the polls, and that an 
 unpopular decision may cost him his place. 
 Can there be any doubt as to the effect of 
 that knowledge on his independence? 
 
 We must return to the ideals of our 
 fathers and insist that this shall be "a gov- 
 ernment of laws, and not of men." The vio- 
 lent invasion of every man's rights by his 
 neighbor can be prevented in any com- 
 munity only by force or by law. Our whole 
 fabric of civilization rests upon the law. It 
 is the framework of our political edifice, 
 which is kept in place by the respect for the 
 law which is felt by the community as a 
 whole. When that is gone, when men no 
 longer obey the law voluntarily because it is 
 the law, there is no alternative but force, 
 which, wielded by a just and temperate man 
 to-day, may to-morrow fall into the hands 
 of a tyrant or a sot. It was a short journey 
 from Augustus to Nero. In the words of 
 Chatham: "Where law ends tyranny be- 
 
DUTY TO MAINTAIN THE LAW 99 
 
 gins." Lawlessness opens the door of the 
 State to the dictator. It always has in 
 human history, and it always will. 
 
 Let me reinforce my statement by the 
 authority of Elihu Root who says : 
 
 One of tlie reasons for the conditions that exist 
 at the present time is the intellectual and moral 
 failure to understand that the law must be observed. 
 . . . We know that we cannot give free opportunity 
 for very good and well-intentioned people without 
 giving the same opportunity to those who would ex- 
 ercise a grinding, grasping, despotic power. There 
 can be no guarantee of security unless we have a 
 government of laws, and not of men; unless the 
 dictates of the impulse of the moment conform to 
 the rules of law and order. We know that the guid- 
 ance of all, good as well as bad, in accordance with 
 the principles of the law, is essential to the main- 
 tenance of peace and order and the attainment of 
 prosperity. 
 
 We have never seen the time when unconsciously 
 the people of the country ignored that truth to so 
 great an extent as at present. 
 
 What is our duty.? First and always to 
 maintain the law; to teach respect for it by 
 speech and by example, in public and in 
 private, and to condemn its violation when- 
 
100 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 ever and by whomsoever committed. I 
 
 cannot urge this so well as in the words of 
 
 Lincoln, uttered in 1837: 
 
 Let reverence for the law be breathed by every 
 American mother to the babe that prattles on her 
 lap; let it be taught in schools and colleges, let it 
 be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legisla- 
 tive halls and enforced in courts of justice. And, in 
 short, let it become the political religion of the na- 
 tion, and let the old and the young, the rich and the 
 poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues 
 and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon 
 its altars. 
 
 If law is to be respected, it must be re- 
 spectable. We must purify its source. The 
 law which a majority of the legislature hon- 
 estly approves rests upon a sure foundation. 
 It is the will of the people expressed by their 
 representatives, and they will respect it as 
 such. The law, which is bought by money, 
 patronage, or other improper influence, is no 
 law, but a fraud, and the people not only 
 will not respect it, but they lose their respect 
 for all law. Men fight fire with fire, and 
 either try to buy laws for themselves, or, 
 
MAKING LAW RESPECTABLE loi 
 
 unable to do this, disregard the statute when 
 their convenience dictates, and so make a 
 law for themselves, thus beginning, to quote 
 again from Mr. Roosevelt, "the substitution 
 for our civilization of a system in which 
 there shall be violent alternations of anarchy 
 and tyranny," both of which are equally 
 fatal to liberty. Just laws enacted by honest 
 men command respect and execute them- 
 selves, but laws which are made to favor an 
 individual or a class unjustly, and are paid 
 for by patronage or cash, whether paid to 
 the legislator or the campaign fund of his 
 party, rest upon injustice and corruption 
 and infect the whole body politic. 
 Herbert Spencer said in 1882 : 
 
 Free institutions can be maintained only by citi- 
 zens, each of whom is instant to oppose every 
 illegitimate act, every official excess of power, how- 
 ever trivial it may seem. . . . All these lapses from 
 higher to lower forms begin in trifling ways and 
 it is only by incessant watchfulness that they can be 
 prevented. 
 
 We must all enlist in defence of the law, 
 
102 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 lest we learn too late that there is a law 
 which no nation and no man can violate 
 with impunity, that universal law by which 
 ruin waits upon corruption, and which was 
 written for all time in the stern sentence: 
 "The wages of sin is death." 
 
RACE PREJUDICE 
 
 In my last lecture, while discussing the im- 
 portance of obeying the law and giving in- 
 stances of lawlessness, I said that there was 
 another conspicuous instance. I propose 
 now to speak of that, as it is an example of 
 the race and class prejudice which is a fruit- 
 ful source of danger to this country. The 
 true principle on which government by the 
 people should rest is expressed in the phrase, 
 "Each for all and all for each." The enlight- 
 ened citizen should learn to put himself in 
 his neighbor's place, see with his eyes, and 
 thus instructed consider what is good for his 
 neighbor's interest as well as for his own. 
 Any other course is blind selfishness. 
 
 The prospects of peace and prosperity all 
 over the world are clouded by injustice aris- 
 ing from racial and class antipathies, and in 
 our own country the former is intensified by 
 the prejudice of color, a legacy from the days 
 
104 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 when negro slavery existed in this country. 
 Let me deal with this first. 
 
 The census of 1800 showed that the popu- 
 lation of the United States was 5,308,433 
 persons of whom nearly one-fifth were negro 
 slaves. In 1860 the slave population in the 
 nine seceding states was about 3,500,000 out 
 of 9,000,000, and taking the other slave 
 states the total slave population was about 
 4,000,000. To-day we roughly estimate the 
 negro population of the country at about 
 twelve millions. 
 
 These twelve millions of people are citizens 
 of the United States, entitled under the Con- 
 stitution to every right which any white 
 citizen enjoys, and by the Fifteenth Amend- 
 ment protected in their right to vote, against 
 any discrimination founded on race, color, 
 or previous condition of servitude. They are 
 called upon to perform every duty of a citi- 
 zen, to pay taxes, to serve in the army, to 
 hold their property subject to the right of 
 eminent domain. Four hundred and seven- 
 
LOYALTY OF THE NEGROES 105 
 
 teen thousand of them were drafted into our 
 armies, and, in the words of Secretary 
 Daniels, "more than two hundred thousand 
 negroes went across the sea to fight, not a 
 few of them to seal their devotion with their 
 blood, and many to win decorations for their 
 fine fighting qualities and faithful services." 
 When "a zealous gentleman" assured the 
 Secretary that Prussian spies were to 
 organize a negro division of treason, the 
 Secretary replied by assuring him "that 
 though here and there he might find a traitor 
 among the American negroes he might give 
 himself no trouble, for I knew that the 
 negroes could neither be cajoled nor threat- 
 ened nor bought to enter a conspiracy to 
 injure this country." Of what other ele- 
 ment in our population can we be equally 
 sure, remembering as we must Benedict 
 Arnold and Aaron Burr, to say nothing of 
 the many whose machinations wrought us 
 great harm during the war which is just 
 ended. What race in the world, treated as 
 
io6 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 we treat the negroes, would be as loyal to 
 their oppressors ? 
 
 Secretary Daniels was speaking in favor of 
 erecting a monument at Washington to com- 
 memorate the services of our colored soldiers 
 in the war, but the negroes of this country 
 are entitled to a far better reward — the 
 recognition of their rights as men and as 
 citizens wherever the flag floats for which 
 they fought. 
 
 No greater dangers threaten us to-day 
 than those which arise from the treatment 
 of the negroes all over this country, especially 
 in the former slave states. Bred in the bone 
 of the whites who were born in those states is 
 the conviction that the negroes are their in- 
 feriors, intended by nature to be their serv- 
 ants, and that they must never be allowed to 
 escape from that subordinate position. Hence 
 they are denied justice in the courts ; they are 
 killed with impunity ; if charged with crime 
 or frequently with some trifling offence they 
 are lynched and often with hideous cruelty, 
 
NEGLECT OF NEGRO EDUCATION 107 
 
 while no attempt is made to prosecute and 
 punish the lynchers. 
 
 In most of the Southern States no ade- 
 quate provision for their education is even 
 attempted. They are denied the right to 
 vote, they are driven to live in wretched 
 houses and amid unsanitary conditions, and 
 in large parts of the South they are regularly 
 cheated and practically reduced to slavery. 
 
 This is a terrible indictment. Let me prove 
 it by Southern witnesses. 
 
 Says the "Atlanta Constitution" : 
 
 We must be fair to the Negro. There Is no use 
 in beating about the bush. We have not shown 
 this fairness in the past, nor are we showing It to- 
 day, either In justice before the laws, in facilities 
 afforded for education, or In other directions. 
 
 Some years ago a Mississippi lawyer ad- 
 dressing the Bar Association of that state 
 said: 
 
 A Negro accused of a crime during the days of 
 slavery was dealt with more justly than he is to- 
 day, ... It is next to an impossibility to convict 
 even upon the strongest evidence any white man of 
 
io8 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 a crime of violence upon the person of a Negro, . . . 
 and the converse is equally true that it is next to 
 an impossibility to acquit a Negro of any crime of 
 violence, where a white man is concerned; 
 
 and well did he add : 
 
 We cannot either as individuals, as a country, as 
 a state, or as a nation continue to mete out one kind 
 of criminal justice to a poor man, a friendless man, 
 or a man of a different race, and another kind of 
 justice to a rich man, an influential man, or a man 
 of our own race without reaping the consequences. 
 
 From the "Vicksburg Herald" come these 
 words : 
 
 The Herald looks with no favor upon drafting 
 Southern Negroes at all, believing they should be 
 exempt in toto because they do not equally "share 
 in the benefits of government." To say that they 
 do is to take issue with the palpable truth. "Taxa- 
 tion without representation," the war-cry of the 
 Revolutionary wrong against Great Britain, was not 
 half so plain a wrong as requiring military service 
 from a class that is denied suffrage and which lives 
 under such discriminations of inferiority as the "Jim 
 Crow" law and inferior school equipment and ser- 
 vice. 
 
 If we ask what is done for education, the 
 report of a careful investigation published by 
 
NEGLECT OF NEGRO EDUCATION 109 
 
 the Bureau of Education in the Department 
 of the Interior is melancholy reading. It 
 gives the facts as to the sixteen Southern 
 States, the District of Columbia and Mis- 
 souri, in which the population contains a 
 considerable proportion of negroes, and 
 states that in fifteen states and the District 
 of Columbia "for which salaries by race 
 could be obtained," the figures showed an 
 expenditure of $10.32 for each white child 
 and $2.89 for each colored child." 
 
 The results may be imagined, and we can- 
 not be surprised at the testimony which the 
 same report gives from competent witnesses. 
 I quote : 
 
 The supervisor of white elementary rural schools 
 in one of the states recently wrote concerning the 
 negro schools: 
 
 I never visit one of these schools without feeling 
 that we are wasting a large part of this money and 
 are neglecting a great opportunity. The negro 
 schoolhouses are miserable beyond all description. 
 They are usually without comfort, equipment, 
 proper lighting, or sanitation. Nearly all of the 
 negroes of school age in the district are crowded into 
 
no PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 these miserable structures during the short term 
 which the school runs. Most of the teachers are 
 absolutely untrained and have been given certificates 
 by the county board, not because they have passed 
 the examination, but because it is necessary to have 
 some kind of a negro teacher. Among the negro 
 rural schools which I have visited, I have found only 
 one in which the highest class knew the multiplica- 
 tion table. 
 
 A State superintendent writes : 
 
 There has never been any serious attempts in this 
 state to offer adequate educational facilities for the 
 colored race. The average length of the term for 
 the state is only four months; practically all of the 
 schools are taught in dilapidated churches, which, of 
 course, are not equipped with suitable desks, black- 
 boards, and the other essentials of a school; prac- 
 tically all of the teachers are incompetent, possessing 
 little or no education and having had no professional 
 training whatever, except a few weeks obtained in 
 the summer schools; the schools are generally over- 
 crowded, some of them having as many as 100 
 students to the teacher; no attempt is made to do 
 more than teach the children to read, write, and 
 figure, and these subjects are learned very Imper- 
 fectly. 
 
 This denial of education to so large a part 
 of our population not only injures them. It 
 
NEGLECT OF NEGRO EDUCATION iii 
 
 injures us all, as disease in one member in- 
 fects the whole body. Ignorance brutalizes a 
 people, and an ignorant and brutal element 
 in society is a menace to the whole com- 
 munity. Unless the existing conditions are 
 remedied the negroes will leave the South, 
 and the result is well stated by the Southern 
 University Race Commission in these words : 
 
 The inadequate provision for the education of 
 the negro is more than an injustice to him; it is an 
 injury to the white man. The South cannot realize 
 its destiny if one-third of its population is undevel- 
 oped and inefficient. For our common welfare we 
 must strive to cure disease wherever we find it, 
 strengthen whatever is weak, and develop all that is 
 undeveloped. The initial steps for increasing the 
 efficiency and usefulness of the negro race must 
 necessarily be taken in the schoolroom. 
 
 The "Report on Negro Education" puts it 
 more briefly thus: 
 
 However much the white and black millions may 
 differ, however serious may be the problems of 
 sanitation and education developed by the negroes, 
 the economic future of the South depends upon the 
 adequate training of the black as well as the white 
 workman of that section. The fertile soil, the mag- 
 
112 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 nificent forests, the extensive mineral resources, and 
 the unharnessed waterfalls are awaiting the trained 
 mind and the skilled hand of both the white man 
 and the black man. 
 
 There is no answer to the question which 
 Carl Schurz put to the Southern States, 
 
 How can you expect to succeed In competition 
 with neighboring communities if it Is your policy to 
 keep your laborers ignorant and degraded when it is 
 their policy to educate and elevate theirs? 
 
 What is the evidence as to lynching? A 
 gentleman writing to the "Manufacturers' 
 Record" from a town in Georgia says : 
 
 There have been lynched something like 4000 
 men, women, and children since 1882. . . . There 
 have not been fifteen convictions out of these thou- 
 sands of lynchers. 
 
 I quote the following statement from Rt. 
 Rev. Thomas F. Gailor, Episcopal Bishop of 
 Tennessee, a Southern white man, who wrote 
 in the "Nashville Banner" : 
 
 I realize that it Is futile to attempt by any writ- 
 ten word to stem the tide of what seems to be the 
 popular will; but a man can, at least, declare his 
 abhorrence of such atrocities. 
 
LYNCHING AND ITS HORRORS 113 
 
 This kind of lynching seems to be becoming epi- 
 demic in our State. About two years ago a negro 
 from Fayette County was lynched most barbarously 
 near Memphis, and parts of his body, according to 
 the newspapers, carried away as souvenirs. Many 
 citizens of Memphis protested, but they were ig- 
 nored. Last winter a negro man near Memphis was 
 burned at the stake, gasoline was poured over his 
 itody, and his head was cut off and taken through the 
 city streets as a trophy. Last fall a negro was 
 burned to death in Dyersburg, and thousands of 
 white people stood by and gloated over his agonies. 
 And now, at Estill Springs, we have another burning, 
 where the white men in charge first tortured the 
 miserable creature with a red-hot iron, "to break his 
 will," while the victim, already shot nearly to death, 
 with one eye hanging out, screamed for mercy, and 
 a thousand white men, with hundreds of women and 
 children, looked on and were not ashamed. 
 
 The "Memphis News-Scimitar" describes 
 
 the Dyersburg lynching which took place on 
 
 Sunday morning in the public square of the 
 
 county seat with a population of 7,500 
 
 people : 
 
 Not a domino hid a face, every one was un- 
 masked. Leaders were designated and assigned 
 their parts. Long before the mob reached the city 
 the public square was choked with humanity. All 
 
114 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 waited patiently. Women, with babies, made them- 
 selves comfortable. 
 
 At last the irons were hot. 
 
 A red streak shot out; a poker in a brawny hand 
 was boring out one of the negro's eyes. The negro 
 bore the ordeal with courage, only low moans es- 
 caping him. Another poker was working like an 
 auger on the other orbit. 
 
 Swish. Once, twice, three times a red-hot Iron 
 dug gaping places in Lation Scott's back and sides. 
 
 "Fetch a hotter one," somebody said. The exe- 
 cution went on. 
 
 Women scarcely changed countenance as the 
 negro's back was ironed with the hot brands. Even 
 the executioners maintained their poise in the face 
 of bloody creases left by the irons — irons which 
 some housewife had been using. 
 
 Three and a half hours were required to complete 
 the execution. 
 
 These details are revolting, and you may 
 ask me why I harrow you by reciting them. 
 Because unless the hideous horror of the 
 disease is brought home to you, you will not 
 rouse yourselves to find the remedy. 
 
 The latest reports as given by Dr. Moton, 
 the president of Tuskegee, show that eighty- 
 two lynchings occurred in 1919, eighteen 
 
LYNCHING AND ITS HORRORS 115 
 
 more than In the previous year. Seven of the 
 victims were burned to death. Among the 
 offences for which men were lynched were 
 "alleged incendiary talk," "writing improper 
 letters," "murder sentence changed to life 
 imprisonment," "killing a man in self- 
 defence," "remarks about Chicago race 
 riot," "making boastful remarks," and the 
 like. Less than a quarter were charged with 
 rape or attempted rape. 
 
 Let me meet directly the assertion that 
 lynching is necessary to protect the women 
 of the South from attacks by negroes. What 
 are the facts ? We must first remember that 
 during the Civil War the men of the South 
 left their women and children in the care of 
 the negroes whom they were fighting to hold 
 as slaves. Had the negroes showed any wish 
 to abuse their power the Southern armies 
 would have disbanded, but during the whole 
 four years not one negro betrayed the trust 
 reposed in him by his master. The women 
 of the South were safe while the negroes 
 
ii6 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 raised the corn and pork which fed the 
 Southern armies. As a Southern friend said 
 to me, with tears in his eyes, "There never 
 was a better race than the negroes !" Surely 
 never in history has there been an instance 
 where the oppressed so treated the oppressor. 
 This record proves that the negroes are not a 
 brutal and licentious people. The figures 
 fully sustain the statement of Dr. Scroggs, of 
 the Louisiana State University, who says : 
 
 Not only is lynching no preventive of crimes 
 against women, but statistics prove that only one 
 time in four are such crimes the cause of lynching. 
 In 1915 only sixteen per cent of the persons lynched 
 were charged with crimes against womanhood. 
 
 I have emphasized the word "charged," for 
 a charge is easily made and often falsely, as 
 figures abundantly prove. In court the man 
 who is charged is presumed to be innocent. 
 To the mob the charge is proof of guilt. 
 
 In support of this statement let me give 
 the following from Mr. James Weldon John- 
 son: 
 
STATISTICS OF LYNCHING 117 
 
 In the twenty years down to 1903 there were 
 1985 negroes lynched in the Southern States. Of 
 that number rape was assigned as the cause in only 
 675 cases. In 1310 cases other causes were assigned. 
 
 In the past thirty years fifty negro women have 
 been lynched. In the past twelve months five negro 
 women have been lynched. 
 
 In the five-year period, 1914-1918, 264 negroes 
 were lynched in the United States, exclusive of those 
 killed at East St. Louis, and out of this number rape 
 was assigned as the cause in only 28 cases. 
 
 Contrast these records, bad as they may appear, 
 with the records for New York County, which is 
 only a part of New York City, and we find that in 
 this one county, in the single year of 1917, 230 per- 
 sons were indicted for rape by the Grand Jury. 
 Of this number 37 were indicted for rape in the first 
 degree. That is, in just a part of New York City, 
 the number of persons indicted for rape in the first 
 degree was nine more than the total number of 
 negroes lynched on the charge of rape in the entire 
 United States during the period 1914-1918. Among 
 these 37 persons indicted by the New York County 
 Grand Jury there was not a single negro. The 
 evidence required by the Grand Jury of New York 
 County to indict a person charged with rape must 
 be more conclusive than the evidence required by a 
 mob to lynch a negro accused of rape. 
 
 When the Congressional Committee on Immigra- 
 tion in 1911 made its study of crime in the United 
 
ii8 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 States, an investigation was made of 2262 cases in 
 the New York Court of General Sessions and in that 
 investigation it was found that the percentage for 
 the crime of rape was lower for the negro than for 
 either the foreign-born or native-born whites. The 
 actual figures were, for foreign-born whites, 1.8; 
 for native-born whites, .8; and for negroes, .5. 
 
 The women of New York are as much en- 
 titled to protection as the women of the 
 South, but no man is lynched for rape in New 
 York. 
 
 Such figures abundantly confirm the 
 statement of Henry Watterson : 
 
 Lynching should not be misconstrued. It is not 
 an effort to punish crime. It is a sport which has 
 as its excuse the fact that a crime, of greater or less 
 gravity, has been committed or is alleged. A lynch- 
 ing party rarely is made up of citizens indignant at 
 the law's delays or failures. It often is made up of a 
 mob bent upon diversion, and proceeding in a mood 
 of rather frolicsome ferocity, to have a thoroughly 
 good time. Lynchers are not persons who strive 
 from day to day toward social betterment. Neither 
 are they always drunken ruffians. Oftentimes they 
 are ruffians wholly sober in so far as alcoholic in- 
 dulgence is concerned, but highly stimulated by an 
 opportunity to indulge in spectacular murder when 
 
THE SHARE-CROPPING SYSTEM 119 
 
 there is no fear that the next grand jury will return 
 murder indictments against them. 
 
 The recent outbreak in Arkansas grew out 
 of the "share-cropping" system thus de- 
 scribed by a writer in the "Nation" : 
 
 Theoretically, under the system the owner fur- 
 nishes the land, the share-cropper the labor, and at 
 the end of the year the crop is divided share and 
 share alike. From the share-cropper's portion is 
 deducted the amount received by him in supplies 
 during the year, in most cases these supplies being 
 "taken up" either at a plantation store or commis- 
 sary, or from a merchant designated by the owner or 
 his agent. In practice the system for the past fifty 
 years has worked out in such manner that the crop, 
 when gathered, is taken by the landowner and sold 
 by him, and settlement is made with the share- 
 cropper whenever and at whatever terms the land- 
 owner chooses to give. Instead of an itemized 
 statement of the supplies received, in most cases 
 only a statement of the total is given. Since there 
 is an unwritten law which is rigidly observed that 
 no negro can leave a plantation until his debt is paid, 
 the owner, by padding the accounts of negroes to 
 the point where the "balance due" always exceeds 
 the value of the crop, can assure his labor supply for 
 the following year. 
 
I20 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Of this system, W. T. B. Williams says in a 
 report of the United States Department of Labor 
 on "Negro Migration in 1916-17," published in 
 1919: "Many of the negro tenants feel that it 
 makes little difference what part of the crop is 
 promised them, the white man gets it all anyway." 
 Of the plan of many owners of taking all of the 
 cotton seed, the "Charlotte Observer" says: "If, 
 as It is represented, it is the custom of the farmers 
 not to divide the cotton seed with the negro tenant, 
 then a hitherto undiscussed cause of grievance Is 
 brought to light and reveals an injustice to the negro 
 that no landowner can defend." An average bale of 
 cotton weighs five hundred pounds, the price at this 
 writing being about forty-three cents per pound. 
 For every bale there Is about one-half-ton seed, 
 which brings between ^68 and ^70 per ton. 
 
 A white Southerner writing In the "Memphis 
 Commercial Appeal" of January 26, 1919, frankly 
 states : 
 
 "In certain parts of the South men who consider 
 themselves men of honor and would exact a bloody 
 expiation of one Avho should characterize them as 
 common cheats do not hesitate to boast that they 
 rob the negroes by purchasing their cotton at prices 
 that are larcenous, by selling goods to them at ex- 
 tortionate figures and even by padding their 
 accounts with a view of keeping them always In 
 debt. Men of this stripe have been known to la- 
 ment that In the last two years the negroes have 
 
SUPPRESSION OF NEGRO VOTE 121 
 
 been so prosperous that It has not been possible to 
 filch from them all they make. 
 
 "A protest from a negro against tactics of this 
 kind is met with a threat of force. Justice at the 
 hands of a white jury in sections where this practice 
 obtains is inconceivable. Even an attempt to carry 
 the matter into the courts is usually provocative of 
 violence. 
 
 "While the conditions described are not universal, 
 they are typical, especially in the deha regions where 
 large plantations prevail. If they are to be reme- 
 died, we of the South must clear our minds of cant 
 and realize that they do exist." 
 
 So far as the right to vote is concerned, no 
 one questions that in the South this right is 
 denied to the negroes with insignificant ex- 
 ceptions. This fact is not only admitted, but 
 the exclusion has been justified for years. 
 Yet while those who are responsible for this 
 deny that the negroes are fit to vote, they 
 insist none the less that they shall be 
 counted as voters, with the result that the 
 negroes swell the basis of representation 
 while the whites cast their own votes and the 
 votes of the negroes also. The Solid South is 
 
122 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the result and exists to maintain this situa- 
 tion. Let me give you some figures. 
 
 The Presidential election of 1916 stirred 
 the country deeply, and we may take the vote 
 cast then to illustrate my point. Louisiana, 
 Kansas, and Mississippi are each entitled to 
 eight representatives in Congress, and must 
 have therefore nearly equal populations. 
 Ignoring the votes of the small parties, the 
 people of Kansas cast 592,246 votes, the 
 people of Louisiana 86,341 votes, the people 
 of Mississippi 84,675. More than half the 
 people of the latter state are colored, and the 
 proportion is nearly as large in Louisiana. 
 South Carolina with seven representatives 
 cast 63,396 votes; Arkansas with the same 
 representation 160,296; while Connecticut 
 with only five representatives cast 206,300. 
 About 9000 votes elected a representative 
 from South Carolina. A few more than 
 10,000 chose one in Louisiana and Missis- 
 sippi, if all the votes were cast for the win- 
 ning candidates, and as only 1550 Republi- 
 
THE SOLID SOUTH 123 
 
 can votes were cast in South Carolina, 4253 
 in Mississippi, and 6466 in Louisiana, they 
 do not seriously affect my point. In Kansas 
 about 74,030 persons on an average voted for 
 each representative, and the delegation was 
 divided, three Republicans and five Demo- 
 crats. Similar comparisons might be made 
 between other states with like results. 
 
 This is a situation which cannot and must 
 not last. The negro citizens of this country 
 since 1865 have acquired property, educa- 
 tion, and what goes with these, self-respect. 
 They have achieved success in business and 
 in all the professions ; they have banks, in- 
 surance companies, factories of their own, 
 and in large parts of the country they live 
 side by side with their white neighbors en- 
 joying the same rights in every respect. It is 
 impossible to keep them down. This is their 
 country as much as it is ours, their ancestors 
 have lived here longer than the ancestors of 
 very many white citizens, and they are en- 
 titled to their full share of all that the 
 
124 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 country can give to its citizens. Until their 
 rights are recognized and granted without 
 reservation, they will not be content, and 
 friction between them and those who would 
 keep them down cannot fail to increase. 
 They will not be silent, they will protest, and 
 their resistance to injustice will grow with 
 their growth. In the words of Garrison, 
 "They will not retreat a single inch and they 
 will be heard!" 
 
 Men say that their appeals for justice in 
 their newspapers are the cause of the feeling 
 between the races, and unless these are 
 stopped the consequences will be disastrous. 
 As well say that the groans of a sufferer are 
 the cause of his pain. While he continues to 
 suffer he will not cease to cry out, and you 
 must cure the pain, not gag the patient. It 
 would be a much worse sign if the negroes 
 submitted to wrong without protest. They 
 will be recognized as men while they act and 
 speak as men. Give them justice and their 
 complaints will cease. Continue to deny it 
 
SOUTHERN TESTIMONY 125 
 
 and they will continue to protest while there 
 is breath in their bodies. 
 
 The situation which I am discussing is a 
 striking illustration of the truth that the 
 man who wrongs another sooner or later 
 suffers the penalty. 
 
 When Abraham Lincoln was chosen, it 
 was said that "For the first time the negro 
 elected a President." The Reverend Dr. 
 Jones of Atlanta expressed the same truth 
 when he said in addressing the students of 
 Hampton last May: 
 
 You protest that you have not full political free- 
 dom in the South to-day. No, and neither have I. 
 You answer that I have the ballot. Yes, but what is 
 the worth of a ballot which can be counted before 
 it is cast? What is the value of a vote which cannot 
 be backed by freedom of political choice? . . . We 
 said that we would shut the negro out of our 
 political life, and yet, ever since, the shadow of your 
 race has rested upon every political discussion, and 
 you have in a real sense dominated every political 
 election. The simple truth is that when we all 
 became Democrats we did so at the cost of our 
 democracy. . . . For wherever "Democrat," or "Re- 
 publican" stands for sectional, racial, or class con- 
 
126 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 sclousness, it is an evidence, not of political free- 
 dom, but of party despotism. 
 
 As I have said elsewhere, go South and 
 ask men who have retired and are dis- 
 interested spectators, ask the men of affairs, 
 ask the students of history, and if they 
 answer fairly they will tell you that where 
 there is only one party and no opposition in 
 a free state, its government will not continue 
 to be good ; that where all great public ques- 
 tions are decided, not upon their merits, but 
 according to a single prejudice, they cannot 
 be decided wisely; and that where a whole 
 community combines to perpetrate or 
 tolerate injustice upon any class of citizens, 
 or even upon a single man, no citizen's 
 rights are safe, for every man's sense of 
 justice is blunted, and he who rides to power 
 on one prejudice to-day may be the victim of 
 another prejudice to-morrow. The attempt 
 to punish Dreyfus for a crime he did not 
 commit, supported though it was by the 
 highest officials and the strongest influences 
 
OUR COUNTRY'S GOOD NAME 127 
 
 in France, nearly overthrew the Republic. 
 It is harder to wrong a race than a single 
 man. 
 
 The government of the whole country- 
 suffers while millions of citizens are denied 
 their rights, and for the sake of white and 
 black alike, for the sake of generations still 
 unborn, every citizen of this country should 
 throw his whole weight against the prejudice 
 of color. It is a cultivated, not a natural, 
 feeling, a fact to which the millions whose 
 blood is mixed bear silent witness. It is 
 fashionable for the moment, and it is for us 
 to set a better fashion, lest we find that as 
 the nation could not live half free and half 
 slave, so it cannot endure half just and half 
 unjust. 
 
 How do you suppose such things affect 
 our country's reputation with really civilized 
 nations ? You can answer this question for 
 yourselves if you will remember your boyish 
 feelings about the North American Indians, 
 who never did anything more cruel than 
 
128 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 these white Americans, or if you will imagine 
 hearing that such things had been done in 
 Turkey, or Russia, or by Germans in Bel- 
 gium or Poland. We must end these horrors 
 at home before we can attack others abroad. 
 If the effect on the country's good name is 
 bad, what think you is the effect on our- 
 selves.? What education are the children 
 getting whose mothers take them to witness 
 such barbarities, and whose fathers hold 
 them up that their view may be uninter- 
 rupted .f* These children will govern this 
 country in a few years, and how will they 
 govern it.? A community so brutalized as 
 those communities must be where men 
 are thus tortured is a bad neighbor. We do 
 not let our little children torture animals, 
 for we know that the practice of cruelty de- 
 praves those who are guilty of it. Why are 
 we silent when whole communities are thus 
 degraded .? If they were threatened with the 
 destruction of property by conflagration or 
 flood, we should rush to help them. Bar- 
 
OUR COUNTRY'S GOOD NAME 129 
 
 barism is a worse foe than flood or fire. 
 When, however, Dyersburg stains our good 
 name only a few voices of little authority 
 are raised in protest, and no attempt is made 
 to punish the criminals. College festivals 
 come and go, but what college president, 
 what orator at Commencement, takes the 
 evil of lynching as his subject.^ The univer- 
 sal silence disgraces us more than the acts 
 themselves. The lynchers are ruffians and 
 act as such, but the silent statesmen, clergy- 
 men, and scholars are the best men in the 
 country. Let us hope that the new genera- 
 tion will feel its obligations to the country 
 more keenly. 
 
 In the words of Emerson : 
 
 If the black man carries In his bosom an indis- 
 pensable element of a new and coming civihzation, 
 for the sake of that element no wealth, nor power, 
 nor circumstance can hurt him; he will survive and 
 play his part. If you have man, black or white is 
 an insignificance. The intellect, that is miraculous; 
 who has it has the talisman. His skin and bones, 
 though they be black as midnight, are transparent 
 and the stars shine through with attractive beams. 
 
130 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 I would commend to you the statement of 
 an eminent Southerner, Henry W. Grady. 
 
 The problem of the South is to carry on within 
 her body politic two separate races, equal in civil 
 and political rights, and nearly equal in numbers. 
 She must carry these races in peace, for discord 
 means ruin. She must carry them separately, for 
 assimilation means debasement. She must carry 
 them in equal justice, for to this she is pledged in 
 honour and in gratitude. She must carry them even 
 unto the end, for in human probability she will 
 never be quit of either. 
 
 This prejudice of color is not the only 
 racial or class prejudice which threatens our 
 peace. Our attitude toward the Chinese, 
 Japanese, and, indeed, all Asiatics, I shall 
 deal with when I come to discuss our foreign 
 policy. The dangers which are likely to 
 spring from the tendency of organized labor 
 to disregard the interests of the whole com- 
 munity will be reserved for another lecture. 
 These subjects cannot be dealt with in 
 passing. 
 
 The fact which we should keep constantly 
 in mind is that we are not a homogeneous 
 
OUR RECEPTION OF IMMIGRANTS 1 3 1 
 
 people. We have rejoiced to think with Mr. 
 Lowell that this country has "room about 
 her hearth for all mankind." We have been 
 delighted to believe that we offer a refuge 
 for the oppressed of all lands. All over 
 Europe are men who regard the United 
 States as Mr. Rihbany, the Syrian minister 
 of a leading Unitarian church in Boston, 
 tells us he was taught to regard it : 
 
 Its people were rich and religious and little else. 
 Every one of its citizens told the truth and nothing 
 but the truth. . . . America had neither fleet nor 
 armies ... a land of free schools, free churches, 
 and a multitude of other organizations which 
 worked for human betterment. 
 
 Immigrants from every nation under the sun 
 have been welcomed to our shores and given 
 in ver>^ few years all the rights of native-born 
 Americans. They have built our railroads, 
 settled our territories, turned our wild lands 
 into fertile farms, and in every way speeded 
 our growth. Such a country should have no 
 use for words like "Dago," "Mick," 
 
132 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 "Dutchy," "Nigger," "Wop," "Sheeny," and 
 the other contemptuous phrases with which 
 our people express their regard for the 
 foreigners who claim our hospitality. It is 
 vital to our continued safe and prosperous 
 existence that our people should be welded 
 together so that they may become really 
 American in thought and purpose as well as 
 in right. The task of "Americanizing" our 
 citizens of foreign birth or descent calls for 
 active work on the part of us all. As a people 
 we are jealous of our rights as individuals, 
 but not too mindful of our obligations to 
 others, and we need to have the Golden 
 Rule constantly in mind. 
 
 We need to cultivate mutual good-will 
 among the different elements in our popula- 
 tion, so that we may all work heartily to- 
 gether. In the past years we have talked 
 much of our hospitality to foreigners, but 
 our acts have not borne out our words. If 
 the men of Irish descent in this country form 
 a faction devoted to Irish interests and work- 
 
THE IRISH IMMIGRANTS 133 
 
 ing to secure place and power for Irishmen, 
 it is our fault. When they began to cross the 
 ocean, notwithstanding all their charming 
 qualities, they were received and treated as 
 inferiors. They were poor, and because they 
 were poor were ignorant. Their poverty 
 drove them to live in cheap neighborhoods. 
 They were naturally clannish and their 
 neighborhoods became inevitably more or 
 less dirty and squalid, for their children were 
 numerous. They were rather inclined to 
 foster discord as a result of convivial excess. 
 They were born with love for a fight, and, 
 above all, as Catholics they encountered the 
 strong religious prejudice which still re- 
 mained as the aftermath of religious persecu- 
 tion and war in Europe. The ruins of the 
 Ursuline Convent near Boston, which was 
 burned by a mob, were allowed to stand for 
 years as a mute witness against such intoler- 
 ance. The Irish immigrants found our 
 people individually kind, but collectively 
 somewhat hostile. When they sought work 
 
134 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 they found too often in advertisements for 
 workers of all sorts the words, "No Irish 
 need apply." The so-called "American" or 
 "Know-Nothing" Party was formed to pre- 
 vent their gaining political power, and the 
 inevitable result was to drive them back upon 
 themselves, to make them a coherent body, 
 defending each other and working for each 
 other. 
 
 They have won their fight; they have 
 secured honors, place, and power. They 
 have served this country well in many ways, 
 they have shown remarkable ability in prac- 
 tical politics and great gallantry in war, but 
 their political ideals have not been high, and 
 as a result the governments which they have 
 controlled have not been conspicuous for 
 honesty or efficiency. We have paid and are 
 paying in various ways for having driven the 
 Irish to remain Irish instead of mingling 
 with us as Americans. Our sins have found 
 us out. 
 
 The Germans who came here were more 
 
THE GERMAN IMMIGRANTS 135 
 
 warmly received. They did not, like the 
 Irish, settle in the Atlantic cities, but went 
 West and opened up new states. The Irish 
 were a compact body living near the centre 
 of population. The Germans were more 
 scattered, and dwelt in the West on what 
 were then the outskirts of our people. They 
 were quiet, industrious, and, above all, were 
 largely if not mostly Protestants. Their 
 leaders, like Carl Schurz, had high political 
 ideals, and threw themselves into our 
 political conflicts as Americans, not as 
 Germans trying to get some advantage for 
 Germans. The Irish never joined the anti- 
 slavery movement, but allied themselves 
 with the Democratic Party, while many of 
 the Germans were vigorous abolitionists. 
 
 From these two nations came the bulk of 
 our immigrants, and until within compara- 
 tively a few years the other newcomers were 
 of such varied strains that their accession to 
 our population was hardly noticed, and since 
 the Germans as a rule joined the Republican 
 
136 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Party while the Irish acted with the Demo- 
 crats, there was no especial sympathy 
 between them, and the fear that our citizens 
 of foreign descent were in any way a menace 
 to our institutions never troubled us. We 
 felt that our country was giving them a 
 wonderful opportunity, and we expected 
 from them unbounded gratitude. 
 
 We require all foreigners who desire to 
 become American citizens to abjure allegi- 
 ance to their native country, and to swear 
 allegiance to ours. It is a formal act easily 
 performed, but it really means very little. 
 It is impossible to eradicate the natural love 
 for a man's own home, the sympathy with 
 his kindred and his countrymen inherited 
 from his parents and fostered by all the sur- 
 roundings of his early years. A curious 
 example of this is given by Carl Schurz, as 
 loyal an American as ever lived, who after 
 the German revolution of 1848 came to this 
 country, and lived here from 1852 till h0 
 died. He wrote his "Reminiscences" som0 
 
DUTY OF THE NATURALIZED 137 
 
 fifty years or more later, when he had become 
 a master of English and one of the most 
 brilliant orators that America has known, 
 but when he came to write about his early 
 life in Germany he found that he must write 
 in German, for that was the language in 
 which he had thought and talked as a boy 
 and with which all his life in Germany had 
 been lived. His German story of this period 
 was translated into English by a friend and 
 as translated forms the first part of his book. 
 
 But while we cannot expect our natural- 
 ized citizens to forget their friends, and their 
 country, we have the right to insist that their 
 acts shall be American, and that they shall 
 not use this country as a base for operations 
 which involve an interference in the affairs 
 of another country. In dealing with foreign 
 nations the interest of the United States, its 
 rights, and its obligations are alone to be 
 considered, and the country must act as a 
 whole through its own government. 
 
 The policy of this country in this respect 
 
138 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 was stated in perhaps the most critical period 
 in our national existence. During the Civil 
 War, when the Southern States were trying 
 to establish their independence, there was 
 reason to believe that England and France, 
 goaded to action by the intense suffering 
 which the lack of cotton caused in the manu- 
 facturing districts of both countries, might 
 interfere to prevent the continuance of the 
 war, an interference which would probably 
 have resulted in the victory of the Southern 
 Confederacy. It was at the very crisis of 
 the Cotton Famine that the Secretary of 
 State, Mr. Seward, wrote to our Minister in 
 London, Mr. Adams : 
 
 If the British Government shall in any way 
 approach you directly or indirectly with propositions 
 which assume or contemplate an appeal to the Presi- 
 dent on the subject of our internal affairs, whether 
 it seem to imply a purpose to dictate or to mediate 
 or to advise, or even to solicit or persuade, you will 
 answer that you are forbidden to debate, to hear, or 
 in any way receive, entertain, or transmit any com- 
 munication of the kind. . . . 
 
THE SINN FEIN AGITATION 139 
 
 If you are asked an opinion what reception the 
 President would give to such a proposition if made 
 he.re, you will reply that you are not instructed, but 
 you have no reason for supposing that it would be 
 entertained. 
 
 This was said with a full appreciation of 
 the momentous consequences which might 
 follow. 
 
 It is not difficult to imagine what our 
 attitude would be if the British Parliament 
 were to pass resolutions favoring the inde- 
 pendence of the Philippines, or denouncing 
 our protectorate over Cuba, or our course 
 in Hayti and Santo Domingo. The policy 
 announced by Mr. Seward would not be 
 varied and the popular indignation would be 
 expressed freely. Yet now there is travelling 
 in this country a person who styles himself 
 the President of the Irish Republic, who is 
 trying to collect millions of money from 
 sympathizers with Irish independence for 
 purposes not disclosed, and in various places 
 he is received as if he were indeed what he 
 
I40 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 claims to be. In America only is he recog- 
 nized as holding any official position. 
 
 In a memorial to the Senate of the United 
 States, signed by numerous Irishmen who 
 sympathize with this self -exiled ruler, this 
 statement is made : 
 
 Through long centuries of oppression Ireland has 
 maintained her national spirit largely because she 
 has always hitherto been able to cherish a hope 
 that she might receive from some well-disposed 
 foreign power the assistance which would insure 
 her independence. She looked to Spain for this aid 
 at the close of the sixteenth century; to France in 
 the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth cen- 
 turies. She looks for it now in the twentieth century 
 to America, and we confidently hope and pray that 
 the Senate will not allow that light of hope to be 
 extinguished. 
 
 Spain gave her the Spanish Armada. Do we 
 wish it had not been destroyed, and do we 
 really think that Ireland would have been 
 freer under Spanish rule than as a part of 
 the English Empire, having more votes in 
 Parliament than any other equal number of 
 men in the British Islands ? 
 
THE SINN FEIN AGITATION 141 
 
 At the hearing where this memorial was 
 presented its first signer said in a carefully 
 prepared speech: "England cannot continue 
 to control the world unless she controls the 
 sea, and her continued control of the sea is 
 dependent on her continued control of 
 Ireland." 
 
 Without discussing the question whether 
 England controls the world, it is important 
 to note that these Irishmen realize that con- 
 trol of Ireland is vital to England, and yet 
 tell us that they expect from us the assist- 
 ance which will end that control. They 
 oppose the ratification of the Peace Treaty 
 now, not in the interest of the United States, 
 but in the interest of Ireland. They are 
 entirely willing, if not anxious, to create a 
 feeling in this country against Great Britain 
 which, for the sake of giving 4,000,000 people 
 in Ireland a form of government which prob- 
 ably a majority and certainly a large 
 minority do not desire, would involve hun- 
 dreds of millions in war which could only 
 
142 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 put civilization back for at least a century, 
 and substitute German tyranny for Anglo- 
 Saxon liberty. The men who advocate this 
 are not considering the interests of this 
 country, and should be made to realize that 
 if they are Americans their course is not 
 patriotic, and if they are Irishmen they 
 should fight her battles at home, and not 
 seek shelter for their hostile operations under 
 the American flag. 
 
 In like manner, during the recent war the 
 Germans in this country proved to be more 
 German than American. We know much 
 of their plots against their fellow-citizens 
 resulting in explosions and conflagrations 
 which destroyed much property, and we sus- 
 pect much more, though perhaps our suspi- 
 cions have been exaggerated. This, however, 
 is clear. The German-Americans could have 
 expressed to the German people their horror 
 of the crimes and hideous brutalities which 
 the rulers of Germany ordered and their sub- 
 jects committed. They could have shown 
 
GERMAN-AMERICANS IN THE WAR 143 
 
 that some Germans did not approve the 
 deportation of girls, the slaughter of non- 
 combatants, the deliberate devastation of 
 France. They could have said with Otto 
 Kahn : "We will not permit the blood in our 
 veins to drown the conscience in our breast. 
 We will heed the call of honor beyond the 
 call of race!" They could by open speech 
 have proved "that the taint of Germany is 
 not in the blood, but in the system of ruler- 
 ship." They held their peace and did it 
 deliberately, as I learned in conversation 
 with a native American of German descent. 
 These Germans are now in this country, 
 many of them embittered against us by the 
 defeat of their Fatherland. They feel that 
 any combination between America and the 
 European Allies is hostile to Germany, and 
 as the Irish-Americans would keep us apart 
 for what they think the interest of Ireland, 
 the German-Americans join hands with 
 them in aid of Germany, and instead of being 
 opponents these powerful bodies of voters 
 are allied against this country's interest. 
 
144 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 No American needs to qualify his loyalty 
 to this country by any foreign prefix. 
 Hyphenated Americans are not Americans, 
 but contain only a percentage of American- 
 ism. Their activities in the interest of other 
 countries should be frowned upon by us all, 
 for they are to-day a greater menace to our 
 peace than the radicals whom we ignorantly 
 call Reds, and whose influence in our affairs 
 we are very much inclined to exaggerate. If 
 we ever are driven into war it will be by 
 pressure from within, not by attacks from 
 without, and this pressure will come from 
 compact organizations of citizens, not from 
 casual agitators. Against this pressure every 
 American citizen who loves his country 
 should ever be on guard. 
 
 The remedy against the dangers which 
 these combinations threaten is to be found 
 in breaking them up, not by oppressive laws 
 or external force, but by teaching them to 
 forget ancient wrongs and unite in an effort 
 to make a better world to-day. We must not 
 
HYPHENATED CITIZENS 145 
 
 let these citizens remain as separate factions 
 with distinct interests united to each other 
 and against the rest of us by any tie of blood. 
 We must persuade them to become members 
 of our family, make them see the importance 
 of those interests which are common to us 
 all, and by persuading them to unite with us 
 in common activities gradually build up an 
 un-hyphenated people. 
 
 During the late war when efforts were 
 making to raise money for the Government 
 by selling Liberty bonds, the different na- 
 tionalities in many places came together and 
 through committees containing representa- 
 tives of each carried on the work in har- 
 mony. The members of these committees 
 found themselves closely associated with men 
 and women of perhaps twenty different 
 peoples, and were surprised to realize as 
 never before that all the nations on earth are 
 really of one blood. They learned how many 
 people of each race were dwelling in their 
 city, and were astonished to find what man- 
 
146 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 ner of people they were, how intelligent, how 
 anxious to help, how well-educated, how good 
 in every way. They made friendships with 
 people formerly strangers, which were the 
 prelude to more intimate relations, and they 
 found also how glad these foreign citizens 
 were to be called upon for aid, and how 
 anxious to meet their neighbors on a common 
 ground. They discovered how isolated these 
 strangers had felt, how they regretted the 
 coldness of those into whose neighborhood 
 they moved, and who never called upon them 
 or made any attempt to establish social re- 
 lations with them. The intercourse thus 
 begun was good for all who became associa- 
 ted in this way, and it also brought to light 
 the pressing need of more kindly action by 
 individuals toward making our new citizens 
 feel that they are not strangers in a strange 
 land, but that America is their home. 
 
 This has led in some places to the forma- 
 tion of cosmopolitan clubs, social organiza- 
 tions formed to bring the various groups of 
 
HOW TO IMPROVE RELATIONS 147 
 
 citizens closer together, to promote friend- 
 ship and stimulate activity for our national 
 ends. Movements like this point the way, 
 and those who are anxious to help in solving 
 the problems which arise from our varied 
 citizenship cannot do better than promote 
 efforts to get at our immigrants, learn their 
 needs and their views, make friends with 
 them and help them. The more it is done 
 the easier and the more interesting the work 
 will be, and the reward will be ample, for a 
 very little kindliness receives a ready re- 
 sponse, and a more enduring gratitude than 
 one expects. An article by Margaret Mad- 
 den in the "Catholic Charities Review" 
 states the case so well that I quote a passage : 
 
 We need to remind ourselves that each nation 
 which has contributed to the growth of America has 
 given something of value, that it is our duty to 
 know what those values are so that we may see 
 in the humble immigrants something more than a 
 herd of strange-looking people, wearing strange 
 clothes, eating strange foods, and following strange 
 customs. We must see them as potential Americans 
 looking forward to this country as a land of oppor- 
 
148 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 tunity. We must enter into a sympathetic under- 
 standing of their abilities, of their limitations, their 
 difficulties, their low standard of living, their nat- 
 ural tendency to congregate with people of their 
 own tongue — all of these things we must be able 
 to understand and to estimate in terms of relative 
 importance. If we cannot do this, let us not attempt 
 to Americanize them. We had better let the task 
 alone. For any plan of Americanization which 
 attempts, in a spirit of aloofness, to hand out and 
 deliver Americanism to the foreign-born group is a 
 failure before it begins. If we keep before us our 
 ideal of democracy — the essential of which is partici- 
 pation — we will realize that the foreign-born must 
 Americanize themselves. 
 
 If we will only recognize our common 
 humanity, abandon our contemptuous 
 phrases and our irritating stories at each 
 other's expense, cease to doubt the good faith 
 of our neighbors and not give vent to every 
 hasty suspicion which arises in our minds; 
 in short, if we would treat our fellow-citizens 
 as ladies and gentlemen should treat each 
 other, class and racial prejudice will begin to 
 disappear, and our melting-pot will better 
 fuse the varying elements which it receives, 
 and in the end turn out a purer metal. 
 
THE LABOR QUESTION 
 
 Among the grave problems which confront 
 America to-day is that presented by the feel- 
 ing which finds expression under various 
 names, the feeling that the goods of this 
 world are distributed unequally, that the rich 
 oppress the poor, and that the powers of 
 government are used to aid this oppression 
 and perpetuate the inequality between 
 classes. 
 
 In different parts of the world different 
 methods of changing this situation are pro- 
 posed. In Russia the Bolshevists would 
 apply the remedy of wholesale destruction, 
 hoping that out of the resulting chaos a new 
 civilization may be developed and adopting 
 the well-known method of the physician who 
 would always throw his patient into fits be- 
 cause of his skill in dealing with that dis- 
 order. This purpose is avowed with absolute 
 frankness. In his proclamation calling the 
 
ISO PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Congress of the Communist International, 
 Lenin thus states it: 
 
 The present is the period of destruction and 
 crushing of the capitalistic system of the whole 
 world. 
 
 The aim of the proletariat must now be immedi- 
 ately to conquer power. To conquer power means 
 to destroy the governmental apparatus of the bour- 
 geois and to organize a new proletarian govern- 
 mental apparatus. 
 
 The new apparatus of the Government must ex- 
 press the dictatorship of the working class. 
 
 As we go West this extreme doctrine is 
 gradually modified, and becomes socialism 
 of different types until, in the western 
 countries of Europe, in England, and in the 
 United States, we find the L W. W. adopting 
 a platform which contains the following 
 demands : 
 
 All land should be taken over by the State either 
 directly or by confiscating taxation; the adoption of 
 the initiative, referendum, and recall, including the 
 recall of judges; the abolition of the United States 
 Senate and the veto power of the President; the 
 abolition of all Federal courts except the United 
 States Supreme Court, which is to be shorn of its 
 
DISCONTENT IN AMERICA 151 
 
 power to declare a law unconstitutional, and the 
 election of all judges for short terms, all of which 
 [to quote the platform] are but a preparation of 
 the workers to seize the whole powers of govern- 
 ment in order that they may thereby lay hold of 
 the whole system of socialized industry and thus 
 come to their rightful inheritance. 
 
 The United Mine Workers insist that 
 labor is entitled to the full value of whatever 
 it produces, and that the employer is entitled 
 "to no compensation for the money he has 
 invested." The Plumb bill, proposing that 
 the Government own the railroads and in 
 substance let them be managed by the em- 
 ployees, and the demands of the labor unions 
 for a greater voice in the management of 
 industrial enterprises are steps in the same 
 movement to equalize the conditions of men, 
 which is a perfectly natural and laudable de- 
 sire. 
 
 These reformers — Bolsheviki, socialists, 
 leaders of labor, or pure idealists — have no 
 difficulty in framing their indictment of ex- 
 isting conditions. The lots of men are most 
 
152 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 unequal, the good things of the world are dis- 
 tributed unevenly, labor is often underpaid, 
 capitalists are often greedy and selfish, legis- 
 lators and administrators are often corrupt, 
 the weak are trampled on by the strong — in 
 a word, the world is very unsatisfactory. I 
 would not minimize these things in the least. 
 The contrast is heart-breaking between the 
 comfort in which many of us live and the lot 
 of the poor workman struggling to support 
 his wife and children in sordid surroundings 
 with the fear of sickness and disabling age 
 always before him, while his wife is bearing 
 and rearing children in conditions which 
 would seem to us impossible. It is so easy 
 to point out the evils which society tolerates 
 that many agitators devote themselves to 
 this work and thereby gain credit with the 
 unthinking. The only important question is 
 how to cure these evils, and in current dis- 
 cussion that is little considered. 
 
 Let us begin, therefore, by admitting that 
 all the charges are true. Let us say to our 
 
WE ARE DEALING WITH MEN 153 
 
 fellow-men that, no matter how black they 
 paint the picture, we shall not dispute its 
 substantial accuracy. Let us admit that 
 there is now no duty so clear as the duty of 
 finding a way out of the situation, a duty 
 which rests upon every man, and which must 
 not be postponed or shirked; and having 
 cleared the ground by these admissions, let 
 us proceed to consider how this duty shall be 
 done. 
 
 The first thing to remember is that we are 
 dealing with men, having certain passions, 
 tastes, and desires, governed by certain 
 motives, and on the other hand, influenced 
 by certain ideals and capable of great sacri- 
 fices. Such as we know them they always 
 have been and we cannot change them. The 
 situation which the agitators of to-day wish 
 to reform has existed at every period of re- 
 corded history. There never has been a 
 country or a time in which men have not 
 been divided into classes, and except for brief 
 intervals of revolution in which there have 
 
154 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 not been established governments main- 
 taining order and protecting the Hves and 
 property of peaceful citizens against lawless 
 violence. 
 
 Four hundred and ninety-three years be- 
 fore Christ occurred the general strike, when 
 the plebeians of Rome retired to Mons Sacer, 
 and Menenius Agrippa persuaded them to 
 return by his fable of the belly and the mem- 
 bers, a tale of the time when the members 
 revolted against the inert, luxury-loving 
 belly, which they carried about, fed, and 
 kept in idleness while they labored hard for 
 its benefit, but without which they could not 
 exist for a moment. It is a familiar story, 
 but the lesson which it taught must be 
 heeded to-day as it was centuries ago. 
 We may well also take to heart the other 
 lesson which Menenius teaches that it is by 
 wise argument and not by repressive vio- 
 lence that we can best deal with our fellow- 
 men. 
 
 Man's limitations have made the world in 
 
THE MOTIVE TO WORK 155 
 
 which we Uve, and those Hmitations are the 
 bars of a cage from which we cannot escape. 
 The world offers opportunities for sport and 
 pleasure of every kind which tempt us all, 
 and work has been disliked by unregenerate 
 man ever since Adam heard the sentence 
 which he had brought upon himself: 
 "Cursed is the ground for thy sake: in sor- 
 row shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy 
 life. ... In the sweat of thy face shalt thou 
 eat bread." Yet unless it works, the human 
 race cannot survive. No man can imagine 
 a workless world inhabited by a race given 
 up to idleness and pleasure. 
 
 It takes some strong inducement to make 
 us all do what we dislike, and that motive is 
 found either in the hope of getting some- 
 thing that we desire or avoiding something 
 that we fear. The hope of winning the 
 things which will make life easier and pleas- 
 anter for ourselves and those we love, or the 
 fear that we and ours may suffer from cold, 
 hunger and disease, these are the underlying 
 
156 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 motives which drive us to work, and we must 
 be careful that in any reform we adopt these 
 motives are left in full force. Every one 
 must feel that unless he does his share of 
 the world's work he cannot have his share 
 of what the world gives. We must not make 
 the idle comfortable at the expense of the 
 industrious. As the farmer does not reap 
 unless he sows and cultivates, so men must 
 realize that as a rule each gets out of the 
 world what he puts into it, no more and no 
 less. 
 
 In order that the motives which induce us 
 to work may be left in full force, men must 
 be allowed to acquire property. They work 
 to make themselves, their wives, their par- 
 ents, and their children comfortable, to pro- 
 vide against any calamity which will leave 
 the old to depend on charity, and the young 
 helpless and uneducated. Ingrained in man 
 is the desire to provide for a rainy day. If 
 society were so constituted that every one 
 was supported at public expense and the 
 
THE MOTIVE TO WORK 157 
 
 fruits of each man's labor went into the 
 public treasury, a premium would be offered 
 on idleness and the "tramps" of the world 
 would receive very dangerous re-enforce- 
 ment. To make them work some system of 
 punishment would be needed to take the 
 place of deprivations which to-day punish 
 the idle. It may well be doubted whether 
 any penalties which the law could provide 
 would be found as effectual as the present 
 penalty — the pain of starvation. 
 
 It is true that under this system some men 
 will acquire great wealth, and that their chil- 
 dren will perhaps become mere idle wasters, 
 apparently doing nothing to benefit the com- 
 munity and setting a bad example to other 
 men. This may and often does happen, for 
 it is always true that any power may be 
 abused, and anything in itself good may be 
 wasted or misused. The remedy is not to 
 take away the power, but to control the 
 abuse. 
 
 This evil generally corrects itself, for, as 
 
158 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 the saying is, "It is only three generations 
 from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves." Nor is 
 extravagant expenditure a necessary evil. 
 All the money that is invested in securi- 
 ties helps the world. It builds factories 
 and supplies the means of carrying on 
 their operations, thus furnishing employ- 
 ment to many. If invested in the bonds 
 of nation, state, or city it builds roads, 
 waterworks, supports hospitals and asylums, 
 feeds our armies in time of war, and is all 
 used in some way for what is believed to be a 
 useful end. If it is deposited in banks, it 
 does not stay in the vaults, but is lent and 
 used to carry on the world's work. No 
 money can be invested or spent without do- 
 ing some good, and as an illustration of this 
 truth let me take the case of such an expens- 
 ive luxury as lace, which is a mere ornament, 
 and the purchase of which might well be re- 
 garded by the critic as wasteful extrava- 
 gance. Let him go to the villages of Italy, 
 Holland, and Belgium and see the women in 
 
WEALTH BENEFITS THE PUBLIC 159 
 
 humble circumstances who make their living 
 by lace-making, and he will learn that if 
 their market were cut off very general mis- 
 ery would result in considerable communi- 
 ties, that what seems extravagance in the 
 buyer is life to the maker, and that the result 
 is merely a distribution of wealth. Expendi- 
 ture for balls and parties of every kind sup- 
 ports dressmakers, milliners, waiters, and 
 the producers everywhere who supply the 
 dainties which are consumed. It is only 
 money which is not spent, but buried in the 
 ground or hidden in stockings, that is use- 
 less. 
 
 As we turn to the Bible again and again 
 for the lessons taught by human experience, 
 it is not singular that in the parable of the 
 talents we find this truth stated. The ser- 
 vant who received from his lord five talents 
 "went and traded with them and made them 
 other five talents." To him his lord said: 
 "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. 
 Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I 
 
i6o PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 will make thee ruler over many things." 
 The servant who received one talent, and 
 who hid it in the earth, was denounced as a 
 "wicked and slothful servant," and sen- 
 tenced to be cast "into outer darkness where 
 shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 
 
 The great fortunes of the day are not to 
 all appearance dangerous, but used as Mr. 
 Carnegie, Mr. Rockefeller, and Mr. Frick 
 have used them in aid of education, peace, 
 and public health, they are of incalculable 
 public benefit. Happily the rich men of 
 America, like the Medici of Florence, feel 
 their obligation to the community, and 
 wherever we go, whether in great cities or in 
 little towns, we find a public library, a col- 
 lege, a hospital, or some public institution 
 which was founded by some rich man. The 
 Johns Hopkins University and Hospital, the 
 Public Library of New York, and all our 
 great universities are monuments of such 
 generosity. 
 
 But it is said that if all wealth were held 
 
WEALTH BENEFITS THE PUBLIC i6i 
 
 by the public, the public could create such 
 institutions. The public taste and the pub- 
 lic benevolence cannot be trusted. The edu- 
 cation which wealth and leisure give is 
 needed both in selecting the objects and 
 adapting the means in such cases. The 
 Medici enriched Florence with monuments 
 of architecture, painting, and sculpture 
 which have been the wonder of the world. 
 The public wealth of the United States has 
 given us the statue of Lincoln by Vinnie 
 Reams, the works of art which adorn the 
 Capitol at Washington, including the hor- 
 rors in the old Representatives Chamber, 
 and the many monstrosities which are scat- 
 tered over our country. The history of the 
 Capitols at Albany and Harrisburg, or of the 
 City Hall in Philadelphia, show how little 
 the agents of the public can be trusted to 
 spend the public money. 
 
 The contrast is instructive. When wealth 
 is controlled and guided by public spirit, the 
 community gains by it. The wise use of 
 
1 62 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 riches can be encouraged by public apprecia- 
 tion and gratitude till it becomes almost 
 imperative. The rich man will feel the force 
 of example and learn to use and not to 
 hoard. Excessive accumulation can be con- 
 trolled by taxes and otherwise, but whatever 
 laws are adopted, the motives which lead 
 men to work must be left to operate unim- 
 paired, and of these the most universally 
 recognized is the wish to acquire property. 
 
 The hardest work is done for other ob- 
 jects, to win fame or power, to make some 
 great scientific discovery Iwhich will help 
 mankind, to write some book which will 
 educate the world, for many objects which 
 will bring neither wealth nor fame; but 
 though this is true the hope of gain and the 
 fear of poverty are what keep mankind at 
 work, and any system which takes from men 
 the rewards of industry and thrift can never 
 endure. 
 
 The equal distribution of property and 
 the abolition of the differences between men 
 
EQUAL DISTRIBUTION 163 
 
 at which sociaUsm aims are impossible be- 
 cause it is impossible to change human 
 nature. What has been ever since men were 
 is what will be, and the differences which are 
 born in them are ineradicable. Some will 
 be rich, some will be poor, some well, others 
 sick, some wise, their neighbors foolish, 
 while the world lasts, and each man's nat- 
 ural endowment will determine what his life 
 will be as surely as apples come from apple- 
 trees and pine cones from pines. 
 
 Though the world cannot be remodelled 
 on the Bolshevist plan, this is not to say that 
 it cannot be improved, but there are certain 
 conditions which reformers are apt not to 
 recognize. One is that workers can only be 
 paid out of what work produces. There is 
 a moral as well as an economic side to this 
 proposition. The rules of the labor unions, 
 which forbid a workman to do all he can in 
 a given time and establish a low standard of 
 performance to which all must conform, 
 which require the painter to use a three-inch 
 
i64 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 brush, or the bricklayer to lay a small num- 
 ber of bricks, as well as the practice of loaf- 
 ing during working hours, are open to vari- 
 ous objections. They reduce production, 
 they discourage good work, and they are 
 essentially dishonest. Whatever the wages 
 agreed upon, the workman expects honest 
 dollars in payment. He would consider his 
 employer dishonest if he were paid in Can- 
 adian bills worth only ninety cents each. 
 For honest dollars he should give honest 
 hours of work, and when he tries by slack 
 work to prolong his job he is stealing just as 
 clearly as if he took money from his em- 
 ployer's pocket. The first essential of good 
 relations between employer and employed is 
 honesty on both sides — ^what Mr. Roosevelt 
 taught us to call "the square deal." 
 
 Strikes also diminish production, and 
 while they cost the employer his profits 
 while they last, and perhaps more in depreci- 
 ation of material and other ways, they cost 
 the strikers their whole wage. What they 
 
STRIKES INJURIOUS TO ALL 165 
 
 might have produced during the strike is so 
 much taken from the fund for the payment 
 of wages, and it is as impossible to recover 
 the loss as to call back the hours which have 
 been spent in idleness. If the workman 
 were to take a slate and pencil, figure up the 
 loss, and then compare it with the gain from 
 any increased wage, he would be amazed to 
 find how little if anything he had gained by 
 the most successful strike. 
 
 Moreover, the workman like us all, is vit- 
 ally interested in having a good and steady 
 market for his work, and strikes destroy 
 that market. For example, every man be- 
 fore building a house or factory wishes to 
 know what it will cost and when he can 
 count on having it. If he is liable to have 
 this cost increased at any moment and the 
 time of completion postponed from time to 
 time by strikes, he will not build, and the 
 men whom he would have employed must go 
 idle. Once it is generally understood that 
 mechanics cannot be trusted to keep their 
 
i66 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 agreements, and are always liable to stop 
 work at the order of some walking delegate, 
 men cease to build and the market for work- 
 men is depressed. The law of supply and 
 demand is inexorable, and when the demand 
 falls wages fall too, depressed by the over- 
 supply of men. 
 
 By such practices conditions are re- 
 versed. The employer does not oppress 
 the workman, but the workman oppresses 
 the employer. Once enlisted in an enter- 
 prise the employer must finish it or lose his 
 investment, and the workman uses this ad- 
 vantage. He gets a golden tgg, but he kills 
 the goose, for the victimized employer will 
 not court disaster again. Unless both sides 
 to the contract of labor live up to their 
 agreement honestly, the whole community 
 suffers, and in the long run the dishonest 
 man pays much more than he gets. No class 
 in society can prosper which cannot be de- 
 pended on to keep its word. 
 
 Moreover, there is much confusion of 
 
THE LAW AS TO STRIKES 167 
 
 thought about the right to strike. If a man 
 is employed by the day he has the right to 
 leave his employment at the end of any day. 
 If, however, he has agreed to work for a 
 definite time upon terms fixed by the con- 
 tract, he has no right to leave till the time has 
 expired. If he does he is liable for damages. 
 The workman in this respect has the same 
 rights and liabilities as every other citizen. 
 His contract binds him as it binds every one. 
 It is impracticable to make a man work 
 against his will by any law or decree of 
 court, and so the workman has the power, 
 but not the right, to break his contract and 
 take his chance of a lawsuit. He has no right 
 to his job unless he keeps his agreement. If 
 he breaks it he cannot insist that the em- 
 ployer owes him any duty. If the employer 
 can find another man to take the striker's 
 place he has a perfect right to do so, and 
 the new man has a right to work. This 
 right the striker is bound to respect, and all 
 attempts to interfere with it are illegal. The 
 
i68 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 leaders of labor talk of their constitutional 
 right to strike. The Constitution gives them 
 no such right, but every man has the consti- 
 tutional right to sell his labor on such terms 
 as he and his employer agree upon, except so 
 far as for public reasons that right is limited, 
 and this right must be respected and se- 
 cured. The strikers feel at liberty to attack 
 the laborers who succeed them, and almost 
 every strike has its concomitants of violent 
 attacks on persons or property. The labor 
 unions must understand that they are bound 
 to respect the Constitution which they in- 
 voke, and that their action in using violence 
 in aid of strikes is not only not protected by 
 any constitution, but is criminal and to be 
 punished as such. 
 
 The law recognizes no privileged class and 
 is the same for employer and employee, for 
 striker and "scab" ; and one of the first steps 
 toward the establishment of proper relations 
 between workmen and their employers is the 
 recognition of this fact. The unionized 
 
STRIKES AND COST OF LIVING 169 
 
 workmen must realize that they are citizens 
 like the rest of us, and as such bound to obey 
 the law. 
 
 There is another law which cannot be 
 ignored, the law that in this world a man 
 must pay for what he gets. Nobody can be 
 expected to furnish anything to another for 
 less than cost. "Fair exchange is no rob- 
 bery," but any unfair exchange is akin to 
 theft. For this reason the constant rise in 
 wages does not help the workmen. When 
 the wages in one industry are raised, a stan- 
 dard is established to which all others must 
 come. You cannot pay farm hands less 
 than city laborers or workmen in factories 
 for any length of time. The rise in wages 
 means an increase in all expenses, public and 
 private. It means an increase in the price 
 of food and clothes, in railroad rates, in 
 street-car fares, in rents, and every other 
 thing which enters into the cost of living. 
 The increases do not occur all at once, but in 
 succession, and for the moment one class is 
 
170 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 ahead, the next another, but in the long run 
 the increase is evened up and no one gets 
 any permanent advantage. It is as Mr. 
 Jewell, a leader in the Federation of Labor, 
 has put it, "a movement in a vicious circle." 
 But it has another unhappy consequence, 
 thus stated by George N. Watson, also en- 
 listed on the side of labor, who recently, 
 after saying that labor is taxed for each in- 
 crease in wages through higher prices for 
 what it buys, continued as follows : 
 
 This unfortunate result, while demonstrating the 
 folly of wage-boosting, concerns only ourselves; 
 what is inviting, even bringing disaster, is the fact 
 that the unorganized salary-workers are also taxed 
 for these wage increases, without any benefit to 
 themselves other than an excuse for feebly crying, 
 "Me, too." Now, if these workers were few, this 
 effect would, of course, be negligible, but they are 
 greatly in the majority. Remember that President 
 Gompers, in his great defence of organized labor at 
 the Industrial Conference, claimed only 23,000,000 
 supporters out of a population of over one hundred 
 million. 
 
 But, if these many millions of salaried workers 
 cannot keep up with organized labor, they can re- 
 
STRIKES AND COST OF LIVING 171 
 
 tard its progress. And this they are now doing 
 very effectively. Why? Because they are united 
 in the conviction that they are now being exploited 
 by organized labor as well as by organized capital ; 
 and they can trip us up much more easily than they 
 can block the profiteers. Everywhere there is evi- 
 dence that what was sympathy with the movement 
 is now bitter antagonism. . . . What is the lesson 
 for organized labor in this unexpected opposition? 
 It is simply the realization that the unorganized 
 salary-workers are the deciding factor in the im- 
 portant struggles between organized labor and the 
 employers; and that our policy is turning them 
 against us. 
 
 His conclusion is that the thing for or- 
 ganized labor to do is to discourage strikes 
 and "wage-boosting," and to "get strenu- 
 ously to work." 
 
 This is wise advice. If instead of reducing 
 production by wasting time the workers of 
 this country would turn to and produce 
 more things, there would be more money to 
 be divided, a larger supply of all needful 
 things so that prices would fall, and the 
 workman could save more money. 
 
 Taking then, as the conditions of our 
 
172 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 problem, man as he is, honest deahng and 
 respect for contracts by all parties, due 
 respect for the legal rights of each other, and 
 the rule that nothing can long be had for 
 less than cost, what can we do to help the 
 laboring people of the world? 
 
 The first thing is a better understanding 
 of the facts, which can be reached only by 
 temperate and fair discussion. I would sug- 
 gest in the first place abandoning the words 
 "capital" and "labor" to designate the 
 opposing sides in labor disputes. Capital 
 thus used means to the unthinking excessive 
 wealth, working for itself and trying, no mat- 
 ter how, to exploit the laborer, while labor is 
 the honest, hard-working man kept in pov- 
 erty by its machinations. The accurate 
 words would be "employer" and "employee" 
 — ^both capitalists and both laborers, the for- 
 mer often working far harder and longer 
 than the latter. We must make them both 
 realize that there is no necessary antagonism 
 between them, but that each is indispensable 
 
WHAT CAPITAL IS 173 
 
 to the other, and that there should be un- 
 broken harmony between them if the work 
 of the world is to be done well. 
 
 We may well begin by making them un- 
 derstand what capital means — that the tools 
 of the mechanic, the library and desk of the 
 lawyer, the instruments of the doctor, nay, 
 the clothes which they wear, the coal in their 
 bins, the food in their cellar, are all capital, 
 as was the oil in the lamps of the wise 
 virgins. When the United Mine Workers 
 declare that the whole product of the mine 
 belongs to the miners, and that those who 
 contributed the capital for its development 
 should receive nothing, we should invite 
 them to consider what that means. 
 
 Let them imagine a thousand laborers 
 standing on the bare hillside beneath which 
 lies a mine and told that they may have all 
 that they can get out of it without capital. 
 They see before them the necessity of sink- 
 ing shafts for thousands of feet, of running 
 levels to reach the ore, of providing timber 
 
174 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 to keep shafts and levels from falling in, 
 pumping machinery to keep the mine dry, 
 hoisting engines and all the complicated 
 machinery needed to take out earth and 
 raise the ore to the mouth of the shaft, and 
 for many other purposes too numerous to 
 mention. They would naturally say, "We 
 must have some shovels to start with." But 
 what are shovels.'' To furnish them some 
 workman must have dug the iron ore from 
 the mine, some workman must have made it 
 into steel, some workman must have fash- 
 ioned the steel into the shovel's blade, some 
 workman must have cut the trees and made 
 the handle. These facts are obvious. Are 
 these workmen not to be paid? If the shovels 
 are to reach the site of the mine some men 
 must help transport them. Are they to go 
 without compensation.? Is it not a conven- 
 ient way of paying them all to let a third 
 man buy the shovels and bring them to the 
 miners who need them, and will any man do 
 this unless he is paid for his outlay and his 
 
CAPITAL NECESSARY TO LABOR 17S 
 
 trouble? The same questions could be 
 asked of everything needed to develop the 
 mine, and the miners must see that they, 
 like all others, must pay for what they get. 
 
 There may be no mine under the ground. 
 Are the miners prepared to take this risk? 
 Is there any better way of meeting these 
 difficulties than by letting men, who are will- 
 ing to provide the things needed to open the 
 mine and to take the risk of finding nothing, 
 receive as compensation for their contribu- 
 tion some shares in the mine which will be 
 entitled to a part of the profits ? Is this any 
 more than giving them what belongs to 
 them ? 
 
 Again the miners must see that while they 
 are opening the mine, during the months — 
 perhaps years — before they reach paying ore, 
 they will need food and clothes, but these are 
 capital. Will they also feed and clothe 
 themselves before the mine begins to pay, 
 and take their compensation in shares of the 
 mine? Clearly they cannot. They must 
 
176 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 have wages to live on, for without it no shop- 
 keeper would trust them. His supplies are 
 capital, and carried for their use only be- 
 cause he has money with which to buy them. 
 He could not feed them for years without 
 pay, for he would be wasting his substance. 
 The miners must see, if they will think, that 
 the riches of Golconda locked up in a mine 
 would be beyond their reach unless they had 
 the aid of capital, and that its aid cannot be 
 had for nothing. 
 
 The same reasoning applies to every fac- 
 tory, to every railroad, and in short substan- 
 tially to every employment. Capital is not 
 the employer ; it is only the tool which both 
 employer and employee use, and without 
 which industry must fail. It is the food on 
 which every industrial enterprise lives. 
 
 The wage-earner puts his savings into a 
 savings bank. He provides against disaster 
 by a life insurance policy. When he denies 
 income to the capital invested in railroads, 
 mills, and other industrial enterprises, he 
 
THE TYRANNY OF LABOR 177 
 
 strikes at himself, for the savings banks and 
 life insurance companies have invested his 
 money in the stocks and bonds of railroads 
 and mills, and when these suffer their depos- 
 itors and policy-holders suffer. The rail- 
 roads need money to build bridges, to keep 
 their roads in order, to provide new rolling 
 stock, and new safety appliances. If they 
 earn nothing they cannot borrow and must 
 stop, inflicting at once incalculable injury on 
 the whole community, and taking from their 
 employees the means of livelihood. 
 
 If the State takes the railroads, it only 
 shifts the burden and the public pays the cost 
 of operating them in the form of steadily 
 mounting taxes. In this world one gets 
 nothing for nothing. 
 
 The labor leaders talk about the tyranny 
 of capital. To-day they are the tyrants, and 
 in a free country no tyranny can endure. 
 Labor now feels itself a privileged class, and 
 recognizes no obligation to the community. 
 Yet a citizen who is running a loom has no 
 
178 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 rights to which his neighbor who keeps a 
 shop is not equally entitled. What would be 
 the effect if he followed the workman's ex- 
 ample? Let us suppose a railroad strike 
 which brings a great state to the brink of 
 starvation and stops the wheels of all its 
 factories, and that the butchers, bakers, and 
 grocers say, "We must keep our food for 
 ourselves and our friends who are suffering 
 from the strike and we will sell nothing to 
 men who refuse to work." Would not the 
 railroad men feel themselves badly treated.'' 
 Yet butchers h^ve as good a right to strike 
 as engineers, — the men who suffer privation 
 as the men who cause it. 
 
 Suppose, following the example of car- 
 penters and others who work only five days 
 in the week, the doctors refused to do any 
 work from Friday at five o'clock till Monday 
 morning. A young friend of mine last win- 
 ter had a large window blown in on a cold 
 Friday evening, making her whole house 
 dangerous to her young children and most 
 
THE TYRANNY OF LABOR 179 
 
 uncomfortable. She asked the carpenter to 
 come and repair it, only to be told that he 
 would do nothing till Monday, though as a 
 favor he did come up and nail the blind so 
 that it did not slam. What would that car- 
 penter have said if his wife had been taken 
 violently ill that same night and the family 
 physician had refused to come till Monday, 
 or the apothecary had closed his door and re- 
 fused to sell him any medicine.'* 
 
 Some years ago a senator of the United 
 States told me that a barn which contained 
 the year's crops of his large plantation was 
 being shingled, and at five o'clock Saturday 
 afternoon an hour's work needed to be done 
 in order to complete the job. A heavy 
 storm was evidently coming on, and he asked 
 the workmen not to leave the centre of the 
 roof open, but to work another hour and 
 make the roof tight. He promised them very 
 large extra pay, and pointed out that if they 
 refused his entire crop would be lost. To a 
 man they refused to work after five, and as 
 a result his crops were lost. 
 
i8o PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 This tyranny affects not only employers, 
 but the working-men. On July 19th, 1918, 
 in the Constitutional Convention of Massa- 
 chusetts, Mr. Underhill, speaking "for the 
 independent workers, for the man who is 
 trying to run a small manufacturing busi- 
 ness, for the small tradesman, for the sales- 
 man, the clerk, the stenographer, the teacher, 
 the doctor, the minister, and the many others 
 of various callings who make up the life of 
 the community," himself a workman at the 
 beginning and always a friend of labor, told 
 these stories : 
 
 To my attention not long ago came a family — 
 wife, husband, and six children. The man was seri- 
 ously ill. His illness was of long duration, and for 
 six months we did all we could to keep that family 
 together. We happily succeeded. 
 
 He was a painter by trade, and upon his partial 
 recovery I secured a little inside work in our vicinity 
 for him. As he grew stronger, I looked about for 
 other places, and I found a good, big-hearted man 
 who had an inside job in one of the Boston hotels 
 and who said he would give him employment. 
 
 He put the man to work, but the walking dele- 
 
SPEECH OF MR. UNDERHILL i8i 
 
 gate of the Painters' and Decorators' Union came to 
 this employer within two hours and said: 
 
 "Mr. R., I will have to call out our men. You 
 have non-union help here." 
 
 "Why," said the employer, "I haven't anything 
 of the sort." 
 
 "Yes, you have," said the delegate; "a new man 
 went to work this morning." 
 
 "Well," said Mr. R., "send him to me and I will 
 have him join the union." 
 
 My friend was called and said: "Mr. R., I am 
 willing to join the union, but they won't let me." 
 
 "Won't let you.^ What do you mean by that?" 
 
 "Why, sir, they want ^50. You know I have 
 been sick for six months. The butcher, the baker, 
 and everybody in my vicinity have trusted me be- 
 cause they knew that I was honest. The union 
 won't take $10 a week for five weeks out of my pay 
 In order that I may join. They want $S0 at once." 
 
 But when Mr. R. offered to advance the money 
 the walking delegate said my friend could not work 
 on that job anyway! 
 
 Last spring while sitting in this chamber I was 
 called out by a man who said: 
 
 "I have been a foreman carpenter out in your 
 town, and, as you know, the building business is 
 dead; there Is not a thing to do except on govern- 
 ment work. I have a job offered me at Ayer, but 
 the union won't let me go to work." 
 
1 82 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 I said, "Why don't you join the union?" 
 
 He replied: "I have tried to join the Union, but 
 the only condition under which they will take me 
 in is that I shall not go to work at Camp Devens." 
 
 I called into consultation a man high in the coun- 
 cils of the labor union movement, a man for whom 
 I have a great deal of respect. I put the case up 
 to him, and he said to me: 
 
 "Charley, we can't do a thing with the building 
 trades. We can't do a thing with them." 
 
 Mr. Underbill added: 
 
 I have given two instances. You say they are 
 isolated. I say they are typical. There are hun- 
 dreds just like them, and you know it. 
 
 Unions leave to charitable associations the care 
 of their unfortunates who are unable to pay their 
 dues. I know, because they have come to me for 
 help. 
 
 They won't let a man work unless they can tell 
 him where h6 shall work and what he shall do. 
 
 Every one has heard of many such cases, 
 and if you inquire you will find that many a 
 strike, which is reported as demanded by the 
 union, has been voted for by a small minority 
 at a thinly attended meeting — thinly attend- 
 ed because the tired workman after his day's 
 
HOW UNIONS ARE GOVERNED 183 
 
 work will not go and listen to long discus- 
 sions in which the principal speakers do not 
 command his confidence, just as good citi- 
 zens in the days of the caucus would not 
 attend. In each case the control of the or- 
 ganization falls into the hands of a few active 
 men, and they reach results which their asso- 
 ciates resent, but lack the patience or the 
 courage to fight against. 
 
 The labor leaders, not themselves work- 
 men, and not therefore familiar with the 
 conditions in a given industry, are a danger 
 to the country and to their followers as well. 
 They are professional agitators, and if all 
 goes well and every one is satisfied, the 
 unions would soon ask, "Why should we pay 
 these men for doing nothing.?" Hence they 
 must always be on the lookout for a chance 
 to show that they are needed. 
 
 A member of the War Labor Board thus 
 states the case : 
 
 What is the nature of a union? It Is a hori- 
 zontal slice of society made up of men whose only 
 
1 84 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 community of interest is their trade or craft. A 
 machinist in a machine shop, and a machinist who 
 is the repair man in a cotton mill, have little more 
 community of interest than the members of a fat 
 man's club; and machinists in two automobile fac- 
 tories may be in active competition with each other. 
 They are members of rival teams and their success 
 depends on the success of their teams, not of their 
 union. Their union is not productive and represents 
 no part of the actual industrial structure. It is an 
 artificial creation and the basis for its membership 
 is a purely arbitrary classification. It is simply a 
 welfare organzation, and therefore has no right to 
 interfere with or obstruct the creative organizations 
 that are doing the work of the world. 
 
 Not being a creative organization, union leaders 
 are selected for their popularity and because they 
 are clever fighters and not for their achievement or 
 ability as thinkers. They must keep the favor of 
 the men and they are therefore subject to popular 
 clamor. The chief skill needed to hold their position 
 is the skill of the politician. 
 
 Again, if they succeed in doing what they are 
 elected to do, that is, secure proper wages and con- 
 ditions for the men, they work themselves out of 
 a job. If conditions are satisfactory no one needs 
 the union or cares to pay its dues. As a son wrote 
 his father who for thirty years has been an organ- 
 izer for one of the big unions: "You may be sur- 
 prised to have me say this. Dad, considering the 
 
THE PROFESSIONAL AGITATOR 185 
 
 surroundings I grew up in, but there is no occasion 
 for a union here. It is an absolute pleasure to 
 work." 
 
 In short, to hold his job a union leader must 
 have an issue, and if one does not exist he must 
 create it. If he doesn't some fellow-unionist, am- 
 bitious for the job, will start an issue on his own 
 account and get elected. This means that the 
 union leader must constantly be starting something. 
 He is of necessity an agitator. 
 
 This does not apply to the international officers, 
 many of whom are highly intelligent and reasonable 
 men with a wonderful knowledge of people, and a 
 sincere desire to assist the workers, nor does it, of 
 course, apply universally to the local leaders, but it 
 does apply to a very large proportion of them and 
 it is the inevitable tendency. 
 
 The men who make up the element in our 
 population which calls itself "Labor" are 
 men like their fellow-citizens. They are 
 brought up with the same traditions and be- 
 lieve in the same principles. They must be 
 made to realize how selfish, how tyrannous 
 is the present policy of the leaders whom 
 they support. They must have clearly set 
 before them that they are as responsible for 
 the well-being of the country as any other 
 
1 86 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 citizen, and that they have no right to ask for 
 themselves laws and privileges which are not 
 given to their neighbors. 
 
 The constant presentation of the facts, put 
 briefly and clearly, is necessary to make 
 them see through the eyes of their neighbors. 
 'Tut yourself in his place" is the simple rule 
 never to be forgotten by either side. What 
 is needed, in the first place, is mutual under- 
 standing. The employer must put himself 
 in the workman's place and learn his point 
 of view, his difliculties, and his hardships. 
 The workman must be admitted to the coun- 
 sels of the employer, and be taught the risks 
 and uncertainties of his business, how much 
 he can afford, and what will make his busi- 
 ness impossible. The workman must learn 
 that every employer has his own problems. 
 Mr. Ford, with his tremendous income and 
 his very profitable business, could afford to 
 pay high wages, but his offer brought work- 
 men from all sides only to find that all his 
 needs were supplied and that other men 
 
BRITISH LABOR PROGRAMME 187 
 
 could not pay such wages, while all rents had 
 risen with Mr. Ford's wages. A millionaire 
 can afford to give his cook and his servants 
 very high salaries, but his neighbors cannot, 
 and when by the changes proposed million- 
 aires cease to exist, wages must fall, and as 
 we all approach the same level domestic ser- 
 vants will be driven into competition with 
 carpenters and masons, who cannot be per- 
 mitted to deny them the right to work at 
 their trades. 
 
 Let us beware of our prejudices, and re- 
 member with John Bright that "the nation 
 in every country dwells in the cottage." 
 
 A committee of the British Labor Party 
 has prepared a careful programme for the 
 reconstruction of society, and it has been 
 much applauded. It begins with the assump- 
 tion that European civilization has been 
 destroyed by the war. To quote the com- 
 mittee's words : 
 
 The Individualist system of capitalist production, 
 based on the private ownership and competitive 
 
1 88 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 administration of land and capital, with Its reckless 
 "profiteering" and wage slavery, with its glorifica- 
 tion of the unhampered struggle for the means of 
 life, and its hypocritical pretence of the "survival 
 of the fittest," with the monstrous inequality of 
 circumstances which it produces and the degra- 
 dation and brutalization, both moral and spiritual, 
 resulting therefrom, may, we hope, indeed, have re- 
 ceived a death-blow. With it must go the political 
 system and ideas in which it naturally found ex- 
 pression. 
 
 The programme goes on as follows : 
 
 First. The first principle of the Labor Party 
 ... is the securing to every member of the com- 
 munity, in good times and bad alike ... of all the 
 requisites of healthy life and worthy citizenship. 
 
 The law must 
 
 2. Require the Government to find for every 
 willing worker, whether by hand or brain, productive 
 work at standard rates. 
 
 This is to be done by public works, "by 
 raising the school-learning age to sixteen," 
 by greatly increasing "the number of schol- 
 arships and bursaries for secondary and 
 higher education," and by shortening the 
 hours of labor to forty-eight hours a week 
 
BRITISH LABOR PROGRAMME 189 
 
 for adults and much less for younger per- 
 sons. Moreover, whenever the Government 
 "finds it impossible to discover for any will- 
 ing worker, man or woman, a suitable situa- 
 tion at the standard rate," it "must provide 
 him or her with adequate maintenance." 
 
 3. Secure the immediate nationalization of rail- 
 ways, mines, and the production of electrical power 
 [and] their union along with harbors and roads 
 and the posts and telegraphs, not to say also the 
 great lines of steamers which could at once be 
 owned, if not immediately managed in detail by 
 the Government, in a united national service of 
 communication and transport; to be worked, un- 
 hampered by capitalist private or purely local 
 interests (and with a steadily increasing participa- 
 tion of the organized workers in the management, 
 both central and local), exclusively for the common 
 good. 
 
 4, Insure the assumption by a state department 
 of the whole business of life and industrial assur- 
 ance, [and the expropriation of] the profit-makiag 
 industrial insurance companies, which now so ty- 
 rannously exploit the people with their wasteful 
 house-to-house industrial life assurance. 
 
 It asks that the Government, among other 
 things, 
 
190 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 6. Provide for the continuance of the govern- 
 ment control established during the war of the 
 shipping, woollen, leather, clothing, boot and shoe, 
 milling, baking, butchering, and other industries 
 [and] the importation of wheat, wool, metals, and 
 other commodities [and the fixing of prices] at the 
 factory, at the warehouse of the wholesale broker 
 and in the retail shop. 
 
 7. [Give to municipalities] every facility . . . 
 to acquire easily, quickly, and cheaply all the land 
 they require, and to extend their enterprises in 
 housing and town planning, parks and public 
 libraries, the provision of music and the organization 
 of recreation; and also to undertake besides the 
 retailing of coal and other services of common 
 utility, particularly the local supply of milk, 
 
 8. [Secure ultimately] the common ownership 
 of the nation's land. 
 
 To meet the enormous expense which this 
 
 scheme entails, it aims at such a system of 
 
 taxation as will 
 
 yield all the necessary revenue to the Government 
 without encroaching on the prescribed national 
 minimum standard of life of any family whatsoever, 
 without hampering production or discouraging any 
 useful personal effort and with the nearest possible 
 approximation to equality of sacrifice. 
 
 These laudable objects are to be attained 
 
BRITISH LABOR PROGRAMME 191 
 
 without any protective tariff, "any taxation 
 of whatever kind which would increase the 
 price of food or any other necessary of life," 
 any "taxes interfering with production or 
 commerce or hampering transport and com- 
 munications." Indirect taxation is to be 
 "strictly limited to luxuries and concen- 
 trated principally on those of which it is so- 
 cially desirable that the consumption should 
 be actually discouraged," a vanishing source 
 of revenue it would seem. 
 
 The usual sources of revenue by customs 
 and excise being thus restricted, the expenses 
 of the nation are to be paid by the taxation 
 of incomes "above the necessary cost of fam- 
 ily maintenance," by the direct taxation of 
 private fortunes, and by enormous inheri- 
 tance taxes, taking all except the sum which 
 a rich man may be allowed "to divert by his 
 will from the national exchequer." The na- 
 tional debt is to be paid or largely reduced by 
 a capital levy chargeable, like the death 
 duties, on all property, "graduated so as to 
 
192 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 take only a small contribution from the little 
 people and a very much larger percentage 
 from the millionaire." 
 
 For the future the surplus produced in 
 any year above what is required for the sup- 
 port of the people is to go "not to the enlarge- 
 ment of any individual fortune, but to the 
 common good." From this surplus provi- 
 sion is to be made for the sick and infirm, for 
 education, for music, literature, and the fine 
 arts, and for everything "brightening the 
 lives of those now condemned to almost 
 ceaseless toil." 
 
 Let us suppose that an employer and a 
 workman, in complete sympathy and anxious 
 to change the world for the better, were to 
 sit down together and make some calcula- 
 tions. Let them take first what it will cost 
 the State to take all the property now used in 
 transportation and communication, rail- 
 roads, steamships, street railway, gas and 
 electric lighting systems, ports, harbors, 
 power plants, mines, to make an imperfect 
 
BRITISH LABOR PROGRAMME 193 
 
 list of public utilities. Unless it is proposed to 
 take them without paying, a German device 
 against which the world is fighting, a new na- 
 tional debt far exceeding the war debt would 
 be created with a corresponding burden of 
 interest. If the public does not pay, it at 
 once destroys the large fortunes out of which 
 the national debt and other public expenses 
 are to be met. 
 
 Let them take next the cost of keeping 
 these properties in order, adding to their fa- 
 cilities, building new tracks, bridges, etc., 
 and the wages of the men employed in run- 
 ning them, bearing in mind that many rail- 
 roads and other public utilities do not pay 
 now and must be made at least self-support- 
 ing. 
 
 Let them take next the cost of providing 
 every one with employment, "in good times 
 and bad alike," at a rate sufficient to secure 
 to every one "all the requisites of healthy 
 life and worthy citizenship," and also pro- 
 viding for the comfortable support of the old 
 
194 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 and disabled, including the expense of 
 asylums, hospitals, and like institutions now 
 in many cases supported by private endow- 
 ment. 
 
 To this add the expense of education, 
 "scholarships and bursaries," and college ed- 
 ucation for many more than now receive it 
 to say the least, the expense of nationalizing 
 the land, the expense of life and industrial 
 insurance, the manufacture and sale of alco- 
 holic drinks, the building of houses — to com- 
 plete the programme add "parks and public 
 libraries, the provision of music, and the 
 organization of recreation," and do not un- 
 derestimate the army of men who are to 
 carry on all this work for the State, as well 
 as control all the business now in private 
 hands and see that the laws which fix prices 
 and the like are enforced. Even the dullest 
 must realize that the total is appalling. 
 
 Passing now to the other side, where is 
 the money to come from which will meet 
 these expenses.? Customs and excise taxes 
 
BRITISH LABOR PROGRAMME 195 
 
 are barred as well as those which Interfere 
 "with production or commerce" or hamper 
 "transport and communication." The State 
 cannot tax the property which belongs to 
 itself and is used in these multiple activities, 
 nor the income which flows from them. 
 That would be taxing itself. 
 
 Reliance is placed upon taking by taxation 
 the fortunes of the rich and a large part of 
 their incomes. But once these fortunes have 
 been taken to pay the government debt or 
 to fill the public exchequer, either by direct 
 tax during the life or by inheritance taxes on 
 the death of the owner, this resource will be 
 gone, and from what sources any person is 
 to derive a large taxable income and build up 
 a new fortune is not apparent. With every 
 public utility in the hands of the State and 
 all business controlled by it to prevent large 
 profits, it is impossible to see whence large 
 incomes can come, and with large incomes 
 will disappear the value of jewels, great 
 houses and ornamental grounds, and many 
 other investments of capital. 
 
196 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 The income with which the large expenses 
 are met must come from the business now 
 done by private citizens which will be trans- 
 ferred to the State. This means that it must 
 be conducted so as to realize a large profit 
 and by very efficient men. The workmen 
 who enter the service of the State cannot be 
 allowed to strike, because strikes will dimin- 
 ish the income of the State, both by suspend- 
 ing earnings while the strike continues and 
 by increasing expense. The Government 
 must decide what it can afford to pay its 
 employees and what it must charge the pub- 
 lic for the service which it renders, and he 
 who enters the employ of the State must en- 
 list as one enlists in the army, so that a 
 strike will be mutiny. He can no longer 
 ignore his contract. 
 
 The Government must fix wages and 
 rates so as to get a proper income from the 
 public industries, otherwise the whole 
 scheme fails. Is there anything in our ex- 
 perience which should lead us to expect that 
 
BRITISH LABOR PROGRAMME 197 
 
 government service would be as efficient as 
 private service? Are our cities so well gov- 
 erned, are our public enterprises so well 
 managed, are political considerations so 
 carefully excluded in dealing with public 
 matters, that we can expect good results 
 from the change proposed? Will not dema- 
 gogues of all kinds seek to gain the good 
 places in the public service? Will there not 
 be a wage-earners' party opposed by a rate- 
 payers' party, and candidates seeking the 
 support of one or the other by lavish prom- 
 ises? Will the campaign fund be forgotten 
 and no voter or legislator be venal ? To-day 
 the managers of private corporations have 
 an interest in reducing cost and improving 
 service. They seek larger business and 
 greater returns. The public official will have 
 no such motive to guard the public interest, 
 but will inevitably adopt the course best cal- 
 culated to keep his place. This is human 
 nature and it cannot be changed. The field 
 for the operation of such organizations as 
 
198 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 Tammany and its kindred Rings in other 
 cities will be enlarged enormously. Will 
 they keep their hands from picking and 
 stealing ? The patronage of the Government 
 will be multiplied a hundred-fold. Is there 
 in this no danger to democracy? Will not 
 an unscrupulous ruler find in the office- 
 holders an army of supporters in a political 
 campaign.? You can answer these questions 
 as well as I. 
 
 Are the people no longer to save? Their 
 savings will be capital and must be invested. 
 Where are the investments to be found; 
 what securities will be left? There will be 
 no public bonds, for the State, having paid 
 its existing debt by taking the property of 
 the rich and calling the process taxation, will 
 not incur a new debt. The interest on this 
 would add to the public burden, and if the 
 new debt were to be paid in its turn by tak- 
 ing the savings of the thrifty, no one would 
 care to save. If the infirm, sick, and dis- 
 abled are to be supported by the State, if 
 
PROFIT-SHARING 199 
 
 there are no profitable investments which 
 are safe from the tax-gatherer, why should 
 any one save? 
 
 Such paternalism as is proposed takes 
 away the hope of better things, the love of 
 one's family, the fear of poverty and suffer- 
 ing, the great motives which develop the in- 
 dustry, the ability, the skill of men. What 
 have been deemed the prizes of life cease to 
 exist. Will public spirit and the ambition to 
 leave an honored name take their place.'* 
 No one who has thought on such problems 
 can fail to see that an attempt to re-create 
 the world on such a new plan cannot suc- 
 ceed. The Bolsheviki open the door to the 
 Kaiser. 
 
 To many of us it has seemed that the best 
 way to give the laborer a fair share of what 
 he produces was through genuine "profit- 
 sharing," creating in him an interest in the 
 business which will make him work for its 
 success and insuring him a proper compen- 
 sation for his work. To such it is discour- 
 
200 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 aging to find in a recent book of Sidney 
 Webb on the very problem which we are 
 considering the following passage: "This 
 does not mean profit-sharing (an exploded 
 futility which is simply anathema), and 
 must on no account be thought of — ^its mere 
 mention will wreck any settlement." This 
 weapon, therefore, breaks in our hands. A 
 moment's reflection will tell you why. 
 Profits are not the payment of a definite sum 
 for definite work. They are the reward of 
 skill in managing a business, of the work 
 which the owner does in season and out of 
 season, and are subject to risks of loss from 
 various causes including strikes by his work- 
 men. No man will take the risk of loss un- 
 less he has the hope of profit. The workmen 
 will not take the risk of loss. They cannot 
 afford it, for they need assured support, and 
 since in the long run compensation by a 
 share of profits involves the risk of loss, they 
 will have none of it. 
 
 If the reformers who pose as the friends 
 
SUCCESS DUE TO HARD WORK 201 
 
 of labor would think for a moment, they 
 would realize that the successful men of the 
 world owe their success to hard work con- 
 tinued through long hours by night as well 
 as by day. No great surgeon, no successful 
 lawyer, no captain of industry has won his 
 place by eight hours' work a day for five days 
 in the week. He has burned much midnight 
 oil, has passed many sleepless hours on his 
 bed, has spent himself freely to win his 
 prizes. Idleness and poor work never won 
 anything valuable. "Heaven helps him who 
 helps himself," and in helping himself helps 
 his neighbors. 
 
 Men must realize that the tyranny of labor 
 is as dangerous to freedom as the tyranny of 
 wealth, and bow to the principles thus laid 
 down by four great organizations of farmers 
 in a memorial to Congress, "No set of men 
 has ever had the moral or legal right to de- 
 stroy property or cause suffering by combin- 
 ing together, and the welfare of all the people 
 * aust ever remain superior to that of any 
 
202 : PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 class or group of people." The same power 
 that fettered the trusts may yet deal with the 
 unions, but it is to be hoped that wiser 
 counsels will prevail, and that employer and 
 employed will recognize and apply, as they 
 must, the homely but ancient rule, "Live and 
 let live." 
 
 In conclusion, we may agree that excessive 
 profits should be curtailed, that the work- 
 man should have a voice in the conduct of 
 the business which his labor makes possible, 
 and that everything should be done to make 
 his life happy, but the motives which lead 
 every man to do his best work, to live a sober 
 and industrious life, should not be impaired. 
 Everything should be done to study the 
 situation, to promote good feeling, to secure 
 co-operation between those who must work 
 together, but let us remember that we are 
 dealing with human nature and with all the 
 obstacles that greed, selfishness and jealousy 
 can put in our way, and recognize that we 
 cannot create a new world, though by kind- 
 liness and patience we may improve the old. 
 
OUR FOREIGN RELATIONS 
 
 Let me invite your attention this evening to 
 the international relations of this country 
 which are sure to become more and more im- 
 portant as the years go on. The United 
 States is to-day the dominant power in this 
 hemisphere, and no American entertains a 
 doubt that it will remain so, as six years ago 
 every German confidently expected to see 
 "Deutschland iiber alles." 
 
 As is the wont of mankind, we consider all 
 other peoples our inferiors. It is an ancient 
 hallucination. Sir John Mandeville, the 
 famous English traveller, in 1360 after his 
 return from his adventurous journeys, said, 
 "Fro what partie of the erthe that men 
 dwellen, other aboven or beneathen, it sem- 
 ethe always to hem that dwellen that thei 
 gon more righte than any other folke," and 
 the same delusion persists, though for some 
 eighteen centuries we have professed to be- 
 
204 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 lieve that all nations of men are made of one 
 blood "for to dwell on all the face of the 
 earth." 
 
 It is amusing to what extravagances our 
 self-conceit carries us. Our nation is the 
 greatest of nations, our state is the best state, 
 our city leads all others, our quarter of the 
 city is the best, our side of the street is better 
 than the opposite, our set ranks all others, 
 our family is the best in our set. The process 
 of elimination can be carried further, but I 
 forbear. These beliefs are the product of 
 conceit and ignorance. We should never 
 forget the lesson contained in the little anec- 
 dote of Charles Lamb. He said, pointing to 
 another man, "I hate that man." "Why," 
 said a friend, "do you know him?" "No," 
 replied Lamb, "if I knew him I shouldn't 
 hate him." 
 
 Let us approach the subject in a more 
 modest spirit. Consider first our geographi- 
 cal position. North of us lie the British Pro- 
 vinces, a region filled with boundless natural 
 
OUR GEOGRAPHICAL POSITION 205 
 
 resources, very imperfectly appreciated and 
 as yet hardly touched. To-day it has a popu- 
 lation of some seven or eight million people, 
 but its possibilities are indicated by the state- 
 ment of an English journal which was in sub- 
 stance as follows : "India has a population of 
 about 300,000,000, Australia is three times as 
 large as India, and Australia laid on the 
 British possessions in North America would 
 bear about the same relation to them as the 
 cup does the saucer." This is not mathema- 
 tically exact, but it is substantially true, and 
 Canada to-day offers the greatest rewards to 
 enterprise. In time it will in itself be a 
 mighty empire. 
 
 South of us lies Latin America, divided 
 into some twenty different republics with 
 nearly as large an aggregate population as 
 our own and with much larger territory, for 
 Brazil alone is larger than the United States. 
 The people who dwell in them have inherited 
 different traditions from ours, speak a dif- 
 ferent language, and have different standards 
 
2o6 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 in many ways, but are a proud and self- 
 respecting race. 
 
 Across the Atlantic on one side of us is 
 Europe, which I need not describe, and across 
 the Pacific on the other lie Japan and China 
 with enormous populations and great possi- 
 bilities not yet developed according to the 
 world's standards of to-day, but gaining 
 rapidly. By our conquest of the Philippine 
 Islands we have assumed responsibilities and 
 obligations in Asia, and are necessarily in- 
 terested in Asiatic politics. We began our 
 career in Asia with the cheerful assumption 
 that the Asiatics are lower in the social scale 
 than ourselves, forgetting the truth thus ex- 
 pressed by Meredith Townsend that "All 
 creeds accepted by civilized and semi- 
 civilized mankind are of Asiatic origin. All 
 humanity, except the negroes and the savage 
 races of America and Polynesia, regulate 
 their conduct and look for a future state as 
 some Asiatic has taught them." 
 
 . . . Europe having accepted with hearty confi.- 
 
CHINA AND JAPAN 207 
 
 dence the views of Peter and Paul, both Asiatics, 
 about the meaning of what their Divine Master 
 said, regards all other systems of religious thought 
 with contemptuous distaste, and sums them up in 
 its heart as "heathen rubbish." Yet Confucius must 
 have been a w^ise man or his writings could not have 
 moulded the Chinese mind, while Mahommedanism 
 has a grip such as no other creed, not even Christi- 
 anity, possesses except on a few individuals. Brah- 
 manism and Buddhism alike rest upon deep and 
 far-reaching philosophies. 
 
 The truth is, the contempt is chiefly born of 
 neglect and ignorance. We do not know 
 them, we do not try to know them, we do not 
 wish to know them. It is easier to wrap our- 
 selves in our own conceit and look down 
 upon them, but is it safe.'' 
 
 We thought the armies enormous which 
 were engaged in the Great War. Let Mr. 
 Townsend tell us of Asiatic power: 
 
 We think of these masses of men as feeble folk, 
 but one single section of them never seen outside 
 their own peninsula, the warrior races of India, out- 
 number all who speak English; while a single race of 
 formidable fighters, capable of discipline, in a group 
 of islands off the coast, the Japanese, are more 
 numerous than the French. When the Mongol, or 
 
208 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 rather a small federation of tribes from among a 
 division of the Mongols, first burst out of his steppe 
 he reached France, and on the plain of Chalons 
 nearly overthrew the Roman Empire. When the 
 Arabs, never fourteen millions strong, debouched 
 from their deserts, they defeated both Eastern Rome 
 and Persia, extirpated the Vandals of North Africa, 
 conquered Spain, and ajter their first energy had 
 decayed, drove the picked chivalry of Europe out 
 of Palestine. When the third Asiatic explosion took 
 place, the Mongol conquered China and India, which 
 he kept, and Russia, which he only lost after two 
 centuries, and made all Europe tremble lest by de- 
 feating Austria he should acquire dominance 
 through the whole west. Intermediately, a little 
 Asiatic tribe seated itself in Anatolia, warred down 
 the Eastern Empire of Rome, threatened all Central 
 Europe, and to this hour retains the glorious prov- 
 inces which it oppresses only because, by the consent 
 of all who have observed him, the Turk Is the best 
 individual soldier In the world. Three Asiatic 
 soldiers, the Turk, the Sikh, and the Japanese, have 
 adopted European arms and discipline, and no man 
 can say if either of the three encountered Russian 
 armies which would be the victor, yet Europe does 
 not consider defeating Russians a light task. Taking 
 the figures of the German conscription as our guide, 
 there are In Asia eighty millions of potential soldiers, 
 of whom certainly one-fifth know the use of 
 weapons. 
 
EFFECTS OF WARS ON MANKIND 209 
 
 This was written in 1900, and since then 
 Japan has answered his question as to which 
 would win in a war between that country and 
 Russia. 
 
 Few of us ever heard of that great battle, 
 the battle of Yakusa, when in one day 90,000 
 Roman regulars, aided by 150,000 auxili- 
 aries, were absolutely defeated with the loss 
 of more than 100,000 men by an Arab army 
 of 40,000 men. History is said to repeat 
 itself. 
 
 What are to be our relations with these 
 various nations that surround us? 
 
 For centuries the history of the world has 
 been the history of successive wars. One 
 nation after another has fought its way to 
 supremacy, enduring for a while only to go 
 down before some new power. The might of 
 Xerxes, the empire of Alexander who sighed 
 for new worlds to conquer, the supremacy of 
 Rome, the rule of Spain over two continents, 
 have each in turn fallen to rise no more. 
 The Bourbons, the Bonapartes, the Roman- 
 
210 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 offs, the Hapsburgs, and the Hohenzollerns 
 have had their "httle hour of strut and rave," 
 have deluged the world with blood, and have 
 proved the truth of the text that "He who 
 draws the sword shall perish by the sword." 
 It is not difficult for us to determine what 
 has been the effect of all these wars upon 
 humanity. We know that they have caused 
 untold suffering, that the Thirty Years' War 
 left Germany a desert, that the wars of 
 Napoleon reduced the stature of the French 
 people. We can, if we will, trace the baleful 
 effects of war upon civilization in every way 
 until we agree with Benjamin Franklin that 
 "There never was a good war and there never 
 was a bad peace." By this no one means 
 that a nation must not defend itself, or that 
 an oppressed people must not revolt against 
 tyranny, but it is the aggressors, the men 
 who begin the war or create the conditions 
 that make war inevitable, on whom must 
 rest the responsibility for all the loss and 
 suffering which war causes. 
 
EVILS OF MODERN WAR 211 
 
 Terrible as were the consequences of war 
 in the eariier centuries, the area was re- 
 stricted. The religious wars which desolated 
 Europe did not disturb Asia, and left the 
 peoples of Africa untroubled. Nations 
 were more isolated and homogeneous, the 
 weapons of war were simpler and less expen- 
 sive, the armies engaged were smaller. As 
 late as our Civil War the army which 
 General Grant commanded when he began 
 his advance on Richmond in 1864 did not 
 exceed 120,000 men. 
 
 The last war has opened the eyes of 
 us all to what war now means. Larger 
 armies than were dreamed of until now 
 have devoted years to mutual destruc- 
 tion. Weapons which we thought barred 
 by the conventions of civilized nations, 
 like poisonous gas, have been employed 
 freely. The rules of war have been changed 
 infinitely for the worse. Noncombatants, 
 women, girls, have been treated with incon- 
 ceivable brutality. Artillery has acquired 
 
212 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 a range which seemed impossible. Ten- 
 nyson's dream of aerial navies has been 
 realized. Submarines have added new 
 terrors to conflicts on the ocean, and the 
 organized scientific devastation of occupied 
 territory has horrified us all. The private 
 property of innocent individuals has been 
 stolen by high officers, great architectural 
 monuments have wantonly been destroyed, 
 and the world has been brought to the verge 
 of ruin, whole populations are starving, great 
 nations are bankrupt, and a load has been 
 laid upon the backs of generations to come 
 under which they must stagger for at least a 
 century. The scars of the struggle are in- 
 delible, and the hatred which these things 
 have created seems likely to be ineradicable. 
 It is impossible to exaggerate what this war 
 has cost the world. 
 
 We have learned not only the possibilities 
 of modern war, but we have learned also that 
 of nations as of men the text is true that our 
 "foes shall be they of our own household." 
 
EVILS OF MODERN WAR 213 
 
 It is difficult to assert anything with confi- 
 dence about operations in their nature secret, 
 but the world believes that German influence 
 and German money withheld from the Rus- 
 sian armies the food and the munitions 
 which they needed in order to keep the field ; 
 that the same forces were behind Lenin and 
 Trotsky ; that Belgium was supplied by Ger- 
 man manufacturers with guns and shells, so 
 constructed as to be more dangerous to the 
 Belgians than to their enemies; that the 
 demoralization of the Italian armies which 
 led to their memorable defeat was caused by 
 false reports spread by the Italian emissaries 
 of Germany. France had her Caillaux and 
 Bolo with their followers, the so-called 
 "defeatists." England had her Irish patriots 
 supported by German money and supplied 
 with German arms ; and we know how Ger- 
 man plots in this country resulted in the de- 
 struction of factory after factory, and in an 
 active campaign among the elements of our 
 population which are hostile to England that 
 
214 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 threatened the most serious consequences. 
 In a word, we have learned that it is possible 
 for a nation in preparation for war, through 
 machinations conducted under the cover of 
 intimate commercial relations, to paralyze 
 its victims in advance. 
 
 We have learned another important les- 
 son, for we have found that a war between 
 great nations cannot be confined to the 
 original combatants. It is a conflagration, 
 which, like the great Chicago fire, may start 
 in a shed and spread till a whole city is in 
 ruins. In any such contest we cannot re- 
 main neutral. Whether we will or no, our 
 interests are so widespread, so involved with 
 those of other nations, so sure to be affected 
 injuriously by a war, that strive as we may 
 we are inevitably driven in self-defence to 
 take part in the conflict. It was not to make 
 the world safe for democracy, but to make 
 it safe for ourselves, that we sent our armies 
 across the sea. 
 
 The policy of isolation, a very proper 
 
ISOLATION NO LONGER POSSIBLE 215 
 
 policy for five millions of people just recover- 
 ing from war and by no means united, is no 
 longer possible or desirable. When Jeffer- 
 son in his first message warned us against 
 "entangling alliances," a phrase constantly 
 attributed to Washington, we were separated 
 from Europe and Asia by two great oceans 
 which it took weeks to cross, and our deal- 
 ings with other countries were few and 
 simple. Now the steamship has bridged the 
 oceans, the telegraph has made communica- 
 tion constant and easy, the aeroplane may 
 soon measure by hours the time between con- 
 tinents, our dealings with Europe are 
 constant, enormous in amount and as varied 
 as human interests. We are vitally concerned 
 in all that happens on either continent. The 
 graves of our soldiers in France and in the 
 Philippines have ended forever the possi- 
 bility of isolation. We may shut our eyes 
 and imagine that we are independent of 
 Europe, but when we open them the illusion 
 is dispelled. 
 
2i6 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 We are tied to the rest of the world by 
 bonds that we cannot break, and we can no 
 more dwell in the world and not be of it than 
 a man who lives in a great city can be un- 
 affected by the calamities which befall its 
 inhabitants. The storms which break over 
 the region, the pestilence which kills its 
 people, the riots, the conflagration, the 
 famines which afflict it, afflict him. Every 
 man and every nation shares the good or ill 
 which befalls the world, and must recognize 
 the obligation to help others. As the influ- 
 enza which starts in Spain comes across the 
 sea to scourge the United States, and the 
 bubonic plague comes from Asia to threaten 
 us; as the insects which originate in other 
 countries come to devastate our forests and 
 our fields, so war, bankruptcy, or famine 
 anywhere in the world come home to us, and 
 prosperity anywhere helps us. An eminent 
 political economist once said to me that the 
 opening of the Suez Canal caused the panic 
 of 1873 because it destroyed the value of the 
 
WHAT PREPAREDNESS MEANS 217 
 
 East India fleet, the merchantmen that had 
 carried the commerce between Europe and 
 Asia round the Cape of Good Hope. We are 
 not helping other nations only, but we are 
 helping ourselves when we try to prevent evil 
 or promote good in other countries. We are 
 forced to say with Garrison, "Our country is 
 the world — our countrymen are all man- 
 kind." 
 
 These are the lessons of the last five years, 
 and we are living in a world which fears 
 more, hates more, and trusts less than ever 
 before. One question confronts all nations, 
 white, brown, yellow, and black. Must we 
 go on hating and suspecting each other, pre- 
 paring for war at enormous expense, and by 
 our very preparation insuring its coming? 
 Must we tax ourselves to support large 
 armies, great fleets, reservoirs of gas, enor- 
 mous stores of arms, elaborate fortifications f 
 Must we in self-defence maintain spies in 
 every friendly country to watch with suspi- 
 cion all that is done, and to justify their ex- 
 
2i8 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 istence by reporting all that they suspect and 
 so promoting hostility? Must our scientific 
 men devote their time and their knowledge 
 to inventing new agents of destruction, guns 
 that will carry projectiles one hundred miles, 
 gases that will destroy the population of a 
 great city, new explosives, new submarines, 
 more formidable aeroplanes, withdrawing 
 thus from useful research the time and talent 
 which might be employed to arrest disease 
 and help us all to live better and enjoy our 
 lives more? Must we look forward always 
 to new wars, to constant sacrifices of our 
 youth, more universal starvation, more ab- 
 solute ruin? Is human nature such a poor 
 thing that any attempt to prevent these 
 horrors is futile, and must the future like the 
 past be only a record of wars growing 
 steadily more general and more destructive 
 of all that makes life valuable? Is the pro- 
 spect so hopeless that we must not even try 
 to make it better ? The real question for all 
 statesmen and diplomats to-day is, "How 
 shall we keep the peace?" 
 
INTERNATIONAL COURTESY 219 
 
 Let me answer this question by asking 
 another: "Is there any reason why nations 
 should not behave like gentlemen ?" Why in 
 our intercourse with other peoples should we 
 not be courteous, rather than brutal or 
 domineering? Should we not accomplish 
 more if, in our diplomatic correspondence, 
 in the speeches of our public men, and in the 
 newspapers we gave foreign nations and 
 foreign statesmen credit for the same 
 honesty of purpose that we claim for our- 
 selves? It is proverbially easy to bring up 
 other people's children and to spend properly 
 other people's money, but we have difficulties 
 with our own. No ruler of men has his own 
 way, from the selectman of a little town to 
 the Prime Minister of England. For months 
 many Americans have been pouring the vials 
 of their wrath upon the President of the 
 United States, while with another section his 
 opponents are very much discredited. The 
 statesmen who negotiated the Peace Treaty 
 are fiercely criticized, and the less men know 
 
220 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 of the problems which confronted them and 
 of the difficulties with which they had to deal 
 the more bitter is the condemnation. Unless 
 we know the situation we ought not to de- 
 nounce the action of the men who had to deal 
 with it. Government is always carried on by 
 compromise. Different elements in a popu- 
 lation have to he considered and humored, 
 and while the general result may be good, the 
 successive steps will always offer a mark for 
 critics. We read the headlines in a news- 
 paper, we skim some reckless speech, we 
 know that newspaper paragraphs written of 
 necessity in haste are not necessarily accur- 
 ate, but from such data we form an opinion 
 to which we cling obstinately, especially if it 
 helps to support the position of our party. 
 "Every country is held at some time to 
 account for the windows broken by its press. 
 The bill is presented some day or other in the 
 form of hostile sentiment in the other 
 country." These words of Bismarck, as 
 quoted by Brander Matthews, should be 
 
RECKLESS NEWSPAPER TALK 221 
 
 printed in every editorial sanctum. The 
 feeling of hostility to England in this country 
 — which is unfortunately too common — is in 
 part at least due to the disparaging remarks 
 of her newspapers and public men during the 
 Civil War. When the Chairman of the 
 Senate Committee on Foreign Relations de- 
 votes a long speech to attacks on the pur- 
 poses and sincerity of Japan, he is simply 
 creating hostility, and as what he says comes 
 from a man in high official position, it is 
 more regarded and produces a far worse 
 effect than the editorial in a newspaper, and 
 the bill for it is just as sure to be presented. 
 
 Breaking our neighbors' windows, to use 
 Bismarck's simile, is a dangerous and ex- 
 pensive sport. If we have doubts and sus- 
 picions, they should be kept to ourselves lest 
 hasty expression may goad hesitating friends 
 into settled hostility. The man or the nation 
 that desires peace should treat every one with 
 courtesy, look for the good and not for the 
 evil in others, and in his dealings be fair and 
 
222 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 assume that those with whom he deals wish 
 to be fair also. There is everything in the 
 way of putting things, and no man is fit for 
 great responsibility who cannot put himself 
 in the place of the man he addresses and 
 speak as he would be spoken to. When as 
 Secretary of State Mr. Root visited South 
 America to attend the Pan-American Con- 
 gress, he stated the true rule when he said : 
 
 We consider that the independence and equal 
 rights of the smallest and weakest members of the 
 family of nations deserve as much respect as those 
 of the great Empires. We pretend to no right, 
 privilege, or power that we do not freely concede to 
 each one of the American Republics. 
 
 As an illustration of the tone to be avoided, 
 and as a marked contrast to the words of 
 Mr. Root, let me quote the language of the 
 dispatch sent by Secretary Knox to the 
 diplomatic representative of Guatemala in 
 Washington, when Zelaya was the President 
 of that state : 
 
 Since the Washington Convention of 1907 it is 
 notorious that President Zelaya has almost con- 
 
DISCOURTEOUS DIPLOMACY 223 
 
 tinuously kept Central America in tension or tur- 
 moil; that he has repeatedly and flagrantly violated 
 the provisions of the convention, and by a baleful 
 influence upon Honduras whose neutrality the con- 
 vention were to assure has sought to discredit those 
 sacred international obligations. 
 
 Scarcely more conciliatory is the language 
 used by the majority of the Senate Com- 
 mittee on Foreign Relations in reporting 
 "the peace treaty" : 
 
 We have heard it frequently said that the United 
 States "must" do this and do that in regard to this 
 league of nations and the terms of the German 
 peace. There is no "must" about it. "Must" is not 
 a word to be used by foreign nations or domestic 
 officials to the American People or other representa- 
 tives. 
 
 One may doubt whether "must" was used 
 by any "foreign nation," but the Committee 
 resents it. Yet the Committee itself commits 
 the offence in the same paragraph when the 
 report continues : 
 
 The other nations will take us on our own terms, 
 for without us their league is a wreck and all their 
 gains from a victorious peace are imperilled. 
 
224 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 This means, "Accept our terms or lose all the 
 fruits of the dearly-bought victory which 
 Europe and America have both given so 
 much to win." If Lloyd George or Clemen- 
 ceau, adopting the same tone, had said, 
 "America will come into the League on such 
 terms as we fix or not at all," what would 
 have been the feeling in this country ? 
 
 Whatever we may think of a foreign ruler, 
 such language as Mr. Knox's is inexcusable, 
 and it is peculiarly cowardly when used by 
 the representative of a powerful nation to- 
 ward a weak one. Such diplomacy as this 
 would soon leave us without a single friend. 
 "The power of manners is incessant — an 
 element as unconcealable as fire," says Emer- 
 son. "No man can resist their influence." 
 
 As an extraordinary and wholly unneces- 
 sary piece of rudeness, let me call your atten- 
 tion to the refusal of the assembled statesmen 
 to recognize racial equality in the Treaty of 
 Versailles, when Japan requested such recog- 
 nition. That great nations like Japan, which 
 
RECOGNIZING RACIAL EQUALITY 225 
 
 prevailed in war against Russia, and China 
 with its uncounted millions of people, must 
 be recognized by other nations as equal in the 
 view of international law cannot be denied. 
 No useful consequence could follow from in- 
 sulting them, while the insult certainly laid 
 the seeds of future hostility. One can only 
 fall back upon Puck's exclamation, "What 
 fools these mortals be." Why will they close 
 their eyes to the folly of rating men by the 
 color of their skin } 
 
 If each nation would cultivate friendship 
 with every other, remember and rejoice in the 
 other's brilliant achievements and great 
 powers, and, if occasion for criticism comes, 
 think first of its own shortcomings before 
 criticizing, if in a word we all recognized our 
 common humanity and were to each other's 
 faults "a little blind," peace would soon be 
 well-nigh established. Every private citizen 
 in his daily conversation should discourage 
 attacks on other countries and frown upon 
 those who insist that we won the war, or 
 
226 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 relate stones to the discredit of Englishmen, 
 Frenchmen, or Italians, stories which have 
 almost certainly been exaggerated or changed 
 as they passed from mouth to mouth. By so 
 doing he will help the cause of peace. The 
 test is easy. Whatever he would not like to 
 have a foreigner say of us, he can be sure that 
 the foreigner will resent if said of his 
 countrymen. Idle gossip among private 
 citizens tends to create a feeling of hostility 
 which at a crisis may force the hand of a 
 government. Let us all try to think of other 
 people as our friends and not as enemies who 
 are planning against us. Let us, in any 
 event, try to make them our friends by treat- 
 ing them with courtesy and not speaking ill 
 of them to their faces. 
 
 The cultivation of friendship with other 
 nations by word and act is the imperative 
 duty of us all, but unhappily the speech of 
 men is not to be controlled, and we need 
 some stronger barrier against future war 
 than kindly feeling. Men's memories are 
 
FRIENDSHIP AMONG NATIONS 227 
 
 short, but we cannot have forgotten in a year 
 the resolve which we all made while the war 
 was raging. We tried to reconcile ourselves 
 to the carnage by the thought that this would 
 be the last war and that the young men who 
 laid down their lives were dying for an object 
 worthy of the sacrifice, and that object was 
 lasting peace. We repeated the words of 
 Lincoln, and again and again declared our 
 determination that "these men shall not have 
 died in vain." We cannot have forgotten this 
 high resolve so soon. Yet the headlines in 
 the newspapers already speak of the coming 
 war in the Pacific. 
 
 Assuming that we do not take counsel of 
 despair, but are willing at least to try, it is 
 conceded by all that the only way to prevent 
 future war is by a combination of the nations 
 against it, an alliance so formidable that no 
 nation will dare to challenge its power. This 
 means an agreement by every nation with 
 every other that it will not resort to war for 
 any cause, and an agreement by all the 
 
228 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 nations with each other that their united 
 force shall be used against any nation which 
 breaks its pledge. This is the same compact 
 among peoples to preserve the world peace 
 that exists among the people of a city or state 
 to preserve its peace. The criminal knows 
 that the whole power of the state is behind 
 the policeman, and the nation that would 
 make war must feel that to do so is to face 
 the world in arms. 
 
 A discussion of the pending treaty is not 
 consistent with the plan of these lectures, so 
 whatever my opinion, it will not be expressed 
 here. That it is imperfect, that it is possible 
 to imagine dangers and difficulties which 
 might arise under it, is only to say that it 
 was drawn by human beings, but whatever 
 the faults which experience may disclose, 
 they can be amended as that experience may 
 suggest. If, however, it is absolutely bad 
 and not to be accepted at all, its object still 
 remains to be accomplished, and the leaders 
 who oppose it agree with its friends in de- 
 
A LEAGUE TO PREVENT WAR 229 
 
 siring some league of nations against war, 
 though as yet they have not disclosed what 
 league they would recommend. That we are 
 not without obligations to our late associates 
 in the war is recognized clearly by Senator 
 Lodge, who, on December 21, 1918, said: 
 
 We must do our share to carry out the peace as 
 we have done our share to win the war, of which 
 the peace is an integral part. We must do our share 
 in the occupation of German territory which will be 
 held as security for the indemnities to be paid by 
 Germany. We cannot escape doing our part in aid- 
 ing the peoples to whom we have helped to give 
 freedom and independence in establishing them- 
 selves with ordered governments, for in no other way 
 can we erect the barriers which are essential to pre- 
 vent another outbreak by Germany upon the world. 
 We cannot leave the Jugo-Slavs, the Czecho-Slovaks 
 and the Poles, the Lithuanians and the other states 
 which we hope to see formed and marching upon 
 the path of progress and development, unaided and 
 alone. 
 
 The necessity confronts us all, and we 
 must all use all the influence we have to see 
 that a proper treaty is made. Let those who 
 object to this treaty and criticize its provi- 
 
230 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 sions devote themselves to construction, and 
 let us assure them that we stand ready to aid 
 them in securing the union of the world 
 against war. Men are mortal, and any 
 scheme may work imperfectly in practice, 
 but there is no possible failure so bad as the 
 failure to try, the admission that wars which 
 must destroy all that has been gained by the 
 civilization of centuries are inevitable, and 
 that we must give ourselves up to prepara- 
 tion for them at an expense which is scarcely 
 less ruinous than war itself. The object of 
 our international policy must be world peace, 
 and whether in public office or private life 
 we must all labor to secure it. 
 
 We, who have been the leaders in the 
 movement for a league of nations, and 
 whose public men have been prominent in 
 the League to Enforce Peace, may at all 
 events set an example to other countries by 
 not ourselves resorting to war. There are 
 now among us two bodies of men, who, with 
 all the horrors of war fresh in our memories. 
 
IRISH AGITATION IN AMERICA 231 
 
 would embroil us with our nearest neigh- 
 bors. Certain Irishmen, citizens of a foreign 
 country, joined by our own citizens of Irish 
 descent, are conducting on our soil a cam- 
 paign for Irish independence to be carried on 
 with money raised from Americans, as I have 
 pointed out in a previous lecture. The Presi- 
 dent of the Irish Republic, whose name 
 would not identify him with Ireland, is 
 governing his domain from hotels and sleep- 
 ing-cars in this country, and receives a con- 
 sideration from state and city officials here 
 which cannot fail to irritate Englishmen. 
 
 To what does this all tend.? It is impos- 
 sible to imagine a greater calamity to the 
 world than a war between the United States 
 and the British Empire. Standing together 
 they go far to insure the civilization of the 
 world. Let them engage in war and every 
 German, every foe of either, would rejoice. 
 Use your minds and consider what horrors 
 would attend the course of such a war, where 
 the combatants would be left when it ended, 
 
232 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 no matter which was victor, and what the 
 hopeless division of EngHsh-speaking people 
 would mean to the world. Consider that 
 Ireland contains only some four million 
 people, that they are hopelessly divided, that 
 they are now more prosperous than any 
 country in Europe, and consider also what 
 capacity they have shown for governing 
 themselves or any other people economically 
 and wisely. Then say whether there is any 
 justification for tolerating an agitation 
 which contemplates war between hundreds 
 of millions of men, the most civilized in the 
 world. It cannot succeed in its object, but 
 it will breed hostility and distrust where we 
 should have friendship and mutual confi- 
 dence. Irish agitation underlies now the 
 opposition to the Peace Treaty and keeps our 
 country at war with Germany. It may post- 
 pone world peace indefinitely, and for every 
 reason the United States should frown upon 
 it. 
 
 This agitation threatens our peace on the 
 
INTERFERENCE IN MEXICO 233 
 
 north. Another body of citizens seeks to 
 embroil us in the south. Mexico is the 
 frontier of Latin America as France is the 
 frontier of civiUzation in Europe, and all the 
 peoples of Central and South America are 
 watching our course in dealing with her. She 
 has been passing through a revolution, which 
 was needed to break up the enormous hold- 
 ings of land and also to do away with other 
 abuses which had grown up under the ad- 
 ministration of Diaz and his predecessors. 
 During the struggle and the conflicts between 
 different leaders there has been much dis- 
 order, much loss of life, and much destruc- 
 tion of property, as there is in every civil war. 
 Mexico in this respect is simply following the 
 example of all countries, for they have 
 reached stable conditions through contests 
 which not infrequently have reached the 
 dimensions of civil war. I need only remind 
 you of the wars between the English and 
 Scotch, the Wars of the Roses, the revo- 
 'ution in England, and the long religious 
 
234 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 contests in France with its great revolution, 
 to say nothing of later struggles like those 
 which followed the Franco-Prussian War, 
 our own revolution and our civil war, and 
 all that is now going on in Russia and else- 
 where in Europe, to satisfy you that Mexico 
 is in no way peculiar. 
 
 Now a government has been established 
 which has been recognized by the United 
 States and by other countries as the govern- 
 ment of Mexico. Order has been restored, 
 though there are here and there conflicts with 
 bandits. The relations between the Church 
 and the State which have been disturbed are 
 re-established, and conditions are growing 
 better every year. 
 
 But there are certain Americans interested 
 in oil properties in Mexico, notably William 
 Randolph Hearst, who are conducting a pro- 
 paganda in favor of intervention in Mexico. 
 Even Mr. Taft, president of the league 
 formed to prevent war by insisting on pre- 
 liminary arbitration, talks of Mexico as a 
 
INTERFERENCE IN MEXICO 235 
 
 nuisance which should be cleaned up. 
 Americans have acquired property in Mexico 
 and are making money out of it. They wish 
 to make more. They have not thrown in 
 their lot with Mexico, they have not become 
 Mexican citizens, they are not taking their 
 part as such in the attempt to govern the 
 country from which they are taking their 
 money, but they want us to intervene and 
 smooth their financial path by becoming the 
 rulers of the country and governing it in the 
 interest of themselves and perhaps of other 
 foreigners. They claim that civilization needs 
 the resources of Mexico and that they are 
 civilization's agents in developing and ap- 
 propriating them. They perhaps do not put 
 their case exactly in this way. They say more 
 crudely that Americans are being killed in 
 Mexico and that American property rights 
 are not respected, and that America must 
 overthrow the Government of Mexico. They 
 do not lay before us a statement of their 
 properties, how they were acquired, what 
 
236 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 returns they are yielding, and what the 
 Mexican Government is doing to injure 
 them. They dwell more on the killing of 
 Americans. For example, the headlines the 
 other day in large type said, "Two Americans 
 found dead, killed by bandits. Mr. Lansing 
 demands justice." 
 
 Much might be said in support of the con- 
 tention that the resources of a country belong 
 to its inhabitants, and that if foreigners elect 
 to acquire property or engage in business 
 there they must not ask their fellow- 
 countrymen to make war in order to help 
 their business. Mr. Kent, a member of 
 Congress from California, said some years 
 ago in substance this : "I have large interests 
 in Mexico which suffer from conditions there, 
 but I don't mean to go down and fight for 
 them, or let my son go down and fight for 
 them ; and if I don't propose to fight for my 
 own property, I have no right to ask other 
 people to send their sons to fight for me." 
 
 Let us look at the situation practically. As 
 
AMERICANS KILLED IN MEXICO 237 
 
 to the killing of Americans, the most recent 
 statement that I have seen was in substance 
 that in ten years, including years under 
 Madero and Huerta, counting men who are 
 missing as killed, some five hundred Ameri- 
 cans have been killed in Mexico. Some 171 
 of these lost their lives when we attacked 
 Vera Cruz during our warlike operations 
 there. How the rest were killed, who killed 
 them, and in what circumstances is not 
 stated. They were not killed by the Mexican 
 Government in pursuance of a hostile policy, 
 but lost their lives during the disturbances 
 when thousands of Mexicans lost theirs. 
 Whether they killed any Mexicans before the 
 end came is not clear. The very numbers are 
 in doubt. Do such conditions justify war? 
 Every morning paper tells us of murders 
 committed in Boston, New York, and other 
 large cities. Clerks are held up in stores by 
 robbers who shoot and escape. Bandits enter 
 a bank, rob it at the point of revolvers, 
 and make off with their booty. The officers 
 
238 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 of justice sometimes catch the criminals, but 
 more often they do not. Yet ours is a 
 civilized and highly organized community. 
 Can we go to war with Mexico because the 
 Mexican Government cannot prevent crimes 
 or catch the criminals f 
 
 In many states citizens are lynched, 
 burned to death with hideous barbarities, and 
 not even an attempt is made to stop these 
 crimes or punish the lynchers. During 
 eighteen years there have been 1427 lynch- 
 ings, during 1918 there were sixty-seven 
 recorded, and still the number increases. 
 Nor do these include the persons killed in 
 riots in Washington, Chicago, Omaha, and 
 elsewhere. Have we no beam in our own 
 eye } The men lynched were American citi- 
 zens, living under the protection of our flag 
 in peaceful communities. If we cannot 
 protect them or even try to punish their 
 murderers, what is our right against Mexico ? 
 
 Mexico is a small country. Her popula- 
 tion is about 15,000,000, against our 
 
THE COST OF INTERVENTION 239 
 
 100,000,000 or more. Her resources are 
 slight and ours are limitless. We can con- 
 quer as surely as a prize-fighter can whip a 
 boy. Could we be proud, of such a victory .? 
 
 It is conceded that the attempt would 
 unite the factions of Mexico in defence of 
 their country. It is estimated that it would 
 take some 400,000 or 500,000 men and some 
 years to complete the conquest. We can draw 
 some inferences from General Pershing's 
 attempt to capture Villa — the commander of 
 our army in France with an adequate force 
 and no resistance against a fleeing bandit 
 with a handful of followers. A speaker who 
 is advocating action against the Mexican 
 Government and is the counsel of the oil 
 interests said the other day that 97 per cent, 
 of the Mexicans are excellent and peaceful 
 people. Why should we kill these people who 
 had no more to do with the death of Ameri- 
 cans than our own soldiers ? How should we 
 profit the Americans who are gone by send- 
 ing thousands more Americans to die on the 
 
240 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 deserts and in the wild places of Mexico, 
 leaving behind them desolate homes, be- 
 reaved wives, and orphaned children ? If we 
 are thinking of property, put into one scale 
 the entire damage done to American 
 property in Mexico and in the other the cost 
 of a war waged only for a few months. Add 
 to it the pension list and tell me which scale 
 tips the beam. 
 
 Suppose we have won the victory and 
 Mexico lies prostrate at our feet. How shall 
 we govern it.? Shall we add to our negro 
 problem, our labor problem, our Philippine 
 problem, a Mexican problem, aggravated as 
 it will be by the hostility of all Latin 
 America, which will see in this country the 
 Prussia of the Western Hemisphere, an 
 aggressive power to be watched and dis- 
 trusted .f* Shall we make a territory of 
 Mexico to be divided into states and ad- 
 mitted before they are ready, because one or 
 the other political party needs senators.? 
 Shall we wait with sickening anxiety till 
 
SETTLING BY NEGOTIATION 241 
 
 some Presidential election is determined by 
 the returns from Chihuahua? Can the 
 humanity, the wisdom, the Christianity of 
 this great country devise no better method 
 of dealing with a weak neighbor than such a 
 war? I will not believe it. 
 
 If, instead of insolent and irritating dis- 
 patches sent by our Secretary of State, we 
 were to appoint a commission, not of politi- 
 cians in need of a salary, but of such men as 
 we should trust in large affairs, men of 
 character and proved ability, let them in- 
 vestigate all the charges against Mexico, 
 make a temperate statement of our case, and 
 then negotiate with the Mexican Govern- 
 ment for a settlement : such considerate and 
 courteous treatment would in all probability 
 produce good results far more speedily than 
 any intervention could secure, and at far 
 less cost in every way. We should at least 
 know then what the case really is, and if 
 negotiation failed, arbitration would re- 
 main. Not till all these methods of peaceful 
 
242 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 settlement have been tried should war be 
 thought of. 
 
 It is amazing and interesting to see how 
 the newspaper charges against a foreign 
 nation, nay more, the charges which govern- 
 ments themselves present, shrink when put 
 to the test of judicial investigation. 
 
 Some years ago the Honorable Wayne 
 MacVeagh, former Attorney-General of the 
 United States, in an argument for Venezuela 
 stated the facts in regard to the claims which 
 had been presented to arbitration commis- 
 sions for allowance. He dealt with the years 
 between 1868 and 1892, and with the claims 
 presented to commissions by Great Britain, 
 the United States, France, Spain, Mexico, 
 and Chili, countries, as he stated, which were 
 fairly representative of the civilized nations. 
 The figures are very striking. To the Com- 
 mission constituted July 4, 1868, to settle 
 the claims presented by the United States 
 against Mexico, and Mexico against the 
 United States, the United States presented 
 
INTERNATIONAL CLAIMS 243 
 
 claims for $470,126,613.40, and the total 
 amount awarded was $4,125,622.20, a little 
 less than nine-tenths of one per cent. Mexi- 
 co presented claims for $86,661,891.15 (the 
 cents in each case showing the extraordinary 
 accuracy with which the figures were 
 made up), and the amount allowed was 
 $150,498.41, about sixteen-hundredths of 
 one per cent. 
 
 By the Commission appointed on the 
 8th of May, 1871, certain claims growing 
 out of the Civil War were considered. Great 
 Britain presented claims against the United 
 States amounting to $96,000,000, and the 
 amount awarded was $1,929,819, about two 
 per cent. Claims presented by the United 
 States against Great Britain amounted to 
 $1,000,000, on which not one cent was 
 allowed. 
 
 Before another Commission Spain pre- 
 sented claims amounting to $30,313,581.32, 
 and the amount awarded was $1,293,450.55, 
 about 4 per cent. To a Joint Commission to 
 
244 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 settle claims between France and the United 
 States, France presented claims amounting 
 to $17,368,151.27, and received an allow- 
 ance of $625,566.35, the percentage of allow- 
 ance being thirty-six-hundredths of one per 
 cent. The United States presented claims 
 against France amounting to $2,747,544.99, 
 and the amount allowed was $13,659.14, an 
 allowance of about fifty-six-thousandths of 
 one per cent. Taking all the commissions 
 together, the total amount presented was 
 over $719,000,000, and the total allowance 
 was less than $8,500,000. 
 
 Had it not been for arbitration it is prob- 
 able that these great countries would have 
 gone to war to collect the preposterous 
 claims of their citizens, and well did Mr. 
 MacVeagh say, "You sow military force 
 against a weak and defenceless state and you 
 reap injustice." With these figures before 
 us, does it not become us to move slowly and 
 be sure of our ground in international con- 
 troversy? The fable of the wolf and the 
 
THE MONROE DOCTRINE 245 
 
 lamb is not without its application to such 
 cases. 
 
 The opponents of the Peace Treaty have 
 laid especial emphasis on the necessity of 
 preserving the Monroe Doctrine. It is in- 
 teresting in this connection to observe that 
 San Salvador, in order to decide what she is 
 doing if she becomes a party to the League 
 of Nations, asks us to define the Monroe 
 Doctrine. It is a simple and natural 
 request, but what is the answer.'* In its 
 original form, to quote President Monroe's 
 message in 1823, but leaving out unneces- 
 sary words, it was that "the American con- 
 tinents . . . are henceforth not to be con- 
 sidered as subjects for future colonization by 
 any European power" ; that "we should con- 
 sider any attempt on their part to extend 
 their system to any portion of this 
 hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and 
 safety"; and that "we could not view any 
 interposition for the purpose of oppressing 
 them or controlling in any other manner 
 
246 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 their destiny by any European power in any 
 other light than as the manifestation of an 
 unfriendly disposition towards the United 
 States." This declaration at the time was 
 intended to prevent the Holy Alliance from 
 interfering in South America to overthrow 
 the recently established South American 
 Republics, and it was, if not suggested by 
 George Canning, certainly made with his 
 approval. It was not intended to question 
 in any way the rights of Great Britain in 
 this hemisphere. 
 
 Daniel Webster in his speech defending it 
 put the Monroe Doctrine on the true ground, 
 the right of self-defence, and his successor, 
 Mr. Root, described it "as a declaration 
 based on the right of the people of the 
 United States to protect itself as a nation 
 and which could not be transformed into a 
 declaration, joint or common, to all the 
 nations of America, or even to a limited 
 number of them." We recognized that the 
 establishment of monarchies in this hemi- 
 
ABUSE OF MONROE DOCTRINE 247 
 
 sphere supported by European powers 
 meant eventual attack upon us, for it was 
 the policy of the Holy Alliance to destroy 
 democracy. It was, in a word, erecting a 
 shield against European aggression. 
 
 No one for a moment suggested that it 
 was designed to protect our own aggression 
 on our weaker American neighbors. It has 
 been woefully distorted from its original 
 purpose in recent years, until our practice 
 justifies the suggestion of President Lowell 
 that it is set up as a fence against foreign 
 interference with us in our dealings with 
 other countries in this hemisphere. It is a 
 shield against Europe, but a sword against 
 America, and in practice we stand toward 
 Mexico and the countries south of us as 
 Prussia stood in Europe. 
 
 Let me quote high authority for this state- 
 ment. Professor Borchard, an expert on 
 international law, a professor in the Yale 
 Law School, at one time Assistant Solicitor 
 of the State Department, and who has filled 
 
248 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 other public positions of importance, made 
 this statement at a National Conference on 
 the Foreign Relations of the United States : 
 
 We must frankly recognize that the rights of 
 small states and of government by consent of the 
 governed, of which we have recently heard so much, 
 have never been a consideration or factor in our 
 Caribbean policy, nor has the social regeneration 
 of a backward people, who constitute the bulk of the 
 population, yet had any tangible manifestations. 
 
 Many of these products, particularly sugar, 
 bananas, and oil, or enterprises like railroads, can 
 be profitably exploited only by vast corporations, 
 who control by concession or otherwise large areas 
 of land, transportation systems, both rail and water, 
 and an immense supply of cheap labor. Such com- 
 mercial control of the sole or principal natural re- 
 sources of a weak country leads easily to political 
 control of the functions of government, which the 
 United States has not been slow to recognize. It 
 is only a short step from private investment in a 
 railroad or in a large concession for the exploitation 
 of a weak country's important resources to the exer- 
 cise of a sphere of influence by the home govern- 
 ment of the investor; and the sphere of influence 
 easily merges into political control. . . . The danger 
 of a foreign investment becoming political and 
 
ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM 249 
 
 bringing about international complications has led 
 the United States, in certain countries where our 
 interests would be seriously affected, to seek to 
 control the amount of debt those countries may con- 
 tract and the character of concessions they may 
 grant to foreigners. . . . 
 
 It is not generally known that many foreign con- 
 cessions in Central America or the Caribbean are 
 first submitted unofficially to the State Department 
 to avoid subsequent interference on the ground of 
 infringement of our political prerogatives, or — in our 
 character of trustees for our weaker neighbors — 
 because they take unfair advantage of an exploited 
 country. . . . 
 
 Our Interposition in the matter has in each case 
 been occasioned by some special circumstance or 
 opportunity which required prompt action and 
 which was then extended to include the larger aims 
 which have remained fundamental principles of our 
 Caribbean policy. The maintenance of the Monroe 
 Doctrine was only an incidental motive of our inter- 
 vention in Santo Domingo, Nicaragua, and Haiti. 
 Common prudence and the promotion of our own 
 interests and those of our weaker neighbors would 
 have prompted the same course. . . . 
 
 In closing, it should be frankly admitted that the 
 policy on which we have so successfully embarked 
 is economic imperialism. We must be prepared, in 
 supporting it, to encounter the dangers and risks 
 involved. 
 
250 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 There is a certain naive impudence in speak- 
 ing of us as "trustees for our weaker neigh- 
 bors." Heaven save us all from such 
 trustees ! We may well fear that the United 
 States will follow too closely the rules laid 
 down by a distinguished trustee in Boston 
 who said that there were three things which 
 a trustee should never lose sight of — first, 
 the safety of the trustee; second, the con- 
 venience of the trustee ; and third, the com- 
 pensation of the trustee. 
 
 I need only allude to our interference 
 against the United States of Colombia when 
 the President sent our troops and ships to 
 support the new Republic of Panama, to the 
 fact that the Government of Nicaragua is 
 upheld by our bayonets, that we have over- 
 thrown the Republics of Haiti and Santo 
 Domingo and govern both by military 
 officers, to indicate how very practically our 
 policy is carried out, and to show how well 
 within the fact is Professor Borchard's 
 statement. 
 
OUR ACTION IN NICARAGUA 251 
 
 As to our course in Nicaragua, let me 
 
 quote the words of a Republican Senator : 
 
 Our brutally taking possession of Nicaragua, 
 actually carrying on war, killing hundreds of her 
 people, taking possession of her capital and forcing 
 through a treaty greatly to our advantage and still 
 holding the capital under the control of our marines 
 while doing so is one of the most shameless things 
 in the history of our country. When this matter 
 began four or five years ago under President Taft, 
 I did the best I could to stop it. When this admin- 
 istration came into power, after first renouncing all 
 dollar diplomacy it shortly thereafter sent in prac- 
 tically the same treaty, indeed in substance the very 
 same treaty. But we went into Nicaragua without 
 any justification and without authority upon the 
 part of Congress and carried on war In Nicaragua as 
 thoroughly and effectively as we carried on a war 
 in Mexico in 1848 and even with less conscience 
 behind it. 
 
 The Senate of the United States is very 
 much exercised lest the Peace Treaty should 
 weaken the power of Congress to declare 
 war, and is afraid that under its provisions 
 the President might send Americans to 
 Hedjaz without any action by Congress. One 
 cannot but wonder that men so solicitous to 
 
252 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 maintain the Constitution should have 
 allowed to pass unchallenged the attack on 
 Vera Cruz, the intervention in Nicaragua, 
 the attacks on Haiti and Santo Domingo, all 
 without authority from Congress. Every 
 one of these acts was an exercise of power by 
 the President in violation of the Constitu- 
 tion. Our whole dealing with Mexico and 
 the Central American States is an entire 
 departure from the rules which we ourselves 
 proclaim, and the facts are concealed from 
 the American people. No newspaper tells us 
 what has been or is going on in Haiti or 
 Nicaragua, and we hug the comfortable 
 delusion that the great principles of our 
 Government are respected by our statesmen. 
 President Wilson has said: 
 
 No nation should seek to extend its policy over 
 any other nation or people, but that every people 
 should be left free to determine its own policy, its 
 own way of development, unhindered, unthreatened, 
 unafraid, the little along with the great and power- 
 ful. 
 
 We shall fight for the things which we have 
 
OUR PROFESSIONS AND OUR ACTS 253 
 
 always carried nearest our hearts — for democracy, 
 for the right of those who submit to authority to 
 have a voice in their own governments, for the 
 rights and Hberties of small nations, the privilege 
 of men everywhere to choose their way of life and 
 of obedience. 
 
 Mr. Root's words are : 
 
 We consider that the independence and equal 
 rights of the smallest and weakest members of the 
 family of nations deserve as much respect as those 
 of the great empires. We pretend to no right, privi- 
 lege, or power that we do not freely concede to each 
 one of the American republics. 
 
 As Mr. Lowell said of England: 
 
 "Ole Uncle S. sez he, 'I guess, 
 John preaches wal,' sez he." 
 
 Contrast these statements of our policy 
 with Professor Borchard's statement of our 
 practice, and you will not wonder that San 
 Salvador asks to have the Monroe Doctrine 
 defined. 
 
 This is a situation which demands the 
 1 attention of every conscientious American. 
 We must hold our country up to its own 
 
254 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 principles and must for our own sake resist 
 the attempt of commercial interests to make 
 our Government their tool in their attempts 
 to exploit our neighbors. Every step that we 
 take in such work may make millions for a 
 few men, but it makes suspicion, hatred, and 
 loss for our country. There is no escape 
 from retribution, which may come soon or 
 late, but will come. We shall do well to 
 remember the words of Lowell, "Moral 
 supremacy is the only one which leaves 
 monuments and not ruins behind it." 
 
 In the same way our dealings with China 
 and Japan are insolent. At the behest of 
 so-called Labor, a name which is fast losing 
 its meaning, we exclude their citizens from 
 our country, and those that we cannot ex- 
 clude we treat with contempt. Yet we should 
 hotly resent it were Americans so treated in 
 Japan. The newspapers talk of the "next 
 war" in the Pacific and of the "yellow peril." 
 We cultivate enmity, not friendship, and to 
 what end? 
 
LOSS OF PRESTIGE SINCE 1918 255 
 
 A year ago the United States was the great 
 power to which the world looked for help 
 and guidance. The peoples of Europe were 
 our warm friends. Our young men had 
 fought side by side with youths from almost 
 every country save those which were allied 
 against us; they had mingled their blood 
 with French, English, Italian blood and 
 many another stream, and we all rejoiced in 
 the victory which all had helped to win. 
 
 Now we are selfishly withdrawing from 
 doing our share in defending the fruits of 
 that victory, and in the reconstruction and 
 regeneration of the world. From man to 
 man fly criticisms and suspicions of all who 
 fought with us, extravagant claims of our 
 own share in the success and sneers at the 
 claims of others. We are jealous of other 
 nations, and jealous even of each other. It 
 may be an inevitable reaction from the un- 
 selfish sacrifices which the war entailed, but 
 it should cease. We should all discourage 
 criticism and complaint. We should praise 
 
256 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 our allies and they in turn will praise us. 
 Should we now become involved in war, 
 where should we turn for friends? Name 
 any nation you please, and then ask your- 
 selves how we are treating that nation, and 
 whether we can fairly count on its friend- 
 ship ? 
 
 "He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to 
 spare, 
 And he who has one enemy will meet him every- 
 where." 
 
 Entangling alliances may be bad, but en- 
 tangling hostilities are far worse. 
 
 A black poet from Jamaica has written 
 some lines which we may do well to remem- 
 ber when we would misuse our power : 
 
 "God gave you power to build and help, lift. 
 But you proved prone to persecute and slay, 
 And from the high and noble course to drift 
 Into the darkness from the light of day. 
 He gave you law and order, strength of will 
 The lesser peoples of the world to lead; 
 You chose to break and crush them through life's 
 
 mill 
 And for your earthly gains to make them bleed; 
 
DANGERS OF A SELFISH POLICY 257 
 
 Because you have proved unworthy of your trust 
 God — ^He shall humble you into the dust." 
 
 Even the British Empire, the mistress of 
 the seas, with her wide "dominion over palm 
 and pine," realized five years ago, when her 
 vast merchant marine was melting under the 
 attacks of submarines, when Ludendorff had 
 broken her lines and the fate of civilization 
 hung in the balance, how near she was to 
 finding that Kipling wrote truly: 
 
 "Far-call'd our navies melt away, 
 On dune and headland sinks the fire. 
 So all our pomp of yesterday 
 Is one with Nineveh and Tyre." 
 
 Let me beg you young men and the others 
 like you, into whose hands must soon pass 
 the ability in part to determine the future of 
 our country, to remember that our great 
 power is held in trust for the benefit of man- 
 kind, and that if we abuse it we shall surely 
 suffer. There is no text which is truer than 
 the stern words, "Be sure thy sins shall find 
 thee out," and they apply as well to nations 
 as to men. 
 
258 PROBLEMS OF TO-DAY 
 
 And now, in concluding these lectures, let 
 me quote to you the appeal of James Russell 
 Lowell which cannot be repeated too often : 
 
 What we want is an active class who will insist in 
 season and out of season that we shall have a coun- 
 try whose greatness is measured not only by its 
 square miles, its number of yards woven, of hogs 
 packed, of bushels of wheat raised, not only by its 
 skill to feed and clothe the body, but also by its 
 power to feed and clothe the soul; a country which 
 shall be as great morally as it is materially; a 
 country whose very name shall not only, as now 
 it does, stir us as with the sound of a trumpet, but 
 shall call out all that is best within us by offering 
 us the radiant image of something better, nobler, 
 more enduring than we, of something that shall ful- 
 fil our own thwarted aspirations, when we are but 
 a handful of forgotten dust in the soil trodden by 
 a race, whom we shall have helped to make more 
 worthy of their inheritance, than we ourselves had 
 the power, I might almost say the means to be. 
 
 THE END 
 
CAMBRIDGE • MASSACHUSETTS 
 U • S • A 
 
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