Class _ij_Tl Book. . ET 5 3. GopyrigtitN". COPM^IGHT DEPOSm THE NEW FRONTIER A STUDY OF THE AMERICAN LIBERAL SPIRIT, ITS FRONTIER ORIGIN, AND ITS APPLICATION TO MODERN PROBLEMS BY GUY EMERSON NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1920 1 — ' ; '^n Copyright, 1920 BY Henry Holt and Company A) JUL -7 1^20 ©nU570575 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED WITH SINCERE ADMIRATION TO MY ASSOCIATES IN A GREAT AMERICAN BANK — TRUE PIONEERS ON THE NEW FRONTIER — FROM WHOM I HAVE LEARNED MUCH OF THE POWER AND INSPIRATION OF CLEAN LIB ERAL AMERICANISM PREFACE The main thesis of this book is one that em- phatically needs to be uttered, and that is uttered here with admirable force, with convincing argu- ment, with copious illustration. It proclaims a truth which is in danger of escaping our attention amid the general clamor of the times. That truth is this: America is not radical; America is not reactionary; America^ is liberal. And what she has been she will continue to be for the simple and sufficient reason that liberalism is native to the very air she breathes, is the compelling product of her history, is the heart of her national tradition, is the essence of her national psychology. ^ i We are being much advised these days by many confident monitors of the public to discard our rich inheritance, as the work of men of darkened or narrow minds or of malevolent spirit. We shall not do so. At no time in her history has America stood still in complacent adoration of the past. At no stage has she been willing to cast aside her fundamental institutions and her customary habits of mind, both of which have served her well in many a period of trouble. Also at no stage has she been indisposed to improve the things that could be improved. America is neither troglodytic nor quixotic. She is optimistic and she is sensible. But this fundamental and pervasive liberalism of America is not a detached force of nature operating vi PREFACE ceaselessly and inevitably for the prosperity and happiness of the nation, is not something outside ourselves working automatically for righteousness. It is a personal force. It is the wisdom and the purpose that each individual is able to distil from the experiences of our people. It is self-conscious, and, therefore, the HberaHsm of America needs con- scious organization and direction that it may be applied always and at every point to national problems as they arise. These ideas and many others are set forth in this book with freshness, with vitaHty, with enthusiasm and with faith, controlled by a fine sense of the actual and of the possible. What is needed in America to-day is, as the author says, the organiza- tion of all the Hberal forces of the country, for, if united, they are irresistible, whereas, if disunited and dispersed, they lose their force, and general muddle results. America is not going to disown her past for the excellent reason that she knows that it has contributed incalculably to her well- being and will continue to contribute. She will not follow the frantic exhortations of the panacea- mongers, since her sense of humor will forbid. Not vague Utopianism but reasoned programs of reform will appeal to her in the future as they have appealed to her in the past. A remark of Ralph Waldo Emerson recurs to mind: "The destiny of this country is great and liberal. Nothing is impracticable to this nation which it shall set itself to do." It is because this book is charged and surcharged with this faith that it is both tonic and true. Charles Downer Hazen. CONTENTS PACK Introduction ix The Frontier of Ameejcan Character .... 3 The Leadership that Made America ...... 35 What is a Liberal? 5^ The Politics of the Middle of the Road . . 78 Public Opinion and the Industrial Problem . 105 The Need for Fifty Million Capitalists . . 144 An American Federation of Brains 160 Human Resources 190 The Weapons of Truth 213 The American Spirit in World Affairs ... 253 The New Frontier 279 Appendix 3^5 Index 309 "Always it has been the frontier which has allured many of our boldest souls. And always just back of the frontier, advancing, receding, crossing it this way and that, succeeding and fail- ing, hoping and despairing — but steadily advanc- ing in the net result — has come that portion of the population which builds homes and lives in them, and which is not content with a blanket for a bed and the sky for a roof above. . . . The frontier has been the lasting and ineradicable in- fluence for the good of the United States. It was there we showed our fighting edge, our inconquer- able resolution, our undying faith. There, for a time at least, we were Americans. We had our frontier. We shall do ill indeed if we forget and abandon its strong lessons, its great hopes, its splendid human dreams." — Emerson Hough. "Between the blind forces on one side and the other of the industrial conflict stands a more or less enlightened middle group, which is trying to discern not a balance of power but an equilibrium of justice. That is Roosevelt's group. Retrained it. He more than any other modern figure helped to form the ideals of what we loosely call 'the public.'" — From an editorial in The Globe (New York). vux INTRODUCTION The great word Americanism has suffered from indiscriminate use. A considerable part of the present unrest in this country is due to the widespread failure to under- stand the significance of the American system of society and government. An honest but often somewhat superficial Americanism needs to be en- riched by a more specific, reasoned patriotism, based upon a knowledge of what America was, and is, and may become. If we delve beneath the name we may reveal the heart. Such a process is capable of disclosing to Ameri- cans sources of confidence in the fundamentals of democracy too firm to be shaken by the propo- nents of new and strange systems; it is capable of supplying profound reasons in support of what has come to be, in many minds, a pure assumption that Americanism is superior to any other theory of society or form of government. If we are "a nation of idealists with a genius for the practical," if we can revivify the splendid vision of the pioneers who firmly established and handed down to us a nation great in material wealth and equally great in its fundamental idealism, we can proceed with stout hearts toward our own is X INTRODUCTION frontiers. If we can spread throughout the nation the strong, youthful faith which built America, hysteria will disappear. And without hysterical opposition rebellious agitation cannot long flourish in the land. In this book two main points are emphasized; first, that the spirit of that portion of our people which has actually shaped the destinies of America has been liberal, rather than radical or conservative. The influence of the radical, and the counteracting influence of the conservative, are equally useful. But the liberal — the vigorous, middle-of-the-road man or woman does most of the zvork of the world, and in America, policies are in the end de- termined by the workers, whether they work with hand or with brain — or with both. Thus, the liberals furnish most of the leaders whom the people, year in and year out, are ready to follow. Second, it is claimed that our national spirit has taken its essential liberal flavor from the frontier, from the generations of tireless, self-reliant effort which won this continent for the men and women of our own day and which stamped them with its indelible character. This is the greatest source of self-confidence and power in the American tradition. It is the spirit which must inspire American leader- ship; it is also the spirit of the strong, clean, re- sourceful average man, with hope in his heart. The New Frontier is not a new theory. It is a method of approach, which is half the battle. It INTRODUCTION xi involves meeting modern American problems not with a new-fashioned spirit, but with the faith of our fathers. The spirit called for in the leaders and prophets of our own day is not new. Fundamentally the Americanism of Lincoln is no more modern than the spirit of Columbus, of Cromwell, of Joan of Arc, of Christ. It is not new, but eternal. It is our application of this spirit to new conditions which gives it a distinctive power and appeal. Americanism is the world force of courage ' and capacity and justice brought to bear upon American continental conditions by generations of free, strong, resourceful men and women. If we meet the new frontiers with this spirit we shall still make mis- takes, as our fathers did before us; but the element of error will not be fundamental. And as it was true of them, so will it be true of us, that the ele- ment of success will be preponderant. More than this no nation can ask. At a time when party platforms are being re- written because the old parties are without dis- tinctive programs, at a time when the social and industrial structure is being readjusted to meet a new spirit, it becomes increasingly necessary to return to first principles. At a time when there is need for all the patience of which our people are capable, when their native Ingenuity and their capacity for hard work are called upon to the ut- most, it is essential that they take account of the stores of human energy and achievement in their xii INTRODUCTION own history which they have the right to draw upon as a basis for self-confidence and as a source of inspiration and hope. The principles underlying Americanism are simple. But it is not a simple task to give them adequate expression. The outstanding importance of the undertaking today must justify this attempt. THE NEW FRONTIER THE FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER What do we mean when we speak of the American spirit or the American character? Is there a pecuHar quality in the American as distinguished from the European or the South American or the Asiatic? If so, it is clearly an important responsibility of our time to find out wherein the distinction lies, to understand what the basis of Americanism is, and to cleave to it and build upon it. If we are not simply a mass of assorted units of the human race who happen for the present to be living in a section of North America between Canada and the Gulf, if we really are a cohesive people with distinctive traditions and characteristic ideals, it is obviously important to trace out these traditions and these ideals and to set them forth for the guid- ance and inspiration of ourselves and of our children. If there is in the tradition of America something concrete and simple to stimulate and inspire, it is vital in these days when so many merchants of government are offering something ''just as good," that we should re-vivify our traditions and that we should apply the principles inherent in them, with such changes as may be called for, but with all 3 4 THE NEW FRONTIER their native vigor, to the new conditions of our own time. Ask the average man to define the American spirit and he will perhaps say that its principal characteristic is a love of liberty. But one has only to turn to the history of any century in almost any country to find the record of men who were wilHng to die for liberty. Some there may be who will assert that democracy was conceived in America; but the most casual reading of history will show that every principle of democracy upon which our institutions are based had been ably stated and, to some extent, put into practice before 1776. Obviously in defining the American spirit we are not discussing elements which can be classi- fied sharply or characterized in a word. Superficially the casual observer would be apt to say that we were much like our neighbors of Europe except for minor differences in mannerism, or language or dress. But if we are to understand the American spirit it is necessary to regard it as an attitude of mind, a point of view, a method of approach, or deeper still, a fundamental form of self-confidence, conviction and faith. The initial inspiration for the view of the Ameri- can spirit taken in these pages is due to Professor Frederick J. Turner, of Harvard, whose brilliant studies of the influence of the frontier upon Ameri- can history have been conclusive in shaping modern thought upon American historical subjects. In the FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 5 best known of these papers, read before the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in 1893, Professor Turner said, "all people show development: the germ theory of politics has been sufficiently em- phasized. In the case of most nations, however, the development has occurred in a limited area; and if the nation has expanded, it has met other growing peoples whom it has conquered. But in the case of the United States we have a different phenomenon. Limiting our attention to the At- lantic coast, we have the familiar phenomenon of the evolution of institutions in a limited area such as a rise of representative government; the dif- ferentiation of simple colonial governments into complex organs; the progress from primitive in- dustrial society, without division of labor, up to manufacturing civilization. "We have in addition to this a recurrence of the process of evolution in each western area reached in the process of expansion. Thus American devel- opment has exhibited, not merely advance along a single line, but a return to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line, and a new development for that area. American social de- velopment has been continually beginning over again on the frontier. This perennial re-birth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward with its new opportunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society, furnish the forces dominating American character." 6 THE NEW FRONTIER No more profound words were ever written with regard to the history of the American people. "This perennial re-birth, this fluidity of American Hfe," which shaped the character of our ancestors has come down to us as a firm and priceless inheri- tance. And these ancestors of ours who took part in "this expansion westward with its new oppor- tunities, its continuous touch with the simplicity of primitive society" are not remote forebears shrouded in the mists of antiquity. They were the great-grandparents, or even the grandfathers and grandmothers of men and women now in the prime of life. The tradition is still vivid along the Ohio River; in different manifestations it makes itself vividly felt in almost every community from the Alleghanies to the Pacific. Even today it has left behind it in the West a vigor, a youthful freshness which is so abounding that it is noticeable even in the speech and action of the people to an extent which is not evident in the East and South. But this does not mean that the same eternal youthfulness has not permeated the whole nation, including the people of the Atlantic coast. It has. Its manifestations may be less apparent in Boston than in Zanesville, Ohio; but at heart the Bostonians of today are the same vigorous race that sent hundreds of families to the great North- west. And particularly in New York, which has drawn its people from all parts of America, there is evident a pioneer quality of mind, a creative FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 7 energy, an alertness of step and bearing, a restless ambition which shows us to be true sons and daughters of the long period of frontier life which forms the heart of our history. First we have the old stocks coming over to the At- lantic coast of America, just as the English have for years been crowded out of their little island to the borders of the seven seas. But in America we have some new elements. We have men of many nations joining on a basis of vigorous competition. Another decisive element is added when all ex- pectation of returning to the mother country is abandoned. We see men moved by all the vigor and stimulus of self-sacrifice which comes from winning a home and earning a living under the free and inspiring influence of vast spaces. We have all the romance and strenuousness of thousands of years of the slow upward progress of the race crowded into a century. In the words of Professor Turner "The United States lies like a huge page in the history of society. Line by line as we read from West to East we find the record of social evolution. It begins with the Indian and the hunter; it goes on to tell of disin- tegration of savagery by the evidence of the trader, the pathfinder of civiHzation. We read the annals of the pastoral stage in ranch life; the exploitation of the soil by the raising of unrotated crops of corn and wheat in sparsely settled farming communi- ties; the intensity of cultivation of the denser farm 8 THE NEW FRONTIER settlement; and finally the manufacturing organi- zation with city and factory system. . . . Stand at Cumberland Gap and watch the procession of civilization marching single file, the buffalo follow- ing the trail to the salt springs, the Indian, the fur trader and hunter, the cattle raiser, the pioneer farmer — and the frontier has passed by. Stand at South Pass in the Rockies a century later and see the same procession with wider intervals between. The unequal rate of advance compels us to dis- tinguish the frontier into the trader's frontier, the rancher's frontier, or the miner's frontier and the farmer's frontier. When the mines and the cow pens were still near the fall line, the trader's pack trains were tinkling across the Alleghanies and the French on the Great Lakes were fortifying their posts, alarmed by the British trader's birch canoe. WTien the trappers scaled the Rockies, the former was still near the mouth of the Missouri." At first the individualism of the men who crossed the Alleghanies tended to produce a sectional rather than a national feeling. The point of view of Europe ceased more and more to be the point of view of the backwoodsman and the pioneer as he placed the Alleghanies between himself and the Atlantic. These vigorous men who matched their strength with the strength of the forest and the prairie soon ceased to accept without question the constituted authority of the Virginia fathers. It was this nationalizing tendency of the West that FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 9 transformed the democracy of Jefferson into the national Republicanism of Monroe and the De- mocracy of Andrew Jackson. This independence, like all newly discovered freedom, tended to out- run itself, so that individual liberty was sometimes con- fused with the absence of all effective government. These men of the Western waters, as they called themselves, were able to shift for themselves with- out fear or favor. Their life of work, the life that brought out the most vigorous self-reliance and in- dividualism, and their attitude toward the civili- zation which they had left behind in the tidewater regions, soon began to develop in them an attitude of mind which was well expressed by a representative from Western Virginia in the Virginia Convention of 1830: "But, Sir, it is not the increase of popula- tion in the West which this gentleman ought to fear. It is the energy which the mountain breeze and Western habits impart to those inhabitants. They are regenerated, politically I mean. Sir. They soon become working politicians; and the difference between a talking and a working politician is immense." But what are the traits that came out of this life? What elements of character arose from this tu- multuous pouring of a mixed race of people into the primeval forest and out across the prairie? "The result is that to the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics, that coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitive- 10 THE NEW FRONTIER ness, that practical, Inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients, that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends, that restless, nervous energy, that dominant individualism working for good and evil and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom — these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier," If we may return for a moment to the East, as a contrast to this nervous energy of the Westerners, it is a fact that colonial travelers all commented upon the phlegmatic character of the earlier colo- nists along the Atlantic Coast. Henry Adams in his brilliant volumes on the administrations of Jefferson and Madison, in a final summary of the American character at about 1817, says, "Society was weary of strife, and settled gladly into a po- litical system which left every disputed point un- determined. The public seemed obstinate only in believing all was for the best, as far as the United States was concerned, in the affairs of mankind. The contrast was great between this temper of mind and that in which the Constitution had been framed. . . . The rapid accumulation of wealth and increase in physical comfort told the same story from the standpoint of economy. On every side society showed that ease was for a time to take the place of severity, and enjoyment was to have its full share in the future national existence." FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER ii It may be suggested that the mildness character- istic of the eastern Americans as described by Henry Adams, grew more out of reaction against a period of unusual energy than out of anything in the fundamental character of the people. The im- pulses which moved the men and women who originally crossed the Atlantic of their own free will were impulses of a kind which were not likely to die out in a few generations. They still persisted, though latent, in many who did not cross the Al- leghanies. The only qualification which a New Englander might care to make to Professor Turner's profound and convincing analysis of the effect of the frontier in shaping American character would be that perhaps the results described could not have been produced so readily in a people who lacked in the first place something of the craving for adventure and the love of freedom analogous to it. People less inspired would not have been so eager for "elbow room." They would not have been so likely to seek the frontier, nor to have been able to cope with its rigors after they had found it. This qualification, doubtless assumed by Mr. Turner, would simply tend to strengthen the conclu- sions reached but would perhaps modify in a minor degree the credit due to the frontier conditions themselves and give a small part of the credit to the inherent vigor of the selected group that chose to subject itself to the frontier influences. To emphasize the pioneer element in the fathers of 12 THE NEW FRONTIER the frontiersman of the American West is merely to follow a little closer to its roots the character of our people and to find additional reason for con- fidence in their self-reHance and versatility. This is important because the American spirit is not to be distinguished from any other national spirit to any great extent by reason of the exclusive possession of any particular quahties. Other na- tions have had frontiers. National character has in other instances been influenced by restless and vigorous pioneers. But no state or nation, no people, has been, to the same extent, influenced by the elements in human character growing out of the continuous opening up of new country, the re- peated seeking out of new homes by the people, the constantly refreshed and perpetuated spirit of rehance upon self as the only stable and permanent element in a constantly shifting environment. That this spirit has persisted down to our own day it is hardly necessary to prove. It is in the air. It is in the hearts of our people. It shone from the faces of two million men who carried the fresh strength and youthfulness of America to war- jaded Europe — and carried new heart to those wonderful soldiers of France. Did anyone fail to recognize this spirit? Everyone felt it. But even Americans themselves were inclined to take it for granted. It is the greatest single asset in the United States today. It is the guarantee of the per- sistence of the institutions which it has inspired* FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 13 Roosevelt loved the open spaces. But like most out-of-door Americans his love of nature was not purely idyllic. He was a keen hunter, a good ranchman, a naturalist of distinction. He was one of a long line of distinguished Americans who have been at home in the woods. ! It is an interesting fact that some of our most characteristic Americans have been surveyors at some period of their lives. This list includes Washington, Daniel Boone, Andrew Jackson, Thoreau, Lincoln. One of the fundamental things about a surveyor is that he blazes a trail; that he defines boundaries which hitherto have been vague and in dispute. A surveyor in the first place must be accurate, and in the second place he must be self-confident. He must be undismayed by any temporary obstacles and barriers which stand be- tween him and his objective. There is something particularly appealing in this type of man in this age of problems so varied and difl&cult of definition, with so many human and material variants. George Washington, at the age of twenty-two, was in command of troops at the outbreak of the French and Indian War. At exactly the same age, seventy-six years later, Abraham Lincoln was chosen captain of his company in the little army of volunteers formed to fight Black Hawk along the frontier between the Illinois and the Wisconsin rivers. Both these men brought to the over- whelming problems of their later years the steadi- 14 THE NEW FRONTIER. ness of nerve, the self-confidence and the patience which resuhed from their early training. They had experienced the cleansing effect of contact with woods and hills and rivers. They had come under the strong, clean influence which has had so powerful an effect upon the spirits of men from the beginning of recorded history. The story of Christ in the wilderness, the tradition of Saint Francis and his friendship for the birds., emphasize the influence which open spaces — which nature in all its aspects has exerted upon the minds of men down to our own time, and will always exert. It is not easy to ^tand among the ferns on the edge of a mountain brook, with the sun flickering through the trees and sending shafts of gold down into the pools and eddies, and deliver a well-rounded and effective anarchist oration. Nor is it in such places that men devise schemes of industrial oppression. The peasants scattered over the great area of Russia are not radicals. An American farmers' soviet in North Dakota is a contradiction in terms. Even in the great congested cities of America it still remains to be proved that a tradition of liberty and opportunity established on the successive frontiers of a continental wilderness are going to be cast aside as outworn, simply because inequalities and imperfections exist in our present system. Undoubtedly the individualism of Crockett and Boone and the ringing counsel: "Trust thyself! Every heart vibrates to that iron strmgl" need to FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 15 be supplemented by a fuller vision of the rights of others, the principle of give and take, the willing- ness to play the game as it must be played under twentieth century conditions. On the other hand, it is to be hoped that the time will never come so long as America is America when a vigorous and constructive individualism will be subjected to a uniform measuring-stick. It ought never be pos- sible in America for any group of people to organize millions of men to the extent where individual excellence is kept down by an arbitrary prohibi- tion against self-realization and personal distinction. We must cling to the individualism of the pioneer spirit, but we may supplement the motto "Trust thyself!" with this otherwise counsel, "Trust thy fellow man." It will be interesting to individualize a little more the frontier life and to see what kind of people these frontiersmen were. Perhaps if we can catch their spirit it can be traced down through the generations as it has manifested itself in the lives of a few individuals who are by common consent recog- nized as typical Americans. The best way to call up in our own time a picture of the backwoodsman of the Alleghanies is to see him through the eyes of Theodore Roosevelt, whose whole life was an em- bodiment of the American spirit. In the brilliant fifth chapter of "The Winning of the West," Roosevelt says, "Along the western frontier of the colonies that were soon to be the i6 THE NEW FRONTIER United States, among the foothills of the Alle- ghanies on the slopes of the wooded mountains and in the long trough-like valleys that lay between the ranges dwelt a peculiar and characteristically Ameri- can people. . . . They all bore a strong likeness to one another in their habits of thought and ways of living and differed markedly from the people of the older and more civilized communities to the Eastward." He goes on to say that these backwoodsmen were Americans by birth and parentage, but of a mixed race, including a dominant Presbyterian Irish ele- ment which was represented by Andrew Jackson, Samuel Houston, David Crockett, and James Robert- son, "The other pioneers who stand beside the above were such as Sevier, a Shenandoah Hugue- not; Shelby, of Welsh blood; and Boone and Clark, both of English stock." There were Ger- mans, Huguenots, Hollanders, and Swedes, but the Presbyterian Irish, who are most commonly re- ferred to as Scotch-Irish, form the kernel of the distinctively and intensely American stock who were the pioneers of our people in their march Westward, the vanguard of the army of fighting settlers, who with axe and rifle won their way from the Alleghanies to the Rio Grande and the Pacific." The backwoodsmen were men of force who lived their lives in rough hewn homes, very often tem- porary in character, in clearings where a few families were grouped together throughout the wilderness. FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 17 "The backwoodsmen's dress," says Roosevelt, ''was in great part borrowed from his Indian foes. He wore a fur cap or felt hat, moccasins, and either loose, thin trousers or else simply leggings of buck- skin or elk-hide and the Indian breech-clout. He was always clad in the fringed hunting shirt of homespun or buckskin, the most distinctively national dress ever worn in America. It was a loose smock or tunic, reaching to the knees, and held in at the waist by a broad belt from which hung the tomahawk and scalping knife. "His weapon was the long, small-bore flint-lock rifle, clumsy and ill balanced, but exceedingly ac- curate. It was very heavy, and when upright reached to the chin of a tall man. . . . The marks- men almost always fired from a rest and rarely at a very long range; and the shooting was marvel- ously accurate. " In the conquest of the West the backwoods axe, shapely, well poised, with long haft and light head, was a servant hardly standing second even to the rifle; the two were the national weapons of the American backwoodsman and in their use he has never been excelled. "The life of the backwoodsman was one long struggle. The forest had to be felled, droughts, deep snows, freshets, cloud bursts, forest fires, and all the other dangers of a wilderness life faced. Swarms of deer flies, mosquitoes, and midges ren- dered life a torment in the weeks of hot weather. i8 THE NEW FRONTIER Rattlesnakes and copperheads were very plentiful and, the former especially, constant sources of danger and death. Wolves and bears were inces- sant and inveterate foes of the livestock and the cougar or panther occasionally attacked man as well. "Every true backwoodsman was a hunter. . . . He perforce acquired keenness of eye, through ac- quaintance with woodcraft and the power of stand- ing the severest strains of fatigue, hardship, and exposure. He lived out in the woods for many months with no food but meat, and no shelter what- ever unless he made a leanto of brush or crawled into a hollow sycamore." ■ It is easier for the men of our own generation to visuahze the backwoodsman himself, than to visu- alize his wife and children in the hard surroundings which are here set forth, but it is well to bear in mind that the wife of the backwoodsman lived the same life that he did, partook of the same dangers, ate the same food and kept house among the same primitive inconveniences and total absence of luxu- ries. And when their children were born they, too, grew up in the same hardship. The wilderness with all its expanse and power and simplicity made its impress on their character and ran in their very blood. "When a boy was twelve years old he was given a rifle and made a fort-soldier, with a loop hole where he was to stand if the station was at- tacked." The men and women so trained and so FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 19 reared became part of a distinctive race, full of vigor and individuality, capable of exerting a tre- mendous influence upon all who came in contact with them, and unlikely themselves to be too deeply moved by the influence of men nurtured in a different environment. Simple, vigorous, direct, the American frontiersman became a standard for all time of stalwart and self-reliant manhood. Roosevelt continues, "A single generation passed under the hard conditions of life in the wilderness was enough to weld together into one people the representatives of these numerous and widely dif- ferent races, and the children of the next genera- tion became indistinguishable from one another. Long before the first Continental Congress as- sembled, the backwoodsmen, whatever their blood, had become Americans, one in speech, thought and character, clutching firmly the land in which their fathers and grandfathers had lived before them. . . . They had become as emphatically products native to the soil as were the tough and supple hickories out of which they fashioned the handles of their long, light axes. Their grim, harsh, narrow lives were yet strangely fascinating and full of adventurous toil and danger; none but natures as strong, as freedom loving and as full of blood de- fiance as theirs could have endured existence on the terms which these men found pleasurable. Their iron surroundings made a mould which turned out all alike in the same shape. They resembled one 20 THE NEW FRONTIER another and they differed from the rest of the world — even the world of America, and infinitely more the world of Europe — in dress, in customs and in mode of life." This was the first stage in the great epic of the American frontier, one of the most fascinating and inspiring stories in the history of the world. It was predominantly an individualistic era. But the next stage begins to give evidence of organization for the purposes of cooperation and formal govern- ment, and Roosevelt's stirring story sweeps us along until we come to the little group which started westward from the Carolinas in 1771 under the leadership of Robertson and took up their resi- dence on the Watauga. It soon became evident that some form of govern- ment must be established, so it was determined to adopt a few simple rules of action which were ac- cordingly drawn up and known as the Articles of the Watauga Association. There, along the head- waters of the Tennessee, they were the first men of American birth to establish on this continent a free and independent community. To describe this association briefly, it appears that the freemen of each little group of block houses which could be looked upon as a center of a communit}^ of interest sent a member to the first meeting of their legis- lature. There were thirteen representatives who elected five to form a court. Let Roosevelt finish his story: "Thus the Watauga FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 21 folk were the first Americans who, as a separate body, moved into the wilderness to hew out dwellings for themselves and their children, trusting only to their own shrewd heads, stout hearts, and strong arms, unhelped and unhampered by the power nominally their sovereign. They built up a com- monwealth which had many successors; they showed that the frontiersmen could do their work unas- sisted; for they not only proved that they were made of stuff stern enough to hold its own against outside pressure of any sort, but they also made it evident that having won the land they were com- petent to govern both it and themselves. They were the first to do what the whole nation has since done. It has often been said that we owe all our success to our surroundings; that any race with our opportunities could have done as well as we have done. Undoubtedly our opportunities have been great; undoubtedly we have often and la- mentably failed in taking advantage of them. But what nation ever has done all that was pos- sible with the chances offered it? The Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the French (in America), not to speak of the Russians in Siberia, have all en- joyed, and yet have failed to make good use of, the same advantages which we have turned to good account. The truth is, that in starting a new nation in a new country, as we have done, while there are exceptional chances to be taken advantage of, there are also exceptional dangers and difficulties to be 22 THE NEW FRONTIER overcome. None but heroes can succeed wholly in the work. It is a good thing for us at times to compare what we have done with what we could have done, had we been better and wiser; it may make us try in the future to raise our abilities to the level of our opportunities. Looked at abso- lutely, we must frankly acknowledge that we have fallen very far short indeed of the high ideal we should have reached. Looked at relatively, it must also be said that we have done better than any other nation or race working under our conditions." There can be no doubt that we have in this frontier tradition an element which is definite and pervasive in the shaping of American character. The lessons to be drawn from it are capable of daily application. Its vigor and creative energy are evident everywhere in the life and spirit of our people. The main purpose of this book is to point out how this great heritage may invigorate our work and keep fresh our inherent idealism. But we need, first of all, to fix in our minds a clear idea of the impulses underlying the frontier tradi- tions, and to make better use of them because of our more definite reaHzation of their origin and potentialities. Without a full appreciation of these initial impulses to our greatness as a people there can be no thorough understanding of true Ameri- canism. It will be well then to pursue the analysis of Americanism from several viewpoints. ' It may seem a far cry from the life of the back- FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 23 woodsman to the writings of a young scholar at Princeton University; but it is an interesting fact that in his " Division and Reunion," written in 1892, the President of Princeton showed a deep feeHng for the significance of the America west of the Alleghanies. At that time Mr. Wilson said, " It was an awkward, cumbersome business to subdue a continent in such wise — hard to plan and very likely impossible to execute. Under such circumstances nature was much bigger and stronger than man. She would suffer no sudden highways to be thrown across her spaces; she abated not an inch of her mountains, compromised not a foot of her forests. Still, she did not daunt the designs of the new nation born on the sea-edge of her wilds. Here is the secret, — a secret so open it would seem, as to baffle the penetration of none, — which many witnesses of the material growth and territorial expansion of the United States have strangely failed to divine. The history of the country and the ambitions of its people have been deemed both sordid and mean, inspired by nothing better than a desire for the gross comforts of material abundance; and it has been pronounced grotesque that mere bigness and wealth should be put forward as the most prominent grounds for the boast of greatness. The obvious fact is that for the creation of the nation the conquest of her proper territory from Nature was first necessary; and this taskj which is hardly yet completed, has been 24 THE NEW FRONTIER idealized in the popular mind. A bold race has derived inspiration from the size, the difficulty, the danger of the task. "Expansion has meant nationalization; national- ization has meant strength and elevation of view. *Be strong-backed, brown-handed, upright as your pines, By the scale of the hemisphere shape your designs,' is the spirited command of enthusiasm for the great physical undertaking upon which political success was conditioned." We see spread before us here something new in history: a selected group of people from a variety of stocks, pushing out into a rich, continental area, completely shaking off all the traditions of caste and class distinction which in their European homes had seemed bred into the very marrow of their bones, a group practically free from all governmental restraint except such as they voluntarily set up for their own protection and convenience, living in an atmosphere dominated preeminently by the one great demand of self-preservation. We begin to distinguish, as a fundamental characteristic of the American spirit, worked into its fabric during the susceptible years of its youth, the characteristic of confidence in itself; and we have the emphasis on material things which grew out of a life close to nature, when almost every waking moment of the time and energy of each individual had to be de- FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 25 voted to material things if existence was to be maintained. Now comes a vital point. It is clear, as we have seen in the brief outline of the Watauga Associa- tion, that in the earliest days something more than self-confidence and attention to material things came out of this laboratory of freedom. An analysis of some of these traits is made by Professor Max Farrand in his excellent brief summary of American history, "The Development of the United States." He says: "At the basis lay the qualities of bravery, resourcefulness and self-reliance which were in- dispensable to the maintenance of life on the frontier, and all America passed through the frontier stage. Adaptability was a product rather than an original quality. . . . One of the shrewdest character- izations ever made was that an American likes better than anything else to make a dollar where no one else has seen the chance or where somebody else has failed. ... It is easy to see how out of the conditions existing other traits developed such as cheerfulness, good nature, generosity, and above all, a deeply rooted belief in an opportunity for every man, a conviction which ultimately led to the principle of fair play and the doctrine of the square deal. " Still other characteristics sprang from the youth- fulness of the people. ... A sense of humor is conspicuous in American temperament, and whether it comes from an appreciation of the incongruous or 26 THE NEW FRONTIER from scorn of any lack of adaptability, from a 'magnificent spirit of exaggeration,' from a surplus of nervous energy seeking relief, or from any other of the numerous explanations, the necessary con- ditions seemed to exist in the new country." The youthfulness of point of view is particularly worthy of emphasis. In a life which involved the stimulus of a constant renewal of scene and effort, we have seen that Washington and Lincoln had both won their spurs as commanders of troops at the age of twenty-two. Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury at twenty-five. Thomas Jefferson was Governor of Virginia at thirty-six. Theodore Roosevelt was a member of the New York Legislature at twenty-eight. There is in this long record of public service by youthful men, and an equal number of men mature in years but young in spirit, an interesting emphasis upon the joy of life which everyone feels who comes in contact with American affairs. There is still notable among us a considerable absence of the sophistication which centuries of struggle and tragedy have left as an inheritance to the people of many countries. There goes with this a whole-hearted love of play and a considerable lack of self-consciousness. The crowd at a country fair, at a base-ball or foot-ball game, in any one of a thousand American communities, the enthusiasm of great accomplishment of the part of men in high position, the quick reaction to gen- erous impulse, all of which one finds to a notable FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 27 extent in America, are some of the characteristics of the nation and its people. They have their origin in the life and spirit of the frontier. - Is it not evident that the frontier carries a great inspiration lesson for the present generation? The last material frontier has been conquered and the forests have all been explored. The waste lands are all charted and crossed by countless trails, and simply await the necessities of our expanding civili- zation to be subdued by the mechanical processes of irrigation. Nevertheless, America has just begun to face the test of her strength. A nation of a few millions of people on the Atlantic coast has expanded into more than a hundred millions, and the very problems of existence are again, as in the frontier day, taxing to the utmost the ingenuity and the self-reliance of our leaders. Was there ever a time when self-reHance was more needed? Are not cheerfulness and the American sense of humor de- manded? Was there ever an era in which a con- tinental viewpoint, a firm rehance upon the orderly processes of democracy, and a high idealism were more vital? We have just stood before the world in a great war as the advocates of straightfo inwardness and fair dealing. The relations between man and man which were reduced to their lowest terms in the hard school of the frontier, the political practice of going straight to the point, free of all diplomatic subterfuge, which characterized the public life of 28 THE NEW FRONTIER the frontier's greatest son, Abraham Lincoln, which characterized the diplomacy of Roosevelt, were again set before the world in the war against Ger- many, when we advocated the rights of small nations to determine the life they should lead. Among the diplomatic messages of the great war some of the American notes stand out as profoundly characteristic of the American spirit, and they are characteristic, not because of anything new in them, but because their roots lie back in the days when our people were fighting out their destiny across a great continent. "As we turn from the task of the first rough conquest of the continent there lies be- fore us a whole wealth of unexploited resources in the realm of the spirit." It is unfortunately true that in the age we live in, the formal rehgion of many people is dormant; yet the^human tendency to set up something worthy of reverence, something consecrated, something worshipful, is partly satisfied by their love of de- mocracy. A thousand people may give a thousand definitions of what democracy really means, but fundamentally in this country there is a long tradi- tion of deep respect for the orderly processes of legislation, for the give and take of discussion and disagreement over a daily succession of theories and suggested reforms, all finally resulting in putting it to a vote, announcing the awesome words, "The motion is carried," and turning to the next business. It is a feature of this method of action that it has FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 29 behind it the abihty to back up words with deeds. This is essential. But the willingness in an ex- tremity to fight for principles which are beheved to be sound, the early frontier spirit of bravado, pos- sibly the over-readiness to fight, all these would have but little in them of truth for our present day and generation unless out of the strength of the physical frontier had quickly developed the principle that right is mighty and that the eternal truth of things is not conclusively proved by the strong man knocking the weaker man to the ground and beat- ing him into unconsciousness. Those in whose con- ception the democratic ideal is strongest have a firm conviction that in America raw force is just a Httle better under control than it is in some corners of the world, that among us, self-reliant men are just a little more inclined to do the right thing because it is right and not because they are required to do it by law or by force. It is an open question how many more lynchings and murders and riots and other kinds of mob violence we must submit to before we reach an era in which the faith of these idealists of democracy may be fully justified. But let it be hoped that those who believe that the minds of Americans can permanently be shaped by violence will give thought before it is too late to the enthusiasm, and even the fanaticism, that so often underHe a conviction as closely akin to religion as is our devotion to tradi- tional American democracy. Let those persons who 30 THE NEW FRONTIER believe they can substitute a rule of might for a rule of reason beware of wounding public sentiment too far, lest a red flame flash out of the pioneer American heart and wholly consume them. Ameri- can democracy is quite as capable of inspiring end- less enthusiasm and devotion as are the systems which would destroy it. The rugged and simple Americanism of the frontier, expressing itself in practical politics, is exemphfied in the hfe and thought of Abraham Lincoln. In him we feel a deep love of the essence of America which we all fail to keep before us as vividly as we might. Often we do not appreciate it because we are so close to it that we see the im- perfections more vividly than we do the broad, underlying principles which make America what it is and what it signifies to the outside world. It is a world spirit. It stands vividly and compellingly before the immigrant who leaves his home and crosses a continent and an ocean to become part of it. This subtle force has never been described better than by Lord Charnwood in his splendid "Life of Lincoln" where, in speaking of the Civil War, he says, "It must never be forgotten, if we wish to enter into the spirit which sustained the North in its struggle, that loyalty for union had a larger aspect than that of mere allegiance to a particular authority. Vividly present to the mind of some few, vaguely but honestly present to the mind of a great multitude, was the sense that even FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 31 had slavery not entered into the question, a larger cause than that of their recent Union was bound up in the issues of the war. The Government of the United States had been the first and most famous attempt in a great modern country to secure government by the will of a mass of the people. If, in this crucial instance, such a government were soon to be intolerably weak, if it was found to be at the mercy of the first powerful minority which seized a worked-up occasion to rebel, what they had learned to think the most powerful agency for the uplifting of man everywhere would, for ages to come, have proved a failure." Our race has not declined. The war gave evidence of the splendid manhood, equal to any in the world, available to fight when fight we must. But rarely, we hope, will this generation or its successors be called upon to muster its full physical strength to confront in arms the problems which oppress the world. Here at home the physical frontiers are gone. The forests which remain are scarcely an adequate playground for the teeming millions of today. But the great frontier of American character, the endless succession of frontiers of our own time, all men must recognize. The ancient strength is still at the heart of our people. Face to face with a new wilder- ness of trackless problems of the spirit, confronted by the task of blazing trails through uncharted regions, social, industrial, financial, political, we shall show the same skill, the same patience and adaptability, 32 THE NEW FRONTIER the same self-confidence which characterized the men who made America, The greatest inheritance of a man or woman in the United States is the conscious- ness of the victories of the men and women who went before. If sojourners from overseas are working among us to perpetuate other traditions, we must spare no pains to teach them our own. We must instil into them the enthusiasm for the ideals and traditions which win from us not the tribute, of lip service but the changeless devotion which can be inspired only by those things which are worthy and of good report; we must teach the new Americans an un- conquerable faith, not in the frozen and inelastic detail of institutions, but in the vigorous, youthful heart of America. In the great days, the strenuous and trying days, which lie ahead, we may well look upon the lives of the men and women who blazed the way for us; we can throw back our shoulders and hold up our heads and look the world in the eye with pride because we are the heirs of the spirit of the frontier, the inheritors of the tradition of those men and women who, being thrown upon their own resources in a vast continental wilderness, instead of degenerating into the savagery which surrounded them, laid the foundations of the greatest republic on any continent. Throughout our entire history there is the ring of necessary work triumphantly done, of creative en- thusiasm, of the energies of men brought to bear FRONTIER OF AMERICAN CHARACTER 33 upon generations of effort which to another race might have seemed only impossible drudgery. It is the frontier spirit which Roosevelt knew so well. It is the spirit interpreted in the sentences of Emerson Hough: *'The frontier! there is no word in the English language more stirring, more intimate, or more beloved. ... It carries all of the old Saxon command, 'Forward.' It means all that America ever meant. It means the old hope of a real personal liberty, and yet a real human advance in character and achievement. To a genuine American it is the dearest word in all the world. "The fascination of the frontier has ever been and is an undying thing. Adventure s the meat of the strong men who have built the world for those more timid. Adventure and the frontier are one and inseparable. They suggest strength, courage, hardihood — qualities beloved in men since the world began, qualities which are the very soul of the United States, itself an experiment, an adventure, a risk accepted. . . . We had our frontier. We shall do ill indeed if we forget and abandon its dreams." And we still have our frontier. It is a frontier industrial, financial, commercial, political, social, educational, artistic, diplomatic, religious. Let us not forget that the old frontier constantly presented problems without precedent. It seemed to be impossible of conquest and settlement. But settled it was. If we do not "forget and abandon 34 THE NEW FRONTIER its strong lessons, its great hopes, its splendid dreams," if we do not lose our grasp upon its vigor and common sense, if we do not forsake our price- less heritage of a sense of humor, we shall find that we are measurably nearer the settlement of the new wilderness, that we are steadily pushing forward the fighting line of the New Frontier. THE LEADERSHIP THAT MADE AMERICA Occasionally the world produces a man who does not need to read history. He is history. Like the youth in the essay of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "In the sleeping wilderness, he has read the story of the Emperor, Charles the Fifth, until his fancy has brought home to the surrounding woods the faint roar of cannonades in the Milanese, and marches in Germany. He is curious concerning that man's day. What filled it? The crowded orders, the stem decisions, the foreign dispatches, the Castillian etiquette? The soul answers — Behold his day here! In the sighing of these woods, in the quiet of these gray fields, in the cool breeze that sings out of these northern mountains; in the workmen, the boys, the maidens you meet, — in the hopes of the morning, the ennui of noon, and sauntering of the afternoon; in the disquieting comparisons; in the regrets at want of vigor; in the great idea and the puny execu- tion, — behold Charles the Fifth's day; another, yet the same; behold Chatham's, Hampden's, Bayard's, Alfred's, Scipio's, Pericles's day, — day of all that are born of women. The difference of circumstance is merely costume. I am tasting the 3S 36 THE NEW FRONTIER self-same life, — its sweetness, its greatness, its pain, which I so admire in other men. Do not foolishly ask of the inscrutable, obliterated past what it cannot tell, — the details of that nature, of that day, called Byron or Burke; — but ask it of the enveloping Now ... Be lord of a day, and you can put up your history books." Men and women, not books, make history. Re- corded history is largely the story of human achieve- ments and failures. It has been said that in the biographies of its men and women may be read all that is essential in the chronicles of a nation. And yet we are the product of the past. No great race can be unmindful of the history of its founders. What Emerson dreamed, what Lincoln suffered, what Roosevelt did, all have a bearing on what we are and what we do today. All that the pioneers accomplished is a precious and inspiring heritage for the men and women of our own time. The spirit that conquered a continent must never die. We cannot appreciate this spirit fully unless we understand it clearly. We have not allowed the fame of our great men to grow dim; but have we not been satisfied in this generation with too super- ficial a view of those whose lives embody the living fire of liberty and democracy and opportunity? Have we not, in our busy times, inclined too much to use the names of Jefferson and Washington and Lincoln as connoting abstract patriotic sentiments, and largely failed to clothe these men with red- LEADERSHIP THAT MADE AMERICA 37 blooded personal attributes? It will be helpful to get acquainted with some of our forefathers. This is, perhaps, reason enough for advocating a wider reading of American history and biography. But it is not the primary reason which it is desired to emphasize in these pages. The first reason for reading the history of the United States is because of its absorbing interest. This interest lies not only in its variety and sweep and human vigor, but particularly for Americans in the fact that it deals with the actions of men who met, in a variety of forms, problems similar to those which confront us in our own day. It may be offered as a general assertion that the average mature American of today knows too little about the history of his own country. This is partly due to the fact that we have been too busy to be very analytical about ourselves or our own past doings, and it is perhaps due even more to the fact that only recently have we become of age. For perhaps two hundred years after the settlement of America, European standards and traditions had their way with us, and in a work-a-day country where practical matters were the most important consideration, the few men who had time to read or write history turned their attention as a sort of poetic relief to the highly colored and melodramatic phases of Euro- pean progress. Many Americans wrote brilliantly in their chosen fields. Prescott was absorbed by the Spanish tradition. He has left us a vivid charac- 38 THE NEW FRONTIER terizatlon of the Spanish Court in its most brilHant days; but he has touched upon America only in connection with the romantic episodes surrounding the conquests of Cortez and Pizarro to the south- ward. Washington Irving felt the lure of Spain. Motley, with a firm conviction that everything connected with republican endeavor must be sound and just, left us an entertaining if somewhat preju- diced account of the rise of the Dutch Republic. Nor was this alien tendency due alone to the fact that European events were superficially more bril- liant. It was due partly to an historical tradition which laid the greatest possible emphasis upon con- ventional, political and military developments, in comparison with which, of course, the little contests connected with the foundation and development of the United States seemed insignificant. It is only in our own time that writers of history are giving due credit to the progress of human character. Pro- fessor W. C. Abbott of Yale, in his "Expansion of Europe" has set forth this new point of view as brilliantly as any modern writer. All through his two strikingly vivid volumes he lays emphasis upon history as a chronicle of the development of the mind of man, as a record of the advance of living and thinking men and women, rather than as a bluebook of dynastic quarrels and royal marriages. *' If there is one characteristic of European peoples," he says, "more extraordinary than another in the field of intellect, it is the amazing discrepancy be- LEADERSHIP THAT MADE AMERICA 39 tween their actual and their recorded history. Had their development been confined to those concerns which filled their annals to the exclusion of almost every other topic — the ambitions and activities of their rulers, war and diplomacy — the story of the three hundred years which culminated in the careers of Louis XIV and Charles XII would resemble nothing so much as the accounts of the rise and fall of Tartar and Zulu tribes; the exploits of Jenghiz Khan and Timur the Lame; of Chaka and Dingaan. Where there are a score of volumes on the elaborate and, for the most part, futile intrigues over the dis- position of the inheritance of Charles II of Spain, there is scarcely one on the evolution, in the same period, of the mightiest agent of the modern world, the steam engine. Where there are a hundred narratives of the battles of the wars with which the Eighteenth Century began, there is hardly to be found a tolerable account of that economic revolution which then commenced to alter the whole basis of civilized society." ' He refers also to the progress of chemistry, par- ticularly the work in the middle of the eighteenth century of the Swedish pharmacist Scheele, whose discoveries included the organic acids, such as tartaric, oxalic, citric, and gallic; manganese, chlorine, baryta; and estimates of the proportion of oxygen in the air. "With this work modern chemis- try may be said to begin. And while it is futile to make the trite moral comparison between the labors 40 THE NEW FRONTIER of such men as these and the spectacular achieve- ments of captains and kings, in their respective contributions to the comfort and capacity of the race, one may at least claim a place for them in the history of Europe beside the mistresses of Louis XV or even the conquests of the great Frederick." Professor Abbott does not advocate the changing of human nature. The vividness and sympathy with which he writes prove beyond peradventure that he has a keen appreciation of the love in every man of a good story — of great battles lost and won, of epic chronicles of courage and of daring. But he believes that modern history has a responsibility in the way of clarifying the fundamental significance of the best experience of the race so that this sig- nificance may be understood by men who are not engaged primarily in leading great armies in the field of battle but, on the contrary, are devoting most of their time to leading men and women in the no less difficult fields of action which charac- terize modern life in times of peace. In setting forth this view, one of the best things that can be said about Professor Abbott is that he has demonstrated not only the possibility, but also the brilliant realiza- tion, of just what he advocates in principle. The following paragraph will summarize his views on this point and will perhaps indicate his equipment as a representative of the modern school of American writers of history whose work it is a pleasure to read. LEADERSHIP THAT MADE AMERICA 41 "To most men no literary art can make (the chronicles of artists, inventors and thinkers) com- parable in interest with the dramatic vividness of battles lost and won, of great designs carried to victory or to defeat, of the unending human comedy and tragedy whose conflicts form the undying theme of human interest. The study can never compete with the field of battle as the subject of history. Yet, in a wider view, the multitudinous activities of these untitled leaders in the common cause of humanity, engaged in this great conflict with the forces of ignorance and the dark, the struggle of these champions of liberty with those of intrenched dogma and autocracy and these dis- coverers of new knowledge and new power, take on an aspect no less dramatic and far more important to the cause of progress than all the glittering triumphs of statesmen and generals. For the cause which they championed, the interest which they served, are those which went to make the world we call our own. . . . And in the fields of knowledge and capacity, popular government and freedom of thought, these pioneers of the forces of light drove their mines deep under that stately edifice of worldly power which, at the height of his glory, the Grand Monarque was raising before the eyes of men. That edifice was to endure scarcely a century. To its fall, as to the structure which arose in its place, it was the glory of these leaders of thought to con- tribute; and from their eflPorts rather than from the 42 THE NEW FRONTIER achievements of those who filled the world's eye, came the next advance in the real progress of man- kind." The new American history, therefore, takes into account many developments and movements of the human race which are attended perhaps with less of the colorful and melodramatic than one finds in the average page of European history. The contrast is something like that between the pageantry and tinsel of a highly staged melodrama and the sim- plicity of a Ben Greet production of Shakespeare. Or perhaps, for Americans it might be better to contrast the shock and color of a conflict between a field of men in armor, with their vast array of heraldic standards and burnished steel flashing in the sun, and on the other hand the quiet, stealthy gray-brown progress of a group of backwoodsmen trailing through the forest to meet a band of Indians on the warpath; or more recently, the men in khaki who won new glory for the name "American" on the battlefields of France. This contrast perhaps brings out as well as anything could the feeling of the lover of American history for the chronicles of his own country. He feels that, after all, the most interesting story is the one which touches most frequently the springs of that human action and human feeling which we ourselves can understand. He believes that there was at least as much of poetry and fire and dramatic colorfulness in the fighting Americans at Belleau Wood as there was in LEADERSHIP THAT MADE AMERICA 43 the gaily decked warriors who led the crusades of other days. But there is another point. American history is the history of our own people, the people whose blood runs in our veins, the people whose actions and reactions have shaped our own life and character and who have handed down to us an atmosphere and tradition which, in spite of ourselves, will largely shape our attitude toward the problems of the future. It is true that the leadership of today must face a variety of problems, national and international in scope, which will require originality of treatment and a fresh imagination; but certainly this leader- ship will always need that deep and permanent confidence in itself, that courage and conviction in the soundness of one's country and its people, and the lightness of its manifest destiny, which have their roots so deep in the heart of American tradi- tion. We have happily left behind us the time when it was regarded as fashionable to entertain a certain condescension toward our own history. First of all there is the background. American his- tory is not an isolated growth, but a chronicle of a portion of the human race; and just as the American of today can understand himself better by know- ing his ancestors of the past two centuries, so Ameri- cans of all times may gain something by the study of the history of other peoples. Probably the best brief analysis of this background is "The Expansion of Europe" by W. C. Abbott, previously referred 44 THE NEW FRONTIER to. Dr. Abbott, as an American, recognizes fully the significance of colonial expansion in the develop- ment of the modern world and sets forth brilliantly the influence of the Age of Discovery in expanding the thought of Europe, and laying the foundations upon which America was built. The early history of the American continent starts off in a period of the affairs of the world which has no superior in romantic interest. The stirrings among the more liberal spirits of Europe following the enlightened days of the Renaissance and the Reformation, the fascinating and almost unbelievable story of Marco Polo, the successful series of great adventures launched under Prince Henry the Navigator, which brought the East in touch with Europe by sea, the addition to the humdrum daily life of Europe of articles whose very name is the fabric of romance, formed a lively setting for the discovery of the West Indies by Columbus. Columbus was moved by a desire to find a short route to India and to bring to Spain something of the wealth which the Portuguese ships were bringing in around the Cape of Good Hope, cloths of silk and gold, ginger, Brazil wood, sandalwood, diamonds from Golconda, rubies, topaz, sapphires and pearls, rich tapestries and priceless rugs. In the first chapter of his "Beginnings of the American People" Professor Carl Becker has painted a picture of these visions of wealth and luxury which filled the minds of the men of the latter part LEADERSHIP THAT MADE AMERICA 45 of the Fifteenth Century: "Walles of silver and bulwarkes or towers of golde . . . lakes full of pearls, Indian princes wearing on their arms 'golde and gems worth a city's ransome.'" And so the story goes of great palaces with stairs of silver and pavements of silver and gold, and walls sealed over with plates of beaten gold. "In contrast," he continues, "how small and inferior is Europe. Here was Eldorado, a symbol of all external and objective values which so fired the imagination in that age of discovery; presenting a concrete and visualized goal, . . . attainable not by contemplation but by active endeavor; fascinating alike to the merchant dreaming of profits, to the statesman intent on conquest, to the priest in search of martyrdom, to the adventurer in search of gold." This was indeed a Frontier! Out of this great stirring came pioneers. Their motives ran the gamut from the deepest spiritual and missionary purpose to the most unvarnished and insatiable greed; but underneath it all there stands a spirit of adventure, of conquest, even of idealism which must be reckoned with among the elements which went into the shaping of what we know as the American character. It was this spirit that became more sharply defined in the days of Raleigh, Drake and Hawkins and translated itself into the splendid national spirit of the age of Elizabeth. Alfred Noyes has written, "There had been legends and fairy tales of happy islands where men 46 THE NEW FRONTIER walked with gods as with their elder brothers, but never before had there been such a revolution of miraculous realities, for here was discovery on dis- covery of unimagined oceans and continents. Veil after veil was withdrawn only to make more mys- terious the veils beyond. It was as if men were sailing out into the vastness of the eternal. "Never before had it been possible to sit in a tavern and hear from the lips of those who had sailed beyond the utmost limits of the old world that the fairy tales were infinitely less marvelous than the truth. ... It was as if men had suddenly discovered that their earth was after all, not a thing of make believe, a dust-bin of customs and groups, but a real island floating in the mystery of an infinite heaven. i "It was seriously discussed in the little black taverns *at the latter end of a sea coal fire' whether men might not sail straight up to the gates of Paradise. The Bible and the map, in Hakluyt's phrase 'had opened doors for them.' "But for the greater intellects of the time it meant an even more vivid revolution of the isola- tion of their little hearth fires in an unfathomable universe. It meant a spiritual voyage through an immeasurable abyss of darkness in quest of a spiritual Cathay." This stirring spirit sought out the utmost confines of the world and brought our own continent within the knowledge of men. It is well in estimating this LEADERSHIP THAT MADE AMERICA 47 spirit to which we owe so much in the development of America, to reaHze that it was not from England alone but from the whole of Europe that we in- herited the tradition of restless quests for new worlds to conquer. While the early permanent colonies, which won their independence and became the United States, were predominently English in tradi- tion, and while we have the right to claim a spiritual connection with some of the proud traditions of British constitutional liberty, we have seen that the men who developed the first characteristically Ameri- can spirit were not the colonial Englishmen of the seacoast, but a mixed race. It is significant to bear in mind also that the great number of early explorers who revealed this continent to the im- agination of Europe were largely continental Euro- peans. Columbus was a Genoese boy who, at the age of twenty-one, declared before a notary that he was by trade a weaver. The spirit abroad in the land developed in him, living as he did in a famous maritime city, a love of going out onto the sea in ships, and on one of these trips he was wrecked and landed on the coast of Portugal. When he developed his project for a westward voyage he tried in vain to get support from the rulers of Portugal, England and France, and finally after a persistency which has scarcely ever been equaled, he managed to sail under the flag of Spain. John Cabot was a Genoese boy who later became a Venetian citizen and finally sailed under the English flag; but in 48 THE NEW FRONTIER landing on the coast of America he was careful to have with him the flag of Venice. Amerigo Vespucci was a Florentine who sailed under the flag of Portugal. The pageantry of early American history is distinctly international in coloring. It is, perhaps, hard to visualize the brilliant band of men in full armor with all the colorful standards of the noble families of Spain marching across the present State of Georgia to the banks of the Mississippi under DeSoto. It is perhaps difficult to call up the picture of LaSalle, the French courtier, after an incredibly difficult canoe trip, landing among the Huron Indians in the unbroken wilderness of the region of the Great Lakes, stepping out of a birch canoe in the green forest among naked and painted savages, dressed in the red coat and breeches, patent leather shoes with silver buckles, lace ruffles, and cocked hat of the French Court. Or to come down to more modern times, how many of us have visualized the battle in the peaceful mountains of Vermont between the rugged American hill farmers and the stolid Brunswickers; or the battles further South with the well-drilled troops sent over by the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel ? Their descendants might well have inherited a memory of American fighting ability which would have averted some of the surprise which modem Germans felt when they met the descendants of Ethan Allen and his associates in France in 191 8. LEADERSHIP THAT MADE AMERICA 49 In the early years of American history there are periods which are chiefly interesting to the student of constitutional development; but the man who has never felt the thrill and sweep of the story which Francis Parkman has told in his great series of histories covering the Jesuits in North America and the exploits and adventures of the men who opened up Canada and the Northwest, has missed one of the passages in all history which is most fascinating and most significant. The stage was set for a great epic. The arena was a continent. The British zone of interest on the Atlantic coast was bordered by a vigorous and ambitious group of French on the North, and a proud and determined group of Spaniards on the South and West, while in the extreme Northwest the Russians had obtained a foothold and were laying their plans to press South and East. All the elements were there for a repetition of the partition by Europe of this continent along the lines familiar in other sections of the world. What checked this ambitious progress? The development of the American nation cannot be explained on the basis of so many thousands of soldiers and so many pounds of powder. American history could never have shaped itself as it has without a marked element of the spirit of adventure and self-reliance out of which had come the dis- covery of the continent and which had established itself in the very bone and sinew of the early settlers. 50 THE NEW FRONTIER Finally the main lines are laid. The Spanish, the French, the English influence plays each its part, along with the Scotch, the Irish and the Welsh. Then we have the Dutch and the Swedish and the Russian touches and the influences exerted by our contacts with the Indians, the Mexicans, the Negroes; and finally the Germans who were repre- sented by thousands of men and women seeking to escape the tyranny of home conditions. At length the Republic establishes itself as an independent state, and we see the infant nation struggling through the dark years which followed the Revolu- tion, the critical period of American history which led to the establishment of the Constitution. Roughly, the period from the inauguration of Washington in 1788 to the end of the administration of John Quincy Adams in 1829 forms a division easily re- membered. Then comes Andrew Jackson. The period thus inaugurated, including the rise of the vigorous Democratic sentiment, leads us up to the end of the administration of Buchanan in 1861. Another great sweep takes us from the inauguration of Lincoln in 1861 to the end of the administration of Grant in 1877 when the last Union troops were withdrawn from the South. And finally there is the period of growing national consciousness from the inauguration of Hayes in 1877 to the end of the administration of President Taft in 191 3. These four periods are crowded with interest. The sahent facts are easy to grasp; but only in our own time LEADERSHIP THAT MADE AMERICA 51 has the story begun to be told in a way which com- bines interest with an accurate regard for the facts. With the modern development of a group of vigorous and sound historical writers, the last reason has disappeared for a profound ignorance of American history on the part of men and women who claim to love America and to believe in the institutions so slowly and bravely established by a vigorous line of splendid dreamers and fighters. It may be of interest to dwell for a moment on the question of American historical writing. Theo- dore Roosevelt was always deeply interested in this subject and was able to set a good example himself in writing history which was both accurate and interesting. In 191 2 as president of the American Historical Association he delivered an address which has since become famous under the title of " History as Literature." He admits the possibility that the essentials of sound education and democratic citizen- ship may be taught through the use of a book which lacks literary quality, but he vigorously opposes those critics who seem to feel that because a book is readable it immediately comes under suspicion on the part of scientific historians. "There are in- numerable books," he says, "that is, innumerable volumes of printed matter between covers which are excellent for their own purposes, but in which imagination would be as wholly out of place as In the blue-prints of a sewer system, or in the photo- graphs taken to illustrate a work on comparative 52 THE NEW FRONTIER osteology. But the vitally necessary sewer system does not take the place of the Cathedral of Rheims or of the Parthenon; no quantity of photographs will ever be equivalent to one Rembrandt, and the greatest mass of data, although indispensable to the work of a great historian, is in no shape or way a substitute for that work." The situation with regard to historical writing in America was recently discussed in an illuminating way by Dr. M. N. Quaife in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review. He calls attention to the fact that in the early days of historical writing in this country leading historians were regarded as men of letters, a school of which Francis Parkman was the last and greatest. "For a full generation now," he states, "the historical profession in America has been dominated by a different type of scholar. With the exception of libraries and the development of higher institutions of learning, with the growth of graded departments in scores of universities and colleges, the writing of history has become an adjunct to the teaching of history in these institu- tions. More and more it has fallen into the hands of the specialist whose work as a writer is financed, not from the sale of his writings, but by the monthly stipend for teaching in the institution which sup- ports him. . . . Emancipated from the necessity of winning the favor of their readers (or indeed of winning readers at all) . . . our university his- torians have divorced history from literature and in LEADERSHIP THAT MADE AMERICA 53 their zeal for the pursuit of facts have ignored the end of presenting these facts in acceptable literary form. As a consequence, the modern American historian has lost in the main, as he deserves to lose, the attention of the reading pubhc." This analysis by Dr. Quaife may be supplemented by calling attention to the fact that the preparation of an adequate discussion of any substantial period of American history is not an easy task. It is the work of a hfetime. Henry Adams has given us nine small volumes covering a period of sixteen years, the administrations of Jefferson and Madison, which James Ford Rhodes in a letter characterizes as the best piece of historical writing done by an American. Adams refers to himself in this language: "Adams had given ten or a dozen years to Jefferson and Madison, with expenses which in any mercantile business could hardly have been reckoned at less than ^100,000, at a salary of $5,000 a year; and when he asked what return he got from this ex- penditure, rather more extravagant in proportion to his means than a racing stable, he could see none whatever. Such works never return money. Even Frank Parkman never printed a first edition of his relatively cheap and popular volumes numbering more than seven hundred copies until quite at the end of his life." Mr. Rhodes has set an example of public service in retiring from a successful business and devoting twenty years to the preparation of seven brilliant 54 THE NEW FRONTIER and highly readable volumes covering the period from 1850 to 1877. The last volume of this history was pubhshed in 1906 and Mr. Rhodes was pre- vented from continuing this work by the popular demand for public lectures and for a single volume on the Civil War. He has only recently been able to complete and pubHsh his final volume, bringing the narrative from 1877 down to the administration of President McKinley. The nation is richer be- cause of the existence of these splendid volumes. The study of American history cannot fail to be an unceasing inspiration to Americans. To leaders of American thought a knowledge of the nation's history is, and always has been, a necessary equip- ment, and it is easier today than it has ever been to get a working knowledge of the great subject from brief and readable sources. Of course, one must live with it and become a part of it in order to love it; it is not a work which can be accomplished in a day; it can be fully acquired only through the companion- ship of a lifetime. But amid the variety of publica- tions with which an intelligent man must maintain a working familiarity, there is perhaps no greater joy than to have a living and constantly expanding subject so close to his heart — a hobby, a source of perpetual enjoyment; and in days of temporary discouragement and weariness of the spirit a source of fresh inspiration, confidence and hope. In the history of America is the story of a new nation, and indeed of a new world — a living record LEADERSHIP THAT MADE AMERICA 55 not of man's devices, but of man. In the words of James Russell Lowell: "O strange New World that yit wast never young, Whose youth from thee by gripin' need was wrung, Brown foundlin' o' the woods, whose baby-bed Was prowled roun' by the Injun's crackHn' tread, And who grew'st strong thru shifts an' wants an' pains. Nursed by stern men with empires in their brains, Who saw in vision their young Ishmel strain With each hard hand a vassal ocean's mane; Thou skilled by Freedom and by great events To pitch new states ez Old World men pitch tents, Thou taught by fate to know Jehovah's plan, Thet man's devices can't unmake a man." WHAT IS A LIBERAL? Inflexibility of purpose, a dogged determination to get forward, enforced by exceptional vigor and vitality, was a prominent characteristic of the frontier American. This fixity of purpose was not of the grim gloomy sort. It was relieved by an abundant sense of humor — and a sense of humor is a sense of proportion, a willingness to compromise, a demand for results, "an idealism with a genius for the practical." This is the attitude of mind which has come to be known as liberal. It implies vigorous convictions, tolerance for the opinions of others, and a persistent desire for sound progress. It is a method of approach which has played a notable and constructive part in our history, and which merits a thorough trial today in the attack on our absorbingly interesting American task. Let us try to define this useful word liberal. The Standard Dictionary has it that to be liberal is to be "free from narrowness, bigotry, or bondage to authority or creed, as in religion; inclined to demo- cratic or republican ideas, as opposed to monarchical or aristocratic, as in politics; broad, popular, pro- gressive; free, from birth; manifesting a free and WHAT IS A LIBERAL? 57 generous heart." A study of contemporary editorial writing, which fairly represents contemporary usage reveals a constant use of the word as descriptive of the attitude of the average vigorous thoughtful person, patriotic, tolerant, and eager for results. It is the attitude of the great portion of the population who, after the merits of a question have been fully discussed by the extremists, both reactionary and radical, want to see if something can be done about it, if any action is called for. To define the hberal, and to point out the need for a keener and more complete organization of effort on the part of liberals, is not to criticise the extrem- ists. The ground is plowed up by the specialists in reforms and Utopias. But when their new republic is completely set forth in theory, the workaday world needs specialists in applied idealism, specialists in the work of keeping the wheels in motion; it is the liberal who determines how much or how little of the radical's dream can actually be translated into useful action. America has urgent need today for the liberal group. This group must be mobilized and recognized for what it is, with its responsibilities clearly defined. The radicals are recognized as radicals; generally they are willing to be called radicals; but now and then they encroach on the precincts of the middle group. For example we hear of the Harvard Liberal Club, which would seem, in fact, to be a Harvard Radical Club. It is important that the younger men, 58 THE NEW FRONTIER in and out of the colleges, should stand forth frankly for what they are. The radicals have their place; but a plea is here made for a substantial number of organized liberals among the men who are to be the leaders of the future. There will always be a good supply of young men who are anxious to reform the world forthwith. The supply will never fail of those who enter the world of affairs committed to the preservation of things as they are. Between these two groups we need men who will see the world as a whole, men who realize that preservation of essen- tial institutions in a changing world means the careful and practical adaptation of those institutions to modern needs. In short we require men to whom the leaders of industry and government today can hand over the great working machinery which mankind has devised to feed and clothe itself under conditions of law and order. The outstanding men of America today, par- ticularly the business men, are not unaware of the changing temper of the times. It is a notable fact that much of the most substantial and permanent progress has come out of the thought and effort of practical men of affairs. Such progress is sure. It is slow, often too slow for the temper and patience of some eras. The war has so stimulated the thought and self-consciousness and aspiration of the world that this orderly progress is too slow for an active minority of men today. The cry of "speed up" is ringing round the world. It touches a responsive WHAT IS A LIBERAL? 59 cord in every right-minded person and it must be considered. And yet, in our efforts to heed this demand, we must recognize its dangers. Such recognition points at once to the need for the Hberal mind and for the leader of hberal training. It is an inexorable law of progress that great and reasonably lasting changes involving the relationships of men cannot be hastily effected. Any attempt to rush the world simply affords excitement for the impatient. In spite of temporary unrepresentative legislation, in the long run only such reform as has the deep sanction of the minds and hearts of the majority of people can establish itself as an integral part of what we know as the civilizing progress of the race. The deduction from this may well be that man- kind as a whole is not radical. It may prove further the necessity for liberal thinking to prevent the con- servative tendency of the race from degenerating to inertia. We need keen and alert critics of the world as it is. We need eloquent prophets of the world as it ought to be. We need poets and interpreters of Utopia, and ministers of the divine discontent. The mariners of old set a course by the stars for the distant islands of their dreams. In the hope of each voyager there was a sure, straight course to Cipango or Cathay. But the true course was not known until hardy adventurers had risked their lives in a thousand journeys across uncharted seas. The true courses never would have been found but 6o THE NEW FRONTIER for the men who were wiUing to find out the truth at the risk of steering for the false, at the risk of finding at the end of a long and hazardous voyage, not the wealth of the Indies, but sandy wastes or limitless and unprofitable regions of snow and ice. The American pioneer pushed steadily toward the setting sun, impelled by his love of the great free spaces, and undaunted by the risks and dangers of his task. The American spirit was not born of an unwillingness to see changes wrought in the fabric of human relationships, when such changes seemed calculated to increase the happiness of the race. The spirit of the frontier is not conservative; and yet it is not the spirit of the malcontent and the agitator. It is the liberal impulse of free and vigorous men and women in whose minds there is an ordered purpose, calculated to produce a substantial measure of happiness. The hope of America lies in keeping this pioneer impulse fresh and active in the hearts of succeeding generations of men who are not to be adventurers across unknown oceans or un- explored continents but rather pioneers in the still uncharted regions of human relationships, organizers of the vast problems of the new frontier of pro- duction and distribution, and the government of organized society. We have always had liberals; but we have never had enough liberal leadership. Liberals have their place in many parties; they may be good Republicans or good Democrats, and sometimes good Socialists. WHAT IS A LIBERAL? 6i But they have too often failed of their greatest eflPectiveness because they have been too ready to assume a selfish attitude and avoid organized activity. They have too often been mere critics. They have seen the true course, but have been "too busy" to do anything about it. They have been the reserves rather than the shock troops. The Hberal citizens have more frequently been called upon as a unit when the issues before the public were non-partisan in character, or when partisan issues were carried to a point where the interest of the whole public was directly involved. Sometimes this uprising of liberal sentiment mani- fests itself in a municipal election and finds expres- sion in naming of a good government ticket. Today it is manifesting itself in the settlement of issues involving the existence of democratic institutions. The vote which reelected Governor Coolidge in Massachusetts in the fall of 1919 was not a con- servative vote. It was, to a large extent, liberal. Even the radicals were represented in this vote — those who think too well of America "with all its faults" to be wilHng to endorse a strike of a part of the people's government against the people whom it was the sworn duty of the strikers to protect. Meanwhile, because some radicals have been led to adopt measures which are violently subversive of government and consequently unpatriotic, there has been a tendency to assume that patriotism and con- servatism are synonymous. This is a dangerous point 62 THE NEW FRONTIER of view, particularly when it leads the ultracon- servatives to wrap themselves in the folds of the flag and cry "no concessions to reform because all reform is tainted with a spirit un-American." A partnership between the stars and stripes and Bourbonism is no better than an alHance between the American flag and the red flag. Any successful attempt of reactionaries to identify themselves to the exclusion of others with principles of American- ism, can only be expected to fill with despair the Hberals whose love of America inspires them to bring about through votes the improvements in the condition of their fellow beings which they believe to be right and necessary — which they believe indeed to be the very essence of free, democratic institutions, and hence of American institutions. Here is where liberal leadership enters. It seeks to lead and mold pubHc opinion toward a fair middle course; to make clear that the average middle-of-the-road citizen is the one who suff"ers, if the extremists are allowed to occupy the field alone. The conviction of the liberal is not of the luke- warm variety. He believes as deeply and as vigor- ously in firm, ordered progress as the most ardent anarchist believes in blowing up statesmen. Though the liberal platform may be less brilliant and spec- tacular than the extremist platforms, it is destined to give relief to the body politic, the body social, to provide a breathing space between periods of hot WHAT IS A LIBERAL? 63 pursuit of world-shaping panaceas, so that natural processes may work. The liberal is the family- doctor called in when the exhausted and feverish patient — the public — has sunk down in utter despair, feeling unsound in every organ; and the doctor recommends a rest, a less feverish pace, rather than a radical operation. In short, the liberal view is the view of the common every-day man, the man on the street, and the view of the labor leader and the corporation head who have retained their contact with simple living and clear thinking men and women. It is the point of view of the long suffering American public — rarely heard from as a whole, but just now giving signs of an impending self- assertion, forced upon it by a generation of buffetings and affronts. Another way to define the liberal is to outline his place among the other groups in the community. Who is who in America? President Mitchell of Delaware College declares that "we have today four parties: the party of the radical or the child; the party of the young man or the progressive; the party of the mature man or the conservative; and the party of the old man or the reactionary." This is suggestive; but common experience indicates that we have in America many old men, young at heart, who are essentially progressive, and many young men, old beyond their years, who, in fancy at least, are devotees of other and better days, young men more conservative than their fathers. It is not on 64 THE NEW FRONTIER the basis of age entirely that public tendencies can be grouped. It may be a trifle more exact to take as a working basis these five groups: Syndicalists, or violent radicals, Socialists and other law-abiding radicals, liberals, conservatives, and reactionaries. The Syndicalist group includes in this country the I. W. W. They believe in what they call "direct action," namely, strikes and sabotage. "Sabotage consists in habitually loafing on the job, putting sand into the oil, putting sticks and pieces of metal into delicate machinery, destroying crops, misdirecting shipments of goods, annoying and irritating em- ployers in countless secret ways." For practical pur- poses we may place in this group the anarchists and *' Reds " whose methods of bringing about chaos differ slightly in detail but who have the common charac- teristic that they choose to live in America, and yet are wholly out of sympathy with every fundamental principle of the American nation. They do not hesitate at assault, arson, theft or murder, and they have no use for the popular vote unless they happen for the moment to control it. With the Socialists it is somewhat different. One of the best things that can be said for the Socialists is that the Syndicalists look upon them as con- servatives, if not as reactionaries. They are not believers in private property or individual initiative; but, while there is a wide range of doctrine that claims to be Socialist, fundamentally it should be WHAT IS A LIBERAL? 65 borne in mind that these disciples of Karl Marx are generally content to bring about their purposes through the machinery of the popular vote, which is the most important fundamental of the American system. At the other end of the line, we have the extreme reactionary, who has ample money to pay his current bills, who is opposed to any change in his conditions of living or methods of doing business, who believes that everything that is, is right. He wants to main- tain the status quo in perpetuity. From the liberal standpoint, the reactionaries are decidedly less try- ing than the Syndicahsts in that they do not believe in violence. But their Americanism is distinctly pre-Revolutionary. Their behef in American in- stitutions involves so many qualifications, in the shape of an abhorrence of Congress, of the machinery and temper of democracy, of popular government in most of what they term its vulgar manifestations, that they are more akin to the intolerance and snob- bishness of the kaisers and czars of now discredited regimes than they are to the true spirit of the United States of America, As for the conservatives, one of the best things that can be said in their favor is that the reactionaries look upon them as radicals and demagogues. The conservatives as a group believe in American in- stitutions. They believe in strict recognition of traditions, both as to the spirit and the letter. But in the last analysis, when an issue is brought to vote 66 THE NEW FRONTIER they abide by the decision with no small degree of good nature, and go about their business with an industry, and, withal, an inteUigence, which is of the greatest value in keeping the machinery of the RepubHc in motion, and protecting it from an undue variety of shocks and disturbances. Finally we have the Hberals. This group in America today is the largest of all. It includes most of the nation's workers, the keen, alert men and women in business and professional life, on the farms, in the newspaper offices, and in the factories, who provide a great part of the silent vote in our popular elections. Indeed it is the most representative and, on the whole, while varying from time to time according to the temper of the day and the particular issues involved, potentially the strongest and most national element in the country. These groups make up the great human pageant which is America. The line between them cannot be drawn with exactness; but the main elements of the groups are not hard to recognize. If we leave out of consideration for the present, as so limited in numbers and lacking in popular sympathy as to be comparatively unimportant, both the Syndicalist group and the reactionary group, we have left a fairly clear definition of our three chief forces. We have on the one hand a group of Sociahsts and other radicals who are in sympathetic alliance with the Socialists, who beheve that speedy and far-reaching changes in our social and political system should be WHAT IS A LIBERAL? 67 brought about; and at the other extreme we have a group which is, perhaps, too contented with the present industrial, social and pohtical situation. Between these two, quite distinct in the mass, but blending at either end of the line with the more extreme groups, we have the liberals. They are today the real hope of the nation. As we move in great diagonals, first toward the left and then toward the right, as the subtle and indefinable forces of action and reaction sway the popular tendencies toward the conservative or toward the radical point of view, it is the function of the Hberals to prevent these swings from attaining too great momentum and driving us too far from the sane middle-of-the- road policies which alone in the long run can be national, as contrasted with group, policies. The liberal seeks the sohd and eternal middle- ground, perhaps less alluring than the by-ways, but visible through the ages as the highway of the actual forward movement of the race. No man or woman can be called liberal today who lacks a deep sense of the necessity for adjustments and even substantial changes in the relationships of men and things. But where the radical simply wants to go, the liberal wants to go somezvhere. When a half-considered measure of reform is proposed, the radical shouts, "Now," the conservative retorts, "Never," while the hberal may simply say, **Not yet." The liberal finds himself opposed to any plan calculated abruptly to alter American institutions. 68 THE NEW FRONTIER He realizes they are doubtless imperfect, being of human construction; but he knows they were not set up in a day and should not be torn down in a day. They are the result of an evolution, and were gradually shaped by the dreams and errors and in- spiration and sweat of whole generations of men and women, in times of stability, and also during periods quite as saturated with unrest as our own. The liberal seeks, therefore, to prevent extremists from fooling the public with the magic falsehood which has undermined the stamina and common sense of all people who have let themselves believe in it, the age-old cry of the necromancer, the alchemist, the swindler and the radical agitator: "Here is something for nothing!" The liberals are not a class. Their greatest mission is to merge class distinction into American- ism. But the varying degree of speed in national progress produced by the conflict of vigorous op- posing groups is the excuse for the very existence of a working platform of liberalism. It would be a dull and stagnant world without extremists to stimulate the circulation of ideas. The friendly war of wits and enthusiasts has done more for progress, year in and year out, than all the staid logic of the schools. The heat of conflict, with its bitter war-cries and stinging give-and-take, and its ever present sense of humor, has never hurt America. It flourished in the ardent days of the Revolution. It was a saving grace in the Old West. Because it is char- WHAT IS A LIBERAL? 69 acteristic of the genius of our people, we must take care not to curb it too tightly. Men of command- ing personality, with the native vigor of the sons of pioneers, have often led us into tangled by-ways of political and economic absurdity. But we have followed, and we shall always follow; because men and women, even the highly trained, will always have a fundamental craving for vigorous leadership, even though it be blind leadership. And of late, we have been led to our hearts' content, groups of us this way and that, swept off our feet by propo- nents of economic cure-alls and industrial Utopias. It is only when this hot but ordinarily friendly action and reaction becomes clouded with mutual suspicion and hatred; when it involves deep- seated distrust by one group of Americans of other groups of Americans; when it threatens the welfare and happiness and even the lives of our people, that it ceases to be tolerable. Then we need to call a halt and ask ourselves, not as groups or parties, but as Americans: Whither are we headed? In approaching the industrial problem, for ex- ample, it falls to the liberals, who are free to think without being influenced by the preconceptions of extremists, to express the belief that Americans are too vigorous a race to rest upon the laurels of past achievement, too farsighted to assume that the soundness of every American institution is self- evident, and that all proposed changes are sacrilege. That is not the spirit that built America. That is 70 THE NEW FRONTIER not the spirit in which we may profitably approach the problem of social unrest which has to an un- precedented degree for more than a year filled the columns of our newspapers, and stirred the deepest feeUngs of our people. Possibly in a situation of this sort the liberal method of approach is the only road to sanity and ultimate solution. First of all, it is important to distinguish be- tween industrial unrest and revolutionary agitation tending toward the over-throw of government. There is no inherent difference between the anarchist who brings his direct action to bear upon the object of his hate through bomb-throwing, and the an- archist who works less directly through the processes of industrial agitation. But this fact does not necessarily render identical Red radicalism and even the excessive demands of patriotic labor. The exist- ence of industrial conditions which need correction make the labor field a fertile one for the activi- ties of the American Bolsheviki. The confusion of industrial agitation with efforts tending to over- throw our Government and institutions has long been a source of great strength to the Reds and a great source of weakness to labor. The misrepre- sentations with regard to the needs and desires of labor which have been made current by agitators who have no constructive interest in labor condi- tions has been a powerful generator of ill-feeling and misunderstanding in all branches of the industrial world. The liberal does not believe that a more WHAT IS A LIBERAL? 71 loyal group exists than the rank and file of American labor. The average laboring man is far more scornful of the Red than the average lawyer or doctor because he has come into contact with the Red and has had an opportunity to appraise him. None the less, the perpetual agitators exist, and do great harm. What we need, and what we can get with patience and insight, is an attitude of fair play both toward labor and toward the radical agitator. This last mentioned group is found in every age and in every land. Their disease may be called criminal im- patience. They are children who seek to get what they want by snatching it. In them the animal instinct to kill and tear down is predominant. And when they work upon the passions of men who have a grievance they naturally bring about an at- titude of mind which is more extreme than their average humble follower realizes in the heat of a strike or a riot. Under our Constitution and laws we cannot prevent these persons, in time of peace, from giving expression to their views. In these days we are still unconsciously influenced by the highly militant spirit developed during the war, but we cannot afford to forget that a war must be waged, even by a democracy, under a system of temporary autocracy. When the war has been won we cannot too soon remind ourselves that our own forefathers who landed at Plymouth and Boston sought out those wild shores across an almost un- 72 THE NEW FRONTIER known ocean largely because their views were un- acceptable and their language intolerable to the leaders of public opinion in the land from which they came. In a recent case in the United States Supreme Court, Justice Holmes, in a dissenting opinion called attention to this foundation stone of American liberty. He said: "We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country. "Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsel to time, warrants making any exception to the sweeping demand: * Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.'" ' When overt acts are committed against the Government or its citizens there should be a more swift and sure retribution than anything yet de- veloped by any national or city administration. Where proof of law-breaking is conclusive there should be less talk of action and more action. There is no qualification possible to this necessity. There is no possible compromise between the intrenched position of Americanism and the militant activities of Syndicalists, anarchists and revolutionists. The American Legion and good citizenship generally WHAT IS A LIBERAL? 73 cannot do too much to rid the nation of these sub- limated murderers. This is a Hberal policy also. The Hberal is not opposed to vigorous action, but he believes that such action should come only when it is positively and clearly justified, and then it should be taken with promptness and unqualified determination. The liberal does not even maintain that revolution is never justifiable. But he be- lieves it should not be lightly entered upon. His views are fully expressed in the language of the Declaration of Independence: "When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, ... a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. . . . Prudence will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. . . . But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a de- sign to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." These are carefully chosen words. Should similar conditions of oppression arise a similar remedy is always at hand. But it behooves those who resort to this remedy to be sure of the desperate character of their state of oppression, and to realize that acts 74 THE NEW FRONTIER of treason and rebellion become acts of revolution only after they have succeeded. ■ In these matters infinite patience is required to apply the rule of justice. There is no question in America today on which fair-minded men so fre- quently differ as the question of just where the line is to be drawn between the right of free speech and the abuse of that right. However, the Hberal maintains that the right itself is such a sacred and vital element in the system of liberty and democracy, that it must be maintained even when it is bitterly unpleasant to do so. It must be clear that an autocracy of opinion is not conceivable in America. Except in the emergency of war we cannot maintain that ideas unpopular to the majority are verhoten. Arthur Woods, in his valuable book, "The PoHce- man and the Public," cites an instance of a liberal method of handling an agitator. "On the day in question a good-sized crowd was being exorted by an earnest young woman. The day was warm, the sun was shining, one of these grateful first days of spring which so gladden our hearts after a persistent, dreary winter. The sky was blue, the breeze gentle. The men in the crowd were contented and good-natured. They had fin- ished their lunch and were listening rather curiously and tolerantly to the orator, most of them placidly smoking. She was declaring that about everything connected with government was wrojig; that rulers were slaves of capitalists; that workers were slaves WHAT IS A LIBERAL? 75 of rulers; that the whole situation was intolerable and should not be permitted; that, in fact, most everything was wrong, and the only real way to right it was to listen to her, — she would point out the way, then the people could rise in their might, smite their rulers, and run things. The crowd kept on calmly puffing at cigars and complacently en- joying the comfortable after-lunch feeling and the auspicious spring noon. "A newcomer walking down Broadway joined the crowd. Possibly he had had no lunch, or too much, for he seemed to take seriously the words of the speaker which were making no impression upon the others. He blurted out in a loud voice that if she didn't stop saying things like that he would make her! She answered tartly, for that was just the opportunity she wanted, a chance to start things, — she hadn't been able to work the crowd up at all until now. The man was irritated by her reply, made a movement toward her, and announced that he would show her 'what was what.' "At once the atmosphere changed. Men straight- ened up, took their hands out of their pockets, puffed cigars faster. Faces began to tighten. People moved in closer. The complacency of a few moments before had gone. Tenseness was re- placing it. "The policeman assigned to cover that meeting was standing on one side of the crowd; he too had been enjoying the weather and the warmth. He 76 THE NEW FRONTIER was comfortably braced on legs spread apart at exactly the angle which would give him the best support and call for the least effort, swinging his night stick idly back and forth and giving no heed to the meeting, for, as an individual, he was not in- terested in the doctrine that was being expounded, and, as an officer of the law, nothing was happening which demanded his attention. With the change created by the coming of the outraged citizen, however, a new condition developed. "Stepping up to the objector the officer touched him on the shoulder and said pleasantly, 'Come, my friend, you'll have to cut this out/ "'Cut nothing out! Do you hear what she's saying, officer.? Why don't you stop her.f* If you don't, I will!' '"Now see here,' the policeman soothingly an- swered, 'this here is her show. She isn't violating any law and as long as she don't I'm going to pro- tect her in her meeting. If you want to hold a meeting, go over to the other side of the street there and I'll protect you too.' "This closed the incident. The objector walked off, the group of listeners went their several ways, smiling and amused, and the orator disappeared." This chapter may serve to define in a preliminary way what a liberal Is. What the liberals seek is that a standard may be set up which will be the rallying point, not of men who are seeking to win a victory of might, but a standard on which are blazoned th^ WHAT IS A LIBERAL? 77 words of Lincoln: "Right is might," a standard consecrated to the preservation of those few simple rugged principles which are woven into the brawn and spirit of America, a standard borne aloft by idealists who have actually attained the practical. THE POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD In the words of a recent writer, "The pecuHar mental disease of the time is a vague desire to make the world better combined with absolute ignorance of how this is to be done." In the previous chapters an effort has been made to define the practical idealism of the frontier with a long tradition of definite accompHshment behind it, as a vital element in Americanism, and to interpret it for present-day purposes in the form of a con- sciously liberal attitude and method of approach. It is the main thesis of this book. If it were fully understood, there would be no object in further dis- cussion in these pages. But at the risk of over- emphasis it seems proper to avoid the danger of leaving this thought in the realms of the ideal, and thus neglecting one half of its force. We must make an effort to apply liberal principles to some modern American problems, not with an idea of offering a solution of the problems themselves, but by way of illustrating in some small measure the greater possibilities of these principles when applied over the whole range of the American Hfe of today. 78 POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 79 Let us take for example the liberal in his relation- ship to politics. He is a balance-wheel. The radical is dangerous only when the hberal is quies- cent. The conservative tends towards reaction only when the liberal is inactive. In our own day the extremes in politics have drawn too far apart. Their differences sometimes appear irreconcilable. But In America some working basis is always found; and to find It Is always the paramount duty of the liberal. This Is particularly true In the world of Industry. The political Hberal can render a supreme service in speeding up the machinery of constructive reform so that the opposing industrial elements will cease the perpetual shaking of fists In one another's faces, and get down to the business of analysis and comparison of facts. There Is too much talk of war between capital and labor. In the first place there can be no real fight if a few men who have succeeded In a financial way are supposed to be defending a system of personal privilege against millions of men and women In moderate circum- stances. The fight Is ended before It Is begun. Under a form of government where votes prevail, a system of capitalism which could be shown to be simply a system of unmerited personal privilege and recompense would not have chance enough to make the struggle even Interesting. If labor will realize the power of the ballot and Its Infinite superiority to the strike as a medium of attaining lasting results, labor will not be bo ready to conclude 8o THE NEW FRONTIER that the vote is too slow. If the radicals can win victories at the polls they will win lasting and American victories. Of course the radicals have an answer to this. Mr. Morris Hillquit in the fifth edition of his History of Socialism in the United States says, in speaking of the difficulties in the path of the rapid growth of socialism: "Another obstacle has been the political system of the country. Paradoxical as it may seem, our very democracy has militated against the immediate success of socialism. . . . Politics has become as much an industry with us as railroading or manufacturing. This situation has bred in the mind of the average American, including the Ameri- can workingman, a deep-seated feeling of indifference, even contempt, for politics, which is anything but conducive to the development of a radical move- ment for political reform." In other words, as a believer in democracy might put it, the Socialists have failed to convince a suf- ficient number of American voters of the rightness of their cause or the desirability of their candidates to enable them to succeed largely in the political arena. Therefore they will no longer play the game. They will invent a new game with rules of their own, and be their own judge and jury. . ' r^ i Mr. Hillquit continues: "The difficulties of all such reform movements are still more aggravated by the so-called 'two party' system in American politics. Ever since the creation of the republic POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 8i the contest for political power has been waged be- tween two, and only two, dominant parties. New political parties, so-called 'third parties,' have ap- peared in the arena from time to time but not one of them has developed any appreciable strength and stabihty. As a rule they have, after a more or less tempestuous career, been absorbed by one of the old parties. The two party system thus sanc- tioned by tradition, is now largely continued by design. The dominant political parties, the Re- publican and Democratic, are in the nature of political trusts. Together they control all the offices and 'patronage' of the country and almost the entire press and other organs of public expres- sion. They have the backing of the great industrial and financial interests and the support of large armies of trained and speciaHzed political workers. They divide all political 'spoils' among themselves, mostly by methods of struggle and conquest, and sometimes by voluntary apportionment. The task of a new party to replace either of them or to gain a permanent or important footing alongside of them is thus from the outset a very difficult one." The net result of all this is that it is a difficult job to get a new system of thought or a new social order adopted in America. Is that a fault in our system? Or is the fault with the Socialist proposal.? Have they not enough devotion and enthusiasm, coupled with necessary knowledge of organization and publicity methods, to play the game in America 82 THE NEW FRONTIER with American tools? Has any party a vested right to a place in the sun except upon a basis of con- vincing the minds as well as touching the hearts of our people? The trouble is that the Socialists, like all other human beings, are impatient for re- sults. It never occurs to them that perhaps the verdict so far pronounced by the majority of Ameri- cans may be right. Socialism may not be right for America. It certainly is not an American policy until American voters vote for it. Mr. Hillquit himself adopts a more patient at- titude toward the present political machinery when, at the close of his well-written, and, to a liberal wholly unconvincing, book he says, "Many of the measures of industrial,''social and political reform, originally advocated exclusively by the Socialists, are gradually being forced into the platforms of other parties and organizations. The Socialist program has become one of the favorite topics of discussion in books, in the periodical press, and on our public platforms. Socialism is at last beginning to get a hearing before the people, and the people of the United States move fast when once they are set in motion." : This passage answers the charge of Mr. Hillquit made in the previous quotation. He admits he is getting a hearing. Despite occasional hysterical in- stances of un-American repression, in Albany and elsewhere, the Socialist who is loyal to America will always have the right to be heard. He can ask POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 83 for no more. If his cause is right it will prevail. But if it is wrong, we shall hope that liberal lead- ership, following the immemorial custom of Ameri- can politics, will absorb into one or the other of the great parties from year to year, all that is good of it, or all that the people are ready for. This is what was done by the Democrats and to some extent by the Republicans with the doctrines of the Pro- gressive Party. It was done by Jefferson with much of the best doctrine of the Federalists, so that there was nothing for that party to do but go out of busi- ness. It has always been one of the most magni- ficent safeguards of American liberalism and orderly democracy to absorb little by little the good in all the new and radical groups that have been springing up among us. It keeps us in the middle of the road, going forward always, perhaps not as fast as we should, but certainly not turning turtle in road- side ditches because we are off the road, or speeding. As for the radicals we must face the fact that they are working to win. They cannot be ignored; and they can only be met by organization and full partici- pation in politics by the liberal element in the com- munity. The following brief and pertinent edi- torial recently appeared in a New York newspaper: REGISTRATION Registration began yesterday and will continue the remaining days of the week. If you believe there is a better way of conducting government than by riot and force see that your name is on the voting list. 84 THE NEW FRONTIER The citizens of New York took the advice offered. A great many were busy men and women who ordinarily belong to what is known as the "silent vote" — the group which appears at the polls only to register a conviction. The vote means something to these people. They reahze that the people often vote for bad measures. But they have an enduring and fundamental faith that in the long run the people vote right — that the vote is indeed the only pos- sible machinery for a sane middle-of-the-road democ- racy to employ. They believe it is the answer of the ages to the two extremes of mob rule and Kaiser rule. This middle-of-the-road democracy is worth a little study. It is a very good thing to tie to in times like our own. In one sense it is a policy of compromise. Sometimes it is hard for some of our leaders to get into their minds the distinction be- tween compromising on principle and compromis- ing on everything else in the world except principle. Parson Campbell said to young David Balfour when he was starting out on his journey of life, "Be soople, Davie, in things immaterial!" This is traditional American doctrine. The only danger in- volved in it is that in this country where freedtTm of thought has led us to give full credit to every man's point of view, people are too ready to believe there are two sides to every question, in the sense of two right sides. This is not liberalism but intellectual nihilism. It leads men to assume that the truth POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 85 cannot be arrived at, that a working basis is im- possible to attain. In trying to avoid dogmatism and an intolerant or a reactionary point of view we have given too much consideration to utterances in which the precentage of truth was so small as to be negligible. H. G. Wells is quoted as having said at the end of a long argument with a group of men in a London club, lasting until four or five o'clock in the morning, that he was through with arguments. He always found, he said, that after all present had argued until they were tired out it almost always appeared that the difficulty was simple and fundamental, one that could have been settled in ten minutes, and involved a failure to define the terms which were the basis of the discussion and which each man was using in an entirely different significance. One of the tasks of liberal leadership today is to arrive at a definition of terms, the common plat- form of principle and understanding. After this common basis of discussion has been arrived at it will very often appear quite clearly, not that both sides to the controversy are right, but that both sides are intelligible. Then for the liberal leader who is looking to acquire not simply a philosophical understanding of life, and a human sympathy with the tendencies in human nature toward extremes of radicalism or conservatism, but also a course of action for today and tomorrow, the true solution will often seem to lie in a middle course. "We 86 THE NEW FRONTIER have achieved democracy in politics," said Theodore Roosevelt, "just because we have been able to steer a middle course between the rule of the mob and the rule of the dictator. We shall achieve in- dustrial democracy because we shall steer a similar middle course between the extreme individualist and the socialist, between the demagogue who at- tacks all wealth and who can see no wrong done anywhere unless it is perpetrated by a man of wealth, and the apologist for the plutocracy who rails against so much as a re-statement of the Eighth Commandment upon the ground that it will 'hurt business.'" In his study of the Civil War, James K. Hosmer says of Lincoln, "The Democrats and border-state men blocked abolition measures as they could, while the Republicans pushed them ever more energetically. Between the two opinions Lincoln sought a middle course." The lessons of accom- plishment and of liberal progress for the people of this nation, embodied in the lives of Lincoln and Roosevelt, are worth study by men who are too ready to believe that conviction on a particular point immediately calls for them to take a high moral stand and declare with great emphasis: **This issue involves a principle," "On this subject there can be no compromise"; "There is nothing to arbitrate." t There come times in the lives of men when ar- bitration must end, when no further compromise is POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 87 possible. Both Lincoln and Roosevelt faced such crises with firmness and high courage. But liberals of today will do well to realize that the occasions are few when compromise can be impossible, if un- willingness to compromise must lead to bloodshed and disaster, and may in the end not bring about the results accomplished. There have been few men in this world who could afford to be sufficiently sure of themselves, sufficiently confident of their individual judgment and insight in dealing with issues involving the happiness of great bodies of men and women, to be able to take the position that there is nothing to arbitrate. The great forward steps in the history of the world have been taken by men who combined a burning conviction of the tightness of their cause with the profound practical ability to get that cause one step farther toward its realiza- tion this year, and another step forward next year and another step forward the year after, firmly establishing each forward step on the basis of public opinion. In great leaders patience has not been inconsistent with enthusiasm. This is progress in the middle of the road. This is the vigorous but steady and permanent progress of the pioneer with his eyes definitely turned Westward. It is not the progress of Danton and Robespierre with their eyes turned inward, sweeping a nation in one step from the extreme of autocracy to the extreme of moboc- racy, only to see it swing sharply back to an au- tocracy more extreme than the one destroyed. 88 THE NEW FRONTIER Liberalism is a point of view and not a body of doctrine. It is the common law of thought and not a formal statute. The true Hberal approaches his problems one at a time; he espouses a cause only after he has thought it through. But when he has reached this point he will with enthusiasm fight the battle to the end. Great causes are never led by intellectuals. When the lines are once laid, then the leader must put his analytical powers in the background and nail his flag to the mast. "It is only on the wings of enthusiasm that we rise, and he who depends upon reason alone will never fly." This is the human element in the discussion of leadership which makes it so dramatically in- teresting. The liberal leader may espouse a cause and become so carried away with it as to go to all the extremes which his common sense makes him feel are unjustified. In the heat of battle he throws overboard his Hberalism and becomes a radical; or his success may dull the edge of his determination and he may swing to the reactionary side. In the middle of the sixteenth century occurred one of the great upheavals of history brought about by a group of men who insisted on thinking for themselves. The Reformation shaped itself from small beginnings into a great forward step in human thought and in the relations between man and man, and between man and the Church. But "The new communions soon proved themselves scarcely more tolerant that the old. Asserting their own claims POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 89 to liberty of opinion, they were quick to refuse that privilege to those who disagreed with them. It was still possible for Luther to deny the suprem- acy of Roman dogma and to denounce the doctrines of his protestant rivals with equal vigor. It was still possible for Calvin to demonstrate his right to renounce the old faith and practices, and have Servetus burned for refusing to assent to a particular arrangement of the words, 'the infinite Son of the Father* as against 'the Son of the infinite Father.'" An ever fresh supply of liberal leaders is needed, the administrators of the world, to raise standards of action for a new day and generation. And one of the most useful objects of consideration is always our National Legislature. The present Congress is made up of three hundred and twenty-three men, out of a total membership of five hundred and twenty-nine, who may roughly be classified as lawyers. Fifty-six are business men or manu- facturers, nineteen are bankers. Table of Occupational Classification of Members of Congress Senate House Total Lawyers 6i 262 323 Business men 1 , Manufacturers J Lawyer, author and college ] president I Lawyer and farmer f Lawyer and business man j Bankers S 14 19 90 - THE NEW FRONTIER Senate House Total Newspaper men and publishers 8 25 33 Farmers 6 9 15 Teachers 6 6 Doctors 2 3 5 Ministers and professors 2 2 Author and lecturer I I Dentist i i Builders 2 2 Mining men 2 2 Locomotive engineers 3 3 Iron molders 2 2 Hat worker I I Railroad conductors' representative 1 i No occupation given 6 42 48 95 434 529 It is obvious that if we are going to have a thoroughly representative Congress we need to spread out our leadership more widely. We need more trained business men and engineers. It is true that the salary of $7500 now paid to a repre- sentative or senator is the sole cause of keeping out of Congress many men whom we should like to have there. Perhaps the compensation should be higher, although in comparison with the $12,000 salaries of cabinet officers, for example, it is not strik- ingly low. But what is needed more than an increase of salary is the increase in popular under- standing of the significance of Congress so that its prestige may grow and thus strengthen the impulse on the part of the best men in the country to render service in Washington. Money alone will not lead them there. POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 91 Liberal thought has almost as much to do in bringing about a fairer attitude toward Congress as it has in bringing about a more thorough under- standing of business. There are probably in the country almost as many people who have fallen into the practice of criticizing Congress as there are people who attribute all our woes to the busi- ness and financial district of lower Manhattan. In bringing about a closer cooperation among leaders of thought, business men must get over criticizing Congress in the abstract just as Congress must get over attacking Wall Street in the ab- stract. Individuals in both groups will always be helped by just criticism; but both are a product of a complex variety of conditions, and as each system requires it, we should unite in modifying it, rather than keeping up the present tiresome and de- structive mutual recrimination. This suggestion may sound impossible, but it is important enough to merit consideration. • ,; . A discussion of Congress goes to the root of our institutions. We have a representative govern- ment, and Congress comes as near being a fully representative body as any In the world. The American system did not contemplate a Congress made up of the most distinguished, experienced and cultured men in the nation. That would be not a Senate and Llouse ^of Representatives, but a kind of Hall of Fame. The country could not afford to have all its active and trusted leaders 92 THE NEW FRONTIER spending most of their time in Washington. What we have in Congress is a representative group, typical of the trained and thoughtful men of America and of the untrained and thoughtless, the idealists and the demagogues, the selfish and the generous, the practical and the impractical, the men of dy- namic energy and the loafers. Sometimes we find a representative who is below the standard of the rep- resentative thought of his constituency, and then we may say that he represents simply the low degree of awakened responsibility which exists in his district. This is a most vital point. If the voters are asleep they cannot expect the best man in the district to take pride and pleasure in representing them in Congress at ^7500 a year. Then again, we have many districts in this country where the constituency comprises nothing but farmers, vigor- ously engaged in producing foodstuffs for America and for the world. It is not in their line to de- velop trained economists or experts in international law or forensic debate. But they can send to Con- gress a man who'is a straightforward and rugged type of American citizenship and who can throw a great light upon agricultural necessities. Big Tim Sul- livan, of New York, was quoted as saying that he could represent his East Side constituency in Con- gress a great deal better than Alexander Hamilton could have represented it. And he was right. Assuming that a district has fallen under the control POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 93 of machine politics to an extent where the votes of the people are used for personal rather than pubHc purposes, the remedy lies in raising the standard of political morality in that district and not in complaining of the quality of the repre- sentative who adequately represents the state of political education of the people whose votes elect him. If we believe in a representative system we should stop complaining of the way the system is working and take steps to see that it works better by discharging our duties as citizens, not only in times of political enthusiasm, but every time a primary or other election takes place. There are many who argue with considerable logic that a man or woman ought to retain the right of citizen- ship just so long as the right of suffrage is exercised, and that to help matters along a fine should be im- posed upon those who do not vote. It has been said of American business men as a whole, that their famous American originality and ability is shown in almost every direction except politics, and is weakest of all when it comes to local poHtics, which must be sound before national politics can be expected to be sound. The influence of Theodore Roosevelt did more than any other one thing towards cleaning out the extreme corruptions of the city governments of a generation ago. But even today there is much to be done. In all our big cities the liberal element occasionally arouses itself to a sense of responsibility and puts in a so- 94 THE NEW FRONTIER called reform administration, the temporary suc- cess of which is almost always the signal for two things: first, the retirement of the liberal element who have aroused themselves for one great cam- paign and who, feeling that a splendid result has been accomplished, go about their several lines of business; and second, the redoubled activity of the organization which is voted out of power. A host of professional politicians find themselves out of a job and set to work quietly and effectively night and day to such good effect that the next election is usually an overwhelming victory for their forces. The amount of work necessary for a group of liberal amateurs to turn out of office a group of intrenched professional politicians is out of all proportion to what can be expected over a period of years from men who are busy in other matters. The answer is that the liberal element in every community must organize and maintain a per- manent active organization of opposition, based upon principle and not upon prejudice. More men of education and private income should be willing to go into politics, as Theodore Roosevelt did, at the bottom, and become professionals in the best sense of the word, so as to lead the amateurs along right lines. There is nothing more pitiful as a rule than the misguided intentions of a group of otherwise intelligent and successful business men who get together over night and determine to win POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 95 an election. LTnless there is a dominating cause which sweeps the people off their feet such a group almost always finds itself helpless in the face of the opposition of the members of the "machine" who are professional students of popular psychology and who can turn almost anything the business man may say to their sharp disadvantage as being inspired by the "silk-stockings" and backed by the "money-bags." The only way to fight a political machine is with another political machine which knows just as much about popular psychology and just as much about the legitimate methods of political campaign- ing, but which is dominated by motives of public spirit rather than motives of private advantage. In this work leadership is necessary. What is everybody's job is nobody's job in politics. We must have leaders of practical experience whose principles and ideals have been tested by a close and life-long contact with practical politics. Let them go into the hurly-burly of politics, with its old rules and traditions, its impulsiveness, its good humor. Let them submit their personality and their ideals to the judgment of the voters, and they will find that judgment generally sound. While we are discussing the character of our public men it is relevant to refer to the interesting fact that a new influence has been injected into national politics with the advent of the woman voter. As yet the woman in national politics in 96 THE NEW FRONTIER America has no history. How she gained ad- mittance to the poHtical arena is a stirring story. But it takes a long time in the give and take of primaries and elections for any new and far-reach- ing movement to develop a set of chronicles upon which sound judgment can be passed and from which principles can be drawn. That women are in politics with a determination to make history is evident. One of the significant stories in the recent political news is the following from a New York paper, which is given in full with a change of names. z » > "Republican women of Plumville believed John J. Nowitz had called them cats and old hens and was against giving them an opportunity of voice in the party management, and he was deposed as chairman of the Plumville County Committee last night. The members of the county committee elected John W. Gallahad. Chairman Gallahad is head of a local charitable organization. He has heretofore played no part in politics. The women did not stop with forcing out Nowitz, however. They insisted upon an entirely new staff of officers, which was promptly named. Then they demanded that a woman be selected as co-chairman. Under the rules this could only be done at a special meet- ing. A special meeting was called." The women of Plumville have felt a taste of power, and they will pass the good word along. The en- trance of women into politics thus brings us one step POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 97 nearer to an unqualified acceptance of the first seven words of the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States, which reads, "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquilHty, provide for the common defense, promote the gen- eral welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." When these words were written "We, the people" did our ordaining entirely through the mascuHne half of the population. The war taught us that women can handle great organizations efficiently and constructively. The few who still maintained in 1916 that the world was standing on its head because women were al- lowed to vote are rarely heard from, since women demonstrated their power and ability as organizers and persistent workers in France, in the Liberty Loans and in a hundred branches of war relief. But even here it should be emphasized that possibly the most conspicuous cases of achievement on the part of women during the war were those where they entered without prejudice or favor into great organizations with men, working shoulder to shoulder with men, and achieving their success, not because they were women, nor in spite of the fact they were women, nor indeed as women at all, but simply as straightforward and conspicuous examples of Ameri- can character, energy and business efficiency. 98 THE NEW FRONTIER The opportunity which Hes ahead of women is a brilHant one. In a land of pioneer traditions, they have the stirring opportunity of becoming pioneers in a thousand fields, of proving worthy daughters of those women who made possible the winning of the West, to whom Emerson Hough has paid this striking tribute: "The chief figure of the American West, the figure of the ages; is not the long-haired, fringed-legginged man, riding a raw- boned pony, but the gaunt and sad-faced woman, following her lord where he might lead, her face hidden in the same ragged sunbonnet which had crossed the Appalachians and the Missouri long before. That was America, my brethren! There was the seat of America's wealth. There was the great romance of all America — the woman and the sunbonnet, and not, after all, the hero with the rifle across his saddle-horn," From the standpoint of the present discussion women are of vital importance to the America of the future because the majority of women are liberals. Many of them are conservatives, but comparatively few are sincerely and thoughtfully revolutionary. By nature they desire to achieve their ends by orderly methods. They believe in American traditions and American ways of getting results. We need the cooperation of liberal women. It will raise the standards of business and public life and give to both new character and soundness. It is perhaps more vital than many people realize POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 99 that enlightened men and women should go into pohtics. What is our situation today? What do our political parties stand for? Do we realize how necessary it is to the proper functioning of proper government that parties should represent definite human tendencies? In his History of Political Theory Dr. Simeon D. Fess, formerly president of Antioch College and now a member of Congress from Ohio says, "The rational diflFerentiation of political parties lies in the constitution of the mind. . . . Whether a man is naturally controversial or not, he ever insists upon the recognition of his rights. In political af- fairs he differs most frequently from his fellow upon method rather than matter. The conservative, who dislikes agitation for its own sake, is ever present. He chooses to suffer evils rather than risk the in- stitutions in the attempt to correct them. Not far from him usually stands the radical, who enjoys agitation and who has a propensity for righting wrongs at any price. . . . Where there are two controlling parties, one of them will be radical and the other conservative. This division is not con- sistent since it most frequently occurs that the radical today may become the conservative to- morrow, and vice versa. It may be affirmed with a degree of accuracy that the party out of power is the radical, but becomes conservative when placed in power." A generation ago Mr. Wilson, in his Congressional lOO THE NEW FRONTIER Government made the following estimate of parties: "It is probably also this lack of leadership which gives to our national parties their curious con- glomerate character. It would seem to be scarcely an exaggeration to say that they are homogeneous only in name. Neither of the two principal parties is of one mind with itself. Each tolerates all sorts of difference of creed and variety of aim within its own ranks. Each pretends to the same purposes and permits among its partisans the same contra- dictions to those purposes. . . . They are like armies without officers, engaged upon a campaign which has no great cause at its back. Their names and traditions, not their hopes and policy, keep them together." At the present time we cannot detect one single major issue of the slightest consequence to the public which is the exclusive possession of either of the great parties. This is unfortunate in a period which tries the very souls of men, when enlightened party leadership should have its greatest opportunity. After the Civil War, which had been conducted under the supreme leadership of a Republican presi- dent, the Republicans remained In power for twenty years, until the election of Cleveland. The present war was fought under the leadership of a Democrat; and this was fortunate, because the Democratic party had come into power on a platform which definitely opposed our entrance into war, so that upon the election of the Democrats and our actual POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD loi entrance into the war, the Republicans had no re- course but to support the action taken, which they did, from dictates of both patriotism and poHcy. It is impossible to intimate that either party is in any respect associated with anything unpatriotic. The issue of the next campaign, therefore, seems to be shaping itself along lines of personality and tradition. Men are Republicans because they have always been Republicans, and the Democrats like- wise, especially in the solid South where voters are only just beginning, in some of the larger cities, to believe that in national elections they should be permitted to vote with a national viewpoint and not be condemned to perpetual Democracy because of a local issue. Next in importance to tradition seems to be personality in the present situation; and the re- sponsibility of liberals is to see to it if possible that the man elected to head this nation in the four vital years which will follow 1920 is a man who has not only done some close and clear thinking upon the vital questions of the day, but who also ac- quired a sufficient contact through personal ex- perience with practical business affairs to make it likely that he will set in motion the machinery towards producing sound and lasting results. We need not simply a lover of America, but a man who will not require four years to learn how to turn his good intentions into concrete action. We cannot afford to elect a man with "a vague desire to make I02 THE NEW FRONTIER the world better, combined with absolute ignorance of how this is to be done." There has long been a demand for the business man in politics, and certainly the war developed at the head of some great department or commission in Washington a man with sufficient contact with the great problems of production as they bear upon the hves of our own people and the people abroad, and whose work at the same time brought him closely enough in touch with the homely point of view of the average citizen, to make him not only an ornament but a practical benefit, as leader of the nation. It is not sufficient in these critical years that we should have as leader in Washington a man with a fine upstanding personality, or a great orator, or a good soldier, or the author of a notable piece of legislation, or a spectacular obstruc- tionist. These qualities might prove useful. But the thinking citizen desires a man who knows and does not pretend to scorn the rudiments of politics, the machinery which must be used by a president if he is to be anything more than a well-wisher of the people. A man is needed who has had some experi- ence in the actual handling of the major problems, eco- nomic and social in character, for which it is already evident that our chief executive must assume definite personal responsibihty between 1921 and 1925. Whoever this man is, he should be able to judge of the cause and effect of the wave of unrest which POLITICS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD 103 is sweeping over the world. If America is to prosper, the leader who wins the next election will be a man with a national sympathy, and not a class or sec- tional sympathy; a man who will dare to stand for the principle that right is might. He will not try to run the government alone, and will not fear to draw around him men as strong as himself nor to give them freedom of action to carry out policies agreed upon. He will be big enough to consider the advice of experienced men, whether they be farmers or labor leaders or captains of industry, and grant special favors to none. He will not talk too much either about ideals or about action, but he will give daily evidence of a mastery of both. Such a man exists. It would be a tragedy for America in this turning point of history if he did not exist. He is a liberal . Neither the radicals nor the reactionaries of his party will nominate him. But the liberals of one of the great parties can do it, and never in our history was the concrete and specific need for the united action of American liberals more obviously demanded. It is a time when the man is more important than the party. Party platforms are vague; the need for an experienced executive in the White House is undeniable. But we live under a party system. The machinery of poHtics is necessary. It is no time for men to avoid party enrollment because they are more idealistic than the party leaders. Let them roll up their sleeves and get into the game. The I04 THE NEW ERONTIER only effective way to make a party great is to work and build within the party itself. A radical or a conservative who enrolls and votes according to his convictions is in this respect a better American than the liberal whose judgment may be sounder but who fails to enroll and to vote. PUBLIC OPINION AND THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM The public interest will inevitably determine the outcome of the present industrial problem. This chapter offers no technical solution for the present unrest. It does attempt to suggest a method of approach which may lead to a solution. The American genius for the practical can readily work out, in each one of the numerous technical branches of the industrial field, a plan which will be just and economically sound. The technical students of the subject have a wealth of ingenuity and experience to aid them. The ^raw material of industrial peace is ready to hand. What is lacking on the part of the majority of workers and employers is the will to reach a conclusion. They feel farther apart than they are. But as soon as liberal public opinion appreciates fully and specifi- cally the great stake which the people of America have in the establishment of permanent peace in the industrial world, it will increase its pressure for a settlement, and the settlement will come. What are some of the elements in the situation around which controversy turns? What does the public need to know before it can exert its irresistible los io6 THE NEW FRONTIER pressure for a gradual, common-sense working solution, a liberal solution? Ruskin remarked that "in general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes." It would be interest- ing to know how many controversies and perhaps wars would have been avoided in the history of the world if pride had not stepped in to prevent in- dividuals or nations from getting together. The pride that keeps a man from admitting he is wrong is something that requires for its correction the utmost common-sense, strength of character and sense of humor, all operating at once. This kind of pride is standing in the way of results today as it always has in the past. It is at the bottom of scores of strikes. It is responsible for an infinite variety of present-day ills. And it is surprising that this should be so when Americans perhaps as fully as any people in the world, value and applaud the very opposite of this besetting sin. We like to re- peat the story of Lincoln and McClellan. On one occasion when the General had shown scant respect for his President and Commander-in-Chief, Lincoln, with characteristic absence of false pride, said, *'I will hold McClellan's horse for him if he will only win us victories." The problem today of bringing capital and labor together is a problem of bringing together meny human beings capable of decision and understanding and sympathy. It is not a problem for persons too proud to admit the other man has some right on his THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 107 side. And the victory we are after today is not a victory for either party to the controversy, but for a third party, the pubHc. The present situation involves a fight for hfe; but it is not a fight for the life of capitalism or a fight for the life of labor; it is a fight for the life of America and American in- stitutions. The tendencies toward suspicion and enmity in our industrial life have at times manifested them- selves in a shape which has amounted to civil war. There has been bitterness, and even bloodshed. At times, strikes have multiplied until the sources of food and other bodily comforts of large groups of our people have been seriously crippled. The com- ponent halves of industry have fought one another at the expense of the welfare of the world. Colonel Henry Watterson in his memoirs of a long life rich in its contacts with all phases of public affairs brings out an aspect of our Civil War which is pertinent to this discussion. Col. Watterson him- self fought on the Confederate side, although, as he states, he was opposed to both slavery and disunion. "The wise men of both sections," he says, "saw danger ahead. The North was warned that the South would fight, the South, that if it did it went against incredible odds. Neither would take the warning. Party spirit went wild. Extremism had its fling. Thus a long, bloody and costly war of sections ■ — a fraternal war if there ever was one — brought on by alternating intolerance. . . . Anybody can io8 THE NEW FRONTIER now see that the slavery problem might have had a less ruinous solution; that the moral issue might have been compromised from time to time and in the end disposed of. Slave labor even at the South had shown itself illusory, costly and clumsy. The institution untenable, modern thought against it, from the first it was doomed. "But the extremists would not have it. Each played to the lead of the other. Whilst Wendell Phillips was preaching the equality of races, death to the slaveholders and the brotherhood of man at the North, William Lowndes Yancey was exclaiming that cotton was king at the South, and, to establish these false propositions, miUions of good Americans proceeded to cut one another's throats. ,«? *'The moral alike for governments and men is: Keep the middle of the road." At the end of a great war in which the men of the South and of the North fought side by side on the battlefields of France, we regard that other great war as a part of some strange and distant history. But it is well for us to have in mind that other elements of passion and prejudice still lie slumbering in the hearts of men, even men who are bound together by generations of common principles and common ideals. No one will deny today the good faith, either of the leaders of South Carohna or of the anti- slavery agitators of Boston. But the result of their failure to get together was the most bloody war which the world had ever seen. Good faithj then. THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 109 Is not enough. There must be patience, also, and readiness to concede. This must be the American way, if it is to be said that we have learned the lesson of a most bitter conflict. The issues which stand in the way of industrial peace today cannot safely be approached with prejudice. There is nothing uncompromisable be- tween the demands of labor and the reservations of capital, except where either the demands of labor or the reservations of capital prove to be inconsistent with the American form of govern- ment. The teaching of this lesson by liberals is rendered difficult by the many professional agitators and organizers whose last desire it is to bring about in the American nation an orderly, fair and satis- factory solution of pressing pubhc problems. These individuals thrive upon disorder and agitation. Their name is agitator, their profession is agitation. If unrest were to cease they would have to do a day's honest work. And while here again it may be unfair to say that they are not acting in good faith, it is necessary to say that the pendulum of their minds has swung to an extreme which makes them danger- ous members of society, and if this Republic is to go forward in the middle of the road toward sane living and opportunity and happiness, we cannot be guided by persons who are still, as regards their method of getting results, closely affiliated in spirit with the anthropoid ape or the cave man. It is clear that the parties to the controversy do no THE NEW FRONTIER not understand each other. Any person experienced in such matters knows that a given group of labor representatives is certain to be wholly misinformed upon many essential features of business policy and organization, and any given group of business men is sure to number several who are wholly uninformed as to the real causes of industrial misunderstanding from the labor standpoint. Enlightened labor leaders believe in fair play and in the inviolability of contracts. And yet, when radicals are in the saddle, union members cannot be held by their leaders to the contracts as made. There are many things about labor unionism which are admitted to be in a tentative condition and •which are capable of adaptation to the needs of productive industrialism, provided the disease-spots of radicalism be cut out and a sufficiently representa- tive group of labor leaders assembled to work out a solution in cooperation with employers of labor. On the other hand there is an irreducible minimum of common sense and economic necessity which must be insisted upon by business men if productive industry is to go on. For this irreducible minimum business men of the country are willing to fight to the last ditch and with everything they have in them, with the facts in their full significance revealed to the general public to whom the employers and labor are alike responsible. The great overshadow- ing danger of the present situation, so tragic because so superficial, is that some business men, irritated THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM in and deeply concerned by radical attacks, have had the good old American fighting spirit aroused in them and are directing their attack on labor unions, whereas their real enemy is not labor unionism, as such, but rather the radical elements which are fol- lowing the false standard of "something for nothing," with the battle-cry of "rule or ruin." Unionism is not the issue. Our laws permit it. And despite its striking failure to control its own people, under proper guidance it may be a powerful force for justice. Take for example a situation hke the printers' troubles in New York in the fall of 1919. A fair statement of the main points in this somewhat complicated case seems to be that the international unions, representing the American Federation of Labor, were as firmly committed as any group of men could be to the maintenance of contracts on a basis which would enable the employ- ing printers to buy paper and enter into agreements for printing books and carrying on their business with reasonable profit. In other words, the em- ployers and the union leaders had arrived at a bargain which was, under the circumstances, satis- factory to both; and then came the radical element within some of the unions themselves, refusing to abide by the agreements reached, insisting upon immediate radical increases of salary, immediate shorter hours. In addition, they declined to be bound by any definite agreement which would make it possible for the business men for whom they were 112 THE NEW FRONTIER working to make contracts and to purchase material, an agreement vital to the public interest and to the workers themselves whose existence depends upon the success of the industry. In this situation the international leaders without hesitation took away the union cards from the insurgent employees and formed new unions. They stated unequivocally that they stood for fair dealing and the maintenance of contracts, and pointed out with no little show of reason that they were in a better position to treat with the radical element than were the employing printers themselves. Years ago Theodore Roosevelt said that the American people were not opposed to trusts, but only to bad trusts. Today most business men are not opposed to unionism but only to bad unionism. By bad unionism is meant the aim of a class to further the rights of a class, by argument if possible, but by force if necessary, and without regard to the rights of the people as a whole. Is this a fair statement of the attitude of business? Are the leaders of American business fair and liberal.'' If so the public should know it. The interests of the nation as a whole at this time call for the elimination of the age-long disease to which the business world has been susceptible, of allowing its views to be represented by a few outspoken ultra-conservatives whose statements are quickly taken up and flaunted by the radicals, and to a large extent even by the liberals, as representative of the attitude of business THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 113 as a whole. A generation ago a business leader was quoted (and the facts seem to indicate, misquoted) as having exclaimed, *'The Public be Damned!" As a result of the wide dissemination of this phrase milHons of people honestly believed for years that the majority of business men entertained that point of view. There are far too many people who believe that attitude is maintained today; whereas it often seems that the rights of the public are more fully taken into consideration today even by conservative business men than they are, by-and-large, by radical labor leaders. It would certainly seem within reason to quote Messrs. Foster and Fitz- patrlck as having said, "The Public be Damned!'* The fact is, we must get away from all this calling of names and imputing of motives. Before any far-reaching and permanent readjustment in the in- dustrial world can be looked for there is a funda- mental necessity, first of all, for a different attitude on both sides. There are too many chips on too many shoulders. The correct fundamental attitude of mind and heart is as subtle as it is important. It is the factor most frequently ignored in current dis- cussions. It is not in itself a solution; but it is the open door, and the only door to a solution. The misconceptions in the public mind regarding both capital and labor are so stubbornly adhered to, so widely accepted, that their continued existence would form an insuperable obstacle to an era of good feeling. So long as a very large group of people 114 THE NEW FRONTIER believe that Wall Street, for example, or business as a whole, is entirely self-seeking, just so long will it be impossible for leaders of industry to reach the hearts and minds of men on a basis of sympathetic understanding. So long as radical leaders are per- mitted to dominate the councils of labor and give the public the idea that their plighted word is a mere mask covering a greedy opportunism which lies in wait to throw contracts to the wind and upset the course of business because the "going is good," so long will it be impossible to get business leaders to regard the position of labor with the confidence :and sympathy and open-mindedness which will lead to industrial democracy. Industrial democracy cannot be brought about by the weapons of autocracy. The will to agree has been lacking, and without that, the most carefully thought out understandings and contracts must rest upon a basis of sand. Without that, conferences will be a waste of time for both sides. Some progress is being made. The study and analysis being carried on by the colleges is helping to bring about a common body of facts and princi- ples, based on wide research. Industrial engineers are doing splendid work. Public conferences under governmental and private auspices serve to focus public thought on the problem. Largely through the influence of Herbert Hoover the Second Indus- trial Conference, held in Washington, made a report on March 6, 1920, which is the fairest and most THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 115 thorough liberal document on the industrial problem yet put forth, And all the while, the normal course of progress in actual plants is helping to furnish examples of capital and labor united to produce the necessaries of life with American skill, energy and full cooperation. Here and there a plant is* being conducted along cooperative lines. These laboratories of industrial progress are useful. But they are too exceptional to be an answer to the nation-wide failure to get together which periodically puts the consumer in a state of mind bordering upon despair. Unrest is so contagious that in prosperous times the disease spreads and even isolated factories organized on a basis of industrial cooperation are drawn into the general turmoil. The average man reads stories of actual experiences such as "How Jim and Bill Manage Themselves," "How My Men Help Me Manage"; and the next day he reads of a score of strikes called or threatened, involving his daily bread or other essentials to his health and comfort, and somehow, the titles sound hollow to him. Evidently the normal course of industrial evolution is not enough. We need the working solution of problems in a thousand factories; but this is not sufficient if a thousand more are closed. Only when public opinion is convinced that reasonable conces- sions and adjustments have been made by both sides and that both of the integral parts of the working machinery that keeps the public alive, are Ii6 THE NEW FRONTIER acting in full understanding, then only will this powerful force be brought to bear with full effective- ness against extreme or unjust action on the part of either. Conferences and conventions will not furnish a solution. Technical analysis and industrial engineering will not solve it. But all these per- sistently working together, with the deep desire to solve it, cannot fail to do it. Nothing can solve it if the spirit of suspicion and enmity dominates every approach to the problem. We might as well face the fact that, in spite of glib Utopians, the problem is an extremely difficult one involving an almost infinite variety of economic and human factors. What do the workers want from the employers.? On Labor Day, 191 9, a statement professing to em- body the aspirations and desires of American Labor and quoting an official high in organized labor circles, was issued by the Amejican Alliance for Labor and Democracy. The statement was as follows: "As a result of the great world war the labor problem has been more prominently brought to the attention of the people of our country than ever before. To prevent this growing unrest that is leading many to the doctrines of Bolshevism is the responsibility of everyone of us who believes that sane methods rather than insane should be applied. How is this to be accomplished? The old idea of a living wage will have to be revised so that every comfort of life consistent with the station of the worker shall be THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 117 enjoyed by him and his dependents. Life's comforts must be graded upward in the future. Labor be- lieves that it is entitled to this, as it did most to save the world for democracy. American living standards should not be jeopardized by those of any other nation. Unfair competition, either to business interests or to labor, must be prevented. If the idea of social and economic justice to the workers receives due consideration I feel sure that the danger of the spread of Bolshevism will be reduced to a minimum, if not entirely removed. This doctrine, as we know, thrives upon industrial unrest, and by removing the cause the disease will soon disappear. We have saved the world for democracy; now let us save democracy for the world. "Bolshevism is an impossible doctrine. If the workers of this or any other country are not to receive social and economic justice in any other way than through a revolutionary movement that would destroy government, then it is best that the world should cease to be rather than to live under the conditions proposed by the doctrines of Bol- shevism. It is too much to expect that the organized labor movement of America should be left to cope alone with this industrial unrest. It can be dealt with by a triangle of government, capital, and labor working in full cooperation with each other and without force, as Bolshevism cannot be cured by killing or clubbing. Improved industrial life and the removal of many of the oppressive conditions ii8 THE NEW FRONTIER that workers are living under will successfully meet the situation. It will not only remove the extreme radical tendencies, but in my opinion, is the solution of the Americanization of the foreign element and will make them fully understand what America and American citizenship in their fullest sense really stand for." This statement is not inconsistent with the hberal point of view. It is a significant statement, if it is at all representative of the liberal labor viewpoint, and there is no reason to believe it is not. It spe- cifically disavows the right to speak for the extreme radical group; but it may fairly be said to represent the majority of labor opinion. The truth appears to be that in America labor is not at heart revolutionary. On the other hand labor is easily led into disquieting excesses for the simple reason that its leaders have not set before themselves or the public clearly and fairly what the workers really want. As a result, the workers are constantly being led into making demands which are unreasonable because the leaders of labor cannot unite on a fair and reasonable platform, or in fact, upon any platform whatever. Labor is using the weapon of last resort before giving other measures the utmost chance; and the public interest, the welfare of the great mass of men, women and children of this country, demands that conference and arbi- tration should in each instance of dispute be given the most exhaustive trial before strikes are called. THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 119 The freedom with which the strike has recently been resorted to, with its attendant ill-feeling and often bloodshed, is the greatest single obstacle to sanity and clear thinking on both sides. The strike connotes force; it stimulates the imagination of conservative men to conjure up^ the over-turn of the economic structure, the institutions of government, and even the home itself. And this breeds a desperate feeling of resistance, of fighting back, of grim determination to hold on to those things which are most sacred in life. First of all, a great deal of patience is needed on both sides; and the will to get together. No rules and regulations, nor all the constitutions and covenants in the world, will avail unless both sides feel a determination to get together for the common good, instead of setting up fixed objects to be gained at any cost, and maintaining a grim "nothing to arbitrate" spirit. What does labor want ? Whether its demands are fair or practicable from the standpoint of the public remains to be seen. But it is vitally important that both capital and the public should follow in detail just what the demands are which are crystallizing in labor circles. A fair statement of their position would seem to embody the following line of thought: It is not wages and hours which underlie the present restlessness. It is a growing self-consciousness, an increasing desire for a part in the really glorious achievement of America, a wish, possibly only half- realizedy to be more consciously active and self-reliant 120 THE NEW FRONTIER participants in the building up of the nearest approach the world has yet seen to a land of human freedom. Labor wants the cards laid on the table. The men in the mill want to know what profits are being made. This does not mean that executives are not to receive hundred thousand dollar salaries when they earn them. But it does mean that the men who help to produce the goods want to know that all those who share in the profits get a fair share only, on the basis of the work they do or the capital they lend. Translating the actual balance sheet into simple language that can be understood by every worker, will do much in removing suspicion and misunder- standing, and consequent discontent and suscepti- bility to radical agitation. Ignorance on the part of the workers is the agitators' greatest single source of strength. The next point to make definite is that labor does not want to abolish brains, initiative, imagination, organization ability, expert skill, salesmanship, clever advertising. In the words of a student and lucid exponent of this problem, Mr. Alfred E. Zimmern, "Industrial democracy . . . does not mean handing over the control of matters requiring expert knowl- edge to a mass of people who are not equipped with that knowledge. Under any system of management there must be division of labor; there must be those who know all about one subject and are best fitted to deal with it. Democracy can be just as successful as any other form of government in em- THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 121 ploying experts. Nor does democratic control, in the present stage at any rate, involve a demand for control over what may be called the commercial side of management — the buying of the raw ma- terial, the selling of the finished article, and all the exercise of trained judgment and experience that are brought to bear by business men on these ques- tions. ... At present at any rate the workers demand not a voice in the business, but control over the conditions under which their own daily work is done. It is a demand for control over one side, but that the most important side because it is the human side, of the industrial process." Paul V. Kellog and Arthur Gleason in British Labor and The War reach the same conclusion with regard to the new spirit of labor: "The Workers' control movement is not attempting to commandeer factories and put them into the hands of the workers, like the Russian Soviets. It is going ahead one step at a time, first administering workshop conditions, then sharing in the manage- ment of the factory process. It is not trying to extemporize executive experience over night. It acts inside its area of competence, but the change it is eff'ecting in the organization of industry is funda- mental. . . . Labor is developing something different from the old-time class-conscious socialism. ... It is an experimental attitude toward life. The spirit of its quest is springy and buoyant and impudent. An elan is being recaptured, lost for one hundred years 122 THE NEW FRONTIER of the factory system. From the ranks of the re-^ turned soldiers and the mobiUzed shops new leaders will spring up, and they will be young." What is wanted is a relationship which recognizes the rights of all parties in the industrial world, which is awake to the fact that the happiness of mankind is not based upon money alone, and that most men will work harder and for less money if they are working partly for themselves than they will if they are working wholly for someone else. Our problem therefore is to adapt the system based purely on wages to a new order in which there is added a human, democratic, conscious participation by all concerned. If this is done, the days of union- ism, belligerent and wholly unmindful of the public interest, will be numbered. This viewpoint, which is coming to be accepted with singular unanimity by thinking men the world over, is well expressed in a paragraph of the once famous Whitley Report which was adopted by the British War Cabinet in October, 1917, "as part of the policy which they hope to see carried into effect in the field of industrial recon- struction." The statement is as follows: "We have thought it well to refrain from making suggestions or offering opinions with regard to such matters as profit-sharing, co-partnership, or particular systems of wages, etc. . . . We are convinced . . . that a permanent improvement in the relations between employers and employed must be founded upon something other than a cash basis. What is wanted, THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 123 is that the work-people should have a greater oppor- tunity of participating in the discussion about and adjustment of those parts of industry by which they are most affected." In America the majority of liberal men are think- ing along the same lines. Herbert Hoover, probably the soundest and most effective exponent in America today of the Hberal viewpoint in industry, in a recent address said: "This social ferment . . . grows funda- mentally out of a yearning for higher standards of living, demand for economic change in the status of labor. ... It appears to me that any solution of this problem must go deeper than questions of strikes, lock-outs or arbitration, for these pre- suppose a conflict of interest. We have got to go sooner or later to the root of this difficulty. There is no solution short of community of interest. We must begin by creating, somehow and somewhere, a solidarity of interest in every section of the people conducting our industrial machine. The worker, the administrator and the employer are absolutely interdependent on one another in this task of secur- ing the maximum production and a better division of its results. It is hopeless to secure a solution if we are to set these people up as different classes fighting with each other." Will H. Hays, Chairman of the Republican Na- tional Committee, puts it this way: "It is simply a matter of Roosevelt's 'square deal' — exact justice for labor, exact justice for capital, and exact justice 124 THE NEW FRONTIER for the public, the third side of the triangle, which must not be lost sight of. To that end we must develop a reasonable method for honest and efficient labor to acquire an interest in the business to which labor is expected to give its best efforts." The men who are most anxious, however, to reduce the theory of industrial democracy to a practical basis which will stimulate production and guarantee human existence are obstructed by the attitude of the radicals who want not a share in the business but all the business. These radicals will not con- sider any compromise, based upon reason and justice, and fair to both sides. The liberals among business and labor leaders could get together if they would take the matter into their own hands. But the proposals of the radicals go beyond what we in American today are justified in regarding as reason- able. As one writer has said: "If organized labor is conceded the right to tie up all the industry and commerce of the country at its own will our form of government will have been changed. Authority over the community life will have passed from the regularly elected representatives of the people to the labor organizations. The pubhc wants labor to have a fair show . . . but not supreme power. . . . It is the first principle of organized society that everybody shall be equal before the law, and that no individual shall put his personal judgment above the law. The overthrow of this principle would mean the destruction of order and government. The rule THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 125 of reason and of the ballot-box would be over- thrown, and society would lapse back to the rule of force." This aspect of the problem involves not labor and capital alone, but the very fundamentals of our national life. If one class is to rule autocratically, it is a situation calling not for conferences on in- dustrial cooperation but rather a new Constitution. Before proceeding farther it may be of interest to present an outside view of our industrial situation. Not long ago some of the views expressed in this chapter were discussed with an able foreigner temporarily in America as a delegate to the Inter- national Labor Conference. He was for niany years in Washington at his Legation, has traveled all over the United States, and is a keen and discriminating student of our people and institutions. His view- point may be briefly paraphrased as follows: "The American people are facing a great crisis. Your labor, while better off than labor in some countries of Europe, has long ceased to be contented with the wage system. The average American laborer is not discontented with his wages or hours of work; but whether or not the rank and file are fully conscious of the fact, it is none the less true that the wage system has ceased to satisfy. Some form of industrial self-government must come. Leaders of labor and enlightened capitalists recognize it, and the fundamental unrest, going to the very roots of the labor groups, organized and unorganized, 126 THE NEW FRONTIER proves that no tinkering will meet the needs of the situation. "Your business men as a class are fundamentally- more democratic in sympathy, or potentially so, than any similar group in the world. But on the other hand, they are busier, they are under a greater pressure to get results. The very extent of your problem carries with it a great pressure upon the average business executive and makes it harder to induce him to take time to consider some of the phases of the industrial problem which now call for immediate action if most serious consequences are to be avoided. The word 'results' must take on a broader meaning. "Many of the great crises of history have arisen because someone was too late. We fear our own business men have waited too long and that matters will go to extremes before a fair working basis can be established. In your country I believe the existence of Americanism, that fundamental faith in yourselves, that chronic optimism amounting to an almost child-like belief that the right and fair thing will prevail, that love of your country and its institutions which really mean so much to so many of your people, may still serve to avert the danger that seems to be sweeping across the world from Russia. This Americanism is unique. There is nothing that quite corresponds to it anywhere else in the world. It may keep your people sane until all classes see the need of definite corrective action. THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 127 But nothing will avail you long unless you set up against radicalism a great wall of fairly treated men and women. These workers, the backbone of your industries, have reached a point where wages no longer satisfy them, and only a feeling that they have some voice in determining the conditions under which they work will ever bring about contentment. "There is the same voice of destiny in this move- ment the world over that exists in your country, except that your greater democracy here has given your workers a greater patriotism and has held back their consciousness that democracy in industry did not exist. But even in America it is coming. It is as sure as your national independence was sure to the discerning eye long before the Declaration of Independence, and as the freedom of your negroes seemed inevitable to the far-seeing student long before 1864. Both those great events involved vast differences of opinion; both involved bloodshed which might have been avoided. The world is looking to America, the home of liberty and de- mocracy, to lead the way in the greatest problem of all time, the adjustment of the conditions of production at a time when millions will die if that adjustment is interfered with. Is it too late?" Is it too late? Can we get together? If we can assume that the men who represent both the labor and the capital viewpoints in the present industrial controversy are loyal Americans and believe in the traditions ot America, it does not seem too much to 128 THE NEW FRONTIER hope that if they will make the same organized effort to get together that they make on the one hand to organize great business interests and on the other to organize milUons of men into labor unions it will be perfectly feasible to bring about a working solution. The brains and ability to get together are here; but the determination to agree has not yet crystallized. Perhaps we must wait until the vague desire for industrial adjustment in the mind of the average man who has waited so long and patiently for the doctors to agree, gives place to a demand for industrial cooperation and peace. If a nation-wide poll were taken at the present time it would be overwhelmingly evident that the great majority of Americans believe that capital and labor can well get together somewhere between a complete socializa- tion of all industry and a complete individual and com- petitive license. It is also true that the situation calls for an agreement without an undue amount of time being devoted to the luxury of listening to the expres- sion of either radical or reactionary points of view while the world is threatened with disease and starva- tion because of the falling off in the production of the necessaries of life. The necessity of production is the phase of the situation which makes it one of permanent public concern. There are already too many people in the world to be provided for adequately by the bare resources of nature. Population grows at a rapid pace, and while during the past century and a THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 129 puarter the development of new natural resources and of new technical arts has increased faster than population, it is none the less true that in most parts of the world, population is actually pressing close upon the minimum of subsistence, and, for a con- siderable part of the world, population is too great for comfort. In the United States, the richest country of all the world, there is still not enough to go around. We have felt this increasingly during the war, but it was true before the war. Approxi- mately ninety milHon people of the United States, exclusive of outlying possessions, received an income in 1910 of somewhat more than $30,000,0x30,000, including all wages, interest, profits and rents. It is estimated that about $2,500,000,000 of this was taken for the support of Federal, State and local governments. At least $4,000,000,000 more was taken for additions to the productive equipment or capital of the country. This leaves not over $24,000,000,000 for current consumption during the year, which gives $260 per person or $1300 a year for a family of five. The richest country in the whole world is not very rich. It must be evident that any solution of the problem which presupposes a desire for the life of the race must be predicated upon work. Certain economic truths must prevail in the end. A dollar must be earned. No group of men, no matter how much power they temporarily accumulate, can go on getting something for nothing; because in the last analysis 130 'vTHE NEW FRONTIER the something has to be produced by somebody. And if the something produced is turned over to somebody for nothing, it will simply cease to be produced. A dollar must be earned before it can be paid out in wages, and if wages are pushed to the point where production is unprofitable the where- withal to pay wages will be lacking. And let no one delude himself that the next step is for the Govern- ment to take over industry and thus make available an indefinite supply of money to pay wages; be- cause it is a truth that, if we eliminate printing- press money, even Government money must be earned by someone's work before it is acquired by the Government through taxation; and an indefinite increase of taxation would soon tend to eliminate the golden supply upon which the taxation is based. If it is understood that labor is not after something for nothing, capital will go a long way to meet any conditions approved by public opinion. There is a deep interest among liberal-minded business men in the question: Will labor representation in the management of business enterprises lead to greater contentment and better industrial production? If experience proves that the answer should be in the affirmative, there will be no room for further dis- cussion of the subject. But up to the present, labor leaders themselves have failed to give definite assurances upon this crucial point; and the existing experience is not sufficient to enable the great body of forward-looking business men to form a working THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 131 business judgment on the question. Up to this time, the emphasis has been upon ever-increasing wages and ever-decreasing hours. The time has come, however, when the leaders of thought in the business world are asking whether a greater participa- tion of the employes in decisions affecting their own welfare cannot be arrived at in an orderly and equitable manner. It is fair to ask these leaders, also, how far the unlimited right of bequest or in- heritance is an essential part of the right of private property, and in general what can be done by com- bined American intelligence, ingenuity and organiz- ing power to alleviate conditions for which no class of Americans is wholly responsible, but in which the nation as a whole has a direct interest, conditions which are not going to be relieved by the pouring forth of impassioned oratory from soap boxes, useful as this may be as a safety-valve. The majority of Americans realize that the present industrial system is an evolution from comparatively meager beginnings. It is producing the essentials of the life of mankind. The men now chiefly in charge of it are contributing all they have in them to keep- ing it in order. They know its vital importance to our people. They are as eager as any men can be to keep this heritage sound and clean. They must be shown wherein the public interest demands new machinery, because if new machinery is to be in- stalled no one can do it half so well as they can do it. The people of America need them; for they are 132 THE NEW FRONTIER typical Americans, with all their energy, their over- readiness to fight before they think, their restless desire for results, and at the same time their human sympathy, their eagerness to play fair if the other fellow will play fair too. These are some of the considerations with which liberal thought must concern itself in studying the industrial problem. The practical as well as the theoretical must be surveyed. Many plans must be tried. Many will fail. None will prove universally applicable. But none will be useful in any degree un- less it comes out of a conference not of violent partisans, but of Americans who recognize that the problem is national and not sectional. The task must be handled by the most broad-minded and tact- ful men in the community, men who will give it consistent thought and make sacrifices to put their solutions into working operation. The way to get together is to get together. But before results can be looked for, both sides are in need of education and clear thinking and, above all, catch words must be eliminated. It is very easy to dismiss a troublesome person by saying that he is a radical or an anarchist or a Bolshevik; and the person thus characterized does not help matters by coming back at his accuser with ''Reactionary!" or "Bourbon!" We live in an age of trade-marks and catch words, and the process of eliminating prejudices and convictions based upon misinforma- tion is no small task. THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 133 A prominent labor leader recently said that in most cases representatives of the employes in a partic- ular plant could get together with the employer with- out much difficulty, but the trouble was that no general plan could ever be worked out, because no two employers could get together. This is something to think over carefully. But once let these men get together and a new result will appear. If the brains to be found in America today will get together nothing is impossible. No sane American will say a thing is impossible when it has never been tried once. Lock a few groups of liberal Americans in a room away from business and telephones and other diversions and see if they do not come out with something closely akin to results. It will not be a Utopia, but it will be progress. Some people do not believe in conferences and conventions. This is not because the gathering of men together to confer and exchange views is not in itself a good thing. It is because busy men have so often been gathered together for annual conven- tions which have little excuse for existence other than the fact of their being annual. Conventions called for special objects can work wonders. Our own Constitutional Convention brought order out of chaos and saved our infant nation from dis- integration. Political conventions sometimes ac- complish results. One of them nominated Abraham Lincoln. Conventions have played a great part in America in the development of leadership. And 134 THE NEW FRONTIER furthermore, these meetings serve to focus upon the problem in hand the minds of the people at home; and perhaps while the deliberations are going forward in convention the people at home will get to work and settle the problem for themselves. Certainly conventions, if properly handled, keep the com- munity from sitting back and complaining; and often they pave the way for the precise, definite, careful action upon which permanent results in the long run must always rest. If the basic principles are to be found, if the raw materials of industrial peace exist in America, it is our own fault if we do not apply them cooperatively to the solution of our difficulties. We can only blame ourselves if we do not go at the task with a fi.rm belief that it can be accomplished. It may be doubted whether a change of attitude such as must take place if the needs of the present situation are to be satisfied can be brought about over night. Industrial reorganization cannot be solidly established with "dramatic suddenness" as one able American writer believes. But no one knows how much can be done, because the brains and drive of American industry, both labor and capital, have never really got at it with the will to agree. Here is what Glenn Frank says about it in one of his suggestive papers recently published under the title, "The Politics of Industry": "I think I could name twenty leaders of American business and industry who at this moment hold it THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 135 within their power to determine the course of in- dustrial relations in this country for the next twenty- five years at least. What I mer.n concretely is this: There are twenty outstanding leaders of American business and industry who have always been . concerned primarily with the financial problem of industry; if these twenty men should pool their brain-power in a study of the labor problem with the same sustained thought they have given to financial problems, if they should counsel with students of labor as they have counseled with students of chem- ical, electrical, and other problems that touch their business interests, and if they should take the initia- tive in making a sincere and exhaustive study of the whole area lying between the extreme forms of private capitalism and the extreme forms of State Socialism in order to find out whether or not there is a middle ground of industrial self-government on which both labor and capital can stand in a co- operation that will minister to the legitimate aims of both, I have no hesitancy in saying that they — these twenty business and industrial leaders — could with dramatic suddemiess invent a new order of industry. I am not being carried away with rhetoric. I have seen enough instances of industrial self-gov- ernment at work to know that the tested principles of free, responsible, and representative government can be adapted to business and industry in a manner that will go far toward eliminating the waste of labor conflicts, uncovering hitherto unused re- 136 THE NEW FRONTIER serves of enterprise and ingenuity in the working force, largely freeing the time of executives from the administration of discipHne which today drains away valuable executive energy that should be em- ployed in the larger creative tasks of policy and expansion, and actually making business and in- dustry more profitable. . . . The constitutional problem that our political fathers faced, our business men face today in business and industry under the name of the problem of management or control. Until that problem is solved by genuine business statesmanship, the labor problem will doubtless con- tinue as a balance of power game of see-saw, and in the midst of every labor conflict we shall hear the familiar jibes that labor's only interest is in shorter hours and higher wages and that capital's only interest is in longer hours and lower wages, jibes that fly wide of the mark simply because no one faces boldly the real challenge of the labor problem. The American public is waiting for a business statesmanship that will attack the government problem in industry." One is led to ask what these twenty men have been doing during, let us say, the past ten years, if they had it in them to solve this problem so readily. Not one of them but has individually thought deeply on this outstanding problem of his business life. Perhaps the trouble is that they have not thought deeply together. But it would be unfortunate to encourage false hopes for the emergence of an all- THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 137 embracing settlement of the industrial problem from the minds of any group of twenty men. The in- dustrial situation is not a problem in mathematics capable of exact and precise solution. There is no great mystery involved. The great point is that the problem bears upon the development of mutual sympathy and understanding between groups of human beings. It will not be solved, therefore, by individuals regarding each other as cogs in the industrial machine. It will be solved when labor and capital get around a table and regard one another as men. It may not be possible with ** dramatic suddenness" to bring about the un- selfishness which underlies all successful cooperation; it may be difficult to establish the basic necessity which cannot be mentioned too frequently, the desire to trade, the readiness to make concessions, the mutual will to get together. If this desire, to trade, to make concessions, does not exist, it must be developed with all the energy of an ingenious and hardy race. When this has been achieved, all other things shall be added unto it. Until it is achieved there can be no industrial peace. Meanwhile the enUghtened business men and publicists and labor leaders will keep on trying to get a working solution so long as they continue to love their country. America is worth a hundred con- ferences, all unsuccessful, if number one hundred and one progresses a little better, and one hundred and twelve, gathering up the cumulative benefit of 138 THE NEW FRONTIER all that has gone before, finally hits upon the work- ing solution. Perhaps one of these days a group of conferees may find that they are agreed, that their minds have met on common ground which the public will approve. And then we shall begin to feel this great pressure hft from our hearts, and as a united country we may turn our eyes outward and not inward, and go forward another stage on the highway of American destiny. As a concluding suggestion, a word may be said for the necessity of a wider reading as a step toward sounder capitalist leadership. It is not a difficult task for the average man to keep in touch with books which cover the latest thought of experts on the problems of the day. The world is moving at such a pace that most books are out of date by the time they come off the presses. But insofar as they treat of fundamentals and reveal an honest attitude of mind they contain the raw material to work with in reaching a solution of current prob- lems. It is as necessary to have the other man's point of view as it is to know one's own. It may be frankly stated that many men who would be capable of vigorous liberal leadership know neither. We should read the opinions of the man who believes we are wholly wrong in our thought and action. A writer who can find a pubHsher is sure to find some readers, and some of his readers are likely to beheve what he has written. The litera- ture of wide and influential circulation attacking THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 139 the men who are depended upon for industrial leadership today, who have won their right to lead in most cases by native abihty in a highly competi- tive field, would amaze many of these men if they stopped to read. They must stop to read. It will help them to define their own beliefs, and to realize the strength and intelligence of radical reformers who cannot safely be ignored by liberal or even by con- servative thought. The wider public is giving these radicals a very considerable hearing, and it is not good tactics to underestimate such opponents, much less to ignore them. Business men say they are too busy to read. Few of them accomplish as much work in a year as did Theodore Roosevelt; and yet in the most strenuous days of his presidency he read constantly, liberally, all kinds of books. And yet no one could call Roosevelt "bookish." He could "tear the heart out of a book." This is an art which is highly valuable in this time of complexity of interests and multiplication of printed matter. If business leaders believe that everything about the industrial system of this country is right, they will simply continue their arduous job of operating the vast machinery of production, while the radicals operate the print- ing presses. But if they believe the world moves forward and that the shaping of the minds of men through the printed word is a vital element in guiding national progress, if they believe in the force of education, both sound and unsound, they I40 THE NEW FRONTIER will realize that the case of the radicals has been presented at least with skill and vigor, and that it is not wise or right or American for captains of industry to remain silent and let the case go against them by default. For it is not their personal case that is under dis- cussion. It is to a very important degree the cause of the American people. A substantial portion of these people are today relying upon the good faith, the integrity, the vision of business leadership. These men can do no less than to keep studying, with open minds, the points of view expressed by competent persons on all phases of this great prob- lem, a problem which can never be completely solved and laid to rest because it is the embodiment of the living interplay of human emotions, instincts and ambitions. This is what some business leaders have for years been doing. To do less than this is to have put business leadership in the position of violating a sacred trust. In this way only can we arrive at industrial evolution instead of stagnation periodically disturbed by petty rebellion. The remedy of today will not be the remedy of next year; but if there is the right kind of leadership, we shall be ready to meet next year's problem when next year comes around. - Incidentally, it is notable that very few business men find time, in America, to write books. This is not true of other countries. It is to be regretted, because in an age of specialization it has been left THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 141 too much to one group of men to do the work and to another group of men to become professional critics of the way the work is done. BeHeving as we do in speciahzation it would be idle to expect that men who must spend long days in the actual affairs of business or politics can often produce a brilliant or even workmanlike exposition of those affairs in the shape of books. But what is lacking in literary distinction may in some cases be made up in the value of a point of view which is being given an actual try-out in the arena of practical affairs. One reason why liberal business men as a group do not do more writing is because their daily life is made up of a series of compromises between the ideals at which they aim and what can be accom- plished under the resistless pressure of daily busi- ness life. There are today many business men, highly successful business men, who in another century might have been poets or explorers or builders of cathedrals, but in this crowded and highly developed age they have been attracted by the stern conflicts and endlessly complicated ven- tures of the world of business. Their ideals have not been shattered. They are still dreamers. If they were not, no amount of money in the world could induce them to undergo the strain and stress of the modern American business life. But the very magnitude and persistence of the problems of today and the concentration they require on the part of business men, make it seem almost irn- 142 THE NEW, FRONTIER possible for the average man to go home in the evening and take the time to view objectively the fundamentals of the hfe he is living and set down on paper consecutively, and if possible readably, an analysis of what he stands for and hopes to achieve. And yet it is important that the liberal business man should make the attempt because the presses are busy with literature that misrepresents the ideals of the practical man and attacks his accomplish- ment. Meanwhile, the public, trained in the be- lief that everything which is, is in print, can hardly be blamed for coming to the conclusion that the leaders of the present business world have little or nothing to say for themselves and that everything that is said against them is true. But those who will not write may at least read widely. The reader of books will forget the de- tails of what he has read and will go back better equipped to his daily problems as a man, to deal with men. A new angle here, a suggestion there, gathered from the clear thinking of other men who have worked for industrial peace, may be a guide- post along the road. Any wayfarer on a long journey knows that guide-posts do not always speak the truth; yet how far should we get without them? When we want to make reasonable speed, how can we afford to let each traveler evolve a guide-book out of his own inner consciousness as he goes along? First and foremost we need the THE INDUSTRIAL PROBLEM 143 human association and practical experience; but to supplement this fundamental requirement we need contact with the deUberate thoughts and conclusions of men which have been gathered to- gether from the four quarters of the workaday world and placed for our use between the covers of books. THE NEED FOR FIFTY MILLION CAPITALISTS As a general proposition, it may be said that business men are by training and experience favor- ably equipped to take positions of leadership in handling the public problems of this age, an age in which the organization and management of the machinery for producing the basic necessities of existence calls not only for the talents of men but, to an almost equal degree, for genius. First of all, it should be stated frankly that our business leaders are capitalists. They are citizens of a capitalistic nation. They believe in capitalism. And they are by no means preponderantly ultra- conservative. Like most groups of Americans they include all shades of opinion. Some of our capi- talists are radicals. Many are robust conservatives. But the majority are liberal. The country as a whole often forgets that the principles of capital- ism are part of the very bone and sinew of America, capable today, as they have always been, of the fullest adjustment to the necessities and ideals of a great democracy. There cannot be capitahst leadership unless there is a great follow- ing which believes in capitalism. Let us consider the situation here in America. 144 FIFTY MILLION CAPITALISTS 145 Clear thinking is often obstructed by the fact that persons who have objection to the wealth in the possession of certain individuals conclude that there is something inherently wrong in all private possession of wealth. A great many people in at- tacking what they are pleased to call capital fail to realize that the capital fund of the country is drawn from the savings, large and small, of all the people. In a broad sense we are a nation of capital- ists. It is hard to say how many investors we have in the country, but the five Liberty Loan campaigns and the War Savings activities have certainly created at least twenty-five million investors in this country through the medium of the purchase of Government securities. It should be noted, how- ever, that bondholders are not the only savers in a nation. Attention has been called to the fact that there were only some four hundred thousand bondholders in the entire country previous to the war and that this number had been raised to mil- lions. This does not give a complete picture of American thrift. There are in the United States today more than 11,000,000 depositors in savings banks, possibly 3,000,000 depositors in savings de- partments of banks and trust companies, more than 11,000,000 holders of insurance poHcies, nearly 4,000,000 members of building and loan associations and perhaps 2,000,000 holders of stocks and bonds other than Liberty bonds. This does not mean that the capitalist system 146 THE NEW FRONTIER cannot be improved upon in its operating details. It does mean that as a nation we are definitely and consciously committed to it, that we have ground for faith in its ultimate usefulness as a medium of general public welfare, and if the capitalistic system has a fundamentally sound basis it needs to be ad- vocated with the same eloquence, vigor and fair- ness that have been used in the advocacy of other systems. Winston Churchill recently said in a public speech, "I am astonished to see how people are afraid to defend the capitalist system. The politicians are afraid, the newspapers are afraid, and they prefer to give the thing the go-by. As a matter of fact, the capitalist system is capable of sustained and searching defense. It is the only system that has ever been devised for regu- lating the economic relations between man and man, and for appraising the value of services which men render to each other or exact from each other — the only system apart from slavery. But if the capitalist system is to be successfully defended, it can only be defended by showing that there is a moral basis for property, and you will not establish a moral basis for property or obtain conviction from the masses of the people unless you are able at the same time to make just laws regulating and bringing up to date the condition under which property is acquired and enjoyed, and to correct by taxation the evils of unmerited acquisition or indolent enjoyment," FIFTY MILLION CAPITALISTS 147 If the economic system of Asia Minor and India and China, with its striking absence of capital, and the resulting national inactivity and individual lack of opportunity, is what Americans want, they may perhaps, with great effort, be able to get it. But if the capitaHst system is a right system in the opinion of a majority of the people of the world, it will endure. For the present no substitute has been offered which has obtained any standing in America. Our object then would fairly appear to be to improve that which we have. If the capitalist system has virtues, let us strengthen and apply them widely. If it has faults, let us aim to eradicate them. The American people do not hate capital- ism; they all want to be capitalists themselves. But they want to see the extremes brought closer together. The true economic objective is not to destroy capitalism but to spread capital even further among the people. American capitalism calls for fewer dependents, and fewer fortunes which extend beyond the powers and needs of individual men. In other words, the great public demand today is for the application to capital of the sane, middle-of-the-road policy of HberaHsm. The chief cure for capitalism is more capitalists. In any discussion of this matter the simple and elementary recognition of the value of the saved dollar must take a large place. The solution of present economic problems, both our own and those 148 THE NEW FRONTIER of the world, must rest first, upon production, and second, upon saving. The capital resources of the country which enable the wheels of industry to go around are supplied by the miUions of people who every year spend at least a dollar less than they earn. This dollar may be worth much more than a dollar when set to work as a basis for the credit operations of the country; but every dollar that is saved means at least a dollar more towards facilitating the productive powers of the nation. During the war we were as a nation converting the future savings of our people into current obliga- tions to meet the vast expenditures of war. All of that money has been spent, but most of it is yet to be saved. Somehow or other, every dollar that we all know will be raised to fulfil the promise behind the Liberty Bonds must actually be earned and saved by someone. Every dictate of national com- mon sense indicates that the sooner we save this money and pay it off the better it will be for us. Here is a large task to be visualized in simple terms and approached with a view to removing the ex- cessive burden of national indebtedness which was cheerfully incurred but which must speedily and cheerfully be reduced. Certainly, the people as a whole ought to be wilHng to provide the moderate funds necessary to keep this great fact constantly before the country and to increase the tendencies toward thrift to a point which will make it possible for us to pay off as speedily as possible the debt we FIFTY MILLION CAPITALISTS 149 have contracted through our Government to our- selves. A consumption tax might produce more thrift in one year than thrift education in five. But the public would not know it as thrift. Forced thrift must be supplemented in a democracy with reasons. There is a school of thought which is not inclined to worry much about national indebtedness, and a moderate national debt may have some advantages. But when we are confronted with a bonded in- debtedness of twenty-five billions of dollars it can- not be otherwise than healthy to look back for a moment to the happy days w^hen we owed nobody anything. For example, the following passage in Andrew Jackson's Fifth Annual Message to Congress (December 3, 1833) has a very healthy sound. "The measures taken by the Secretary of the Treasury," said President Jackson, "will probably enable him to pay off in the course of the present year the residue of the exchanged four and one-half per cent stock redeemable on the first of January next. . . . The payment of this stock will reduce the whole debt of the United States, funded and un- funded, to the sum of ^4,760,082.08. "From this view of the state of the finances and pubHc engagements yet to be filled, you will perceive that if Providence permits me to meet you at another session I shall have the high gratification of an- nouncing to you that the national debt is extin- guished. I cannot refrain from expressing the pleasure I feel at the near approach of that desirable ISO THE NEW FRONTIER event. The short period of time within which the pubhc debt will have been discharged is strong evi- dence of the abundant resources of the country and of the prudence and economy with which the Govern' ment has heretofore been administered. We have waged two wars since we became a nation, with one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world, both of them undertaken in defense of our dearest rights, both successfully prosecuted and honorably terminated; and many of those who partook in the first struggle as well as in the second will have lived to see the last item of the debt incurred in these necessary but expensive conflicts faithfully and honestly discharged, and we shall have the proud satisfaction of bequeathing to the public servants who follow us in the administration of the Govern- ment, the rare blessing of a revenue sufficiently abundant^ raised without injustice or oppression to our citizens, and unencumbered with any burdens but what they themselves shall think proper to impose upon it." In his Seventh Annual Message (December 7, 1835) Jackson used the following language: "Since my last annual communication all the remains of the public debt have been redeemed, or money has been placed on deposit for this purpose whenever the creditors choose to receive it. All the other pecuniary engagements of the Government have been honorably and promptly fulfilled and there will be a balance in the Treasury at the close of the present year of about $19,000,000." FIFTY MILLION CAPITALISTS 151 This language is not quoted to break the hearts of those who are at present in charge of our national Treasury. It may truly be said that this nation has been most fortunate in the men who have been responsible for our public finances during the stupendous financial years of the war. There are some serious differences of opinion with regard to rates of interest and other phases of our financial program; but history will probably conclude that the secretaries and assistant secretaries of the Treasury who bore this heavy burden rendered a great public service. And it may be added here that there has never been in the history of the country a more stimulating example of complete popular cooperation in a great nation than was evinced under the leadership of the Treasury De- partment and the Federal Reserve Banks which all through the war turned to the men who possessed the requisite knowledge, irrespective of party or of the fact that these men happened to be in Wall Street or State Street or on a farm in Kansas. They balanced conflicting opinions and formed their conclusions without prejudices or favor and the re- sult was a series of financial operations which in cleanness and magnitude has never been surpassed in the history of the world. If war debts are to be paid off it is evident that the impulses toward thrift must be emphasized. But the experience of the War Savings campaign taught us that thrift teaching today must be in 152 THE NEW FRONTIER the language of today. We are not living in a time when thrift in the abstract is appealing. The old maxims "A pin a day is a groat a year" and "A penny saved is a penny earned" do not touch the enthusiasm of the present generation which has been brought up under the shadow of great enter- prises, and transactions on a continental scale. The underlying necessity for thrift is greater than it ever was, and our solution of the diificulty is to use the vivid and colorful advertising and pub- licity machinery of the country to lay before the public not the negative processes of thrift but the positive and highly enjoyable results thereof. This principle is well illustrated by the method by which the War Savings movement has firmly established thrift teaching in the schools. It will never do any good to tell a child to save his pennies simply in order to become a better child. The urge of the stick of candy is so much more powerful than the abstract moral urge that such a practice must ordinarily be futile. But suppose we give the child a picture of a bicycle, and proceed to whet the desire by dwelling at considerable length upon the delights of bicycling and describing a series of bicycle journeys to points of interest and pleasure beyond walking distance from the school. Or sup- pose we visualize a trip to Japan with pictures of Japanese scenes and Japanese children. After this we bring into the schoolroom a picture of the ship that goes to Japan, with illustrations of the cabins FIFTY MILLION CAPITALISTS 153 and dining salon and all the interesting features of the great ocean liner. Add to this a canceled steamship ticket, and finally refer to the price of the journey and the number of Thrift Stamps and War Savings Stamps which will make up the neces- sary total and we have perhaps developed a new saver in America and at the same time added to the happiness of the child. Of course this method can be extended so as to apply to all ages and to different objectives such as putting a boy through college or setting him up in business, or putting him in a position where he can afford to get married. This is positive rather than negative thrift teaching. Again, we must lay emphasis upon earning power as well as upon saving. It may be pointed out that the young man who earns $1500 a year may save too much if he saves at the expense of his personal appearance or the personal appearance of his wife and family. Some men at the present time may well find that by saving a little less and spending a little more in a judicious way they will increase their chances of advancement, and as earning power increases saving power will increase. Thus by spending a little more and saving a little less the man to whom saving has become an obsession will find that he can spend much more and save much more, to the great good of the economic community. All thrift teaching should be positive and not negative. It will not be productive to say "don't'* 154 THE NEW FRONTIER to people; but rather "do." Thrift is stored-up power; refraining from purely wasteful and un- productive expenditures today will make available to the individual money for expenditures tomorrow and for next year which will be far more productive in the way of personal welfare. We should be pre- pared to place this appeal before the public on the fundamental ground of the joy it will bring. We must take thrift out of the class of those moral texts which are universally used and never followed, and bring it up to the practical level of the man who sits on the bleachers at the ball game and likes saving because it works. We can go squarely back to Jefferson's words In the Declaration of Inde- pendence that every man is entitled to "life, Hberty and the pursuit of happiness." The pursuit of happiness is legitimate and inevitable. The ap- plication of happiness, however, which is pertinent in this case is not "let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die" but rather, "let us enjoy ourselves within reason today and not spend all we earn, for tomorrow we shall still be living and we shall need the money.'* There is a wide national significance in this kind of thrift teaching, because it emphasizes the fact that a nation can be strong only if it is made up of strong individuals. It emphasizes the necessity of dissemination of capital in small units throughout the population. It emphasizes the value of saving in tying our foreign population more firmly to the soil and helping them to become self-reliant Ameri- FIFTY MILLION CAPITALISTS 155 cans. It thus tends to produce a nation of vigor- ous and contented people, and through it a wise liberal leadership can throw humanity and sunlight into a dull subject and thus set in motion a force which will in turn throw sunhght into some of the darkest corners of the social structure of America. Liberal leadership must aim at a constantly ex- panding development of production and thrift. The national motto may well be "work and save." If capitalism is to be adapted to the expanding needs of our own time its exponents must not simply favor it — they must understand it. They must not rest content to assert that it Is sound — they must be prepared to prove it. This means that business leadership calls more and more for a thorough training in the principles of economics. The economics of the fathers has still its great lessons; but it must be read in the light of the modern development of applied economics, in a day when the problems of finance and industry are so numerous and varied as to be out of the mental grasp of any single human being. Like Moliere's doctor, who suddenly discovered that he had been talking "prose" for thirty years, the average business man might well say that in the discussion of current questions he has for years actually been talking economics. One of the achievements of the past generation has been the bringing of economic theory down from the clouds, as Franklin brought lightning out of the sky, and IS6 THE NEW FRONTIER applying its principles to practical affairs, with the beneficent result of limiting to some extent the Utopian tendencies of the abstract thinker on the one hand, and on the other, of helping the practical man to achieve a little order out of the chaos of economic and social action and reaction which besets his daily life. Sometimes even a single clear thinker can ac- complish a little. For example, the modern volume by Henry Clay entitled ** Economics for the General Reader" which was described in a recent issue of the American Economic Review as "The best small volume on general economics that has appeared in this decade" makes one feel that a way through the maze of industrial conflict can be found, just as American pioneers, in spite of endless hardships, found their way over the Alleghanies to the great empire of the West. Mr. Clay is not one of those who believe that the elements of human nature and human aspirations are not a part of economics. He does not believe that people will do what is reasonable without assistance. On the contrary, he believes that a study of all laws that apply to human nature must be brought into sympathetic relationship before we can eliminate the amount of unrest which upsets the productive equilibrium necessary to keep this world of hundreds of mil- lions of people in reasonable happiness. He lays great stress upon a broader definition of capital. Production alone is not the test. "Now FIFTY MILLION CAPITALISTS 157 if we treat product alone as wealth and arrogate the term wealth, which in a broad sense means any- thing that satisfies a want, to product, which covers only external sources of satisfaction, inevitably we suggest that the internal sources of satisfaction are not wealth; we give materialistic tendency to our aims and values. This the present economic system does, because it is based on this narrow conception of wealth. "This superficial definiteness gives economic values an advantage when they come into conflict with other valuations as the influence of an idea of conduct depends very largely on its sharpness of outline. ... In expenditure on education, for ex- ample, the appeal of technical education is nearly always more forcible than the appeal of hberal education, because the results of the former can be stated in the addition of so many dollars a year to the earning capacity of the student or the addition of so many dollars in value to the trade of the town • — while the latter merely makes better men and women. The present age might be the richest of all the ages in welfare as it is the richest in wealth. Perhaps it is; if it is not, it is because it has mis- taken the means for the end, and treated the in- crease of wealth as an end in itself, instead of controlling it and directing it in accordance with its general conception of welfare." That wealth is an empty term if it does not in- clude a due regard for the conditions of mind and 158 THE NEW FRONTIER body under which the wealth is produced is becom- ing axiomatic in America. But we are still far from the time when our liberal leaders may be said, as a group, to have mastered the economic elements of the great problems which confront us. Most busi- ness men speak the language of economics. Their success or failure affords living proof of the existence of inexorable economic laws. Just a little time given to study, to analysis, to the simplest co- ordination of their own experience will often place them in a position to help us on the way towards economic sanity. The trouble has been that these men have been too busy acting economics to afford time to think economics. We have now reached a point when the vast world machinery of production and distribution calls for experienced men who have drawn true lessons from the work of a lifetime, and are capable of letting their light shine before men so they may be led towards the paths of peace and justice and prosperity. There is much unsound economics abroad in the world. Happily business leadership has begun to recognize the value of cooperation between the colleges and business. Many great banks and cor- porations have drafted students of economics from the universities. There are certainly a hundred former professors of economics now connected with American business life. An interesting example of reciprocity in this field was recently seen in the selection, as the head of the Harvard School of FIFTY MILLION CAPITALISTS 159 Business Administration, of Dean Donham, who had been for a dozen years an officer of a great trust company. Such cooperation is bound to raise the standards of American business hfe. Such con- tacts cannot fail to equip capitaHst leaders to meet any demands which the new world may make upon them. Such contacts may help to teach mankind that there is no solution of present ills except pro- ducing more and consuming less. The waste of war cannot be paid for by printing-press money. There is and can be only one answer to the pres- ent international financial difficulties, namely, an increase in production and an increase in saving on the part of the people of every country of the world. This necessity cannot be obviated by any economic scheme which human ingenuity can devise. In proportion as the world shall work and save, produce more exportable goods and reduce paper currency, just in that proportion can budgets be equalized and inflation reduced. While a fuller co- ordination of Europe's resources would increase her economic strength and financial credit, yet without an increase in production and saving, and the prod- ucts of such effort, we cannot hope for a betterment of the present exchange situation. This remedy is at the present time simple and unspectacular. And it will be applied exactly insofar as human beings are wilHng to assume the burdens and undertake the sacrifices which underlie all human progress. AN AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS The work of running a modern nation is a matter of business, and, indeed, big business. It may be possible to show that neither the business leaders nor the public realize how fully the economic developments of the past decade have forced upon governments everywhere a great variety of in- dustrial, commercial and financial problems. Public servants without previous business training have had to rely increasingly upon practical mer- chants and bankers. Governments have largely ceased to regard great business executives as un- desirable citizens, because the heads of govern- ment must have the help of these men or fail in the discharge of their heavy public responsibilities. President Wilson perhaps slightly over-stated the case in his speech in Turin, Italy, in January, 1919, when he said: *'The plans of the modern world are made in the counting house. The men that do the business of the world now shape the destinies of the world, and peace or war is now in a large measure in the hands of those who conduct the commerce of the world." This statement is impressive when one considers that its author has had in the past decade an al- 160 AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS i6i most unequaled opportunity to observe and weigh the elements which comprise our modern world; and it is particularly significant in view of the fact that Mr. Wilson has never been inclined to give more than a fair share of consideration to the views of business. The war has left to the world problems of such variety and magnitude as to require more of the kind of leadership which may rightly be expected of business men. The demand for leadership is as old as the human race. If all men were placed on an equal plane on Monday, the great ma- jority would be lined up behind a few leaders by Saturday. The mob rule tendency all over the world today is not due to the failure of the principle of leader- ship, but to a failure in the quahty of leadership. The Bolsheviki are working in an atmosphere where leadership was characterized for centuries by every vice which leadership can assume — autocracy, cruelty and injustice. Because kaisers, czars and princes abused the power which came to them, people in Russia and elsewhere came to beHeve that leadership was a failure. But inevitably leadership must emerge from mob rule. In America up to this time we have been very fortunate. In the words of Theodore Roosevelt: "Thanks to the teaching and the practice of men whom we must revere as leaders, of the men hke Washington and Lincoln, we have hitherto escaped the twin gulfs of despot- i62 THE NEW FRONTIER ism and mob rule." This "middle-of-the-road" policy is not easy to determine. In fact it calls for a keener sort of leadership than is necessary to win men and women to the enthusiastic support of brilliant subversive doctrines. Radical leadership is at the present time more conscious and popular than at any time in our history. A sense of responsibility for leadership is the highest product of any system of education and sound public leadership is the most difficult of all. Business men as a class have certainly not sought to take a predominant part in pubhc affairs. Busi- ness success usually carries with it an implication of conservatism, a careful attention to work and to the needs of clients and customers. This carries with it a natural hesitation to undertake new burdens and an instinctive reluctance to become conspicuous in controversial matters. It is a sound tendency. No sane liberal would advocate turning the world of business into a caucus or a perpetual convention. At the same time is it fair to ask how the common interest of the people, which includes obviously the interest of the leaders of business and their clients, can properly be sub- served if this great group of trained and experienced men do not contribute largely to meeting It? If pubhc matters are to be left to untrained and un- experienced men exclusively, can we consistently complain If pubhc business is badly managed? This chapter does not advocate any sudden entry AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS 163 of business men into the public forum. It does advocate a gradual, consistent increase in the thought and time, not inconsistent with their busi- ness necessities, which successful men may be willing to give to the common interests and problems of the nation. There have been, at all periods of our history, business men who have given liberally of their time, strength and money to public causes. But the nation has not at its command today so much of this powerful resource as is demanded by the essentially business problems which occupy the Government. All the service business men can possibly find time to render is called for in the present situation. It should not be lost sight of that there have been very good reasons why this participation has not been more extensive. The reasons are, first, that American business men have been deeply devoted to their own work. They have learned the value of concentration. They have done a century's work in the past generation. Second, as a conse- quence of this absorption they have actually not had time to give much thought to national prob- lems, or to read widely, or to engage in conferences that laid bare the roots of things, as distinguished from conventions and banquets that played bright colors over the surfaces of great issues. Third, those men who have felt a personal responsibility for betterment of conditions have lacked ability or inclination to get together. As a result, instead of i64 THE NEW FRONTIER perfecting cooperative organizations of ability in which common effort would submerge jealousies and check personal hobbies in the interest of care- fully thought-out plans, we have had a succession of purely personal utterances on economics and business from isolated individuals. Their speeches and pamphlets have been interesting. They have attracted attention in the press. But compared with the highly organized efforts of the radicals they have been ineffectual. What we need today is an American Federation of Brains. We need a working organization of leaders in all lines of activity, including labor as well as capital, to get at the heart of current ques- tions, and to make use of the great publicity ma- chinery of the country to place its conclusions before the people. Individualism, which is at the basis of much of the success and inspiration which underlies American achievement, is not the prime factor in shaping a national industrial policy. The thought and inspiration of individual thinkers, radical and conservative, is the raw material of a working policy. But without the machinery of constant study, analysis, conference, thinking aloud, compromise, tabulation and public presentation, the raw material produced with so much labor will, so far as public benefit is concerned, disintegrate. Another important aspect of the situation is that many business men feel the need for greater co- operation on the part of trained and successful men AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS 165 in all fields. We have grown so big in our modern city life that we cannot get together and know each other without the same kind of definite and careful work which characterizes the highly efficient or- ganizations we have developed in the fields of labor or politics or business. We don't know who our leaders are. A man came to New York from the West not long ago and asked the manager of a leading hotel, "Who are your great preachers?" He received no answer. There is an answer, and we should see to it that the answer is more generally known, just as we should have an answer to the question as to the identity of our great actors, architects, editors and doctors, whose names are not familiar to the majority of men, women and children who can tell with surprising accuracy the names of our leading automobiles or shaving soaps. There is too little face-to-face exchange of ideas on the part of successful men in widely differing fields of activity. Men see too much of associates in their own limited line of business. To get any community of action it is considered necessary to raise a substantial sum of money and send a series of pamphlets and letters to a group of people who often live within a radius of ten miles of each other. Business men and bankers, partly because as a group they have more executive experience, more surplus funds or a greater willingness to apply such funds to public interests, have come to be looked upon as the prime movers in starting any i66 THE NEW FRONTIER project tending to influence public opinion. Men and women not in the business or financial world should be called upon far more than at present for leadership in such undertakings. Business men should be joined by clergymen, editors, engineers, artists, college professors, and physicians, and other sound, clear thinking citizens with a wide range of experience, all combining to produce that result which is the liberal American attitude. Business men, simply because they are conspicu- ously successful in one line are readily assumed to be omniscient. Locke, in one of his essays on edu- cation remarks, "The mistake is, that he that is found reasonable in one thing is concluded to be so in all, and to think or say otherwise is thought so august an affront and so senseless a censure, that nobody ventures to do it." We certainly know by this time that the man who has made a great fortune in the manufacture of telescopes or carpets ought not to be considered a final and conclusive authority on questions of politics, sociology, and art. Contact with success- ful business men brings out the fact that they would be delighted to be relieved of some of the tremendous pressure which is put upon them to express views upon subjects of which they know little and to take the lead in a variety of movements of a public character, simply because no one else can be found who is willing to do the work or pro- vide the money. Mr. Taft is quoted as saying to a AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS 167 group he was addressing in a small middle Western city that over a period of a dozen years he had been there four or five times to advocate as many pubHc-spirited measures, and each time he met the same thirteen men. The full value of a wider cooperation was brought home to many thousands of people during the war when a united nation achieved an unprec- edented result on the basis of universal association for an unselfish ideal. Local committees repre- sentative of the various communities throughout the nation brought the combined intelligence and influence of all phases of Americanism to bear on a great purpose, and achieved it efficiently and speedily. It would be a great tragedy if httle personal problems crowd out of our minds the splendid lesson which came to us during the war, of the results to be obtained by the whole-hearted cooperation of a great people. This ideal is no longer to be regarded as an experiment but as a practical measure which was proved to be workable. Let us spread the responsibility of leadership. But after we have broadened the base upon which leadership rests it is still inevitable that business and financial men will take a prominent part in the affairs of this country, because this group is recruited by a process of selection and competition from among the^soundest and most energetic ele- ments in every community throughout the nation. If it is true that "the men who do the business i68 THE NEW FRONTIER of the world now shape the destinies of the world," it is of the greatest importance for the nation to take stock of its business men. Inasmuch as the business community of Wall Street is so prominent in the business world of America, it is of importance for Americans to know something of what Wall Street is, what the community stands for. In this discussion much that will be said of Wall Street men applies equally to men of business and bankers the country over. A discussion of some of the phases of the life of this particular community will serve to bring out the obstacles which have been in the way of a fuller realization by business men everywhere of their ideals of public service. Wall Street is today the great Mecca of trained men from all over America. This vast industrial and financial clearing house of the Nation affords irresistibly attractive motives for ambition and achievement. And the predominant motive today is not money — but rather the absorbing fascina- tion of the day's work, the love of the game. It is important from all points of view that the country should understand this. One reason why it is im- portant is because the welfare of a tremendous number of people is affected by the transactions which center in this part of New York City. The work of Wall Street touches intimately the life and happiness of the average man and woman, for on many important subjects, as New York thinks so thinks the country. Scores of movements of great AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS 169 national importance originate in Wall Street; and while many of them succeed, many of them are hampered simply because the men who guide them are connected with the financial life of America. It may be of interest to glance briefly at the physical features of the little understood Wall Street district. Tradition has it that in 1644 William Kieft, Governor of New Amsterdam, caused a wall to be erected at the north end of the little settlement to shut in a small section at the southern end of Manhattan Island for the purpose of pre- venting the straying of cattle and to aff'ord protec- tion to the inhabitants against Indian attacks. The erection of this barrier practically determined the location of Wall Street, for in 1653 when Peter Stuyvesant erected a stockade to defend the city from the British, a strip of ground forty to fifty feet below the cattle guard was selected for the new wall which was then built on the line of the present Wall Street. At the close of the Seventeenth Century the wall was torn down because it had outgrown its usefulness and involved an expensive upkeep. The stones were used for the foundation of the new City Hall which was erected at the corner of Wall and Nassau Streets. From this time forward Wall Street was the center of the public and social life of the city. On July 16, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read from the steps of the City Hall. At the close of the Revolutionary War, Alexander Hamilton lyo THE NEW FRONTIER and Aaron Burr moved to New York, Hamilton opening an office at 58 (now 33) Wall Street. Burr lived at 10 Little Queen (now Cedar) Street, part of the present site of the National Bank of Com- merce Building. In 1784 the Continental Congress expressed its desire to establish headquarters in New York and the City Hall was placed at its dis- posal. The following year all the representatives of the national, state and municipal authority were located in Wall Street and a center of interest was established which determined the location of im- portant business and financial houses, thus estab- lishing a tradition which has prevailed up to the present time. In 1788 the City Hall was rebuilt and enlarged, and the new structure on the same site, completed in the following year, was called Federal Hall. On April 6, 1789, a canvass of the electoral vote taken in Federal Hall resulted in the unanimous election of George Washington as the first President of the United States, and on April 30 of the same year Washington was inaugurated there. Federal Hall remained the seat of the Government until in 1790 headquarters were transferred to Philadelphia. Gradually the growth of business drove the resi- dential district to the northward and by 1830 Federal Hall had disappeared and Wall Street had become no longer a residential street but was en- tirely transformed for the purposes of business which very soon spread over the neighboring section AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS 171 north, south and west, until today when one speaks of Wall Street, or simply ''The Street," the district is referred to which may be roughly defined as in- cluding Broadway from the headquarters of the Standard Oil Company, at No. 26 Broadway, for an indefinite distance of several blocks, lined on both sides with a variety of banks and office buildings, running north to Maiden Lane or beyond. The sec- tion includes Wall Street itself from Trinity Church east as far as Pearl Street, together with many of the streets which run north and south from Wall Street. It covers approximately twenty-five blocks with an area of thirty-five acres. This district includes the largest and tallest office buildings in the world which have grown up in response to the demands of a working population and a transient customer population of approxi- mately 1,000,000 people whose convenience demands a centralized location of the facihties necessary in the transaction of a substantial proportion of a great nation's financial business. Among these office buildings is the Equitable, forty stories high, whose sixty-one elevators transport nearly 100,000 persons daily. Nearby, practically unchanged in its ap- pearance since the early days of the city, is Trinity Church, with its churchyard in which are buried many men intimately connected with the history of the state and nation, including Alexander Hamilton and Robert Fulton. Across the street from Trinity Church is the First National Bank Building, located 172 THE NEW FRONTIER on a small half lot, which is probably the most valuable piece of property in New York, having cost approximately $525 a square foot. From a broader standpoint Wall Street is the principal center of the credit and other financial operations of the nation, and of the world. Within this radius are located thirty-five of the largest national banks and trust companies of the country, — organizations which reported in September, 1919, a combined capital, surplus and undivided profits of $583,875,2CX) and deposits of ^5,464,413,000. These institutions supply a very large part of the credit for the basic industries which maintain the life and make possible the comfortable existence of the population of the country. Here, too, are the various markets which provide for the exchange of securities representing the great industries of the nation, and the principal commodity markets. So many billions of dollars change hands in a day to pay for the vast exchanges which must take place to feed and clothe and transport our population that the big banks must be near one another and within reasonable distance of the Clearing House, and the Federal Reserve Bank. What do these banks do? They supply the life blood for the transaction of essential business and with various shifts of workers are practically never closed day or night, year after year. A great com- mercial bank is simply one phase of the far-flung commerce of America. Its function is the accumula- AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS 173 tion of a reservoir of credit, and the direction of this credit into those channels where it is needed in order that the business of the country may be facihtated. This credit, ultimately based on gold, constitutes an order on a portion of the actual physical wealth of the country; that is, on its raw materials, its ma- chinery, its labor and other agencies for the produc- tion of goods. Thus, a farmer in Iowa sells his crops in the Autumn, receiving his pay in the form of a check on his local bank. He does not cash it but deposits it; that is, a credit is established to his account in his bank. The amount is above his current needs, and his bank, by deposit in a New York bank, establishes for its use and that of its customers a New York credit. Later on, the New York bank is called upon to finance a shipment of rubber from Singapore, in order that an American rubber manu- facturer may maintain his supply of raw material and thus be enabled to make tires for his next season's requirements. It is enabled to do so by utilizing the accumulations of credit from widely scattered sources, among them the Iowa farmer's original deposit, and the distant farmer, by the marvelous organization of American credit, made possible by the commercial banks of Wall Street and other financial centers, has thus been able to assist in financing the shipment of the rubber which must reach this country months in advance of this very farmer's demand for tires. 174 THE NEW FRONTIER The groups of men whose business it is to supply credit to productive industries are just as essential to the industry of any nation or community as is the coal to a locomotive. What else does Wall Street do? For one thing it provides in the Stock Exchange a market for se- curities. It is impossible for a new concern, whose credit is not established, to go to a bank and procure the money with which to put to the test the skill of the management and the working force, and the question as to whether or not the pubhc will buy the output of their plant. In such a case the surplus funds of individuals must be called into play and consequently the company's bonds and stocks are offered for public sale. The Stock Exchange affords a centralized meeting place for funds which are available for such investment or speculation, and performs a service for hundreds of small companies, which could not function without drawing on the available investment funds of the country, the same service which the Liberty Loan campaigns performed for the Government on a vast scale in time of war. The Stock Exchange is managed by a Board of Governors. They do not guarantee that every group of business men who get together will earn large profits and thus be able to pay interest on their bonds and dividends on their stock. They do in- vestigate each company carefully, however, and see to it that the securities offered to the public actually represent what they are held out as representing. AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS 175 The individual judgment of the man or woman who buys this stock will always have to be called upon. The investor who does not want to confine surplus funds to Government securities paying a moderate rate of interest must take the chances which always go with ventures dependent upon human judgment and the changing conditions of economic life in a great nation; and the chances they take with their money will be compensated, in proportion to the supply of money available, at rates commensurate with the risk taken, and with the chances of success of the venture. The Stock Exchange is the nation's chief market, not for actual goods and merchandise, but for se- curities issued by business men in every state in the Union representing the production, manufacture, transportation, distribution or sale of raw materials and finished products amounting in value to possibly one-fifth of the total material wealth of the United States. The great fairs of the early economic development of the world called for the periodic assembling of furs, or cloths, or foodstuffs, or whatever the industry of men and women within the range of a few hundred miles might produce. The market of today facilitates the continuous ex- change of the products of an entire nation, in endless variety. The element of speculation is a large one. We may feel that the purely speculative features of the stock markets are abused; but the tendency toward 176 THE NEW FRONTIER speculation cannot be done away with until human nature itself is abolished. The time will never come when honest men will cease to dream dreams of sudden fortunes. And the day will never arrive when men and women will cease to venture their money on the stimulus of these dreams, nor when they will cease to complain of others if they them- selves are unsuccessful. There is one absolutely sure prescription for avoiding loss of money in speculation, and only one; namely, don't speculate. So long as great ventures require the risking of money, so long must groups of men of vision and daring, entrepreneurs, be called upon to survey new fields and risk fortunes in the interest of progress. When these ventures are in their infancy they must not be permitted to get into the hands of small in- vestors. They call for the surplus that men and women can afford to lose. These ventures must be kept clean; the standard of intelligence and technical skill applied to the analysis of new ventures must be constantly improved. But as to abohshing the se- curities market itself, we might as well advocate abolishing railroads because transportation by coach and four was healthier and more soothing to the nerves. In addition to this principal market for securities, there is a group of men who deal in a class of stocks which is less established and well known. These are the so-called "unlisted" securities. From time to time they arrive at a state of stability which AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS 177 justifies their listing on the Stock Exchange. Many of them represent highly useful undertakings. Some of them represent the production of gold, which is the basis of our currency system. Others simply represent the belief or the hope that a certain article is the one thing that every American family will want to have in its home. There is a very dramatic element to the periodic offering of this class of stocks and the occasional brilliant success of one, while hundreds are failing. As long as they stand for actual values or represent an honest belief that values will accrue, and are put out without mis- representation, they are economically sound. Broadly speaking, however, it is the duty of the leaders of business, to confine speculation in every possible way to the people who can afford to specu- late, and to conduct an unceasing campaign of edu- cation, so that the widow and orphan who should be investing in Liberty Bonds or other unquestionable securities, and receiving a certain income of from four to seven per cent are not induced by a statement of half-truths to risk capital on a prospect of fabulous returns. Such persons cannot afford to take such risks and it is a false condition which permits them to be led to the point of indulging in such ventures. The leaders of opinion in Wall Street are a unit in opposing this tendency, but they w^ill always be blamed for the unhappy results which are of daily occurrence, until they exercise their public responsi- bility of leadership in the nation by making clear 178 THE NEW FRONTIER the principles underlying investment and speculation to everyone who has a dollar to invest. Large financial transactions have always excited the imagination. Unfortunately, it is not necessarily the most scrupulous people who are most easily moved by the ambition to acquire a substantial fortune without doing any work, and consequently we always have with us in Wall Street a few human parasites lurking around the edges of honesty, at- tempting to make a shady deal here and a crooked trade there, preferring this kind of life with its occasional affluent days and its accompanying excite- ment to any legitimate occupation. These men al- most inevitably end their lives without a dollar, in jail or out of jail. But the men who pay the rent on banking properties or office buildings in the lower end of Manhattan can no more prevent dishonestly inclined people renting office space in their neighbor- hood than can Mr. Frohman or Mr. Belasco prevent undesirable elements from existing in the midst of legitimate and highly artistic achievements in the vicinity of Broadway and Forty-second Street, or than the city authorities can prevent the good name of New York being tarnished by wrong-doing in any part of the city. Dishonest traders and operators sooner or later reveal their true character and are forced to pay the penalty of their crimes, to the accompaniment of extensive publicity in the newspapers. But this publicity as a rule does not enable the general public AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS 179 to distinguish between the occasional frauds and the vast bulk of business in the financial section which is transacted not only according to law but according to the best ethics of American business life. It is time that this majority had more to say for itself. The leaders of the banking and financial community in the United States can only stand or fall on the basis first of their service to the public and a fair recompense for that service, and second, the fullest public understanding of that service, and com- plete public recognition of its economic value and importance. From the standpoint of truth-telling the American system of financial credit analysis is one of the most wonderful structures ever built up in the progress of the world. Its sources of information, its accuracy, its far-reaching tentacles form the elements for a dramatic and fascinating story. Compared with it the German Secret Service and propaganda organiza- tion was puerile. What is wanted here is the truth — the truth about human beings clever and stupid, subtle and obvious, honest and dishonest. It is truth raw and unadulterated, without undue regard for sentiment or past successes or the happy dreams of profits which fill the minds of men. This vast system, Argus-eyed, reliable, is the rock upon which credit is built. It is the foundation which enables billions of dollars worth of goods to pass and repass with the use of scarcely a dollar in gold. It is the white light of fact in which the slightest blemish on i8o THE NEW FRONTIER the good name of an individual is brought out in sharp rehef. It is the new world of business and commerce, which has taken the place of barter and cash dealing, the commerce built upon credit in the good faith of men. And on this firm basis rests the vast structure of agriculture, mining, manufacture, transportation, and salesmanship, the production and delivery to the ultimate consumer of all the neces- saries of life. Wall Street men, trained in this rigid school, or subject to its dominion, are equipped with an element of character which goes to the root of public re- sponsibility. They cannot afford to have American business used as a political foot-ball. America as a whole cannot afford it. Little good it will do the people of America to live under the traditions of democracy if the machinery of business, which is the basis of their existence, is under suspicion. Let them study the standards of business men. If they prove to be sound let them rally to their support. Let them hold business leaders to strict account- bility as they hold their other servants in public office to strict accountability. But let both be assumed to be fair and honorable until proved otherwise. An incident which occurred in the early months of the war is typical of the kind of unfairness which does great harm. A public official in a speech in the West accused a ring of New York financiers of interfering for private gain with the AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS i8i public financing of the Government. Happily a leader in local affairs had the courage and ability to meet the charge squarely. He wired the public official as follows: A New York newspaper this morning reports that in an interview yesterday you stated that "a ring of New York financiers is hampering the Government in its Liberty Loan campaign, endeavoring to make it a partial failure so that the next Loan will bear a higher rate of interest. These men are the spiritual descendants of the ring that operated in just such an emergency during the Civil War, and by their methods forced the price of war bonds to 40 and 50, and one day to 39. It is the duty of every citizen to make this Loan a success in spite of these New York traitors." Please telegraph advising me whether you are correctly quoted as above, either literally or in substance. The public official replied stating in substance that he had withdrawn his charges. His letter, however, contained these significant phrases: On the 13th in an editorial entitled "How Wall Street Goes to War," a New York news- paper said: "In ordinary times Stock Exchange sentiment is not easy to gauge. Today, how- ever, he who runs may read. It is against the United States." This paper is published under your nose. I take it for granted that you read these editorials in this newspaper. The people out West read them, I among the rest, and it was not a very violent conclusion, as it is sup- i82 THE NEW FRONTIER posed to be one of the great and leading lights in the newspaper realm, that the paper knew what it was talking about. The charges were withdrawn. But they had been made pubhcly, and were widely quoted throughout the nation. In this case the pubHc official must have known that the fact that Liberty Bonds ^'^re selling below par on the Stock Exchange simply meant that the price quoted was the price the American people as a whole were willing to pay for these securities in the open market at that time. The supply was greater than the demand. He also knew that if this market had not been available many thousands of patriotic firms and individuals who have sudden needs for funds to conduct their business and must have a ready market would not have been able to buy bonds at all. Without the facihties of the Stock Exchange the Government could not have conducted its financial operations as it did. By way of partly offsetting the false im- pression created a letter was sent to the pubHc official which read in part as follows: It seems apparent that at no time did you have the slightest ground for publicly or privately charging the most serious crime in time of war, "treason," against a group of unnamed men; that the basis of your remarks was not as you at first stated, "sources of information," but two edi- torials in a New York newspaper, which simply ex- pressed the opinions and conclusions of the author AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS iS^ of the editorials regarding the stock market, and that your so-called retraction sought to imply that other acts of these New York financiers justified your charges, though your first surmise had turned out to be incorrect. The facts are that in both the first and the second Liberty Loan the New York District ex- ceeded every other district in the percentage of subscriptions to quota apportioned, that it has made temporary loans to the Government since our entry into the war, exceeding the total of all other districts combined, has provided not far from half of all the funds furnished our Govern- ment for war purposes, has in addition purchased over $100,000,000 of the bonds originally sub- scribed in other Federal Reserve Districts, has pledged for banking loans to insure a stable money market in aid of the Loan the sum of over $300,- 000,000; had in the first Liberty Loan pledged a subscription of $300,000,000 to make up shortages in other districts, if required, and has led the country in its support of the Federal Reserve system by adding the resources of State banks and trust companies, aggregating nearly $3,000,000,000 in a period of two months. Figures have just been furnished me, based upon the wealth of the nation in 191 2, which I believe to be reliable, which indicate that the New York Reserve District subscribed 5.13 per cent of the total wealth of the district to the Second Liberty Loan, the New York percentage being the highest of all the twelve districts. Your groundless statement has surely done no harm, because the facts so completely refute it. But the pitiable fact remains that the suspicion 1 84 THE NEW FRONTIER of wrongdoing by one part of the country is im- planted in another section, is kept alive, nourished, and developed, usually for selfish political pur- poses, by just such irresponsible charges as yours. The answer seemed conclusive. But as is usual in such cases the retraction and refutation received less publicity than the unfounded charge. And one more false impression was planted in the public mind with regard to a group of men who throughout the war did their part up to the limit of their power, in New York, in Washington and throughout the Allied world. There will always be men in Wall Street who violate its traditions, just as there are men in every walk of life who are not true to themselves. But it may be said on information which can readily be verified by anyone interested in American condi- tions, that the standards of business and of life of the great majority of men who make up what the country knows as Wall Street, can survive the most rigid investigation, can even meet the searching idealism of ambitious American youth, and would, if rightly understood by the people at large, be matter for pride rather than censure. In the critical years which lie ahead of us the chief thing needed to give this community known as Wall Street its proper place in the estimation of the nation is that its most capable men shall lead, that they shall make very effort to put themselves and their business associates in the proper light AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS 185 before the country, to the end there shall be no mis- taking who and what they are and what they stand for; and, what is highly important, that misleading representations about Wall Street shall be fol- lowed through and nailed as false at every oppor- tunity, no matter what the trouble or expense. It is the temper of the situation which is wrong; the fundamentals of Wall Street are sound. The hostile attitude toward Wall Street is frequently based upon the wide acceptance of reiterated charges of wrongdoing, repeated accusations, endless in- sinuations, by politicians, by persons of bad judg- ment who have lost money for themselves, not only in New York but in almost any part of the country; by radicals who believe all men with large incomes are ipso facto dishonest; by clergymen who hold their congregations by sensational statements rather than spiritual leadership; by those entirely human people who feel richer if, despite their own in- ability to earn a living, they can once a day drag in the dust the good name of some business leader; by the occasional newspaper which makes a business of cultivating prejudice against groups and classes; and sometimes even by college professors, usually clear thinking and constructive, who join the chorus of outcry aimed at the abstraction known as Wall Street; and finally by the wider public who believe what they hear and what they read so long as no one bothers to offer an explanation or enter a denial. The time has come for the country to stop denounc- 1 86 THE NEW FRONTIER ing Wall Street in the abstract, at the same time that it is caUing upon hundreds of individuals in Wall Street for national business leadership. The time has come for the nation to recognize the fact that the greatest constructive work — the most vigorous and most enlightened leadership and unselfish financial support for the Church, for art, for education, for the drama, for clean politics, for social betterment, for industrial cooperation, for more beautiful cities, for the improvement of agriculture, for efficiency in national administration, for a strong and independent press, have a powerful ally in New York City — and that the leadership in all these movements, through thousands of boards of managers, directors, trustees, advisory com- mittees and quiet anonymous individual givers and counselors, involves much of the time, energy, imagination and money of the business and financial men of New York, a typically American group in a typically American city. For, if there is any part of America which is fundamentally American it is Wall Street. Here, if anywhere, the pioneer spirit still lives. Here is a community where talent and character are recog- nized as quickly as in any part of the world today. Flere is a community where the majority of power is in the hands of men whose wealth was not inherited and who do not occupy their positions because of social prestige or influence. The proportion of Wall Street men who were born in New York is small. AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS 187 Side by side are presidents of corporations who started as office boys and others who came out of private schools and great universities. Nearly every state is represented. Most of the officers or directors of the large banks and corporations were born out- side of New York City. An analysis of one hundred of the most important names shows that twenty- eight officers of large banks, life insurance companies, telephone and telegraph companies and express com- panies were born in cities with a population of more than one million, and of this number, only thirteen were born In New York City. Of the remainder, only thirty men were born in cities of substantial size, leaving forty-two who were born in little towns scattered over the United States, in other words, country boys. These men in their daily life, coming as they do from all parts of the country and being in contact as they are in the course of business with every city and town throughout the entire nation, may be regarded as fairly representative of the constructive manhood of America, with all its gen- erosity and all its selfishness, with all its con- servatism and all its radicalism, with all its boyish love of playing the game, with its predominant strain of liberalism and vigor and fair dealing, that have made this great young country the envy of the world. There Is no better expression of this spirit than the New Yorker's Creed, written by Bruce Barton under the inspiration of a War Loan campaign. 1 88 THE NEW FRONTIER and widely used as one of the advertisements of the Liberty Loan Committee during the Victory Loan: I am New York and this is my creed. I am New York; all men know my fame and outward aspect, but few there are who know my heart. Not out of my own loins have my people come. They make their way to me from the East, across the ocean, where the Statue in my harbor lights their spirits with fresh hope. From the West, and South, and North, from every farm and village, where clean- hearted, clear-eyed boys and girls have turned their faces toward me as the home of oppor- tunity. They are the builders who have made me great; and on what foundation stones, think you, have they built? On money? On commerce? On trade? They have wrought with materials more eternal. They have laid my foundations on Faith, and fashioned my greatness with Honor and the Plighted Word. In my markets millions in gold pass back and forth upon the firm security of men's trust in one another. When I give my word I do not falter. From every corner of the nation men have gone forth, relying on the promise of that word, to stretch great railroads across the continent; to open mines and rear new cities on the unbroken plains. AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BRAINS 189 Because the war was fought for Right, I gave unsparingly my sons and my resources. And not until the last dollar of the cost of Victory is paid shall I call my task complete. For I am New York, the dwelling place of honor. "A city that hath foundations" — whose corner-stone is Faith. This business community, and its counterpart in every part of America, can supply an important proportion of liberal leadership in the future. The public problems, predominantly economic in charac- ter, are so complex, so endless in their variety, that the business men of America cannot wait to be drafted. They must come forward to meet the crisis of peace as they came forward to meet the crisis of war — as volunteers. HUMAN RESOURCES William James, in one of his most popular ad- dresses, published under the title. The Energies of Men, touched upon an interesting and significant theory of education. He emphasized not formal education, but the realization and utilization to the utmost of those human powers which usually lie fallow even in men and women of thorough schooling and active experience in the work of the world. Professor James suggested that the increasing demands of modern affairs upon the strength and attention of the individual can in part at least be met by a better organization of the powers which have been given us. "Let no one think, then," he said, "that our problem of individual and national economy is solely that of the maximum of pounds raisable against gravity, the maximum of loco- motion, or of agitation of any sort, that human beings can accomplish. That might signify little more than hurrying and jumping about in unco- ordinated ways; whereas inner work, though it so often reinforces outer work, quite as often means its arrest. To relax, to say to ourselves (with the 'new thoughters') * Peace! be still!' is sometimes a great achievement of inner work. When I speak of 190 HUMAN RESOURCES 191 human energizing in general, the reader must there- fore understand that sum-total of activities, some outer and some inner, some muscular, some emo- tional, some moral, some spiritual, of whose waxing and waning in himself he is at all times so well aware. How to keep it at an appreciable maximum? How not to let the level lapse ? That is the great problem." The thought, as he develops it, is analogous to the physical phenomenon of " second wind." *' Everyone knows what it is to start a piece of work, either intellectual or muscular, feeling stale. And every- body knows what it is to *warm up' to his job. . . . When we have walked, played, or worked 'enough' we desist. . . . But if an unusual necessity forces us to press onward, a surprising thing occurs. The fatigue gets worse up to a certain critical point, when gradually or suddenly it passes away, and we are fresher than before. We have evidently tapped a level of new energy, masked until then by a fatigue-obstacle usually obeyed. . . . Mental activity shows the phenomenon as well as physical, and in exceptional cases we may find, beyond the very extremity of fatigue-distress, amounts of ease and power which we never dreamed ourselves to own, — sources of strength habitually not taxed at all, be- cause habitually we never push through the ob- struction, never pass those early critical points." The question at once arises, "Why do so many men break down in health?" The answer of James is, in substance, that the breakdown is due not to 192 THE NEW FRONTIER work, but rather to worry, which is an abuse of the mind and body, or that it is due to an improper handling of the physical machinery of men. "Of course there are limits: the trees don't grow into the sky. But the plain fact remains that men the world over possess amounts of resource which only very exceptional individuals push to their extremes of use. But the very same individual, pushing his energies to their extreme, may in a vast number of cases keep the pace up day after day and find no 'reaction' of a bad sort, so long as decent hygienic conditions are preserved. His more active rate of energizing does not wreck him; for the organism adapts itself, and as the rate of waste augments, augments correspondingly the rate of repair. ... If my reader will put together these two conceptions, first, that few men live at their maximum of energy, and second, that anyone may be in vital equilibrium at very different rates of energizing, he will find, I think, that a very pretty practical problem of national economy, as well as of individual ethics, opens upon his view. "In rough terms, we may say that a man who energizes below his normal maximum fails by just so much to profit by his chance at life; and that a nation filled with such men is inferior to a nation run at higher pressure. The problem is, then, how can men be trained up to their most useful pitch of energy? And how can nations make such training most accessible to all their sons and daughters? HUMAN RESOURCES 193 This, after all, is only the general problem of educa- tion, formulated in slightly different terms." Of course, there will always be the other side of the picture. The restless sons of a pioneer race must learn to supplement the quest for the maximum of properly directed energy v/ith an occasional study and practice of that supplementary science "the idleness of men." It is a more popular science than the other, and for many people easier to master. But too many normally energetic men and women in America have never learned how to throw off every thought and care even for one waking moment and to give themselves up to the luxury of complete mental and physical idleness. We sometimes need a little of the philosophy of the elderly resident of a cross-roads not far from Springfield, Illinois, whom Lincoln is said to have seen sitting whittling day after day in complete contentment. On one occa- sion Lincoln's curiosity became too much for him. He drew up his horse and asked the old fellow what he did all day. "Well," was the reply, "sometimes I set and whittle, and sometimes I set and think — and sometimes I jes' set.^^ On the frontiers of earlier generations the neces- sities of existence kept a majority of men and women up to the full limit of their physical powers, at least. Today, on the new frontier the stimuli which "carry us over the dam" are more frequently those of the mind. The center of gravity of national endeavor and creative power has swung from the wilderness 194 THE NEW FRONTIER to the crowded city. According to census figures, forty-six per cent of our population lives in "urban" territory, that is, in towns and incorporated places with a population of twenty-five hundred or more. To quote once more from WiUiam James: "The rapid rate of hfe, the number of decisions in an hour, the many things to keep account of, in a busy city man's or woman's life, seem monstrous to a country brother. He doesn't see how we live at all. A day in New York or Chicago fills him with terror. The danger and noise make it appear like a permanent earthquake. But settle him there, and in a year or two he will have caught the pulse-beat. He will vibrate to the city's rhythms; and if he only suc- ceeds in his vocation, whatever that may be, he will find a joy in all the hurry and the tension, he will keep the pace as well as any of us, and get as much out of himself in any week as he ever did in ten weeks in the country." This fascinating study of human power is one of the most pertinent which can be pursued in the development of men and women capable of bearing the brunt of the responsibility for leadership in our day. The principle here set forth is essentially simple. The application of it must be worked out in the laboratory of the experience and necessity of each individual. Everyone has examples at hand to observe and study. All of us know men who work tirelessly, during long hours, and yet seem to retain their physical strength and fresh creative mental HUMAN RESOURCES 195 vigor. All of us are familiar with examples of men who push their work beyond the utmost reserve of their energies, and collapse. Each man must learn the extent of his own reserves. But when a man does collapse we must take care to learn whether or not he honestly over-taxed his power for work, or whether instead he did not abuse his ph3^sical strength, or, from another angle, whether he did not dissipate his energies on details which he ought to have passed along to other men. We shall rarely find, if we examine each case closely, that a man has actually collapsed from too much clean, well-ordered work. The phase of education which has just been dis- cussed apphes to the problem of the active men and women of today who seek to take a fuller part in the destinies of America. But to a large extent the equipment of most mature people of today is a product of the influences and educational efforts of a previous generation. To a large extent our po- tentialities are fixed beyond our power to expand them radically. In the longer view, therefore, the phase of education most profitable to consider is the development of new material. We are building, we like to believe, for eternity. We may, therefore, consider with no little satisfaction and hope that the destiny of America must soon be turned over to the leadership of men whose capacity for leadership has just begun to be demonstrated, and who are still to a great degree in a formative period. An entirely new group comes forward to do the nation's 196 THE NEW FRONTIER work in each generation, and each successive group enters the arena equipped with the skill and strength and inspiration which the system of education their fathers established for them renders possible, A great opportunity for service to America lies in establishing the solidarity of these new men, in developing in them a love of country based on a knowledge of the spirit and not simply the letter of our tradition and history; in shaping in them a determination to conduct themselves in all their affairs, public and private, with a view to the strengthening of the nation as a whole rather than the mere building up of personal fortunes. The leadership of the future is determined by the education of the present. Much is being said about education, particularly college education. The sub- ject has been thrown a little out of perspective by the recent emphasis upon higher education, while the fact is lost sight of that the school system of the nation, the fundamental basis of our institutions, has not kept pace with the needs of the time. Ele- mentary education is the measure of the progress of the masses of people from a state of ignorance to a condition of civilization. A small proportion re- ceive the benefits of higher education; and these favored few are not true to their duty if they fail to demonstrate the value of that training and inspira- tion by working constantly to raise the standard of training and inspiration open to the great majority. Professor Henry W. Holmes of Harvard said re- HUMAN RESOURCES 197 cently: "There are some 600,000 teachers in this country. About one-half of them are under twenty- five years of age. About half of them serve less than five years in the schools and then turn their jobs over to the inexperienced. About half of them had less than a high-school education themselves. About half of them have never had professional training at all. That is, there are about 16,000,000 children in this country, the future voters, that are badly taught." Professor Holmes's figure is low. We have in America today approximately 22,171,897 school children. We cannot leave to desultory instruction their fiiTn grounding in the principles which have made this nation great. There are in the country about 12,944,529 persons of foreign birth, of whom 2,953,011 are unable to speak English. Their in- struction in the duties and privileges of American citizenship is one of the most pressing duties of this generation. If these two responsibilities are squarely met now, our children will not have to worry about Bolshevism. To meet this need a positive and specific body of doctrine must be taught. No child, no foreigner, can be expected without guidance to steer a true course among the reefs and shoals of prevalent un-American doctrines. And there is another point of importance in this connection. We cannot expect to overcome Bolshevism or sub- versive radicalism by knocking in the head the proponents of these doctrines and offering no concrete 198 THE NEW FRONTIER alternative. Deporting irreconcilable Reds will never rid the nation of extreme radicals. But a large number of them can be won over to Ameri- canism if the true American doctrine is set forth for them with definiteness and adequacy. The average budding radical is an enthusiast. He is a person who feels he has a mission in the world, some great wrong to right, some far-reaching injustice to correct, some Land of Promise to win for mankind. Or he may simply be selfishly seeking something for noth- ing. In any event we cannot expect to destroy his vision, wrong as it is, without giving him another in return. And it will be an eternal shame if we fail, with all the wonderful possibilities for enthusiasm which lie in the strong, clean traditions of America, with the endless advantages of the nation of today, with the splendid promise of its future, to set up a standard which will win the unqualified allegiance of all true-hearted men and women who come to these shores. And the best method yet suggested for instilling something of reverence and self-reliance in the younger men of our day is a system of universal mihtary training. The story of what the training camps did to make aliens into Americans, to make physical defectives into vigorous men, to make the mentally weak mentally competent, to make good Americans better Americans, is Httle short of thrilling. We must have leadership, but the task of leader- ship becomes impossible if no one will follow. We HUMAN RESOURCES 199 need leaders; but if the mass of our people are not trained in the ideals of the nation but are left to shift for themselves intellectually, they will rely upon those leaders who promise them only material benefits. Progressive leadership depends upon the existence of a people whose moral sense can be touched, who can be aroused to follow other than selfish purposes, who are willing to unite and vote for an ideal and if necessary to fight for it. We must raise the salaries of our school teachers. We must raise the salaries of our spiritual teachers — the clergymen. No better way has yet been sug- gested to guard the sacred fire in the temple and to preserve the forces which shape the patriotism of the new generation. From a practical business standpoint it seems hardly necessary to prove that the present supply of material is inadequate. Dur- ing the year 1919 the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York received a gift of ^200,000 from a banker, the purpose of the fund being to develop efficient young men for clerical work. This banker, after a generation of contact with American business and public life, has drawn the conclusion that the supply of human material is not equal in volume and quality to the demand. Consider the whole fabric of American business life. There is surely room for better business training in a country where, according to Dun's figures, in the thirty years from 1889 to 1 91 8 inclusive, the number of firms in busi- ness increased from 1,051,000 to 1,708,000, a total 200 THE NEW FRONTIER increase of 657,000, while during the same period the number of failures aggregated 395,740, or sixty per cent. It is evident that the average business man is carrying a load too great for his strength and highest efficiency. We are not correct in thinking that we can show the way to the world in every direction, and possibly we have often given ourselves credit for business ability in cases where the size of our continent and the extent of our natural re- sources have been largely responsible for the results achieved. The time is at hand when greater thoroughness must be combined with our imagination and dash. It is increasingly evident, now that we have come more closely in contact with foreign nations, that while we have been developing our natural resources and unusual business opportunities, they have de- veloped standards of education and training which are going to be difficult for us to equal. In England, for example, with the crowded population and keen competition of their little island, the profession of actuary has long been considered a worthy object of high endeavor on the part of university men. In an examination recently held by a large American insurance company for the position of assistant actuary, seventeen out of twenty candidates who presented themselves were of Scotch or of English origin, the rest being Americans. It is true that one of the Americans was the successful candidate; but it is fair to say that the supply of Americans who HUMAN RESOURCES 201 can compete with the trained actuary from across the water is very small. Mr, Vanderhp, in his discussion of what happened to Europe, answers in the affirmative the question as to whether or not New York is to become the financial center of the world; but in discussing this question he points out "that London bankers doubt our ability to create the technical organization that will be necessary, if we are to try to assume the responsibility of world financial leadership. They recognize frankly their present disabilities, but they think the safety of their position lies largely in our inability to create a competent technical group of international bankers." Another important consideration in our business world today is the handling of young men after they have actually entered the various organizations. College men, contrary to the popular impression, are willing to put on overalls or sit on a bench and answer a bell. They are ready to start doing this, but naturally they are not willing to keep on doing it after they see there is nothing ahead. If we spend a great deal of money in building up institu- tions to give a group o picked men a special training we ought in our business organizations to be willing to build up an adequate system to use these men up to the limit of their possibilities of economic pro- ductiveness. This point does not apply solely to college men. We have not as yet reached an ideal solution of the 202 THE NEW FRONTIER whole problem of vocational selection, of making the man and the job fit each other and go forward together. Our employment divisions have until recently been equipped with men who were inclined to measure the head and tabulate the reactions to mental tests of the "subject," rather than looking the man in the eye and sensing his true potentialities. Employment directors have been under the necessity of establishing a system which would enable them to respond instantly to the voice over the telephone: "Send me a file clerk — quick." The employment director who will search out sources of supply and see that men were properly handled and developed according to their maximum abilities after they enter our business organizations will discharge one of the heaviest responsibilities in our present economic system. Of course, the bulk of the employes who go into our business and industrial world today are hardly more than boys and girls. Where do they come from, and who is responsible for their equipment when they start out to look for a job in the world? Do they come properly equipped? At the present time the answer to these questions must be that in the great majority of cases they come from schools which are conducted by a devoted group, largely made up of women who are not properly paid and from colleges whose teachers receive scandalously low salaries. A leading educator recently called attention to the fact that in these days of universal HUMAN RESOURCES 203 strikes it is remarkable that the teachers, who cer- tainly deserve salary increases far more than many of the present-day strikers, have not long since put down their rulers and pencils and refused to continue until their salaries were raised. The explanation seems to be that the same spirit which induced them in the first place to undertake a line of work in which the personal satisfaction in the service rendered is its greatest reward, has kept them at their desks. The devotion of this great body of men and women is beyond praise, and it is an immediate and urgent responsibility of liberal leadership the country over to see to it that the defect of inadequate compensa- tion is remedied so that the children in our schools shall not be placed in the position of gaining their fundamental education in an atmosphere of strikes and lock-outs, or at best of petty pohtics. Tardily but effectively the colleges are endeavoring to. raise enough money to give their professors a living wage. Men and women have gone through our colleges and universities for some hundreds of years receiving a training which has actually cost in dollars spent on the individual student much more than the student has paid in tuition. The graduates have gone cheerfully on their way taking deep satis- faction in their Alma Mater, and meanwhile the Alma Mater has come very near starving to death. We may well be proud of the colleges which turned out such an extraordinary proportion of the officers of the American army in France, and yet we have been 204 THE NEW FRONTIER content to let our college professors train successive generations of young men, and receive salaries which have not made it possible for the professors to send their own sons through college. Following the leadership of Harvard, the campaigns of Cornell, Princeton, Technology, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Welles- ley and other colleges should mark a new era and initiate a movement calculated forever to put an end to a flagrant form of neglect which has been at- tacking the very roots of our national greatness by endangering the supply of trained leadership in the Republic, Our next duty is to see to it that the same service is rendered the teachers in our public schools. One detail of the wide program for the improve- ment of our human material involves more personal contact with schools on the part of grown-ups. Men and women of vision and training can render great service if they will systematically go into the schools and talk to children. One of the most helpful plans under consideration has been developed by a New York business man who suggests the formation of representative committees throughout the United States with the ofiicial sanction of the state, city and town authorities, each man or woman to make two or three short, carefully prepared talks each year in schoolrooms of the vicinity. Men forget how susceptible children are to ideas acquired in such a way. It is the finest sort of public service, because it touches the foundations of charac- HUMAN RESOURCES 205 ter which are the ultimate basis of the greatness of the nation. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay on politics, "We think our civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock- crowing and the morning star. In our barbarous society the influence of character is in its infancy. As a political power, as the rightful lord who is to tumble all rulers from their chairs, its presence is hardly yet suspected. . . . What is strange, too, there never was in any man sufficient faith in the power of rectitude to inspire him with the broad design of renovating the State on the principle of right and love, . . . that human beings might exercise toward each other the grandest and simplest sentiments, as well as a knot of friends or a pair of lovers." - • An ideal of this kind, if it can be established at all, must be deeply ingrained in the youth of the land if it is to withstand the wear and tear of a practical world. ■ , As to the matter ot* college training, it is idle to question its value to the individual or to the nation. The perennial discussion of the college man in business would have some basis if the claim had been advanced that all college men were better trained than all non-college men. This is not true. Many men are born with natural capacity and ambition which surmounts all obstacles. The right man will succeed wherever he is. It may even be said that a certain type of restless energy is 2o6 THE NEW FRONTIER rarely helped by college because it never truly submits itself to the college influences. In general, however, it is probably true that most successful men who are not college graduates would have found their true success more easily and more fully if they had had the benefit of college training. And, in general, college men entering business today are proving by their willingness to begin at the bottom, their evident ambition, their adaptability and good presence that their Investment of money and of precious years in college work has not been thrown away. The opportunities for college-trained men in the business and public life of the future are endless. But we must regard the college man for what he is. The graduate of a business college is not a business man. Neither is the graduate of a law school a lawyer, or the graduate of a medical school a doctor. All these men have learned to think with a certain thoroughness and have established their habits of thought on a basis of organization rather than upon pure superficiality and chance. But all these men must learn their actual work by doing it. From a practical standpoint their claim upon the community lies not In what they know but in their determination to learn quickly coupled with a capacity to do so. Beyond this, too, the majority of these men have acquired a breadth of viewpoint, a liberality, one may say, which comes from a liberal education. They have, as a rule, a certain capacity for meeting HUMAN RESOURCES '207 new situations and for exerting initiative which makes rapidly for winning the confidence of their superiors and their associates. This is the natural basis for success, and for leadership. These results of college training bear more upon method of approach and indeed upon character than upon technique; and it is this viewpoint which needs to be appreciated in order to comprehend the value and the limitations of the young graduate entering his hfe work. He knows very httle. If he is the right sort of man he quickly discovers how little he knows — and right here enters the true secret of his success; for the discovery of his limitations does not break his spirit. He has wandered through realms of high aspiration; his college life has given him a glimpse of the great hopes and achievements of men, of the rise and fall of nations, of art and literature and the great permanent, basic elements of human happiness. His flag is nailed to the mast. No matter how far short he may fall of his highest ambition he will rarely let himself fall short of the best that there is in him. More than this no man can do. All this constitutes a form of idealism, a setting up of standards, and a loyalty to those standards. Loyalty is the essence of it. It is not simply a college product. Lincoln acquired it in a log cabin and a law office. But it is the highest object of education, and the university is the highest form of systematic training human ingenuity has so far 208 THE NEW FRONTIER been able to devise. College-trained men and women are entering into the hard work of the nation to an extent which should leave no question as to the im- portance of making that training increasingly easy of access to the young men and women of the coun- try, irrespective of any consideration except their ambition and the possession of reasonable qualifica- tion to undertake it. There is another and a still broader aspect to college education. Aside from turning out keen and intelligent workers, the greatest value to be expected from the higher education is the responsibility it teaches for leadership in national affairs, politics, social service, and the formation of public opinion. Most business men without college training can, if they will, do constructive work along the lines of public service. But the college man cannot omit such service without being false to a trust. It is expected of him. He is supposed to be equipped for it. Others consciously, and to some extent properly, leave it to him to do. President Lowell, in a recent address in connection with the Harvard Endowment Fund campaign, called attention to the tremendous loss of university men in the war. Some of the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge had entire classes wiped out. He said that this great tragedy placed a responsi- bility upon the college-trained men of America. "I remember early in this war, while horrors were still fresh in our mindsi, and before the martial desire HUMAN RESOURCES 209 had to some extent replaced the sense of pure sym- pathy, that I used to think of the battlefields on the Marne, in Flanders, of the faces turned up to the moon with sightless eyes, of thousands and thou- sands of young men, and wonder who was dead among those young men; whether there was among them any man who would have been a future Pasteur, any mute, inglorious Milton, any man who would have contributed greatly to the advance of human knowledge and the relief of human suffering, to the elevation of the human soul. We do not know what the future might have held for those who lie dead on those fields, but v/e do know that among those young men who have died, among the French and among the English, — who have lost vastly more men than we have, — are many who would have contributed greatly to the advance of the human race, and to the progress of civilization. We know very well that a large portion of the most promising youth of Western Europe has been destroyed, cut off in their prime, and we know that many more have been incapacitated for future work by the loss of their eyes or loss of their limbs and the consequent loss of their health, which will prevent them ever exerting the natural powers that they would other- wise have had. "And, it seems to me, it has thrown a responsi- bility on the United States. We stand out today not only as the first nation in wealth, the first nation in the great natural material resources, but we also 2IO THE NEW FRONTIER stand as the standard bearer of civilization. The world looks to us, and will continue to look to us for holding up civilization and for advancing it. Hitherto we have not contributed our share to the advancement of thought of the world, and for a very- good reason we have not done it. We have accom- plished a feat unparalleled in history. In the course of a hundred years we have subdued a whole continent, a continent inhabited only by people un- civilized. We have covered the whole of that conti- nent with a network of railroads; we have exploited its mines, we have covered it with flourishing towns; we have filled it with the hum of industry; and that is enough for any population to have done in a hundred years. But we have not contributed to advance the thought of the world, to the extent that we ought to contribute in the future. "There were two nations of antiquity which I like to compare. Each of them in its turn had all the commerce of the Mediterranean in its hand; they were great, rich commercial people. One of them fell under the stroke of Rome, to wit, Carthage. And what has Carthage left, except the Roman accounts of her brave and in many cases glorious battles? But what else has she left to enrich man- kind? Has she left any literature, any science, any- thing which tended to the uplifting and the progress of the world? Nothing whatever. It is gone. Why? Because Rome destroyed her? Oh, no; if she had done anything that was really worth doine in the HUMAN RESOURCES 21 1 world, except amassing trade, we should have known it; because the other country was equally overwhelmed by Rome, and that was Athens, and yet Athens has left a richer legacy to the world than any other people of her size has ever left since the world began. Rome conquered her, but her civiliza- tion conquered Rome. No one of us can think apart from the thoughts of Plato and Aristotle. We would never have had the literature, the art, and all the things that adorn modern civilization, had it not been for Greece. *'Now the choice is before us today; shall we be merely a commercial people? Shall we be merely the Carthage of the modern age? Or do we aspire to be a Greece of the modern age? It lies with the people of the United States. They can decide at any time. We have plenty of brains in America; we have, I believe, brains equal in natural capacity to those of any country in Europe, Shall we be a great people in the sense in which Athens was a great people? Or, shall we be a great people only in the sense in which Carthage was a great people?" The ideas and influences which are stirring the peoples of the world as the result of the war indicate a turning point in history. There never was so wide an opportunity for men of training and vision, whether or not they get their training and vision in college or out of coHege. The answer to the momen- tous question which Dr. Lowell asks regarding the future of America rests to a large extent with the 212 THE NEW FRONTIER young men and women who are about to take up their burden of running the greatest repubhc in the world, and with the milHons of children in our public schools who are now learning the first simple elements of the great lesson of responsible citizenship. THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH Mr. Pomeroy Burton, Manager of the London Daily Mail, recently spent some time in this coun- try, and left with us some impressions of his visit to the Coast and back. "I was particularly impressed," he says, "with the general lack of interest in other than local affairs on the part of many business men who represented leading commercial and financial activities. In some sections I found them inclined to take the present exceptional state of prosperity as a normal state of affairs and they were therefore in a thoroughly com- placent frame of mind, not bothering their heads much about labor or European affairs or anything else except their own business. "But it is fair to say that this attitude was not without exception. This policy has provided the extremist leaders who are now in control of the labor situation with their strongest weapon, and that weapon has been used unsparingly to force into the radical camp many thousands of straight working men who have no real sympathy with their present leaders and who would welcome a change to get on the right track. "False leaders and unsound theories are prevailing partly by sheer force of persistence, and because of 213 214 THE NEW FRONTIER lack of leadership on the side of common sense and justice. "Today, by means of systematic organization and ceaseless activity the radical labor leaders are making headway in the western states, sweeping into line great numbers of wage earners, many of them prop- erty owners themselves, who would welcome a sounder, saner program if only one were provided. "It seems to be time for a strong lead to be given which will encourage the people, especially the work- ing people who are being led sadly astray, to think straight and understand the basic element of the labor question and of other questions equally im- portant, which must be dealt with in the interest of the country at large. "It devolves upon the aroused business men of this country more than upon any other class or body of citizens to get properly to work and save the situation. It will not do for capital, as capital, to raise a big fund and start out to fight this radical movement. If it tried that today, the chances are that capital would be beaten. The extremist leaders would welcome such a challenge. "But if the men who represent all grades and kinds of business throughout every part of the United States were to unite in a movement, not to fight labor, not to fight capital, but fearlessly to expose the faults of both and simply and fairly to spread the truth they could turn the whole trend of events and avert consequences that are not pleasant to contemplate.'* THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 215 Here we have a significant situation fairly stated and a remedy suggested. It is a line of action which the plaintiffs in the present situation have not failed to take advantage of at every turn. From the standpoint of propaganda, the radical agitators are the most active and prolific single element in the modern forum. A soldier in France who had been a teamster and whom the war inspired to give some thought to the question of social unrest, has made the following comment on extremist literature: *'The average worker is a newspaper reader and the more advanced and influential amongst them are readers of all sorts of pamphlets and books on labor questions. The propagandists of Bolshevism, Syndicalism, and all the other -isms know well this keenness of the thinking class of workers for litera- ture of all sorts on labor and social questions and they take good care that such seekers after knowl- edge are well provided with cleverly-written matter supporting all the -isms fostering class hatred and stirring up trouble. The volume of such Hterature is too great to be the outcome of chance; the skill with which it is written, the subtlety and clever- ness with which fractions of what the workers know to be truths are distorted, magnified, and built up into plausible arguments and reasoning show clearly that brains and organization are at the back of this 'revolutionary' movement. And yet no serious attempt is made to stem the torrent of this evil influence; no really effective measures are 2i6 THE NEW FRONTIER taken to expose the lies, fallacies, false arguments and reasonings which are heaped upon the workers. For this the blame can rest only on the employers. There are, we know, certain sane and level-headed labor leaders who, by articles, by speeches at their meetings and conferences try to tell the workers the truth. But these men can do httle on their own; and the revolutionary element in the unions takes good care that the truth-telling, anti-revo- tutionary leaders are allowed no time nor money to spend on counteracting the propaganda of the -isms. You can find plenty of great 'captains of industry,' leaders of trade, large manufacturers and employers of labor, who know well and curse heartily the evil propaganda, who grumble that something ought to be done, and wonder why the Government or the trade unions do not do it; but there are few who dream of doing it themselves. The revolutionaries can and do spend skill, energy, initiative and money on propaganda — why can- not the anti-revolutionaries? They would begin with the enormous advantage of needing only to tell the truth, and the truth must win if it is told widely and plainly enough." Propaganda is needed, if by propaganda is meant the telling of the truth. The real crux of the matter is here. The facts are needed, patience is called for, an attitude of mind and heart is demanded, which aims at agreement and not at war; if these things are the material for the propaganda to THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 217 convey, then, within Hmits it will be useful. We need a union of persons who are trained and elo- quent advocates of the truth, not for any personal gain, except as it may accrue to the benefit to the nation as a whole. And this organization must use the weapons of publicity to win credence for the doctrines of liberal people just as persistently and skillfully as these weapons are being used by the proponents of lightning change in the fabric of our institutions. Let us analyze a little this great modern publicity machinery. Whether in the form of paid adver- tising or in the form of news serving specific ends, it is essential to life as it is Hved in civil- ized countries today. It has been defined as the art of making known. Whether we think of America primarily in its political or social phase, or whether we think of it in its business phase and emphasize its tremendous activities of production and distribu- tion, the art of making known is equally essential. In a democracy, unless it is known what people think about one another, what opinions and ac- tivities exist throughout the country, society can- not function as a coherent whole. In the diversity of our national life, with its widely separated com- munities and local conditions and interests, dif- fering so greatly in atmosphere and the flavor of tradition, with geographic barriers of mountain and prairie, and human barriers of fused and un- fused racial elements, the disintegrating influences in 2i8 THE NEW FRONTIER the way of a unified American nation would be in- superable were it not for the binding effect of the publicity that daily places in the minds of all the people of the country the same major ideas and events. Although each community is vitally con- cerned with its local interests, it is national news that dominates the best thought in all communities, and simultaneously puts before them the same set of facts as the basis for a national viewpoint and judgment. This circumstance is the greatest single influence in the formation of the definitely national culture and national attitude of mind, which are the fundamentals of patriotism. This is true not only of the political questions of the hour, but also of a great many social and eco- nomic questions. Papers from all sections of the country at any given period are largely pervaded by the same tone, because methods of publicity, of making known particular phases of thought or of activity, have developed ways of diffusing knowl- edge on any particular subject throughout the ex- tensive news system of the nation. One day it is prohibition that leads the publicity thought of the country; another day it is the ownership of the nation's railway system; another day political questions predominate. One week radical agita- tion holds sway, and the next the League of Nations is foremost in the nation's reading. All of this is publicity, whether it be produced through speeches at pubHc gatherings, through widespread per- THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 219 sonal organization, or through statements sent broadcast to the press. All are methods of laying before the plebescite of the nation facts and figures which will first stir them to an interest in a subject and then lead them to reach a decision. It is the right arm of democracy. This delicate and powerful machinery seems to be almost perfect. And yet the responsibihties in- volved are so great that it may confidently be stated that we have only begun to realize them. One forward step, foreshadowed by the great news services, may well be a greater concentration of in- dividual news units. In France there are four great newspapers with a combined circulation of 7,600,000. The ten papers in the United States with the largest sworn circulation in November, 1919, were the following: (in this order) New York Journaly Boston Post, Philadelphia Bulletin^ Kansas City Star and Times, Chicago Tribune, Chicago News, New York (Morning) World, New York Times, New York (Evening) World and New York American, with a total circulation of 4,099,712. There are in the country as a whole 21,493 pubhca- tions, including 2363 dailies, 14,714 weeklies, 3148 monthlies, 342 quarterlies, and 926 miscellaneous. Despite the vast geographical extent of the country, it would not seem unreasonable to expect, with the wonderful extension of telegraph and cable facili- ties, a further increase in uniformity and vigor in the presentation of news and opinion, and a con- 220 THE NEW FRONTIER stantly increasing circulation for great and ably edited journals. Good advertising often has news value. But generally speaking, advertising is that phase of publicity which seeks to make known not news, but an accurate and vivid set of facts or opinions, and to induce definite action as a result. Our present industrial and business organization in- volves keen competition and narrow margins of profit. To make business pay requires an extensive market with a large consumption to absorb the output of quantity-production methods. Only by quantity-production and a wide scale of distribu- tion can a narrow margin of profit be made to produce sufficient return to attract capital. There- fore, to produce a large volume of sales, the art of making known to America's hundred million people scattered over the three million square miles of territory in this vast country, is essential to busi- ness; and the value and virtues of a product must be exploited with the utmost skill and persistency. Organization, expansion and big units characterize the genius of American business today and explain the necessity and the responsibility of the great advertising organization of the United States. Few people realize the magnitude and Importance of the business of advertising. It is estimated that $750,000,000* is spent in the United States annually * Printer's Ink, September 19, 1918: — The periodical Publishers' Association, through John Adams Thayer, reports as follows on expen- THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 221 for advertising of all kinds. In some cases it is hard to segregate the amounts spent in advertis- ing as distinguished from sales promotion and actual distribution through salesmen, but the figure quoted is sufficiently accurate to suggest the enorm- ous investment in America today in this one branch of the art of putting power behind facts. During the war the power of advertising was clearly demonstrated, and the wonderfully versatile advertising men of the nation came together as a unit to put at the services of the Liberty Loan and other war committees their vision and skill in arous- ing public support and the desire to buy. This ditures for 1916 stating that "1917 would not be different from the previous year": Daily newspapers $375,000,000 Country newspapers 34,000,000 Posted and painted signs 30,000,000 Street cars 10,000,000 Farm papers 15,000,000 Business papers 10,000,000 Magazines and periodicals 50,000,000 $524,000,000 To this Mr. Thayer would add in round numbers, which are, of course, approximate, $200,000,000 a year for miscellaneous other forms of advertising, making a grand total of nearly three quarters oj a billion dollars — missing that figure by only $26,000,000; and what are twenty- six million dollars between friends when we are being statistical? Mr. Thayer's list does not include theater programs, for which the figure of $5,000,000 is given by Ralph Trier, of the New York Theater Program Corporation, as being as close as could be expected to the real amount. To the estimate of $15,000,000 for farm papers, an authority in that field adds $7,000,000, making $22,000,000 all told. The con- census of opinion of three exponents of street car advertising, averaging 222 THE NEW FRONTIER far-reaching cooperation with the Government in war time has led to suggestions involving a per- manent policy of Government advertising. This subject deserves careful study; but it may be suggested that it will prove advisable to confine Government paid advertising to the setting forth of facts, rather than to expanding it in the direction of propaganda. It is hardly the function of a. democratic government to guide the thoughts and desires of its people in too much detail. It may well be true, however, that a great deal can be done by advertising to the public the facilities of the Government along the lines of agriculture; ad- vertising to business men how the Customs Service their estimates, is one million more than Mr. Thayer's $15,000,000. Jesse H. Neal, of the Associated Business Papers, Inc., says $25,000,000 to $40,000,000 was spent last j^ear in the business press. For specialty advertising, figures compiled some years ago by the National Associa- tion of Advertising Specialty Manufacturers are believed to be correct today. The estimate then given was $30,000,000. Modifying Mr. Thayer's estimate in the light of these data (and averaging Mr. Neal's statement) gives a total of $605,000,000 for these forms of advertising only. There yet remains, of course, the question of samples and demonstration, distributing, house organs and all other forms of direct advertising. , . . The most exact of the figures on direct mail give a total of $442,500,000. This was achieved by taking all the manufacturers, wholesalers, jobbers, retailers, mail-order houses, etc , in the United States, estimating an average appropriation for direct mail, and combining the aggregates. Thirty-nine thousand high-rated manufacturers are estimated to spend $5,000 each; 100,000 other manufacturers $500 each; 40,000 wholesalers and jobbers $500 each; 1,500,000 retailers $50 each; 100,000 banks, real estate companies, brokers, etc., $500 each; 800 mail order houses $50,000 each; 2,500 department stores $5,000 each. It will readily be seen what enormous possibilities for error are contained in estimates made in this fashion. THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 223 functions; advertising to the public the technicali- ties of the tax system; and in a hundred other ways aiding our public officials to play the part of an intelligent public service corporation in facilitat- ing the fullest possible public participation in the benefits created for the public advantage. It is remarkable how this great system has de- veloped in the past few years. Not that publicity is new. The Egyptians had their books and maga- zines and bulletins, and as they were carved on solid rock they were far more durable than ours will ever be. But the sporting news must have been rather dull reading after it had remained cut into the side of a palace for five or ten centuries. If one of the venerable mummies in the Metropolitan Museum should suddenly come to life he might well find the war-bulletins carved in the Central Park obelisk somewhat musty and primitive. Even Caesar established a more up-to-date news agency. Ferrero says, in his Greatness and Decline of Rome: "It was he who originated at Rome what we should describe in modern language as a popular news- paper. With the increase of wealth and education curiosity had very naturally kept pace, and there were people in Rome who sought to gain a living by doing something analogous to the modern journals. They gathered what they considered to be the most important and interesting public and private in- formation of the day and at regular intervals they collected it into a small handbook and had it copied 224 THE NEW FRONTIER several times by a slave, distributing copies to subscribers. Naturally this was a luxury which only the rich could afford. Caesar seems to have passed a decree that one of the magistrates should be entrusted with the duty of causing a resume of the most important news to be inscribed on white- washed walls in different parts of the city, with the arrangement that when the news was stale the walls should be whitewashed again for other news to take its place. In this way even the poorest people could be kept informed about all that went on." And then Ferrero records an item which must have been of great significance to the people of Rome if by chance treaties of peace were ever under discussion in those days: "Caesar also ar- ranged that reports of sittings of the Senate should be made in a more regular manner and put at the disposition of the pubhc." But the greatest contrast between old and new pubHcity facilities is to be seen in the development of our own nation. In the Federal Convention which drafted the national Constitution in the sum- mer of 1787, after a war fought to a considerable extent on the basis of popular rights, there was naturally a substantial sentiment in favor of the direct popular election of the president; but one of the great objections raised was that a candidate proposed in Massachusetts would not be known in Virginia, and one brought forward in Carolina would be wholly unfamiliar in Maine. The suggestion in THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 225 the Convention that the electors should be chosen by the state legislature and that a meeting of these electors should then be held in the Federal city to decide upon a chief magistrate, was met by the very serious objection that it was considered im- possible to find really suitable men who would be able to undertake so long and difficult a journey for such a purpose. It is hard for the modern mind to take the jump from colonial days with high cost of postage, the alm.ost entire absence of newspapers, and the almost unbelievable difficulty of transportation, to the pres- ent day with its two cent postage, its network of railroads and highroads, its twenty-three thousand newspapers and magazines, its telephone and tele- graph and wireless and airplane service. Today we have the common experience of presidential candi- dates travehng with comparative ease thousands of miles from one end of the country to the other and speaking before millions of people during a few months of compaigning, with their life histories in the possession of everyone and every detail of their features familiar to dwellers in remotest farms and cabins throughout the nation, and finally millions of votes cast in a single day and the full results generally tabulated and made known by nightfall. It is the function of the newspapers to disseminate news promptly, and of the magazines to disseminate views thoroughly, and of both to disseminate this material widely. It is essentially the function of 226 THE NEW FRONTIER the great news service to disseminate facts instan- taneously. Thus, hterally within less than a minute all the communities of the United States may be informed of a great event or set thinking about the same question. Take as an example an instance of the lighter side of our national hfe. When the World's Series baseball games are being played, the Associated Press links up about 30,000 miles of telegraph wire on a single circuit extending to news- paper offices in cities, towns and villages throughout the country, before whose bulletin boards, in many cases, foregathers virtually the entire population. In the press stand at the game sits a telegraph operator, and shortly before the game is called he begins to send out a monotonous series of rhythmical ticks to "warm" the wires and focus the attention of the receiving operators throughout the country. Beside him stands an observant reporter to dictate a running story of the game. The monotonous series of ticks which spell no words is interrupted only to send the few brief words describing each move. Thus in less than a minute from the time "Babe" Ruth swats the ball a primitive bang, sending It over the fence for a home run, the entire American people Is aware of the fact. This system of sending news Instantaneously to the entire nation Is not without its social significance in its power to unite the thoughts of the nation on a single idea. For even if the same expedition is not used In regard to all news as in the baseball game. THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 227 it IS never more than a few minutes before the whole country has been apprised of events of national importance by the alert wires of the news agencies. The availabihty of this great instrumentaHty for instantaneous news dissemination, always at hand, has potentialities which have not yet been fully developed. National unity must be based upon national conviction, but the conviction of a hundred milHon people must be based upon setting the facts before them promptly and faithfully. The system of disseminating news by flashes, bulletins and short telegraphic reports tends to keep this form of news purified of bias and exaggeration, because sheer brevity restricts the reports to absolute facts, and the wide variety of newspaper membership in the news associations precludes partisanship. It may be too much to say that the newspapers and magazines of the country won the war. It certainly is fair to say that without them we never should have gone into the war and played the de- ciding part that it was our opportunity to play in the greatest struggle of all time. Without them the people of the country could never have been aroused to an understanding of the situation and to a real- ization of their responsibility. Without the newspapers of the country the war could not have been financed. The newspapers were the foundation stone of the great Liberty Loan campaigns which in an actual selling period of 115 days placed in the hands of approximately 228 THE NEW FRONTIER 25,000,000 people unaccustomed to investment ^21,500,000 of Government securities. In the great emergency the papers of the country without re- gard to any consideration but patriotism placed their news columns at the disposal of the Liberty Loan Committees. In the City of New York alone the newspapers published without charge to the Government and excluding paid advertising about 25,000 columns of material covering the five Liberty Loans. The war campaigns were a tremendous demonstration of the power of the press to educate, stimulate and organize public opinion. The lesson of these campaigns for the future is that the leaders of public opinion must study this gigantic power, semi-public in character, and play their part in helping it to discharge its great responsibility fairly and truly. Of course, there is a danger in our time, when so much is printed, that people should think that everything in print is true and regard those things which do not get into print as almost non-existent. A great deal goes on that does not get into the papers and a great many movements and campaigns, political and other, get themselves accomplished with the papers in opposition. It has not escaped observation that the elections of the chief execu- tives of two of our great American cities have re- cently been brought about in spite of the almost united opposition of the local press. The springs which supply the impulse for popular movements THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 229 often lie deeper than the editorial pencil. But in spite of the occasional striking manifestations of popular independence of the press it may be said that by and large, day after day and year after year, the greatest single influence upon public opinion in modern times is the printed word. This being so, public spirited men for the past ten years have developed a more or less standardized form of influencing pubhc opinion, known as a pubhcity campaign. This undertaking in its simple form involves the appointment of a salaried cam- paign manager who divides up the country into districts and employs assistants to go into the vari- ous cities and towns and interview editors of papers and representative men, including, for example, the labor leader, the head of the local grange, a promi- nent banker, lawyer, clergyman, the head of the women's organization, the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club. The opinions of these leaders are forwarded to headquarters and a card catalogue made up. Pamphlets are issued for general circula- tion and interviews are prepared for local papers, issuing from the influential men in each section whose names will carry a "story" in the communi- ties in which they are known. I Finally, after this quiet work has gone on for some months, assuming that the object is to accomplish legislation, a canvass is made of Congress to ascer- tain the Lttitude of representatives and senators toward the measure in question. A list is made of 230 THE NEW FRONTIER the members who are indined not to favor the bill. Reference is made to the card catalogue covering leaders of thought in their respective constituencies, and letters are forthcoming to Washington from men who can write to their representatives in a par- ticularly intimate way, or in what may be called the "Dear Bill style." In the typical case, where the measure involved appeals fully and promptly to the people of the country, this sort of campaign has merely organized public sentiment and has brought about at an early date the passage of the bill which probably would have passed anyway. Such a campaign should not be very expensive. Modern organization methods, especially following the lessons of the war, have standardized such campaigns calling for simple and straightforward action, upon a basis which need not involve the dangers surrounding the out- lay of vast sums of money. The general rule holds, of course, that the more publicity used within reasonable limits the quicker the desired results are obtained. The Liberty Loan campaigns were, in gross outlay, the most expensive in history. The work to be done in a few weeks was stupendous, both from the standpoint of the amount of bonds to be sold and the number of people to be reached. The cost was, therefore, actually very large. But relatively it was small. The entire publicity ex- pense of the loan campaigns, including advertis- ing, news service, parades, speakers and a great THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 231 variety of features, indoors and out, was less than one-twenty-fifth of one per cent of the amount realized. One great advantage of this form of the modern pubhcity campaign is that it has to a great extent taken the lobbyist out of Washington. From the standpoint of the newspaper editor it has the dis- advantage of bearing down very heavily upon his powers of discrimination because of the great variety of literature which comes over his desk. Here again the standard is improving, however, and the day of the press agent who turns out false and flowery matter in endless bulk to stuff the waste baskets of ten thousand editors is happily passing away. To an increasing extent the material which editors are receiving is actual news. A study of any daily newspaper will show that a substantial portion of the material published is prepared outside of newspaper offices. But for the material daily sent to editors as "publicity," and often complained of by them, the reportorial and editorial salary rolls of American newspapers would need to be increased by many hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. In the future publicity work will need to be more and more expertly managed as the machinery becomes more generally familiar. Not only will the managers of campaigns have to be better trained and better paid men, but the leaders of opinion who serve on the directorates of the cam- paign organizations, and furnish a large part of 232 THE NEW FRONTIER the funds, will have to give more close personal at- tention, first of all to a most careful analysis of the character of the campaigns undertaken, their public advantage and their timeliness, and after the cam- paigns have started they will have to devote more time to putting their own personality and enthusiasm into the organization and publicity. Brain-power and vision cannot be delegated. Tremendous mis- takes have been made through simply "hiring some- one to do it" and paying out vast sums to people who didn't do it. The liberal leaders of the future must be more accessible to the newspapers. In the old days when the standards of newspapers were lower, when they were crowded with utterly false stories and shame- less advertisements of bogus medicines and bogus stocks, and when the standards of business were lower, a natural antipathy developed between these two essential elements of our modern life. But in these days when the standards of all but a very few of our great newspapers are clean and straight- forward and when the average business man has very little to conceal on the grounds of policy and nothing because of its impropriety, the newspaper man should be a welcome visitor. Of course, there is a reciprocal responsibility. It imposes upon newspaper men a greater degree of responsibility not only to the person who receives them, not only to their own papers, but to the general public. An ideal reporter, of THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 233 course, serves as the true eyes and ears of the great absent pubHc, and he therefore has a public duty to perform, — that of seeing, hearing and reporting truthfully, fearlessly, without bias. Un- less he does this, the public becomes blinded, it hears falsely and is misled into erroneous con- structions and unfortunate judgments. The re- sponsibiHty of hearing and seeing rightly implies that a reporter should see the facts that are given to him in their true perspective and sense the ex- istence of essential facts which are being withheld. It requires that he be trained in the power of analysis and discrimination, and that he have a keen sense of proportion and a minimum of personal bias. Only when a reporter carries these qualities into his work is he serving the public well and when he does he is entitled to the open door. Intelligent de- mocracy Is founded on a popular understanding of facts, and unless these facts are presented to the public fairly, cleanly and honestly, the basis of democracy in a country of the size and complexity of modern America, cannot be sound. Naturally, there are times for publicity and times for silence; but there Is no time when a newspaper man should be shown the door empty-handed. This may be said almost without qualification, because there are very few instances on record, in the past de- cade of constant newspaper contact with the most vital developments of business and political life, where a newspaper man has violated a confidence and pub- 234 THE NEW FRONTIER lished a story which he has been asked to keep confidential. Gradually business men are coming to realize that the newspaper man is their friend and that in the great constructive work which lies ahead of the leaders of the future, in bringing about mutual understanding between the business world and labor, and between both these agencies and the pubHc which is so profoundly affected by the mis- takes and successes of both, the newspapers of the nation will play a vital part. The same is true of pohtics. The pubHc is en- titled to know what its public servants are doing. There are times to reveal measures in full, and times to send out "feelers" in order to sense the public attitude. All this is legitimate, and contributes toward sound results. But to be inaccessible to the press is virtually political suicide, and the public should rejoice in this fact. In a long and vital public career, Theodore Roosevelt never refused to see newspaper men. He rarely refused to tell them all he knew, though much of what he might tell was confidential, and it is no exaggeration to say that every newspaper man who ever came in con- tact with Roosevelt not only respected him but loved him. It is a great man who can be a hero to reporters. In addition to developing a close contact between business men and the newspapers of the country, there is a great need in the American business world today of one or more strong, vigorously edited and THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 235 widely read weekly journals of applied economics. We are happily getting away from the days when financial and trade papers were started largely for the advertising they could get, and when comments and criticisms in such journals were governed largely by the presence or absence in the advertis- ing pages of the companies discussed. The tradi- tion of the locked door between the advertising department and the editorial department is one of the most salutary and necessary unwritten laws of American journalism, and it is to the great interest of leaders of opinions that this tradition should be maintained in the most rigid manner. We need journals of opinion that are fearless and at the same time constructive, and it is the duty of business men to support journals which rigidly adhere to these principles and to support them with ad- vertising without expecting editorial support in return. At present the technical field is well covered. The economic and financial fundamentals are ac- curately and diligently set forth, but we still have some distance to go before the American standard of weekly business and economic journalism in the broadest sense achieves the standards of certain French and British weeklies. One of the objects to be obtained is a real national circulation, so that the varied geographic differences which characterize the American business problem in different sec- tions of the country may be welded into a national 236 THE NEW FRONTIER policy. The excellent magazine of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States has taken an im- portant step in this direction, but in addition there is room for an independent and constructive journal which is national in viewpoint, which can discuss the problems of labor and capital with equal ab- sence of the suspicion of class bias. A half dozen years ago an experiment was tried by The Economic World, one of the smaller economic weeklies, which has for years maintained the high- est standards of independence and able editorship, with almost no capital. Its influence is with a small and select group; and it exemplifies a tre- mendous economic loss for a paper of this kind to go to the eff'ort necessary to get special articles from leaders of thought, for an audience number- ing a few thousand, when it should appeal to a few hundred thousand. This paper attempts to draw together in its weekly issues the best thought available in the country, based on sound economic thinking, com- bined with actual contact with practical affairs. One of its early articles was written by George W. Perkins, entitled "Economics New versus Eco- nomics Old," which brought out the constructive point of view of a man associated with big business. In this article the following passage occurred: "Is it not just possible that in place of repressive legis- lation, what has been and is needed is permissive legislation, wkh restrictions that will safeguard the THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 237 people from the avarice of unscrupulous men? The people must be satisfied that centralized power will not be abused in future as it has been in the past. I believe a solution of this problem must come largely through the setting up in this country of some other standard of reward than that of the almighty dollar — some other mark of distinction than the number of millions a man is worth. The yard stick of wealth as the measure of a man's worth must give way to the yard stick of service. Our industrial system must be such that a man holding a high business position will be held in high esteem as a pubhc servant, receiving two kinds of pay: his reward in money and his reward in honors, both in exchange for service actually rendered. Publicity, full and frank, will be potential in es- tablishing such a system." The article then goes on to elaborate upon the importance of pubhcity. "The larger our industrial concerns and the greater the power of individuals, the more searching must be the measure of pubhcity required of them by law and the stronger and more constant must be the limelight on their every action. The law of pubhcity is about the only law governing the President of the United States, to whom the people give vast power. They can af- ford to give him this power because everything he does, every move he makes, every word he utters, almost every change of countenance is watched, recorded, and publicly interpreted. It would be im- 238 THE NEW FRONTIER possible to have any code of laws minutely de- fining the power of the President that could possibly be as effective as the power of publicity which con- stantly regulates and controls him. What better precedent could we have for the regulation and control of our semi-public servants in our great industrial world?" 1 his article involved a sincere piece of con- structive thinking and it attracted such general at- tention that it was reprinted to the extent of several hundred thousand copies and circulated through the United States, with the result that the editor received letters from men in all groups of our busi- ness and industrial life, including professors of economics and leaders in labor organizations, and an attitude distinctly American, rather than an un- American or class attitude was hinted at. Further articles were obtained, from professors of economics and heads of corporations; in short it was a labora- tory experiment in applied economics, the economics of the study checked up with the economics of the market place so that there was left no question as to the need and value of such work done on a large scale and continued year after year. The con- clusion borne home upon those who were active in this experiment carried on over a period of two years is that a journal which can interpret to America the spirit of business men and provide a forum for the frank discussion of their problems will find a powerful and interesting career for itself in this THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 239 country. But the venture calls for substantial capital placed at the unrestricted use of a capable and unbiased stafF. Although the facts of the modern world are widely- told, it is still true that half the world does not know what the other half thinks. Rarely have we had a majority of the people in favor of any one specific thing at any one time in this country. Professor Channing in his "History of the United States" says that perhaps less than half of the American people wanted to separate from England at the time of the American Revolution. Probably less than half of the American people favored total prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Yet the Revo- lution was right. The nation is now wondering if absolute prohibition is right. The lesson we may draw from this would seem to be that the leaders must be careful in what di- rection they lead. They must be careful what they say for pubHcation; but when they do talk they must express their own honest views; and when they see views expressed which they know to be unsound they must not hesitate to express views to the contrary. When we have this magnificent and powerful pubHcity machinery at the disposal of the nation it rests with the leaders to lead so that matters that are right may be eflTected quickly and that movements which are not right may be checked before they go so far as to get themselves on the statute books and put the people to the pain, con- 240 THE NEW FRONTIER fusion and, above all, the expense that follows ex- perimentation with glittering novelties conceived by unthinking enthusiasts and carried through to a temporarily successful conclusion because of the apathy and inertia of men and women who know better. If, with this tremendous publicity ma- chinery ready at hand, and the methods of arous- ing and organizing sound and irresistible public support so clearly available for those who want to study them, the leaders of American thought con- tinue to be too busy to think and act and talk on public questions and leave it to agitators to sow the seeds of Bolshevism among the people of this country, they have only themselves to blame should they reap the bitter harvest of anarchy. For two can play at this game. False teachers can be just as good at organization and publicity as true teachers, and it may be added that the radical propagandists have a much easier time than the liberals or the conservatives, because radical, revo- lutionary and subversive doctrines can much more readily be presented in a way which will arrest at- tention and tickle the interests of those whose thoughts are dominated by their feelings. But in opposition to this, the liberal leaders have on their side sanity and common sense to appeal to the sounder elements of the community, which will always be in America the most numerous elements. And the challenge of liberal leadership is nowhere stronger than when it calls upon the writers and THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 241 organizers of the future to present common sense in as compelling and inspiring a form as that in which the radicals sometimes clothe nonsense. Let us not leave all the cleverness to the radicals — and let us not underestimate them. But cleverness or no cleverness, we must rely more upon thinking and less upon phrase-making. Along the stony road of thought in a day when there is no end of books to read and speakers to listen to, when there is no limit to reforms and campaigns and movements and undertakings requiring clear thinking and dis- crimination, it is little wonder that people are lured aside by the soft music of generalization and the fairy architecture of mere words. Phrases in themselves are not the evil com- plained of. The evil lies in false ideas or half- truths set up in the tinkling form of slogans. Great phrases have always been powerful in influencing public opinion and determining action. Men and women have an inherent love of symbols, but the danger of symbols is that they may conceal rather than epitomize the truth. Americans have been particularly susceptible to the power of slogans. In the days of the War of Independence men talked glibly about "no taxa- tion without representation" when as a matter of fact the economics of the taxation argument of the revolutionary fathers is very hard to defend, and the granting by Parliament of full representation to colonists who hved three thousand miles away in 242 THE NEW FRONTIER the days of sailing ships would have had little or no influence in permanently checking the swelling im- pulse towards liberty in the hearts of the American colonists. During the War of 1812, in spite of the fact that England was very heavily occupied with her neighbors in Europe, the young Americans could make very little progress with their war until finally Lawrence in a sea fight gave utterance to the immortal phrase, "Don't give up the ship!" This dogged command connoted victory, although the Chesapeake, which Lawrence commanded, was a more powerful man-of-war than the British Shannon which destroyed and sank the American ship. But this slogan did more than any facts to stimulate the enthusiasm and confidence of the American public. Just before the Civil War great phrases filled the air. "The multitude took no pains to argue out the que tion as to what the fathers had intended or what the Constitution allowed and what it forbade. A few burning phrases served as watchwords and war-cries, and were accepted as statements not to be gainsaid. The wraiths of Jackson and Webster hovered in the air. 'The union shall and must be preserved,' 'Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable.' . . . 'If any man attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.*'* During the Oregon controversy the rights of the case were obscured by the popular ultimatum *' Fifty-four-forty or fight." Some day we may ex- pect to open our own paper and read the stirring THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 243 slogan: "Fifty-fifty or fight," and we may well wonder what agitator is contented with so modest a division of rights and profits! During the recent great campaigns throughout the country for Liberty Loan, Red Cross and other great national interes s, in fact during the whole period before and after the war, public opinion re- acted very fully to slogans. There has never been a time when so many phrases have filled the air: "Too proud to fight"; "Buy Liberty Bonds"; "He kept us out of war"; "Make the world safe for democracy"; "Finish the job." Even more remarkable in our modern life than the use of slogans is the use of trade-marks and symbols. We are as susceptible to picture writing as were the ancient Egyptians. We are as de- pendent upon symbols as were the Arabians who devised the system of numerals which we use today. Nabisco, W.S.S., Uneeda, B.V.D., the Gold Dust Twins, the Dutch Cleanser girl, are known to every- one. Even great men are sometimes dlibbed, through popular affection and the limitations under which the headline writers of the newspapers must work, with abbreviated sobriquets. The whole world knew what "T. R." stood for. All over the country a few pictures influence the course of voting in thousands of elections. As the New York Glohe humorously observes: "Even our ballots remind us that the days of political symbols are not yet past and that if we have not the red rose and the white 244 THE NEW FRONTIER to fight over we have arms with torches, stars, eagles, and other pictorial battle cries about which to rally. The voter need not take the pains to ascertain whether Hannibal Simkins is the man for whom, as a loyal Republicrat, he ought to vote. He has but to note whether Simkins and the rest of the names on which he is tempted to linger are preceded by the mystic sign of the couchant alligator. In his odd moments he may read a great deal, but when he finds himself in a tight little booth, with the fate of the commonwealth actually in his hands, reading may not come easy. With what relief, then, he catches sight of the picture. A list of names, a platform, even a principle, one may for- get, but who will forget that he has been taught to mark with an X every name preceded by the por- trait of an oyster or a cow or a hippopotamus or a baseball bat or a piano or a houn' dog? And how much the American party system has depended upon the symbolism of the elephant and the donkey, how much upon the art of the cartoonist, cannot easily be overestimated." Phrases and symbols are necessary in days of war when great results must be accomplished quickly. It was impossible to bring to the under- standing of a hundred miUion people in a few weeks elaborate and logical explanations covering every point upon which the immediate assistance of the public was demanded, but while great leaders will facilitate their causes if they have the ability THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 245 to invent striking phrases which embody the heart of current issues, there is serious danger to our people in the development of the pigeon-hole habit of mind, each compartment tagged with a neat phrase into which all their conclusions are laid away out of reach of any possible contact with thought and analysis. Theodore Roosevelt was one of the great phrase makers of our time, and yet he realized the danger of phrases. "It behooves our people," he said, *' never to fall under the thraldrom of names and least of all to be led by designing people who appeal to the preference for, or antipathy toward, a given name in order to achieve some alien purpose. Of course such misuse of names is as old as the history of what we understand when we speak of civilized mankind. . . . The mob leaders usually state that all they are doing is necessary in order to advance the cause of Tiberty' while the dictator and the oli- garchy are usually defended on the ground that the cause they follow is absolutely necessary so as to secure * order.' Many excellent people are taken in by the use of the word liberty at one time and the use of the word order at the other, and ignore the simple fact that despotism is despotism, tyranny, tyranny, oppression, oppression, whether committeed by one individual or by many individuals, by a state or by a private corporation." A fact to be noted in a discussion of the mar- velous modern machinery for spreading the printed 246 THE NEW FRONTIER word is that it has taken the emphasis a little too much away from the spoken word. When we were a tiny republic we could all listen to our great men. In the great mo ements which are going to be neces- sary to get anything like a majority of one hundred milhon people to think alike for any length of time on any subject in the years which lie ahead, the printed word must be supplemented by constant, open discussion. The printed word is all powerful if rightly handled; but the spoken word is a most valuable ally. Indeed, if we could sit down and have a heart-to-heart talk with each person who is reached by a piece of printed propaganda the results would be infinitely more satisfactory. The good writer is constantly trying to achieve the "personal touch" in his story. In any organization for public good which the future may bring forth, careful consideration must be given to building up something more than a distributing agency for printed material and a background for news. An organization which can quietly extend its influence by means of small groups of determined men in every section of the country who actually get together and develop a full understanding of the purposes involved, and a burning enthusiasm for their accomplishment, will have the best guarantee of great achievement. This is something more personal even than the Forum movement. The history of the Round Table in England is a good illustration of what is THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 247 needed, A similar organization is called for in America where our great distances make it so much harder for men in widely separated sections to get at the heart of each other's purposes and per- sonahties. Friendships and crusades cannot be scientifically- organized. But given the fundamental mutuality of purpose which exists among liberal-minded men in America today, and given the critical emergency which calls for national service to preserve Ameri- can ideals and in titutions, a form of association can certainly be brought about which will provide for an effective union of all this scattered and individual patriotism. Such small groups of men, mostly younger men, meeting regularly in every city and town, no group larger than fifteen, each unit made up of individuals of varied experience and con- tacts, conservative, liberal and radical, and all the units in communication with one another for the exchange of ideas, suggestions, and conclusions, would certainly prove a powerful stimulus for clear thinking. Such an American Liberal League, or chain of Frontier Clubs, based upon close personal associations of men, would form a basis for the swift and far-reaching operation of the more im- personal machinery of printed publicity; it would instantly add to its ring of sincerity, and stimu- late a quiet, steady, compelling growth of Ameri- canism the very opposite of the spectacular and superficial and somewhat evanescent sort which 248 THE NEW FRONTIER sometimes attends hastily conducted campaigns of education. But whether it be the spoken word or the written word, the weapon of language, used for all the people, is going to be the determining factor in shaping the destinies of America, and it behooves those who feel a responsibility for the perpetuation of American- ism to enter the forum of publicity and stay there. They must realize they are handling dynamite. Just as training is needed before men can become soldiers and fight a winning fight, so it is advisable for those who would fight effectively with the weapons of peace to give a little study to the science of publicity beforehand. Experts are available. Advertising counselors and publicity organizers of an entirely new and modern stamp are coming to be available today to advise on these great campaigns of d^emocracy. But it cannot be repeated too often that if our men of light and leading are in truth to lead they cannot do it wholly by proxy. When the battle starts they must be at the head of their troops, or at least at General Headquarters, ready to apply to the work in hand all the resource- fulness and energy and enthusiasm which has won for them the right to leadership. It will take time; but it is worth it. And if the work is not done in this personal way, certainly five times out of seven it will be done imperfectly, if it is done at all. The main elements of publicity can be understood THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 249 by almost any inquiring mind. The actual handling of the work is both an art and a science; a full ability to master the technique must be born in a man. And above all, there is a strange psychologi- cal element in the development of a great campaign involving popular contacts, which can only be felt. It can never be fully explained. It is a common ex- perience of those who have taken part in the guid- ing or shaping of public opin on through a publicity campaign that the answer comes ike a flash, no one can tell exactly when or how. A political campaign is on. The outcome is uncertain. A thousand workers think they know. The mass of voters say nothing. Literature appears, speeches are made, parades, broadsides, posters; all seems in confusion. What will the outcome be? Suddenly one morning the campaigner goes down- town as usual, but before long he becomes con- scious of something new in the air, or is it in his mind? At any rate it is a perfectly definite feeling that "things feel better" for the cause. He meets his friends, and strangely enough, he finds they feel the same way. It was so in the Liberty Loan cam- paigns. There always came a day, before the end of the campaign, when the "feel of it" was better, not because of the money which had come in, be- cause that only came in at the very end in con- clusive volume, but because the group of men who were leading the work, sensitive from long contact to every subtle change in the atmosphere of public 250 THE NEW FRONTIER reaction, all simultaneously seemed to agree that it was ''going over." Newspaper men know this well. It is constantly observable in political campaigns. It was recently described in the New York Tribune in these words: "We speak of the crystallization of public senti- ment and opinion because that takes place also in the same mysterious and imperceptible way. You do not see the separate thoughts assume a certain shape and add themselves silently to the concrete whole. You only know that it happens by some law of rhythmic affinity, and that after such con- fusion of thought and commotion of ideas people suddenly become united in one sovereign emotion. There is no sense of the process taking place. There is only from time to time the realization that it has greatly advanced toward its com- pletion. ' Leaders of thought need to get together and check up their views with one another before attempting to apply them to public conditions. But once this is done the scope of our public life today urgently requires that our leaders should learn to use the highly developed machinery by means of which' the minds and hearts of men and women may be touched, so that sound views may quickly gain ac- ceptance and lasting support. One of the arrest- ing things in our vast and complicated modern life is the realization of how little one man can do alone. In all of us, perhaps, there is something of the THE WEAPONS OF TRUTH 251 martyr, something of the monastic thinker who would commune with eternal things and give forth his ideas to survive or perish, as fate may decree; but in most men the coming of conviction is usually accompanied by ^ missionary zea' to go forth among the people and bear rigorous testimony to the truth and power of the vision. This is the American way. Perhaps as a nation we are inclined to express ourselves before our casual thoughts have had time to become convictions. Perhaps our endlessly pro- ductive mill of words and phrases is fed with more chaff than wheat. One of the fundamentals of liberal leadership in the coming age will be that we shall not talk first and think afterwards. And when this has come to pass we may for the first time realize to the full the outstanding glory of the American machinery of communication and popular education through the printed word. This organization is the most powerful the world has ever seen. It is the most ingenious, the most far- reaching, the most sensitive piece of machinery for moving the minds of men that the human race has ever developed. ^ It is one of the respon ibilities of modern leader- ship to see to it that from all proper sources infor- mation is available to the press. If the raw material of publicity is sound the product will generally be sound. If the fountain head is truth, the product will be truth. 252 THE NEW FRONTIER If modern leadership will learn the proper use of this great machinery for giving currency to facts and opinions, if it will wield this great weapon judiciously and valiantly, the truth will prevail and the institutions of our fathers will endure. THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS Through personal contacts, combined with the power of publicity, one of the most remarkable in- stances in history of a change of attitude of whole nations toward one another has resulted from the Great War. It has taken place so silently that its significance is scare ly realized. And yet its im- portance is immeasurable. It may be said today, for the first time, that America and England, America and France understand one another. It is beginning to be true of America and other coun- tries. Obviously this does not mean that these nations agree with one another in all things, nor that they may not in the future bitterly disagree. It does mean that the raw material of mutual understanding now exists to a greater degree than ever before. In view of the great international problems which face us in the yea s ahead, this ad- vance may well prove to be a most vital element in the peace of the world. Our fathers tell us that for many generations there was a decided self-consciousness on the part of Americans in the presence of visitors from abroad. It was due in part to the attitude of our foreign 253 254 THE NEW FRONTIER friends themselves, who have often failed to under- stand the characteristics and purposes of our people. Judgments were often based upon European stand- ards, and criticism directed at the absence of the fine fruits of artistic skill and inspiration. "Where is your Michelangelo .f* Where are your cathedrals? Where do you conceal your Milton and your Shake- speare?" They searched in vain along the banks of the Mississippi for a Mendelssohn or a Haydn, and were disappointed at the absence of a new Keats and a modern Dante in Boston or Phila- delphia. They sought personages and overlooked persons. Dickens weighed us and found us want- ing; Carlyle vigorously deplored our lack of all but material accomplishment. In a substantial way this attitude was justified. And it helped us. We accepted at more than its worth, perhaps, the estimate of Europe, and many Americans who failed to perceive the value of what America was conrributing to the world withdrew from our energetic midst and sought the more "refined" surroundings of London, Paris or Rome, returning at fortunately rare intervals to criticize, in newly acquired accents calculated to awe the people back home, the roughness and lack of nice understanding in new countries. This attitude in Americans is unsupportable because it is sham. We gained immeasurably, however, from the emphasis of other ideals and other standards than our own on the part of the heirs of the Renaissance AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS 255 and the age of Elizabeth. We do not regret nor do we apologize for our concentration upon the task of rearing a great nation across a wilderness of forest and prairie with speed undreamed of in the usual leisurely and ordered progress of civiliza- tion. Ours was a material task, and it naturally carried with it a tendency to value above their true worth, things tangible. But as we have come of age we are capable of appreciating the worth of other men's achievements without minimizing our own. But there was something very real underlying the former misunderstanding which so irritated our grandfathers in America. It took its place firmly in our national consciousness, in the phrase of James Russell Lowell, as "A Certain Condescen- sion in Foreigner ." Lowell felt there was an element of snobbi hness, of caste, in the point of view of our visitors who seemed unable to see below the surface and who failed to perceive the existence in the young American of a generous heart and a lofty spirit. "Every European candidly admits in himself some right of primogeniture in respect to us, and pats this shaggy continent on the back with a lively sense of generous unbending." Almost overnight this attitude has changed. The war has taught Europe and America how much they have in common. Our soldiers returned from France and England and Italy with a renewed love of America; but they left behind them most of 256 THE NEW FRONTIER the false and superficial generalizations with re- gard to Europe which they had gathered from ill- founded traditions, from travelers' tales, from the vaudeville stage. Instead of the characteristics of the genus Frenchman, they learned the character of the brave, warm-hearted soldiers of France. At the same time the leaders in politics, commerce and finance of the various allied n tions worked together during a period of great strain and came to know and respect one another; and this mutual under- standing has begun to make its way into the minds and hearts of all the peoples of the world. When the war began, Americans got out their maps and learned for the first time where most of Europe really was. A mother who has puzzled out the position of her son's regiment near a little town in Fran e is not going to forget that lesson in geog- raphy; she will always have a more personal feel- ing towards the country of Lafayette. The welcome given in America to the Blue Devils came from the heart of our people; these sturdy, sunburned soldiers, the first body of troops we had seen who had been for years in the trenches our own men were just entering, were greeted as more than brothers in arms. And so it was with the Anzacs, the Bersaglieri, the Alpini, the Belgians, who gave color and vividness to the successive patriotic campaigns during which our people poured forth twenty billions of dollars to support the cause of democracy. We have as a people at last taken AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS 257 our place in world consciousness. We can no longer regard the other countries of the world as we should regard infinitely disconnected planets peopled by men and women having no more con- nection with our intimate life or vital destiny than the speculative inhabitants of Mars. But let us not deceive ourselves. It is pleasant to come to a fuller understanding with friends who have not understood us, and whom we have not understood. It is a deep satisfaction to have men from the lands of older cultural achievement recog- nize the validi y and hope in the accomplishment of American democracy. But we may do well to speak a private word of caution to each other here in America lest we feel that we have done more than we have, lest we believe that because the older civilization had to call upon our youthful strength in time of need the older civilization is bankrupt and all the hope of the world rests on ourselves. We must take care that our enthusiasm does not serve some European Lowell as an inspiration for an essay *'0n a Certain Condescension in Ameri- cans." The great opportunity of the post-war period is to build constructively upon the foundations of sympathetic understanding laid during the days of conflict. Various organizations are coming into being which have as their object to cultivate a more specific understanding between America and the countries of Europe. Much can be done along 258 THE NEW FRONTIER these lines. A permanent staff, in the United States and in France, for example, can interpret and trans- \ late the poHtical, economic, social and artistic life of the two peoples, correct misapprehensions, find ways and means for the interchange of visits which shall not involve simply a round of formal dinners, but rather an opportunity of quietly getting at the roots of national character, and develop a true basis for increased friendship and cooperation frojn day to day, and from year to year. In the fall of 1919 an International Trade Confer- ence was held in this country under the auspices of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Distinguished representatives from Belgium, France, Great Britain and Italy were brought together with practical and successful representatives of Ameri- can business and finance. For a week these men sat around the table together, in small groups, and behind closed doors so that they could open their minds to one another in the frankest possible manner. The results were striking. The Ameri- can bankers and business men who came from all sections of the United States gained a first-hand knowledge of European conditions which could not have been obtained in any other way, and the European visitors absorbed the point of view of America and gained an insight into our own prob- lems, through friendly contact and the spoken word, which no amount of correspondence could have accomplished. AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS 259 Every American at that conference left with a deeper reahzation of the contribution to civiHza- tion, our civihzation, made by the AUies during the war, and a higher and more personal estimate of that important element in the credit of those na- tions which rests upon their record of achievement and sacrifice. It became a practical rather than a theoretical consideration that any estimate of their national credit must be predicated not merely upon the marshaling of tangible assets, but to an equal degree upon the element of character. In the days to come, if the American public is asked to invest in securities based upon the faith we have in the peoples who were our allies in France, the response will be influenced by the realization on the part of our people that America cannot long endure iF England, France, Belgium and Italy are swept away or their institutions over-turned. Our people realize today, as they did not at all realize in 1914, that the contagion of radicalism, eating away the foundations of law and order, and of democratic institutions, cannot sweep across Europe and be safely checked on the Eastern shores of what one of the French delegates to the Trade Conference referred to as the "Atlantic Channel." In 1920 it is more or less idle to debate whether or not we should take part in the affairs of the world. The fact is that we are taking part. In these days when the food and raw material of one country are necessary to feed and clothe the populations of an- 26o THE NEW FRONTIER other, when the cotton of America is necessary to the operation of the mills of England, when the wheat of America is needed to prevent starvation in Europe, when the coal of America and Belgium and England is necessary to maintain the industrial life of Italy, when in a thousand ways one country must look to another, not only for its complete and well-rounded development, but indeed for its very existence, the only question we can ask ourselves with regard to cooperation between nations is not whether but how. It is an interesting and very typical American situation to find a great problem of this sort thrown upon us almost without warning. Before the war, the number of men in the United States who knew anything about foreign banking and foreign trade was comparatively small. A few of our great com- panies, like the International Harvester Company, the National Cash Register Company, and the Singer Sewing Machine Company, had an extensive foreign business, but previous to 1914 the Ameri- can manufactured goods sent abroad were hardly more than ten per cent of the total production. During the war this figure increased to more than thirty per cent. Even today, with the experience of the war behind us, we find ourselves with the world's major responsibility in international trade and finance and with comparatively fevv' men who have the technical knowledge necessary to handle these problems. Anyone who has made the slight- est study of foreign exchange and other phases AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS 261 of international trade knows that it requires gen- erations of study, experience and tradition to develop a body of men who are world experts. The British, the French and the Belgians have looked upon international trade as one of the es- sential features of their national existence for generation after generation and have developed men who know international credit and finance as the watchmaker knows the inside of a watch. We cannot accompHsh this result in a day; and here we are thrown back to some extent on our American self-reliance and ingenuity, on the frontier spirit, which is such a predominant element in the shaping of American character. It is not a question, therefore, of whether we are fully equipped to handle this job. It is a piece of work which we must handle; and judging from many previous American experiences, men may be found who will accomplish results which do not now seem possible. Perhaps it is fair to say that our understanding of the European character is easier than a full ap- preciation on the part of European peoples of the essentials of Americanism. On our part, the ht- erature we read as children expresses the atmos- phere of European traditions and institutions. Our roots are in the soil of our forefathers; their blood flows in our veins. Here is the stuff, certainly, out of which understanding can grow. But how can Europeans measure by their standards the rapid development of America, the continental ex- 262 THE NEW FRONTIER perience shaping our achievements and our dreams? It is more difficult; but it is not impossible, because there is nothing incomprehensible or magical in the elements of American character, but rather a new application under new skies of the qualities which have appeared and re-appeared through the ages — among the tribes of Israel, in Athens, in Sparta, among the legions of Philip of Macedon, in the armies of Caesar and the assemblies of the Roman Forum, among the Northern Goths in the primeval forests of Germany, among the Gauls, the Venetians, the Swiss, the Belgians, the Danes, the Scots and the Britons. Wherever men have had to contend against the ruggedness of nature, the forest, the prairie or the open sea, this struggle has left a deep and lasting impression. It has been perhaps the greatest single determinant of national character. On this is built the accomplishment of a people, influenced by wars and invasions and the interplay of ideas, until we see emerging a national identity, with a flavor, an atmosphere, a language, even a cast of counte- nance and a physical carriage, which distinguishes individuals as French, Italian, Spanish, English, American. The American is coming to be understood abroad, to a large extent in France, and naturally, perhaps, best of all in England. There have recently been published three books by British authors which give evidence of an appreciation of the American char- AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS 263 acter which is equal to any self-interpretation we have ever achieved. Frederick Oliver's Alexander Hamilton analyzes the federal principle upon which our national policy is based. Col. Henderson's Stonezvall Jackson is the best Civil War biography we have; and the latest of the three, Lord Charn- wood's Abraham Lhicoln is written with a profound sympathy and insight into the true heart of our people. It is hard to understand how a foreigner could have accomplished this result. Perhaps the answer is that the foreign perspective made it pos- sible. Every day the word "foreigner" carries less and less of the old implication of ignorance and lack of appreciation of the conditions and peoples be- yond the four walls of his own home. It is a further extension of the principle which made possible Prescott's "Ferdinand and Isabella," Motley's "Dutch Repubhc," Gibbon's "Rome" and Thayer's Lavour. ' But few strangers have so fully reached the heart of a land not their own as has Lord Charnwood. In a recent issue of the Anglo-French Review he has ventured a little further into an analysis of the American spirit. He has set up a standard of na- tional character analysis which challenges those Americans whose privilege it may be in the future to interpret for us our British friends. First of all the author defines for Englishmen and Frenchmen the word "new" as applied to America: "I have spoken of the United States as a new country. In 264 THE NEW FRONTIER a way it is well to remember that the epithet 'new' so applied is in some respects misleading and ab- surd. The United States as a national power is of course older than the Kingdom of Italy, still older than the late German Empire. The American Constitution of today is a little older than the real working British Constitution of today, however much the antiquity of King, Lords, and Commons, severally, may disguise this fact. The American nation moreover has by now a sufficient length of history behind it — of history peculiarly rich in romance, in dramatic events, and in heroic figures — to do away with any sense on the part of others that its life lacks the background of antiquity, and if it lives in a constant state of transition, so too is it with ourselves. But in one sense the word 'new' applied to the United States stands for an important fact — a fact common to them and to the Overseas Dominions. Their pohtical and social community was the creation of a number of men who came to- gether in a field theretofore untrodden by their race, steeped as individuals in the traditions of an older community, but surrounded, then and thence forward to this day, by circumstances wholly unlike those which have ever prevailed in any country of Europe. Therefore, the untraveled Englishman or Frenchman who wishes to understand America must once for all imagine vividly the difference of circumstances which all along has governed or con- ditioned the development of America." AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS 265 Lord Charnwood goes on to analyze some of the elements which peculiarly contributed to form the American character, and refers first of all to the influence of the frontier: "Among those conditions of American life to which I have just referred, the most important historically is the persistent in- fluence of the frontier. It is easy for English people to imagine individual life on the confines of civilization, since the British Empire has more frontiers to it than any other state that ever existed, but, living as we normally do in this crowded and fully developed island, it needs effort for us to realize the collective efi^ect of this condition upon a society of which, from the beginning till a very recent date, a large and very vigorous portion has lived upon what still was, or had been yesterday, the frontier. Frontier life involved a certain en- forced equality; it meant for all, prevalent hard- ships and frequent calls upon resourcefulness and exertion; it meant for the great mass, the fair prom- ise of solid prosperity; for a considerable number, the chance of enormous gains, or of a corresponding failure which had in it a certain element of pictur- esqueness or romance. It meant a high standard of individual independence and competence, a general indifference to a government which, as a rule, was apt to be remote and only spasmodically efficient, but it meant too, in the presence of occasional danger, the power of sudden, irresistible, and some- times tyrannical combination. 266 THE NEW FRONTIER *'It meant the tolerance of much that was both novel and crude, and the slightly unreasonable veneration of such established things as could be conserved. It involved that preoccupation of the strongest minds and of the public generally with problems which could be stated in dollars, which resulted in the delusive phenomenon once known both in America and in Europe as American ma- terialism. In a thousand particulars it carried with it what may be best described as the absence of a high general standard in judging of all sorts of things, from a steam engine to a sermon, and trom a boiled egg to a poem. "And all the while it preserved, and in preserv- ing continuously developed, high types of manhood and of womanhood, cherishing 'things true, pure, lovely and of good report,' not less discerningly than was common with us, nor any less passionately, but probably more so. "It would not be very hard in a lengthy treatise to exhibit the surprising potency of this frontier influence and of other influences — more especially that of vast distances — which can barely be glanced at here. It is enough to say that though frontier life has gone, other influences somewhat analogous continue or even increase. America is still a country with vast resources very imperfectly developed. It is still a country whose settled in- habitants (with several generations of American citizenship behind them) are incessantly being in- AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS 267 vaded by immigrant hordes, formerly of a stock not widely remote from their own, latterly of every people, nation, and language in Europe. The problem, present from the first, has become of late more difficult than ever — that of digesting into the American Commonwealth, when its own life had hardly yet taken settled shape, these huge ahen masses. To realize the difficulties with which the now great nation has had to wrestle in its growth, is to feel at once that what have been reckoned as its glaring defects are natural; but it is a good deal more. It is to begin to see in them something very insignificant, and to see in the building of the American nation one of the most interesting and cheerful pages in human history." The article concludes with an estimate of the greatness of America and an appraisal of the ele- ments of danger to civilization which may lurk behind it: *' America as a nation has a peculiar greatness quite other than that which the untraveled Englishman or Frenchman would impute to it. It is not solely the greatness of mechanical and business efficiency — indeed in these respects Ameri- cans may not be so eminent as we often suppose — but it is that of a country in which quiet but strenu- ously devoted movement in all the more important directions of progress — moral, intellectual, in a word spiritual — is more widely stirring than it appears to be in any other country of the world. It matters relatively little that few American places 268 THE NEW FRONTIER of learning have quite the standard of general at- tainment which exists in the universities of the Old World (or perhaps those of Canada); it matters much that they are striving after it, that meanwhile a vastly greater proportion of their people come within the influence of learning, and that an unusual harmony between the liberal and the merely techni- cal studies is beginning to appear. It matters little that snobs and nouveaux riches are as common and conspicuous in America as with us; it matters much that over far the greater part of the country there prevails a greater equality and ease of ap- proach between man and man, based on self-respect and respect for others, than in any other large human society. The puzzling peculiarities of Ameri- can politics matter little beside the relative security that, in the long run and in the largest matters, *the common sense of most' is going to prevail. It matters little that there lingers in America a certain flavor of cant of which the excessive itera- tion of the world 'idealism' may seem to Europeans symptomatic; it matters much that the aspiration to build a new human society founded on human right was genuinely present with the chief of the American 'fathers,' that it never quite died out, and possesses probably a more sane and powerful driv- ing force today than ever before. "Our impoverished peoples may look with a certain natural repining on the dominant position which for the future seems assured to the nation AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS 269 which entered last into the fight for human right and, however devotedly it entered, emerged from it hardly scathed. But is the huge power which for a while at least resides in that nation a menace to the world, as German power was and as French and even Eng ish power has at times seemed likely to become? It needs but little acquaintance with America to assure us that about that we need not worry ourselves at all. The country of which this can be said is entitled to pride itself on a hitherto unexampled form of glory, due indeed in great measure to the singularly favoring circumstances under which it has grown, but due none the less to the persistent cherishing by faithful persons in America of a great tradition." , j In these words, indeed, we may have the keen satisfaction of seeing ourselves as others see us. This student from overseas has perceived in the vastness of America a clear, definable and univer- sally comprehensible element which he can interpret to the world. We know it as Americanism. It is a basic love of the square deal, of fair play; it is a love, sometimes submerged in the show and bustle of twentieth century achievement, of rugged sim- plicity both of living and of character. It is a de- sire to "get the facts," to get at the heart of things. It is a conviction that our institutions are sound, and sufficiently elastic to be adapted to all the de- mands of a changing world. We have no monopoly of these qualitiesj but we as a people are fortunate 270 THE NEW FRONTIER in having lived through a century during which these quahties were essential to the very existence of our race. Insofar, therefore, as we can apply these principles in the new era to our own domestic problems of capital and labor and to other vital issues of the day, we may well expect to have dem- onstrated the right of the word American to take its place in history beside the word Greek as connot- ing something eternal, something more enduring in the progress of human happiness than the greatest railway system or the tallest building in thegtworld. It is true that the tradition of America has been one of great material achievement and activity. But it is not a tradition of selfishness. Our people have been deeply patriotic, but they have opened their gates as no other nation in recorded history has done to the peoples of the world flocking in millions to enjoy our freedom and opportunity. Our Americanism arouses itself at the first provoca- tion to defend its essential elements from destructive anarchy or weak internationalism, both of which would let every drop of red blood out of the veins of the national body politic. But because a man has a deep love for his own family, does this preclude his living in peace and friendly and active coopera- tion with his neighbors ? In this connection we may recall once more the words of Lincoln: "It was the sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not alone to the people of this country but, I AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS 271 hope, to the world for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weight should be hfted from the shoulders of all men." Does not even our most intense nationalism lead naturally and inevitably toward the full participa- tion by a vigorous and united people in the affairs of a world closely bound together by constantly strengthening ties of opportunity and responsibility? It is doubtless true that when America was drawn into world affairs in 191 7, the majority of our people had not quite adapted themselves to this step. It was undertaken as a necessity and under the stress of enthusiasm and did not at first have back of it the stimulus and support of the mind as well as the support of sentiment. Now that the war is over, many Americans are falling an easy prey to a doctrine of "America First," which has a very definite implication of "America Only." The natural reaction from a sudden and tremendous plunge into international affairs has made some of us susceptible to arguments of a distinctly pro- vincial character. i This is not a matter for bitterness, because those who would have us seek safety and quiet in our own house, and slam the door in the face of the world, are appealing to a very human element in our character. But on a basis of fact it must be clear that the modern economic structure is international in scope. Politically we cannot remain comfort- ably isolated even if we desire to. Not only the 272 THE NEW FRONTIER history of the recent war but the entire course of American history indicate that this nation cannot Hve a purely self-centered existence. Peace among individuals or nations is not to be built upon isola- tion and lack of reciprocity. An appeal has been made, no doubt in good faith, to the rugged Americanism of the era of de- mocracy and the opening of the West, and it is implied that in the years following the Revolution, Americans committed themselves to a policy of isolation from all European contacts, that as the nation swept westward it left farther and farther behind any community of interest, spiritual or material, with Europe. Professor Turner has been asked to interpret the present situation from a historical point of view. His analysis is of sufficient significance to merit wider distribution than is possible in personal correspondence, and is printed here with his permission. After dwelling on the impossibility of a purely selfish nationalism in the present condition of the world, he writes, ''The Western movement, as I see it, contained at least two factors that affect the problem. One is the obvious, but in the long run, superficial and secondary fact, that it took our attention away from world problems during the period between 1815 and the end of the 19th century especially, and centered our interest and our efforts upon colonizing and developing our own back country, with a resultant self-contained economic AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS 273 and political life, self-sufficing during that period. But there was, even in those years, much more European influence seeping in, by immigration, by the inflow of ideas, by economic currents, thajn is sometimes realized. "However, from a narrow viewpoint this factor tended to emphasize the ideal of continuous isola- tion, as a Western conception; although even while we held to the Monroe Doctrine and objected to the use of European experience, we at times grew enthusiastic over carrying American ideals of de- mocracy and freedom to Europe, as witness the agitation of "Young America" in the days of the Revolution of 1848, a movement in which Douglas's name was prominent. There are many other evi- dences that Western expansion ideals were not narrow. "The other factor was that of change, of adapta- tion of old institutions and ideals to new conditions. The West was ready to *try anything once.' It wasn't bound by hard and fast traditions and conventions. It looked forward to new and broader creations in society and the state, and it conceived of itself as a part of the process of making a better humanity. These two aspects of the matter, — the responsive- ness to innovation, and the courageous ideal of in- fusing American conceptions into the world order — both work for acceptance of the great experiment of a League of Nations. "Some leaders today act on the old-time prin- 274 THE NEW FRONTIER ciples of the sectional Federalists, who distrusted American power to introduce a new system, who based their action upon sectional and class preju- dices. 'Innovation' always spelled with a capital *I,' and figured as 'Stalking' was a dangerous thing to them. Their conservatism was more than the reasonable opposition to revolutionary destruc- tiveness; it was distrust of America's own power to make contributions and to play a part among the nations of the earth, standing as an equal among equals. It was colonial timidity as much as it was provincial pride. *'The frontier worked both to create a new and broader American conception of society and of the dignity and possibility of the common man, and it worked toward a readiness to adjust itself to new conditions and a courageousness In applying and extending American ideals. Having occupied the continent the next logical step was to transfer the m.ovement of the American frontier to the larger area of world ideals and world intercourse, without undue timidity In respect to America's capacity to participate in the reconstructive process. "Personally I have always felt that unless the League developed beyond Its present form It would fail of Its largest usefulness, precisely as our Union would have failed If It had relied upon diplomatic councils Instead of legislative action by chosen repre- sentatives of the people, with parties behind the leaders, — parties which in composition ajid in- AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS 275 terests ran across sections. In America our party system has been like a rubber band, flexible enough to respond to sectional or state interests, at the same time that it steadily pulled together for national concert of action. "In the present international situation there is an unrepresented body of common interests among the mass of people in all these countries, and a dislike of war. The foundations of the old order are giving way to new social construction. The League doesn't give sufficient opportunit}^ for the play of these new forces. The forces are perfectly con- sistent with adequate recognition of separate na- tional interests. In the play between the forces of nationalism and social sympathy on an international scale will be the opportunity for the preservation of a balanced liberty. If the Western experience taught anything it was the possibility of progress by adjustments, by compromise and mutual con- cession, by open-mindedness toward social and political experimentation, by the creative rather than the crystallizing processes. "The League Is the half-loaf. The whole loaf isn't yet obtainable — but with what it contains we can develop it in response to changing conditions. The alternative is a world of warring nations and classes." The freedom of American life is a heritage which can safely be shared with peoples whose opportunity for self-realization has not been equal to our own. 276 THE NEW FRONTIER They are looking to us today, not simply to bask in our good fortune, but to discharge a public service to mankind. The war has left us the trustee for the aspiration of the world, as well as for the sanity of the world. Endless instances could be cited of disinterested foreign opmion emphasizing this view- point. One of the most recent is copied here from a brief address made by Mr, Wilhelm Morgenstierne, formerly of the Norwegian Legation in Washing- ton who understands and loves America, who knows us because he has lived for years in our cities and traveled on foot over much of our most char- acteristic country. He says: "What is the essence of this American spirit? *'We see it, we feel its presence everywhere we go in the United States, — even we who are perhaps only visitors of a short time. "I shall not here try to undertake any analysis: — but is it not true that we all have a feeling of the promise of American life? Is not this American spirit a spirit of optimism, of confident faith in the ultimate destinies of the human race, — and of the American people in particular? I think that per- haps we shall realize this more clearly when we con- sider the future. "America, — does it not stand in our imag^rration intimately bound up with the future of the world? Can we conceive of that future without America ? — "We have gone through a terrible experience. The foundations of civilization have been shaken AMERICAN SPIRIT IN WORLD AFFAIRS 277 and we are groping in the dark. It seems hard to find our bearings. But we all feel this, that if the nations of the world are to endure, the near future must see a radical and far-reaching extension of the principles of equality and liberty. "And so we all turn our eyes Westward and we get the vision of a vast and wonderful country stretching in tremendous expanse from ocean to ocean, with the intense, husthng life of its great cities, the vastness and the desolation of its prairies, the towering beauty of its mountains and the majesty of its forests. We have seen it, — and it has become part of us, — and we love it. "The world is waiting breathlessly for leadership. And millions in all lands look West, to the nation dedicated to the high principles of the Declaration of Independence, to take the lead. Will she do it? Many, many are those who fondly hope that she will, that she will show the way in carrying to their jujst and necessary — and tremendously difficult — • conclusion, the great living ideals of equality and liberty." This is a summons we cannot ignore. It is not inconsistent with "the persistent cherishing by faithful persons in America of a great tradition." The tradition of America has been as broad as civilization itself. The blood of a score of races runs in our veins. We are an integral and insep- arable part of the progress of the world. We can- not hope to amalgamate the millions who have 278 THE NEW FRONTIER come to us from other lands unless we make a place in our national policy for a deep interest in the wel- fare and happiness of the neighbors overseas with whom we fought side by side, with whom we are entering a vast friendly commercial rivalry, who cannot suffer without influencing us deeply. In days of stress there comes a weariness of the spirit, and with it a longing for the simpler days and less intricate problems of our young and more Isolated republic. But the world has grown and we have grov^n with it. Its problems challenge us, and our answer comes inevitably out of a bold and courageous past which never hesitated to meet its problems more than halfway. There are no desert sands in America for ostriches to hide their heads in. We are ready to face the world we live in, and meet face to face whatever sacrifice the future may have in store. If we attempt with words to deny the existence of a world problem, if we do not go forward valiantly to play our part as a strong, in- dividual and self-reliant nation, the tide of affairs in its inexorable advance will overwhelm us. We must build a stronger America not for selfish- ness but for service. That is our task today. It is essentially a patriotic task. It may prove to be the basis of the continued existence of the institutions and the traditions for which our fathers lived and died, which we have too often taken for granted, but which deep down in our hearts we, too, love — for which if need be we, too, will die. THE NEW FRONTIER The frontier played a significant part in our history. It was not the only vital influence in the shaping of the American nation and the character of our people; but it was a fundamental influence, and one easil comprehended. The more subtle and controversial elements in our annals are hardly useful as guides and sources of inspiration to the average man. This influence has been emphasized here because in actual experience over a period of years it has proved to be increasingly absorbing and practically helpful. It appears in daily life in a surprising variety of forms. It serves to explain much in the current aff*airs of the country which would otherwise be incomprehensible. i In approaching the problems of each succeeding day we in America need not be without precedents, although the precedents are not specific as to detail. The new day presents its difficulties in ever fresh disguises, but the fundamentals are the same as those in which our fathers trusted. The spirit of self-reliance and abounding optimism, which brought success to them may help to bring success to us. Our youth should know this. A man who leaves 279 28o THE NEW FRONTIER an American school or college today without a deep pride in his country, a firm confidence in the part he is to play in its future, lacks perhaps the greatest asset of a worker in the broader field of business or public life. This spirit, which we have chosen to associate with the frontier, which we refer to as liberal or practical in its contact with the work of the world, is, in practice, the effective result-getting spirit in the arena of active affairs. It is not the only manifestation of Americanism. It happens to be a fact that our ancestors, on a series of perplexing frontiers, were confronted by an intensely material problem. The spirit of the modern frontier naturally inherits much of the temperament and tendency of its predecessors, but it has absorbed much besides. Because it is, like the old frontier, keenly conscious of its surroundings, wide and catholic in its contacts, there are many aspects of our modern problem which had no counterpart in the life on the Ohio or in the forests of Kentucky. And yet the spirit is the same. A struggling artist with a vision can put the same resolution and self-confidence into his work as the pioneer in a prairie schooner slowly creeping toward the West. The musician, the poet, the diplomat, the politician, the teacher, the clergyman, may find the same source of inspiration in this record of stern sacri- fice and noble achievement as can the banker or the business man or the farmer whose customary THE NEW FRONTIER 281 objectives are more closely akin to those of the men of the Western waters. This is the important point. In a discussion of this sort no attempt can be made to analyze in detail American institutions or their history. But the experience of most young men is that they can get the facts if they once have a purpose in mind to which to apply the facts. The objective, the spirit of achievement — these are the great things. Some critics have said that one of the outstanding dif- ficulties with the organization of industry and political society today is the very fact that, with a growing popular intelligence, too few people have been taught the true objects of industry, or the true goal of political effort. Hence their work is too often formal and spiritless. It is manifestly impossible to expect every unit in a great organization to know its purposes in detail. But in a broad way the underlying purposes, and the spirit in which those purposes are being sought, can be comprehended by all. If these are under- stood, if the leadership inspi es respect, and the goal is one toward which men can work with confidence, a basis is established for that same cheerful, and irresistible^ progress of the doughboys in France who sang "We don't know where we're going, but we're on our way." In other words, what we are aiming at is a development of a stronger national morale by teaching the average soldier of peace what he is fight- ing for, and not simply teaching him to obey orders. 282 THE NEW FRONTIER The machinery of organization and government cannot control the hearts of men. At best it can inspire their loyalty. At worst it can kill most of their natural aspiration and destroy that individu- ality which must always remain the chief attribute of sentient beings. The essence of the old frontier was its intense individualism. If we have in- herited anything of the traditions of the pioneers we have inherited that. We must preserve it. Ralph Waldo Emerson, the most individualistic of American thinkers, has left us in his essays a last- ing interpretation of this element of character. *'0 rich and various Man!" he says, "thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in thy senses the morning and the night and the unfathomable galaxy; in thy brain the geometry of the city of God; in thy heart the bower of love and the realms of right and wrong.'* Commenting upon this passage, William James said, in an address delivered in Concord at the centenary of the birth of Emerson : "If the individual opens thus directly into the Absolute, it follows that there is something in each and all of us, even the lowliest, that ought not to consent to borrowing traditions and living at second hand. *If John was perfect, why are you and I alive?' Emerson WTites. *As long as any man exists there is some need of him; let him fight for his own.' This faith that in a life at first hand there is some- thing sacred is perhaps the most characteristic note THE NEW FRONTIER 283 in Emerson's writings. The hottest side of him is this non-conformist persuasion, and if his temper could ever verge on common irascibihty, it would be by reason of the passionate character of his feelings on this point. The world is still new and untried. In seeing freshly, and not in hearing of what others saw, shall a man find what truth is. 'Each one of us can bask in the great morning which rises out of the Eastern Sea, and be himself one of the children of the light. 'Trust thyself, every heart vibrates to that iron string.' There is a time in each man's education when he must arrive at the conviction that imitation is suicide; when he must take himself for better or worse as his portion; and know that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which it was given him to till." This does not mean that all individuals are equal in strength or ability. It does not discard the selective processes which produce leadership among men. "His optimism," continues William James, "had nothing in common with that indiscriminate hurrahing for the Universe with which Walt Whit- man has made us familiar. For Emerson, the in- dividual fact and moment were indeed suffused with absolute radiance, but it was upon a condition that saved the situation — they must be worthy specimens — sincere, authentic. ..." The individual then is our unit of discussion. 284 THE NEW FRONTIER The next step brings us to the leader who has worked his way out of the basic equahty of men by avail- ing himself of the existence of opportunity. And opportunity is established by organization, by gov- ernment. The protection of mankind from the predatory few who appear in every age is the duty of organized society. We have seen that the American pioneers almost immediately began to organize the simple processes of government in the Western wilderness, for mutual protection, and inspired by loyalty to one another and to a common ideal. Government, then, involves the restriction of the freedom of action of the individual as a basis of the ordered liberty upon whom our scheme of society rests. The question is, therefore, how far this re- striction should go. The answer of autocracy is that the average individual must surrender practi- cally all initiative in order that a wiser individual may rule him with unrestricted authority, pre- sumably for the general good. The answer of democracy is that the average individual must yield, to a government of laws rather than of men, just that amount of freedom of action which the common good demands. The answer of democracy is the answer of America. The rule is a variable one. It is a problem which will never be permanently solved, because it con- tinuously involves, under widely varying conditions, the application of human judgment and discretion. THE NEW FRONTIER 285 But its challenge is typically American, typically liberal in the method which must be applied to its solution. To quote again the words of Professor Turner: "Legislation is taking the place of the free lance as the means of preserving the ideal of democracy, but at the same time it is endangering the other pioneer idea of creative and competitive individual- ism. Both were essential, and constituted what was best in America's contribution to history and to progress. Both must be preserved if the nation would be true to its best and would fulfil its highest destiny." The position of the liberal in meeting the prob- lem of adjusting the rights of the individual and the rights of the nation as a whole is paramount. He alone can maintain a balance which will insure progress. Perhaps the next challenge to liberal patience and ingenuity on the modern frontier is to construct a working policy, not as between the individual and the nation, but between this nation and the world. The hberal will doubtless begin with the premise that his own nation must first be strong, just as he assumes that the individual unit within the nation must be strong. He will insist on the patriotic education of the rising generation, and the Ameri- canization of the foreign-born elements in our society. In the process of educating our youth and our new Americans from over-seas one lesson will 286 THE NEW FRONTIER ^ include Edward Everett Hale's "The Man without a Country." Perhaps no story ever written brings out more strongly that element in patriotism which stirs the human heart. The internationalists have no substitute to offer for love of country. Their conception is largely intellectual in its appeal; or, if it may be said that there is alsonn the conception of the political brotherhood of man, a sentiment of human sympathy, it must still appear to be such a broad and impersonal sentiment, so lacking in specific and conceivable qualities, so foreign to all the warmth and concreteness of the love of one's own country, that it must always lack the power to stir the mass of men and women to sacrifice, to loyalty, to common action in a common cause. As nations expand and populations multiply it is increasingly difficult to preserve the nationalistic ideal. As America has spread over the greater part of a continent it has required skill and vision to preserve its integrity. The centrifugal tendency is constantly re-asserting itself among groups of men, and it must be constantly offset by an em- phasis upon the sound and eternal impulses toward human coordination and unity. The thirteen colo- nies did not come together naturally and inevitably. They were bound together by the genius of a few far-sighted men. Later the addition of Louisiana to the growing nation was vigorously opposed; and without the clear conception, on the part of a few, of our "manifest destiny" California would THE NEW FRONTIER 287 not today be under the American flag. " But for the genius of Lincoln the nation might have re- mained divided forever. Our problem today is no less difficult. The peoples of the world have been brought closer to- gether by the steady improvement in the means of communication. The interchange of ideas is con- stant and rapid. This condition renders easy the contacts of groups and classes the world over, and forms a basis, for example, for dreams of interna- tional labor alliances cutting across the lines of nationality. This tendency cannot be counter- acted by a passive faith in patriotism. It calls for a constant well-directed effort towards national union, a tireless organization, through the forces of communication within the nation itself, of the power- ful human elements of loyalty not only to the flag, but to the spirit behind the flag, to our traditions of human greatness and worth. Under the stimulus of liberty there can be produced a far sounder and more lasting unity, in a nation of one hundred and ten million or even of two hundred and ten million people, covering a vast territory extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, than was ever possible in the narrow confines of ancient Greece. But if these forces of cohesion are neglected, there are the elements in America of disunion, elements which if allowed to operate without restriction might well produce in a century the same kaleidoscopic group- ing and re-grouping of peoples we now associate 288 THE NEW FRONTIER with the early history of South America, or of the Balkan states. This is a living and fundamental American problem. This, too, is a problem which will never be permanently solved, because with union always comes the challenge of disunion. The principle of democracy is being determined today. It will be re-determined in every age. Today we are facing the paramount issue of adapting our institutions founded on democracy to the grow- ing self-consciousness of millions of men and women. And upon the solution of our American problem will depend the part we can play in the peace and progress of mankind as a whole. If we are strong, we can help our neighbors. If we are weak our help is valueless. The application of the American liberal spirit to the constantly recurring questions of industry and politics has been suggested in previous chapters. It is hoped that those with time and capacity for such work will find it possible to expand this theme, necessarily touched on here in its broadest and most general aspects. A concrete example, however, of a public figure who was in many vivid ways the in- carnation of the pioneer spirit, will complete the present study. Theodore Roosevelt embodied many of the quali- ties which have been discussed in these pages. Per- haps the most obvious of all was his energy, his tireless activity, which has been characterized in a memorable way in "The Education of Henry Adams": THE NEW FRONTIER 289 "Power when wielded by abnormal energy is the most serious of facts, and all Roosevelt's friends knew that his restless and combative energy was more than abnormal. Roosevelt more than any other man Hving within the range of notoriety showed the singular primitive quality that be- longs to ultimate matter — the quality that med- iaeval theology assigned to God — he was pure act." And yet the energy of Roosevelt was not the *'pure act" of the ancients. It was a distinctly human and personal energy which won the sym- pathy of men and women everywhere. His eternal youthfulness and enthusiasm touched a responsive chord in all Americans, for the qualities which he developed to the utmost were qualities particularly characteristic of the American spirit. Roosevelt was not loved because he was distinguished along lines strange and awesome and unfamiliar. He simply did the things every American wanted to do, except that he did more of them, and accomplished them with greater vigor and success. In a nation of men of action he was the most active. He liked strong and distinguished men around him. In almost all of his varied activities he numbered among his friends men more distinguished than himself. But no American ever lived who, in addition to achieving preeminence in one great field of activity, public service, attained substantial distinction in so many other fields of effort. 290 THE NEW FRONTIER Theodore Roosevelt was a living interpretation of the history of his country. If we admit the in- fluence of the frontier upon American history, if we admit the character-building power growing out of the conquest of a continent, and a century of struggle with the wilderness, the question then arises, What are we to do today who live in crowded cities? What are we to do today who grow up and die without ever setting foot on a forest path? What are we to do today when one set of problems confronts the people of the Atlantic Coast, the people in the conquered wilderness of the Missis- sippi Valley and the people of the Far West ? Does not the life of Roosevelt give us the answer? Our last material frontier having been conquered, we nozvjace the great problems of social, political and industrial organization and of artistic creation. A frontier still con- fronts us, and only in the frontier spirit caji we meet it. Theodore Roosevelt was born in the East, of an old merchant family. He was a frail boy. There seemed to be in his make-up the raw material for a more or less ordinary professional or business career. What led him toward the West? What nationalized him? What touched in him the spark of undying American fire and gave him the strength to become one of the greatest Americans of history? Probably the complete answer to this question will never be known. But the fact remains that Roosevelt appreciated, as fully as ever man ap- preciated, the significance to the American people THE NEW FRONTIER 291 of the winning of the West. And yet he was not a Westerner. In putting into practice in his crowded life the best elements of the American spirit, he taught the broad lesson that an appreciation of the frontier does not detract from a fair estimate of the contributions of Puritan New England, or of Cava- lier and Puritan Virginia to the splendid fabric of twentieth century Americanism. Roosevelt never ceased to be loyal to the East, especially to the city and state in which he was born. But first of all he was an American, a continental American, who realized that the early founders of the Republic and the pioneer leaders on the succession of frontiers moving steadily westward to the Pacific both played a significant part in establishing the United States. As an American, Roosevelt mistrusted no man be- cause he differed with his personal beliefs or his ancestry. No man had a greater pride in his Ameri- can parentage, and yet he warmly admired men of foreign birth. In the early days of his career, when he was President of the Police Board of New York, he said, "There must be a feeling of broad, radical and intense Americanism if good work is to be done in any direction. Our citizens must act as Americans; not as Americans with a prefix and qualifications; not as Irish-Americans, German- Americans, native-Americans, but as Americans pure and simple. It is an outrage for a man to drag foreign politics into our own pohtics and vote 292 THE NEW FRONTIER as an Irishman or a German or other foreigner. It is no less an«outrage to discriminate against one who has become an American in good faith, because of his creed or birthplace." Wherever a man came from, whatever his posi- tion in hfe, the only questions Roosevelt asked were, "Is he straight?" "Is he strong?" Charles Francis Adams delivered an address in Virginia twelve years ago at the centennial of Robert E. Lee. He began his remarks with the following words: "Having occasion once to refer in discussion to certain of the founders of our Massachusetts Commonwealth, I made the assertion that their force lay in character; and I added that in saying this I paid and meant to pay the highest tribute which in my judgment could be paid to a community or to its typical men. Quite a number of years have passed since I so expressed myself, and the older I have grown and the more I have studied and seen, the greater in my esteem as an element of strength in a people has character become, and the less in the conduct of human affairs have I thought of mere capacity or even genius." In the word character lies the key to the life of Theodore Roosevelt and his permanent place in history. Sincerity, love of the square deal, courage, persistency — the possessor of these qualities may claim kinship with the tradition of the Pilgrims who fought against nature and the Indians on the first frontier of America; he is the heir of the spirit THE NEW FRONTIER 293 generated in the liberty-loving groups of men and women who pushed that frontier in successive stages across the Alleghanies, through the deep forests of the old Northwest to the Mississippi, across the great plains and prairies, through the passes of the Rockies to Oregon and to California. In this victorious progress the absence of character did not spell failure alone. In most cases it meant death. We have referred to Roosevelt as a continental American. We proudly state that the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence and fought the Revolution were Americans, pioneer Ameri- cans, who carried to its logical conclusion the spirit which brought their forefathers across the Atlantic. Nor did the advance of the western frontiersmen lessen the spirit of self-reliance which characterized the pioneers of Massachusetts Bay and Jamestown. But the sons of the early pioneers of the Atlantic seaboard looked eastward across the Atlantic for much of the substance of their lives. While Benja- min Franklin was a pioneer in spirit, it may be said of him without disparagement that fundamentally he was a colonial Englishman rather than a typical American. It was only when the sturdy Virginians and Pennsylvanians, mingling with the Scotch- Irish and other vigorous stocks, pushed through the Cumberland Gap and down the Ohio, and were thrown upon their own resources, that the European tradition was laid aside and a definite American 294 THE NEW FRONTIER self-confidence developed. These pioneers turned their backs on Europe and their eyes toward the setting sun. They were the first characteristic native Americans, drawing their inspiration from their own environment and creating their own traditions. Out of that hfe grew Abraham Lincoln. He guided America through an overshadowing crisis, not by diplomatic finesse, but by rugged simplicity and fair dealing, by knowledge of men and women, by courage and human sympathy and persistency. We look upon him as the product of the West, but we may well regard him as the first great world figure who grew out of that dominating frontier influence which has distinguished us from all other peoples in the world. That same tradition inspired Theodore Roosevelt. His best piece of historical writing was a study of the expansion of America to the westward. He stood for that same individual courage, for common sense and a desire to get results in dealing with public questions, for that sheer joy of life, in work and in play, which is characteristic of the type he loved. He learned and lived the fundamentals of American character, frontier-grown. He took these funda- mentals and built upon them a national and an international policy. One hesitates to attempt to interpret the viewpoint of a man who touched upon so many modern problems, and who is being quoted by the advocates of both sides of almost THE NEW FRONTIER 295 every current controversy. One has only to try it to find out how difficult it is. But it may be of value simply to recall the attitude of Roosevelt on a few significant points in order to emphasize his liberalism. Some say that his views are far too general to meet the needs of our day. For example, it is true that his doctrine of the "square deal" is not an industrial panacea. Other things are necessary, such as careful and persistent analysis of the in- tricate problems by engineers and men of lifelong industrial experience. But these things have been done, and well done, for decades. Alone they will not establish industrial peace. They help to es- tablish a body of sound working data, but only the spirit of the "square deal" can shape the facts into a firm and lasting basis for industrial peace. Will anyone argue that if the "square deal" is actually applied by all parties to the present con- troversy a solution will not be reached? To the question, What is the square deal? it may be answered that it is the solution applied by trained and fair-minded men in each individual case, after all parties to a dispute have come together with an honest desire to bring about a fair settlement, and laid the facts on the table without reserve. Roose- velt rated men as more important than multiplica- tion tables. Fie trusted to their good sense and fairness. And in the great majority of cases his confidence was justified. Suspicion breeds sus- 296 THE NEW FRONTIER picion. Trust and fair dealing on one side of the table goes a great way toward bringing about a similar attitude on the other. He realized that an industrial problem could not be solved unless the men who were working for a solution knew their facts absolutely; but he also knew that no group, no matter how fully they knew the facts, would ever reach an agreement if they convened v^ith convic- tion that there was no common ground for com- promise and cooperation. The question is, are we as a people capable of evolving a living and working basis for the tremen- dous population which calls itself American? Are American institutions elastic enough to adapt them- selves to the demands which the necessities of pro- duction make upon them ? Have our fathers handed down to us a form of government and human society which Is best calculated to produce the greatest happiness of the greatest number of our people now and in the future? Are our present difficulties due to temporary maladjustments and inadequate coordinations, or are they due to fundamental im- perfections in the system itself? The radicals be- lieve the system is wrong and should be discarded. Roosevelt believed It was right and should be maintained. If the members of a board of arbi- tration meet to discuss a wage scale under the American system of government and some of the conferees are not dissatisfied with the wage scale, but with American institutions as a whole, it is idle to THE NEW FRONTIER 297 look for an agreement. There cannot possibly be a meeting of minds. Running through the whole philosophy of hfe of Theodore Roosevelt, a philosophy which he actually lived as fully as any man of our time, is the emphasis upon the fundamental character of the average man and woman, the fundamental need of achieving greatness through the performance of an infinite number of small tasks well, of being ready to do the great tasks when fortune throws them in our way. Out of a life of public service extending over forty years he emerged with the unshaken conviction that there were in the rock and fiber of American character the qualities which would enable the nation to endure. He believed in work. He believed in working harder than any other man was willing to work. He never could be convinced of the advantage to the community of persons who produce nothing. All his friends were producers. They may have been in overalls, or they may have been in broad- cloth. Some of his close friends were members of labor unions; others were cowboys; others were poets; others were heads of great industries. He made no distinction between a poor man and a rich man except as their character might differ. But on the basis of character and on the basis of work done, he distinguished very rigidly and with an almost uncanny insight. He said, "Not once in a thousand times is it possible to achieve anything 298 THE NEW FRONTIER - except by labor, by effort, by serious purpose and by the willingness to run risk," Above all he believed that steady day-to-day work and not revolutionary reform is the essence of progress. "In the last analysis the welfare of a nation depends upon its having shown a healthy development. A healthy social system must of necessity represent the sum of very many moral, intellectual and economic forces, and each such force must depend in its turn partly upon the whole system. . . . Society is of course infinitely more complex than the human body. The influences that tell upon it are countless; they are closely inter- woven, inter-dependent, and each is acted upon by many others. It is pathetically absurd, when such are the conditions, to believe that some one simple panacea for all evils can be found. Slowly, with infinite difficulty, with bitter disappointments, with stumblings and baitings, we are working our way upward and onward." No one was more uncompromising than Theodore Roosevelt when it came to questions of fundamental right or patriotism, and yet no one was more definite than he with regard to the necessity of making haste slowly, of sticking to the middle of the trail, of trust- ing men and women because of their broad funda- mental honesty and not expecting every leader to be a prophet or every measure to be perfect. He believed in compromise. He believed a public of- ficial was looked to by the people to get results; THE NEW FRONTIER 299 consequently, he believed that there was a time to act and a time to refrain from action. But let no man suggest that Roosevelt ever compromised upon his principles of right. If compromise in- volved the question as to whether the right action should be taken today or postponed until tomorrow, whether the entire purpose to be gained should be pressed for at once, or part secured now and the re- mainder later, then he was ready to compromise. But if the suggested compromise involved a de- parture by one iota from what he believed to be fair and honest, the answer came with a suddenness and finality quicker than thought itself. He never had to debate such questions with his soul. In a letter written in 1916 Dr. Lyman Abbott said: "For five years Mr. Roosevelt and I were in- timately associated. We met each week in editorial conference to consider what course The Outlook should pursue in dealing with pubhc questions. He never asked how a given course of conduct would affect either the fortunes of The Outlook or his own political prospects; always he addressed himself to two questions, what is right? and what can wisely and effectively be done to promote the right?" The liberals of today are coming more and more to recognize the lesson in the character of Roosevelt. All his life his active mind was at work bringing his actions In line with the principles he had drawn from his remarkably varied experience and study. He read thousands of books, and better still, he 300 THE NEW FRONTIER read thousands of people. And yet he was not a comphcated figure. When we look back on his life and try to draw out the lesson of his work and the lesson of his words, we see in them both the few simple strains of vigor and liberalism and fair play. In a recent penetrating editorial, the New York Globe had this to say of him: "More sweeping changes are now conceded, even by conservatives, than any which he ever seriously considered. But his influence is helping us to pass through the necessary transition in comparative peace. Between the blind forces on one side and the other of the industrial conflict stands a more or less enlightened middle group, which is trying to discern not a balance of -power hut an equilibrium of justice. This is Roosevelt's group. He trained it. He more than any other modern figure helped to form the ideals of what we loosely call *the public'." "Not a balance of power but an equilibrium of justice" — this is the torch the liberals of America must take up and bear forward. "This Is Roose- velt's group. He trained It." It Is a group which grows larger each day. It Is not partisan but na- tional. It cannot be captured by any clique or party. There is no man In America today capable of mon- opolizing the tradition of Theodore Roosevelt. His achievement Is the property of the whole people. He has lived to set up standards which his friends will continue to hold aloft. And who are not his friends ? Now that he has gone we realize how well THE NEW FRONTIER 301 his country could have used him in these trying days; and we rejoice that his spirit is marching on. The spirit of this notable modern frontiersman lives in the stirring words of Herman Hagedorn: "And now the great hunter has gone West. He was found faithful in a few things and he was made ruler over many; he cut his own trail clean and straight and millions followed him toward the light. He was frail; he made himself a tower of strength. He was timid; he made himself a lion of courage. He_was a dreamer; he became one of the great doers of all time. Men put their trust in him; women found a champion in him; kings stood in awe of him, but children made him their playmate. He broke a nation's slumber with his cry, and it rose up. He touched the eyes of blind men with a flame that gave them vision. Souls became swords through him; swords became servants of God. He was loyal to his country and he exacted loyalty; he loved many lands, but he loved his own land best. He was terrible in battle, but tender to the weak; joyous and tireless, being free from self-pity; clean with a cleanness that cleansed the air like a gale. His courtesy knew no wealth, no class, his friend- ship, no creed or color or race. His courage stood every onslaught of savage beast and ruthless man, of loneliness, of victory, of defeat. His mind was eager, his heart was true, his body and spirit, de- fiant of obstacles, ready to meet what might come. He fought injustice and tyranny; bore sorrow 302 THE NEW FRONTIER gallantly; loved all nature, bleak spaces and hardy- companions, hazardous adventure and the zest of battle. Wherever he went he carried his own pack; and in the uttermost parts of the earth he kept his conscience for his guide." i He won through to a new frontier of American character. The trail he blazed was a trail of liberal leadership. It is a challenge to all whose blood has been touched by the fire of the American spirit, to all who believe that Americanism means that men and women are born to put more into their country than they take out of it. APPENDIX y APPENDIX For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the bibli- ography of American history the following list is appended, with the distinct understanding that it is the list of a layman and not of a scientific student of history. The list is based largely on books in the author's own library or lists which have been suggested by those whose judg- ment on such matters is most likely to appeal to the average reader. These books have been chosen primarily because they were sound and accurate, and with an eye to their being readable. Further lists may be found by referring to the bibli- ographies at the end of many of the volumes and in some cases at the end of chapters in some of the volumes; and reference is made below to one excellent bibliographical list: I. Excellent Single Volumes: The Development of the United States. Max Farrand (Houghton, Mifflin). This brief, quick survey of the whole period of the history of the United States has a fresh point of view and is extremely well written. It may be regarded as the minimum that any intelligent American should know of the history of his country. The Frontier in American History. Frederick J. Turner (Henry Holt). This material has been frequently referred to in the text. The Critical Period of American History. John Fiske (Houghton, Mifflin). Perhaps the best single piece of writing which Fiske did. It gives a splendid picture of the stirring years which preceded the adoption of the American Constitution, PS 3o6 APPENDIX A Short History of the Mississippi Valley. James K. Hosmer (Hough- ton, MifBin). This small book contains a vivid presentation of the essential facts of the opening up of the great Empire between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi Valley. History of the Civil War. James Ford Rhodes (Macmillan). The first adequate single volume treating of the American Civil War. It is an interesting fact, in view of the multitude of histories now ap- pearing on the war in Europe, that with all the material close at hand a really adequate, brief summary of the American Civil War did not appear until more than fifty years after the war was over. 2. The Background: The Expansion of Europe. W. C. Abbott (Henry Holt). Referred to on pages 38, 40, 43. 3. Standard Sets: France and England in North America. Francis Parkman (Twelve Volumes) — (Little, Brown). This set includes: The Jesuits in North America; La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West; A Half Century of Conflict; Pioneers of France in the New World; The Conspiracy of Pontiac; Montcalm and Wolfe. Works on the Early History of America. John Fiske (Houghton, Mifflin). The series includes: The Discovery of America, in two volumes; Old Virginia and Her Neighbors, in two volumes; The Beginnings of New England, in one volume; New France and New England, in one volume; The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, in two volumes; The American Revolution, in two volumes; and the single volume mentioned above. History of the United States. Henry Adams (Scribner). This brilliant study in nine small volumes covers in a suggestive manner the history of the United States from 1801 to 1817, the ad- ministrations of Jefferson and Madison, and gives a subtle analysis of the character and early development of the American people. The Winning of the West. Theodore Roosevelt (Various editions). This is probably Roosevelt's best piece of historical writing. History of the United States. James Ford Rhodes (Seven Volumes — 1850-1897) — (Macmillan). A highly readable story with a rich American flavor, based to a considerable extent on contemporary newspaper accounts. It brings out vividly the personalities of the great figures involved in the Civil APPENDIX 307 War and the years which preceded it. It does not take into considera- tion the elements of national progress particularly associated with the significant westward movement. History of the United States. Edward Channing (Four Volumes) — (Macmillan). A readable and suggestive history of the United States from the earliest times up to 1815, which concludes Volume Four. It is under- stood that Volume Five, which will treat of the Westward movement is nearly completed. These volumes have a strong appeal to the average reader because of the straightforwardness with which the facts are presented. While not without vision and suggestiveness, the writer distinctly has his feet on the ground. The American Revolution. Sir George Otto Trevelyan (Six Volumes) ■ — (Longmans, Green). A fair and brilliant piece of historical writing by a sympathetic Englishman. The American Nation. Edited by A. B. Hart (Twenty-seven Volumes) — (Harper). A cooperative work which covers American history from the earliest times down to the present day. Each volume is written by an expert. From the point of view of the general reader these volumes are somewhat unequal in interest, but some of them cover phases of our history which cannot be found briefly and adequately treated elsewhere. The general reader will easily find by glancing over the individual titles which books appeal to his interest. The Chronicles of America. Edited by Allen Johnson (Fifty Volumes) — (Yale University Press). The publication of The Chronicles of America marks an epoch in American historical writing. Not only are these books remarkable examples of book making, attractive in size and easy to read, but they are the first attempt to present the history of America to the general reader in the form of stories with real literary flavor, which at the same time adhere closely to the actual facts of history. Like the volumes in the American Nation series, the volumes which have so far appeared in the Chronicles of America are somewhat uneven; but they are all readable and some of them as, for example. The Old Merchant Marine, by Ralph D. Payne; The Passing of the Frontier, by Emerson Hough; The Eve of the Revolution, by Carl Becker, to select only a few titles, are positively brilliant. 3o8 APPENDIX The Riverside History of the United States. (Four Volumes) — (Houghton, Mifflin). This compact history in four small, well written volumes by four authorities is perhaps the most available briefer history of the United States. 4. Biography: The American Statesmen. (Houghton, Mifflin.) These small volumes are generally adequate treatments of the principal figures. Among the other brilliant American biographies may be mentioned Abraham Lincoln, by Lord Charnwood (Henry Holt); Daniel Boone, by Reuben Goldthwaites (Appleton); Alexander Hamilton, hy Frederick Oliver (Putnam); Stonewall Jackson, G. F. R. Henderson (Longmans, Green); Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, (Century Co.); The Life of John Hay, William Roscoe Thayer (Houghton, Mifflin). 5. Special topics: American History and its Geographic Conditions, E. C. Semple (Houghton, Mifflin); Principles of American Diplomacy, John Bassett Moore (Harper); The American Commonwealth, James Bryce (Macmillan); History of Labor in the United States, John R. Commons, Editor, (Macmillan); Economic History of the United States, E. L. Bogart (Longmans, Green); Financial History of the United States, D. R. Dewey (Longmans, Green); Industrial History of the United States, Katharine Coman (Macmillan). 6. Bibliography: Guide to the Study and Reading of American History, Channing, Hart & Turner (Ginn). INDEX INDEX Abbott, Dr. Lyman, 299 Abbott, Professor W, C, "Expan- sion of Europe," quoted, 38-39, 39-40, 41-42; cited, 44 Adams, Charles Francis, quoted, 292 Adams, John Quincy, 50 Adams, Henry, quoted, 10, li; his "History of the United States," characterized as best American historical writing, 53; "The Education of Henry Adams," quoted, 288-292 Advertising, its magnitude and importance, 220-223 Allen, Ethan, 48 American Alliance for Labor and Democracy, quoted, 116-118 Americanism, analysis of, 3-10; eternal youthfulness a charac- teristic of, 6, 26; essence of, 269-270 Barton, Bruce, "The New Yorker's Creed," quoted, 188-189 Becker, Professor Carl, "Begin- ning of the American People,'* quoted, 44-45 Belleau Wood, battle of, 42 Bolshevism, 70; how to combat it, 197-198 Boone, Daniel, 13, 14, 16 Buchanan, James, 50 Burton, Pomeroy, Manager of the London Mail, quoted, 213-214 Cabot, John, 47-48 Calvin, John, 8g Capitalism, the United States ' committed to, I44-147 Channing, Edward, "History of the United States," 239 Charnwood, Lord, "Life of Lin- coln," quoted, 30-31; cited, 263; his analysis of the Ameri- can spirit in the "Anglo- French Review," quoted, 263- 269 Churchill, Winston, quoted, 146 Clark, William, 16 Clay, Henry, "Economics for the General Public,'!, quoted, 156- 157 . ,. ^ Cleveland, Grover,'*loO Columbus, 44, 47 Congress, composition of, 89-90; prevailing criticism of, 91; a representative group, 91-92 Constitutional Convention, the, 133 Continental Congress, the, 19 Conventions, their efficiency, 133- 134 Coolidge,- Governor, of Massa-^ chusetts, 61 Cortez, 38 Crockett, David, 14, 16 Danton, 87 Declaration of Independence, quoted, 73 3" 312 INDEX Democracy, existed before 1776, 3-4; American democracy, 30 De Soto, 48 Donhara, Dean, 159 Drake, Sir Francis, 45 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quoted, 35-36, 205, 282 Farrand, Professor Max, "The 'Development of the United States," quoted, 25-26 Ferrero, "Greatness and Decline of Rome," quoted, 223-224 Fess, Dr. Simeon D., quoted, 99 Frank, Glenn, "The Politics of Industry," quoted, 134-136 Franklin, Benjamin, 293 Free speech, curbing of during the war, 71-72; a foundation stone of American liberty, 72; the liberal's attitude toward, 74 Hagedorn, Herman, tribute to Roosevelt, quoted, 301-302 Hakluyt, Richard, English geog- rapher, 46 Hale, Edward Everett, "The Man without a Country," 286 Hamilton, Alexander, 26, 92, 169, 170, Harvard Liberal Club, the, 57 Hawkins, Sir John, 45 Hayes, Rutherford B., 50 Hays, Will H., 123-124 Henderson, Colonel, "Stonewall Jackson," 263 Hillquit, Morris, "History of Socialism in the United States," quoted, 80-81; 82 History, average American not conversant with American his- tory, 37; American history less brilliant than European, 38; Professor Abbott's emphasis upon progress of human char- acter in history, 38-42; Ameri- can historical writing divorced from literary merit, 51-52 Holmes, Justice, of United States Supreme Court, quoted, 72 Holmes Professor Henry W., quoted, 197 Hoover, Herbert, his direction of the Second Industrial Confer- ence at Washington, 114; quoted, 123 Hosmer, James K., 86 Hough, Emerson, quoted, 33, 98 Houston, Samuel, 16 Industrial Democracy, nature of, I 19-124 Irving, Washington, 38 Jackson, Andrew, 9, 13, 16, 50; Fifth Annual Message to Con- gress, quoted, 149-150; Seventh An7iual Message to Congress, quoted, 150 James, William, "The Energies of Men," quoted, 190-191, 194, 282-283 Jefferson, Thomas, 9, 26, 36, 83, IS4 Kellog, Paul V., and Gleason, Arthur, "British Labor and the War," quoted, I2I-I22 Kieft, William, Governor of New Amsterdam, 169 Labor unions, not the real enemy of business, mj distinction INDEX 313 between good and bad unions, 112 La Salle, 48 Liberalism, defined, 56-57; Ameri- ca's need of liberals, 57-60; the liberal, a man who takes a middle course, 62-63, 67; lib- erals not a class, 63 Lincoln, Abraham, 13, 26, 28; his life embodiment of rugged Americanism, 30; cited, 36, 50; quoted, 'j'j; cited, 87, 106, 133, 193, 207; quoted, 270-271; cited, 287, 294 Lowell, James Russell, quoted, 55, 25s Lowell, President of Harvard Uni- versity, quoted, 208-21 1 Luther, Martin, 89 Marco Polo, 44 Marx, Karl, 63 McClellan, George B., 106 McKinley, William, 55 Mitchell, President of Delaware College, quoted, S'}, Monroe, James, 9 Morgenstierne, Wilhelm, quoted, 276-277 Motley, John, "The Rise of the Dutch Republic," 38, 263 New York Globe, quoted, 243-244 Noyes, Alfred, quoted, 45-46 Oliver, Frederick, "Alexander Hamilton," 263 Parkman, Francis, his series of histories of America, 49; a man of letters as well as a historian, 52-53 Perkins, George W., "Economics New versus Economics Old," in The Economic Worlds quoted, 236-237 Pizarro, 38 Preamble of the Constitution of the United States, quoted, 97 Prescott, WilHam H., 37-38 Prince Henry the Navigator, 44 Quaife, Dr. M. N., his discussion on historical writing in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, quoted, 52-53 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 45 Reactionary, defined as believer in the status quo, 65 "Reds," synonymous with anar- chists, 64; cited, 70; average laboring man's scorn for, 71; cited, 198 Reformation, the, 88 Rhodes, James Ford, his opinion of Henry Adams* "History of the United States," 53; his history, 54 Robertson, James, 16 Robespierre, 87 Roosevelt, Theodore, his love of open spaces, 13; life embodi- ment of American spirit, 15; "The Winning of the West," quoted, 15-16, 17-18, 19-20, 20-22; cited, 26, 28; knowledge of frontier spirit, 33; cited, 36; address before American His- torical Association on "History as Literature," quoted, 51-52; quoted, 86; cited, 87, 93, 94, 112, 139; quoted, 161-162; 314 INDEX cited, 234, 245; his philosophy of life, 292-300 Ruskin, John, 106 Scheele, Swedish pharmacist, 39 Sevier, a Shenandoah Huguenot, 16 Socialism, cited, 80, 81; will pre- vail if right, 83 Socialists, defined as law-abiding radicals, 64-65 Strikes, 11 8-1 19 Stuyvesant, Peter, 169 Sullivan, Tim, 92 Syndicalists, defined as violent radicals, 64 Taft, William Howard, 50, 166 The Economic World, newspaper, 236 Thoreau, Henry, 13 Turner, Professor Frederick J., quoted, 4-5, 7> n. 272-^7S> 285 Vanderlip, Mr., 201 Vespucci, Amerigo, 48 Wall Street, its history, 169-172; its function, 172-175; prevail- ing attitude toward, 184-186 Washington, George, 13, 26, 36, SO> 170 Watauga Association, the, 20, 25 Watterson, Galonel Henry, quoted, 107-108 Wells, H. G., 85 Whitley Report, quoted, 122-123 Wilson, Woodrow, "Division and Reunion," quoted, 23-24; "Congressional Government," quoted, 99-100; quoted, 160- 161 Women, their attainment of the ballot, 95-98 Woods, Arthur, "The Policeman and the Public," quoted, 74-76