GIFT OF ry ~ : -fistr>-*>--~r-7 ^ / ^ MAN'S DUTY TO MAN MAN'S DUTY TO MAN A STUDY OF SOCIAL CONDITIONS, THEIR CAUSES, AND HOW THEY MAY BE IMPROVED, INCLUDING A REVIEW OF THE NATURE AND CHARACTER OF DEMOCRACY AND THE > ANGERS THAT ARE CONFRONTING IT IN OUR OWN COUNTRY By JOHN D. WORKS Formerly Justice of the Supreme Court of California, Formerly United States Senator, and Author of "Juridical Reform," "The European War and the Monroe Doctrine," and Other Books THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY 440 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK MCMXIX Copyright, 1919, by THE NEALE PUBLISHING COMPANY w* -A Q MAN'S DUTY TO MAN Man's inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn. BURNS. Oh ! Impudence of wealth, with all thy store, How ckr'st thou let one worthy man be poor? POPE. As long as I am an American, and as long as Ameri- can blood rutts in these veins, I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, to publish whatever I please on any subject being amenable to the laws of my country for the same. LOVEJOY. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE 9 CHAPTER I. WHAT ARE THE SOCIAL CONDITIONS . . 13 II. THE WAGE-EARNER 50 III. THE VERY POOR AND DEPENDENT ... 56 IV. THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN .... 60 V. THE CRIMINALS 68 VI. THE PUBLIC HEALTH 74 VII. SANITARY HOUSING 76 VIII. PATERNALISM: SPECIAL CLASS LEGISLATION 97 IX. IMMIGRATION 104 X. EDUCATION. SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS . . . 118 XL SELF-HELP 123 XII. FORWARD TO THE LAND 126 XIII. THE CHURCHES 149 XIV. DEMOCRACY 154 PREFACE THIS book is intended to bring to the attention of the public the deplorable condition of the lower classes of our people, especially those who live in the slums, shacks, tenement houses, and congested and unsani- tary portions of the great cities where dwell the vic- tims of cheap labor, the poor and dependent classes; to awaken a more lively and sympathetic regard for these unfortunates, and to suggest some better and more effective means of relieving their condition, in order to make them better citizens, self-supporting, self-respecting, and less of a burden upon the com- munities in which they live, and to render their state of existence less of a disgrace to a civilized nation. To relate again the lamentable condition of the very poor and unfortunate is to retell a sad, sad story that has been told again and again, but one that should be retold still again and again until public officials, and others within whose power it is to act for their relief, realize the duty that rests upon them to re- move this foul blot on our good name as a humani- tarian people, and relieve the general public from an enormous burden that should not and need not be borne. The conditions that exist are as unnecessary and as inexcusable as they are disgraceful to those who allow them to continue. TC. PREFACE The discussion of these social conditions, and how they may, and should, be remedied, has led to a con- sideration of Democracy, its nature and character; the necessity of preserving and maintaining it for the pro- tection of all classes of people in their liberties and in the right to live decent and respectable lives, espe- cially for the preservation of the life, the liberty, and the health of the victims of poverty and want, and for the securing of humane treatment for them, as well as a review of some of the dangers at home that threaten that Democracy that we are fighting to es- tablish and maintain in foreign lands. The preparation of the book has been a labor of love in behalf of the defenseless and oppressed, in- spired by personal investigations, in an official capac- ity, of their manner of living, their sufferings, their dependence, and their needs. If this little book shall excite greater and more sympathetic interest in the condition of these unfor- tunates and bring about renewed and more effective efforts in their behalf; if it shall inspire in the minds of even a few of the American people a better un- derstanding of the salutary and beneficent principles of our Government, a loftier and more enlightened sense of the obligations of citizenship in such a gov- ernment, and the duty of man to man, the author will feel himself well repaid for his labors. No effort has been made to gather the statistics relating to the subject. This has been done by vari- ous Federal and State commissions and boards, while conditions in New York City have been interest- PREFACE ii ingly and appealingly detailed by Jacob Riis, in his admirable little book, "How the Other Half Lives." J. D. W. March, 1918. CHAPTER I WHAT ARE THE SOCIAL CONDITIONS "THE poor we have with us always" is accepted not only as a present existing fact but the common run of people assume that it must continue to be a fact for all time to come. In a country like ours, abounding in wealth and all that is necessary for the comfort and happiness of every man, woman, and child within its broad domain, it is far from credit- able to us as a nation, or to those who possess a surplus of this supply, that we should admit even in thought the lamentable fact that, while thousands of our people- have more than enough for all their neces- sities, and many of them are possessed of an over- supply that is to them a great burden, thousands more must live in abject poverty and want, many even to the point of starvation. The indifference of the masses of the people to this condition is nothing less than appalling. They make no effort to know the condition of the wage-earner struggling, sometimes vainly struggling, for a live- lihood for himself and his family, or of the dependent poor hopelessly deprived of all power to help them- selves. Some persons endeavor to learn what the con- ditions are and to help in the commendable effort to 13 14 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN ameliorate the misery that prevails among the very poor and dependent ; but most of the American people, in their greed and avarice and the mad struggle for more when more is not needed by them, think not of the poor, suffering, and afflicted. One who takes the pains to investigate the condi- tions prevailing in this country, so fair and so pros- perous on the surface, and who has gone down among the poor and conscientiously endeavored to know the truth about it, has a horrible story to tell of the pov- erty and squalor, degradation and crime, want and starvation, that may be found everywhere, almost, in this great and powerful nation where poverty and want should be unknown. The author of this little book has done this thing; and he has his story to tell and his appeal to make in behalf of the poor, helpless, and dependent. It is not a pleasant story to relate. One could wish with all his heart that it were fiction, not hard and pitiful facts. One could wish that an appeal to the American people and their humanitarian instincts were not nec- essary. But that it is necessary the present condition of the poor people will abundantly prove. Generally speaking, the people of this country, when their thoughts are drawn away from their own material interests and the commercialism that has taken hold of the United States, are sympathetic and mindful of the needs and sufferings of their less fortunate fellow-men and are generously disposed to aid them in their af- flictions. But this is a selfish world. Human nature is es- MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 15 sentially selfish. We are living in an age of selfish- ness supreme above that of any other age or time. The desire for wealth and power, the spirit of com- mercialism, the merciless struggle to succeed in a worldly way, has made millionaires, many of them; while it has created others who have a surplus of this world's goods, wholly useless to them, but which might redeem thousands from a condition of poverty, degradation, and want, and make of them good, self- respecting, and useful citizens. While thousands have grown opulent under this reign of commercialism, the poor have grown poorer, more abjectly dependent on charity, and have become useless incumbrances of the body politic. This condition of uncharitable indifference to the poor, needy, and dependent, while widespread, is not universal. There are many heroic souls who are using every effort to stem the tide of commercialism and selfish greed that is overwhelming the country, per- sons whose lives and fortunes are unselfishly devoted to the effort to ameliorate the condition of the very poor, to help and encourage the needy working classes struggling for bread, and to elevate, educate, and re- generate the lower classes. The author, in a speech in the United States Senate, on Americanism, had this to say of this class of workers : But, Mr. President, after all is said, the world is not wholly bad. Never, I believe, in all the history of the world, were greater or more sincere efforts made by the few to elevate thought, bring about a more enlight- ened understanding of good and evil and their results, 16 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN to aid, succor and elevate the downfallen and redeem and regenerate the criminal classes than now. There are courageous, heroic, self-sacrificing souls who are giving their lives and the best that is in them for the betterment of humanity. They are not sustained by the applause of the multitude or rewarded by public ap- proval. They need no arms or munitions of war, no armies, no navies to aid them in the defense of their country. These are the men and women who are striv- ing unselfishly, patriotically, courageously to establish and maintain true and lasting Americanism. They carry the torch that lights the way to the freedom and independence of the masses, justice to all at home and abroad, domestic and international peace, and the libera- tion of mankind from the evils that make for discord, strife, and war among men and nations. It is they who are standing for national defense. It is they who are erecting the bulwarks of defense that can not be de- stroyed by shot or shell. It is they who are elevating American citizenship, leading the child in the way he should go, and making better, more loyal, more patriotic, and more intelligent and righteous men and women. They are making Americanism more respectable and the Nation more secure, more stable and more deserving of the respect and confidence of other nations. Their burden in the righteous effort to purify, regenerate and elevate the citizenship and Americanism of the country has been made infinitely heavier and their object more difficult of attainment by the admission into this coun- try of undesirable, inefficient, ignorant, and criminal immigrants from foreign countries, knowing nothing and caring nothing about Americanism or our free insti- tutions. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 17 It is one of the purposes of this book to add to the number of men and women who are doing this great, unselfish work, and to aid and encourage them in their efforts to ameliorate the unfortunate conditions that now exist in this country, to elevate citizenship, advance education, and make this country better and purer, more civilized and more charitable. In order to work intelligently and advance the cause of charity and good citizenship, it is necessary to know what the conditions are. To disclose them in all their ugliness, want, and depravity is not a pleas- ant task. Most people would prefer to look the other way. But it is a disease that is eating at the very vitals of a civilized Christian nation. Good people who want to see the disease healed must be willing to look the facts squarely in the face and meet them with unselfish and heroic courage. The author has been placed in official positions which, as he conceived his duty, called upon him to investigate general conditions and to use his best ef- forts to remedy the evil. The first of these was as President of the City Council of Los Angeles, Cali- fornia, his home city; another as a member of the Committee on the District of Columbia of the United States Senate, and also of a Joint Committee of the two Houses of Congress to investigate and report upon the relations between the District of Columbia and the National Government. In the former position he made a personal inspec- tion and investigation of conditions among the poor and dependent classes of the city of Los Angeles, found 18 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN them deplorable, and so reported to the City Council. He caused to be established in the city treasury a spe- cial fund for the building, maintaining, and policing of sanitary grounds for housing the poor who were crowded into unsanitary homes, whereby they might be given an opportunity to live in a little more comfort and among more healthful and elevating surround- ings. It was not intended to make it a purely char- itable movement, but to require the payment of rea- sonable rent by those who were not entirely depend- ent, and to aid them and give them the opportunity to live more decent and more useful lives. Appeals to help with their means were made directly to men and women possessed of a surplus of this world's goods, which surplus, with few exceptions, was being increased and hoarded and was of no use to them- selves nor to any one else. The effort was a lamentable failure. Not one of the wealthy people appealed to responded to the call of humanity. Not one contrib- uted a dollar to a cause that should have found instant sympathy in the bosom of any one possessed of the slightest spirit of generosity and sympathy for the poor, needy, and afflicted. All contributions came from people of small means. Never was there a more flagrant and inexcusable case of indifference to the needs of the helpless and dependent by the rich and affluent. A personal investigation proved that these unfor- tunate and degrading conditions existing in Los An- geles were equally prevalent in the City of Washing- ton, the Capital of the Nation. It was an amazing and discouraging discovery. That such wretchedness MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 19 could exist, and be allowed to continue in the Capital of this great, rich, and powerful nation, w&s almost unbelievable. It was a sad revelation. It was an- other evidence of the world's indifference to the needs of the helpless and dependent that are found in greater or less degree in every community. Congress is pos- sessed of the power to put an end to this condition once and for all in the District of Columbia, includ- ing the City of Washington, over which it has ample and exclusive jurisdiction; but Congress does not act, to its shame be it said. As a member of the Joint Committee of the two Houses of Congress, before mentioned, the author, after full and careful personal inspection of condi- tions in Washington, made a separate report, dealing with the subject, in which conditions as they existed then, and as they still continue to exist, were shown. It contains a description of the "slums" of that city which is inserted here, in order to show the necessity of speedy and drastic action in the matter by Con- gress : 'The American people want their Capital to be clean, decent, respectable, and healthful as well as beautiful on the outside. It has fallen far below this standard under a system of government where Congress can shift its responsibility onto the District of Columbia, a spine- less and irresponsible municipal body. Under this sys- tem the slums, the red-light district, the saloons and unwholesome and insanitary conditions have been al- 20 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN lowed to flourish. Crime, vice, corruption, and death have devastated portions of the city that could, and should, have been protected from such conditions. From time to time feeble and ineffectual efforts have been made through inadequate laws to remedy these evils. The better class of people in the District have done the best they could with the insufficient weapons provided them by Congress to ameliorate" the conditions and pro- tect the poor people who suffer from them the most, but to a discouraging degree it has been a hopeless task. It is not wholly the fault of the people of the District that these conditions continue down to the present day. Neither is it the fault of the District officers. The chief reason for it is that Congress has failed to enact the laws and appropriate the money necessary to abate these crying evils, though often urged to do so. "In his message to the Fifty-ninth Congress President Roosevelt said: " 'The National Government has control of the District of Columbia and should see to it that the city of Wash- ington is made a model city in all respects, both as regards parks, public playgrounds, proper regulation of the system of housing so as to do away with the evils of alley tenements, a proper system of education, a proper system of dealing with truancy and juvenile offenders, a proper handling of the charitable work of the District. Moreover, there should be proper factory laws to prevent all abuses in the employment of women and children in the District.' ''Pursuant to this recommendation the President ap- pointed James Bronson Reynolds, of New York, to in- vestigate conditions in the District and report to him MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 21 with such recommendations as suggested themselves to him. In his letter asking Mr. Reynolds to act as adviser in the matter, he said : " 'I wish your investigation to terminate in definite, practical recommendations to me with reference to the city's present needs and most notable defects measured by the highest standards of good administration in this country and elsewhere/ "I shall call attention to Mr. Reynolds's report and recommendations a little later. President Taft, deal- ing with this subject in his message to Congress of December 6, 1910, has this to say: " 'Fair as Washington seems, with her beautiful streets and shade trees, and free as the expanse of territory which she occupies would seem to make her, from slums and insanitary congestion of population, there are centers in the interior of squares where the very poor, and the criminal classes as well, huddle together in filth and noisome surroundings, and it is of primary importance that these nuclei of disease and suffering and vice should be removed and that there should be substituted for them small parks as breathing spaces and model tenements, having sufficient air space and meeting other hygienic re- quirements. The estimate for the reform of Willow Tree Alley, the worst of these places in the city, is the be- ginning of a movement that ought to attract the earnest attention and support of Congress, for Congress can not escape its responsibility for the existence of these human pestholes/ "In pursuance of recommendations made by Mr. Reynolds, President Roosevelt appointed a commission 22 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN of 15 of the leading citizens of Washington to deal with the subject. "That commission made a full and exhaustive report of conditions with its recommendations. This report first quoted from Mr. Reynolds's report as follows: ' 'The report of Mr. James Bronson Reynolds, re- ferred to in the President's letter as the basis of his ac- tion, is as follows: ' 'REPORT OF THE HOUSING OF THE POOR IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ESPECIALLY IN RELATION TO INSIDE TENEMENTS " 'As you directed me to give particular attention to the housing problem, I visited and examined between 350 and 400 tenements, shacks, and small houses in various sections of Washington and Georgetown and inspected numerous alleys. I talked with their occupants and con- ferred with many citizens of the District, both white and colored, including representatives of trade-unions, to obtain their views regarding housing conditions. " 'In my investigation I found three distinct problems that of small houses, that of alley shacks and alley houses, and that of inside alleys. . . . " 'I found nearly all the alley wooden shacks and small brick houses that I visited in a wretched condition. The wooden shacks, as a rule, might properly be condemned on structural grounds. Their yards were apparently storage places for refuse and filth; their water supply inadequate and badly placed, and the privies frequently only open boxes and in many instances without covers, although the latter are required by the health ordinance. I am glad to state that during the past year many of these box privies have been removed. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 23 " 'I had conversation with the dwellers in these inside shacks, and the comments of many may be fairly sum- marized in the pathetic remark of an old colored woman who exclaimed, with reference to her neglected, filthy yard and privy : "Why, my old marsa wouldn't ha' kep' his horses stabled in such a place." " 'No argument is needed to show that such ill-condi- tioned hovels are culture beds of disease, the germs of which may be carried far and wide by the flies which feed on the rotting garbage and excreta. Their number should be promptly ascertained and immediate steps taken for their complete elimination, and buildings con- structed in their places should have proper sanitary appurtenances and should open either upon a highway or small street. . . . " 'A particularly undesirable and menacing feature of the poor quarters of Washington is the inside alleys. These alleys are centers of disorder and crime, and they make possible the continuance of small communities un- controlled by ordinary police inspection and unaffected by public observation and criticism. In my opinion all in- side alleys, with the exception of service alleys, should be abolished, and a definite scheme for the accomplish- ment of this object should be adopted. . . . " 'A law passed by the Congress in 1916 appropriated $50,000 for the expense of condemnation proceedings in the substitution of minor streets for alleys, but a recent decision of the Supreme Court of the District of Colum- bia has interposed fresh difficulties by declaring uncon- stitutional the assumption of the law that the entire cost of opening small streets as substitutes for alleys should be assessed upon the adjacent property owners. I am not prepared to make any specific recommendations to 24 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN meet this new difficulty, but to urge that it be not allowed to prevent the abolition of inside alleys/ "The commission then proceeded to report the result of its own investigations, make recommendations, and point out the obstacles that prevented effective work, including reports of its subcommittees. From this long and exhaustive report I extract the following: " *A SERIOUS OBSTACLE TO THE CONVERSION OF ALLEYS INTO STREETS " The law passed July 22, 1892, and amended on Au- gust 24, 1894, prohibited the erection of dwellings in alleys less than 30 feet wide, and imposed restrictions which hindered the building of any more alley houses. It also provided for the conversion of alleys into minor streets, but nothing of importance seems to have been done under this law until the committee on improvement of housing conditions took the matter up a year or more ago with a demand that the change be made in certain typical alleys. This led the commissioners to appoint a committee of District officials to advise them as to the opening of minor streets, and cases were taken up as rapidly as they could be properly handled until, up to the present time, the opening of 12 such streets has been recommended. Two of these have been confirmed by the courts and three other cases are pending in court. The commissioners are proceeding as rapidly as pos- sible in the other cases, but the conflict with private interests led to litigation and a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States on March 11 last, which declared it illegal to assess all the damages on certain property, as the law provides, unless it is found to be MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 25 benefited to that extent. Although the commissioners are continuing to prepare and present cases they can not, under the law, approve the verdict in any case unless the benefits as assessed equal the damages and expenses/ . . . "Mr. Thompson, in his Housing Handbook, says of private enterprise: " 'It has been assumed by thousands who ought to have known better that private enterprise, unstimulated, un- regulated, unassisted, undirected, has hopelessly failed. It has left us face to face with a very deficient supply; it has given us the old slums ; it often has given up only acres and acres of new slums in the suburbs, jerry-built "brick boxes with slate lids" dumped down on dust heaps and put up mainly with the object of getting a quick profit in the few years which will elapse before they de- generate into slum dwellings almost as bad as the old ones in our midst. Where the new houses are well built and on good sites they are of an unsuitable type, and the rents are so unreasonably high as to be beyond the means of one family, so they have to be sublet to other families, and thus by overcrowding, with the increased wear and tear following in its train, they rapidly deteriorate and leave the housing of the mass of the people as bad in many respects as it was before. The product of private enterprise, then, is insufficient in quantity and inferior in quality/ . . . "In the report of the health officer for 1875 it was noted that during the year 699 houses were reported as unfit for human habitation and 198 condemned by the board. In 1876 424 houses were reported and 371 con- demned, and in the report of the board of health for 1877, page 46, we find: 26 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN " 'No meaner cabins for temporary or permanent shel- ter can be found than some our wretched poor are born and exist and die in, here at the Capital of the United States. And, strange as it may seem, none so mean that they have not an owner mean enough to charge rent for them. Down in the alleys, below grade, with combination roof of tar, felt, shingles, rags, tin, gravel, boards, and holes ; floors damp and broken, walls begrimed by smoke and age, so domiciled are families, with all the dignity of tenants having rent to pay. The board has con- demned 153 such during the past year and 958 during the past four years, of which probably 300 have been en- tirely demolished. But many owners still cling to the wrecks. " 'Our experience in dealing with filth, crowd poison, and disease among these people during the past four years has taught us that the great public economy, viz, the preservation of public health, is defeated by allow- ing these filthy, worthless, dependent classes of human- ity to congregate in the alleys and byways out of sight, and therefore out of mind, until direful epidemic, in- cubated and nourished among them, spreads its black wings over the homes of the whole city. Better far to provide for the aged and sick in public institutions of charity, the vagrant in the chain gangs, let the cost be what it may, than to allow them to remain propagators of public disease, and incalculable expense to the District/ "This report was made at the close of the year 1908. "In April, 1903, the Washington Post said, editorially: MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 27 " 'An English gentleman, who is also a philanthropist and a student of sociology, has been looking into the slums of Washington. Ten years ago he visited the Capi- tal, but on that occasion saw only our splendid public parks and beautiful private residences, just like a very large majority of Washingtonians and visitors. He re- turned to England convinced that Washington was the long- looked- for model city. Now he pays a second visit, and this time he goes behind the scenes. The result of the investigation is an amendment to the gentleman's original estimate. He finds that while our areas of squalor and degradation are not as numerous or so ex- tensive as those of London they are in many instances much more appalling. On this point he says: " 'This time I came to see the worst that was to be seen, and it has been a revelation to me. I have seen rooms with half a dozen or more people living in them. I have seen buildings that would be condemned and torn down in London, if they were inhabited only by a coster's donkey. Walls tumbling down, floors, rotten, ceilings and walls falling in, little yards and outbuildings filled with rubbish and dirt, and absence of all sanitary ar- rangements. Within a stone's throw of the British Em- bassy, in an alley, there are hovels that are not fit for pigs to live in. Within the shadow of the Capitol there are others. On Factory Hill and in the holes around the canal in Georgetown there are frightful places full of filth and the direst poverty, where disease and crime must breed rapidly/ "In December of that year Jacob Riis, in an address 28 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN delivered at the First Congregational Church of Wash- ington City, had this to say on the subject: ' 'I am not easily discouraged. But I confess I was surprised by the sights I have seen in the National Capi- tal. You people of Washington have alley after alley filled with people you know nothing about. There are 298 such alleys. They tell me the death rate among the negro babies born in these alleys is 457 out of 1,000 and before they grow up to be i year old. Nearly one-half. Nowhere I have ever been in the civilized world have I heard of a death rate like that. Why I have never seen places like those you have here. . . . ' 'To fight your slums you ought first of all to acquire the right to deal with the evil man who insists on mur- dering your babies. But you are sure to run against the old cry of "property rights." One-half your children die in hovels before they reach the age of I year, be- cause the owners would rather have 25 per cent, profit than save their souls. For such a condition there's no defense. Where does the blame lie? With the owners of the slums, you will probably say. But it lies equally with the community which permits such a shameful and sinful condition of affairs to exist within its borders.' "In commenting on this address the Washington Times said: " 'This indictment of a community which has no slums, this astounding disclosure of a condition not parallelled by the squalor of New York or London or Paris, was the key last night to one of the most remarkable meet- ings held in Washington in many years. It was the judgment of a trained mind delivered after a trip through MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 29 the Capital and expressed with manly courage and plain speech to an assembly of representative Washingtonians.' "Under a more recent date the Times, in an extended editorial on slum conditions, said: " '. . . The thing needed here is such an education of the commercial instinct that owners of houses in the poorer neighborhoods will cease to expect extraordinary percentages on their investments. ... It has been proved by investigation that the poor can be comfortably housed in clean, sanitary dwellings which will pay from 7 to 10 per cent, on the investment if well managed. It has also been ascertained that the profits on much of the old-fashioned tenement and shanty property ran from 10 to 20 per cent., and even higher. This means that a few property owners are content to make money at the cost of the poor and at the risk of endangering the whole community through the disease and filth bred in their property. The way in which this kind of piracy can be avoided lies, first, in strictly enforced laws which will prevent overcrowding and insanitary buildings absolutely. . . .' "Now let us see how far the conditions have improved since that time. During the year 1910 strenuous efforts were made to secure needed legislation and thus improve conditions which were fully disclosed at that time. Let me quote some of the things that were said of con- ditions as they then existed. "In an article in the Washington Times we find the following, quoting in part from remarks of Mr. E. W. Oyster, one of the good citizens here, who has labored incessantly for better conditions in the District: 30 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN " 'Washington is honeycombed with filthy alleys, spreading disease in even the most beautiful parts of the city. Scattered through every residence section are slums more objectionable than the congested districts of New York or London. The health department is right- ing a desperate losing battle against conditions too deep rooted to be repaired without public aid/ "This was the warning that E. W. Oyster, of the Petworth Citizens' Association, hurled from the pulpit of the People's Church, East Capitol Street, yesterday morning. . . . " 'The people who own property in these slums/ said Mr. Oyster, 'are selling their souls for cash. And the tragedy of it is they are selling the lives of their own carefully guarded children for cash. " 'I shall not criticise the health department, because I believe Dr. Woodward is an efficient officer, alive to the situation but terribly handicapped. " 'The public is strangely indifferent. As a special examiner of the Pension Bureau I have had occasion to visit these places, and if the public could see them as I have seen them, and as Dr. Woodward and his assistants have seen them, there would be a clamor for reform. " 'We are spending millions making Washington beauti- ful, and it is beautiful; but what is beauty when it is rotten to the core ? . . . " 'As it is, the Capital of the Nation is a disgrace, with a death rate higher than even such cities as Denver, where we send our sick people too late to get them well. " 'Behind the great mansions lie hovels that are natural disease breeders. In every part of this city, in the north- west as well as the southeast, citizens are being mur- dered through their own lack of interest and their own ignorance of what is going on behind their backs.' MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 31 "The Senator from Washington (Mr. Jones) in a statement made by him, as published in the Washington Times of September 21, 1914, has this to say: " To those familiar with the alley conditions of the city of Washington no action in relation to the city's needs has been more imperatively needed than their elimination. If the good men and women knew of the actual conditions that exist within the shadow of the Nation's Capitol and realized the dangers to health and good morals that go out from them to all parts of the city the demand for their eradication would be universal, except from those who profit from conditions that are a disgrace to civilization and Christianity. There would be no grumbling about how to do it, nor would the rights of humanity be sacrificed for the rights of property. " 'When the situation is understood, there is not much basis except greed for opposition to what has been done. No substantial injury will be suffered by any one. Any dwelling house lawfully on these alleys now has been there more than 20 years. The real annual profits from this property have been from 10 to 14 per cent., and so the owners have been paid for it more than twice over during that time. No property is confiscated. All these owners have to do is to change the use of their prop- erty or the conditions of use. " If they make the alleys conform to the conditions of the law, they can use their property for homes or busi- ness as they do to-day. They may be put to some ex- pense; their excessive profits may be reduced; but their property will still be useful and profitable. " 'Nothing more strikingly illustrates the power and in- fluence of wealth and greed than the situation in regard to this alley problem. The public has been apathetic, 32 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN business organizations composed of men of high stand- ing have opposed this legislation unless the so-called rights of property owners are given the last farthing of protection, and the public health and safety and the pleadings of humanity have been subordinated to the financial interests of a few rapacious individuals. " 'A few noble women interested themselves in the sub- ject. They did splendid work, but it took the pleadings of a tender-hearted woman in an exalted place as she passed into the Valley of Death to bring action. Action has come, swift, sure, direct, complete, and the city of Washington without its slums and unspeakable alley conditions will be a fitting tribute and monument to the sweet nobility of Mrs. Wilson, who, from her exalted place as the first lady of the land, gave her time, strength, influence, and love for the happiness and comfort of the poor, lowly, and unfortunate, and whose last thoughts were not of her position, but of poor, suffering human- ity.' "In a circular published by the Monday Evening Club of Washington, in October, 1912, Thomas Jesse Jones, chairman of the housing committee of that club, has this to say: " 'After 40 years of agitation and search for ways and means to eliminate the blind alleys of Washington, they still remain to spread crime and disease throughout the beautiful city and its inhabitants. Two startling facts should have swept these alleys out of existence years ago. One out of every three children born in these by- ways dies within the first year of life. To make mat- ters worse, these houses, with their diseases and crime, fill the center of many blocks rimmed with splendid houses and hotels. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 33 " 'A glance at the map of Washington shows the dan- gerous proximity of these disease centers to the best resi- dential blocks of the city. " 'Some alleys have been eliminated to meet the de- mands of commercial enterprises. One disreputable place was converted into a minor street by assessments upon neighboring property equal to the cost involved in the change. Further application of this method was stopped by a Supreme Court decision in 1907 which cast doubt upon the legality of this form of assessment. At the last session of Congress $78,000 were voted for the change of the most notorious alley in the city into an inner park. This year the commissioners are planning to attack four more alleys. " 'But, in spite of all these accomplishments and plans, there is no plan to attack the problem as a whole. A careful study of the whole situation leads to the con- clusion that the final solution of the alley problem awaits the aroused public interest of the Nation. Let us add to our plans for a city beautiful, a demand for a city pure. Let the woman's clubs of the land, the civic associations of the Nation, and political organizations of every State and city unite in the call for a National Capital that shall be both beautiful without and clean within.' "In the same circular Mr. Wilbur Vincent Mallalieu says: " 'The moral conditions in such a secluded inclosure as this court can scarcely be imagined. The police who have to do with it agree in speaking of its disreputable character. One officer has remarked that it is the worst place in the United States and that there is no crime un- known to it. The police blotter of the precinct shows that from March i, 1911, to March i, 1912, there were 34 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 114 arrests among the 204 men, women and children living in Snow's Court. The charges were drunkenness, disorderly conduct, assault, unlawful assembly, larceny, cruelty to animals, and accusations relating to sexual crimes. Nor does this number of cases represent all the evil, because it does not take into account residents of Snow's Court arrested in other precincts, nor does it include the mischief done in Snow's Court by inhabitants of the neighboring alleys and residents of other parts of the city. . . . " 'Snow's Court is a peril to our Capital life. Only an awakened public conscience that shall demand the aboli- tion of this and other pest centers will rid the city of very grave dangers. " 'I might go on almost without limit quoting from the sayings of newspapers and others as of that date con- demning conditions and suggesting remedies, but I desist/ "This showing should appeal strongly to Congress for relief. "In a directory of the inhabited alleys, issued as late as 1912, it is said by way of introduction: " There are 275 of these interior courts in the city. They contain 3,337 houses used for dwellings and ap- proximately 16,000 persons. They are so widely dis- tributed throughout the city that even the best residential sections are not free from their evil influences. The northwest, the largest of the four general sections of the city, has 161, or nearly three-fifths of all the alleys. " The statement which follows shows the number of alleys and alley houses for each section of the city : "Total, alleys, 275; houses, 3,337. "Northwest, alleys, 161 ; houses, 1,940. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 35 "Southwest, alleys, 58; houses, 705. "Northeast, alleys, 30; houses, 336. "Southeast, alleys, 26; houses, 356. ' The average for each alley is 12.1 houses and 58.1 persons. Each alley house has an average of 4.8 persons.' "Now let us see what Congress has done to remedy or ameliorate these fearful conditions. In a pamphlet pub- lished by the committee on housing of the woman's welfare department of the National Civic Federation in November, 1912, it was recited: " 'This first health board, which had begun its work of alley reclamation so nobly, was abolished and the office of health officer created by an act of Congress, June n, 1878. Right here the good work stopped, for in the legalization of the health ordinances in 1880, the section under which the health department acted in the con- demnation of insanitary buildings was omitted. Whether this omission was an oversight or was secured by the influence of men whose money interests were at stake is not known, but it was 12 long years before any further remedial legislation was enacted and during those years no houses were condemned and new houses were con- stantly erected. Alley property had proved a paying investment and brick had succeeded wood as building material/ "In 1892 an act was passed by Congress authorizing the commissioners to 'condemn open, extend, widen or straighten alleys on the petition of the owners of more than one-half of the real estate in the square in which such alley is sought to be opened, etc/ "Congress very magnanimously provided in this act that the whole of the expenses of such improvement 36 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN should be assessed against the property owners in the square to be affected. By an act passed in 1894, the pro- visions of the act were extended to minor streets of not less than 40 or more than 60 feet in width. "It goes without saying that these statutes amounted to practically nothing as a means of ridding the city of the evils I am considering. "By an act passed in 1906 a board for the condemnation of insanitary buildings was created and authorized to investigate and destroy or repair such buildings. This has resulted in the destruction of some of the buildings in these alleys, but it has wholly failed to reach the heart of the evil and has accomplished very little of good in respect of the slum evil. "In 1914 an act was passed making it unlawful 'to erect, place or construct any dwelling on any lot or parcel of ground fronting on an alley where such alley is less than 30 feet wide throughout its entire length and which does not run straight to and open on two of the streets bordering on the square and is not supplied with sewer, water mains, and gas and electric lights/ "The intention of this act was good and it is good as far as it goes, but that is a very short distance. It only prevents the construction of additional buildings in some of the alleys, which amounts to but little as a means of putting an end to evils that have existed for many years. "On March 3, 1915, another well-intentioned act was passed 'to incorporate the Ellen Wilson Memorial Homes.' This was a fitting memorial to a good woman whose generous and sympathetic heart went out in sym- pathy to the unfortunates who were denied the com- forts of sanitary homes. But as a practical means of rendering the help she so much desired them to have, it will amount to nothing of permanent good. The work of MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 37 correcting this evil can not be delegated to private in- dividuals. If it is ever done and done effectually it must be done by the Government and with its money, as I shall endeavor to point out further along. "There was one other act that was effective to destroy one of the worst of these slum alleys. It was the act to condemn Willow Tree Alley. In this instance the Gov- ernment generously put up half of the money necessary to accomplish this commendable result. But even this beneficent effort has largely failed of its object because instead of opening out the alley to the sunlight and the public gaze it has been turned into an inside or in- closed park that has become the rendezvous of criminals, vagabonds, and the immoral and viciously disposed of the poorer classes that calls for police and sanitary in- spection and control which is not always supplied. "In a report of the committee on improvement of exist- ing houses and elimination of insanitary and alley houses of the President's Homes Commission, above mentioned, made December 8, 1908, some of the existing conditions and described and the difficulties of dealing with them effectually are pointed out. "For example, in speaking of one of the objectionable alleys it is said: " 'One of these cases is Blagden's Alley, square 368, concerning which the chief of police and his associates on the board state in the recommendation for its con- version into a minor street that " 'Blagden's Alley, located between Ninth and Tenth and M and N streets, contains 54 houses inhabited by a negro element who live in poverty and are a source of constant trouble. The dwellings are insanitary and dilapidated and afford shelter to 10 or 12 persons each/ 38 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN "Another is square 620, as to which the board re- ported : " 'Logan Place contains 35 insanitary dwellings, which are very much over-crowded and the inhabitants, being of a vicious character, give the police more or less trouble/ ' 'Every one familiar with these and other such laby- rinths realizes the security from police supervision which they afford, to say nothing of other disadvantages which fully justified the recommendation of the board/ "Then it was said : ' The principal difficulty with the present law seemed to be that it required that an amount equal to the dam- ages found should be assessed as benefits and that this should be assessed within a limited area. It was found that the law of 1906 in relation to the opening, extension, widening, or straightening of streets, provided that the jury should assess benefits not only upon adjoining and abutting property but upon any and all other lots, pieces, or parcels of land which the jury might find to be bene- fited by the improvement. This apparently indicated a plan by which the amounts required could be raised in a more equitable manner, but as it seemed probable that in many cases the damages awarded would even then exceed the benefits which the jury might find, it seemed desirable to include also a provision by which a certain proportion of the awards could, if necessary, be paid out of some general fund. " 'One of the commissioners has suggested, when the Engineer Commissioner recommended that the work be stopped on account of the expense, that legislation might be urged providing that the alleys be opened and a cer- tain proportion of the expense be paid by the United MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 39 States Government, another proportion by the District government, and the remainder be assessed upon the property owners in the neighborhood of the improve- ment. Inasmuch as the deplorable conditions of the alleys have grown up under the administration of the District government, it seems proper that a considerable portion of the expense of removing them should be borne in this way by those responsible for them; but, as any payment for District purposes by the Federal Govern- ment would be contrary to the definite policy adopted by Congress, it did not seem advisable to the committee to advocate such a provision/ "The picture presented by the quotations I have made is not overdrawn. They do not disclose the whole truth. I have not depended on such information in reaching conclusions. I have examined enough of these slums and inspected enough of the dwellings located in them to speak of my own knowledge. The conditions are un- speakably bad. One who witnesses them for the first time is filled with a profound sense of pity and com- miseration for the inmates, not unmixed with a feeling of shame and resentment that a great Nation like this, one of the richest and most powerful in the world, and pos- sessed of almost unlimited resources, should allow such conditions to exist in its Capital City. "Washington is a city of striking and abrupt contrasts. One may ride along a wide, well-paved, and attractive street lined with beautiful, almost palatial, homes and turn from it upon an old, worn-out, cobblestone or brick paved street lined with old, broken-down houses, many of them dilapidated and apparently unfit for human habitation. From that one can turn into what are politely called 'inhabited alleys/ 'courts/ 'places/ and find an 40 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN appalling condition of poverty, destitution and degrada- tion. All this within a distance of two or three squares. Some of these alleys are blind alleys that is to say, there is but one means of ingress and -egress and with- in is a labyrinth of alleys covering the entire inside of a square with a fringe of houses around the outside, some of them little better than those within except that they are easier of access. "Within such a square you find the most degrading conditions. It is almost beyond belief that human be- ings can live under such conditions. They have very justly been called pestholes of crime and disease. And yet the owners of the shacks and tumbled-down and un- sanitary houses are making more money out of the rent of them than is being made by owners of first-class houses and business blocks. The rents are exorbitantly high. As an example, I visited one little brick shanty with two small rooms up and two down stairs, without run- ning water in the house, out of repair, plaster off the walls, ill-lighted, and poorly ventilated. This house was occupied by two families, each with two rooms, for which they paid $7 a month each, or $14 for this little, dilapi- dated, insanitary house, that should have been con- demned and destroyed under existing laws long since. "There is but one effective remedy for this dreadful condition. The Government should condemn the whole square as a sanitary measure and police regulation, tear everything out of it, root and branch, replat the ground, construct upon it model sanitary houses, rent them to the poorer classes of people who now inhabit the slums, and then supervise and inspect them, thus compelling the tenants to keep them in a sanitary condi- tion inside as well as out. It will be said that all this will MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 41 cost a lot of money. Yes, it will; but it will be money much better spent than are millions and millions of dol- lars that we are now throwing away for useless and illegal purposes. The Agricultural Department is spend- ing and wasting millions and millions of dollars on use- less experiments and in work that should be done by the States and can not legitimately be done by the National Government. The Public Health Service is spending millions more in the States in violation of the spirit of the Constitution. We are spending hundreds of thou- sands of dollars for the cure of hogs and cattle in the States often where the Federal authorities have no law- ful right or business to enter. We spend millions for agricultural colleges and vocational schools in the States, a work that belongs to and should be left to the States. We are spending money lavishly, extravagantly, and pa- ternally in the States. The dividing lines between the States and the Federal Government are fast disappear- ing by the raid of the States on the National Treasury. The States are selling their jurisdiction and their sover- eignty for money. We are centralizing our Government at an alarming rate and to a degree that I am afraid few appreciate and for purely mercenary and selfish reasons. The pork barrel is kept well filled. We are spending millions of dollars for public buildings in the States that are not needed and for the improvement of so-called rivers and creeks that are of no public use. No wonder the National Treasury is bankrupt and the people are being taxed to keep up these many illegitimate and useless expenditures. But when an effort is made to clean up the National Capital, which is within the juris- diction of the Government and for which it is directly responsible, the purse strings are tightly drawn and the 42 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN cheeseparing begins. The half-and-half system is ap- pealed to as a reason and excuse for economy. And if the half-and-half system is adhered to it may just as well be conceded now, once for all, that this necessary improvement can not be accomplished. The one-half of the money necessary for the initial work can not be raised by taxation. It would be ruinous. And, so long as the Government hides itself behind the half-and-half system and contents itself by meeting one-half of the expenses, the conditions in the Capital will continue as they are now, a disgrace and a reproach to the Nation. "These are conditions that should not be allowed to exist for a day in any city in a civilized country, much less in the Capital of a great nation like ours. But, it will be asked, what is the remedy ? The remedy is simple and easy, but expensive. The Government should take the matter vigorously in hand. As I have said, it should condemn and clean out these alleys at whatever cost. But it should not stop when it has turned these poor people out of their homes, however poor and unsanitary they are. It should provide other homes for them at reasonable rents, to be under the inspection and control of the Government. This could be done as a matter of public safety and as a sanitary measure. This duty of providing homes for the poor and incompetent with- in the Capital should not be left to private enterprises seeking profits. Neither the cost nor the responsibility should be divided with anybody. To assess the damages resulting from such sanitary improvements to private owners of property is entirely unreasonable and wholly unjust. Our civic pride as well as our sense of justice should impel us to act in this matter promptly and ef- fectively. It has been done in other countries. It can MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 43 and should be done in this country within its Capital, over which it has exclusive control. "Of the means resorted to in London, England, and its results, the report of the housing committee above re- ferred to has this to say: ' 'The housing of the working classes act, which was passed in 1890 and which superseded and improved previous attempts in this connection, provided not only that individual houses might be condemned as insanitary, as is done under the law of 1906 here, but also that an area containing streets and many houses might be de- clared "unhealthy" and taken over by the local authority ; and that the buildings might be removed, the streets re- arranged, and other dwellings erected, either by agencies to which money would be furnished by the local author- ity, or if necessary by the local authorities themselves. In fact, the law made it obligatory upon the local author- ity in London to provide housing accommodations for at least 50 per cent, of the people displaced, which has since been raised by an amendment making the required provision equal to all, and in other districts to such an amount as might be determined by the local authority to be adequate under all the circumstances. " 'Under this housing of the working classes act nu- merous wretched districts have been cleared up and com- fortable and healthy dwellings provided, and although the cost to the community has been considerable in cer- tain cases where the evils to be remedied were of long standing and very great, the law has done great good and the attention of those interests in the subject is being given to improving its operation rather than to changing it in any radical way. It aims, so far as possible, to protect the interest of the community in acquiring any 44 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN property which has become detrimental to the well-being of the district, while at the same time dealing justly with the owners. The method of procedure requires the local authority to take the initiative and where a loan is necessary, as it often is where an area is acquired, the plans for this and for the improvement of the area must be approved by the central authority in London.' "And comparing the conditions - there with ours it is said further: ;< 'It will be noticed that the situation in the District of Columbia is similar to that in England in that the Dis- trict government resembles the local authority, which can take the initiative in regard to any alleys which re- quire attention, but which can not act without the con- sent of an authority not local, which in the case of the District is Congress. " The ordinary danger in giving to public officials who are in entire control considerable discretion in the dis- bursement of public funds is therefore removed, and it ought to be possible for Congress to give such a plan a fair trial without incurring any very great risk/ "The following, published in the Trades Unionist, is worthy of careful consideration: "That the United States Government should make Washington the model for all cities of the country was the opinion of the delegates to the National City Plan- ning Conference, which met in this city on May 22, 1909. It was the consensus of opinion of the delegates to this conference that the working out of the plans for the beautification along practical lines rather than for mere MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 45 adornment should be the ideal worked for by all Ameri- can cities in order that all classes of people shall be benefited/ "One of the speakers at the opening session of the con- ference was Robert A. Pope, landscape architect, of New York City. He said : " 'Of prime importance to the growth of the city-plan- ning movement in America is the realization of its true nature, its proper aim, its vast social and economic im- port. Because of ignorance of the true scope of city planning work in this country has not and can not, as at present understood, accomplish its primary function. ' 'For example/ he said, 'we have assumed without question that the first object of city planning is to beau- tify. We have made the esthetic an objective in itself. We have rushed to plan showy civic centers of gigantic cost, the carrying out of which too often has been brought about by civic vanity, when pressing hard by we see the almost unbelievable congestion, with its hideous brood of evil, filth, disease, degeneracy, and crime. What external adornment can make truly beautiful such a city ? Is it genuine foresight to neglect the present-day serious and fast-growing evils of congestion and bad housing, which is so directly a menace to future generations ? " 'To forestall the disastrous and otherwise inevitable consequences of these conditions will be the richest serv- ice that city planning can accomplish for the future. That this is its true and primary function can be abun- dantly established. The example of European countries, especially that of Germany, demonstrates that wise city planning, with proper regulations, can alleviate and ulti- mately eradicate undue congestion, the festering source of most of our disease, crime, and degeneracy. To 46 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN remedy congestion, then, is to help solve some of our most threatening social and economic problems.' 'The foregoing statement in regard to city planning and city management are probably true of all cities and are certainly true of Washington. ' 'What external adornment can make truly beautiful such a city?' The Washington Times appears to have anticipated Mr. Pope's question when it said editorially: ' 'No part of the greater Washington can be safely built upon a rotten foundation. There is no room in the city for such contrasts as foul alleyways and a parking system embracing the beauties of a paradise. The spirit that labors for the realization of the beautification pro- ject should at the same time strive for the elimination of the slum quarters.' "The Washington Post says our alleys are 'pest holes ;' Rev. J. M. Waldron, president of the Alley Improve- ment Association, brands them as 'plague spots;' Presi- dent Roosevelt declared them 'a reproach to the Capital City;' and Senator McMillan 'a disgrace to our civiliza- tion.' " 'What external adornment can make truly beautiful such a city ?' a city honeycombed with disease-breeding, death-dealing, and crime-producing slums! Jacob Riis says they are worse than any he ever saw in New York City or in London, and Washington's death rate, when compared with that of the cities named and nearly all the other cities of its class in the United States and Europe, seems to prove the truth of his statement. "If Congress will abolish the 'local authority' here known as the District of Columbia, which is a mere in- MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 47 cumbrance, and the half-and-half system and deal with this awful condition directly and with a free hand the conditions can be eliminated from the life of the Capital as they should be. "There can be no possible excuse for them to remain. It is a shame to every American citizen that they have been allowed to exist at all. ***** "I have said some unpleasant things about the condi- tions that prevail here in Washington. I have said them with malice toward none. They are things that needed to be said, and this seemed to me to be a proper time and occasion to say them. Some of them are things that should ring out from every pulpit in the land. They should be shouted from the housetops until the condi- tions are corrected. All of them should challenge the at- tention of the civic organizations and of all good people in the District who believe in making this city pure, clean, healthful, and decent, as well as beautiful. But, above everything and everybody else, it should call upon Con- gress to take prompt and adequate steps to remove from the Capital and the Nation the stain of permitting such conditions to exist." Conditions in the City of Washington above de- scribed are typical of conditions of every city of any size in this country. Indeed, it may be fairly said that, by comparison, in the two cities that have been used here as examples conditions are better than in most other cities. Social conditions in this country have been greatly complicated, and made worse, by the enormous inflow of foreigners, many of them ignorant, some of them 48 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN vicious, and very few of them able to speak our lan- guage. They understand neither our institutions nor our manner of living. To a very great degree they are of the lower classes in their own country, and com- mence, and continue, to live here just as they lived there. Such people need, in the first instance, to be taught how to live, how to keep their homes, however, humble, clean, healthful, and sanitary, and should be compelled to live decently, however poor they may be. The public authorities should see to it that this is done. But this will be treated more in detail a little further along. Growing out of this influx of the foreign element, we have what are practically foreign cities within American cities, portions of the larger cities have their French, their Italian, their Greek, and other nation- alities congregated in sections where the inhabitants habitually speak their own native language and where the English tongue is seldom heard. This of itself is an unfortunate condition for all concerned. It is bad for the foreign inhabitant because, instead of learning how to live in conformity to our ways and customs, he clings to the ways of his native land, gaining thus nothing in this respect by the change. So long as he speaks only a foreign language he cannot affiliate with the native population and be- come an American citizen. It is bad for the city and for the whole country because, under such conditions, this foreign element cannot be assimilated and made a useful part of our citizenship. Such foreigners are foreigners still, having no adequate understanding of MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 49 our free and enlightened institutions, nor any sympathy with them. They remain subjects of foreign nations, and never, in the essentials, become American citi- zens. Through the efforts of politicians, who need them for election purposes, they become voters, but not intelligent voters, being but the instruments of de- signing and unprincipled men of our own country, who manipulate these foreign votes to suit their party purposes. Having disclosed in this general way something of the social and civic conditions that prevail, let us pass to a more specific consideration of the causes for these conditions, and consider what may be done to remove, or at least materially ameliorate, them. CHAPTER II THE WAGE-EARNER IT is not within either the scope or the purpose of this work to enter upon any discussion of the vexatious and seemingly unending conflict between Capital and Labor, except as it affects the social status of the laboring people. The working class is by a sort of common consent set apart as a class to themselves, but they occupy among themselves very different stations in life, and the problem here under discussion affects them quite differently. There is a wide difference between the highly-educated and well-paid skilled workman and the ignorant and unskilled laborer, who is in many in- stances a foreigner not even speaking our language. The former occupies a high and enviable position in business and in society, while the latter may be found in the slums and unsanitary buildings that make for disease and immorality and crime. These two classes of working people, while belonging to one designated class, have practically nothing in common. The high- class workman, well-to-do and independent, finds no place in this work; but the ignorant and poorly-paid laborer falls within the evils and temptations that all good people should be striving to mitigate, at least, if not destroy. 50 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 51 Most of the lower class of laborers find their habitat in the densely populated portions of the large cities where want and immorality and crime have full sway. They may, although poorly paid, keep themselves from want; but they are often steeped in immorality and crime. To such as these environment and association mean much. They breathe the pestilential air of the slums and of the overcrowded shacks and tenement houses that abound in such places. They are not de- pendent on charity, because they work by day, or maybe by night, and are able to make their way, such as it is. Here, with these people, is the greatest opportunity for sanitary and humanitarian work. They need most of all to be taught how to live, and should be afforded the opportunity to live rightly. Here is where proper sanitary housing is of the greatest importance. Such so-called "homes and dwelling-houses" as they inhabit should not be allowed to exist. They should, as a sanitary and police regulation, be razed to the ground and other and sanitary dwellings supplied for the use of their inmates, to be governed by strict regulations that will keep them clean and decent. If this cannot be done by private property owners, let it be done by the State or city. Never mind the cost. We shall come to that further along. This is not alone a question of decency or humanitarian- ism. It is a question of life and death to hundreds of thousands who might be saved, redeemed, and made good and useful citizens. When money is so plenty, and when the bank vaults and the pockets of the mil- 52 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN lionaires are overflowing with gold that might be devoted to the saving of these unfortunate people, drastic action should be taken. But there is another phase of the situation that should appeal directly to the employer class. The wages received by such laborers are usually very low, often starvation wages, that will not allow them to live decently or respectably. They must live in hovels, often many in a room, in order to subsist at all. For this condition their employers are responsible, and it is a terrible responsibility. To make a man worthy and useful you must make him self-respecting. Liv- ing on poverty wages, poorly housed, and poorly clothed, there is little hope for any improvement in his mental or moral status. He has found his low level; he will keep it to the end, and his children will remain just where he left them. Therefore, a living wage for the working man is one of the very first things to be brought about, if we are going to improve his status. So, too, are the conditions under which he works, and his environment while at labor, of vital consequence. In this respect great improvements have been made by employers of labor of late years. Better places to work and in which to live are provided by the employer. These better conditions have been brought about in some in- stances as a matter of humanity, but, it is apprehended, in most cases because the change has come of a realiza- tion that better environment makes the laborer more efficient and adds to the profits. Another advance worthy of commendation and MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 53 praise is the custom that has grown up in some es- tablishments of giving the wage-earners a share of the profits. This is important for more than one rea- son. It gives the worker a better standing, makes him more self-respecting, and removes from his mind, to a great degree, the feeling that he is not being justly treated, not getting his share of the fruits of his own labor. If this class of our people were paid fair wages, living wages; were furnished with healthful and com- fortable places in which to work, and were provided with sanitary places in which to live when the day's work is over, it would regenerate thousands of them, amply repay the employers who do their part in the improvement of their condition, and advance the public interests immeasurably. They should by no means be made the subjects of charity. They should be made to pay for what they get, and made independent and unafraid. The world owes them an opportunity to make a living and the right to live respectably; and in turn it is incumbent on them to make good citizens of themselves and their children for the justice and protection that is meted out to them. One of the great obstacles to the elevation of this class of working people is the saloon. It steals away their meager wages, brutalizes their minds, makes either sots or criminals of many of them, and makes mendicants of their children. Every effort should be made in aid of the social reforms so greatly needed, for the benefit of this class, to banish the saloon, and intoxicating liquors from their places of habitation 54 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN and resorts. The wave of sentiment in favor of abso- lute prohibition that is sweeping over the country with irresistible force will sooner or later bring this about, and when it does, a long step will be taken towards the cleaning out of these slum dens of iniquity as well as towards at least partial redemption of their unfortunate inhabitants. The deadly monotony of such a life, the day spent in uncongenial and unremitting toil and the night in unattractive, unhealthy, and degrading surroundings, drive these unfortunate people to seek solace in the sa- loon, which only reduces their meager supply and adds to their misery. Even the holidays, which con- stitute the change, rest and recreation of those who can afford it, serve only to make the life of the cheap laborer harder to bear. Unlike the salaried employee, whose compensation is not interrupted, a holiday means to him one day's loss of his meager wage, and to enjoy an outing he must further deplete his supply by the expense his recreation entails. So much of the discomfort of the man who depends upon a daily wage comes from the poor pay the inad- equate wage, he receives. Sickness suspends that wage altogether for the time; days of rest do the same, making his living and that of his family more precarious, and adding to 'the perpetual anxiety and worry that attends such a life. Of course no head of a family whose living depends upon his own personal daily exertions is wholly free from concern for the future, but the uncertainty of the income of the wage- MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 55 earner makes him peculiarly subject to the depressing influence of apprehension. Whatever may be done to relieve the lives of this class of working people from this burden of anxiety is due to them from their more fortunate fellow-man whose future is assured, with a surplus. Worry is the deadly enemy not only to the peace of mind but to the efficiency of employees of every class of workers, especially to the wage-earners. To relieve him from this condition the working-man must be assured of a living wage, a sanitary home, and surroundings that make for health, comfort of mind and self-respect. This cannot be done by making such wage-earners ob- jects of charity and dependent upon others. They must, on the contrary, be made self-reliant and inde- pendent. How to make them so is the great problem. CHAPTER III THE VERY POOR AND DEPENDENT MORE unfortunate still are the very poor who have, for various reasons, ceased to be wage-earners and become wholly dependent on charity, public or private, for their living. Many, if not most of these derelicts, have come to this plight for the very reason that they have lived and been brought up in the slums or under unwholesome, disease- and crime-breeding environ- ments and associations. They have reached this de- plorable condition through the indifference and neglect of their more fortunate fellow-men, who should have guarded them from the kind of living and being that has made them what they are. Such wreck's deserve the sympathy, commiseration, and help due to the un- fortunate who have become the victims of a system of doing, or not doing, the things that would have saved these poor unfortunate people from such a fate, and the public from their support. Of course, not all the diseased, incompetent, and criminal element, even those who have been brought up amidst such degrading surroundings, have been made so by neglect to provide for them sanitary homes and places to live; thousands of them have, however. These could have been saved by sanitary regulations, 56 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 57 a reasonable degree of care on the part of public of- ficials, and a proper effort to eradicate the pestholes of vice, immorality, and crime that are found in every city of any size in the country. All efforts in aid of this class of unfortunates should be to make them self-supporting and independent. The deadly apathy and indolence of the hopeless dependent, often made so by his surroundings and environment, is one of the most pathetic objects possible. He has lost all initiative, all industry, all energy, and has be- come a useless and pitiable burden upon either the public or the more charitable private citizens. These wretched people should first be placed amid better and more wholesome surroundings and conditions of living; then taught to know that they are not de- pendent on others for their living, as very many of them are not, and after that be put to work. In no other way can they be aroused from the condition of lethargy and willing dependence upon others that they have reached and be made of some use in the world. The public, as has been said, is not wholly indifferent to the unhappy condition of these people. Many per- sons are, but some are not. Millions of dollars are be- ing devoted to charity in these times. Municipal bodies throughout the country, civic and benevolent organizations, churches, and .private individuals are contributing to the effort to ameliorate the condition of the poor and helpless. They should be commended for their laudable efforts and good intentions ; but most of their efforts are mere palliatives, efforts this 58 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN year that must be repeated next year, and year after year, until the end of time. There is little of the constructive or elevating or regenerating influence in these benevolent but mis- guided efforts. Instead of lifting the objects of their bounty out of their condition of dependence and sub- jection to their pitiable lot in life, they confirm them in their state of dependence and mental acceptance of it as a matter of course. Nothing could be more fatal to any effort to relieve their condition than this continuous charitable and well-intentioned perpetua- tion of their unhappy state and of their dependence on others, when they should be made self-respecting and self-dependent. Of course, there are, here and there, hopeless cases of the kind where nothing can be done but to house and feed and clothe them as permanent and irredeemable objects of charity. But the number of these is comparatively small, and most of them have reached this permanent stage of de- pendency by the mistaken methods of ministering to their wants in the beginning. Most of them, if they had been taken out of the slums and placed in sani- tary, decent, and moral surroundings, would have been made, and would have continued to be, self-support- ing, self-respecting, and useful citizens. The cry that is going up from those who understand conditions for sanitary housing and better surround- ings for the poor and unfortunate is little heeded ex- cept by the few, and almost not at all by public officials ; but it is the one practicable and effective method of re- lieving the less fortunate of every community from MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 59 the humiliating and degrading effects of dependence upon the charity of others, and of sparing the com- munity the heavy burden of supporting the inefficient, non-producing dependent of its members. CHAPTER IV THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN ONE'S heart goes out in earnest sympathy for the women and children whose lots have been cast amid the conditions that have been described. The sordid lives, the ceaseless drudgery of mothers of families brought up in such places, is heartbreaking to any one who knows and appreciates the blessings of a com- fortable, sanitary home. But many of these women have spent their whole lives in such surroundings, and have never known anything better. The condition of the little children, ragged and filthy and in want, is even more to be deplored, and should excite the liveliest sympathy of all good people. If not rescued from this environment they will live, those of them who survive, to become the denizens of the slums and an addition to the vast army of derelicts, in- competents, and criminals. They are helpless to free themselves. Happily for them, perhaps, only a com- paratively few of them live to maturity, some never getting beyond their infancy. Listen to what Jacob Riis, one of the most devoted humanitarians and the friend of the poor, said of evils in the National Capital that affected the lives of babies living under the con- ditions he depicts so graphically : 60 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 61 I am not easily discouraged. But I confess I was sur- prised by the sights I have seen in the National Capital. You people of Washington have alley after alley filled with people you know nothing about. There are 298 such alleys. They tell me the death rate among the negro babies born in these alleys is 457 out of 1,000 and before they grow up to the I year old. Nearly one-half. No- where I have ever been in the civilized world have I heard of a death rate like that. Why, I have never seen places like these you have here. . . . To fight your slums you ought first of all to acquire the right to deal with the evil man who insists on mur- dering your babies. But you are sure to run against the old cry of "property rights." One-half your chil- dren die in hovels before they reach the age of i year, because the owners would rather have 25 per cent, profit than save their souls. For such a condition there's no de- fense. Where does the blame lie? With the owners of the slums, you will probably say. But it lies equally with the community which permits such a shameful and sinful condition of affairs to exist within its borders. Such a condition would almost move a heart of stone. It should move the heart of the whole Ameri- can people. It should impel drastic action by official bodies in every city and community where the same, or similar, conditions prevail. The danger is not con- fined to the inmates of these places. Diseases are generated there and sent out broadcast to more favor- able spots. Such pestholes plant the seeds of disease and crime that may affect, and often destroy, the lives and contaminate the morals of thousands whose homes 62 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN are elsewhere, and who in time gravitate to these places where vice and crime abound. There is but one immediate and effective remedy for this frightful condition. These places of iniquity must be completely destroyed, to be replaced by sanitary and respect-inspiring conditions. The sunlight of civilized and healthful living must be let into these dark places. There must follow a systematic course of education of the people, especially the mothers and the children, as to the importance to them of sanitation and right liv- ing. It is a great undertaking; but these obstacles to better living are not insurmountable. Much is being done now by a few deserving and courageous souls to remove them, which efforts will be commented upon further along with the appreciation that their com- mendable work on behalf of these poor unfortunates deserves. Under the stress and strain of the war, with the bread-winner, poor though he may be, in the military service, the condition of these poor people has been made even worse than before. While the rich and idle women who never gave them a thought are aroused to action by the entry of our American soldiers into the war, and are giving generously of their time and money to add to the fighters' comfort, the poor and the laboring classes, who are leading lives of mean sordid drudgery, often in misery and want, are for- gotten and left to suffer. Not only this. The few who were accustomed to aid such as these are diverted by the war from their former generous and helpful aid MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 63 of these sufferers and have transferred their time and their generosity to aiding the soldiers. Too much cannot be done for the soldiers who are offering up their lives to their country. But they are not objects of charity. They are being fed and clothed, housed and paid by their Government, while the wives and mothers and sisters at home are suffering want and privations and disease. Why should these women be neglected for the soldiers? Is there not money enough, wealth enough, charity and sympathy enough in this great country to provide for these people homes fit for human beings to live in, and still do everything necessary for the comfort of the soldiers? The woman left at home, under the best of circumstances, with her son or husband in the army, suffers far more than does the son or husband at the front. The weary heartbreaking days and months, maybe years, of anxious waiting ; the terror and anguish with which she waits for the news of every battle and scans the list of the dead and wounded, the victims of cruel and unnecessary war, is worse than death. Then, again, what shall be said of the mothers of the poor and laboring classes who, in addition to these sorrows common to all mothers, are struggling daily for bread, tortured with the constant dread of poverty and want. What of the wives of soldiers bearing the burdens such conditions impose, trying to keep life in the bodies of their children while bearing the same burdens of sorrow and anguish that weigh upon their more fortunate sisters. Why do not the favored rich, the society women who are giving so generously to the 64 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN soldiers, extend their help and encouragement, their charity, to the unfortunate poor who, as a result of the war are suffering far more than are they. And why should such women, who never thought of it before, become suddenly generous and sympathetic and charitable, and that to the soldiers alone ? Why, if half the energy and money and time that have been so deservedly bestowed upon the soldiers since the war commenced, had been devoted from year to year to the betterment of the condition of the poor, there would be no slums, no unsanitary homes, no mothers struggling with poverty, no children living in squalor, filth, and want. If the war shall arouse in the minds of the men and women of the country a spirit of sympathy for the suffering and needs of their unfortunate fellow-men, a spirit of generosity and helpfulness and coopera- tion for all who need their help, a true sense of their duty to their fellows, and this shall be permanent and lasting, the war, horrible as it is, will not be in vain. But will this spirit of sympathy and helpfulness be permanent and lasting? Will it continue after the war and extend to the helpless and needy, who in time of peace need their sympathy and help more than do the soldiers in time of war? Has it needed this great war to shock the consciences of the American people into a due sense of their duty to their fellow-men, and will they, when the shock of war is over, return again to their selfish pursuits, their extravagances, their fruitless search for joy and happiness in idle amuse- ments and high society; or will their consciences be MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 65 awakened by the sufferings of the war to a sense of their obligations to others in time of peace? There is no doubt but that while most of the men of the country have given up their lives to the pur- suit of wealth to the exclusion of every sense of gen- erosity or helpfulness for others, the wives and daughters of these same men have been frittering away their time and wasting their precious lives in the gay rounds of extravagance, high living, overdressing, and all the things that go to make up present-day society. This condition is not only a reproach to the individuals thus wasting their time and substance, it is a reflection upon the whole country and its manhood. It is well for the country and its future that not all American women lead such selfish and useless lives. There are many generous-hearted, unselfish, and courageous women, both rich and poor, whose lives and fortunes are devoted to the common good, women who go out into the highways and byways, into the slums and houses of poverty, and use their means, their time, and their example for the allevia- tion of suffering, the better education of the poor, and all that goes to elevate the thought and modes of liv- ing of the lower classes who have not yet learned either how to think or how to live. Not only the poor people, who benefit directly by their generous minis- trations, but the whole country, yea, the whole world, owes them a great debt of gratitude. Not only are they making better the lives of these unfortunates and adding to their comforts and enjoyment; they are making them better and more useful citizens; they are 66 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN lessening crime, and reducing the number of criminals. They are, too, leavening the lump of evil, poverty, want, degradation, and crime and making the world a better place for us all to live in. It is sincerely hoped that the suffering and afflic- tions of the war will soften the hearts of the indif- ferent, make the selfish more generous, and add to the number of those who have been giving up their lives to the effort to bring about the great social reforms that will banish class distinction, bring capitalist and laborer into harmony of purpose and friendly coopera- tion, and banish poverty and want from a country too rich and powerful to tolerate such conditions, if only its people were thinking right. After all, it is a question of right thinking. It is a mental condition. The minds of too many of us are obsessed with the idea of our own advantage, without regard to others; with self, to the exclusion of every- body else. While this is our way of thinking the brotherhood of man can find no place with us. It is "every fellow for himself," and the average man of the time thinks of that, and altogether too often of that only. The war has, for the time, put us all on the same footing. The wage-earner is worth just as much on the battlefield, or in the trenches, as the millionaire, generally more. The mother of the wage-earner, the mother of the poor boy who gives his life to his country, has as a mother done as much as has the mother of the rich son. She bears the same burden of sorrow, anguish, and affliction along with the added MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 67 one of poverty and privation. Each has contributed to the war the greatest of her treasures, and each is entitled to the same consideration and appreciation as is due the other. Why should there be any class distinction between the two, either in time of war or in days of peace, based on worldly possessions or more favorable conditions that have placed them, in a purely worldly sense, in different stations in life? It is a false and unwarranted distinction. The services rendered and the sacrifices made by the wage-earners in this war should bring us to the realiza- tion of the importance of the laboring men and women, and serve to break down this false barrier founded on mere class distinctions. CHAPTER V THE CRIMINALS Too often poverty, extreme poverty especially, and crime go hand in hand, and are found in the same habitations and surroundings. This has its different causes. Often poverty and want drive men and women to criminal practices as a means of relieving their ne- cessities. Extreme poverty is the destroyer of self- respect and self-esteem, which makes the victim of it the more ready and willing to resort to evil ways. He very naturally argues with himself : "What can be a worse condition than this. If I can add to my means of living by becoming a criminal I have gained that much. If I am caught and must go to prison, what have I lost? How much worse will prison life be than that I am now living?" The temptation to crime is ever present to the minds of these unfortunate people, and many of them who, under more favorable conditions, would be good and useful members of society yield to the temptation, join the criminal class, and still continue to be poor. Their lot is not improved but made worse. But they neither reason about it nor think about the future. It is the present, the hard, forbidding, heartbreaking present, that moves them in the wrong direction, and often 68 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 69 makes them confirmed and hardened criminals. It is the same regarding the tendency towards immorality of the very poor whose lives are so dreary and so de- pressing. Anything to break the monotony and divert the mind from the thought of it! Necessarily the amusements that such people are able to have are of the lowest and most debasing. The slums and the homes of the very poor are such as to breed both immorality and crime. It is with im- morality as it is with criminal practices. Too many of the denizens of these places have no better future to look forward to. His self-respect is gone. He is ready to abandon himself to any kind of diversion to relieve the situation. He cares nothing for what may once have been a good name. "Why not have a good time, and who cares how I get it !" he cries. "Not I, for one; and who else is there to care?" The drudgery of poverty, the indifference of his fellow-men to his condition, the environment, association, and influence all tend to evil, not to good. Besides the evil influences that live in these places and make for immorality and crime, the places them- selves naturally become the habitats and hiding-places of those who have already become criminals. Mem- bers of this class naturally gravitate to these unwhole- some places and seek them, to escape the vigilance of the officers of the law, and there make their head- quarters ; whence they prey upon the public and escape observation and detection. In a circular dealing with this subject, issued by the Monday Evening Club of Washington, D. C, Wil- 70 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN bur Vincent Mallalieu, in speaking of the slums, called "courts" in that city, had this to say : The moral conditions in such a secluded inclosure as this court can scarcely be imagined. The police who have to do with it agree in speaking of its disreputable character. One officer has remarked that it is the worst place in the United States and that there is no crime unknown to it. The police blotter of the precinct shows that from March i, 1911, to March i, 1912, there were 114 arrests among the 204 men, women, and children living in Snow's Court. The charges were drunkenness, disorderly conduct, assault, unlawful assembly, larceny, cruelty to animals, and accusations relating to sexual crimes. Nor does this number of cases represent all the evil, because it does not take into account residents of Snow's Court arrested in other precincts, nor does it in- clude the mischief done in Snow's Court by inhabitants of the neighboring alleys and residents of other parts of the city. . . . Snow's Court is a peril to our Capital's life. Only an awakened public conscience that shall demand the aboli- tion of this and other pest centers will rid the city of very grave dangers. What is said here of Snow's Court may be said of thousands of other places throughout the country. What a reproach it is upon the civilization, the Christianity, the humanity of the people of this country! If we think or speak about it at all we sat- isfy our consciences by saying, "It must be so, it can- not be helped, the poor, the immoral, the criminal MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 71 classes we must have with us. It is inevitable. It has always been so, and will be so to the end." What a cowardly, what an uncivilized and un- Christian way of looking upon a condition so serious, so appalling ! It is not so, and every upright and think- ing man and woman knows it is not so. Then why not go to work at once to prove its falsity ? For the simple reason that what is everybody's business is generally nobody's business. It is so easy to let things go along as they are. "It does not affect me; why should I trouble myself about it?" is the answer. Too many people think those who live in these places, which they have allowed to grow up and continue to exist, are not worth saving. "What if they are immoral? It does not concern me. What if they are criminals? We have our courts and our prisons, they will take care of them. Why should I bother about it? There is nothing I can do, anyhow. What if these pestholes do breed disease and destroy the lives of their in- habitants? neither I nor any of mine live there. It is no concern of mine." These are the prevailing ex- cuses for our deadly inaction. What a narrow view to take of man's duty to man! What criminal neglect and indifference lurks in such feelings and sentiments, and what lives are sacrificed, what misery results from this attitude of carelessness and indifference to the welfare of the poor and dependent, even the criminal, classes ! But is it true that the more fortunate, the rich and well-to-do, are not concerned about these conditions? Have penury and want, crime and disease no meaning 72 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN to them? Have these happier beings no obligation resting upon them to eradicate the evils that bring about these calamities? Have these conditions and their inevitable consequences no effect upon the gen- eral body of our citizenship, and upon our standards of virtue and righteousness? The man of wealth and influence who deludes himself with the belief, or the thought, that these unwholesome and devastating con- ditions do not and cannot touch him, and who in his false sense of security is doing nothing for the needy and unfortunate, has much to answer for. None of us can be wholly free from the influences and effects of such evil conditions, however much we may strive to know the nothingness and want of power of all evil. They must be known and understood, in order to be destroyed. In every right sense, in the sense that they are things to be destroyed, they are not real, and must eventually be overcome by good. But this is not going to be done by treating them with indifference and allowing them to exist and flourish in our midst. They can not be overcome by the mere spending of money, or by charity. They must be reached and destroyed by a higher sense of good than this. How- ever, material means rightly directed will do wonders in the removal of the causes that have brought about these conditions and in the placing of their victims on a higher plane of worldly comfort. If we look at it from the standpoint of mere economy or money interests, the cleaning out of these places is fully justifiable. Our prisons, our hospitals, our almshouses, and our insane asylums are largely MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 73 supplied from the slums, and other places of poverty and want and crime. The inhabitants of these purlieus, when convicted of petty offenses against the laws, are sent to prison for a brief time, and when released they return there and again offend, to be again sent to prison; and this in many cases is repeated again and again. Let them be released from any kind of de- tention, they go back to their old habitation that has been the cause of their misfortunes. They must; they have no other place to go. An indifferent government provides them no other better place in which to live. So, month after month, year after year, we pay the enormous expenses that grow out of these conditions, and the poor wretches that become criminals and pub- lic charges continue to suffer the consequences of the public neglect. Laying aside all sentiment, all sense of sympathy, humanity, and man's duty to his fellows, and putting the case on the lower level of business, it would be a vast saving to the public, if these places, the homes of disease and immorality and the rendezvous of crim- inals, were completely removed, and sanitary places of abode provided at public expense, no matter what the cost. When will public officials come to see this palpable fact and act accordingly in the public interest! CHAPTER VI THE PUBLIC HEALTH THE slum is a menace not only to the health of its inhabitants but to that of the public as well. The deadly miasma of such places cannot be confined with- in their own limits or to the people who inhabit them. They and their effects extend at times to the remotest parts of the cities in which they are located, and the residents of the most favored portions of the city are made their victims. The self-satisfied and indif- ferent rich who suffer such conditions to exist, some- times almost at the very door of their palatial homes, are not infrequently the victims of the diseases that are generated in the slum districts and are carried to the outside. Boards of health and other benevolent organizations as well as private citizens struggle faithfully and courageously to meet these conditions and prevent the spread of the diseases that so generally come out of such modes of living; but in a large measure their efforts result in failure. They help to make a fear- fully bad and inexcusable condition a little better. They no doubt save many lives, and prevent much suf- fering. But this is not what is most needed. No one should be called upon to work amid such sur- 74 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 75 roundings or to attempt to save mankind from such conditions. The conditions should not be allowed to exist for a day in any civilized city or community. We must go to the root of the evil, destroy these pestholes of disease and make unnecessary these efforts to pro- tect the poor and unfortunate from their corrupting ef- fects. This phase of the subject, the remedy for these conditions, will be taken up more in detail further on in this work; but the opportunity should never be missed to insist upon and emphasize the fact that there is but one effective remedy for these conditions and the evils that flow from them, and that is : their com- plete eradication. CHAPTER VII SANITARY HOUSING ONE of the most important questions affecting the effort to better the condition of the poor, especially the victims of cheap labor who live in unsanitary hovels and shacks, or in overcrowded tenement houses, is: How and by whom is this to be brought about? It must be obvious that the first great step towards relieving this situation is to provide these people with sanitary homes, and the next is so to police and super- vise them as to keep them clean, wholesome, and sani- tary. To bring this about the first thing to be done is to root out and destroy the unsanitary dwelling-places of these unfortunates and replace them with homes fit for human habitation ; the next to teach the people how to live and keep their homes fit to live in. This should not be done as a charity. These people should be taught independence ; and they should not be treated as objects of charity. Nothing could be more destructive of their self-respect. They should be provided, at pub- lic expense, with suitable places in which to live and made to pay a reasonable sum in the way of rent for the homes thus provided for them. Of course, the men who are renting at exorbitant prices the unsani- 76 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 77 tary places in which they are living, will raise con- stitutional objections to measures of this kind. But whenever it can be shown that such places are unsani- tary and dangerous to lives and health, the steps neces- sary to abate the nuisance and supply healthful homes may be taken as a police regulation and in aid of the public health. To accomplish these reforms, property may be condemned and used to secure and conserve the public health and suppress crime. It is impossible to do this as a private enterprise, no matter how laudable the purpose of private indi- viduals may be. This has been tried over and over again, and practically nothing has been accomplished. Such private organizations have no police power of regulation and control of the tenants which is vitally necessary to accomplish the needed results. As a rule, they are business enterprises organized for profit, and some of them have made money. That is their prime object and purpose. Incidentally, they have, in a measure, improved the homes and living of some of the poor, and kept their occupants out of the slums. To this extent these efforts have been beneficial and should have credit. But the benefits, in view of exist- ing conditions, have been infinitesimal. They have not removed the slums and other objectionable places of abode. They still continue to exist and flourish. This is not what is needed, nor is it what must be done to make this reform complete and lasting. What is here said is not intended to belittle or dis- parage the work done by generous-hearted people who have faithfully endeavored, out of pure benevolence, 78 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN to help these poor people. Their efforts to this end should be commended and encouraged; but we cannot conceal from ourselves the lamentable fact that they are only palliatives and not effective to remove and destroy the evil. It helps to ease the sufferings and privations of the victims of this kind of living ; but to be effective and lasting, more drastic remedies must be resorted to. This cancerous growth on the body politic must be cut out to the very roots, if we are to reach results that are worth while. One of the melancholy failures of attempts to re- lieve this situation came about through the sympathetic efforts of Mrs. Ellen Wilson, former wife of the President of the United States. As mistress of the White House, during her brief residence there she be- came greatly interested in the condition of the poor in the National Capital. She personally visited the slums and other places where the poor were con- gregated. She showed the greatest sympathy for these unfortunates, and called meetings of prominent men and women at the White House, to devise and carry out some means of relieving conditions; doing what she could to arouse the public and the Congress to a realization of the actual conditions and the necessity of removing them. Unfortunately, the generous efforts of this good woman were cut short by her untimely death. She was the friend of the poor, earnestly desirous of better- ing their condition, but the consummation of her de- sires must be left to others. The sad condition of the unfortunate people whose homes of desolation and MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 79 want she had visited was in her mind up to the very last. In furtherance of her expressed desires, some of her friends who had been acting with her secured from Congress an Act incorporating the "Ellen Wil- son Memorial Homes," intended to carry out her pur- poses. In the Act the purposes of the corporation were declared to be To acquire, hold, improve, rent, mortgage, sell and convey real estate within the District of Columbia for building, in memory of the late Mrs. Woodrow Wilson, one or more blocks of sanitary houses for the working classes, and renting the same at a rental sufficiently low to cause the abandonment of dilapidated and insanitary houses, as an object lesson in the housing of the working classes, under good conditions, and at reasonable rates. This was a commendable effort in the right direc- tion. But the value of the property to be acquired by the corporation was limited to $500,000. The Act fixed the amount of the capital stock at $25,000, di- vided into shares of $1,000 each, and authorized it to commence business when that amount was realized by the sale of the stock. The amount was never realized ; the corporation never commenced business. This laudable effort proved to be a lamentable failure. Nothing else could reasonably have been expected. Avowedly, the thing to be done was not intended or expected to be effective in and of itself, as it was de- clared in the Act to be only an "object lesson." Very earnest and prolonged efforts were made by the friends of the working-classes and of Mrs. Wil- 8o MAN'S DUTY TO MAN son, who had devoted herself to their interests, to secure the necessary subscriptions to the stock and thus carry out the objects of the corporation; but evidently the effort proved attractive neither to the business investor nor to the charitably disposed, and, as an "object lesson," the effort only went to prove the obvious fact that the object all good people should have at heart cannot be successfully and efficiently carried out by private corporations, private initiative, or private energy. It is a public charge and should and must, to be effective, be carried out by the public authorities and at public expense. Under a resolution of the United States Senate call- ing for such information, the Commissioners of the District of Columbia made a report of the names and places of residence of landowners who were renting property within the District. It tends to show the number of dwellings in these alleys in the City of Washington. The report named one hundred and twenty-four of these inhabited alleys, and stated that eleven hundred and sixty-nine pieces of property were rented therein. But this does not tell the whole story. Many of these property-owners rented several places within these alleys, some of them as high as ten or a dozen ; two as high as seventeen, and one, twenty-six separate places. So the actual number of separate places rented amounted to twenty-five hundred and twelve. If we take five persons to each of these places, which, considering how they are crowded, is a moderate es- timate, we have twelve thousand souls living in alleys MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 81 in the City of Washington. Not all of the alleys in which these people live can properly by classed as slums, but many, if not most of them, are slums, while they are all likely to become such. At all events, alleys are not generally regarded as suitable places in which to house human beings. They are usually re- served for horses and other animals, and one great step towards relieving all cities of the odium of per- mitting such conditions to exist would be to forbid the erection or occupation of dwelling-houses in any alley. These conditions that prevail, in greater or less de- gree, in every city in the country cannot be corrected by the ordinary processes and machinery of govern- ment and through the agencies usually provided for suppressing vice, preventing disease, or for the re- lief of the poor. It must, to be successful and per- manent, be taken up specially and with a view of ex- terminating these places where disease and vice and poverty are generated, and not merely to try to offset their effects and afford temporary relief to their vic- tims. That has been the weakness and the vice of the usual mode of dealing with this vital question. The author attempted while in the Senate to in- augurate a movement in Congress affecting the City of Washington, which, if it should be successful, might be an incentive to other cities and in time spread all over the country with gratifying results. To this end he introduced in the Senate the following resolu- tion : 82 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN JOINT RESOLUTION Providing for a Housing Commission, and for other Purposes Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President be, and he is hereby, directed to ap- point a commission of five persons, three women and two men, who shall serve without compensation, to devise plans and the means of caring for and housing the in- digent, improvident, and needy population of the District of Columbia, to be known as the Housing Commission. It shall be the duty of said commission to ascertain and report to the President, who shall transmit the same to Congress, with his own views thereon and any sug- gestions he may desire to make, the following : First. A suitable location for a sufficient number of model sanitary houses for the accommodation of such persons as should be cared for under the direction of the National Government. Second. The kind and probable cost of such suitable houses as may be needed for the proper housing and care of such persons. Third. The best means of renting or otherwise pro- viding such houses for persons able to make compensa- tion therefor. Fourth. The best and most practicable way of polic- ing, superintending and securing proper care and sani- tation of such houses, and the grounds provided for their construction, and of improving the moral and sanitary conditions of the people so provided for. Fifth. Any other data or facts that the commission MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 83 may desire to submit and suggestions it may desire to make as to the kind of legislation needed to carry out such plans as it may report for the better housing and care of such persons. The resolution was favorably reported by the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, and passed by the Senate. It was hoped that this would con- stitute the beginning of a movement that would re- lieve the city of Washington of its slums; but the good people who were looking and hoping for something that would reach that result were greatly disappointed as the House of Representatives failed to pass the resolution. So that effort failed. Then an effort was made to reach and eradicate the evil directly by the introduction of a bill providing as follows: That the Commissioners of the District of Columbia are hereby authorized and directed to acquire title for the Government to all property now constituting and classified as slums, inhabitated courts, or other places so improved and maintained as to render them detrimental to health and morals, for the purpose of razing the buildings situate thereon and maintaining thereon, as hereinafter provided, sanitary dwelling houses for the use of tenants. That upon acquiring title to said property the said commissioners shall cause the buildings thereon to be removed, the said property replatted with ample streets and passageways and means of ingress and egress, and construct thereon model sanitary houses of moderate size to be rented by the Government to the poor and 84 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN the laboring classes at reasonable and moderate rentals. That the Government shall hold and retain title to said property for the purposes above mentioned and the improvement of the sanitary conditions of the said city of Washington, and the said commissioners shall pro- vide such supervision, control, and inspection of said property as to make and continuously maintain it in a sanitary and healthful condition, free as far as possible from immorality and crime. That there is hereby appropriated, of the moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of $10,000,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary to carry into effect the provisions of this Act. The bill met the common fate of all efforts made to rid the country of the deadly slums. Congress was not awake to the horrible conditions that prevail, and could not be induced to stop and listen. It was the old story of indifference to the sufferings of others, especially of the poor and unfortunate, and blindness to the common good. The bill was never reported out of the Committee on the District of Columbia, to which it was referred. Still another effort to secure action on the question was made by offering this proposition to eliminate the slums, as an amendment to what was called the Good Roads Bill, which provided for an appropriation of eighty-five millions of dollars of Government money to improve the roads within the States, for which pur- pose no money of the National Government could legally be expended. The eighty-five millions were voted, in violation of the Constitution, but the pro- MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 85 posal to appropriate ten millions to rid the National Capital of the slums and make it clean and decent, and reduce materially the disease, immorality, and crime that grow out of this condition, was voted down. In speaking in support of the amendment in the Senate, the author said, among other things: MR. PRESIDENT, slum conditions such as we have in Washington have presented one of the greatest problems that has to be dealt with in city life. Whether the Government in this instance should take hold of a matter of this kind and furnish the relief that is so much needed is a question about which people will greatly differ. It has been handled that way by other countries and handled successfully. We have endeavored here in Washington to deal with it in an entirely different and in an ineffective and inefficient way. I suppose there are very few Members of this body who have any realization of what the actual conditions are right here in the Capital of the Nation, where they spend most of each year. While I was investigating the other matters to which I have referred, I visited a num- ber of these so-called courts, better named slums. I spent most of the day in going about and witnessing the conditions, and I went home heartsick at what I saw that day. I do not know, Mr. President, how much attention Senators have given to this subject. It seems to me to be an exceedingly important one. It affects not only the poor people who are compelled to live in these places, but it affects the whole city of Washington; yes, it af- fects the good name and credit of the whole Nation, 86 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN, that such conditions as I have witnessed here should exist for a day in the Capital of the Nation. The District of Columbia is under the absolute con- trol and jurisdiction of the Congress of the United States. It may deal directly with this question. There is no reason why it should not take hold of it in an effective way and rid the District of Columbia of the conditions that exist. It is not a question of the want of money. It is not going to be a very expensive process. It is going to be an economical one because it will save us much of the ex- pense in the prosecution and care for criminals and the insane, and will relieve the city of much of the disease that now exists coming out of these cesspools of vice and crime. That we ought not to hesitate about the expenditure of the small amount of money that is called for by this amendment let me call your attention in a very brief way to some of the expenditures that we are proposing to make and some that we have already made, not for the benefit of the District of Columbia but for the outside. Take, for example, the bill providing for a vocational school, a very excellent thing to be brought about if it can be done properly by the Government. We propose to expend $14,250,000 at the beginning and $3,000,000 a year thereafter perpetually for that purpose. For the Mississippi floods, by a bill that has already passed the House of Representatives, to expend $45,- 000,000. We are proposing to expend in two or three of the States $4,000,000 for the purpose of relieving the citrus fruit growers of those States from the effect of the disease of the tree. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 87 We have just passed a bill through both Houses of Congress appropriating $1,000,000 for the purpose of constructing a bridge across the Potomac. We are pro- posing to build what is called a memorial bridge across the Potomac to cost something like $4,000,000, and that bridge will undoubtedly be very shortly built. The Public Health Service is making surveys as they call it, of the counties in the State at an expense of $6,000 a county. They have already made the survey of 9 of them, I believe, and expect at least to expend money enough to make the survey of 40 counties in different parts of the States, making up a cost of $2,400,- ooo for that purpose. Mr. President, we have spent for this so-called Capitol Park to buy those lands between the Capitol and the Union Station and for the removal of those buildings more than $4,300,000. It does seem to me that we might spend the small sum this amendment calls for only $600,000 of ex- penditure for the purpose of relieving the city from the conditions that I have mentioned. . . . Now, sir, I have said all that I am going to say about this statement. I have very much at heart the effort to take hold in an effective way of these conditions and eradicate them from this city, the Capital of the Na- tion. We can do it if we will. I am only asking in this amendment that the small sum of $600,000 shall be devoted to that purpose. You may take it as an experiment if you like; you may say that we will try what we can do. In this instance, if we are successful we will extend it to other parts of the city, and eventually rid this city of that condition so horrible in its effects. 88 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN The people of this Republic who believe in right liv- ing, humanity, morality and the preservation of the public health should not rest until their representatives in Congress have corrected the conditions here ad- verted to, and made their Capital as wholesome in all its parts as it is magnificent and beautiful in its more favored places, the dwellings of the rich. It is vital to any and every movement for the betterment of this class of our people wherever found. It cannot be expected that good, self-respecting, and respectable citizens can come out of the slums. The influence and effect of such surroundings is to degrade, to humiliate, to inoculate with the virus of evil, immorality, and crime. In some rare cases the home, however bad it may be, is kept clean in the struggle of some un- fortunate, brought up under better conditions and in a fairer environment, to make home respectable and attractive. Poverty is not in and of itself degrading; but it does, in a way, lead to that result by denying to its victims the means and opportunity to make life and home respectable. The effort ;sometimes made in the slums and in the homes of the very poor to look and seem homelike, comfortable, and respectable is pathetic in the extreme, and excites in one's mind the liveliest sympathy. 'To see in these tawdry places of abode scarcely worthy of the name of homes, evi- dence of efforts to enliven them with flowers, wither- ing and fading like the human inhabitants of these foul places, and with cheap prints and other efforts at embellishments pleasing to the eye, touches the heart MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 89 and brings the blush of shame to the cheek of as American citizen when he looks upon these things and thinks how easily his great Government and the municipal authorities throughout the States could pro- vide these unfortunate people, stagnating in these places, with comfortable sanitary homes. No effort to make clean and wholesome the broken- down, decayed, and filthy places in which the slum- dwellers now live will suffice. They must be com- pletely destroyed; other buildings must be supplied. Any other course of dealing with this vital problem is merely palliative and temporary in character. It will merely nurse the evil and, to some extent, lessen the needs, sufferings, and privations of the victims of this kind of living; but the evil in all its hideousness will remain to be dealt with inefficiently again and again. For the credit of our country and the good of hu- manity in general, as well for that of the individuals immediately concerned, an end should be brought to this great evil, and that without delay. It is not alone the lack of suitable buildings in which to live that makes the problem we are now considering. The number of people that are housed in them enters largely into the difficulty of the situation. The con- gestion, the overcrowding of the houses and rooms, adds to the misery and degradation of their inhabitants, and increases the danger of disease. In the con- gested portions of the larger cities this has always presented one of the most difficult problems of all in the matter of housing the poor and the ill-paid wage- earners. The tenement-houses, the pest of the cities, 90 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN are crowded with men, women, and children, many of them occupying the same room used as living-room, bedroom, and kitchen, sleeping on the floor, often without undressing and without beds or bedclothing. There are not a few of these children who have never known what it is to sleep on a bed or be warmed by the bed-clothing that contribute to the comfort and health of the more fortunate. Many of these tenement houses are what are known as "rear," or "backyard tenements." To this, in New York and perhaps in other cities, was added the "cellar population." The United States Government has not been un- mindful of the misery and the perils of these condi- tions. In 1907 a Joint Immigration Commission of the two Houses of Congress was appointed to investi- gate and report conditions growing out of foreign im- migration into this country, and later, in 1912, an In- dustrial Commission was appointed to investigate and make report of industrial conditions. Both of these Commissions made extensive investigations into pre- vailing conditions. They present a sad condition for the contemplation of the American people. Similar investigations and reports have been made by State Commissions and local municipal authorities. They all tell very much the same melancholy story. The two Federal Commissions dealt mainly with the economic phases of the question, but their hearings and reports disclose, with startling clearness, the moral and social results of the manner of living in the places inhabited by the poorer classes that should arouse the MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 91 public conscience of the country and force immediate and drastic measures to correct the evil. These unfortunate conditions are not of recent origin or growth. They have existed in some of the cities at least for many years. In a report of the "Sanitary Conditions of the Laboring Population in New York in 1845," as quoted in the proceedings of the Industrial commission above mentioned, this pic- ture of the dwellers in cellars is drawn : The most offensive of all places of residence are the cellars. It is almost impossible, when contemplating the circumstances and conditions of the poor beings who inhabit these holes, to maintain the proper degree of calmness requisite for a thorough inspection of their miseries and sound judgment respecting them. You must descend to them; you must feel the blast of foul air, as it meets your face on opening the door ; you must grope in the dark or hesitate until your eye becomes ac- customed to the gloomy place, to enable you to find your way through the entry over the broken floor, the boards of which are protected from your tread by a half inch of hard dirt; you must inhale the suffocating vapor of the heated rooms ; and in the dark, dim recesses endeavor to find the inmates by the sound of their voices, or chance to see their figures moving between you and the flickering light of a window, coated with dirt and fes- tooned with cobwebs or, if in search of an invalid, take care that you do not fall full length upon the bed with her, by stumbling against the rags and straw ^dignified by that name, lying upon the floor, under the window, if window there is. 92 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN And in an official report, made by a city physician, was found this description of a typical front build- ing: The front building, a small two-story frame house, was partly occupied by the proprietor or lessee of the build- ing as a liquor store and partly sublet to several Irish families. A covered alleyway led to the rear of the building. This was a double frame house of three stories in height. It stood in the center of the yard, ranged next the fence, where a number of pigsties and stables had surrounded the yard on three sides. From the quantity of filth, liquid and otherwise, thus caused, the ground, I suppose, had been rendered almost im- passable, and to remedy this, the yard had been com- pletely boarded over so that the earth could nowhere be seen. These boards were partially decayed, and by a little pressure even in dry weather, a thick, greenish fluid could be forced up through the crevices. Then, we have the following descriptions of condi- tions prevailing twenty years later: The Thirteenth Ward was densely crowded with working classes, the majority of whom were Irish ; Ger- man ranked next, and American last. . . . The ward showed a high rate of sickness and mortality, owing to the over-crowded and ill-ventilated dwellings and to the ignorant and careless habits of the people them- selves. . . . From Fortieth to Fiftieth Street the foreign population was mainly Irish or of Irish descent, packed in filthy tenements and of the most unclean and de- graded habits. . . . The tenement houses in which most MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 93 of the foreign population found their homes were cer- tainly little calculated to develop high social and moral types, and indeed brought to bear influences working di- rectly the other way. ***** The attic rooms are used to deposit the filthy rags and bones as they are taken from the gutters and slaughter houses. The yards are filled with dirty rags hung up to dry, sending forth their stench to all the neighbor- hood. . . . The tenants are all Germans. . . . They are exceedingly filthy in person and their bedclothes are as dirty as the floors they walk on. Their food is of the poorest quality, and their feet and hands, doubtless their whole bodies are suffering from what they call rheuma- tism, but which in reality is a prostrate nervous system, the result of foul air and inadequate supply of nutritious food. . . . Not one decent sleeping apartment can be found on the entire premises and not one stove properly arranged. The carbonic-acid gas, in conjunction with the other emanations from bones, rags, and human filth, defies description. The rooms are 6 by 10 feet; bed- rooms 5 by 6 feet. The inhabitants lead a miserable existence, and their children wilt and die in their in- fancy. ***** In a majority of rear tenements . . . the apartments are dirty, dark and often reeking with filth, the walls wholly innocent of whitewash, and the atmosphere im- pregnated with the disagreeable odor so peculiar to tenant houses. In some the sun never shines, and the apartments are so dark that unless seated near the window it is im- possible to read ordinary type ; and yet the inspector often hears the hackneyed expression, "We have no sickness, 94 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN thank God," uttered by those whose sunken eyes, pale cheeks, and colorless lips speak more eloquently than words of the anaemic condition resulting from the absence of pure, fresh air, and the general light of the sun. . . . The tenants seem to wholly disregard personal cleanli- ness, if not the very first principles of decency, their gen- eral appearance and actions corresponding with their wretched abodes. This indifference to personal and domi- ciliary cleanliness is doubtless acquired from a long familiarity with the loathsome surroundings, wholly at variance with all moral or social improvements, as well as the first principles of hygienic science. Fortunately, conditions in this and other cities have been, in some measure, improved by modern methods of drainage and other means, but they are still de- plorable enough. While hordes of poor people are allowed to live in such dwelling-places as have been described, and the congestion and overcrowding of the tenements, cellars, and slum districts continue, this will remain one of the greatest problems with which civilized communities must deal. To see and solve it, it is absolutely necessary to supply better homes for these unfortunates, prevent congestion, and compel sanitary housing and living. There is no means of escape from this drastic course of treatment of the disease, if anything like satisfactory results are to be attained. Much of the congestion results from the desire of the wage-earners to live near their place of labor. The manufacturing sections of a city, to begin with, are objectionable dwelling-places. Many of the houses in MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 95 which these people live are old and dilapidated resi- dences of people who have been fortunate enough to move on to more desirable locations. Instead of a family residence, for which they were built and used, they become the dwelling-places of many families, each family living in a single room. To these are added the unsanitary tenements, likewise overcrowded. The manner of living in these places corresponds with the buildings in which the people live, and the whole makes up a condition of poverty, want, immorality, and vice that should not be allowed to exist in any city or community. Sometimes the great corporations and larger em- ployers of labor furnished homes for their employees, known usually as "company houses." Whether right conditions prevail under these circumstances depends on the generosity and good business sense of the em- ployer. Some of the "company houses" are an im- provement upon the places the wage-earners are able to rent from others. The rents charged for the miserable hovels rented to people of this class are usually exorbitantly high. Un- principled and exacting landlords prey upon them, and the victims are helpless to protect themselves from the rapacity of these real property sharks. The public authorities can, if they will, deal much more effectively with the corporations who house their employees than they can with private and individual landlords; but public control of the big corporations cannot always be depended upon. The control is too apt to be the other way about. 96 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN Some of the corporations are wise enough to see that the proper housing and comfort of their employees is a matter of economy. It makes for efficiency and contentment on the part of the wage-earners, is of great economic value, which should insure better treat- ment of them by their employers as a pure matter of business economy and expediency. CHAPTER VIII PATERNALISM I SPECIAL CLASS LEGISLATION ONE of the dangers of making laws for the benefit of particular classes of people, on the theory that they need government aid, is that we are building up a paternal government; another, that by such legisla- tion we may create a class of dependents, paupers, and mendicants, who may abandon all efforts in their own behalf and become permanent burdens on the public. This should be avoided just so far as possible. It should be the object of all legislation of this kind to make men, women, and children self-supporting, self- respecting, and independent. There has been much objectionable class legislation in this country. It has served to widen the breach be- tween Capital and Labor, to instil into the minds of the laboring classes the false idea that they are the objects of special favor by the Government, and into the minds of the poorer class that they will be taken care of by the Government, or by the state, county, or city, whether they work or not. This is a condition and tendency greatly to be deplored. We want no legislation, paternalistic in its character, the tendency of which is to bring about such results. This sort of legislation is the inevitable outgrowth of 971 98 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN our vicious political condition and tendencies. What seems to be a benevolent effort to aid by legislation a class of citizens who appear to need protection is often, it may fairly be said generally, a selfish political scheme to get votes. This is particularly true respect- ing so-called "labor legislation" in behalf of organized labor, and laws in aid of the farmers. The books are full of ill-advised legislation of this kind that has been detrimental, not helpful, either to organized labor or the farmers. Such laws have gone far to establish in the minds of these classes of citizens the fact that they are special favorites and will be taken care of by special legislation in their behalf, and, as a result, they are constantly appealing to legislative bodies all over the country for such legislation; and their appeals are responded to, in the main, for political reasons. This special governmental aid to the laboring classes is demoralizing in the extreme to them, and is of very little benefit. There should be no favorite classes in this Republic. All men should stand on an exact equality before the law. The rights of all men should be jealously protected, without regard to their calling or station in life. Before the law there are no classes, but all men are created equal. It is believed that the special class legislation that has been enacted has done more than almost any other one thing to divide our people into classes and create and accentuate class dis- tinctions that should never have been thought of. No doubt this has been brought about, in great measure, by the increased power of wealth and the oppressive use that is made of it. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 99 Aside from the mere political phase of it, strong and deserved sympathy has been aroused for the wage- earners, especially those engaged in cheap labor, by the oppression of the capitalistic or employer classes. But this is a condition that, with very rare exceptions, can- not be helped by the enactment of laws for the protec- tion of labor. In speaking about the effect of anti-trust laws, in the United States Senate, the author had this to say : The fear of the law and the punishment which may result from it may, in individual instances, prevent the more timid or the more law-abiding from entering into unlawful and injurious combinations, just as individ- uals may by the same influence be prevented from com- mitting murder or other crimes. But men can not be made honest or unselfish by law. Something greater and higher than this is necessary to prevent men from wronging their fellow men. In the effort to amass wealth they forget the rights of others and trample them under foot. They exact long hours of labor from their underpaid and underfed employees and the highest prices from their customers. Immense fortunes are amassed by the most cruel and inhuman injustice to thousands and thousands who labor for the simple necessaries of life. They begin wrong in this respect and continue in that way to the end. Their children are educated to be selfish. The one thing uppermost in mind in the educa- tion of the young is to enable them to succeed materially and to make and accumulate money. The good which they might do with their education to their kind is in most cases unthought of. Their success in future life ioo MAN'S DUTY TO MAN is judged by the money they make and save and not by the good they have done their fellow-men. It seems to be human nature to seek and strive for the acquisition of more of this world's goods. Where it comes from or who may be injured or deprived of his rights by its getting is with a good many people a matter of no consequence. From the cradle to the grave man is taught, and practices, this rule of selfishness which has brought sorrow to thousands and thousands of people. The accumulation of the millions of dollars now resting in the hands of a comparatively few people in this coun- try has, in the main, been accomplished through the toil of the many underpaid employees who are still struggling on for a mere existence. ***** The effective way to overcome this evil is to bring these classes nearer to an equality. This can be done only by elevating the station of the wage earners and by curbing the power of the employer class. No better way occurs to my mind to accomplish this result, so far as the making of laws is concerned, than regulation of prices, wages, and hours of labor. There is something wrong in the economy of things when the employer can live in luxury and enjoy unlimited wealth, while the coun- try is speculating upon the question as to how low a wage is sufficient to maintain the wage earner with the neces- saries of life. Acknowledging to the fullest extent the power, capacity and ability of one man to earn and save money to a greater extent than another, this does not account for the differences in station between the em- ployer and the employee. Many of the skilled wage earn- ers who are making a bare living for themselves and their families are just as capable of earning and amass- MAN'S DUTY* TO MAN ict ing wealth as their employer. There is something else besides capacity and earning power which makes the great difference between the two. Sometimes it is op- portunity, but that alone can not account for it. What is it, then, that makes this enormous difference between the man who rolls in exorbitant and useless wealth and the equally capable, honest, and efficient man who toils day in and day out for a mere subsistence ? There must be something radically wrong in the laws and the sentiments of a country that will permit this distress- ing state of inequality between men who are equal with each other by the fundamental laws of the country. But, Mr. President, something more than the mak- ing of laws is necessary to wipe out the class lines that are dividing our people. We must learn to know each other better and to understand, appreciate, and sym- pathize with the trials, the problems, the sorrows, and afflictions of all classes, and, above all things, to see the good that is in all men, and to strive to make all men and all women understand and appreciate and to strive to cultivate the good that is within themselves. Unfortunate as it is, some legislation has become absolutely necessary to protect wage-earners from the rapacity and oppression of their employers. Such! laws as are necessary to insure employees, especiallyl employees of great corporations, a living wage and. sanitary surroundings should be enacted. Such laws should not be necessary, and would not be, if employers were reasonably just and fair in their dealings with their men. The trouble is that the wage-earners, as a rule, are not allowed to participate in the profits. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN While they toil day in and day out, for long hours, and often under outrageous conditions, their employers take all the profits of their labor and grow opulent, arbitrary, and autocratic. It is by such means that plutocracy is growing in this country and the number of millionaires and vulgar rich are increasing by leaps and bounds. This should be prevented, by law if necessary. No man should be allowed to grow rich off of another man's labor, while the laborer remains poor because he is poorly paid. The man who makes a business prosperous by his labor, should share in that prosperity. If the business is not prosperous and can succeed only by paying starvation wages, it should not continue. The Government and the States should pass such laws as will insure to the wage-earners fair treatment and a fair and just participation in the business that by their labor is made to earn profits. No such laws should be necessary in a country like ours. The failure to treat wage-earners justly and fairly is driving the Government to enact paternalistic legislation, which is unfortunate, for the reasons already mentioned, and which will be elaborated further along. It should be said in this connection, however, that the object of all legislation of this character should be to enable the wage-earner to maintain himself and enjoy the privi- leges and benefits of an independent citizen of a free Republic, and not to reduce him to the humiliating condition of dependence upon his government or any one else. The standard of citizenship among the laboring MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 103 classes should be maintained at the highest, and their rights and equality of opportunity should be jealously protected. In no other way can this nation be pre- served, or democratic principles upheld. In no other way can this Government maintain its own self-re- spect, or secure the respect and loyalty of its citizens. CHAPTER IX IMMIGRATION ONE of the most important obstacles to any effort to rid society of the slums and overcrowded and un- sanitary portions of the larger cities is the great in- flux of foreigners to this country. They come here accustomed to a low standard of living in the old country that unfits them for right living here, and very generally they take up the same mode of living in this country. Indeed, in case of immigrants who en- gage in cheap labor, as so many of them do, it is impossible for them to live much better here than they lived at home. Swarms of laborers of this class have been brought in by the big corporations, under contract to serve such corporations. They were, in the beginning, very little better than slaves. They did not speak our language. They knew practically nothing of our free institutions. They were ignorant and wholly without knowledge of their rights under our laws. They were herded in large bodies and placed at the most menial and unre- munerative labor. If quarters were provided for them by their employers, they were generally inadequate, overcrowded, and unsanitary. These immigrants were a very poor addition to society, and their condition in 104 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 105 this country was but little, if any, better than it was in their own. This evil of "contract labor" was bit- terly opposed by laborers here at home, and was finally prohibited by Act of Congress. But, so far as its ef- fects upon society and the standards of living and of citizenship were concerned, the evil work had been done, and its mark has not been removed. Added to these contract laborers, have been ^thou- sands of immigrants coming of their own initiative, but many of them little better than those brought over with the money of the corporations to serve their in- terests. A very large proportion of immigrants of this class congregate in the crowded districts of the large cities, especially in New York, to live there in poverty, often in want. They bring up their children in this unwholesome atmosphere and degrading environment, to become American citizens; many of them being criminals and a very great proportion of them unde- sirables in many ways. It must not be understood from what is being said here that the criminal element, the immoral, and the undesirable classes are all foreigners, nor that all im- migrants are of this class. Far from it. But the foreign element adds its thousands to the dependent/ the immoral, and the criminal classes in this country A Their very ignorance of what an American citizen should be, of what their own rights are, and of the duty they owe to the country of their adoption and to the community in which they live, adds immensely to the difficulty of improving their condition and elevat- io6 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN ing them and their families to a higher and better standard of living. In this respect the foreigner differs materially from the American-born citizen. It is far more difficult to reach him and make him understand what his part is in the effort to lead him out of his unfortunate sur- roundings and mode of living into better things. This difficulty is increased by the fact, already mentioned, that the different foreign nationalities flock together, to the exclusion of all other nationalities, including Americans; continue to speak their native tongue, and maintain practically a foreign city made up of the lower classes of the country from which they come. Their very contentment with the deplorable lives they are living makes the problem of improving their con- dition the more difficult. This brings into the subject the question of education which will be considered further along. But it may be said, in this connection, that one of the first things to be done, as it affects this class of people, is to make them dissatisfied with their present way of living, and then show them that there is a better way of which they are worthy and which they are able to attain. This done, the way will have been made much easier. There is very little use in trying to better the condition of such people by law, or by forcible means, so long as they do not know enough to know that they would be better off and happier and more contented if a change were made. You cannot make people cleanly by law any more than you can make men honest by that means; but once make them MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 107 understand that the change in their mode of living is sought in their interest and for their individual ben- efit, and the road to improved conditions is open. Investigations of conditions innumerable have been made by the national Government, by State and munici- pal authorities, and by charitable and benevolent in- stitutions. The existing conditions, with all their horrors and degrading influences, have been disclosed over and over again, but the general public seem not to be interested or concerned about these conditions, so vital to the welfare and best interests of the country. A comparatively few brave, sympathetic, and benevo- lent souls, have responded to the call involved in these disclosures and have labored and are still laboring to better the condition of these unfortunate people, a condition that concerns not them alone but all men. They are few in number, but many of them have shown a devotion to humanity and good works worthy of the highest commendation. Governmental investigations have been mainly along economic lines and with little regard to social bet- terment, which should have first place in all efforts to improve existing conditions. It is not the purpose here to enter at all into the economic questions involved or, to any considerable extent, to dwell on the statistics of which there are many affecting the interests of labor. The contention of organized labor has been that the entry of cheap foreign labor into this country has been detrimental to the interests of American labor. Doubtless it has, in many ways, but principally by de- grading labor and destroying in a great measure its in- io8 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN dependence; and by reducing to a lower standard the manner of living of the laboring classes. It is with this latter effect of importing foreign labor into this country, and not the mere matter of wages, except in so far as the reduction of wages has affected the living and social condition of the wage-earners, that we are now dealing. The seriousness of this constant stream of foreign laborers into the United States may be better under- stood and appreciated when we consider that, accord- ing to official statistics, more than half the labor of the United States, in all industries, is of foreign birth, the percentage being 58 foreign and 42 native, and \ that of this 42 per cent., one-fifth is negro labor, so that of all American labor only a very little over one- third is native white. It may be that, looking at it from a purely economic and industrial point of view, this large proportion of foreign labor is necessary ; but if it is, its deleterious effects on the social conditions of the country should be vigorously and effectively guarded against. The number of foreigners coming to this country is little understood. In a speech by Senator Dilling- ham of Vermont, who was a member of the Immigra- tion Commission, made in the United States Senate April I7th, 1912, this statement was made: Since the year 1860 we have admitted into this country | about 23,000,000 aliens known as immigrants. It is an ( equally startling fact that in the last twelve years we have admitted about 9,000,000; and when in the year MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 109 1907 we received the largest number ever received in any one year during our history, to wit, 1,285,000, the country was aroused and Congress authorized the ap- pointment of a Commission to investigate the whole subject of immigration. This brief extract shows something of the vast number of foreigners that have been immigrating to this country. Of course, many of them were good people, who have made the best of American citizens and have done their part in building up this great country and making it strong and prosperous. But, with these that we were fortunate and glad to receive, came great numbers of unskilled laborers, ignorant, and in many ways unreliable. Their coming has placed a great burden -on the native population : the duty of caring for and directing this mass of unreliable and ir- responsible subjects of other countries. This duty has not been well performed. These poor people, many of them material out of which good citizens might have been made, have been exploited and used for selfish purposes, poorly housed, poorly paid, and their welfare generally neglected. The evil result of this course has not been confined to the immigrants, the immediate sufferers from the greed and avarice that kept them in subjection and perpetuated the sordid conditions here from which they had hoped and expected to escape by coming to a country of boasted freedom and equality. Its evil in- fluences extended to all working people, and indirectly to the whole citizenship of the country. The wages no MAN'S DUTY TO MAN of the poor foreigners, too meager to afford them a decent and comfortable living, was, to a very great extent, the standard of wages for all working men and women. The native wage-earner had to accept this standard of wages and come down to the mode of liv- ing that it enforced, or give way entirely to his foreign competitor. The latter course was usually taken and in time the greater portion of unskilled labor fell into the hands of foreign-born wage-earners. Respecting the wages paid unskilled labor where these people came from, it is said, in the Report of the Immigration Commission : The purely economic condition of the wageworker is generally very much lower in Europe than in the United States. This is especially true of the unskilled-laborer class from which so great a proportion of the emigration to the United States is drawn. ... A large proportion of the emigration from southern and eastern Europe may be traced directly to the inability of the peasantry to gain an adequate livelihood in agricultural pursuits either as laborers or proprietors. ***** It is a common but erroneous belief that peasants and artisans in the European countries from which the new immigrant comes can live so very cheaply that the low wages have practically as great a purchasing power as the higher wages in the United States. The low cost of living among the working people, especially of southern and eastern Europe, is due to a low standard of living rather than to the cheapness of food and other com- modities. As a matter of fact, meat and other costly MAN'S DUTY TO MAN in articles of food, which are considered as almost essential to the everyday table of the American workingman, can not be afforded among laborers in like occupations in southern and eastern Europe. The same is true of the American standard of housing, clothing, and other things which enter into the cost of living. In later years there has been a marked change in the character and standing of immigrants to this country. Referring again to Senator Dillingham, in a later speech made in the Senate, December 29, 1914, he says : The immigration of 1860-1882, known as the old immigration, came mostly from England, Scotland, Ire- land, Wales, Germany, France, Scandinavia, and Bel- gium. It went almost wholly to the great Central West, to take advantage of the opportunities afforded by the homestead act which was adopted during the Civil War. During the period between 1860 and 1910 the number of farms in this country increased from 2,500,000 to 6,000,- ooo, and we are told that the agricultural area thus opened up is as great as the whole area of Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Aus- tria, Switzerland, Portugal, and the Netherlands all com- bined. ***** Of the immigration of that period 75 per cent, came from the countries I have named, and it proceeded in the sections I have indicated. I have in my hand a table from which it appears that between 1850 and 1860, 52 per cent, of such immigration went to the Central West ; from 1860 to 1870, 55 YZ per cent, went there; from ii2 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 1870 to 1880, 56 per cent, went there, and only 27 per cent, went to the Atlantic States. During the decade from 1880 to 1890 the type of immigration changed ; only 46 3/10 per cent, went to the Central West while 43 i/io per cent, went to the At- lantic States. From 1890 to 1900 the change was still more marked ; only 12 3/10 per cent, went to the Central States, while 808/10 per cent, went to the Atlantic States. This change in the distribution of the immi- grant masses was indicative of the change in its char- acter, as well as the change in the industrial conditions of the country which induced them to come in such large- ly increased numbers. . . . To understand this movement we have only to re- member that in 1860 the value of our manufactured products annually was only $2,000,000,000, but that in 1910 such products amounted to $20,000,000,000. Dur- ing the intervening period the products of our mills not only became equal to those of France or of Great Britain or of Germany as individual nations, but we passed them, as Bismarck had prophesied we would do, at a gallop. To-day the products of our mills are greater in value than the combined manufactured products of England, Germany, and France. It is because of the marvelous growth of these industries in the United States that the immigration of recent years has occurred. It represents races entirely different in stock from ours and conditions so entirely different that we can hardly comprehend them. It comes largely from Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Balkan States, and Italy, especially south Italy, in which nations conditions are below those in western and northern Europe and vastly below those existing in the United States. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 113 Another unfortunate feature of the later immigra- tion is that so very large a proportion of those now coming are males who have come to this country with- out any intention of making homes for themselves. Of this Senator Dillingham says: There are, however, some characteristics connected with the immigration from eastern and southern Europe which must not be disregarded, and I can not do better, perhaps, than to direct the Senate's attention, specifi- cally to some of the races and nationalities which con- tribute most largely to the "new immigration," as it is called. During the period of 15 years, 1899-1913, we admitted nearly 8,000,000 immigrants of the following races, named in order according to the relative im- portance of each in the numbers admitted: South Ital- ians, Hebrews, Polish, North Italians, Slovaks, Croatians, Slovenians, Hungarians, Greeks, Lithuanians, and Ruth- enians. Out of that entire number, 66 per cent, are Italians, Hebrews, and Polish. The significant feature of this immigration is that 73 per cent, of the whole were males. Have they come here to make homes? Have they brought their families, as did the immigration from northern and western Europe? I have before me another table showing the percentage of males among the aliens coming in the years 1899 to 1910, for the 10 leading races, from which the same startling fact appears. Of the South Italians, Hebrews, Polish, Slovaks, North Italians, Hungarians, Creations, Slovenians, Greeks, Lithuanians, and Ruthenians, fur- nishing a total immigration of 5,989,000, 73 per cent, were males. I will say that of these different nationali- H4 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN ties 78 per cent, of the South Italians were males. Only 56 per cent, of the Hebrews were males. On the other hand, of the Polish, 69 per cent, were males; of the Slovaks, 70 per cent. ; of the North Italians, 78 per cent. ; of the Hungarians, 72 per cent. ; and of the other races even a larger percentage. This condition of things presents a grave problem that must, sooner or later, be solved, in the public in- terest and in the interest of humanity, or serious con- sequences must necessarily flow from it. In discussing the question of immigration and its consequences, in the United States Senate, January 4, 1917, the author summed up the situation as he saw it in the following words : MR. PRESIDENT, another of the degenerating tendencies downward is the admission into this country of mil- lions of ignorant, criminal, and otherwise undesirable subjects of foreign nations. In some sections of the country these foreigners, many of whom do not speak our language, have become a dangerous and dominating force. They are admitted to citizenship with an alarming indifference to consequences, and their votes are coveted by politicians and candidates for office. They know and care but little about the laws and institutions of the country. Under the guidance and influence of designing labor organization leaders they become the backbone of labor strikes and are the first to resort to force and violence to make strikes successful. Thus they become the instruments and the victims of dangerous labor agi- tators. They have already come in such numbers as to make them a potent force in politics and are courted MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 115 accordingly. This has gone further than any other con- sideration to prevent the enactment of such immigration laws as will effectively exclude them from entry into this country. Lawmakers are afraid of the naturalized labor vote. Mr. President, this foreign element that has come into the country in swarms has become a dangerous and de- generating force that has reduced the standard of citizen- ship and undermined that respect for law and order that is so necessary to the preservation of a republican form of government. Violence and lawlessness resorted to as a means of redress of wrongs, or alleged denial of rights, leads inevitably to more arbitrary laws and centralization of government in the interest of one class as against another. A resort to force by the lower and more ignor- ant of our citizenry is an incentive to the building up of an aristocracy, an arbitrary form of government, and ultimately a despotism. This is a feature of present-day conditions that calls for most careful and patriotic con- sideration and a speedy remedy. And I maintain that the only effective remedy is the entire exclusion of such immigrants, I might say all immigrants of the laboring- class at least, until we have assimilated and elevated to respectable and law-abiding citizens the enormous num- ber that has already been admitted. The duty is im- perative and should not be neglected or delayed. This tendency toward degeneracy is not alone the fault of the immigrants. Native-born Americans, in- stead of raising the foreign element to what should be the American standard of living, too often allow the whole community of which the immigrant has become a considerable part to sink to the level of the lower foreign standard. They do not assimilate but isolate the foreign n6 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN element in most of the cities and towns, thus building up foreign cities within what should be wholly American cities governed by American standards of living. When we add to this the fact that the foreign sections are as a rule inadequately supplied with facilities for health- ful and sanitary living, such as a sufficient water supply, facilities for collection of garbage, sanitary homes, and other things necessary for right standards of living, we can not ascribe all of the deplorable conditions that exist to the immigrant class. They are too often made the vic- tims of the greed and avarice of the landowners, and the indifference and false economy of municipal bodies, from which the whole community suffers. Instead of elevating the immigrant to the American standard of / living, we accept his own and leave him to believe that it is our standard. Thus we make conditions worse, instead of better, for all parties concerned. It is the American as well as the unfortunate immi- grant who needs to be regenerated and his standard of living elevated. We are being assimilateji^Jiistead of as- similating our foreign residentsT" What effect the great war now raging in Europe is going to have on this problem must, of necessity, be problematical. For the present the war has checked the flow of immigration ; but that it will be renewed in greater or less volume after the war is over cannot be doubted. If our own country had remained neutral and kept out of the war, it is fair to assume that the number of immigrants would have increased when peace came. But the misfortunes and privations that must come to our own people and the future effects of the war on this country may change all this. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 117 Let this be as it may, we now have, as the result of past immigration, a great body of unassimilable foreign elements in this country that is going to tax the wisdom, the patriotism, and the generosity of the American people, if these immigrants are to be made a benefit and not a lasting detriment to the country. CHAPTER X EDUCATION. SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS THE public schools, under the admirable systems that prevail in most of the States, are doing a great work in the effort to lift foreign-born and other poor and unfortunate children out of the misery of ignorance and unwholesome living in which so many of them are found at home. But these efforts have but little ef- fect upon their social and domestic conditions. The child who, unwashed and unkempt, comes out of a filthy and desolate home, to his school, and goes back to it again when school hours are over, is dreadfully handicapped in the race for an education and the schools, with their army of teachers, sympathetic and eager to help these unfortunates, labor under most dis- couraging difficulties. Many children of this class, especially some of the foregn-born are bright and eager to learn, but their home life is the greatest obstacle to their ad- vancement. Some grow out of their environment, sur- mount the obstacles that confront them, obstacles not common to their school associates, and make good citizens, sometimes great men. But no child should be left to struggle alone against such odds. The children should be reached at their homes, and the 118 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 119 process of home education, right thinking, and right living carried into the home as a necessary aid to the educational work in the school. The parents of these children should be taught to know that a clean body and a pure home are necessary to a pure and healthy mind. They should be made to understand that their children, if they are to compete successfully with other children and later meet successfully the trials and tribulations of the world, must commence with the right home life. So, the work of education should commence in the homes and extend, in the first instance, to the parents. It is they who need to be helped to sanitary homes and taught how to keep these homes sanitary and whole- some. Poverty is respectable, if it is clean and decent poverty. The homes of the poor may be kept as clean and as respectable as the homes of the rich. Unr cleanness and filth are never respectable and are in- excusable in the homes of the poor, if proper homes are provided, as well as in other homes. But how can a home be made clean and wholesome in the slums, the shacks, and overcrowded tenement-houses where so many of the poor people are condemned to live? Here, as has been pointed out, is the great obstacle to right living, right thinking, right education. Such homes destroy, in the minds of most of the young of this class, all incentive to obtain an education and become something in the world. Efforts have been made, sometimes by the public authorities and sometimes by generous and sympa- thetic people, to reach and overcome this obstacle, by 120 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN entering the homes of the poor, and in that direct way making the effort to better the condition of the children at home and to get them out of their homes into the air and sunshine, and interest them in desirable out- door sports and amusements. The social settlements, playgrounds associations, and other like organizations have done much in this way, and their efforts should be better appreciated and more highly commended. Not only should their efforts be commended but these organizations should have the material and generous aid and assistance of people possessed of means suf- ficient to give such aid. Better still : all such work as this should be done by the public authorities and ample means provided for the work. This is the only way in which it can be efficiently and successfully done. The home should be considered as the one place of all others where the work should be commenced and per- sistently and continuously prosecuted. No poor family should be neglected. It would be a work of the greatest economy. This method would decrease im- morality and crime, make better and more useful men and women, lessen the number of idlers, drunkards, incompetents, and dependents, by whom society is now overburdened, and elevate wonderfully the standard of living and citizenship. The country is doubly burdened, and its citizenship debased and degraded by two directly opposite classes of citizens: the idle and dependent poor and the idle and profligate rich. They are both leeches on the body politic. Both should be taught how to live and how to make themselves respectable members of society, MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 121 helpful to themselves and to their fellow-men. There are few objects in life more useless or more despicable than the very rich men and women who live only to spend their unearned riches in profligate living and sensual enjoyment of useless and unprofitable amuse- ments. They are not only useless members of society, giving nothing, doing nothing for the common good; their lives are an evil example that too many, deceived by the glamor of their ostentatious way of living, are led to follow, to their degradation and ruin. If the terrible war that is upon us shall teach an extravagant and wasteful people the lesson of economy, modest and unostentatious living, it will not have been in vain. As it is, the rich have grown richer and more numerous, and the poor poorer and more helpless. The war has drawn away from the needy poor, into other channels, much of the sympathy and help here- tofore extended to them. The commendable sympathy for the soldiers and the worthy and patriotic desire to provide them with all the comforts possible have drawn attention away from the needs of the poor and unfortunate. Charitable organizations, hitherto sup- ported by public funds and the generosity of private individuals, are suffering for the means necessary to care for the needy and worthy poor at home. We are contributing millions in aid of the poor and unfortunate of foreign countries and leaving our own to suffer the pangs of hunger and want. But this is a digression. The* efforts of the social settlements do reach the homes of the poor and of the foreigners who have not comprehended the way of 122 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN living that should prevail in a country like this. In this way they have done much good, and have been a valuable aid to the public schools; and if by some means the people that they have been trying to help could be suitably housed, their work, the work of these organizations would be made much easier and much more effective. So, looking upon this crying evil from any point of view, and treating it in a broad and comprehensive way, we come back again and again to the undeniable fact that the one great need of this unfortunate class of people is fit places in which to live. This provided, other things necessary to the uplift of this class into better conditions will follow as a matter of course. It is impossible to make people respectable and self- respecting when they live, as they are compelled to live, in unsanitary, broken-down, filthy, and over- crowded buildings called "homes." CHAPTER XI SELF-HELP ONE of the chief objects of better social conditions, and help of those who suffer from existing conditions, should be to teach those who are the immediate and principal sufferers to help themselves, and encourage and stimulate them to greater efforts in their own be- half. .They should be made to understand that they must make this effort if they are to maintain their self- respect and the respect of their fellow-men. De- pendence on others for the things they are able to do for themselves saps their independence and is, in itself, degrading. It is of the greatest importance, looking at it from every point of view, to lessen the number of dependents and incompetents and make them self- supporting. We do not want in this country to build up and have to maintain, either by public or private charity, a great body of dependents and beggars, nor do we want to make this a paternalistic government that takes upon itself the burden of caring for people who are able to take care of themselves. This work of elevating thought along this line and stimulating such unfortunates to greater endeavor on their own part must, in great part, be done in the homes. How far it is being done, in the schools, for 123 124 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN the benefit of the coming generations is hard to tell. Teachers cannot, without extraordinary efforts, know the needs of individual cases nor the conditions at home that are destroying, in whole or in part, the ef- forts that are being made in the children's behalf in the schoolroom. This is exceedingly important. In some of the cities the public schools are so conducted as to reach the homes of the unfortunates who are handicapped by conditions there. Schools are estab- lished in the congested districts of the poor, where foreign immigrants are crowded together, and teach- ers are expected to visit the homes of such children and endeavor to remove such obstacles to their ad- vancement and progress. It is impossible to know just how far teachers in such schools are going in their work, in the homes of the poor, to supplement and make more effective the work done in the school. This must depend in great measure upon the individual teacher. Some are tak- ing great interest in the welfare of their pupils who come from this class, and are doing excellent work. They find conditions in such localities and in some homes shockingly bad. In some this state of affairs excites disgust, others sympathy, a spirit of helpful- ness, and a sincere desire to ameliorate conditions. These of the latter class are, to a limited extent, doing a great work. But their opportunities for doing good in this way are limited by inadequate appropriations of money to carry on the work. They stand appalled at the deplorable conditions known to but few besides themselves, and are helpless to do more than advise MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 125 and encourage where money and other substantial means are necessary to remove these conditions that militate so strongly against the work they are trying to do for the children. There is one way out of this unhappy and unneces- sary condition of things : The public authorities whose 'duty it is to look after the education of the children must be awakened to the important fact that money must be provided with which to remove the condi- tions and make homes for such children that will put them on a level with the more fortunate ones and fit their minds for the reception of the education that is made free to all alike. This duty cannot be too strongly urged upon those who have the education and welfare of the children in their keeping. Very few of them really know what the conditions are, and those who do, as a rule, show a shocking indif- ference to them and seem to care but little for what is their obvious duty. CHAPTER XII FORWARD TO THE LAND THE lamentable congestion that so generally pre- vails in the larger cities would be immensely relieved if the millions of people who lodge there and remain year after year, often for a lifetime, in misery and desolation could be in some way induced to go out into the agricultural districts and make their living there, in the pure, unpolluted air and healthful sun- shine. In this time of war, when every available foot of land needs to be cultivated to supply the necessaries of life, their help in the fields is more than ever necessary, not only in their own interest but in the interest of the whole country and of other nations who are our allies in the conflict. By the demands and exigencies of war we are placed in a position where we must supply food not only for our own people and our own army but for our allies and their armies, or lose the war. It is a stupendous undertaking. The length to which we must go in this endeavor staggers the imagination. It was not dreamed of when we entered the war. The peo- ple are only beginning now to realize in some degree the extent of our war obligations. Meet these obli- gations we must, without limitation or evasion, let 126 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 127 the sacrifices and deprivations resulting from it be what they may. We have in this country to-day millions of acres of tillable land, uncultivated and going to waste, and at the same time there are millions of men, women, and children living in poverty in the slums, shacks, and overcrowded tenement-houses in the cities, and breath- ing the pestilential, disease-burdened air of these places, who might be cultivating these unused lands to their own immeasurable benefit and in aid of the war and the future prosperity of the country. The fact that so many of these people, immigrants from foreign countries, having been farmers and farm laborers in the countries from which they came, are peculiarly fitted for work on the farm and unfit for the work to be had in the cities, makes the situation the more incongruous and lamentable. The speech of Senator Dillingham on this subject in the United States Senate in December, 1914, has already been referred to in another connection. Again we gather from the same source the following pertinent facts relating to the precise question now under con- sideration : Another significant factor in the problem lies in the fact that while this new immigration is made up so largely of males, it consists almost wholly of common or unskilled laborers. In volume i, page 121, of the com- mission's report, a table will be found which shows that common or farm laborers, or those without occupa- tion, received during the 12 years from 1899 to 1910 con- 128 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN stituted the following proportion of the immigration by races in that period : South Italians, 85.4 per cent. ; Hebrews, 32.9 per cent. ; Polish, 93.7 per cent.; Slovaks, 95.6 per cent.; north Italians, 79.6 per cent; Hungarians, 91.4 per cent.; Croatians and Slovenians, 95 per cent.; Greeks, 92.3 per cent. ; Lithuanians, 93.3 per cent. ; Ruthenians, 79.5 per cent. Of the Bulgarians, Servians, and Monte- negrins, 96.7 per cent, of them belong to those classes; of the Finnish, 94 per cent. ; of the Roumanians, 97.3 per cent. ; and of the Portuguese, 93 per cent. So it ap- pears that the males making up this immigration were almost wholly common or farm laborers in the countries from whence they come. You would naturally think, therefore, that they would go to the farms in this coun- try. But have they done so? I regret to say that they have not. I was interested in what the Senator from New York [Mr. O'Gorman] said this morning about the area of our land and the opportunity there is for this class of immigrants to find places upon the soil; but the fact is that the new immigration does not go to the soil. It proceeds almost wholly and directly to the cities. From the year 1880 to 1909, a period of 30 years and I might say that this will be an answer to an inquiry that was made in the debate this morning by the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Vardaman] we received from Aus- tria-Hungary, in round numbers, 2,850,000 immigrants; from Italy, 2,801,000; from Russia, 2,134,000; in all, 7,785,000 immigrants. That was in the period of 30 years. Now, the census of 1910 reveals the most re- markable fact that of that entire number less than I per cent, were found in that year to be managers of MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 129 farms in this country, either as owners or as tenants. To be exact, only nine-tenths of I per cent, of the entire im- migration from those countries, covering a period of 30 years, was found managing farms in this country, either as owners or as tenants. ... Of the Russians in this country, 87 per cent, were found to be denizens of the cities, while of those from Austria-Hungary the propor- tion was 75 per cent. ; of those from Roumania, 92 per cent. ; of the Turks, 83 per cent. Of the immigration during the four years immediately preceding the census of 1910, 78.5 per cent, of the whole number admitted proceeded directly to the cities. Think of that ! Almost eight-tenths of the whole went directly to the centers of population. I have already commented upon the fact that a very large proportion of these adult men were common or farm laborers in the countries from which they came. Over 70 per cent., probably nearer 75 per cent, of them, came from southeastern Europe, and 82 per cent, of them went to New England, the Atlantic, and east-north-cen- tral States. I wish you would consider that statement for a mo- ment. New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan constitute about 13 per cent, of the area of continental United States, and yet it appears that over 80 per cent, of this entire immigration found its destination in that area; and that is where they are found to-day in the large manufacturing towns of that large manufacturing section of the United States. The commission, in order to investigate the condition of aliens in American industries, sent out their agents 130 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN and caused to be examined 37 of the leading industries in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains. In doing so they came in contact with 700,00x3 different em- ployees in the different industries. They made 23,000 family studies, apportioning them among the different classes of industries, and they went into 200 industrial communities to study conditions there. They found that of that 700,000 employees with whom they came in con- tact 59.9 per cent. call it 60 per cent. of the whole were born abroad, that 15 per cent, were their children, and that less than 20 per cent, were the sons or the daughters of American born parents. In the iron and steel industry they found 57.7 per cent., foreign born ; in the slaughtering and meat-packing industry, 60.7 per cent. ; in wool and worsted manufac- turing, 61.9 per cent. ; in the coal industry, 61.9 per cent. ; in the copper mining and smelting industry, 65.3 per cent. ; in the leather tanning, currying, and finishing in- dustry, 67 per cent. ; in cotton-goods manufactures, 68.7 per cent. ; in clothing manufactures, 72.2 per cent. ; in silk-goods manufactures, 75.1 per cent, or an average of 65.6 per cent, of foreign-born employees in these in- dustries. The information given in this brief form by Sena- tor Dillingham is gleaned from the report of the Im- migration Commission heretofore mentioned, and will serve our present purpose. The importance of send- ing these immigrants forward to the land has not been overlooked. Strenuous but not well-directed efforts have been made to induce them to abandon their pres- ent homes in the cities and go to the country. There are difficulties and obstacles that have up to the pres- MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 131 ent time made these well-intentioned efforts of no avail, or very little. Most of the immigrants come with no money, or with too little for them to acquire lands of their own and make themselves homes. Wages paid farm laborers, and accommodations furnished them, have not been made attractive. They are usu- ally treated as servants and inferior beings. They have no home on the farm, in any proper sense, and no home life. They have no associates of their own race or country and therefore the life is to them a very lonely one. To meet and overcome these obvious obstacles, cer- tain colonization schemes have been inaugurated, with a view to bringing people of the same nationalities together as landowners. The great difficulty in the way of carrying out these schemes is the lack of funds in the hands of the people sought to be reached and benefited by such movements. The efforts at coloni- zation are made for profit and they are, as a rule, found to be unprofitable, principally for the reason stated. This difficulty has been met elsewhere, in some instances, by the advancement to the locator on public lands of enough money to improve the land and make the initial payment on it; this sum to be repaid in easy installments. This is done under State aid and direction. But, at the present time, it is not the public land so much that needs to be colonized as land privately owned and held in large and unculti- vated tracts, which should be divided up into smaller tracts and more intensively cultivated. In California an Act was passed by the legislature in 1915 to 132 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN Investigate and consider the question of land colon- ization, and the various -forms of land banks, coopera- tive credit unions, and other rural credit systems adopted or proposed in this country or elsewhere, with especial view to the needs of the rural communities of this state. Under this act a commission was appointed to in- vestigate and report on the existing conditions; which was done. In this report, it is said : Within the last five years questions of land tenure and land settlement have assumed a hitherto unthought of im- portance in the United States. The causes for this are the disappearance of free, fertile public land; the ris- ing prices of privately-owned farm lands ; the increase in tenant farming and a clearer recognition of its dangers ; and the increasing attractions of city life which threaten the social impairment of rural communities by causing young people to leave the farms. Some of the most enlightened nations of the world have gone far toward solving the problems created by such undesirable conditions by the adoption of new at- titudes on the part of the government towards land ownership and land settlement. In such countries the state has taken an active part in subdivding large estates and in creating conditions which will enable farm laborers and farmers of small capital to own their homes. They have adopted this policy because experience has shown that non-resident ownership and tenant farming are politically dangerous and socially undesirable; that ignorant and nomadic farm labor is bad; and that the balance between the growth of city and country can be maintained only through creating rural conditions which MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 133 will make the farm as attractive as the office or factory for men and women of character and intelligence. And again, in explanation of the present system of private holding of large uncultivated tracts, it is fur- ther said: It is to the interest of the whole state that its fertile lands should be cultivated and that active colonization should be promoted. The state now buys a large part of its meat and many other farm products abroad. In- creased production would lessen the cost of living and keep at home money now sent to other sections to pay for food products. Moreover, great properties, owned by non-residents, are being cultivated by tenants or by no- madic and unsatisfactory hired labor. These great prop- erties ought to be subdivided and cultivated by residents. From statistics furnished by C. L. Seavey, tax commis- sioner, it appears that 310 landed proprietors own over four million acfes of land suited to intensive cultivation and capable of supporting a dense population. This would make 100,000 forty-acre farms. One firm owns nearly one million acres ; one railroad owns 500,000 acres. In Kern County four companies own over 1,000,000 acres, or more than half the land in private ownership. The Kern County Land Company alone owns 356,000 acres. In Merced County Miller & Lux own 245,000 acres. The evils of such ownership are every year be- coming more apparent. We have at one end of the social scale a few rich men who as a rule do not live on their estates, and at the other end either a body of shifting farm laborers or a farm tenantry made up largely of aliens, who take small interest in the progress of the community. Political stability, the best results 134 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN in agriculture, and satisfactory social conditions require that this inheritance from a Mexican land system and former land laws of the United States be abolished. The conditions mentioned in this report prevail, in greater or less degree, in the far Western and Pacific Coast States. If the country is to have the full bene- fit of these millions of acres of fertile lands, these tracts must be divided up into smaller holdings and cultivated by landowners, not by tenants. We have the men and women to occupy these lands, in small holdings, able to cultivate them to their full capacity; but these men and women have not the money neces- sary to acquire title to the property and develop it. This need will have to be met, either by the national Government, the States, or by private individuals. Either the Government or the States could do it, and profit largely by doing so. If it is to be done by private individuals, to make it a success, it must be largely a matter of charity. They who supply the money to such homeseekers, to be repaid in small installments, covering a long period of years, the only way it is believed that the desired results can be accomplished, may or may not be made whole in the end. But whether they can be or not, there are some benevolent and charitable people, who are de- voting large sums of money to the assistance of the poor who are not able to help themselves, who might be made to see that there is no field of charitable en- deavor where their money could be used to advantage so general and widespread. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 135 The investigations made by the commission above mentioned have shown conclusively that the attempt to colonize lands as a profit-making business has gen- erally resulted in entire or partial failure. The results are discouraging and unsatisfactory. The commission visited and investigated thirty-two of these colonies in the State of California, and interviewed the settlers and others, taking the testimony of a large number of witnesses supposed to have special knowledge on the subject. The investigation proved that, in most cases, the settlers were wholly unable to meet the re- quired payments, or to improve or stock their land in such a way as to make the cultivation of the land either profitable or self-sustaining. Many of the set- tlers exhausted their resources in making the first payment and could not make the land yield enough to cover the remaining installments. The interest charges were usually too high and could not be met. Commenting on the conditions disclosed by the in- vestigation, the commission, in its report, says: The inability of settlers to meet their payments in these different colonies does not necessarily mean that the land is not valuable for agriculture or horticulture or that, in most cases, it is not worth the price asked for it. What it does mean is that we have been carrying on colonization enterprises on an impossible financial plan. If the settlers in these colonies where the soil is good and the water supply satisfactory, had been given the time, the interest rate, and the assistance in other di- rections given settlers in Denmark, Ireland, Germany, 136 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN or Australia, the percentage of successes here would have been as large as in those countries. Many with whom this commission has talked do not think that any changes are needed in colonization methods. They say, "In the past men paid for land in five years. Why can they not do it to-day?" They seek to explain the large percentage of failures by the settlers' lack of industry and frugality. They tend naturally but unwisely to continue along old lines, even if they have to be content with settlers of low ideals and a debased standard of living. The fact is that to-day men cannot pay for land in five years from the profits from the soil. There are different ways of looking at this problem as it affects different interests. The California com- mission, like most other public bodies, has treated the question mainly as an economic one, and the work of the commission as intended to. benefit California and advance her interest with but scant consideration for the people in need of homes, the general benefit that must result from taking the unfortunates out of the congested districts of the cities, unskilled laborers working for starvation wages, and placing them on small farms of their own, where they can live respect- ably and become independent laborers, self-sustaining, and at the same time advance the agricultural inter- ests of the whole country. It is this latter phase of the subject that is now under consideration, and we must keep to the subject. But treating it solely from the side of the State, and leaving out of sight the interest of those needing to be helped to a better way of living, how important MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 137 it is that we substitute for the farm-tenant and the farm-laborer the farm-owner, whose every interest is the improvement of his own little farm and the ad- vancement of agricultural interests generally. The farm-laborer is not to be despised. His lot should be made far better than it is now, and farm labor should be encouraged and made more attractive. If this were done, the laboring men in the cities would the more readily seek work on the farm, as has already been suggested. The difficulty of this situation is clearly pointed out in the report of the commission, as follows: Intelligent, reliable farm labor is a growing need of agriculture in practically every county. Men of supe- rior qualifications are needed to look after blooded live stock, to care for orchards and vineyards, and to do the work which requires interest, knowledge, and skill on the part of the laborer. It is becoming increasingly dif- ficult to keep men of this type on the farm because of the constantly increased wages and greater opportunities of the city. Everywhere it is recognized that this is one of the most difficult problems connected with agricultural prog- ress. Under the best possible conditions there are serious drawbacks to farm labor which tend to drive good men away from it. There is difficulty in providing employment throughout the year. It is impossible to pay as high wages as are now paid artisans in the cities. When to this is added social ostracism or at least a posi- tion of social inferiority compared to city workers it is inevitable that the best American workers will leave the farm. 138 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN On the other hand, it is feasible to create conditions which will make life as a farm worker more desirable and as profitable to those with families as is the life of the unskilled laborer or average artisan in cities. This has been demonstrated in Ireland, Denmark, Germany, and Australia. It has been accomplished in these and other countries by enabling the laborer to own his home. In Germany these homes include from one acre to five acres of land. Such an area in the language of a govern- ment report, "permits of the cultivation of the wheat, po- tatoes and vegetables for the household and of the rearing of a few pigs ; for milk, goats are kept and some- times even a cow. It has, besides, the great advantage that it may be cultivated by the wife and children and does not prevent the laborer from working else- where." . . . In Australia, where natural conditions are like ours, there are great areas of unpeopled land. But the earlier ^nomadic and unreliable farm labor is happily disap- pearing in the areas which are being settled under the state system of colonization. The first steps in this reform were made in the ir- rigated settlements. In these, two-acre homes for farm laborers are dotted all over the areas. Frequently four homes are grouped at road crossings. On these two- acre allotments, the state builds, when required, cheap but comfortable three or four-room houses and sells the land and houses to farm workers who show evidences of industry, experience and character and who desire and expect to make most of their living working for wages. Only a nominal cash payment is required and at least twenty years' time with a low rate of interest is given in which to complete payments. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 139 The laborer obtaining a home under this plan can keep a cow, some pigs, and poultry. He can grow his own vegetables and thus greatly reduce the cost of living. It gives to his wife and children a sense of security and in- dependence. To them the state becomes a benefactor. They love it for what it has done for them. No single feature of the Australian system of closer settlement has been more popular or useful than the two- acre farm laborers' homes in the irrigation areas. The laborers are contented. They are beautifying their homes and are meeting their payments. They provide reliable casual help for neighboring farmers and farmers' wives. The children are a valuable aid in the rush of the fruit picking season. Over 8,000 acres have been absorbed in farm laborers' allotments in the closer settlements of the state of Victoria, Australia; and the state is being asked to buy land to increase the number. The farmers who ask for this guarantee permanent em- ployment. In England, Ireland, Denmark, and Italy thousands of such homes have been provided for farm laborers. Their condition and their character have been immensely im- proved by the independence and the security which come with owning their homes and little patches of land. One regrettable feature of all American rural life is the failure to recognize as fully as is desirable the im- portance of the farm laborer as a citizen and a voter. On his character and intelligence depends quite largely the productive value of land; and in many sections he does much to make rural communities socially desirable or the reverse. We are giving a great deal of attention to the efficiency of the industrial worker and to the con- ditions which govern his hours of liberty, his mode of 140 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN living and his competency. We should give the same attention to the farm laborer in even a greater degree. What he needs is to have a definite and self-respecting position. It ought to be possible for the farm laborer to marry, have a comfortable home for his family, and bring up his children as self-respecting members of the community. This is now not even remotely possible. The condition of the farm laborer, as disclosed by the investigation of the State Immigration and Housing Commission, are a menace to our industrial future and a sorry commentary on our claim to economic equality. It shows that our farm labor is made up of a welter of nationalities. The list includes Albanians, East Indians, Filipinos, Greeks, Spaniards, Slavonians, Russians, Mexicans, Maltese, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Ar- menians, Italians, a few Scotchmen and Germans, and here and there an American. Of these 60 per cent, are migratory and 40 per cent, are local, with jobs averaging from 10 to 15 days in length. The hours of labor are from 10 to 16. Too often they are poorly housed. Sometimes they are not housed at all ; instead, they may lodge in the mesquite bush or the haystack. There is a deep-seated prejudice against American and other white farm laborers. The percentage of Japanese and Hindus is becoming larger. The degeneration of white laborers under these con- ditions is inevitable. Many of them become hoboes. They lose all ambition and all regard for the interests of their employers. The sections of cities where this kind of labor congregates are injuriously affected. As a class they are discontented. With their continuous tendency towards disturbance they are a menace to political and social peace. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 141 The remedy for this is to make conditions which will attract dependable white people, especially Americans. We can not go on creating bad conditions of life and seeking people who are indifferent to those conditions without destroying our rural civilization. This is a plea for better rural conditions and should command our sympathy. While we are striving to better the condition of laborers in the cities the condi- tions of laborers on the farm should not be forgotten. The chief virtue of the efforts in this direction in other countries, as pointed out by the commission, is the fact that laborers are made land-owners and have homes of their own. No matter how small the tract of land acquired by them may be, it is home, and belongs to them. It makes them more independent, commands for them more consideration and respect, and makes farm labor more stable and more reliable and trust- worthy in every way, thus benefiting both the laborer and the landowner who employs him. To make any effort in this direction successful, it must be through government agencies, either State or national, and be kept under government control. The homes furnished to poor people in the country must be made sanitary and kept so, and not be allowed to degenerate into shacks and be overcrowded, as they are in the cities, or little good will come of such a movement, commendable and desirable as it is if rightly inaugurated and carried out. To carry out successfully any governmental scheme of land settlement, whether for cultivation on a larger 142 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN! scale or as homes for the men who labor for others, great care will have to be exercised in the selection of such settlers. Indeed, the eagerness of the unworthy and undesirables to secure lands in this way will be its greatest danger. But the cities are crowded with laboring men and women, and their families, in every way worthy to participate in the benefits of such a movement and who, handicapped by their poverty, their associations, and their environment, would with such advantages make good and reliable citizens and render valuable aid in building up the agricultural and industrial interests of the country. Many of these people, whose lives have fallen in unfortunate places, have everything necessary to their success on the farm except money. They have energy, industry, and thrift, coupled with a wholesome desire to make themselves useful. This one need, under proper regulations and precautions, can be supplied by the Government with safety and inestimable benefit. This State land-settlement policy has been adopted and is working satisfactorily, and with great benefit, in not less than fifteen countries of the world. The United States is far behind other countries in this great movement. This has resulted in great part, no doubt, from the fact that the public lands of the Gov- ernment have been opened to settlement and purchase at nominal prices. But that day has gone by. But little Government land, fit for cultivation, is left for settlement. Besides, this does not meet the present need that is pressing upon us. The great need now is the supply MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 143 to poor people of money, or credit, to buy and im- prove their lands; the money to be repaid as they are able. Congress has passed an act designed to enable the Government to supply funds to farmers, known as the Federal Farm Loan Act, but its benefits are restricted to farmers who can give first mortgage security on property worth double the amount of the loan. Obviously, the relief provided by this law, if it shall prove to be beneficial at all, would not reach the cases now under consideration. These people could not, by any possibility, bring themselves within the requirements of the law. It follows that further legis- lation is necessary, if the National Government is to lend its aid to this movement. It may be done, but perhaps not so effectively, by the States. If this is not done, it must be left to public-spirited, patriotic, and humane private citizens who are able to see the good they can do in this way with their surplus money, not only for this unfortunate class of people but for the country at large. The success of land colonization and settlement in other countries, especially in France and Denmark, should appeal strongly to the law-makers in our own country and induce speedy and effective action. In a late circular issued by friends of land settle- ment, some phases of the question are well put in the following language : The whole world is groping for the proper method of getting the land into the ownership of the people. Britain is hungry because this has not already been done and realizes that the men returning from the trenches 144 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN,; will no longer tolerate the maintenance of shooting pre- serves while they are without homes. Russia is in revo- lution with this as one of the mainsprings. There is an unrest even in this country that will not down, an unrest that is unaware of its own cause. Whatever the cause, its solution is the conversion of the dissatisfied individual into a home owner. Peo- ple who own homes are not agitators. They have some- thing to lose and therefore are not for upheavals and the torch. Land-owning peasants will probably save Russia. Trouble in the future in this country can be avoided by getting the land to the people who cultivate it. The drift to the cities, the tendency toward tenantry, the ownership of land in large tracts by absent landlords, have been the most dangerous evidences of trouble ahead that have shown themselves in this country. Over here we see the danger and know the remedy. Only a great emergency, however, will arouse us to ap- plication of the cure. The emergency is at hand. The question of providing homes for returning sol- diers, by some such means, is very properly being agitated, at this time, and may bring results, but the benefits of such legislation should not by any means be confined to the soldiers. One good woman, well known to the author, has spent years of her life in the endeavor to work out and put in force a system of land settlement that would reach and aid the poor people in the congested sec- tions of the great cities, those worthy of such assist- ance, and others needing help, to abandon the lives they are living and go out on the lands as home- MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 145 owners. In this effort she has gathered together a number of distinguished statesmen, educators, and philanthropists anxious to assist in the good work, and organized what is known as the ' 'Forward- to-the- Land League," as a fitting instrument for carrying on her work. In a circular issued by the League recit- ing its objects and purposes and the means by which it proposes to carry them out, it is well said : THE IMMEDIATE PROGRAM I TO BRING TOGETHER THE MAN, THE LAND, AND THE CAPITAL Owing to the alarming increase of restless and migra- tory farm tenantry, and the growing problems of city congestion and unemployment, together with the great world demand for agricultural and allied products, and because of the vast area of uncultivated acreage and the expected influx into America of European farmers on account of the great war now in progress, as well as the serious problem presented by the presence in our cities of vast numbers of immigrants glutting our labor market, who are often especially fitted for agricultural life ; the following immediate program to bring together the MAN, the LAND and the necessary MONEY to finance small farm ownership is put forward. The Committee on Di- rection of this organization is composed of notable wel- fare workers and well-known business men. Men in all States are hungry through lack of work. In all these States are vast tracts idle for lack of men to cultivate them. Yet the idle man is as incapable of find- ing his way to a use of the land as are the waste places of taking the initiative. Many now holding jobs would abandon them and go to 146 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN farming if they could, thus making place for some man needing that job who prefers city life. Solution of the problems of city congestion and unem- ployment lies largely in proper distribution and direction. FOUR ACTIVITIES NOW The National Forward-to-the-Land League has four distinct though interrelated activities as the beginning of its program : ( i ) BUREAU OF LAND AND HOME WELFARE INFORMATION; (2) COLONIZATION, embracing scientific direction and social organization; (3) RURAL CREDIT; (4) MARKETS. This effort was well inaugurated and seemed to be on the way to success when our country entered the European war. This put an end to the movement, for the time being; but the war may in the end make it even more vitally necessary than ever. In this situation, which made any private effort in this direction next to impossible, Congress was ap- pealed to to render the necessary assistance to carry the work along as a public need. The following reci- tal of some of the work done by this League and its reasons for thinking that such a movement as it has in contemplation will bring beneficial and lasting re- sults is worthy of consideration: Our League conducted a bureau of information on the east side of New York City for nearly a year. We had night classes in gardening and household economics, taught by the Extension Department of the State Agri- cultural College. There were thousands of applicants of MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 147 all nationalities who wanted farms. Seventy-five per cent, had had farm experience here or abroad, but less than one per cent, were willing to go to isolated farms and cope with the problems presented by such locations. They are keen to go out in groups and build up rural vil- lages such as exist abroad. They want the standard of rural community recommended by our League. They insist that their children have proper school facilities and that the school is to be utilized as a social center. Money or land alone will not solve the problem. What the peo- ple themselves demand must be the ultimate criterion. The war has taught us the necessity for local self-suf- ficiency. Our country made its greatest progress dur- the time when the small village with its surrounding farm settlements was in full flower. Lack of communication ultimately broke up these self-sustaining farm communi- ties and the drift to the city began. To-day we have the means of communication and transportation, lack of which was the primary cause of our city congestion. We should, therefore, in organizing these groups for crop production this year, attempt to place the people on such tracts of agricultural land near our large cities as the owners place at our disposal at a reasonable price and on such terms of payment as can be met by the poorest from the farm earnings. During the first year this land must be free to the settlers. Love of home ownership is the strongest passion in the human heart and should be used as the motive power to place families on farms and cause them to work with patriotic fervor without con- scription. It has been aptly said that "no man ever shouldered a musket for a boarding house." The work so auspiciously entered upon by the League might well be made the foundation for a more extended 148 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN/ investigation and operation by the Government. How- ever this may be, we may be reasonably well assured that this beneficent work, so vital to so many people and to the welfare and best interests of the whole coun- try, will not stop here. CHAPTER XIII THE CHURCHES WHEN one thinks of the wage-earners and the poor and needy, one's thoughts turn, almost instinctively, to the church as the one instrument through and by which help could be brought to these unfortunates. Surely such as these need spiritual consolation and re- generation as well as physical comforts. But when one turns to the church as a means of relief from the conditions we have been considering, one meets only with disappointment. For some reason not easy to understand, the church has failed to meet its plain Christian duty towards this class of people. In a little book, "Your Part in Poverty," by George Lansbury, dealing with the condition of the poor in England, a book that every American as well as every Englishman should read, this is said of organized re- ligion, or the churches : Religion plays but a small and insignificant part in the life of any commercial nation. I have traveled all round the world, have seen life under the Southern Cross in Australia, in the United States of America, in Canada, and on the Continent of Europe, and what strikes me more than anything else is the complete divorce between organized religion and the people. The people are not, 149 ISO MAN'S DUTY TO MAN and never have been, actively hostile to religion, but the organizations for the spread of religion have failed, and are still failing, to get any sort of hold on the common people, who do not oppose nor accept religion, but re- main completely indifferent. The reason for this is that religion, like everything else in the world to-day, is looked upon by most of us as a matter of business. It is well that this criticism is limited to "organized religion." True religion is the refuge and the support of the poor and lowly as well as of the rich and pow- erful. It is the administration or application of re- ligion and the methods of religious teaching by organ- ized bodies of so-called "Christians" that is at fault. There are many individual Christian people whose sympathies go out to these unfortunate people, in full measure, and whose lives are given up to laudable efforts to relieve their condition. But the churches spend millions in the erection of fine places of wor- ship, and the poor go hungry and unclothed. They spend, too, millions more in missionary work in for- eign countries, while the darkest ignorance of Christ- ianity, criminal practices, want, and destitution flourish almost within the shadow of these costly edifices de- voted to the advancement of the Christian religion and dedicated to the service of God and the propagation of the principle of brotherly love. Millions more are spent in munificent salaries to distinguished and gifted pulpit orators, who preach to pews filled with the rich and powerful, dressed in their broadcloth and their silks and satins, who go away to praise the min- ister who has edified them by his eloquence and given MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 151 them a pleasant hour. The poor are not found there and those who listen do not go down among the poor and the lowly. On the morrow they are found in their places of business, the manufactory, the bank, the counting house, valiantly striving for the almighty dol- lar, or enjoying the opera, pink teas, or bridge whist. What have these to do with the tribulations, the pri- vations, the sorrows of the poor! What concern is it of theirs that the other half of the world, of which they are not a part, live in squalor and want, without religious consolation or Christian aid! Are these the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, whose ministrations were among the poor and lowly ? How the true Christ- ian people belonging to these religious organizations must suffer under these conditions! How they must long for some Christian leader that will turn the church back to its true and exalted divine mission. The one great and controlling cause of this falling away of the church from its holy mission is not far to seek. The church, like every other avenue of human endeavor, has been desecrated by the spirit of commercialism that is ruling the world to-day. Its pews are filled by "captains of industry," whose whole thought is centered on the acquisition of greater wealth, and to whom church-going is only a pastime. The presence of such as these, and their contributions to the church, are necessary to maintain the expensive organization. The vulgar display of wealth in the churches, their submission to the control of the rich, and their disregard of the crying necessities of the poor are offenses against Christianity and true religion. 152 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN In any struggle between Capital and Labor, no matter how just may be the demands of the wage-earners, who can point to any of the great churches taking the side of the workingmen struggling for fair wages and just treatment? What one of the great metropolitan churches would dare to stand with the wage-earners as against the employer class? It would mean de- serted pews and diminution of revenue that could not be endured. They must either espouse the cause of the industrial overlords, who support the churches, or as- sume a neutral attitude. They generally choose the latter as the safest course, and with this the patrons of the churches are satisfied. These strictures on the present attitude of organized religion towards the poor and needy, who should find refuge and help in their teachings and practices, may seem harsh, but they are not unjust. This failure of the churches to respond to the needs of the poor, and to aid in the effort being made by philanthropists and humanitarians to reform social conditions, is dis- appointing in the extreme. The churches have their charitable committees and other organizations, who look after the physical needs of the poor in some de- gree. For this they should have full credit. But this is not enough. This is not living up to the teachings of the Master. This is charity not religion, and may be found outside the church as well as within it. The spiritual needs of these people must be met as well as their physical needs ; and who so fit to fill this need, and upon whom does the duty of ministering to them rest, if not upon organized religion! MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 153 It is the mind that needs to be ministered to even more than the body. A clean mind makes a clean body. Right thinking makes right living. Peace of mind, a reliance upon God as the source of all good and the preserver of man, would bring health and happiness, prosperity and regeneration to thousands now living in spiritual darkness and physical want and degradation. Who is to bring to these unfortu- nates this blessing of understanding, right living, and right thinking, this reliance upon divine help as the only means of deliverance from the bondage in which they are living, if not the churches? If this little book can do no more than to arouse the churches to a higher sense of their religious duty in this respect, its preparation will not have been labor in vain. Sad as it is, it cannot be denied that the churches, as a rule, are out of touch with the people who, more than all others, need their help and the comforts of religion. They have shown their indif- ference to and neglect of those who need them and their ministrations every day. As a consequence, the working-people no longer sympathize with the church. They no longer look to organized religion for sympathy or for help. This is quite as unfortunate for the church as it is for the people who should look to them for aid and comfort. The time is coming, let us hope, when there will be a peaceful revolution against present church organizations and church methods that will re- store true religion, and make church organizations real followers of the great Teacher, and the servants of the true God. CHAPTER XIV DEMOCRACY A. WHAT IS DEMOCRACY? THE foundation stone of true and real Democracy is equality; equality before the law, equality of op- portunity; political, social, and industrial equality. This is perfect, ideal Democracy. We have not at- tained to it, perhaps we never shall; but we should be mindful of it always and come as near to its attain- ment as human institutions, rightly established and operated, can accomplish it. It was this kind of Dem- ocracy that the framers of the Constitution had in mind when the Government was formed. The funda- mental principle of Democracy is stated in the Declara- tion of Independence : /We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to se- cure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government be- comes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new 154 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 155 government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Here we have two vital elements of Democracy, namely : the equality of all men and the power of the people to govern ; what Mr. Lincoln called a "govern- ment of the people, for the people, by the people. " The Constitution was admirably designed to make these fundamental principles of Democracy effective. It commences with this solemn declaration: We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION for the United States of America. This is followed by the establishment of three de- partments of government, the Legislative, to make the laws ; the Executive, to administer them, and the Judi- cial, to construe and enforce them; each made inde- pendent of the other in its sphere of action. The powers of each of these departments are specifically defined and limited. Following the provisions of the Constitution, they define and protect the rights, the liberties, and the freedom of the people and guard them against arbitrary or unlawful encroachments upon those rights by any department of government or pub- 156 MAN'S DUTY TO MANi lie authority, State or national. This gave us what has been termed a "Representative Democracy," a gov- ernment controlled by the people, but acting through representatives chosen by them and responsible to them for their conduct. This form of government was simple enough, and adequate for the purpose intended to be carried out. As time went on, Amendments to the Constitution, intended mainly to make more secure the rights and liberties of the people, were proposed by Congress, and adopted by the people. For the more than a century since the Government was formed the people have never lost faith in this Constitution, nor lost their respect and reverence for the principles of government embraced in its terms. The country has passed through many vicissitudes ; its population has increased from a mere handful to over a hundred millions of people; its affairs have become more and more complicated; it has been shaken to its foundation by civil war and is now engaged in the greatest war the world has ever known ; it has become rich and powerful; its people have, by circumstances growing out of its increasing wealth, been divided into classes, and Capital and Labor are at war with each other; millions of former slaves have been lib- erated as a result of civil war and have been granted the right of suffrage, and in a number of States the right of suffrage has been granted to women, and others will follow, until the right becomes national; but through all these changes the Constitution established at the birth of the nation has stood, and stands to- MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 157 day, unshaken and untouched, the fundamental law of a great Democracy. More than a half-century ago Alexis Charles Henri Clerel de Tocqueville, a distinguished French noble- man and aristocrat, made a critical study of the insti- tutions and conditions in this country, and embodied his views respecting them in a book he entitled, "Dem- ocracy in America." The book excited great interest in this country, and has been regarded as a fair and unbiased discussion of the principles of our Govern- ment and its probable future. In the introductory chapter of the work, M. de Tocqueville, speaking of the equality of conditions pre- vailing then in America, says : Amongst the novel objects that attracted my attention during my stay in the United States, nothing struck me more forcibly than the general equality of conditions. I readily discovered the prodigious influence which this primary fact exercises on the whole course of society, by giving a certain direction to public opinion, and a certain tenor to the laws; by imparting new maxims to the governing powers, and peculiar habits to the governed. I speedily perceived that the influence of this fact ex- tends far beyond the political character and the laws of the country, and that it has no less empire over civil so- ciety than over the Government ; it creates opinions, en- genders sentiments, suggests the ordinary practices of life, and modifies whatever it does not produce. The more I advanced in the study of American society, the more I perceived that the equality of conditions is the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be 158 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN derived, and the central point at which all my observa- tions constantly terminated. The equality of conditions to which, it is supposed, the author refers, no longer exist in the same degree that it did in those earlier days. The growing wealth of the country, concentrated in the hands of the few, and the increasing power and influence of the very rich, the great corporations, and other combinations of wealth, and the growing subjection of the laboring classes to the dominating and arrogant power of the employer class, have gone far to destroy the "equality of conditions" which the distinguished author seemed to regard as so important. Farther along in this book this phase of the subject will be considered more spe- cifically and in detail. Let us follow the friendly French critic of our prin- ciples of government a little farther in this connection. Of the sovereignty of the people, on which our gov- ernment is founded, he says : In America the principle of the sovereignty of the peo- ple is not either barren or concealed, as it is with some other nations ; it is recognized by the customs and pro- claimed by the laws ; it spreads freely, and arrives with- out impediment at its most remote consequences. If there be a country in the world where the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people can be fairly appreciated, where it can be studied in its application to the affairs of society, and where its dangers and its advantages may be foreseen, that country is assuredly America. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 159 It is not my purpose now to enter into any extended discussion of the principles of Democracy, but to treat the subject only in a very general way; to consider briefly the effect of these principles upon social con- ditions; to trace the history of Democracy in our own country, and to point out some of the dangers that are threatening to destroy those principles and to build up an aristocracy of wealth, more obnoxious than the hereditary rank and aristocracies of European countries, and an autocratic government made possi- ble by the breaking down of constitutional barriers and limitations intended to protect the rights and lib- erties of the people. A pure democracy, a government by the people acting directly and in the mass and not through rep- resentatives, which may be termed pure Democracy, is practically impossible in a great countrj^like ours. It has prevailed in New England in the smaller com- munities, action being taken in town meetings, but this to a very limited extent. Whether, however, they act directly or through representatives, there can be no Democracy in the proper sense unless the ultimate power rests in the people and they are supreme. This sovereign power in the people is the very spirit and essence of Democracy. But this power must be exer- cised under constitutional restraints and limitations, or Democracy may degenerate into anarchy or an oli- garchy of the select few. At the same time, the essence of Democracy lies largely in the abolition of conditions which shall give constitutional permanence to class distinctions. This 160 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN was one of the prime purposes and objects of the Con- stitution. After all, however, a country cannot be made democratic by law. We must distinguish be- tween "political and social democracy, between the democracy of laws and the democracy of sentiment and manners." There may be complete political dem- ocracy and great social distinctions. Our experience has demonstrated this fact completely and beyond dis- pute. It has been very well said that "the example of the American people shows that democratic politi- cal institutions are compatible with very great inequal- ities in cultivation, manners, style of living, social con- sideration, and the distribution of property." Again, it has been said : The fundamental basis of democracy is the recognition of the rights of man, as man. Its central principle is the equality of all men before the law, without regard to birth, property or social rank; from which principle is deduced the right of all men to an equal voice or vote in deciding upon public affairs, or in selecting agents and representatives to perform the functions of legis- lation and to execute the laws. The principles of Democracy, and the stability of our free Republic, are now undergoing the supreme test, as we pass through the crucible of a great for- eign war with all that it implies. That it will with- stand this test and come out of the war chastened, regenerated, and made stronger and more truly demo- cratic is the hope and trust of all true and loyal Amer- icans. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 161 Having in a general way considered what constitutes Democracy and our institutions founded upon demo- cratic principles, let us turn for a moment to the contemplation of some of the dangers of Democracy, and to the Government, that now exist or that may arise in the future. If such dangers do exist or are likely to confront us in the future, the American peo- ple should be awake and prepared to meet them before it is too late. B. WAR ENDANGERS DEMOCRACY AT this time, when our country is actually engaged in a great war with foreign nations, it is only the part of wisdom to consider what effect such a war may have on our form of government and the democratic principles upon which it is founded. It has already been demonstrated beyond a peradventure that a demo- cratic government is not fitted to carry on a war. It lacks strength and concentration of action and pur- pose. We have found it necessary almost at the very beginning to vest in the President autocratic powers never dreamed of in times of peace. These powers extend far beyond the mere conduct of the military movements and the control of the army. They reach into the business, social, and domestic affairs of the people, and into every American home. This is not said in criticism of this extraordinary increase of power in the hands of the executive. It is one of the necessary evils of war, and if not carried to ex- cess, is justifiable as a war measure. 162 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN It has been very well said by a great statesman that "it is of the nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority." In our own experience we have, of late, been verifying this statement. Never in all our history has the legislative branch of the Government so completely surrendered its powers and its functions to the executive. If this exaltation of executive power shall be only temporary and the result of the necessities and exigencies of war, it need not excite any great alarm; but, as will appear further along, this tendency to increase the executive power at the expense of the legislative has pot been confined to war times nor founded on war necessities. This being so, and it cannot be disputed, there is reason for grave apprehensions for the future, calling for exalted, disinterested patriotism that shall put an end to this tendency towards unconstitutional usurpation of power dangerous to the Republic. Pow- er once assumed is reluctantly surrendered. It is in this particular, more perhaps than any other, that a condition of war may be regarded as a grave menace to Democracy. Turning again to de Tocque- ville's ' 'Democracy in America," we find him say- ing: The most important occurrence which can mark the annals of a people is the breaking out of a war. In war a people struggles with the energy of a single man against foreign nations in the defense of its very ex- istence. The skill of a government, the good sense of the community, and the natural fondness which men en- tertain for their country, may suffice to maintain peace in MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 163 the interior of a district, and to favor its internal pros- perity ; but a nation can only carry on a great war at the cost of more numerous and more painful sacrifices ; and to suppose that a great number of men will of their own accord comply with these exigencies of the State is to betray an ignorance of mankind. All the peoples which have been obliged to sustain a long and serious warfare have consequently been led to augment the power of their government. Those which have not succeeded in this attempt have been subjugated. A long war almost always places nations in the wretched alternative of be- ing abandoned to ruin by defeat or to despotism by success. War therefore renders the symptoms of the weakness of a government most palpable and most alarm- ing; and I have shown that the inherent defeat of federal governments is that of being weak. . . . The great advantage of the United States does not, then, consist in a Federal Constitution which allows them to carry on great wars, but in a geographical position which renders such enterprises extremely improbable. No one can be more inclined than I am myself to ap- preciate the advantages of the federal system, which I hold to be one of the combinations most favorable to the prosperity and freedom of man. I envy the lot of those nations which have been enabled to adopt it; but I cannot believe that any confederate peoples could main- tain a long or an equal contest with a nation of similar strength in which the government should be centralized. A people which should divide its sovereignty into frac- tional powers, in the presence of the great military mon- archies of Europe, would, in my opinion, by that very act, abdicate its power, and perhaps its existence and its name. But such is the admirable position of the New 164 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN World that man has no other enemy than himself; and that, in order to be happy and to be free, it suffices to seek the gifts of prosperity and the knowledge of free- dom. Let us hope that the war in which we are now en- gaged will not be a long one; that the necessity for increasing the executive power beyond constitutional limits because of the war may soon pass, and the coun- try be brought within the limitations of the demo- cratic principles upon which the Government has for more than a hundred years securely rested. The wis- dom and patriotism of the American people may safely be trusted to bring this about, if they are not misled by the ambitions of unworthy representatives, or co- erced by the powerful influence of selfish interests. The masses of the people are loyal to the democratic principles of their country and if made to understand what is necessary to protect their rights and liberties, citizens of a free Republic will not be found wanting. But we can no longer feel safe and secure because of our isolation or separation by the wide ocean from /other nations. De Tocqueville regarded this condition of isolation as one of our chief safeguards against war. Of this he said : The Americans have no neighbors, and consequently they have no great wars, or financial crises, or inroads, or conquest to dread; they require neither great taxes, nor great armies, nor great generals; and they have nothing to fear from a scourge which is more formidable to republics than all these evils combined, namely, mili- MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 165 tary glory. It is impossible to deny the inconceivable in- fluence which military glory exercises upon the spirit of a nation. Jut the advancement of science, improved methods of transportation, and our extended commercial trade/ and interests have brought us into close proximity to the powerful nations of the world. This closer con- nection with foreign nations has brought with it grave responsibilities and dangers from which we once be- lieved ourselves to be free. Indeed, it is this closer relationship to other nations that has brought us into this war. The ocean is no longer a barrier or protec- tion against foreign wars. We ourselves are solving the problem of ocean transportation that is making European nations our neighbors. No matter how great the change in this respect has been, we cannot conceal from ourselves the wisdom and patriotism of George Washington in his "Farewell Address," or suppress a feeling of regret that we have not been able to follow that advice. He says : Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence, she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, there- fore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friend- ships or enmities. Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one peo- r66 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN pie, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon, to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation, when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel. Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground ? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice ? Millions of patriotic and liberty-loving people sin- cerely believed that we should not enter into this war. They conscientiously believed that the interests of our own country and of all humanity demanded that we remain neutral. But other millions, many of whom were equally patriotic, sincere, and conscientious, be- lieved that we were called upon to enlist in the war in defense of Democracy and as a safeguard against foreign invasion of our rights; to establish for the world the democratic principles for which we stand, and to make the world safe for those principles. The view of those who believed we should go to war prevailed. War was declared in the way au- thorized by the Constitution, and as a consequence the burdens, the privations, the sacrifices, and the sorrows and afflictions of a great war are upon us. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 167 Having entered the war, no true American will be seeking to avoid the responsibilities of citizenship that it involves. All will bear their share of the burden with patriotic patience and fortitude, and look forward to a successful termination of the war and the estab- lishment of an honorable, just, and lasting peace ap- proved by the conscience of the world. And when the war is over every true American will stand loyally for the restoration of our democratic principles at home, and their preservation in all their purity, as a sure protection to all men in every station in life and the suppression of every tendency towards aristocracy, class distinctions, or autocratic power. Thus will we demonstrate the justice and the stability of our free institutions and their ability to withstand the dangers and evil influences of a great and prolonged war. C. BIG BUSINESS A MENACE TO DEMOCRACY "BiG BUSINESS" so-called, the combinations of great wealth in powerful corporations and the consolidation and intertwining of interests of these immense aggre- gations of wealth, constitutes a menace greater even than war to Democracy here in our own country. In politics, in business, and in the industries, these vast combinations of wealth have become overpowering and wellnigh irresistible. Their influence is not confined to business or politics; it extends, to an alarming ex- tent, to legislation and the affairs of government. They have served to establish in this democratic country where, theoretically and as matter of law, all men MAN'S DUTY TO MAN are equal, a dangerous aristocracy founded on the possession of large wealth and without regard to merit, greater wisdom, hereditary right, or better qualities of mind. They have divided the people into classes with antagonistic objects, purposes, and interests. As a result of Big Business we have a division of the people into laborers or working-people and employers, come to be called the "capitalist class." These forces, which should be working in friendship and unity for their common welfare and the common good, have or- ganized and are contending one against the other for the advancement of their individual selfish interests. This has come about by the exercise by the employer class, united in interest, of arbitrary power, their oppressive and unjust methods, and their immense in- crease of wealth as the result of the daily and in- cessant toil of wage-earners for long hours under deplorable conditions and for poor pay. In self-defense against unjust treatment, and for the protection of their rights, the workers have com- bined to resist the capitalistic forces. So we now have combined forces of wealth against organized labor. This, of course, is undemocratic, destroys the condition of equality upon which our free institutions rest, and may result in revolution and anarchy. We need not stop to inquire who is most to blame for this breach of constitutional Democracy. It is enough for present purposes to know that these unfortunate conditions exist and that they must be changed, if Democracy, in the true sense, is to be maintained in this country. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 169 De Tocqueville foresaw this danger when investi- gating conditions here, in the early history of the country, and warned against it. He says : I am of opinion, upon the whole, that the manufactur- ing aristocracy which is growing up under our eyes is one of the harshest which ever existed in the world; but at the same time it is one of the most confined and least dangerous. Nevertheless the friends of democracy should keep their eyes anxiously fixed in this direction; for if ever a permanent inequality of conditions and aristocracy again penetrate into the world, it may be pre- dicted that this is the channel by which they will enter. Things have gone so far in this conflict between Capital and Labor that a complete industrial rev- olution is imminent. The Independent Workers of the World, an organization of the wage-earning class, and many other working-people, and those who are in sympathy with them, are demanding what they call "industrial Democracy/' or equality in the manage- ment and control of business and an equal division of profits as between Capital and Labor. They contend, and not without reason, that Labor should receive with Capital an equal share of the profits and wealth it produces by its toil. This involves more than the question of fair and just treatment of Labor by Capi- tal, which hitherto has been the principal ground of controversy. It has become the more important and far-reaching question of supremacy, of control of busi- ness and industry. So serious has this situation become that the capital- 170 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN ists, whose power up to this time has been supreme, are beginning to take notice of these advanced claims of Labor, and to appreciate the danger that confronts them as a class. It is reported, and is probably true, that Charles M. Schwab, the head of one of the most wealthy and the most powerful industrial corpora- tions in the world, at a banquet of the alumni of a pub- lic school in New York, made this rather startling statement : The time is coming when the men of the working classes, the men without property, will control the destinies of this world of ours. It means that the Bolshe- vik sentiment must be taken into consideration and in the very near future. We must look to the worker for a solution of the economic conditions now being considered. We may well hope that Mr. Schwab is mistaken in this extreme view of what is threatening us for the fu- ture. That the capitalistic class shall rule the country is violative of the very foundation principle of Dem- ocracy. It would be none the less so if the working class should seize and appropriate to itself such con- trol. It is vitally necessary to the perpetuity of our free and democratic institutions that no class of citi- zens, however worthy that class may be, shall dom- inate the affairs of the nation or control its business, or its industries, to the exclusion of other classes. By some this expected revolution is looked upon as one of the results of the war. It is said that "nations and states will come under control neither of king nor president but of the man with the hoe, as a MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 171 result of the world war." But there is little to sustain this view, so far as it affects this country. This con- flict between Capital and Labor, each seeking to se- cure and maintain the control of affairs, was on long before the war commenced. The outcome may be hastened, the working class may be more aggressive as a result of the war, and the action of the working classes in other countries, particularly in Russia, may urge them on ; but the fight for control, independently of the war, could not go on forever. An industrial revolution sooner or later has been looked upon by thoughtful and observing people as almost, if not quite, a certainty. The shifting of power and control from the capital- istic to the working class, if we must have class con- trol and domination, is not so important as is the ques- tion how are the working people, when they come into power, going to use that power. If they are going to dominate with autocratic power; if they are going to use the power they have gained for their own selfish ends, without regard to the just rights of others and without due regard for the public interests and the general welfare, nothing will have been gained by the change. This has been the great vice of capitalistic control. It has been arbitrary, unjust, and without regard to the rights and interest of others. It is this very attitude of Capital towards other interests that has brought on the conflict; and if power and control are wrested from them, it must be attributed to their own selfish abuse of their power. 172 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN D. CLASS DISTINCTIONS. AUTOCRACY OF WEALTH ANOTHER of the serious dangers to Democracy in this country is the growing separation of the people into different classes. This has already been adverted to in treating of the relations of Capital and Labor\ This danger has become more apparent and more im- minent as business on a large scale has increased and men and corporations have become richer and more powerful. The tendency of this has been to subordi- nate labor and laboring men and women to the will and domination of these great selfish interests and degrade them to a lower class to themselves. This, again, has created a spirit of discontent, which has grown as the cause of that discontent has increased; and strikes and lockouts, oppression, violence, de- struction of property and of life, have followed. It destroys the "equality of conditions" that lies at the foundation of true Democracy and without which it cannot exist. One of the most vicious features of this evil is that men are measured and classified, not according to the standing and merits as men or citizens, but by the amount of money they possess or can make. This process of separation has developed another class of the most objectionable and demoralizing kind. The accumulation of inordinate wealth has given us a class of people that has no place in a government like ours, namely, the idle and profligate rich. They are leeches on society, a useless incumbrance, and an evil example that leads to idleness, profligacy, and crime on the part MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 173 of others besides themselves. To live in idleness is not only degenerating in its effects upon the man who does not work but it leads others to the same useless way of living, that which permeates the community as a whole and lowers its standard. Men and women of great wealth are setting an example that, if fol- lowed, will inevitably lead to disaster. They are lead- ing the way to the degeneracy of their own class, by their mode of living, and the degradation of what they are pleased to call "their servants," whom they treat as belonging to an inferior class only fit to serve them. Conditions in this respect have been steadily growing worse as time goes on. The rich are growing richer and the poor poorer as the country grows richer and more powerful and the division of the people into classes becomes more marked and more hurtful to the public interests; the rich becoming more arrogant and offensive to those who are foolish enough to look up to them as superior beings, only because of their of- fensive display of wealth. This may be one of the evils now threatening Democracy that will be de- stroyed by the war. War is a great leveler of society. Enforced service in the army by conscription and without regard to social or business standing, a law that if impartially enforced will bring to the colors rich and poor alike, will put all men on an equality in the army as they should be in society, in business, and in government. To what extent this is going to restore the country to its former condition of equality of conditions no 174 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN one can tell. That our war experience is going to bring the whole people nearer to that equality so nec- essary to the maintenance and perpetuity of democratic principles, while the war lasts, can hardly be doubted. On the other hand, the war, with its opportunities of gain, has added immensely to the wealth of the already rich, and has increased the number of their class enor- mously, while it has made the lot of the poor even worse than before. Their wages, it is true, have in many instances been increased, but not sufficiently to meet the increased cost of living resulting from the same cause. The consequence has been greater unrest and discontent among the working classes. The labor- ing class, as as a rule, are loyal to the Government and have been bearing these additional burdens with commendable patience and fortitude. This has re- sulted, in great part, from their patriotic desire to help their country in time of war; but, notwithstand- ing this check, strikes have occurred, the greatest pre- cautions have been necessary to prevent these outbreaks from becoming serious, and many concessions have been forced upon the Government and upon private employers to suppress these evidences of discontent. When the war is over, the laboring people will un- doubtedly demand better pay, more humane treatment, and a greater share in the control of the Government, of business, and industry. This seems inevitable. It is a demand that the country should be prepared to meet, justly and fairly and in a spirit of tolerance that will insure a peaceful settlement of the problem. The trials and tribulations of the war, the sacrifices, MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 175 privations, and sorrows borne by all classes in a common effort to win the war, should bring the people closer together in a unity of effort when peace comes to remove and stamp out class distinctions and make this great free Republic a real Democracy and the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States the true expression of the real senti- ments of the American people. E. FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND OF THE PRESS NECESSARY TO THE PERPETUATION OF DEMOCRACY THE Constitution of the United States provides : Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the Press or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Govern- ment for a redress of grievances. The right to express one's opinions, whether by word of mouth or in print, and the right of the people to assemble peaceably for that purpose are derived neither from this provision of the Constitution nor from any other law. They are rights inherent in every citizen of a free Republic. The purpose and object of the Constitution is to prevent Congress from taking away, or even abridging, those rights. To suppress free speech, or freedom of the press, is to deprive the citizen of a valuable part of his liberties; is a viola- tion of the Constitution if done by Congress, and an invasion of the inherent right of the citizen if done by any one else. Not only so, but it is a direct attack upon the very principles of Democracy and 176 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN freedom, and will, if persisted in, result in a despo- tism. The importance of protecting these rights is much greater, and the reason for it more imperative, in time of war, or in other times of stress or excite- ment tending towards oppression or intolerance, than in ordinary times. When the public mind is excited over great issues affecting the common interests, and the majority has taken sides, the minority is likely, almost certain, to be deprived of its right to defend its views, however conscientiously entertained. It is in such times that intolerance, the foe of Democracy and freedom, stalks abroad, and the mob does its ne- farious work. Public officials become arbitrary, over- zealous, and offensive. They snap their fingers at the Constitution, declare it is suspended in time of war, and care nothing for the rights or opinions of others if they do not agree with their own. This evil of intolerance, arbitrary rule, and mob violence has been the betrayer of human rights; the enemy of liberty and justice, and has cost the lives of thousands of conscientious, patriotic, and liberty- loving men and women. It was one of the most sacred objects in the formation of our Government to protect the liberties of the people from this .dangerous foe. So jealous were the people and the framers of the Consti- tution of these inherent rights of the people, that they inserted the provision quoted above in the fundamental law of the Republic, forbidding even the Congress of the United States, the supreme law-making power, to so much as abridge these sacred rights. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 177 De Tocqueville says of this right, and the necessity of protecting it in a government of the people : But in the countries in which the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people ostensibly prevails, the censor- ship of the press is not only dangerous, but it is absurd. When the right of every citizen to cooperate in the government of society is acknowledged, every citizen must be presumed to possess the power of discriminating between the different opinions of his contemporaries, and of appreciating the different facts from which inferences may be drawn. The sovereignty of the people and the liberty of the press may therefore be looked upon as correlative institutions; just as the censorship of the press and universal suffrage are two things which are ir- reconcilably opposed, and which cannot long be retained among the institutions of the same people. Not a single individual of the twelve millions who inhabit the terri- tory of the United States has as yet dared to propose any restrictions to the liberty of the press. It must be obvious to every thinking man that to interfere, materially, with these rights is absolutely to destroy Democracy. That these rights have been de- nied to the people, that the right of free speech and freedom of the press has practically been suspended during this time of war no one can deny. Peace- able assemblies convened to discuss public questions have been prevented by the officers of the law. That such meetings have been broken up and those assem- bled dispersed, insulted, and maltreated; that men of honest and conscientious convictions have been made the victims of mob violence for expressing those con- 178 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN victions; that it has come to be looked upon as a crime for which American citizens have been thrown into prison to criticise the conduct of officers, their own representatives and agents, and indignities of various kinds have been inflicted upon citizens for expressing their opinions, is well known. It is equally well known that these violations of the rights and liberties of the people have gone unpunished and unnoticed by their Government whose duty it is to protect them in those rights. This is a condition that should attract the attention and excite the apprehen- sions of all loyal American citizens. We must distinguish here between liberty of speech and license to utter forbidden or treasonable senti- ments, and between punishment by due process of law and persecution by mob, or other violent or un- lawful means. If the Government is to be preserved, it must be protected from seditious or treasonable ut- terances of its citizens, or others, during a time of war; but the preservation of the Government and the liberties of the citizen demand that the question of the character of the utterance, whether lawful or unlawful, shall be determined by the courts acting in compliance with the law, not by unofficial and un- authorized private individuals or public officials, and that punishment shall only follow conviction under judicial process and authority and not because some officer or individual thinks the law has been violated and assumes to take the law into his own hands. No crime more dangerous to Democracy and liberty than this could well be conceived of or committed. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 179 The right of free speech in a government of and by the people cannot be overestimated. It lies at the very foundation of intelligent action and government. Without free expression of opinion and open discus- sion, profound ignorance must prevail. Without a full knowledge of the facts, intelligent action on any public question cannot be expected. To deny the right is to destroy liberty and independence. Without it, Democracy is a mockery and free government a delu- sion: The President of the United States, Woodrow Wil- son, says of it: If there is one thing that we love more deeply than another in the United States it is that every one should / have the privilege UNMOLESTED and uncriticised to utter the real convictions of his mind. Again he says : We have seen a good many singular things happen recently. We have been told that it is unpatriotic to criticise public action. Well, if it is, then there is a deep disgrace resting on the origin of this nation. This na- tion originated in the sharpest sort of criticism of public policy. We originated, to put it in the vernacular, in a kick; and if it be unpatriotic to kick, why, then the grown son is unlike the child. We have forgotten the very principle of our origin if we have forgotten how to object, how to resist, how to agitate, how to pull down and build up, even to the extent of revolutionary practices if it be necessary to readjust matters. I have forgotten my history if that be not true history. i8o MAN'S DUTY TO MAN And Daniel Webster, the great lawyer and states- man, says: It is a right to be maintained in peace and in war. It is a right that cannot be invaded without destroying constitutional liberty. Hence this right should be guarded and protected by the free men of this country with zealous care unless they are prepared for chains and anarchy. And again, he says in closing one of his great speech- es in the United States Senate: We may be tossed upon an ocean where we can see no land nor perhaps the sun or stars. But there is a chart and a compass for us to study, to consult and to obey. That chart is the Constitution of the country. That compass is an honest single eyed purpose to pre- serve the institutions and the liberty with which God has blessed us. Franklin H. Giddings, a distinguished educator and writer on sociology and Democracy, has this to say : Our government is based on the agreement, both tacit and implied, that the minority shall always have the rights of free speech, free press, and of free agitation, in order to convert itself, if possible, from a minority into a majority. As soon as these rights of the minority are denied, it will inevitably resort to secret meetings, conspiracies, and, finally, force. In times of stress it may be extremely embarrassing for the majority to be ham- pered in quick decisive action by an obstinate minority; but nevertheless, the recognition of the right of the MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 181 minority is our sole bond of unity. For this reason, I repeat that any attempt to interfere with the rights of free speech and free press is a blow at the very founda- tion of government. Elijah Parrish Love joy, distinguished alike for his learning, his humanitarianism, and his sturdy, inde- pendent patriotism, declared his belief in the right of free speech, in these stirring words: If the laws of my country fail to protect me, I appeal to God, and with him I cheerfully rest my cause. I can die at my post, but I cannot desert it. ... As long as I am an American and as long as American blood runs in these veins I shall hold myself at liberty to speak, to write, to publish, whatever I please on any subject being amenable to the laws of my country for the same. Lovejoy paid the extreme penalty for his independ- ence. Three times his printing-press was destroyed by mobs because he advocated the freedom of the slaves and denounced human slavery, and finally he was shot down while defending his right of freedom to use his own printing press. William Lloyd Garrison, another defender of hu- man liberty, was dragged through the streets of Bos- ton by a mob, and maltreated for his opposition to human slavery, in which city a bronze statue has since been erected to his memory. These men persisted in exercising their right of free speech, for which they were persecuted and re- viled, and one of them assassinated; and who is there 182 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN now to say that they were not right? The minority of to-day may become the majority of to-morrow, if the right of free speech and freedom of opinion, guar- anteed by the Constitution, is protected. If the ma- jority is right, free discussion can do it no harm; but the forcible suppression of the minority, aside from its wrongful character, is likely to do incalcu- lable harm to our free institutions and destroy the principles of Democracy in the defense of which the nation is pouring out its blood and treasure. The President of the United States has very well said : Common counsel is not aggregate counsel. It is not a sum in addition counting heads. It is compounded out of many views in actual contact ; is a living thing made out of the vital substance of many minds, many per- sonalities, many experiences ; and it can be made up only by vital contacts, of actual conference, only in face to face debate, only by word of mouth and the direct clash of mind with mind. . . . Open counsel is of the essence of power if the country's confidence is to be retained for any length of time. The situation is made much worse in these times when men's minds are inflamed by the passions of war, by the inaction, even encouragement, given the lawless people who have been suppressing free speech by violence and intimidation, by public officials act- ing, themselves, without warrant or other authority. Homes are entered and searched; men and women seized and imprisoned, whipped, and maltreated and heaped with indignities, all for the unlawful purpose MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 183 of suppressing free speech in a free Republic that is shedding the blood of its sons and pouring out bil- lions of dollars to preserve and extend the principles of Democracy. Even the courts, in some melancholy instances, have fallen under the spell of intolerance and savagery, and have imposed cruel and excessive punishment for trivial offenses, if offenses at all. The excuse for all this is that we are at war, and the constitutionally protected right of free speech no longer exists. But this furnishes no excuse for these depredations. In time of war the lawfully consti- tuted authorities should be watchful and vigilant in protecting the country against seditious utterances and anything like giving aid and comfort to the enemy; and any one violating his duty to his country by such utterances should be promptly and adequately punished. But this power of punishment cannot, without violating the most sacred rights of the citi- zen and being guilty of a plain violation of the Con- stitution, be intrusted to a mob, or private individuals, or unauthorized public officials. President Wilson has said : The theory of our law is that an officer is an officer only so long as he acts within his powers ; that when he transcends his authority he ceases to be an officer and is only a private individual, subject to be sued and pun- ished for his offense. In England as in America an officer of the law ceases to be an officer of the law when he acts in excess of his authority. He may be fined and imprisoned or executed as any other man would be if he oversteps the limits of his warrant and authority and 1 84 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN does things that he has no right to do. He has no authority but that which is legal and for which he can show rightful authority. The Constitution is not suspended by a condition of war, unless martial law is declared. The authority of an officer of the law is the same in time of war as in time of peace. The citizen is entitled to the pro- tection of the Constitution in time of war precisely the same as in time of peace. Indeed, he needs that protection far more when passions run high and in- tolerance reigns because we are at war. In the celebrated Milligan Case, so often cited and commented upon, where Milligan was tried by a mili- tary tribunal, convicted and sentenced to be shot, the Supreme Court declared the proceeding void and re- leased the prisoner on the ground that, as martial law was not in force in Indiana, where he was tried, al- though the country was at war, he could only be tried in the civil courts. In its opinion the court said : The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and peoples equally in war and in peace and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men at all times and under all circumstances. But why multiply opinions as to the value of liberty, the sacredness of this right of free speech, and the solemn duty resting upon all of us, as citizens of a country of freemen, to guard, protect, and preserve it. What intelligent American citizen does not know all this? Is there a citizen of this free Republic who MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 185 does not know that when he trespasses upon this right by violence, intimidation, or otherwise, without warrant, he is trampling underfoot one of the most sacred rights of a fellow-citizen and violating the pro- visions of the Constitution intended to protect liberty and Democracy ? What has been said so far relates to the right of free speech. The freedom of the press, the right to print one's views, is alike protected by the Constitution and for the same reasons. They stand upon an equal footing. Some people, especially the publishers of newspapers, seem to think that the press is entitled to greater consideration and a higher degree of pro- tection than the individual. What one may publish through the press he may just as freely speak by word of mouth; his right to protection being the same in either case. It is a singular fact, and one that convicts the press of inconsistency and injustice, that, while claim- ing the freedom of the press, the newspapers and other publications have done more by false publications and intimidation to suppress free speech by others than any one else and only in a very few instances have any of these publications denounced the suppression of free speech by mobs or defended this constitutional right that they claim for themselves. But the people have long since ceased to expect consistency, justice, or fair dealing from the public press. Most of the publications of this time are either owned, controlled or subsidized by the great moneyed interests, and do the bidding of their owner. They are no longer the i86 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN defenders of the liberty of the people and justice to them; they defend the special interests. The people place no reliance upon these papers, but when they combine in the effort to control public opinion and, in order to do so, falsify the facts and suppress the truth, as they habitually do, they wield a power for evil greater than confiding and uninformed people re- alize. And one of the worst phases of this situation is that most people are afraid of the newspapers. A fair degree of independence on the part of newspaper readers would compel such publications to be decent and more reliable than they are now. It is one of the things most needed to preserve the liberties of the people. The extent to which the public journals are being subsidized by the moneyed interests was graphically disclosed by Hon. Oscar Callaway of Texas, in the House of Representatives, in a speech delivered by him on the 9th day of February, 1917. Among other things he said: In March 1915 the - - interests, the steel, ship building interests, and their subsidiary organizations got together twelve men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select the most influential news- papers in the United States and a sufficient number of them to control, generally, the policy of the daily press of the United States. These twelve men worked the problem out by selecting 179 newspapers, and then be- gan by an elimination process to retain only those neces- sary for the purpose of controlling the general policy of the daily press throughout the country. They found MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 187 it was only necessary to purchase the control of 25 of the greatest papers. And he declared "this control is in existence at the present time." This statement, made in the Congress of the United States, by a representative of the people, acting under oath, is a startling revelation that should arouse the patriotic indignation of the whole country. It dis- closes a dangerous, liberty-destroying, and powerful oligarchy, operating secretly through the public press. \Vhat chance have the common people against such a stupendous and unprincipled combination of wealth ! So far as the author knows, this statement, thus publicly made, has never been denied. It was only necessary to bring a comparatively few of the public journals under this control. They were doubtless leaders of newspaper sentiment and influence through- out the country ; and combined with other newspapers, owned by the moneyed interests and which it was un- necessary to buy, they could lead public sentiment in any direction their purchasers and owners desired. They would, under their contract, publish what their owners wanted published, and suppress what they did not want. That this has been done, systematically, by the public journals is well known. It is this deplorable attitude of the newspapers, and other subsidized and unreliable publications, that has done much to destroy the patriotic sentiments of the people in favor of a free press. But, notwithstanding 1 88 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN this gross abuse of the freedom of the press, it is vital to liberty and justice that the right be protected and preserved. The remedy is to punish the abuse of the right and put an end to it by ceasing to patronize a newspaper that falsifies the facts or purposely sup- presses the truth. It can not be denied that this kind of journalism is dangerous to liberty. It is journalism for the rich, and against the poor. It is doing more than any other one thing to build up and maintain in this free Repub- lic an aristocracy, an oligarchy of wealth, backed by sordid self-interest. What the Constitution is intended to protect is the right to speak and print the truth, not to falsify or deceive or mislead. In this spirit, the freedom of speech and of the press must be upheld if democratic principles are to survive in this country. F. DANGER OF UNLIMITED POWER IN THE MAJORITY AKIN to the suppression of free speech is the danger of unlimited power in the majority in a country where the people rule, 'f he same spirit oi intolerance that denies the right of free speech and free press makes the majority intolerant and arbitrary, denying to the minority the privileges of discussion and freedom of action that is accorded them under ordinary circum- stances, not controlled by passion. Again referring to the unbiased and disinterested testimony of de Tocqueville in his "Democracy in America," we find this: MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 189 It is important not to confound stability with force, or the greatness of a thing with its duration. In demo- cratic republics, the power which directs society is not stable; for it often changes hands and assumes a new direction. But whichever way it turns, its force is al- most irresistible. The Governments of the American republics appear to me to be as much centralized as those of the absolute monarchies of Europe, and more energetic than they are. I do not, therefore, imagine that they will perish from weakness. // ever the free institutions of America are destroyed, that event may be attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation, and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the re- sult, but it will have been brought about by despotism. In a country whose people are less conservative and less loyal to the principles of their government than are our own, arbitrary and oppressive power of the majority is the precursor of despotism and anarchy. With us, the minority will bear much, suffer much, before resorting to force ; for which we may be thank- ful. But the exercise of autocratic and intolerant power is none the less a violation of the foundation principles of our Government, dangerous to liberty, and the breeder of hate and the spirit of retaliation and revenge that may be visited upon the present major- ity when it shall become, in its turn, the minority and subject to like treatment. This danger of retaliatory methods, or the resort to secret meetings, conspiracies against the majority, and 190 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN to force, is accentuated and made more imminent when the minds of the people are filled with the pas- sion and intolerance excited by war. The very senti- ments of intolerance that actuate the conduct of the majority will influence alike the course of the minor- ity, whose right to be heard and to act in accordance with their conscientious convictions is violated. It was the purpose of the framers of the Constitu- tion to protect, as far as possible, the rights of the minority. In some instances, more than a majority is required to control action, sometimes even three- fourths. But, like many other things threatening to liberty and Democracy, action cannot be controlled or wrongs prevented by law. At last the remedy must rest with the people. The wrong is in itself a viola- tion of law, or of the essential principles of demo- cratic government. Patriotic self-restraint and a due sense of right and justice on the part of the people for the time composing the majority, and a like for- bearance on the part of the minority, is the only rem- edy for this dangerous evil. While our beloved country is suffering all the ago- lies of a great, cruel, devastating war, a spirit of conciliation, of mutual good-will and helpfulness, should pervade the public mind, and make us all con- siderate of the rights, the sentiments, and the pur- poses of those who do not agree with us. With rare exceptions, both the majority and the minority are loyal to their country and are standing for what they believe to be for its best interests. Those who are not loyal, those who are guilty of sedi- MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 191 tious or disloyal sentiments, or who are giving aid and comfort to the enemy in this time of great stress, are amenable to the laws of the country, and should be punished in the way provided by law. But this does not justify, nothing can justify, resort by the ma- jority to autocratic or despotic exercise of power to control or suppress the minority. It may be conceded that at times the provocation is great, and the temptation to violate our principles of government by taking the law out of the hands of the lawfully constituted authorities and putting it into the hands of the majority, is hard to resist. The men and women who do resist this temptation, who adhere to the laws of their country and restrain themselves from the exercise of force or other unlawful means to coerce or restrain action by others, are true patriots, and those who proclaim their patriotism the loudest and endeavor by force or otherwise to coerce others, to deprive them of the rights guaranteed to them by the Constitution, are dangerous enemies to their coun- try. In his "Defense of the Constitution," Alexander Hamilton had this to say on this subject in The Fed- eralist: It is of great importance in a republic, not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part. Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure. There are but two methods of providing 192 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN against this evil; the one by creating a will in the com- munity independent of the majority, that is, of the so- ciety itself; the other by comprehending in the society so many separate descriptions of citizens as will render an unjust combination of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable. The last remedy for the oppression of one part of society by another here suggested, namely, the "com- prehending in the society so many separate descrip- tions of citizens as will render an unjust combina- tion of a majority of the whole very improbable, if not impracticable," can no longer be relied upon. There is not that diversity of citizenship now that prevailed in Hamilton's time. There is one great division of society and citizenship in this country one or the other of which branch will eventually rule the country, as has already been pointed out. In those earlier times there were no great combinations of men and inter- ests such as we have now. Neither trusts, and other combinations of capital, nor labor unions were known then. Now they do exist, and their existence and their methods present one of the greatest and most troublesome problems with which the Government has to deal. Of course, not all of society is connected with one or the other of these bodies of society; but they are the live, active forces, contending against each other for supremacy, whose interests are antagonis- tic. So we cannot at this day rely upon diversity of citizenship or of interests for the protection of the minority. MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 193 G. USURPATION OF POWER BY ONE DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT AT THE EXPENSE OF ANOTHER IS SUBVERSIVE OF DEMOCRACY As one means of preventing the concentration of power in one person, or department of government, which was regarded as dangerous to the liberties of the people, three separate departments, the legislative, the executive and the judicial were provided for by the Constitution, and each was confined in its operation and exercise of power within certain and fixed limits and made independent of the other departments. This, it is evident, was looked upon by the framers of the Constitution as of great importance. Thomas Jeffer- son, the great expounder of Democracy, looked with apprehension, more than once expressed in his corres- pondence, upon the danger of usurpation of power not belonging to it by one or the other of these separate departments of government. For example, in a letter to a friend, he wrote : I said to the President [Washington] that if the equi- librium of the three great bodies, legislative, executive, and judiciary, could be preserved, if the legislature could be kept independent, I should never fear the result of such a government, but I could not but be uneasy when I saw that the executive had swallowed up the legislative branch. . . . What has destroyed the liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no matter whether of the auto- 194 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN crats of Russia or France or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate. Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist had this to say on the same subject : The accumulation of all powers, Legislative, Execu- tive and Judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Were the Federal Constitution, therefore, really chargeable with this accumulation of power, or with a mixture of powers, having a dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal reprobation of the system. Again he says : In a single republic, all the power surrendered by the People is submitted to the administration of a single Government ; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the Government into distinct and separate departments. In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the People is first divided be- tween two distinct Governments, and then the portion allotted to each, subdivided among distinct and separate departments. Hence a double security arises to the rights of the People. The different Governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself. The Supreme Court of the United States, in Kil- bourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 190, declared the ob- MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 195 ject and effect of this division of power in the fol- lowing explicit language : It is believed to be one of the chief merits of the American system of written constitutional law that all the powers intrusted to Government, whether State or National, are divided into the three grand departments, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. That the functions appropriate to each of these branches of government shall be vested in a separate body of public servants, and that the perfection of the system requires that the lines which separate and divide these depart- ments shall be broadly and clearly defined. It is also essential to the successful working of this system that the persons intrusted with power in any one of these branches shall not be permitted to encroach upon the power confided in the others, but that each shall by the law of its creation be limited to the exercise of the pow- ers appropriate to its own department and no other. George Washington, in his "Farewell Address," warned against the dangers of the encroachments of one department on the powers and functions of the other. He said : It is important likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those in- trusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department, to en- croach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power 196 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN and proneness to abuse it which predominate in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of the reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions of the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern ; some of them in our country and under our own eyes to preserve them must be necessary as to in- stitute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the dis- tribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly over- balance in permanent evil, any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield. The necessity for this safeguarding of the liberties of the people against the concentration or centraliza- tion of power, and the dangerous evil of one depart- ment of government taking to itself the powers and functions of another, cannot well be doubted; yet this has been going on now for years. The extent to which the executive department has been encroaching upon the power of the legislative has aroused serious apprehension and no little alarm. The author had oc- casion, more than once, to call attention to this grow- ing danger. In a speech delivered in the Senate, March 6, 1914, it was said : MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 197 MR. PRESIDENT, I come now to comment on what I consider one of the most important of the questions that are confronting Congress to-day, if not the most im- portant of them all, and that is the evident purpose of the Executive to dominate and control the legislative branch of the Government. I have had occasion to speak of it before and since this administration came into power. It was bad enough under previous administra- tions, but in this one it has increased a hundredfold over anything that has been known in the past. This dominating influence has become so insistent and con- tinuous, and has been submitted to so slavishly by the majority of Congress, that the independence and useful- ness of the legislative branch of the Government are both threatened. It has been so asserted and exercised and obediently submitted to that we have come perilously near to a dictatorship. The President has not contented himself by advising what measures should be considered by Congress and vetoing them if they do not meet his ap- proval, as the Constitution authorizes him to do. He has demanded that certain legislation shall be enacted, has insisted upon Congress remaining in session until the laws he insists upon are enacted, and the secret caucus is made the instrument with which to enforce his will. As a consequence we have laws on the statute books that are in effect and in reality Executive orders and not legislative acts. They are legislation of and enacted by the executive department and not by Congress. It is a condition that should attract the serious attention of the whole country. We have three distinct departments of government. They are intended by the framers of the Constitution to be independent of each other. It has, up to a very late period, been regarded as absolutely neces- 198 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN sary to the library of the people and the public welfare that this independence should be maintained. The subject was again taken up in a speech delivered January 4th and 5th, 1917, in which it was said further : As a fitting text for what I am about to say on the subject of executive usurpation of power, I take the following plank of the Democratic platform of 1912: "We believe in the preservation and maintenance in their full strength and integrity of the three coordinate branches of the Federal Government the executive, the legislative, and the judicial each keeping within its own bounds and not encroaching upon the just powers of either of the others." As I have pointed out, the fear of judicial usurpation of power was uppermost in the mind of Mr. Jefferson, but he and others were able to see the danger now con- fronting us of the unwarranted and unconstitutional usurpation of power by the President, amounting, prac- tically, to a dictatorship, and the complacent surrender of its powers and functions and abandonment of its duties and obligations by the Congress of the United States. The tendency toward centralized, unchecked and unlimited power on the part of the President has existed for some years past and has grown rapidly worse and more offensive in the last four years. Never in the entire history of the country has the President so completely and defiantly usurped the law-making powers of the Government and dictated and forced the course of Con- gress, and never has the Congress been so submissive or MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 199 subservient to a power outside itself. Never in all our history have we come so near to a despotic government by a dictator as during the last four years. Members of Congress have, under the lash of Execu- tive and party domination, surrendered their conscienti- ous convictions and voted against their own sentiments of right and justice. We have on the statute books to- day not one but many enactments that are the laws of a dictator and not the free and voluntary acts of the Con- gress, and we have men holding offices, of the highest trust, whose confirmation was the result of this same dictatorial power and not the free and voluntary action of this body. What was said in these two speeches had no refer- ence to the war. They were delivered before our entry into the war, and before it was expected that we would become engaged in the conflict. The discussion was of a condition of peril to Democracy that pre- vailed before the war and independently of the strug- gle. Our entry into the war has for the time being changed all this. As has been said in another place, the exigencies of the war have made it necessary to clothe the President with extraordinary powers. But when peace is restored, this question will again recur and must be dealt with if liberty and Democracy are to be preserved. To those who have felt for a long time that the con- stitutional barriers that separate the different depart- ments were being broken down, and that all power being concentrated in one department at the expense and to the exclusion of the others, the time when re- 200 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN adjustments must come after the war is looked for- ward to with great interest and not a little anxiety. As a result of the war and of necessity, these bar- riers have been completely removed, and the execu- tive is the supreme autocratic power, and doubtless will continue to be so while the war lasts. What will happen when the war is over is the important, the vital question. Will the constitutional division and lim- itations of power be restored, and the legislative branch of Government again assume and exercise its full powers, or will it submit still to the controlling and arbitrary power and influence of the executive? Congress had, before the war, surrendered its inde- pendence and neglected its duty as a separate depart- ment of government, and as a consequence, lost much of the respect and confidence formerly entertained for it by the people. Unless after the war it resumes its constitutional functions and asserts and maintains its independence, it will sink into insignificance, and the country will be confronted with the danger of a despo- tism. H. MILITARISM AND DEMOCRACY INCOMPATIBLE WITH EACH OTHER WE are fighting a great war against militarism and despotic power. In order to do so successfully, we have been compelled to become, ourselves, in great measure an autocracy, because a Democracy is not, for reasons already stated, fitted to carry on a war. It has been necessary also to establish and equip a great MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 201 army, and to make our navy one of the most pow- erful in the world. For the time being, the military branch of the Government has become the most pow- erful of all. It has become the defender of the nation and the people's rights. As such it will receive the patriotic and generous help and support of the Ameri- can people. But when the war is over and peace is restored, it should be the first duty of the Govern- ment to disband this great army and reduce the size of the navy, placing them both on a peace footing consistent with our democratic principles of govern- ment. There are indications that this may not be done as speedily and effectually as a peace-loving people will desire. Efforts are now being made to bring about enforced universal military training, and consequent military service, after peace has been restored. This would be wholly inconsistent with our form of gov- ernment and in contravention of democratic princi- ples. We are fighting this war to put an end to all wars and to destroy militarism for all time. We have every reason to hope for this result. Then why an- ticipate other wars and begin now to build up here in our country a military system that we are giving of our blood and treasure to destroy? Military training as a means of physical development is unobjection- able; but there goes with it, necessarily, the sense that this training is not for that but for military pur- poses; not to make men stronger and better fitted to perform their civil duties but to make soldiers of them. 202 MAN'S DUTY TO MANi It is impossible to separate the two, military train- ing, military service. Such training is the nursery of the military spirit. It causes men to look forward to war as the outcome of their training. Besides this, the element of force that enters into the proposed en- forced military training is incompatible with our demo- cratic principles, and a plain violation of them. This idea of universal military training and service is the outgrowth of the war spirit that has been aroused by actual war. It should, and probably will, subside, and the effort to establish militarism in this Republic be abandoned when the war is over and the people begin to realize more fully what militarism means and what it has brought about. It has brought sorrow and anguish into thousands of homes, and death to millions of brave men; made millions more cripples for life, made homes desolate, and numbered the wid- ows and orphans by the million. For a hundred years the nations engaged in this war will be staggering under enormous debts incurred because of the existence of militarism in the world; but for which these fearful consequences of war would not have come upon ue. The people want no more militarism. They want no more wars. They want no enforced training that is the very thing upon which militarism is founded. CONCLUSION OURS is the greatest, the most beneficent, the most democratic government yet devised by man. If its principles are not violated, it will protect the individual MAN'S DUTY TO MAN 203 citizen in all his rights. It stands for absolute equal- ity of all men, of every race, and in every station in life. Freedom to express his convictions either by word of mouth or in print is guaranteed to every citi- zen. It should be the high purpose of every one to maintain and uphold these just principles and to pro- tect every man from injustice or discrimination, no matter how poor or how lowly he may be. This is true patriotism. The man who violates these princi- ples, or denies any one the rights that they are in- tended to guarantee to him, is an enemy to his country and a betrayer of liberty. The war has made unthinking people intolerant and autocratic. Passions run high and betray good citizens into a course of conduct that would be abhorrent to them in their sober moments, in time of peace. They entail upon others, as patriotic and as sincere as them- selves,- unjust and undeserved humiliation and suffer- ing. The war calls for no such thing. The laws of the country forbid it. The laws of humanity are equally against it. From the condition of intolerance and hatred the lower classes suffer the most. Those of high degree may, and do, speak their minds without molestation and without fear, while the man of low degree, as so- ciety is measured, who does the same thing is perse- cuted, ostracised, and sent to prison because he is un- protected and defenseless. This is only one of the many unjust discriminations that tend to destroy the principle of equality that makes this a democracy. The dangers to liberty, the oppression of one class of citi- 204 MAN'S DUTY TO MAN zens by another, the inequality of treatment of one class as compared to another, and the denial of rights to one class freely accorded to another, are not the result of our form of government. They are just what our liberal form of government is designed to prevent. They are perversions of free government. These encroachments upon the inherent and consti- tutional rights of men are the outcome of evil human passions, selfishness, malice, hate, revenge, avarice, in- tolerance, and the many other perverse emotions that stir humanity. While these exist and rule men's con- duct, perfect government cannot be attained. It can only be approximated. Men cannot be made unselfish, or honest, or considerate of their fellowmen, by the force of human laws. The reform of government and of society must go deeper than this; it must reach the conscience, the sense of justice in the mind and heart of man, if righteous government is to prevail. If we live up to the requirements of the government, no man will suffer in either his civil or political rights. If we live up to the Golden Rule, no man will be wronged in either his private or social rights. If we live up to the Scriptural injunction "Love thy neigh- bor as thyself," no man could suffer injustice, or poverty, or want. If we were to live up to these righteous demands made upon us, men would be ruled by Love, and no human government would be neces- sary. 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