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THE WESTERN EXPERIMENT WITH
PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE. × BY -
BERNARD MOSES.
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THE WESTERN EXPERIMENT WITH
PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE. ºf BY
BERNARD MOSES. , gº
[Reprinted from the UNIVERSITY CHRONICLE, Vol. VII, No. 1]
BERKELEY
The University Press
1904
THE WESTERN EXPERIMENT WITH
PERSONAL INDEPENDENCE.*
BERNARD MOSES.
The course of social growth in the early civilized nations
of Europe, as well as in the nations of other races, tended
to raise into prominence a limited number of persons.
These persons, by reason of their prowess, their intellectual
development, their strength of character, or the advantages
of their inheritance, assumed a position of superiority and
independence which distinguished them from the great
body of their fellow-countrymen. This appeared to be a
normal result of social progress in all nations, whether in
Europe or in other parts of the world, prior to the rise
of the modern civilization of Europe and America. The
ancient republics discriminated between the superior and
the dependents scarcely less sharply than the ancient mon-
archies. The most enlightened thinkers among the Greeks
emphasized this distinction, and found it characteristic of
a normal Social order. But in recent centuries a new con-
ception of social relations has appeared. This conception
rejects the idea of superiority and dependence, and seeks
the entire emancipation and complete independence of each
individual man, regardless of his inheritance or his intel-
lectual development. It would place the individual man
in a position where he would hold only such relations to
his fellow-men as might be entered into by his voluntary
agreement.
*An address before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of the University
of California, delivered May 17, 1904.
* 4
The significant experiment in modern American civili-
zation consists in seeking to establish the equal personal
independence of all members of the nation. The transi-
tion from a state of society involving the old conception
to one involving the new has been furthered and supported
by unparalleled efforts in behalf of education, and by the
creation of governmental institutions under which the indi-
vidual, and not the clan or any other association of per-
sons, is held to be responsible before the law. It has been
supported, moreover, particularly since the Protestant
Revolution, by a doctrine of religious individualism and by
an ecclesiastical policy that emphasizes the entire responsi-
bility of the individual man for his moral status and his
spiritual destiny. The conspicuous purpose of European
and American society in recent centuries has thus been to
isolate the individual man, and to make him stand forth in
the fullest possible independence. This conception and
the practical design here involved represent a striking
departure from the traditional order that has characterized
society throughout historic times, and, therefore, the bulk
of mankind has no real knowledge of this Western experi-
ment. What has been done in effecting this social change
has been done in contravention of the general practice and
the almost universal tradition of the world. The new view
of the position of the ordinary man which is seeking justi-
fication in our experiment has the sanction of only a few
centuries of usage in nations representing only a fraction
of the human race. It is to be noted, moreover, that, what-
ever may have been the individual ideals of the greater
part of the members of every nation early in life, on reach-
ing maturity they find their places in the ranks confirmed
to them, either by the limitations of their endowments or
by the necessity of immediate material support.
These evident facts suggest the question as to the fate of
personal independence under normal social growth. We
have seen the rise of this quality in the English people,
and have observed its influence in determining the funda-
5
mental features of a great politcal theory. We have seen
it carried from the old world to the new, where, under
the conditions of the frontier that make for democracy, it
has received a new development and been raised from the
position of a theory to become the main article of a domi-
nant political creed.
The zealous Mohammedan conceives of no people that
ought not to be brought to a knowledge of, and a belief in,
the teachings of the Prophet. The devoted Christian looks
beyond the limits of his race, and expects that all men, of
whatsoever origin, will ultimately accept the Christian
doctrine. And thus the believers in the equal personal
independence of all men have held their personal faith to
be worthy of universal acceptance, and destined to make
the circuit of the world. This form of political faith finds
its most vigorous adherents in America, and where it pre-
vails certain social topics appear to be removed from the
field of scientific inquiry. When it is affirmed in the Amer-
ican’s political creed that the personal independence
achieved by the few in the older civilizations is to be
achieved and maintained by everybody in America under
the new régime, it appears to be difficult for the adherent
of this view to find reasons for a further investigation of
the subject. And the social growth of the English people
in England, Australia and the United States seems to
strengthen his view. In the pursuit of a more enlightened
government and by the influences incident to migration,
the English people during the last eight centuries have
advanced toward a larger measure of personal indepen-
dence.
It is not to be doubted that there is something in Eng-
lish blood that has furthered the advance toward personal
independence and democracy, but without the circumstances
of migration, without the unconventional life of the fron-
tier of Australia and America, without the sparse popula-
tion, the almost universal devotion to agriuclture, and the
essential equality of material possesions, this remarkable
6
development would apparently have been out of the ques-
tion. For in England, where these conditions were want-
ing, but where the stock out of which grew the colonial
republics of America continued to exist, there has remained
somewhat of the feudal spirit and a recognition of the
desirability of maintaining that inequality which “lies
imbedded in the very base of the English social structure.”
The democratic spirit of America is thus not altogether a
matter of blood. It was born of the free life of the colo-
nial farms, of the equality which necessarily prevailed
among men of the same occupation and of the same grade
of wealth; and it was supported by the personal indepen-
dence that was developed in men who stood in large part
alone on the edge of the wilderness.
At this point arises a question involving important con-
siderations respecting contemporary social tendencies, or
respecting the prospects of personal independence in
modern society. There is here suggested, moreover, the
somewhat widely accepted view that Western society has
entered upon a new order of social growth, and that the
social differentiation which has produced everywhere else
the relation of superiority and dependence is not to appear
here. The fact that a large measure of independence has
been achieved by the inhabitants of Europe and America
does not finally answer the inquiry. The superiority cre-
ated and upheld by the favor and protection of the state
in the older nations, through the granting of titles and
the formation of artificial distinctions, and much of the
consequent dependence, disappeared when men were
thrown upon their own resources in a new country. The
environment of the frontier tended to set aside the tradi-
tional relations of European life. A society without the
old conventional obligations and restraints was formed,
and a starting-point for a new social growth was estab-
lished. - - -
Removed from the domination of a superior and the
influences of ancient tradition, society in the United States
.* 7
in the early decades furnished an excellent illustration of
normal social growth. It increased its wants and sought
their satisfaction. In this process it produced a wide range
of occupations, prepared its members for a multitude of
different functions, developed in them unlike talents, intro-
duced rivalry and competition, established the conditions
of brilliant achievement and lamentable failure; in a word,
advanced from simplicity to complexity and from uniform-
ity to variety. The native inequality of powers among
different persons under conditions of freedom manifested
itself in inequality of achievements, and laid a foundation
for effective social distinctions regardless of the attempts
of governmental authority to secure equality before the
law. -
This result represents a step in social differentiation,
and the beginning of a movement to bring about inequality
on a new basis. When, under the presupposition of this
movement, two men of unequal powers start from the same
circumstances, and at the end of the race one commands
a large amount of capital and vast resources, while the
other has no means of living except by working for his
former companion, or for some other person of similar
standing, a certain relation of superiority and dependence
has in fact appeared. And the movement toward this end
is independent of resolutions or personal decisions as to
what ought to be the form of society. The forces that are
determinative in this matter are not conscious forces, but
such forces as proceed from man’s relation to nature or
are the resultant of many purely conscious efforts directed
to other ends than that which appears as the general result.
The conscious striving of our race in past centuries,
and particularly in the early phases of American life, was
to make the individual man stand forth in complete per-
Sonal independence, with no claims on the more fortunate
and no obligations toward the less fortunate. In this posi-
tion he appears to have broken with his ancestors, and
emancipated himself from their traditions. He has
8
renounced the ties that were acknowledged in the earlier
phases of society. No man is his master or superior, and
no man is his slave or dependent. The authorities of gov-
ernment have recognized his claim to independence, and
clothed him with rights for the defense of his pretensions.
But when the goal is reached, and the individual man has
achieved the full measure of his personal independence,
there is reason to doubt his ability in a large number of
cases to maintain his position; there is also reason to doubt
his willingness to accept the legitimate consequences of
this independence.
It is usually assumed that neither of these points is
debatable; that they are definite articles of the social creed
of a progressive nation; and that the complete personal
independence of which we boast is a permanent acquisition.
But such a position is entirely untenable, for even pro-
gressive nations have not reached finality, either with
respect to the form of society or the organization of the
government. The very fact that nations are progressive
implies that certain parts of their social organizations will
yet be modified, and that the relative positions of their
citizens are destined to be changed.
It is not unsual to find two incompatable views held by
the same members of a given society. One of such views
held by Americans is that existing institutions in this
country represent a permanent ideal; another is that the
Society in question is a progressive society. This contra-
diction in concrete form is presented by those who hold
that in the establishment of personal independence a final
end has been reached, and that nevertheless the society
under consideration is progressive. They are persuaded
that their social forms and political institutions represent
in some sense a final achievement; and they hold it to be
patriotic duty to adhere to these forms. At the same time,
they hold with equal firmness that this is a progressive
nation. Now, if the nation is progressive, its institutions
and its ideals must necessarily undergo change; but, on the
9
other hand, if these ideals and existing institutions are
not destined to be modified in the course of time, then it
is not proper to place the United States in the list of pro-
gressive nations. But the suggestion involved in the last
alternative runs counter to all the evidences of our history.
We have moved onward through successive phases of social
growth, and there is no reason to suppose that our social
development is complete. We have apparently not yet
reached the point where nations stop growing and die.
Therefore, under continued progress we may expect
that ideals now influential will be modified, and that some
of the relations of individual persons to one another and
to society will be changed. At a certain point in our indus-
trial history the common man of America represented the
personal independence achieved by the progress of our
race. He was completely emancipated. He was not
affected by the traditions of serfdom. He recognized no
obligations to a superior. He either furnished his own
occupation or was bound only by the terms of a voluntary
agreement with an employer. The terms of this agree-
ment limited also the employer's obligation, and they were
binding for only such periods as the two parties might
accept. Each of the representatives of these two classes
respected the independence of the other. Here culminated
the personal independence of the American, particularly
the independence of the American laborer. His position
is the result of a conscious struggle against a natural tend-
ency. After this the forces of our colonial and frontier
environment that made for equality and independence
were gradually and in a measure superseded by the forces
observable in social growth that make for inequality and
the interdependence of more or less distinctly marked
classes. And this subsequent growth of society has been
such as to tend to make the laborer feel the inconvenience
of his detached condition. While his strength endured he
rejoiced in being his own master; he rejoiced, moreover, in
freedom to determine his own destiny. But when his evil
10
days come, and his powers are inadequate to his tasks, he
discovers that his position is not all that it seemed in the
days of his strength. He is no man’s client, he is dependent
on no master, and no one is under obligation to carry him
over the non-productive years. In the period of his weak-
ness and broken health he sees what appear to him as the
shortcomings of a social system that presumes complete
personal independence. The growing inequality appearing
in natural social progress imposes upon him an increasing
handicap, and makes the attainment and maintenance of
real personal independence more and more difficult. He
foresees the need of support in the approaching days of
possible failure. The theory underlying our social order
is that every man in his effective years will provide for the
days of his misfortunes and his decline; and this, the
American laborer sees, is not justified by the facts of gen-
eral experience. He sees that an adequate basis for sup-
port is never acquired by more than a small part of the
world’s inhabitants. The claims his ancestors had on the
good-will, the protection, and the positive care of a superior
are dissolved. He is his own master, and he carries the
risks of independence. But, in spite of the fact that he
has attained a position towards which his race struggled
through many generations, he finds himself after all liable
to fall into a state of dependence. In the first instance,
when the obligations of his employer cease, he falls back
on the members of his family for support. This draws
women into the proper vocations of men, and often throws
excessive burdens upon children at a time when they ought
to be under training or left free to complete their intel-
lectual and physical development. Deprived of this oppor-
tunity, they reach maturity of years without maturity of
either mind or body; and thus they start the population
on a course of degeneracy.
With respect to this phase of life the nations of most
advanced individualism show little improvement over the
nations not yet emerged from the feudal condition.
11
Authoritative reports on the condition of the poor in Eng-
land in the nineteenth century revealed a state of squalor,
want and subjection scarcely matched in the feudal age
on the continent of Europe. Complete personal indepen-
dence brings to the individual man the possibility of bet-
terment, but it brings also the possibility of hopeless and
helpless deterioration, and this opportunity for the freest
differentiation introduces the forms characteristic of
mature social growth everywhere.
When the influences that made for superiority and
dependence were temporarily counteracted, and the indi-
vidual man attained independence, setting aside the mutual
obligations that previously existed, an attempt was made
through charity to bring about the recognition of a new
obligation. It was seen that the position involved in the
idea of personal independence in many cases could not be
held, and the Church appealed to the more fortunate to
help bear the burdens of the less fortunate. Men were
urged to do, under the promptings of charity, what they
were, in a certain sense, released from doing by the disso-
lution of an old social order.
Conspicuous also among the efforts that have been put
forth to furnish relief from the consequences of complete
personal independence are those that have resulted in the
formation of associations for mutual assistance. Men have
been willing to make present sacrifices to avoid the incon-
venience of ultimately standing alone. They have organ-
ized benevolent societies and found in them corporate supe-
riors on whom they could in a measure depend. But these
associations have not fully satisfied all demands. The
sense of personal independence is not complete unless one
is conscious of having determined his own position. No
one, therefore, who represents the modern spirit of West-
ern nations, in which competition is the dominant idea, is
entirely satisfied with any association for fixing his rela-
tion to his fellow-men that does not involve a belligerent
purpose; but any social organization that is effective pre-
12
sumes a certain subordination of the individual man to the
corporate person. Thus the way of escape from depen-
dence on a personal superior leads to subjection to a cor-
porate superior. Men for whose independence a centuries-
long battle has been waged find such subordination neces-
sary for the attainment of their individual purposes under
the existing social order.
The common men of the middle age of civilization
gather willingly around their superiors and give their devo-
tion and their services, not to further the cause of indi-
vidual independence, but to magnify the prestige of their
leaders, from whom they derive a reflected glory. The
great majority of the men of modern times, in order to
avoid the inconveniences of personal independence, create
for themselves corporate superiors in the form of unions
or brotherhoods, and assume towards them in some respects
the attitude of dependents toward personal superiors.
They look to the unions to fight for them battles which
individually they could not win. Like one who is subordi-
nated to a personal superior, they relinquish the advantage
of independence for the sake of the other temporary advan-
tages which, without union, they might not obtain. But
the new superior is scarcely less imperious and exacting
than the old. When the new corporate superior orders
men to cease working, they obey, although their families
are in need of bread. When their sons are prevented by
the new superior from becoming apprentices, they make
no effective protest, but submit to seeing them grow up in
idleness, and in their idleness run the risk of becoming
criminals. The gaining of these temporary personal advan-
tages is attended by certain results that appear as disad-
Vantageous from the standpoint of the Republic, which is
securely founded only when it is based on personal inde-
pendence.
The fact that the corporate superior sometimes reaches
decisions by the votes of its members is not a sufficient
guarantee that it will never act tyrannically or lay heavy
13
burdens upon its subjects. On the contrary, some of the
most complete tyrannies that have ever existed have been
constructed by popular vote, and upheld and confirmed
from time to time by an almost unanimous plebiscite.
Under the earlier order, the dependent, when the evil
days came, might receive a measure of support from his
superior. Under the new order, the dependent, when the
evil days come, receives a measure of support from his
corporate superior. Under the old order, persons not
belonging in any list of clients or dependents were scorned
and rejected. Under the new order, persons not belonging
to any union or brotherhood also suffer a social or indus-
trial handicap. Under the old order, it was the business
of government to ameliorate the condition of the rejected
class. Under the new order, the government has a similar
task with respect to those not under the patronage of the
new superior. If a man wishes to work and finds an
employer willing to compensate him for his services, this
may represent the only opportunity open to him to secure
well-being or happiness; and if the government to which
he has sworn allegiance fails to furnish such protection as
will enable him to make use of this opportunity, it fails
at a point so vital as to call in question the fitness of the
government for the work properly devolving upon it.
The later decades of the English colonial period in
America and the earlier decades under the Union consti-
tute the most brilliant period in the history of the struggle
for personal independence. The superiority upheld by the
customs and privileges of the nobility and by the etiquette
of officialism had been left behind. The free life of the
country, the responsibility for the government, and the
absence of traditions gave to the inhabitants of the United
States a larger measure of personal independence than
was ever enjoyed by any other people. But the rise of
modern industrialism has opened new prospects. It has
put into operation forces that make the perservation of
personal independence for the bulk of the nation prac-
14
tically impossible. Employées are between alternatives,
neither of which conduces to their independence. In at-
tempting to escape from the hard exactions of employers,
they fall under the despotism of the directors of the unions,
and this despotism is likely to be burdensome because those
who wield it are not accustomed to the responsibilities of
power and are untrained in its exercise. Although these
corporate superiors are created by the employées, they are
still superiors, and orders are sometimes issued by them
which a fully developed tyrant would hesitate to issue, lest
an outraged people would turn and destroy his authority.
But the new industrial system, with its inevitable
accompaniment of increasing inequality, and with its
organizations under which employées seek refuge, is not
the only obstacle to the perpetuation of personal indepen-
dence. In the first place, the traditions and instincts influ-
encing the bulk of the human race are such as make for
submission; for, taken all together, in all nations and at
all times, men have generally been in positions of depend-
ence, and the habit, through heredity, has become instinct.
In the second place, there are relatively very few who are
moved either by their traditions or by their ambition to
dominate their fellows. Except in rare instances, more-
over, the desire for equality exists in the human mind only
in the form of an ambition to rise to a plane occupied by
persons whom one conceives to be superior in position to
himself. But, speaking generally, whenever a person, even
an American, has attained a position where he can com-
mand the services of others, he appears willing to assume
the attiude of a superior toward those from whose ranks
he may have come. Thus the sentiments of neither the
subordinated nor the dominant fraction of the population
present any considerable hindrance to the differentiation
of American society into classes along the line that has
been traced by the development of other nations.
The line of thought here suggested may throw light on
the realization of that feature of the American ideal which
15
prefigures the attainment and maintenance of personal
independence by all the citizens of the Republic. In this
light, the unusual development of personal independence
on the part of the common man in the United States
appears as the result of the exceptional circumstances
under which American society has grown. The movement
was, moreover, furthered by the fact that in the migration,
in this case as well as generally, it was chiefly the more
restless and venturesome spirits that dared to undertake to
make their way in a new world. Observing the exceptional
movement in the growth of society here during the brief
period of American history, we have sometimes made the
mistake of supposing that the unusual tendency of the
early decades represented a perpetual and universal tend-
ency; but the later progress suggests that when our envir-
onment ceased to be extraordinary, society in the United
States tended to reproduce the features which are common
to maturing society everywhere. -
An appreciation of these facts will lead inevitably to
a truer estimate of the relative worth of the different mem-
bers of the society with respect to the affairs of govern-
ment. The conviction that all men in the Republic were
destined to maintain the same degree of personal inde-
pendence apparently left no reasonable ground for dis-
crimination in bestowing political privileges. Under this
delusion the people of the United States were lead into the
error of bestowing the full rights of active citizenship upon
millions of freedmen whose only traditions were either
those of barbarism or of the abject dependence of slavery.
The ancient Greeks recognized, as we do, that republics
are founded on the presumption of the personal inde-
pendence of their active citizens. They recognized, more-
over, as we are beginning to recognize, that the growth of
Society tends to separate men into classes, and that the
members of some of the classes fall inevitably into posi-
tions of greater or less dependence. The Greeks had thus
before them in founding and maintaining the republics,
16
essentially the same problem as that which confronted the
people of the United States. But the Greeks followed their
own method. All persons or classes of persons liable to
become dependent were excluded from the exercise of polit-
ical power. The Greeks thus set for themselves a compara-
tively easy task. They made their republics embrace as
active citizens only those classes of persons who had been
shown in the growth of society to be competent to main-
tain their personal independence. They adjusted their
institutions to society as they found it. On the other hand,
the makers of the American republic conferred political
rights upon the members of all classes. At the same time
they undertook to nullify that social tendency which estab-
lishes the relation of dependence and superiority. The
task appeared not especially difficult to those who origi-
nally had part in the work of constructing American polit-
ical institutions, because under the circumstances of that
time powerful temporary forces were at work towards the
realization of the American ideal, and it was assumed that
these forces would operate permanently.
From the advantage of our present position, with the
achievements of the nineteenth century separating us from
the origin of the Republic, with our larger knowledge of
the development of society under freedom, we are able to
see that certain forces incident to a new country with a
sparse population have ceased to be effective under the "
changed environment, and have been in large measure
superseded by the forces of natural social growth. The
expectation that the traditional social tendency would be
permanently set aside here has not been realized. The
influences that made some of the Greeks dependent, and
thus unfit, in the opinion of the philosophers and politicians
of that country, to exercise political authority, appear to
have force at present in the United States.
Thus one of the important problems which the founders
of the Republic had to solve—the problem as to what per-
sons should be granted political privileges—is not much
17
nearer a permanent solution than it was a hundred years
ago. The action already taken in the United States to
admit all men to the enjoyment of political privileges, was
taken on the supposition that the American ideal of per-
sonal indpendence would be realized and maintained.
The experience of later decades, and a fuller understanding
of the characteristics of normal social growth, lead inevi-
tably to a modification of this ideal and a consequent modi-
fication of practice. That the American ideal has already
undergone a certain modification in the last decades may
be seen from the general approval that has been accorded
to the recent effort made by certain Southern States to
deprive the ignorant negroes, as well as the ignorant whites,
of the privilege of voting. Forty years ago such a move-
ment would have met with indignant protests by a major-
ity of the citizens of the Northern States.
The founders of the Republic believed that all men
were or would become equally free and equally inde-
pendent, and their belief was supported by the state of
society and by the temporary tendencies that prevailed
when the constitution was formed. But, in the course of
time, with the rise of industrial competition and with the
introduction of a vast alien population from Europe, the
sentiment of equality was weakened, and personal inde-
pendence in many cases could not be maintained under
the severe struggle for existence. There thus appeared a
condition in which the formation of class distinctions was
inevitable. The nations that are brought into relations
with the United States in its new position as a world-power
are unquestionably destined to be very greatly influenced
by this nation as to the form of their institutions and the
tone of their society; at the same time, standing between
the two most powerful centers of social influence—Europe
and the Far East—and drawing from them large numbers
of their inhabitants, with more intimate relations to both
of these centers of influence than ever existed before, the
Society of the United States will inevitably absorb some-
18
what of the spirit of its neighbors; and in this will be rec-
ognized a force hastening the development of that form of
society which has generally prevailed in civilized nations
throughout the world, and making it more and more diffi-
cult to realize complete personal independence in all of
its citizens, which was once assumed to be an essential ele-
ment in the basis of the Republic.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN