PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP 00 m PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP BY REV. ADOLPH ROEDER NEW YORK: ISAAC H. BLANCHARD CO, 1908 COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY ISAAC H. BLANCHARD CO. All right* reserved Published May. 190H Reprinted June 5. 1008 CONTENTS PART I THE MACHINE PAGE CHAPTER I Historic Background of the Fundamental Princi- ple of the Federal Constitution 9 CHAPTER II Monism and Dualism in Government ^ 18 CHAPTER III The Trinal Division of Government Machinery the Legislative, the Judicial and the Executive 27 CHAPTER IV The Legislative Function of Government Its Various Forms and its Strong and Weak Points 34 CHAPTER V The United States Senate and Why Corporate Interests Appeal Most Naturally to This Body 43 CHAPTER VI The House of Representatives Considered in ' Connection with State Rights and State Interests 51 CHAPTER VII The Senate of New Jersey and Questions that Properly Come Before It 60 CHAPTER VIII The Senate of New Jersey and the Questions of Immigration and Potable Water Supply 75 CHAPTER IX The House of Assembly, Its Functions, Its Limitations and Its Achievements 86 CHAPTER X The Machinery of Government as Illustrated by the County in its Board of Chosen Freeholders 92 PART II THE FORCE CHAPTER XI The Forces That Run the Mechanism of Gov- ernment and Their Dual Manifestation 101 CHAPTER XII Radicalism as a Dynamic Force in Citizenship The Element of Natural Sequence in Reforms 109 305236 4 CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER XIII Conservatism the "Opposite and Alternate" Force to Radicalism How it is Allied With Morality. ... 120 CHAPTER XIV Conservatism as the Centre of a Wheel and Radicalism as the Circumference Nobility of Manhood . . 130 CHAPTER XV Egotism, the Pivotal Dead Centre of Moral In- ertia, now Giving Way to Altruism 137 CHAPTER XVI The Giant Ego of Commercialism, Otherwise Known as the Trust, in its Three Forms 147 CHAPTER XVII Race Dynamics and a Survey of the Human Force Back of the Evolution of Society 158 PART III ACTION AND PRACTICE CHAPTER XVIII Some Civic Obligations in Relation to the City and a few Hints for Voters 169 CHAPTER XIX The Citizen and the Church and the Duty of the Former to Study the Question 177 CHAPTER XX Seven Features that Help in Making the Public Schools a Success Value of Parents' Associations 185 CHAPTER XXI How the School System is Enfeebled and What the Conscientious Citizen Should do in the Matter. . 189 CHAPTER XXII Obligations Toward the Work of Humani- tarianism Voluntary and Involuntary Contributions Labor Unions and Co-operation 195 CHAPTER XXIII Importance of a High Moral Tone in a Community and Why it Should be Maintained 202 CHAPTER XXIV Problems of the Nation Depend for Their Solution Upon the Maintenance and Realization of Ideals. 209 INTRODUCTION THE general scope and plan of the book gives to the reader three general sections ; the body politic is in the first section considered as an organism, a machine, and the method of reasoning followed is that called "analogy" or "correspondence," whereby parts and functions of the aggregate are considered in the same light as would be corresponding parts and functions of the individual organism. The second section takes up the forces which run the body politic, the machine, the or- ganism. These forces are assumed to be subject to con- templation and study. They are assumed to be varied manifestations of one giant force, occasionally named as the Divine Human Force. If the book were a treatise on theology, this force would be called the "Spirit of God," or the "Holy Spirit." It is assumed to be the Giant In- tellect of Deity, hovering above the structure which he has called into being, and which we call "human society," and more frequently, the "Race" or the "Race Man," somewhat in the same way as the human soul broods over the bodily structure wherein for its pilgrimage on earth it is temporarily encased. This Power of the Creator is assumed to be intelligent and to be following an intel- ligent and perfectly comprehensible plan, which begins in the cave man and ends in the present triumphs and the future victories of civilization, which will abolish war 6 INTRODUCTION and other forms of brutality as it has abolished slavery and establish and maintain the larger manhood. Nor will it rest until it has lifted man up to that pinnacle of purposive Providence, where he will touch the shadow of Deity, where his hand will be outstretched to "touch His garment's hem." In the third section the reader is given a few practical hints, any or all of which he can follow in the attainment of practical citizenship and the larger life that follows from such attainment. The chapters of this book have been published as sepa- rate articles in the Newark Evening News, and are now revised and given to the public in book form through the courtesy of that paper, and with the hope that a use might be thereby subserved and the cause of larger man- hood advanced. ADOL.PH ROEDER. Orange, New Jersey, June, 1908. PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP IN THREE PARTS PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP PART I THE MACHINE CHAPTER I HISTORIC BACKGROUND OF THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION. REE and equal." These words are the "Key- stone of the Arch" in the philosophic struc- ture of the Constitution of the United States. They ring out clear and strong in the Declaration of Independence, and they continue as an undertone into the Constitution. They have engrafted themselves up- on our citizenship with such force and assiduity that they have become, as it were, self -understood. And yet a study of citizenship, such as is here con- templated, will prove incomplete if it does not sustain that assumption by some manner of historic back- ground, lest we mistake "freedom" for license and "equality" for the deadly level of economic monotone, which lies at the bottom of all our thoughts on social economy, and, by an odd coincidence, of heaven, and which makes much that is taught along these lines of little avail, since it neglects the personal equation, a fac- tor which cannot be neglected without serious detri- ment to the resultant conclusions of any line of reason- ing. 9 10 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP Go back of the phrase "free and equal" and see what it stands for in the way of human attainment. It is necessary to go very far back. In fact, we must hark back for a moment to the beginning of things and ask the student to glance over the broad lines of historic sequence along which humanity has moved. Begin with the cave man, that condition which after much and serious opposition we see ourselves forced to admit as the original condition of society. There are no institutions. There are no laws. There is no government. Each man and each little family group stands alone. They battle as best they can against the lurking foe, in his elemental and animal and vegetable form. Each group faces the terrific storm of those "post-carboniferous" days alone. It faces the onslaught of the cave bear and of the cave lion alone. It faces the deadly vegetable which by mis- take is gathered for food, alone. Presently groups of families form. These initiate the tribal state of society. They find certain matters of common interest and of common value. They fish and hunt in groups. The law begins to dawn, in that cer- tain habits are established and the thing is born upon which the "law" as understood by human beings is based, namely precedent and experience. It is found that the stream selected for the crude forms of fishing wherewith these men were familiar can supply only cer- tain quantities and kinds of fish. It is decided that one particular stream furnishes enough for one tribe only, that the other tribe must go to the other stream. This is the initiament of private property. Large game haunts the hills at a little distance from the prim- itive cave dwellings and rough dugouts of the tribe. It takes the men selected for the chase several days to reach these hills, stalk and take the game and return. HISTORIC BACKGROUND 11 Meanwhile others of the tribe, not selected for the chase, must fish to furnish food for the tribe. In its rude out- lines this is the fundamental feature of labor and the division of labor. The fisherman brings home on one day more fish than are needed, while the hunter has no meat. The hunter offers the animal skin, which he has made for himself, in trade or barter for some fish. This is the foundation of commerce. The groups or tribe are at first, probably, under the control of women, according to Karl Pearson's theory, and the matriarchate is established, founded upon the home sense and upon the fact that the woman makes the home. Traces of this are carried down to our times in the gipsy establishment, which is still under a queen and not under a king, except as a subsidiary regent under his wife. Then the patriarchate grows apace. Larger interests come in. The tribe enters upon the ag- ricultural stage, which follows the fishing and hunting condition. The sessile element is introduced. It takes some time for harvests to ripen. Therefore the tribe remains in one place for a time. The importance of permanency of dwelling is felt. The tent gives way to the house and the city "dawns." Then follow rapidly the familiar steps that lead to the fenced city, to the baron's castle, to feudalism, to sla- very and serfdom, as forms of feudalism, more or less emphasizing the individual helplessness of those depend- ent for protection upon the strong arm of the feudal baron, of the overlord, who with his retainers could fight the poor man's battles and protect his growing crops. This headman was Latinized into the "dux" or leader. This was Anglicized into "duke" and these were distinguished into those who had a larger retinue or the "grand dukes" and into the lesser or ordinary 12 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP dukes, and then the distinctions were continued until the class system with kings and emperors was introduced as efficiently into the lands under the shadow of Christi- anity as had been the caste system into the land of the Brahman. These two ideas, slavery and the class system, did the people who drew up the Declaration of Independence face. But not they alone. It is interesting to note the various more or less prominent symptoms, which indica- ted the ascendency of the thought of dissatisfaction with existing conditions, so far as liberty and equality were concerned. It began in a dim way to creep into the literary world, this ascendency of the thought, in the domain of Belles Lettres, for as the novel written by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe crystallized sentiment against slavery in America, so a novel whose title is for- gotten, written by an English woman whose name no one recalls, brought the thought to the surface of liter- ature. She was strongly impressed with the difference between the "noble red man" as English and French and Spanish explorers found him in America and the overdressed puppets of royal courts in her day. The red man of whom she spoke was the red man whom Fenimore Cooper selects as the hero in "Deer- slayer" and the "Last of the Mohicans." He was doubt- less a very real person before the white man spoiled him with "firewater" and treachery. The authoress con- trasted the education of the red man, a natural educa- tion, with the education of the courtier, an exceedingly artificial education. For a time nothing happened. The book seemed to disappear from the surface of lit- erary consciousness. But it had not disappeared. It had made its way into the circles of philosophers fre- quented by Jean Jacques Rousseau and Jean Paul HISTORIC BACKGROUND 13 Friedrich Richter. Either the book and its embodied thought or the thought itself as a disembodied entity afloat upon the mental atmosphere, reached the minds of these men. And they added to the literature of the world the thought of "natural education" as contrasted with artificial education, which made it possible on the one hand for Froebel to introduce the kindergarten or natural method of education for children, and the thought of "natural" government as contrasted with "artificial" government, which crystallized on the other hand the thought of the inequality of things and the absence of freedom of the individual. As is usual in these things, the French gave most enthusiastic voice to the new idea. A nation which serves as the thermometer of race life, as does the French, naturally indicates upon its scale the highest pitch to which an idea can rise, as to-day it is indicating the highest pitch to which the question of church and State can be raised, from which will grow a calm and sane ad- justment of things presently, but probably in some other nation, as was the case in the transfer of the idea of liberty and equality, which was an apparently unful- filled dream in France, to America, where it is being realized. The antagonism to class and to restraint grew apace in France. Its outward, literary expression takes the shape of a book or pamphlet by Jean Jacques Rousseau. He had not yet found his place. He thought he was a musician. He was. But he was more than that. If his father was a dancing master and music came nat- urally to the boy, his father was also a Huguenot, and the Edict of Nantes was boiled into the young man's blood as an elixir, which was irresistible. So, in 1754, he wrote his "Discourse sur PInegalite" (Dissertation on 14 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP Inequality). He showed that the inequality apparent among men was not founded on the laws of nature. The French Academy had crowned a previous work of his with a prize. It dared not do so with this one. There was too much in it subversive of the established order of things. It would not be wise to crown it with a prize. But Jean Jacques Rousseau went on. He coined the phrase "the sovereign people" presently, and was driven from pillar to post for doing it. His "Con- trat Social," in which he conveyed that message, drove him from Paris to the Hermitage and thence into exile. It lost him his friends, Grimm, Diderot, Mme. d'Epinay. It finally broke his health, his heart and the thread of his life, but he made Mirabeau, Franklin, Jefferson and many others possible. Then Mirabeau, Robespierre, Danton, Marat take up the problem of equality at first in an academic way, as a matter of discussion creating two sides, the Jacobin side, and the Girondist side, the one to stand for the new order of things and the other for the established order of things, and these men discuss and discuss. They talk of that which America had already caught from France and embodied in her Declaration of Independence, for there seems to be no doubt that Rousseau crystallized that thought for Jefferson. And the ultimate result, so far as it worked out in America, may be said thus far to have been an eminent success. But in the country of its origin it went on to verify the sentence in Holy Writ which pictures this general condition, namely, "The wise men returned home by another way." It seems almost universally true that Divine Providence permits a thing to take shape toward an apparent end, while It has in mind another and entirely different end. So the Declaration of Rights is a failure in France HISTORIC BACKGROUND 15 but the Declaration of Independence embodying the same ideas is a success in America from the start. So, in France, Mirabeau unchained the subversive powers of the revolution, which Napoleon was to rechain in the end. It was a laudable thing that these men tried to do. But they were not conversant with the actual tremendous force of the powers they unleashed. They did not dream how things would go. So little were they prepared for the terrific reaction that men like Robes- pierre have until recently been misunderstood aye, they accused each other of treachery. His reputation was waiting for its re-establishment for Hillaire Belloc and his enthusiastic and evidently adequate defense. The French Revolution arose. If the student desires to follow its rise and fall, let him read Carlyle's "French Revolution." Saturated with grim tenderness, this author pictures in remarkable, vivid and accurate out- lines the divine wrath of the people fulminating against the "accumulated falsities of centuries." But it was de- structive work, this. It was not constructive work. Therefore it in itself could not stand. For the agency which destroys always in the end destroys itself. The acid that disintegrates a salt disappears with that salt into the neutrality of a base. Or as the Holy Word hath it, "Evil destroys the wicked." So Robespierre, despondent, tries to commit suicide to cheat the guillo- tine, Marat gives Charlotte Corday an opportunity of repeating the Scriptural narrative of Jael and Sisera. And Danton, called by his enemies "the butcher," is butchered. "They that wield the sword, by the sword shall they fall. And whoso escapeth the sword of Ha- zael, him shall Jehu slay. And him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu, shall Elisha slay." But the actual work had been done. Dumont's story 16 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP of "Freedom and Equality" passed over into our Dec- laration of Independence, and the wisdom of Washing- ton, the sagacity of Franklin, the insight of Jefferson, the enthusiasm of Lafayette and the diplomacy of Necker, urged it into the open and gave it fair trial and achieved its success. That the two ideas were alike, the French and the American, will be evident from a comparison of them. Here is the form which Dumont gave the thought, August 26, 1789 : "All men are born and remain equal in rights. Social distinctions can be founded only on the general good. Law is the expression of the general will and every citi- zen has a right to participate in its enactment, either personally or through his representative. Public bur- dens should be borne by all members of the State in proportion to their several ability. The elective fran- chise should be extended to all. No one should be ac- cused, arrested or imprisoned except according to due process of law. No one should be disturbed on account of his religious opinion. There must be freedom of thought, of speech, of the press. All citizens have a right to decide personally or through their representa- tives as to the necessity of public contributions, their application, disbursement and so forth." Edmund Burke's critique of Dumont's thesis called into being Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" and so Englished that which had been French. But bodily the thought seems to have passed over into our "Declara- tion of Independence" and there to have assumed this form: "All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights governments are instituted among HISTORIC BACKGROUND 17 men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new govern- ment, laying its foundation in such form as to them will seem most likely to effect their safety and happi- ness." There is difference in expression only, and what the Declaration of Independence does not distinctly enunci- ate is involved in the Constitution. Thus the French gave shape to the thought which America was to work out into actual practise. And America naturally turned to the French because, from the nature of the case, and under the combination of circumstances which gave immediate rise to their decla- ration of independence, it was natural for them to turn away from the English and toward the French. For centuries the pendulum of rule and possession had swung back and forth between these two nations. For a time the centre of power would be held by the one, then for a time by the other; sometimes France would be king in England and sometimes England would be king in France. Hence, as between the two powers, it was com- paratively a foregone conclusion that America in time of trouble with England would look to France : and she did so. Hence, not only was the seed sown in France but the soil was prepared there, from which the strong and sturdy young plant of "Free and Equal" was to be transplanted to American soil; there to flourish, to ma- ture and to ripen into the successes and the problems which face us under the guerdon of that aegis to-day. 18 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP CHAPTER II MONISM AND DUALISM IN GOVERNMENT. RETURN to the keynote of the Declaration, "Free and Equal." Think of the words mathe- matically. A thing can be equal to another thing only if they are both alike as to their condition, environment and substance. The emphasis placed upon one must be the same as the emphasis placed upon the other. The weight given to one must be the same as the weight given the other. Hence equality involves always two things and never one. Freedom mathematically considered is the perfect poise of a thing between two exactly equal forces. Psy- chologically it is the same. Morally it is the same. If I am to be free in my choice of a thing the arguments for and the arguments against must be equal in force and of equal value. If the arguments against prepon- derate, I would be unable to choose in freedom, since I would be forced to decide against. Hence freedom rests upon the influence of two equal but opposite forces. Hence a government involving freedom as its funda- mental, and equality as its basis, must be one in which there shall be two contending forces (usually called po- litical parties) of equal or nearly equal strength and in- tensity. Again trace this. If you compare the governments of the world of to-day with the governments of the world two centuries ago, you will find that 200 years ago all the forms of government were monarchic, with MONISM AND DUALISM 19 the Swiss Republic standing almost alone, since spas- modic efforts on the part of the governments of an- tiquity to establish republican forms of government cannot well be given any large significance in this con- nection. But to-day the following conditions hold true there are twenty-seven republics and aggregates of federated States called in German "Staatenbund" and "Bundesstaat," for neither of which words we have an exact English equivalent. Of these the largest aggre- gates in the way of actual republics are the United States and France, while the largest aggregates in the way of federated States are the Canadian Northwest and Germany. Let me add to this the well-known fact that a form of government usually called "limited monarchy" lends itself to the freedom and equality essential as funda- mental thoughts of a republic with such facility as to virtually make several of these countries republics in the sense that their government is quite distinctly the voice of the people. England has been such a form of gov- ernment since the early days of Queen Victoria, while Germany is rapidly approaching a condition resembling England's as nearly as the differences of nationality and environment permit. The forms of autocratic govern- ment are now confined almost entirely to the less enlight- ened peoples of the earth, to the Asiatic peoples largely, to such countries of Persia, Turkey and others, while even in Russia, China and Japan the monarchy has been dealt a deathblow. Compare the two forms of government philosophically and you find the autocratic form of government to consist in the control of the destiny of a people by one man, by one class of men, by one body of men. In the early days of antiquity the most general form was the 20 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP "one man" form. He was called Sultan, Shah, Czar (which is Russian for Caesar), Emperor, Autocrat. Monarch is Greek for "One Ruler." Into the hands of this one man all or great power was given. If he was a good man, the result was beneficial to the people; if he was a bad man the result was disastrous to the people and ultimately to him, since some one was sure to assassi- nate him and put him out of the way, sometimes sur- reptitiously, as was the father of the present Czar and a long line of others, or openly and boldly, as was Caesar by Brutus and his fellow-conspirators, "for the safety of the State," and another long line of others. Gradu- ally the power of one man was lost sight of in the power of a group. This group was a group of barons, or of mighty men-at-arms, such as in the days of Hastings and Warwick the Kingmaker (fifteenth century); or a feudal lordship, or an aristocracy, as in the days of the French Revolution; or a bureaucracy, such as was the actual cause of the crumbling of Russia's power; or a plutocracy, such as some fear in America, if the ac- cretion of enormous fortunes continues. In these forms of government one party has every- thing to say and the other nothing. Hence this may be called "monism" or "one-ism" in government. While into other forms of government, such as the more mod- ern, the element of dualism has been naturally introduced. And two parties have arisen, with a more or less per- fect form of government, in which the governors and the governed have a fair and equal share of interest and power. Disturbed as this ideal has at times been, and may be now in the United States, it lies at the bottom of all we do and all we aim to do in government. In order to secure a complete survey of the funda- mental idea of dualism, the student may be referred to MONISM AND DUALISM 21 two lines of thought, which materially assist in under- standing the actual values to be attached to the prac- tical and the philosophic sides of citizenship with ref- erence to this principle, which is, in general, involved in the dualism of Congress (Senate and House of Rep- resentatives) and of State Legislatures (Senate and As- sembly). The first line of thought is that of liistoric sequence as modified by recent scientific investigation. The scien- tist of to-day has discovered that the life of the indi- vidual is an epitome of the life of the race; that we all pass through the various conditions through which the race has passed, and each individual does so more or less rapidly. Thus we find the individual passing rapidly through all stages of animate creation during prenatal days; through a vegetative stage; through a series of stages resembling the various strata of animal life. Af- ter birth the individual passes through the various ages of the world of humanity. Thus the boy (and some- times the girl) will show an almost innate desire to throw stones at a moving thing, for the reason that the pro- genitors of the race in the cave days had to throw stones at moving things for reasons of self-preservation. The time when the boy wants to wear paper helmets and a wooden sword corresponds with the time when the race was in its militant or military condition, as illustrated most markedly by the days of Roman conquest about the time of Christ. Then the individual passes into the romantic stage. Days come when he dreams beautiful pink dreams with golden linings. He has wonderful ambitions as to what he is to do, and wonderful ideas as to the opposite sex. That this time corresponds exactly with the period of world history in which the minnesinger and the Palmer 22 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP sang their love songs, and in which knights jousted for the favor of their ladies, goes without saying. The days of youthful ambition are the days "when knighthood is in flower." Then the boy is thrown out into the cold and calculating world and he reaches that stage of com- mercialism which was inaugurated by Venice and in Lombardy, but amounted to little until England took hold and the name of Threadneedle Street, foreshadow- ing Wall Street, became a thing to conjure with. And thence the individual steps into the rationalism, and skepticism and the cynicism of ripe youth, corre- sponding exactly with the days of the French Revolu- tion, when men wanted to throw overboard all manner of superstition and wanted to change even the calendar and carried the Goddess of Reason through the streets. And immediately after these days of youthful cynicism, skepticism and rationalism, thank God, come the days of sober manhood. And upon these days have you and I entered in this decade of the "awakening of public conscience." There is every indication of this thing, which you and I may have mistaken for a series of local upheavals and temporary reform, actually being the dawn of the manhood and the virility of the race with America set- ting the pace and the example. Let us hope so and keep the possibility of it firmly in mind. Let us say to ourselves, "We have been children hitherto, playing at elections, playing at the 'game of politics,' playing with the fire and mud of corruption. Let us be men now and come out into the open, with a square deal to the other fellow, with charity to all and malice to none, and with an eye single to honor and integrity, which will meet with the approval of Him who said, 'Let thine eye be single, and thy body will be light.' " MONISM AND DUALISM 23 So far, then, as the evolutional features of history are concerned we may assume with more or less confidence that the age of the world's manhood is upon us and that the changes going on about us are larger, more far- reaching than we suspect, and have in them more of the universal social uplift than may show in the particular local centre where one or the other of us may find his habitat and his work. But if this historic survey have any value whatever, that value consists in the fact that it gives us a sum- mary of two conditions; one the condition of the indi- vidual while he is not able to take care of himself, the other that condition in which he is able to take care of himself. For while the individual is young, paternalism must be exercised over him. He does not know what to do and he must be told. This is at bottom the founda- tion principle of the monarchy, of the paternalistic gov- ernment, both in church and State. During the early ages of the world men lived in conditions of helplessness and ignorance, which made it impossible for them to think for themselves. Some few, bright, keen intellects, which could grasp the more intricate problems of life, must needs throw themselves into the van, lead the masses and gradually control the masses. And so, for many centuries, the paternalistic forms of government were legitimate and proper. But as the individual grows, it is assumed that he learns to take care of himself. Parental authority wanes, gradually and naturally, if parents and children are intelligent and cul- tured ; with more or less violence, if both parties are not so. But the relation of a man to his father gradually changes from that of subject to equal. The boy and his father are presently, if both be intelligent, friends and 24 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP chums. If they be unintelligent, they drift apart and become strangers or even at variance. So the paternalistic government gives way to that of equality. It gives way to that form of government where the men who are in control of things are "of the people" and do things "for the people" at the request "of the people," if and this is a large "if" both parties be intelligent. If not, there must needs arise con- ditions of strain in which the governed resent the im- position of unjust measures, while the governors resent with equai vigor "interference" with "their" affairs. Civic education aims at that point where the standard of intelligence shall be raised in such a way as to bring about a condition of perfect poise between the people and the representatives of the people. Hence the ad- vance toward the manhood of the race is an advance from paternalistic or monistic or monarchic forms of government toward the dualistic forms, of which the Constitution of the United States is a most fit and emi- nent example. Those who desire to carry the thought of dualism further along lines of original research are advised to take up the second line of thought indicated above, name- ly the dualism of the world, a hint of which can be condensed into the following brief list of words: Po- larity, the positive and negative side of any force. Bi- sexuality, carried as far down into the vegetable king- dom and the domain of flowers as the student cares to carry it. Bilateralism, or the fact that the Creator gives humanity two eyes, two ears, two hands, two feet and so forth. Bicameralism, or the fact that we have found it wise to have two bodies of representatives in our Legis- latures, as expressed in our House of Representatives and Senate in Washington, our Senate and Assembly in MONISM AND DUALISM 25 our State Legislatures, in Select and Common Council in some of our municipal governments, in the House of Lords and the House of Commons in England, and so forth. Bi-socialism, or the existence of two parties to a contract, as in business and marriage; as in the two great political parties, such as the Whigs and the Tories, the Republicans and the Democrats, the Protectionists and the Free Traders, the Liberals and Conservatives, and so forth. Any or all of these lines of research will convince the student that the dualistic form of govern- ment involved in our Federal Constitution is not based upon chance or historic fatuity, but upon fundamental laws, both historic and biologic. A word now as to one practical development of this thought. The citizen is frequently faced by the general proposition of the relation of his political affiliations to the business of the municipality in which he lives. He finds himself trying to adjust the demands of the city to those of the political party with which, in State and National affairs, he has customarily acted. The reformer will tell him : "Drop your political affiliations in munici- pal affairs. Vote for good men irrespective of party. The best man available for a certain position and the most competent man willing to serve, may be of a party to which you have no desire to owe allegiance. Never mind his party. Vote for the most competent man." The reason he fears, is this : He thinks that neglect of party lines will work disastrously because the two sides of an issue will not be enforced, and because, in his mind, these two sides can be enforced and carried only by the two parties with which he has become familiar. That is erroneous. No important question arises in a community about which there will not be an immediate, healthy and candid difference of opinion. Test it in a 26 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP few familiar local issues. Propose to establish an electric light plant to be owned, controlled and managed by the municipality, and your citizens will immediately take sides more or less vigorously. There will arise two dis- tinct parties, one utterly and absolutely in favor of the plant, another as utterly and absolutely opposed to it. There is no need of arraigning Republican and Demo- cratic sentiment one against the other. The issue stands on its own feet. Let the citizens decide that question upon the majority basis which we have chosen as our guide and authority in such matters. If most of the citi- zens are in favor, put in your plant; if most of them are opposed, let there be no plant. A corporation wants a franchise; a railroad wants to elevate its tracks and wants the municipality to con- tribute toward the expense of that improvement; an or- ganization wants to evade its taxes; it is proposed to enforce an act for the payment of arrearages in taxes ; the town wants a new High School building, and so forth without end. No such issue can be raised in a municipality without two parties arising in regard to it almost instantaneously. And when the election comes, nothing is requisite but to secure the expression of the candidates for municipal office, as to the policy for which they will respectively stand, and the election will decide itself, without reference to the great political parties and absolutely upon its own merits. The citizen who has mastered the essential dualism of our government and of our nature will have no fears on this score. In local elections he will vote for men, in State and National elections he may vote for his party, if he will ; but he will find it not at all impossible to carry the principle forward even into its most complex expres- sion, if he care to do so. THE TRINE 27 CHAPTER III THE TRINAL DIVISION OF GOVERNMENT MACHINERY THE LEGISLATIVE, THE JUDICIAL AND THE EXECUTIVE. WE divide the machinery of government into three functions the legislative, the judicial and the executive. So much is familiar to every citizen from his schooldays. Less familiar it may be to him, that the sense of pleasure which came to him from reading this sentence during his school and college days is shared by every foreigner, as soon as the sen- tence meets his eye. Least familiar may be the knowl- edge of the origin of this pleasure. In olden times our forbears were accustomed to think of such a sense of satisfaction as being in some dim way connected with vital functions seated in the deeper re- cesses of the mind or soul, and they therefore, in an equally dim way, attached a sense of "sacredness" to certain numbers, such as three, four, seven and twelve. There was at first no reason for this. But presently men began to philosophize upon the topic, and when the Greeks and the Hindus took hold of matters of this kind, they usually went through the entire process of reasoning so thoroughly that little is left for their successors to accomplish. As to the num- ber three, this is what they found. Time has three con- ditions: a past, a present and a future, of which the past and future are realizable parts and the present is a non-realizable part, for as you try to think of the actual present moment, it is gone and is past. The pres- 28 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP ent, therefore, is a sort of pivot on which the past and future hinge. In the same way Space has three conditions, which the Anglo-Saxon tribes have defined as "length, breadth and thickness," while the Indo- Aryans have settled upon "Space, Time and Condition" as being the definition. This latter because both space and time are matters of relationship, or relative quantities, and the word "con- dition" in reference to space could be assumed to take the same place as the word "present" in relation to time. Whichever may be considered the deeper and, therefore, truer definition, the fact remains that the element of space, like the element of time, is subject to the num- ber three for its dimensions. This emphasized the num- ber three as a sacred or important number. Then our philosophers turned to Nature in her mani- festations and they found that she arrayed herself nat- urally into three kingdoms; into the mineral, the vege- table and the animal kingdom ; and that, no matter how man might interdefine and segregate distinct groups of animate or inanimate matter, organized or unorganized, this division into three remained the essential and the leading division. This confirmed them in their idea that three is a "sacred" number, of larger significance than others. And when the scientist discovered that all mat- ter had three conditions, namely, a solid, a liquid and a gaseous condition, it confirmed the idea still more strong- ly, which confirmation took a yet more radical form in the mind of the Christian philosopher, when he discov- ered, not only that there was indicated to him a Trinity in the Godhead, but that the trinity was carried intc many details of the Holy Book, showing design on the part of the Author to emphasize that number beyonoj any other as indicating a statement of the completeness THE TRINE 29 or entirety of a thing, beyond which men could say "there is nothing further." For if you say of time that it is past, present and future, you have said all there is to say. If you have said of space, "length, breadth and thickness" you have said all there is to say; if you say of the condition of matter, "solid, fluid and gaseous," you have said all there is to say. And so forth. Hence the Christian was ready to adopt the form of the Trinity, and to interpret it as best he could, not only because it collected into a new and clear relationship all the various trinities devised by the peoples of antiquity, such as the Egyptian, Osiris, Isis and Horus ; the Hindu, Brahm, Krisna and Vishnu ; the Roman, Jupiter (who ruled the sky above), Nep- tune (who ruled the level-reaches of the earth and sea) and Pluto (who ruled the dark world below) but the thought also covered the evident trinities introduced throughout the Sacred Writings, when we are told of three patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; of three great Kings, Saul, David and Solomon, after whom the kingdom was divided; of three great prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and finally of three prominent disciples who are admitted into the more intimate life of the Master, Peter, James and John. Any one will note that these trines have grown very familiar to the reader of the Bible and have served to strengthen the habit of considering this number "sacred" according to such def- inition of "sacred" as the individual may care to use. But these things would lose in value if they were not based upon some element of individual psychology, which serves as a sentient field, or as a means of recog- nizing the peculiar value of the term. And it is this ele- ment to which attention should be called. Every action on the part of the individual postulates three things. It 30 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP postulates the action itself; it postulates intelligence or the "know how," and it postulates desire, or wish, or willingness to do. For everything you do involves the idea whether you "want to" do it or not; whether you "know how" to do it or not, and whether it is finally done. If you call the "want to," "will," the "know how," "understanding" and the actual accomplishment "act" you will find that every activity of man involves a trine of "will, understanding and act" which makes him able to recognize and hail every trinity he finds outside him- self as a familiar thing and as an old friend. Hence the sense of pleasure when we run across such an "old friend" in the Federal Constitution, in the idea of a trinity of governmental function, the legislative, the judiciary and the executive. This thought is so fundamental to the philosophy of practical citizenship that I may be permitted to dwell upon it a little longer. Suppose a house is to be built. The first process is the "want to." A need of such a house must be felt by some one. After that is felt, and the feeling is rep- resented by the word "will," as here defined, or "the will to build," we enter upon the domain of the "understand- ing." There must be a plan of some kind. Some one, either the person who wants to build the house, or some one else, must "know how" to build. And, finally, the house is built, and we enter upon the domain of "act" or "labor." Now, if the reader will think this proposition over, he will find that "all" the territory of activity has been covered by this trine. And upon further thought he will find that there is a twofold manner of application, for the man can do all three things himself, or he can relegate them to others. Take, first, the "will" idea, and you will see that the THE TRINE 31 man may "want to" build the house for himself, or he may desire to meet the "wants" of some one else. He may "wish to" build an apartment-house for others to live in ; he may "want to" build a store to rent to some one else. There are, therefore, two factors in this first proposition the man himself, or some one else, for whom he acts, and whose wishes in the matter he tries, more or less successfully, to meet. As soon as you take up this latter proposition you find that the man is aiming to satisfy the wishes of any one or of any series of individuals in a large possible group. He does not know who his tenants are going to be. He builds for please attend closely to this point the people at large. As soon as man does anything for any one else he faces the people at large and "stands for" the people at large. To stand for any one else is called to "represent;" hence the man who does any- thing for anybody else becomes a "representative," and again note ceases to have a will of his own, so far as that activity is concerned. It is in no wise a question what he wants, but what "the other fellow" (that is, "the people") wants. If he is building a store for rent he might himself want a large store, yet build small ones to accommodate those who want small stores at a low rental. Or vice versa, he might himself need only a small store, yet build one small one and two or three large ones for the possible "other fellow." Actually, when he builds with a view to a possible tenant he enters upon the ground of "representatives" with more or less success, depending largely upon his business sense and upon his insight into the needs of "the people." Now take up the second proposition the "know how." In any case the man himself who wants to build may "know how." He may be his own architect. He may 32 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP design his own house, plan all its rooms, get the whole thing on paper and prepare his own working plans. Or he may relegate that work to some one else. He may ask an architect to do it for him. The architect becomes the "representative" of the person who wants the house built. He has no "will of his own in the matter," but lends his knowledge to the original "wanter." He is dis- tinctly representative, and fails in his work when he fails to be representative. And the arrangement, contract or what not between the two men, immediately it enters into force, becomes "representative" government in min- iature. In a case where the man builds for some one else the man himself "represents" the "people" and the architect represents the man and through him the people. Now to the third plane of activity the execution of the plan. Here we reach the builder, the contractor, the laborer. He takes the thing which the first man wanted, and which the second man planned, and enacts it into actual form and building. Again, a man may be his own builder. He may not only want to build the house, but he may also plan it and actually build it, as many do; but he may relegate the building to a third party, and so bring about a third form of "representation." For again the builder has neither will nor plan of his own. He proposes to follow the working-drawings and speci- fications which are furnished him and to thus fulfil his contract. I emphasize these points to show that en- trance upon a "representative form" of activity, or of doing a thing "for some one else," sinks the individual wish out of sight and substitutes that of the person or persons represented. It will be immediately recognized that these three forms of activity, the will, the understanding and the act, are of equal importance, mutually supplemental and THE TRINE 33 tantamount as to significance. For the man who wants to build and does not know how will not produce any- thing. The man who knows how and does not want to build will produce nothing; and the man who can fur- nish the muscle for building, but neither knows how nor wants too, is equally unproductive. It is the combination of the three possibilities, here called "will, understand- ing and act," which finally accomplishes the work. Now, transfer this to the trine of governmental forms or functions and you will readily note that the legislative branch of the work is designed to be the representation of the "will" of the people; that the judiciary is the representative of the "understanding" of the people, and that the executive is the method of carrying out the combined will and understanding of the people. It will now appear why the terms "will," "understanding" and "act" have here been used. The man who goes to the Legislature represents the "will" of the people. The man on the Bench, also representing the people, repre- sents more directly their best "understanding of the law" which the legislator has made, and the executive repre- sents the people in their effort to carry out that which they want done and have in council and conference thought out. It is in the light of this interpretation that the "legis- lative" branch of the governmental function will be con- sidered in the next chapter. 34 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP CHAPTER IV THE LEGISLATIVE FUNCTION OF GOVERNMENT ITS VARI- OUS FORMS AND ITS STRONG AND WEAK POINTS. THE American people have decided, from the very inception of government, upon the representa- tive form of government. They have decided against the monarchic form. It will be recalled that the two forms of government are the monarchic and the re- publican. The former is a form in which all power is vested in the hands of one man or of one body of men, over whom the people have no control. The latter is a form in which the people choose men to represent them and to execute their wishes, and over whom they retain control. Let us now take up the representative aspect of our government, as we have it in the legislative function in that function which distinctively is to stand for the "will" of the people, as indicated in the last chapter. We have gradually evolved four forms of this par- ticular function of government. One for the town or city, one for the county, one for the State and one for the Nation. To those who are interested in this gradual unf oldment of "Duality, Trinity and Quaternity" it may be useful to say that, as applied to civics, duality holds for the "kind" of government, trinity for the "function" or the "functioning" of government, that is to say, its method of being carried forward, while quaternity or f ourfoldness applies to the geographic as also historic application of government. Thus there are two gen- LEGISLATION 35 eral forms of government, the "one" form (monarchic) and the "all" form (republican, popular, democratic). There are three functions of government "will, un- derstanding and act," or "legislative, judicial and execu- tive," and there are four general divisions in which this function can be and is to be applied, namely, city, county, State and Nation. If the student will hold these divisions of the general subject well in mind, he will find himself very readily able to decide many questions which other- wise will be confused or uncertain in his mind. Thus, if he chooses to make the experiment, he can during any session of a Legislature take up a dozen or two of the bills presented, and readily see which of them apply to the city, which to the county, which to the State and which to the Nation, and gradually begin work upon the general proposition that the State Legislature should pass State laws, not city laws, not county laws and not National laws. Its business must be, and will presently be, distinctly confined to the production, passage and en- forcement of State laws. And so long as this is not done, the intense and exceedingly unsatisfactory display of useless energy will continue. In the city, town, borough (and in the hybrid thing called "township," which is virtually a miniature form of county and readily disposable under county ideas), we have decided to call the legislative body a "council." In some cases we have divided this council into two houses, like we do the Legislature and Congress. When this is done we call the upper house the "Select Council," and the lower house the "Common Council." Otherwise the word "council" is sufficient for all purposes of identifica- tion, for which purpose alone names are, or should be, used. In the county we have decided to call the legislative 36 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP body the "Board of Chosen Freeholders" "Freehold- ers" because they are supposed to be men holding prop- erty, as distinguished from men held as property, name- ly, slaves, a condition prevailing at the time when the name was devised; "Chosen" because they were selected by the people, and not appointed. This idea of "choice" is in some places also expressed by the term "selectmen." In the State we have decided to create a "Legislature" which shall consist of two houses, an upper house, called the "Senate," and a lower house, called the "General As- sembly." The men chosen for the former are called "Senators," those chosen for the latter usually "Assem- blymen." In the nation we have decided to follow exactly the same form, calling the entire body "Congress," the up- per house "Senate," as we do in the case of the State, and the lower house "The House of Representatives." We choose people for these places by the same method. Where there are two houses we limit the representation of the upper house to a definite number, while we choose the lower house proportionately to the number of inhabi- tants of the district represented. Thus in the United States Senate we admit two Senators from each State. In the State Senate of New Jersey we admit one Senator from each county, elected by the people of that county for three years. While we send to either Legislature a variable number of men from States or counties, accord- ing to population, so far as the lower house is concerned. Thus in the State of New Jersey each county sends its representatives upon the basis of the population at the last census with readjustments after the taking of each census. Readjustments are made by the Legislature at the session next after the publication of the census, and LEGISLATION 37 no county is permitted to have less than one or more than sixty representatives. In the case of the Board of Chosen Freeholders, and of the City Council, the "upper and lower house" idea is so infrequently employed as to be a negligible quan- tity. In both cases we elect according to certain ele- ments of districting, such as wards and districts, and ap- proximately according to population values, although the lines grow dim in some cases and are "gerryman- dered" unmercifully in others. In all these matters and in a close study of them we must admit as our major premise the general undertone of American life, namely, its "crudeness," its haphaz- ardness, its general tendency to be "just growed," like Topsy. This is not a serious reproach. A country as new as America, with vast territories still thinly popu- lated and with others enormously and disproportionately thronged, can do much and has much still left to be done in the way of regulation of growth. Just now we are all growth. Walk the streets of any great city and note the lack of forethought in its work. The city puts down a street and then tears it up to put down gas. Then it puts down the street again and then it tears it up again to put in water. Then it puts down the street again, and then tears it up again to put in conduits for electricity. And so the process goes on, without sufficient premedi- tation, without forethought. A few of our cities have just begun to wake up to the possibility of forethought in municipal matters. Thus far, Washington is the only city we have in which somebody thought out the city first and built it afterward. Everywhere else we built first and thought it out afterward. And nobly as we may in this city or that be taking up the thought of municipal improvement, 38 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP the general trend is to do first and to think afterward, because of the absolutely unlimited supply of nervous energy characteristic of the people of America. Some day we will think things over first and do them after- ward. They are prettier, better and more useful when they are so done. Thus we grow, forcefully but thoughtlessly. Hence the skyscraper defies a skyline and is inartistic, tremendous, gigantic, inharmonious, blatantly individualistic. Hence the man who builds alongside of an eleven-story scraper simply builds a seventeen-story one preliminary to his neighbor putting up a twejity-three-story one. It is simply a question of getting up higher into the air with each building and housing a larger section of the human ants who march in endless procession downtownward every morn- ing and back in the evening. We are building hives and we know it, and we care little how they look or what the general sense of utility and beauty may have to say about it. So with our legislation. We put in bills and bills and bills, and then rush around and hustle about and have hearings and meetings and sessions and pass them or vote them down or smother them in committee, and when they are all passed they are usually an undigested mass, of which few people can make sense and which are about as corduroy as anything sane folk can produce. But at any rate we elect men to the Legislature. Fair- ly or unfairly do we elect them. I know of no people as good-natured, as boisterously unfair and as brutally frank about that unfairness as the American people. We all know that there is about every election, large and small, an element of purchase and of bribery which is distressing because it is disgusting. There are blocks of votes bought at every election ; there is incessant bri- LEGISLATION 39 bery in more or less obscure form. Sometimes people stand about the polls waiting to be bought; sometimes a man is bribed in a most delicate and elaborate way a receipted bill comes his way ; no bill is sent him for this or that commodity he loses trade if he votes or says he is going to vote this way or that or in the other case a courtesy is extended to him in the form of a pass. In such instances nobody says "buy" or "pay" but the naming of the transaction does not alter its nature. I may speak of a woman as "handsomely dressed" or "gorgeously arrayed" or "dyked out swell" and mean exactly the same thing. I may speak of James Mon- tague as a "cultured gentleman" or as "James is a good fellow," or as "what's the matter with Monty. He's all right," and always mean the same thing. So, in elections, there are varieties of ways of obtaining re- sults; by direct and brazen purchase, by false registra- tion and the voting of floaters in several districts during the day, by quiet innuendo, by indirection of this, that or the other kind. But they are all the same. They de- stroy the value of the honest man's vote. But again American energy and American "good humor" smile at the thing and pass it by. It may be that we are on the threshold of some sweeping changes in this matter. I sincerely trust that we may be. For it is trying to con- tinue a farce indefinitely and speak of it in seriousness or mistake it for a drama or a problem play. But, fairly or unfairly, we elect these men to their various places. And when they are chosen and have taken their places, the huge or minute mechanism of legislation is put in motion. In the city the Common Council passes "ordi- nances." The sources of these ordinances, which are in- tended to regulate the affairs of the city, are generally located in the midst of the group called "the people," 40 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP the "citizens," the "taxpayers." A need is felt and ex- pressed, sometimes by an individual, sometimes by a group of people. There are too many stray and own- erless dogs in the streets householders do not cover their garbage cans, people throw paper about in the streets ; there is not sufficient water pressure for fire pur- poses in high places ; some one is doing illegal trafficking in drink, in cards, in horses, in women; something is going wrong. Some one takes cognizance of that wrong and makes a note of it. He collects a few friends or neighbors about him and forms an organization, if the thing be long continued, and this organization brings the matter before the council, or he lodges the complaint individually. That is, he speaks to the councilman (al- derman) from his district (ward, section) and tells him to introduce the matter in council. If it be a slight mat- ter council draws up an ordinance covering it. If it be an important matter council calls public meet- ings and hears the pros and cons which citizens have to bring up on the proposition before the body. If the city be honestly run these hearings will be fair. If it be dis- honestly run they will be a single act comedy. If the thing asked for involve any large moneyed interests; if it refer to the permission granted to a corporation to lay tracks, to sell light, heat, power, water, or what not ; if it refer to some interest involving the railroad corpo- rations; some change of grade; some building enter- prise, like a railroad station; some change in schedule time, and a stoppage of fast trains where such trains do not otherwise stop (in a thousand and one ways may corporations be involved), their business sense in such cases will tell them whether the thing advocated be favor- able to them or not. If not, they will oppose it. This they will do openly and fairly, if the corporation con- LEGISLATION 41 sists of a majority of men whose individual conscience is sufficiently strong to constitute a conscience for the group, or corporation unfairly and dishonestly if the group of conscientious men be too small to furnish such an aggregate conscience. In the latter case, legislation will be corruptly op- posed. The symptoms of this kind of influence, if un- derhand, are very legible in the "signs of the times," and can be readily diagnosed by the civic worker, by the student of human nature, by the man learned in the deeper laws of social economy, which explain the per- sonal equation. There will be delays; there will be un- necessary absences on the part of certain councilmen it will be difficult to get the committee together, to whom the matter was referred there will be sudden and un- expected building operations, or purchases of things on the part of this or that councilman, which are out of proportion with the assessed valuation of that person's "personal property" on the assessors' books. A variety of symptoms put in an appearance, which are very read- ily diagnosed. To prevent this and to expose council- men to no temptations which they will be unable unaided to resist, it is well for civic bodies in a municipality (in large cities, in a ward) to anticipate the things which will probably transpire during the ensuing year, and, by asking questions of the candidates for office, put them upon record as to what they will stand for. The pres- ence, however, of citizens at meetings of council and ordinary and courteous interest shown in things which happen will remedy many things and serve as a prophy- lactic against any epidemic of dishonesty, such as has been noted and antagonized in large cities like Philadel- phia, St. Louis and other places, which have of late fur- 42 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP nished headlines for the newspapers, in which the word "graft" was much in evidence. Enlarge this picture for a State and National Legis- lature and you have all the outlines needed for an in- telligent apperception of the larger function, whether it be that of the county, of the State or of the Nation. The Board of Chosen Freeholders, the House of Assem- bly and the House of Representatives are simply larger bodies, built upon the same principle, and, therefore, perfectly intelligible along the lines here laid down. THE SENATE 43 CHAPTER V THE UNITED STATES SENATE AND WHY CORPORATE IN- TERESTS APPEAL MOST NATURALLY TO THIS BODY. IN facing the problems which the element of legisla- tion presents, the citizen most naturally takes up first the most prominent body representing that function, namely, the Senate of the United States. This body faces two kinds of problems, namely, the prob- lem of the aristocracy (plutocracy, if you prefer, for America), and the problem of interstate polity. Let us consider these two features in their order. First, take the problem of aristocracy. The attention of the student of civic affairs is early called to the fact that the United States Senate represents the aristocracy just as faithfully as does the House of Lords the aris- tocracy of England, or as did the Roman Senate that of Rome. The student who tries to investigate a fact or a series of facts, without starting with a perfectly candid premise, will find the final results of his studies as far wrong as his premise was wrong. It is, of course, as- sumed, in a government like ours, that we are all free and equal and that consequently a United States Senator stands on exactly the same level as a Representative at Washington, or as a sheriff in a county, or as any pri- vate citizen. This conception is derived from the thought that "free and equal" means "alike and on the same level," which it does not mean. Free means, equally poised between two equivalent forces, and equal means equal before the law. It does not mean that, in order to 44 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP be free, a man may do as he pleases. Such a condition does not exist. To think that a man is free to do as he pleases is absurd. Suppose some headstrong man should decide that he will not breathe air, or that he will eat no more food, or that he will do entirely without sleep, or that he will touch a live wire with his bare hand, or that he may eat all the arsenic or strychnine he pleases he will soon find that there is an endless array of things which he cannot do at all and continue as a physical entity. So, too, he will find that there is a whole array of things which he cannot do and continue as a civic entity. He cannot with impunity kill his neighbor, steal from his neighbor, or in fact, break any of the seven last com- mandments and not cease to be a civic entity. In fact, society will immediately set all kinds of machinery in motion to deprive him either temporarily or permanently of his citizenship if he tries this form of "freedom." In the same way no two men are equal as to faculties, as to talent, as to ability, as to opportunity. The only way in which a civic document, a Constitution of the United States, for instance, can assure men equality, is that they shall have (or should have) equality before the law; that no law shall be created, enforced or tolerated in which one man is discriminated against, or in which his fellow is given an undue advantage. If the student will remove permanently from his mind any other interpre- tation of "free and equal" which he may have held, he will face any problem in civics, with better facilities for its solution than would otherwise be the case. Now, in the natural order of things, society divides itself either naturally or artificially into two huge ag- gregates. In some countries these two antithetical bodies are called the aristocracy and the people. In THE SENATE 45 such countries, as for instance in England, the House of Commons represents the people and the House of Lords the aristocracy. In the United States, where we have decided to discontinue the national function called "the aristocracy," we have divided into two classes, called by various names, but most commonly known, "capital" and "labor." This nomenclature is not very satisfactory, and the student is counseled not to confine himself to it. Other names which are given to these two great classes are "the rich" and "the poor," "the Con- servatives" and "the Liberals," "the plutocracy and the proletariat," but in either case we mean a division into the employer and the employed, brain and brawn, the thinker and the worker, the organizer and the organized. Both these classes are American citizens and have a right to representation. It is natural that the class called "the interests" should turn to the United States Senate for representation, while the other class, those who stand for work, for labor, for the "common people," should turn to the House of Representatives for that same purpose. When the Roman (as also the English) form of bicam- eral legislature was adopted, Washington, Jefferson, Madison and the men most directly concerned in the up- building of the structure, adopted the "two-house" form, because they thought it would be the best thing to do. They likened it to a cup and saucer. That your tea would be too hot to drink from the cup, it might be well to pour it into the saucer to cool it. That if things are deliberated by two houses there would be no rash action. They would be more thoroughly considered. This is perfectly true and was doubtless the thing which consciously appealed to that long line of noble men beginning in Washington and deteriorating into Stonewall Jackson. But subconsciously, I suspect, there 46 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP was a desire to meet the demands of the two great classes represented in the situation, as they had to face it, name- ly the Royalist and the Republican. For these men knew that there were two classes of people in America at that time men and women who felt that they must be loyal to King George and other men and women who felt that they must be loyal to the sense of freedom which weighed upon their convictions. And so they created, unwitting- ly, a replica of the House of Lords and called it the Sen- ate, and another of the House of Commons and called it the House of Representatives. In both cases they acted more wisely than they thought and builded better than they knew, for, as was said above, both classes of Amer- ican citizens are entitled to representation, and if we can ask a leisure class to form a Senate for us at a nominal compensation and with a direct appeal to citizenship and its obligations, we have a right to do so, and if we can create another house, with a similar appeal but a lesser term of responsibility and a comparatively more indirect appeal to citizenship, we have a right to do that. Unwittingly the Roman idea of the Senate lies at the bottom of the creation of the United States Senate, name- ly, that it shall be constituted, as far as possible, of the leisure class, of those whose circumstances are such as to warrant a demand on the part of their country upon their time and talents, without adequate compensation adequate in comparison with the wealth which is supposed to be theirs. In Rome it was an unwritten law, which held throughout the Republican days, that the Senators should be chosen of the elders or patricians, and there was probably never a man on the "Patrician Consulate," as the Senate was first called, whose property valuation in the tax lists was less than 100,000 "as" (the Roman coin for unital measurement) while toward the middle of THE SENATE 47 the Republican period there emerged the "Comitia Tri- buta," as a successor of the "Comitia Centuriata." This, to all intents and purposes, was the equivalent of our House of Representatives, the representation being for the "populus," later, in the days of the degeneration, called the "plebs," with a contemptuous meaning of "the herd." In the days of the degeneration, this arrange- ment of the "upper class" representation by the Senate and "lower class" representation by the House or the Comitia (Assembly) became the source of revolution. The masses rose against the evident injustice done them by the "vested interests." No student can read the story of Jugurtha, of Marius, Sulla and Pompeius Strabo ( father of the "great" Pompey) without realizing that the piv- otal centre of all disturbances, of the riotous times which ended the republic, lay in a debauched Senate, a Senate which sold its birthright for money, for advantage, for personal distinction, for the influence, gained from the position as Senator and used for private ends and for the accumulation of enormous fortunes and agrarian posses- sions, for the elimination of which the Gracchi fought and died. The Roman people rose against the Senate and over- threw it and the republic because it could find no way out of representing private interests and vested rights, even to the disadvantage and detriment of the interests of the people at large. The English people grow more and more imperative in their demand for the abolishment of the House of Lords for the same reason. Recent devel- opments under the elaboration of Campbell-Bannerman and Birrell have reawakened the old cry. Both move- ments show the direction in which lies the remedy for this condition. It lies in the direction of the popular vote for United States Senator. Let the people at large 48 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP choose their Senator, as they choose their Representative. They will be wise enough to still maintain the perfectly legitimate idea, that the Senate should represent that class of Americans which stands for "vested rights," while the people will retain their hold upon a set of reins which have thus far slipped from their fingers. That "vested interests" have had control of the Senate to its detriment, aye, to the edge of its undoing, need not here be elaborated. The reader can find all he needs upon that point in almost every current magazine, from the most conservative to the most radical. I need only repeat here the admonition to the citizen, that he ad- vance the cause of direct vote for United States Senator, by such means and by such legislative measures as he thinks will accomplish that result, and that he prepare to think out the same line of activity and legislation for a change which we shall presently have to make a little higher up, namely, the abolishment of the Electoral Col- lege. Both these functions have been interruptions in the orderly progression of American methods of selec- tion. We elect the head of our town, we elect the head of our county, we elect the head of our State, but we do not elect the head of our Nation. He is elected for us by an obsolete piece of mechanism, academically devised at one time, and called an Electoral College. So, we elect our councilors in the city, we elect our Board of Free- holders in the county, we elect our Legislature in the State, but we do not elect the men who are to represent us in Washington. In both cases we have a break in the legitimate order of things, which will sooner or later re- act and has already reacted to our disadvantage. Let there be immediately a direct election of United States Senators, and presently, as soon as feasible, a direct THE SENATE 49 election of the President of the United States by the abol- ishment of the Electoral College. As to the second point, interstate polity, the difficulties in the way of the United States Senate are many and growing more numerous and more serious. Recently we had the question of the seating or unseating of Senator Reed Smoot, because the Senate did not know how far the rights of the State of Utah go and how far Federal rights go. The women of the country were aroused be- cause Mr. Smoot, to them, stood for polygamy, and they did not want such a thing represented in the United States Senate. The Senate hedged. It could do nothing but hedge. It did not know; consequently it could not decide. It dallies with the proposition until Mr. Smoot's time expires, and then why then there is no answer. Dalliance, even if carried forward by Senatorial courtesy, is no answer to a direct question put to the Senate by the women of the country. Japan asked the Senate a warship-shadowed question as to the exclusion of Mongol children from the schools of San Francisco. No one was seriously frightened, but the Senate had no answer to the question at hand, be- cause it did not know, and does not know, how far the rights of the State of California extend, and how far the Federal rights of the government go. Men spend futile time in answering subsidiary questions so long as this question of "State Rights" is not answered, and the ques- tion of State Rights will not be answered so long as local Legislatures have not answered the question of home rule or local option for such sections in States as are repre- sented by counties, townships and cities. No scholar can do a large and complicated example who is unable to solve a small and uncomplicated one. The Senate will have no answer to the question until there be answers 50 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP forthcoming from single States on the proposition of where the rights of the State end and the rights of the county or city begin. At the bottom of dozens of questions and problems, at the bottom of the creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission, at the bottom of railroad rate regulation, at the bottom of all questions involving or foreshadowing Federal control, lies the question of State Rights. And if the next session of the Senate could be devoted to the con- sideration of the fundamentals of this proposition, the result would be helpful in the solution of a multitude of problems now pending for solution. For the establishment of intelligent and practical citi- zenship we need a careful study of that aspect of things, which may be designated "differentiated or discrete de- grees" the study of the boundary lines of human forces, an investigation of how far the rights of a corporate en- tity of any kind, whether it be a municipality, a county, a State, a nation, or whether it be a corporate entity cre- ated under the laws of a State of the Union, extend. And when that has been achieved we will have advanced far toward the solution of many vexing and vexed problems. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 51 CHAPTER VI THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CONSIDERED IN CON- NECTION WITH STATE RIGHTS AND STATE INTERESTS. USUALLY we think of the line of demarkation be- tween men of different political attitude as being that of the party line. We think of the House as largely Republican, say, and the Senate as largely Democratic, or vice versa. This differentiation, however, is not inherent in the nature of the case. It arises from political exigency, since it is evident that there are good, bad and indiffer- ent men in both parties, or in any number of parties. The inherent difference between the two bodies is that in- dicated in the previous chapter, namely, that the Senate naturally represents "corporate interests, or vested in- terests," or the larger bodies of social, commercial and financial life, without which no nation can exist, while the House represents the great mass of the people, as contradistinguished from these smaller groups. This is inherent in the nature of the case. It is not, however, the logical and, therefore, abstract basis of representation. In fact, it is the very opposite to that basis. If such matters could be decided upon their abstract or intrinsic merits, then would the relation be- tween House and Senate be quite different from that now inherent in the proposition. For the relationship would shape itself upon every question that arises in this way. In every question, more or less prominently expressed, the rights of individual States and the right of the Federal 52 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP Government are involved. It would prove difficult to find a question of importance in which this is not the case. Take up any public utility, such as coal, lumber, cotton, steel, or any public function such as taxation, transporta- tion, water, riparian rights, and so forth, and there is always one aspect of the case in which the entire Federal Government is involved and another in which it is a mat- ter of State rights. A riparian proposition, for instance, may be of no in- terest whatever to Ohio or Indiana, while New Jersey or Maine may be vitally interested. Coal may be of no in- terest to Connecticut, while Pennsylvania and Ohio are vitally interested. So with any and every proposition. If in an abstract way the relative attitude of the two Houses could be held in mind toward such questions, the Senate standing for the Federal side of the proposition and the House for the State side of it, then there would be a foun- dation for the investigation of any series of problems along the line of abstract possibility. This condition of things, however, does not as yet ob- tain. As the House is now constituted, it concerns itself largely with questions of politics, with only here and there a glimmer of the vital point, upon which much will presently hinge. If the question of State rights is in evidence so far as the Senate is concerned, as shown in the last chapter, then that question is still more in evidence so far as the House is concerned, and the student of citizen- ship, whether with a view to taking a position in reference to those who constitute the House of Representatives or with the personally ambitious view of occupying that po- sition himself at some time, cannot do better than to give most serious attention to that one question. It is a very much more serious question than we think in this our day. We are so forgetful, and the American spirit so buoyant, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 53 that it readily forgets what is by nature not subject to large and overpowering optimism. It forgets the Civil War of the Sixties with its 60,000 dead, its wake of ruin and disaster, and calls it "the late unpleasantness," forgetting that the cause of that war was the question of State rights. And we dally with the Mormon question ; we play with the chip on the shoulder of Japan ; we allow men to get the hold of private own- ership upon coal, upon natural opportunities, upon which the welfare of this or that State most directly depends, and we do so with the utter indifference of chil- dren who fail to realize the import of what the things we play with may grow into before we are aware of it. Let me remind the reader of a few single items which were in the fifties based upon little, insignificant events involving State rights. We are all familiar with the phrase, the "Dred Scott decision." But as your eye rests upon the sentence just at this moment you will admit that you have forgotten what it stands for. Let me quote from Ridpath just what it meant. He says: "A few days after the inauguration of President James Buchanan the Supreme Court of the United States de- livered the celebrated opinion, known in American history as the Dred Scott decision. Dred Scott, a negro, had been held as a slave by Dr. Emerson, of Missouri, a sur- geon in the United States Army. On the removal of Em- erson to Rock Island, 111., and afterward, in 1836, to Fort Snelling, Minn., Scott was taken along, and at the latter place he and a negro woman, who had been bought by the surgeon, were married. Two children were born of the marriage, and then the whole family were taken back to St. Louis and sold. Dred thereupon brought suit for his freedom. The cause was heard in the Circuit and Supreme courts of Missouri, and in May of 1854 was 54 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. After a delay of nearly three years a decision was finally reached in March of 1857. "Chief Justice Taney, speaking for the Court, decided that negroes, whether free or slave, were not citizens of the United States, and that they could not become such by any process known to the Constitution ; that under the laws of the United States a negro could neither sue nor be sued, and that, therefore, the Court had no jurisdiction of Dred Scott's cause ; that a slave was to be regarded in the light of a personal chattel, and that he might be re- moved from place to place by his owner as any other piece of property; that the Constitution gave to every slave- holder the right of removing to or through any State or Territory with his slaves, and of returning at his will with them to a State where slavery was recognized by law; and that, therefore, the Missouri compromise of 1820, as well as the compromise measures of 1850, was unconstitutional and void. "In these opinions six of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Bench Wayne, Nelson, Grier, Daniel, Camp- bell and Catron concurred, while two associates Judges McLean and Curtis dissented. The decision of the majority, which was accepted as the opinion of the Court, gave great satisfaction to the ultra slave-holding sentiments of the South, but excited in the North thou- sands of indignant comments and much bitter opposi- tion." Note the sentence : "To a State where slavery was rec- ognized by law." To this was added a "Mormon trouble," thus described by the same author: "In the first year of Buchanan's administration there was a Mormon rebellion in Utah. The difficulty arose HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 55 from an attempt to extend the judicial system of the United States over the Territory. Thus far Brigham Young, the Mormon Governor, had had his own way of administering justice. The community of Mormons was organized on a plan very different from that exist- ing in other Territories, and many usages had grown up in Utah which were repugnant to the laws of the country. When, therefore, a Federal Judge was sent to preside in the Territory, he was resisted, insulted and driven vio- lently from the seat of justice. "The other officials of the Federal Government were also expelled, and the Territory became the scene of a reign of terror. The Mormons, however, attempted a jus- tification of their conduct on the ground that the charac- ter of the United States officers had been so low and vicious as to command no respect. But the excuse was deemed insufficient, and Brigham Young was superseded in the governorship by Alfred Gumming, superintendent of Indian affairs on the Upper Missouri. Judge Delana Eckels, of Indiana, was appointed Chief Justice of the Territory ; and an army of two thousand five hundred men was organized and dispatched to Utah to put down lawlessness by force. "But Young and the Mormon elders were in no humor to give up their authority without a struggle. The ap- proaching American army was denounced as a horde of barbarians, and preparations were made for resistance. In September, of 1857, the National forces reached the Territory, and on the sixth of October a company of Mormon rangers made good the threats of Young by at- tacking and destroying most of the army supply trains. "Winter came on, and the Federal forces, under com- mand of Colonel Albert Sidney Johnson, were obliged to find quarters on Black Fork, near Fort Bridges. Mean- 56 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP while, however, the President had dispatched Thomas L. Kane, of Pennsylvania, with conciliatory letters to the Mormons. Going by way of California, he reached Utah in the spring of 1858, and in a short time succeeded in bringing about a good understanding between Governor Gumming and the insurgents. In the latter part of May, Governor Powell, of Kentucky, and MajorMcCullough, of Texas, arrived at the quarters of the Army, bearing from the President (James Buchanan) a proclamation of pardon to all who would submit to the National author- ity. The passions of the Mormons had by this time somewhat subsided, and they accepted the overtures. "In the fall of 1858 the Army proceeded to Salt Lake City, but was soon afterward quartered at Camp Floyd, forty miles distant. The Federal forces remained at this place until order was entirely restored, and in May of 1860 were withdrawn from the Territory." Again note that this was the Federal Government against the State (or Territory) of Utah. These were slight straws to show the way in which the wind of pas- sion would presently blow. The next was the raid by John Brown. It is thus referred to by the same authority: "From the beginning the new administration had stormy times. The slavery question continued to vex the Nation. The Dred Scott decision, to which the Presi- dent had looked as a measure calculated to allay the ex- citement, had only added fuel to the flame. In some of the free States the opposition rose so high that personal liberty bills were passed, the object of which was to de- feat the execution of the fugitive slave law. In the fall of 1859 the excitement was still further increased by the mad attempt of John Brown, of Kansas, to excite a gen- eral insurrection among the slaves. "With a party of twenty-one men as daring as him- HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 57 self, he made a sudden descent on the United States Arse- nal at Harper's Ferry, captured the place, and held his ground for nearly two days. The National troops and the militia of Virginia were called out in order to sup- press the revolt. Thirteen of Brown's men were killed, two made their escape, and the rest were captured. The leader and his six companions were given over to the authorities of Virginia, tried, condemned and hanged. "In Kansas the old controversy still continued, but the Free Soil party gained ground so rapidly as to make it certain that slavery would be interdicted from the State. All these facts and events tended to widen the breach be- tween the people of the North and the South. Such was the alarming condition of affairs when the time arrived for holding the nineteenth Presidential election." Incident after incident gave the rising tide force, or, rather, indicated the force of the rising tide. The po- litical leaders of the day could not agree as to candidates and policies. The interests of the South, the general form of government, the general spirit of social life, dif- fered in the South from those of the North. Secession was in the air. At first representatives withdrew from the political convention. Then matters culminated. Here is what the same writer says : "The actual work of secession began in South Caro- lina. On December 17, 1860, a convention assembled at Charleston, and after three days of deliberation passed a resolution that the union hitherto existing between South Carolina and the other States, under the name of the Uni- ted States of America, was dissolved. It was a step of fearful importance. The action was contagious. The sentiment of disunion spread with great rapidity. The cotton-growing States were almost unanimous in support of the measure. By February 1, 1861, six other States 58 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had passed ordinances of secession and with- drawn from the Union. Nearly all of the Senators and Representatives of those States, following the action of their constituents, resigned their seats in Congress and gave themselves to the disunion cause. "In the secession conventions there was but little op- position to the movement. In some instances a consider- able minority vote was cast. A few of the speakers bold- ly denounced disunion as bad in principle and ruinous in its results. The course of Alexander H. Stephens, after- ward Vice-President of the Confederate States, was pe- culiar. In the convention of Georgia he undertook the task of preventing the secession of his State. He deliv- ered a long and powerful oration in which he defended the theory of secession, advocated the doctrine of State sovereignty, declared his intention of abiding by the de- cision of the convention, but at the same time spoke against secession, on the ground that the measure was im- politic, unwise, disastrous. Not a few prominent men at the South held similar views; but the opposite opin- ion prevailed, and secession was accomplished." It is to the point of "State sovereignty," and to its being virtually at the bottom of the movement of seces- sion, that I desire to call especial attention. And I do so at this point, the more sharply to empha- size the two elements of danger which are thrown into the foreground by the impulsive nature of the President of the United States and by the concurrence of his coun- selors. There is a serious temptation to make certain matters Federal in their control and administration. Wherever the same possibilities arise and the same condi- tions prevail, as in matters of transportation, of child la- bor, of divorce, of finance, and of a multitude of other HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 59 general functions of the civic, social and politic body, this temptation arises and grows stronger daily, especially where men of positive character and unhesitating initia- tive, like President Roosevelt, have charge of affairs. As soon as this cry is raised the other arises, namely, that of interference with State rights. We take so kindly to home rule, to local option, to other forms of State rights, that we readily raise that cry. But enough has here been said to intimate the danger that lies at the back of that cry. It is unwise to empha- size State rights to the detriment of Federal rights, but it is equally unwise to emphasize Federal rights at the ex- pense of State rights. Thus summarized it will appear, why the theory is here advocated, that Congress should utilize its bicameral form for this purpose, and permit conditions to arise and to prevail, which will make it pos- sible for the Senate to stand for the Feedral side and the House to stand for the State side of each question as it arises. When the American Nation attains the point at which it is now aiming, as indicated by the symptoms of civic awakening all over the United States ; when it sends men to both houses of Congress, irrespective of wealth or po- litical influence without political trickery and machine play it will be able to emphasize this point and send to the Senate men of large views and broad mental horizon, who will be able to grasp within the scope of their mental vision the needs, advantages and requirements of the central government, and to the House men of equally comprehensive caliber, but familiar with local details, men who will be able to stand for whatever a State may have in the way of local interests, and to adjust them to the requirements of the larger unit, the Federal Government, as represented by the Senate and the Senator. 60 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP CHAPTER VII THE SENATE OF NEW JERSEY AND QUESTIONS THAT PROP- ERLY COME BEFORE IT. WE come in the normal course of study to the Senate of a State and select the State Senate of the State of New Jersey for the reader's consideration, with the conviction that very slight modifi- cations of the general principles set forth will adapt all propositions entertained to the requirements of other States. Premising again the broad statement that the Senate concerns itself with general propositions, and the As- sembly with particular propositions, we can enter imme- diately upon the topic which naturally falls into line at this point. If the reader will hold in mind that the gen- eral proposition, as advanced in previous chapters, ap- plied to the United States Congress, resulted in the sug- gestion that in all problems the Senate of the United States represent, or try to represent, the Federal Gov- ernment and its side of the question and its interests in proposed legislation, while the House more predomi- nently devote itself to the representation of the interests of individual States, he can readily see that that sugges- tion would involve for the State of New Jersey that the Senate concern itself with such questions preeminently, which involve the interests of the entire State, while the House would, if this suggestion be made available at any time, concern itself with the application of general prin- ciples to specific localities. Thus the Senate would paint THE STATE SENATE 61 the background of the picture, the Assembly would put in the figures and adjust perspectives. In each case, how- ever, action would of course involve concurrence on the part of the other house. And this is not at all a difficult matter in such a State as New Jersey. A glance at the map will instantly out- line to the student the interests of the State which are general. The first is its riparian interests. The second, its railroad interests. The third, its financial or corpo- rate interests. The fourth, the question of taxation. The fifth, its potable waters, which virtually follows as a direct sequence from its riparian interests. And the sixth, the problem of immigration. Let us consider these in their order. That the primary and largest interest of the State of New Jersey is its riparian interest, goes without saying. The Latin word "ripa" or "shore," on which the term "riparian" is based, indicates that "riparian" interests are "shore" interests. The aspect to which the Senate would most naturally turn its attention would involve and include the several phases of this question, which it nat- urally presents. New Jersey is very nearly all "shore" and that shore involves the phases of fishing, of shipping facilities, of oystering, of bathing and of attack in time of war. Specific features of fishing include the question of menhaden fishing; of such regulations as would nat- urally be called for under the work imposed upon the Fish and Game Commission, and other similar matters. The oyster interests of the State of New Jersey are large and varied. The oyster needs all the care that can be taken of it, in its planting, in its protection and in its harvesting. So large is this interest, that, although it is apparently confined to the shore, it is nevertheless a State issue, owing to its importance as a commercial factor in 62 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP the life of the State. Shipping facilities involve railroad interests and are covered by those interests. There need here be added only the question of the creation of further harbors, and their protection by breakwaters at various points along the shore. That the summer resort, in re "bathing," is an item of State interest for New Jersey need not be emphasized. Our shore is lined with summer resorts, to which people not only from New Jersey, Penn- sylvania and New York flock in great masses during the summer, but to which come long lines of excursions from almost every section of the United States up to the very centre of the Middle West. But a summer resort in- volves transportation. It involves the railroad. It there- fore again brings on the railroad interests, in the con- sideration of which the amount of traffic done during the summer season in the transportation of passengers to resorts, is an important factor so far as determining "earning capacity" and other points are concerned. And finally our State presents to the Atlantic Ocean and to any foe that may approach from that side, a huge expanse of unprotected, or virtually unprotected, shore, the existence of which must needs come to the Senate for consideration, should that emergency ever arise. When we consider that the income from our riparian assets goes to the support of the schools of the State, it will be seen that this interest immediately grows to the general proportions which were assigned to it in the be- ginning, and it will also appear why the "schools" were omitted from the list of "general questions." The school is, by our present arrangement, a part of the riparian and railroad question, since increased taxation recently im- posed on the Railroads by legislation and court decision, also accrues directly to the benefit of the schools. In the riparian question, in the State of New Jersey, THE STATE SENATE 63 there is at present an aspect, which should come up for early consideration. And the Senate is the proper body for its consideration, with reference to the House after the decision of the Senate has been reached. That aspect is one with which our readers have grown familiar of late in other directions. Just as municipalities have until re- cently given away their most valuable asset to private corporations, namely, their streets, just so the State has been giving away its most valuable asset to private cor- porations, that is, its water front. Under the haphazard regime of the past (and I hope it is utterly "past") we have given away values which have grown to absolutely stupendous proportions. We have given them away with a grace and ease hard to be surpassed. No one seems to have had the faintest idea that the "shore" had any value at all. And this after all the agitation for public docks in the city of New York, in Boston, in Baltimore and else- where. Millions of value have been thrown away and withheld from the State treasury with a reckless abandon which is incredible. By the critic the cause for this recklessness would be accounted for as arising from the fact that an incumbent of a State office merely fills that office for the purpose of drawing his salary, and without reference to anything else. But this criticism is entirely too sweeping. There have always been in State office men who were anxious to conserve the interests of the State. But things have grown so rapidly in the recent past that it has been al- most impossible to keep pace with them. And hence in this department of State work we find the same hopeless confusion as in many others, not only in this State but in every State of the Union. It will be necessary, and that at an early date, to take up this matter and to decide two things, first, the application of a time limit to all transac- 64 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP tions involving riparian rights, and next the revoca- tion of all previous arrangements in which there can be found a legal flaw. The State must resume its rights in its shore. It is its largest asset. Not only should the State stop giving away these enormous values, but it should closely safe- guard by limitation every grant hereafter to be made. It should revoke all contracts or agreements, made at a time when the real value of these things was not known except to the shrewd few who thereby took away from the State a right and a set of values, to the import and grandeur of which they should have called the attention of the State in the first place, instead of availing themselves of those values for the accumulation of private wealth. We are nearing the border of honesty where the public conscience will call such a transaction by a very serious name. If I as an individual know the value of a thing and take it from my neighbor, who has it in his possession, by lead- ing him into the belief, or leaving him in the belief, that the thing has no value, I am getting goods under false pretenses. The principle of this thing is not changed by the fact that my neighbor happens to be an aggregate neighbor, called "the State," and by my being an aggre- gate individual called a corporation. This method of abandoning the Ten Commandments as soon as we enter upon aggregate life is not only ridiculous, but heinous. If I take five dollars from my neighbor by fictitious peas, which are supposed to be under a certain thimble and are not, or if I take a thousand dollars from my neighbor by fictitious values, which are supposed to exist as reality upon or in certain papers, but which are not, or by the suppression of values, which really exist, there is no virtual difference in the transaction. There is a sen- tence in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, which indited THE STATE SENATE 65 by the "finger of God," has entered upon the pages of the statute books of every civilized nation, which covers all three transactions. It is a very short sentence. There are only four words in it. It is preceded by no legal ver- biage, and it is not followed by any "immediate enacting clause." But it is eminently and divinely to the purpose. And it is so utterly familiar that it need not be quoted verbatim here. Nor need the Senate hesitate for a moment to revoke any form of agreement made at a time when the real value of a thing was not known to the State. Fundamen- tally the body which has a right to give a thing, has a right to take it away. No legal phraseology is here at- tempted. None is needed. If the State of New Jersey has at any time, under misapprehension, given any one anything, it can take that same thing away again, ma- king, of course, due allowance for any expense to which the holder for the time being has gone. Pass we now to the second proposition the railroad. New Jersey being a riparian State and at the same time a suburban State, the railroad grows into almost dispro- portionate importance immediately. That we are a ri- parian State has just been shown. That we are a subur- ban State, and that the people from Rahway and Metu- chen, north, do business in New York, and people from Trenton, south, do business in Philadelphia, need not be commented upon. They do. New Jersey is virtually the suburb of the two great metropoles, New York and Philadelphia. And that to the suburbanite the railroad is an essential, needs no elaboration. Thus far we have attacked the serious problem of the taxation of railroads with fair success. Further steps in that direction may be called for as the years go on. But when the work required to be done in the investigation of the question of taxa- 66 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP tion came to be accomplished, those who were engaged in it found that it simply served as an opening wedge to two further questions. One was the general question of the "corporation" and the other was that of overcapitali- zation. Hence the third and fourth propositions, as enumerated above, become part of this general proposi- tion. The school question, too, is moved into an angle formed by itself, the riparian situation and the taxation of rail- roads, because the State of New Jersey uses virtually all the money raised from railroads by taxation for its schools. The student should consequently think of the school as being supported by the shore and by the rail- road, while he may think of the public institutions, the almshouses, the insane asylums and so forth as being largely supported by the taxation of corporations other than railroads. If the wisdom and shrewdness of cor- porations makes people poor or drives them insane, as many contend, then the genius which devised this latter arrangement may be thought of as being almost, if not quite, "inspired." For under those circumstances the ar- rangement is satirically advertent and beautiful. Radically, therefore, the railroad, the corporation and the larger outlines of finance, of taxation, and of fran- chises, are one and the same question. If the Senate of the State of New Jersey could devote itself to a serious study of this question, especially in its most serious aspect of "overcapitalization," it would be doing good work and it would be doing preeminently its own work. The reason for this preeminence has been unfortunately moved into the foreground by an unhappy co-ordination of suspicions in the public mind of late. The entire se- quence of suspicions has naturally grouped itself about one idea. THE STATE SENATE 67 "If corporate influence," whispered the chief suspicion to its minor body of suspicions in the public mind, "if corporate influence is unduly exerted in blunt words if people are bought in Trenton, and if they are bought by men of shrewd business capacity, will not that very capacity itself suggest that it is cheaper to buy a ma- jority of a smaller body, even if the single votes come higher, than it is to buy the majority of a larger body? In New Jersey it would be cheaper to buy twelve men out of twenty-one than it would be to buy thirty-one out of sixty." While I in no wise share this attitude of mind and most earnestly deplore it, I cannot but confess that no other suspicion is so firmly rooted in the public mind as this, both in reference to a State Senate and in reference to the United States Senate. And this suspicion, prevalent as it is, is not met by hasty investigations and their fully anticipated whitewashings. It can best be met by candid and thorough work on the part of the Senate. Rather than ascribe the present condition of things to the lack of integrity on the part of the Senate, I should ascribe it to the unfortunate growth of our system and method of law-making. The man is not born who can work to advantage under it. Few results of any value can be produced under it. What is done, is done rather in spite of it than by reason of it. I confess to a sense of admiration of the body of men which can with the in- ordinately clumsy mechanism of our legislative procedure produce so many satisfactory results. Look for a moment at any one question. Take that of overcapitalization. A writer in The Outlook in a re- cent issue gives a succinct and lucid summary of this mat- ter, using the State of Minnesota as the central figure. Substitute the State of New Jersey and alter the name of 68 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP the railroads to suit the change and the numbers to suit the case, and you have a perfectly applicable proposition. Says The Outlook: "The Great Northern Railroad Company was autho- rized by its charter to issue capital stock to the extent of $30,000,000. It is a transportation corporation engaged in interstate commerce, and received its charter from the State of Minnesota. The conduct of this corporation is typical of the conduct of nearly all of the great trans- portation corporations in the United States in this, that, since the day it was organized, it has habitually ignored the law under which it came into being, and has violated the statutes of Minnesota, apparently without let or hindrance. "Primarily it owes allegiance to the Commonwealth of Minnesota. But it exercises its powers in relation to in- terstate commerce subj ect to the exclusive supervision and control of the Federal Government. The Minnesota Leg- islature has seen fit to prohibit carrying corporations or- ganized under its laws to issue capital stock in excess of the amount authorized by their respective charters, with- out the consent of its Railroad and Warehouse Commis- sion. The law is clear, and provides that such corpora- tions, in case they desire to increase their capital stock, shall make written application to the commission and pro- cure its written consent to the issue of additional stock. "The law has been entirely ignored by the Great Northern, which, in connection with the Northern Pa- cific and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, operates a system embracing the commerce carried on within the vast territory, north of the Union Pacific, lying between the Great Lakes and the Pacific Ocean. As the country grew in wealth and prosperity, as the population of this fer- tile region increased, as its mineral and agricultural re- THE STATE SENATE 69 sources have been gradually developed, the earning ca- pacity of the Great Northern has increased 500 per cent. It formerly earned and paid to its stockholders, over and above all fixed charges and expenses, $2,100,000 annu- ally, or seven per cent on its $30,000,000 of capital stock. Its earnings gradually increased to $4,200,000 annually. "Instead of paying fourteen per cent on the $30,000,- 000 of original stock, it issued $30,000,000 additional, without legal authority and in direct violation of the laws of Minnesota, and paid seven per cent on the $60,000,- 000. Its net earnings increased to $6,300,000 per year, and its stock was again increased to $90,000,000. The earnings grew to $8,400,000 annually, and the stock was increased accordingly to $120,000,000. The net earn- ings soon exceeded $10,500,000 annually, and another increase of $30,000,000 of stock was issued, making the aggregate value of the stock at the present time $150,- 000,000, on which it pays the handsome sum of $10,- 500,000 annually, or seven per cent on this entire issue. "But so great has been the growth and development of the country that this company now seems to be earning net every year $14,700,000, which will justify an ad- ditional increase of $60,000,000 of stock, as the increased earnings will enable it to pay seven per cent on $210,- 000,000, instead of on $150,000,000, the amount of its present issue. "The commercial history of the world affords nothing to equal this wonderful exhibition of economic achieve- ment, which has been duplicated in like manner by the other great transportation corporations of the United States. "The figures are startling when we consider that these vast sums are not earned in ordinary business transac- 70 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP tions, by the employment of private capital in ordinary commercial pursuits, where success among competing ri- vals is the result of superior skill and business ability. If this money, levied upon and taken from the public by a private corporation engaged in interstate commerce, were used to build new railways and to increase equip- ment, trackage and terminal facilities to an extent which would enable every traveler and every shipper to use the highways with convenience and comfort, so that no such thing as a car famine would ever be heard of, perhaps no complaints would arise and no remedies be invoked. "The enormous increase in the revenues of the carrier has been absorbed by the stockholders who subscribed for the stock and who receive the dividends. But the money paid to the carrier for the stock apparently has not been used to increase carrying facilities. How has it been used ? Increased facilities have been furnished from time to time, but such as have been provided are grossly inade- quate. The carrier has failed absolutely to increase its facilities so as to provide adequate public service or any- thing that approaches it. In failing to do so it has failed to perform the duties for which it was chartered, and has failed to fulfil the ends and purposes for which it was created. And this lamentable failure is not a pri- vate matter, but is essentially a matter of public concern. "The carrier has failed to keep abreast with the in- crease of population and the enormous increase of busi- ness, which is now six times greater than when it earned seven per cent on its original capital. It has failed to furnish sufficient trackage, equipment, or adequate ter- minal facilities. Statistics show that railway mileage has increased only twenty per cent in ten years, while the earnings have increased 110 per cent. Trackage as dis- tinguished from mileage is also miserably inadequate. THE STATE SENATE 71 "As a consequence, the increased traffic has so far out- grown the facilities furnished by the carrier that the in- habitants of the territory who are compelled to rely on this particular railway to carry on their business cannot, with ordinary celerity, move their crops or the products of their mines or their factories. The investigation of the fuel famine, and car shortage in the Northwest, held in December last, revealed the fact that fifty million bush- els of grain, as nearly as could be estimated, remained on the farms or in the country elevators of North Dakota. "It was further shown that in some localities no freight trains passed the depots at times for periods ranging from three to four weeks. It is clear that one railroad cannot do the business which requires the services of at least three." While not directly in line with the specific scope of this article, the following deduction by the writer of the article is interesting and irresistible. "The President has said in this connection, in his recent message to Congress, in discussing the delinquencies of public service corporations, 'In special privilege they live, and move, and have their being.' "When public transportation corporations fail to fulfi] their mission, and fail to achieve the ends and purposes of their creation, they have violated their charters, and the trusts and obligations imposed upon them. The in- dictment against them is that they do not carry for all upon equal terms and conditions. They do not move traf- fic with ordinary celerity. They do not transport per- sons in comfort, nor at times suited to public convenience. They do not furnish adequate equipment, trackage, or terminal facilities to keep pace with the increasing popu- lation and the expanding volume of business. They have failed to confine themselves to their duties as carriers, but 72 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP have assumed to become miners, shippers and manufac- turers. "In so doing they have acquired private interests, the retention of which is repugnant to their public duties. As carriers, exercising special privileges and sovereign power, they have allied themselves with commercial enter- prises. They have acquired extensive holdings in corpo- rations engaged in mining coal, producing and refining oil, in the manufacture and sale of iron, steel, sugar and ice; as dealers in cattle and live stock, in dressed meats, and in all the necessaries of life. By giving special rates for the carriage of these articles over the public highways to corporations in which they, as directors of the carry ing corporations, are interested because they own stock of the trusts and participate in their dividends they prac- tically choose who shall use these highways, to the exclu- sion of shippers not thus favored, and thereby make them no longer public but private. "The result is a gigantic conspiracy against trade and commerce, the conspirators being the public carriers and the great trusts with which they are partners and allies. The carriers and the industrial combines have practically secured a monopoly of trade and commerce in the neces- saries of life. "This result, so far as the carriers are concerned, could never have been accomplished without the exercise of the sovereign power which the carriers exercise exclusively in operating the public highways of the country. In other words, the creature has become, in one sense, a separate branch of the government, coordinate with the creator in the exercise of the sovereignty conferred." Giving this huge proposition its proper import, we have a problem which cannot be studied by hurried legis- lation in a few weeks. It requires more time, and what- THE STATE SENATE 73 ever of apparent remissness or of apparent deliberate evasion there may be or have been involved in any action of the Senate hitherto, it can be readily and easily ex- plained by the fact that the subjects to be considered are great, important and complex in their nature and no one can be asked to give them due and proper consideration in six weeks. Hence arises inaction and in some cases apparent indirection. The remedy lies right on the sur- face. If six weeks is not a sufficiently long period of time a longer period must be devoted to the work. Within the past three or four years several important measures were worked up by civic organizations. Why ? Simply because the Senate, which is the proper body of the State machinery to work them up, did not have time to do it. A great mass of legislation is poured in upon the two houses every year, and in trying to do a mass of things, nothing is done. These civic bodies have worked up the limited franchises, the equal taxation, the civil service and the railroad commission bills and several oth- ers. They have just completed changes in the legal statutes which are designed to meet the requirements of the "overcapitalization" evil. I have reason to know that five men worked nine months on this last proposition. These five men could not have done it in six weeks. They could not have done it in ten. Neither can a body of Sen- ators do it in six or in ten weeks. They must needs con- tinue their sessions throughout the year. There lies the solution. There lies the way in the direction of which the Senate can resume the work which has slipped through its fingers, and wherewith it has burdened civic organi- zations, to put the matter in its most direct form. But the continuance of a session throughout the year does not mean continuous sessions at Trenton. It means simply this, that a certain urgent subject be turned over 74 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP to a Senate committee for the year, and that that commit- tee be asked to report at the next session of the Legisla- ture its findings. If out of the constant and unceasing stream of demand made upon the Legislature one topic be selected for adjustment in any one year, say overcap- italization one year, potable water the next year, the rev- ocation of franchises the year following and so forth, the one subject would go into the hands of a committee on finance, the other into the hands of a riparian commit- tee, the third into the hands of the Judiciary Committee or to other committees, if these be considered inappropri- ate. This would place an annual task upon some one committee. The State would not impose an undue burden upon any one body of lawmakers, and the results thus obtained would be worth while. They could be taken as a basis of operations for the legislation of several years while such other legislation can be enacted as needed along the lines of the present system. THE STATE SENATE 75 CHAPTER VIII THE SENATE OF NEW JERSEY AND THE QUESTIONS OF IM- MIGRATION AND POTABLE WATER SUPPLY. IT requires no elucidation to show that New Jersey is an immigrant State. It is so by virtue of its situs. As a virtual suburb of New York City, in its north- ern section, it shares interests with that great gateway for the tide of immigration into this country, and its in- terests are influenced more largely than many suppose by that tide. The tide itself is at present dominated by the note which has been ringing through it for the past seven or eight years, and that note is the Italian. Despite the fears entertained in a vague and general way by those unfamiliar with the subject in its details, there is no reason to make this particular feature of the question one of specific deliberation, since the fears entertained by the uninformed are groundless usually. The Italian, as an economic and as an ethic factor of the question, need not be constituted a source of anxiety. In general he makes a good citizen. He is as good a citi- zen in the second generation as is the German, the Irish- man, the Spaniard. He brings with him, however, one or two characteristics which thrust him forward into the limelight of public censure for a brief period, chief among them his tendency toward stilettos and "Black Hand" letters. But these traits, while locally and occa- sionally serious, and always within national limits, are not really more serious than the rationalistic tendency of the 76 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP German, or the hot temper of the Spaniard, or the candid willingness to investigate the strength of the Bureau of Charities on the part of a large number of those for whom a familiar saint performed miracles of exorcism in reference to serpents. So far, therefore, as the Italian is concerned, there is the making of a good citizen in him, and there is no ground for fear. But when we realize that the tide of Italian influx is falling and the tide of Slav influx rising, there is larger reason for anxiety. The Italian is still and entirely part of the Indo- Aryan and Anglo-Saxon com- bine, through its Romance branch, to which we habitually refer when we speak of the Caucasian race. But the Slav is so largely an admixture of Asiatic blood as to virtually throw the force of immigration into that territory which we have hitherto in the United States thought of as prop- er matter for legislative exclusion. That broad belt of land from which this immigration comes, the fringe con- stituted of Servia, Montenegria, the Bukowina, Herze- govina, Bosnia and the lower edge of Siberia, where it borders upon Mongol territory and upon Manchuria, and those corners which constitute ancient Iran and Baku, and which we now loosely call "Armenia," together with the Southern (German) belt of Little Russia, which is sending us great hordes of Hebrews all that territory is the source of a mixed multitude such as America has not hitherto been called upon to absorb or even to study in any intimate way. And this vast horde, increasing an- nually and destined presently to constitute the main flow of the tide of immigration as does the Italian now, pre- sents problems for study which will require the utmost care, tact and research. I do not number among those who fear that we will not be able to assimilate these people, for I have a faith in the THE STATE SENATE 77 American people which nothing can shake. But these people bring with them standards of morality, ethic tone- values, which ring new in this country. The popular mind sees their contaminating influence. It sees it in the conversation of children of tender years ; in the lowering of the moral tone of the stage ; in the ava- ricious and greedy way in which certain classes of jour- nals are read, which cater by detailed reports of criminal proceedings and other means to the depraved tastes of this particular class of reader, tending to deprave much original taste not yet contaminated ; in the nightmare of the billboard; in the explosion of bombs for private en- mity. It realizes that there is contamination, taint and plague there and unconsciously it harks back to the word- ing of Holy Writ and the long code of regulation for the cleansing of leprosy in men and houses, since it is startled into the subconscious realization that this kind of thing is mental leprosy, and destroys the fiber and substance of the mind, as does physical leprosy that of the body. Both are the same kind of uncleanness. There is no need of multiplying examples. These peo- ple will and must needs bring their mental atmosphere with them. And the treatment which will fairly realize their shortcomings, without unfairly limiting their claims upon our liberties and institutions, which will adequately meet the demands created by their colonizing tendencies in our large cities, the consideration of the requirements begotten of their religious or possibly irreligious stand- ards of measurement for moral values, all these create a huge problem, very much more serious than that pre- sented by Black Hand letters or stilettos. Take just one other instance. Let me say, here is a colony of Greeks. A large body of people, probably of very heterogeneous racial and national extraction, is cov- 78 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP ered by the name. With the passion of the Spaniard and the seductive fascination of race antiquity, this body of people combines a peculiar lawlessness, which it does not so recognize, which is now and will be in the future ex- ceedingly difficult to meet. Petty thefts seem to be re- garded about the same as they were among the Zingara of the last century, and, by the way, the Zingara are a branch of this very people. There is a nomadism, which can no longer be called bohemianism, among this people, which makes lawabiding citizenship an almost inconceiv- able thing to them. Two or three great strapping fellows do not at all consider it beneath their dignity to hold up a little schoolboy and relieve him of his dime. The regard for woman which the American has by birth and by nature, is not present in any marked degree, in this class of people. The wisdom of denying them nat- uralization for a measurably long period of time reacts, in that they feel themselves quasi f ranchiseless, and there- fore in a position which leaves upon their mind the im- pression of outlawry. They are not citizens and will not be for a time, and they, consequently by an odd distor- tion of a reasoning process, feel that they need not obey the law. They feel that the law is made for citizens, not for non-citizens. When this is placed side by side with the same feeling in the mind of an entirely different class of people, it will be found that such comparison infinitely aggravates the situation. There is a class of American citizens who entertain the same idea of the law. They feel that the law is not made for them; that they have the means of buying their way through any kind of a wall, which the law might erect around any one situation, or of hiring some one to burrow under it. This way of "buying the law," when persisted in for a few years naturally and inevitably produces in the man THE STATE SENATE 79 who follows that course a callousness and a contempt for the law, which effectually debars and invalidates the legal fiction which we have been in the habit of desig- nating the "majesty of the law." Such men care as little for the law as do their confreres, who occupy the humbler position of "Greek" colonists. The law is to them not a means of restraint, therefore not an obstacle, and there- fore not an object. They disregard it in toto. Does any one desire to exercise the extreme f oolhardiness of think- ing that the "Greek" footpad who holds up the little schoolboy for a dime is not aware of the fact that in the inaccessible higher reaches of society, the same thing is done under another name? The conversation among these men reveals an astounding familiarity with doubtful "deals" in realty and railroads. Over their tongues roll the names of "magnates" with a glibness bred of utter familiarity with men and things. And can any system of legal procedure prove efficient in the depth of the cur- rent which fails to curb the "merry wavelets" on the sur- face? It is along this line and similar lines of reasoning, that the Senate of the State finds its warrant for any investi- gation of the financial system of the State and its cor- poration laws, which it may wish to undertake or order. When we use the sentence "purify the source" we are most inclined to think of something which is deep below. Sometimes the purification of the source involves begin- ning at the top. Lawlessness is lawlessness wherever it may be found and the deeper foundation of the morale of the law and of obedience and of making it possible to be obedient to the law constitute a series of problems, which the Senate of any State can very properly under- take to study and to work upon. It is in this and many other ways that the increase of the number of the "sub- 80 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP merged tenth" goes hand in hand with the most intricate working of higher society and the immigration question most naturally opens out this line of consideration. The second topic, so far as the State of New Jersey is concerned, is the potable water supply. The broad out- lines of this most serious problem are readily stated. Pop- ulation in the northern section of the State of New Jer- sey is rapidly growing more and more dense. There is no thinkable possibility of its growing less so. That pop- ulation will need water. Its need of water will not de- crease ; it will constantly increase. But the waters of the State are a relatively fixed quantity. They will not in- crease. If anything they will decrease. Here then is a most serious problem. What can and shall the State do to see that its citizens shall have water to drink and to use for ordinary purposes of life and industry? Governor Stokes, in his first message, said : "We have 108 fresh-water lakes distributed through- out the State, covering 14,000 acres. Where practica- ble these should be set apart as public parks and carefully preserved for the use of the people of the State. They should become the property of the State in connection with its forestry reservations. The State now owns no potable waters, but it could acquire these lakes, and, through the ownership of forestry reservations, the sources of our potable streams. The titles to these inland lakes were vested in the proprietors of East and West Jersey. Where they have not been sold they still reside in these corporations and constitute property rights. "The State could purchase these or secure them, through condemnation proceedings, under proper legisla- tion. The same course should apply to the inland lakes that have passed to the control of private interests, where this could be accomplished without inflicting injustice THE STATE SENATE 81 upon the owners. This subject is of such importance as to warrant action. It is so intricate and complex as to require a full investigation of the facts involved and the best knowledge on the subject in order to insure wise and effective legislation. I suggest, subject to the judgment of the Legislature, that some commission, preferably the Riparian, be authorized to investigate this proposition, its practicability and probable cost, and, if possible, make at least a partial report at this session of the Legislature, if it be found that some preliminary legislation is neces- sary. "If the legal principles advocated by the State in the case of the Attorney-General vs. the Hudson County Water Company are sustained in the Court of Errors and Appeals, not only will the right of the State to prohibit the sale of potable waters beyond its confines have been confirmed, but the question will arise as to the right of individuals or corporations to appropriate and sell pota- ble waters within the State without the State's consent. Exactly how far if at all the State's rights have been in- fringed upon, by what means they should be preserved, and how the interests of the people may be conserved in the preservation and distribution of our potable waters, are matters of concern which should receive the earnest consideration of the Legislature and which make the gathering of data and information upon this subject all the more important. I cannot too strongly urge your prompt action upon this subject." In his second message he says : "Our potable water supply presents the most import- ant problem before the people of the State. There is in the State an ample supply of water for the present and for an indefinite period in the future, if this supply be properly conserved and kept pure. The right of the 82 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP State to do this is unquestioned, under the recent inter- pretation of our courts: 'In our potable waters we have a vast natural asset belonging to the people, the con- servation and purity of which is indispensable to their health and well being.' The use of this water is so necessary to life that a direct and active control over the diversion thereof for domestic and municipal pur- poses should be exercised by the State. "The creation of a State water supply commission to control and regulate the diversion of potable waters without interfering with present municipal or vested rights, or the vesting of some such power in a State board already in existence, would seem to be necessary to save this valuable State asset. "Prompt action in this respect would anticipate fur- ther acquirement of water rights by private interests. "The rapid growth of our population in the metro- politan district is drawing heavily upon our present available supply. The dry weather flow of the Passaic River, normally 85,000,000 gallons daily, has been re- duced to scarcely 35,000,000 gallons by the demands upon it, and this in spite of the large storage reser- voirs already constructed. The daily drafts upon the Hackensack River now exceed the estimated minimum flow in a time of extreme drought. One-half the pop- ulation of the State depend upon these two rivers and their tributaries. By reason of their geographic loca- tion, the demands upon them must greatly increase in the future, and if these demands are to be met, storage reservoirs must be constructed to conserve the surplus waters. "The amount of water which runs to waste out of the Passaic Valley in a week in time of flood, would supply the whole upper part of the State for a year. The con- THE STATE SENATE 83 servation of the water in times of flood would provide an available surplus for the dry season. "The erection of a storage reservoir in the Passaic Valley would serve many economic purposes. The loca- tion of a dam for this purpose, whether at Mountain View or Little Falls, is an engineering problem to be solved by experts, and not in a legislative message. A storage reservoir in this section is not a new suggestion. It has been frequently discussed, and been the subject of many reports. It is now a question of acute importance, because of the recent disastrous floods in the Passaic Valley, and the pressing necessity of developing our water supplies for use in the near future. "A reservoir under the control of the State would guarantee a potable water supply for an indefinite period. "The reservoir would increase the volume of the Pas- saic at Little Falls, and would provide a flow of at least one hundred million gallons daily, where at times the flow is now but thirty-five million gallons. It would also increase the available water power at Little Falls, Pat- erson and Dundee, to the advantage of the industrial enterprises of those sections. "It would improve the condition of the lower Passaic and prevent the river bed from becoming dry at times, or from shrinking into a series of unwholesome pools. "The increased flow due to the storage reservoir would make the river more attractive and healthful for resi- dence along its banks. It would materially assist in flushing the river and thus aid in solving the pollution problem. It would control floods, such as those which proved so disastrous in 1902 and 1903, and save a vast amount of property from destruction. "As a scenic feature, it has further claims to consider- 84 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP ation. For low meadows and flats, now breeding places for mosquitoes, it would substitute a broad expanse of water in the form of a picturesque lake that would add to the attractiveness of the Passaic Valley. Its charms in this respect, both for residents and guests in this sec- tion, appeal to the imagination." To this must needs be added several features as to "underground waters," as reported upon by the Ripari- an Commission, acting as a commission on potable waters under the Governor's appointment. The commission says: "The geological strata of the State everywhere con- tain water, the amount depending upon the porosity of the rocks, the topography and the rainfall. These waters become available chiefly by seepage, by springs and by wells. Comparatively little potable water is taken from springs directly ; the supplies from seepage and springs for the most part feed the lakes and streams, thus be- coming surface waters. "The ownership of underground supplies has been passed upon by the highest court of the State in the fol- lowing words : " 'We may concede, also, for present purposes, that subterranean waters, such as may be reached only by driving wells, when thus acquired become absolutely the property of the proprietor of the soil, and may be dealt with by him as merchandise, and that if they be thus converted into a merchantable commodity the State would not be permitted to prohibit its transportation beyond the confines of the State. Water thus taken from wells may be placed on the same plane with oil and natural gas, concerning the latter of which it was held by the Su- preme Court of Indiana in State, ex rel. Corwin, v. In- diana and Ohio Oil, etc., Co., 120 Ind. 575, that the THE STATE SENATE 85 State could not constitutionally prohibit its transporta- tion beyond the confines of the State.' (New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals, Attorney-General vs. Hudson County Water Company). "If, in a given case, the draft on wells were so great as to materially diminish the flow of surface streams in the vicinity, it would appear that the rights of the State and of individual riparian owners were infringed there- by, and the question would arise whether an injunction might not be obtained to prevent this injury." Right here is opened a most serious possibility, and it would be well for the Senate of the State of New Jersey to consider the validity of the Supreme Court's cata- loguing water with oil and gas ; to consider the question of piping underground waters out of the State, when the supply of surface waters depends upon the subterranean supply ; to consider the general proposition as to the re- lation of municipal ownership to State control, and the differentiation between water supplied by one community to another from its surplus and water supplied by a pri- vate concern as a merchandisable commodity. These and many other queries arise, when the mind is turned to the consideration of the potable water supply, and it is evi- dent that the Senate cannot find a more important and vital topic to which to devote its time and its energies than in the preparation of legislative measures whereby these perplexing questions may reach their final settle- ment. 86 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP CHAPTER IX THE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY, ITS FUNCTIONS, ITS LIMITA- TIONS AND ITS ACHIEVEMENTS. IF in the State the Senate concerns itself naturally with those functions which are general, and with little or no reference to local application, while the House concerns itself with the local application of a gen- eral principle, rather than with its general aspect, mat- ters of State interest are fairly balanced between the House and the Senate. This principle has been lost sight of by the Assembly at times, and its functions have been disturbed, if not usurped, by other bodies, largely corporations, in con- sequence. When it is lost sight of, that oblivion results in two symptoms, both of them distressing in the high- est degree. One is the party vote, and the other is dis- guised special legislation. The party vote is an indication of helplessness, be- cause it is determined by the party and not by the merits of the case. It is avowedly an indication and an admis- sion of feebleness when a party vote must be taken on any measure. For it is evident that a measure, unless it re- fer to the working of party machinery, cannot be a po- litical measure and therefore demand a "party vote." For instance, a civil service bill cannot be a party measure, since it is designed to operate against party preferences, or "plums" or "spoils;" a potable water commission bill is not a party measure, since water is neither Republican nor Democratic, but a public neces- HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY 87 sity. A party vote on any measure of this kind simply indicates that those voting are, for some reason, not guided by the import and merit of the measure itself, but by some influence, partizan or otherwise, which can- not properly be considered part of the machinery re- quired for legislation. Thus the party vote is an indica- tion of weakness and of aberration of function to be de- plored. In the same way, disguised special legislation arises from improper functioning on the part of the House. The House feels and intuitively knows that it represents local applications of the law. It takes its first step in the wrong direction when it confuses the "local applica- tion of the law" with "local interests." This is a source of confusion in many instances altogether pardonable, yet in each instance confusion. For instance, let us say, that ice is harvested on a series of lakes in the State. The Assembly has nothing to do with the various local com- panies that cut the ice. It is not concerned with them directly, large as the temptation may be to be so con- cerned, especially with the member from the locality in- volved. But the House is concerned with the applica- tion of all general laws of health and transportation to any specific locality. For ice is sometimes cut from ponds unfit for such operations, or from other bodies of water where the laws of health demand action or inter- ference and advantages are taken by the "common car- riers" of certain localities, which advantages work un- fairly for one or the other of such localities. It is the function of the House to see that the laws are in such shape as to be applicable in such instances and in such active enforcement, as to work equity between lo- calities. This latter has not as yet been recognized as part of legislative activity, because of a certain faint 88 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP outer resemblance to the executive function. But con- sultation on the part of a House committee with sheriffs of counties, with members of the Board of Freeholders, with foremen or committees of grand juries will reveal instances in every way plentiful where legislation is re- quired either in new or modified form. The aloofness of Legislatures works mischief. This aloofness is perfectly natural, since it is part of our American spirit not to interfere with the other man, and the Assembly feels that it has no desire to interfere with the sheriff, or with the freeholder, or with the grand jury; but consultation is not interference, and confer- ence begets wisdom. The application of the law to local needs requires a knowledge of local needs, which can best be obtained through local officials. In the evolution of this thought we naturally and readily reach the peculiar thing called "general legisla- tion," but really special legislation thinly disguised un- der the garb of ostensible generalization. For the Legis- lature early conceived the perfectly true thought that special legislation is unwise, and unhealthy, and that it is out of place for the Legislature to legislate at the cap- itol of the State for specific localities, and from the cap- ital city tell folk what they are to do in their local work. This is so directly and palpably interference, that it is brooked neither by the legislator nor by those legislated for. Yet local demands are so urgent, that every Legisla- ture sooner or later takes up distinctly local issues under a fictitiously generalized head. If, for instance, it wants to legislate for Jersey City or Newark, it knows that there are only two cities in the State which have the quo- ta of population cited for these two cities. The Legis- lature, therefore, devises a classification of cities into four HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY 89 kinds and puts Newark and Jersey City into the first class, and then legislates ad libitum for "cities of the first class." That means that it is legislating for Newark and Jersey City. It is, in most instances, doing things which these two cities should in reality do for themselves. It may do this at the request of one or both of these cities, but why the request? What possible reason can there be for Newark and Jersey City going to Trenton to ask permission to do certain things entirely within their own premises, and, in almost every instance, entire- ly within their province and jurisdiction? If we go back far enough to seek for the origin of this thinly disguised legislation, essentially special but osten- sibly general, we will find it to be the same as that of the party legislation spoken of above. For in those earlier days of the Legislature, when things were not as open and above board as there is an effort to make them now, the balance of power was acutely or delicately poised between the two great parties, and members of the House could utilize the party vote for the passing of measures or for the killing of measures. Under a corrupt regime it was quite natural that men of little moral force and of feeble intellectual stamen should go to persons interested in this or that measure and say to them : "What is there in this, if it goes through?" Not only would many politicians do this thing, but they would devise methods of conducting the legislative business, whereby it became necessary for all manner of legislation to pass through their hands, so that they might be enabled to levy toll in its passing. It was to their interest to have everything come to Trenton to compel every city, town or borough to bring its matters to Trenton. It consequently became a matter of assidu- ous cultivation, this general impression deeply made up- 90 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP on the mind of the ordinary citizen, that he must go to Trenton to have things done for him. Absurd as the proposition is on the face of it, in nine cases out of ten it seems never to have aroused a distinctly intellectual proc- ess which could be traced in the open. Meekly and quietly have the citizens of the State submitted for years to this unintelligent paternalism, until now at last the "initiative and referendum," the "home rule," the "local option" idea is beginning to stir with sufficient vigor to give one the impression that the mass of citizens has tired of this process, which in its inception was utterly and disgust- ingly mercenary and which has lent itself to little else since. These two faults or shortcomings the House must speedily correct in order to complete the list of its achievements. Its list of achievements will be confined entirely to the catalogue of such things as can be and must be accomplished locally by the application of gen- eral laws. And to this task should the Assembly bend it- self forthwith. The incorporation of cities, the annex- ation of territory to boroughs, to townships, to cities, the consolidation of towns and other local conditions should be made the subject of thorough investigation and early study, so that no specific prescription may come from Trenton under the guise of general legislation. General legislation means in such cases the application of general laws, of the laws of population, of floating and sessile population, of mutual interests between munici- palities, of the transfer of desirable or undesirable con- ditions from one municipality to another ; all these points and many more require careful research before any form of legislation is attempted at all. The issuance of bonds by municipalities, the ratio in which such an issuance shall stand to the assessed valu- HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY 91 ations of property in the municipality, the amount of help that might be borne by the county, if it be a ques- tion of roads, all such matters are perfectly and legiti- mately within the province of the Assembly and will swell the list of its achievements materially. The remedying of certain evils which are general, such things and conditions as militate against the health and welfare of the people of the State, when present or con- fined to certain localities the unfairness of certain trade combinations, both of labor and of capital (for some of both classes are equally unfair) the inequity of trans- portation, the moral obligation of a common-carrier, when it forgets that it is a common-carrier and is tol- erated in its operations only as such the basis upon which revocations of charter and franchise rights may be made to rest in this or that municipality, the court to which questions thus arising may be or are to be carried, the limits of activity in the matter to be imposed upon local authorities, upon grand juries, sheriffs and other county authorities, all such matters are subject for most careful consideration on the part of the House, because it is by nature the guardian of local interests, and be- cause, again by the nature of the case, it can conserve these interests fairly and adequately only by the appli- cation of general laws to local conditions, and never by the enactment of localized or special laws under a ve- neer of generality which deceives no one and is rarely just or fair. 92 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP CHAPTER X THE MACHINERY OF GOVERNMENT AS ILLUSTRATED BY THE COUNTY IN ITS BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS. IN the past chapters we have glanced at the general forms of government of the United States and of a single State as to deliberative and legislative bodies. We come now to the machinery of government. To de- scribe this for study purposes and to take it through the five forms which it assumes, would be a five-fold repeti- tion. It will suffice to take any one of the five, and the form chosen is that of the county because naturally it stands about in the centre and is sufficiently compact and at the same time sufficiently flexible to illustrate all that is necessary for the student of civics. There are altogether five forms of government, or rather of governmental machinery. First, the govern- ment of the United States, with the President at the head, his Cabinet or National family grouped immediately about him, the two houses of Congress at his right and left, and the detailed machinery of government reaching out in all directions from these three central groups. We are, as the reader sees, taking the President and his im- mediate Cabinet together as a single group. This as- sumption is perfectly tenable, even in the case of so pos- itive a man as President Roosevelt. His Cabinet is his own choice and consequently it may be assumed to be at perfect accord with him, no matter how much or how lit- tle at variance either or both houses of Congress may be at any one time. From these three groups radiate sev- CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS 93 eral systems, each in a sense independent, yet each in- tertwined closely with the other. There is a system of functions for each of which one member of the Cabinet stands. Thus there is the huge system of mail delivery, the postoffice, which ramifies into the remotest corners of the land, and at its head a Postmaster-General. He is a member of the Cabinet. Then there is the relationship in which the Nation stands with other nations. At the head of this function stands a man who is called the head of the Department of State (originally called "Foreign Affairs"). He is a member of the Cabinet. Then there is the man who has charge of the Navy. He is a member of the Cabinet. In the same way there is the official in charge of Army affairs; the official in charge of the money or financial affairs of the government ; the official in charge of the Department of Commerce and Labor; the official in charge of the welfare of the farmer, that is, the Department of Agriculture, and, finally, the At- torney-General, who may be regarded as the representa- tive of the judiciary. This group of men is called the "Cabinet" not only in this country but in several others, such as in England and France, though the different members in each of these countries may stand for slightly different branchings and co-ordinations of the govern- ment service. The general scheme of government under this form is that of the "commission," such as is now also advocated for cities, an advocacy chiefly instigated by the successful introduction of the commission system in Galveston and Houston, Tex., Des Moines, Iowa, and other cities. To the thoughtful reader it will instantly appear that this method of procedure is one of the most efficient, if not the most efficient, which could have been devised. It 94 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP gathers the reins of government together into the central group of control, and works and always has worked most efficiently. It is presumably also the oldest form of government with which we are familiar. Impelled by the evident efficacy of this form, the in- dividual States have adopted a method very similar to the Federal one. The Governor, at the head of affairs, is sur- rounded by a similar group of men, who are his imme- diate State family. The arrangement is not so compact as that of the Federal Government, but the group com- prising the Secretary of State, the State Treasurer, State Comptroller, the Attorney-General, the Major-General, the Commissioner of Banking and Insurance, the Clerk of the Supreme Court, the Superintendent of Public In- struction, and one or two others, is evidently a group modeled upon the same pattern as that of the Federal Cabinet. In general, it is the plan of having the heads of departments grouped into an immediate official fam- ily about the Governor, and, in the case of the State, flanked upon the right by the Senate and on the left by the House of Assembly. And from this centre radiate the various State functions, each along its several line, very much as does the Federal machinery of government. After the State comes the smaller type, namely the county, and after that the city, and then the town or township, under which title is here included the borough for convenience sake. In each of these smaller groups there is a chief officer, with a group of officials about him constituting the immediate official family, and with minor functions and functionaries radiating in all directions. In the case of the county, the central group is flanked on the right by the Board of Chosen Freeholders, and on the left by the grand jury, which because of the failure on the part of those directly involved to see this feature of CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS 95 grouping, has deteriorated into a position little less than anomalous. In the city the Mayor has grouped about him his various heads of departments, and is flanked by the Select and Common Council in cities where this form is adopted, or by council and some other official body, like, for instance, a Board of Works, where other forms are adopted. The town, borough, village or township follows the same method of procedure through its various officials, but, of course, in a smaller and more restricted way. In general the reader will now see why the Galveston plan of running cities by commissions has been advoca- ted, and why it has been suggested to constitute official bodies of the heads of departments, such as for instance the modification of the State Board of Health in some such way as to have it presently constituted of the heads of departments of State functions, related in some way to the health and sanitation of the State, and including the heads of the Sewerage Commission, of the Charities and Corrections, so far as it concerns itself with the wel- fare of the sick and the ailing, the head of the Tubercu- losis Commission, the heads of those bodies which control the various medical schools, and representatives of the plumbers and the undertakers of the State. Centraliza- tion of this kind is wholly helpful, and it can be normal- ly introduced in the course of a few years, if the appoint- ive power will hold a scheme such as this under advise- ment and consent to discontinue the haphazard method of appointment now in vogue. Revert we now to the general form of government of a county as a fair illustration of the mechanism of gov- ernment. As heretofore, we take the county of Essex as a pattern, as in general we have taken the State of New Jersey as a pattern, which in either case the student may 96 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP modify at his or her pleasure to fit any other county in this or other States, and which he or she may further modify in tracing similarity of office and function as may be required. Thus a series of names like this (Federal) Secretary of State, (State) secretary of State, county clerk, township clerk, are evidently the names of the same office as it dwindles away from its largest and most prominent form to its least form. The office remains the same throughout, being that of the man whose busi- ness it is to keep the records of the department, large or small, assigned to him, and in civic lines, the man most familiar with the detailed working of the machinery of government. Take another similar series Secretary of the Treas- ury, State treasurer, county collector, (city) tax collect- or, township collector. This is evidently the office of the man to whom is entrusted the care of the financial sys- tem, large or small, involved in the section of the gov- ernmental machinery for which he stands. Other series of names are left to the student for "original research" and for the elaboration of such thought, suggestion and practical application as may suggest themselves. The county is thus organized. There is elected a Board of Chosen Freeholders. They are called "chosen" because they are elected. They are called freeholders because they are "free" that is, for a life tenure without (feudal) re- striction. In feudal days there were three forms of hold- ing, when the term "freehold" was first devised. There was a lease-hold, in which case the feudal lord permitted some one, usually a serf, to live on some part of his do- main for an indefinite period, or until he should choose to shift him from place to place or sell him or manumit him. Then there was a "copy-hold," in which case the tenant, usually a vassal, subject to military service or not, CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS 97 as the case might be, was permitted to hold a certain piece of property for a definite period of time and was secure in his holding from any interference on the part of his feudal lord, so long as the service exacted was fur- nished. And finally there was the "free-hold," in which the feudal lord granted the tenant a "free brief," which meant absolute possessorship, without restraint on the part of the landlord, for life, that is, for the life of the tenant. Sometimes it was conditioned by the life of his wife, including the term of her life, should she outlive him. Hence the word "freeholder" was associated with a man who not only held his property "free" or in "fee," as it was afterward called, but who also was independent of the feudal lord, being neither serf nor vassal. The term came to America in the natural course of events, and here it has had two ideas, that of "freeman" not "slave" up to about 1845 or 1850, while slavery was an unop- posed American institution, and that of actual owner of property in "fee simple." The latter is the only one now retained. The Board of Freeholders ( in some cases called County Commission) organizes by selecting a director, who is the head of the body and who stands in the place of presi- dent. The group of officials, gathered about this centre, is a supervisor elected by the people, a clerk, a county physician, a county collector, a county auditor, a county counsel and a county engineer, together with the super- intendents, wardens and physicians of the various coun- ty institutions, in charge of and under the care of the Board of Freeholders. That this list is subject to modi- fication according to the size, location and import of the county concerned is evident. That there may be changes in title and substitution, such as "coroner" for "county physician," is also evident. The effort here is 98 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP to give a general scheme, according to which the element of machinery at large may be made subject of study. The student is asked to exercise due care in adjust- ing the smaller scheme here given to any larger or yet smaller scheme, which he may make the subject of his in- vestigation. The functions of the County Board of Freeholders can be transferred as rapidly to one of the other forms of governmental machinery as could the titles of offices. Thus the Board of Freeholders has charge of the roads of a county. That the State has a similar department is evident; that the Federal Government has a similar department is not so clear until it has been decided in what final attitude the Federal Government shall stand toward the highways of the country, both those with rails and those without. When the atmosphere is cleared in this matter, we may finally decide that the Federal Government stands related to the highways of the country, both railways, canals, navigable rivers and high roads (all these being high- ways for public use and for the transportation of passen- gers and freight at the disposition and convenience of the general public) somewhat in the same way as a Coun- ty Board of Freeholders stands related to the roads in that county, in which case there is responsibility as to the maintenance of the road in good condition, the proper bridging of interruptions of the surface level of the road, and the making of the road traversable within reason at all seasons. That the Board is to do all of this, or that it may share the doing of it with other bodies corporate both official and private is a detail. Hence the student, if he desires to make application of any one general princi- ple, like this, to other bodies is asked to think along con- secutive lines of ordinary analysis and he will have at hand sufficient material for all purposes. CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS 99 If the application be made to a smaller body, say a city or a town, the relation of the Board of Freeholders to the roads of the county is duplicated in the relation in some cases of the Board of Aldermen or the Common Council of a city (which is the same thing) to the streets of that city. The facilities of this method of study will be in- stantly apparent to every one. If we can get the rela- tionship of a governing body, of city, of county, of State, of the Federal Government to any one function, say to the highways (roads, streets, railways, canals, navigable rivers and streams) into the same general form, we have gained an advantage not otherwise obtainable. In the second place the student is warned not to give the Board of Freeholders too large a place in the line of importance. The fact that any one particular body is used as an illustration in this way may leave in the mind of the reader a sense of importance which cannot be prop- erly attached to the institution under consideration. Every one will readily see that the Board of Chosen Free- holders in some small county may be a very much less im- portant body than the Common Council of some great city, which contains a number of inhabitants possibly lar- ger than that of the small county. The Board of Free- holders is here used simply as a concrete illustration of all forms of government machinery, for "practical citizen- ship" purposes, and it is left to the reader and the stu- dent to make such applications of the general principles along the lines indicated in this chapter as will make it serve the purpose for which it was designed, namely, to give a distinct idea of governmental machinery at large, obviating the necessity of going into different explana- tions of the same thing in its various forms. In charge of the freeholders are the following matters : The tax levy for the county, which is important, since it 100 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP largely influences the rate and method of taxations in the boroughs and municipalities included within its borders ; the roads of the county, involving the building of roads, of bridges, and in some instances the method of applica- tion of convict or free labor, since in some cases convict labor is employed on the roads; the county institutions, usually a jail, a penitentiary, an almshouse or poorhouse, a hospital, in some cases an isolation hospital and an in- sane asylum ; the public buildings, usually a courthouse at the county seat and such other buildings as may be necessary to house the various functions of the county. In order to meet the requirements of this work the board groups itself into committees. As a specimen of the nature of this grouping I cite the titles of committees in the Board of Chosen Freeholders of Essex County, which will convey definitely the general and the local nature of the work. The committee titles are: Finance, County Hospitals, County Prisons, Public Buildings, Roads, Speedway, Jail Discharge, Newark Free Bridges, Sta- tionery, Belleville Free Bridge, Nutley Free Bridge, Pub- lications, Official Bonds, Statutory Payments, Auditing, Legal Questions, Legislation. A glance at this list will instantly explain the general method of the subdivision of work. That this work involves the burden of many concrete and abstract features, ranging from the fairness of a tax levy to the question of prisoners wearing stripes, is evident without comment. PART II THE FORCE CHAPTER XI THE FORCES THAT RUN THE MECHANISM OF GOVERNMENT AND THEIR DUAL MANIFESTATION. IN a vague way we speak of "public opinion" and of "public sentiment" as though they were unfathom- able and unstudied things. But that is an untenable view. They are quite studiable and definable things. They are human forces, and as such as much subject to study as any other force. And the best working theory for such study lies along the following lines. In the first place, the student who has followed the previous chapters in an appreciative manner has noted that we have thus far concerned ourselves with the ma- chinery of government. The public mind, that inerrant and intuitive Something, which I prefer to call the Race Mind, has always called this part of government the "Machine." That the people at large have qualified this "Machine" and have called it the "Republican" machine or the "Democratic" machine in no wise interferes with the fact that the Race Mind has quite properly and with- out error perceived that the body politic is a "Machine." There is no doubt of that and there is no harm in it. The aggregate needs a body for the same reason that the individual needs a body. And the body of the aggregate 101 102 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP is a piece of mechanism of the same order as the body of the individual, a more or less brilliantly conceived piece of machinery, according to the more or less vicious inter- ference of individuals with divine laws. This piece of machinery may be called "Body Politic," it may be called "Organization," or it may be called "Machine," since it is all three of these things, and since in this sense all three are synonymous and essential to the carrying out of the purposes of the government. Having described the machine, it is proper to turn to the force or the forces which run the machine. We have grown men we call "leaders," "bosses," "demagogues" and so forth, according either to the exigencies of the case, or to the humor we are in at the time who are sup- posed to run the machine. But in either case we are de- ceived by appearances. Men do not run the machinery of government. It is run by ulterior, or rather by su- perior forces, which men call again by another series of names, such as destiny, Providence, God, and so forth, but which for the purposes of these chapters is called the "Human Force," sometimes the "Divine Human Force," and sometimes simply the "Race Mind." And it is to this concept, and to the study of it that we now apply ourselves. That men do not run the machinery of government in any sense but the sense of appearances is evident when we dissect any similar sentence in another domain of human ken and activity. Take the sentence, "The Western far- mer grows grain for all the world." Stripped of its attributes it is, "the farmer grows grain." Now, in what sense does a farmer grow grain ? He takes in hand a cer- tain quantity of grain previously grown. That is, he starts with a certain proposition, which has been previ- ously produced. He prepares the soil, plows, harrows DUAL FORCES 103 and breaks the clods. He does not produce the soil, any more than he produced the original grain. Guided by a knowledge of seasons and of climate, which he borrows from the memory of the racemind, either from a tradition of his predecessors, or from books, in which that experi- ence has been recorded, he submits himself with more or less skill to the requirements of these laws. He has not produced these laws, since he has had nothing to do with the inclination of the earth's axis, which does produce them, and he was not there when that inclination swayed into position ages and ages ago. The more skill he ex- ercises in this adaptation to a law, which he did not pro- duce, the better will be the crops he "grows." The seed falls into the ground. It decays. And then the miracle of growth takes place. It is multiplied, as believers in the Church and its tenets honestly hold, by the same hand and the same agencies, which are several times in- troduced into the Bible narrative, as multiplying bread both in the Old Testament stories of the wonderful feed- ing of the multitudes of Jews in the desert, and in their New Testament replicas, where the five thousand and the four thousand are fed. It matters not so much what we make of these remark- able stories historically or scientifically, but rather that we look upon them as rather startling, though in the ul- timate analysis altogether logical, statements of an actual fact, namely, that the farmer does not "grow" grain in the sense of producing something by his own volition ab- solutely and only. In every sense he only helps to grow grain, if he does anything. The grain grows from the co-ordination of a series of interior and exterior forces, moving under definite and perfectly definable laws, over which he has absolutely no control, but to which he can learn to adapt himself with more or less skill and success. 104 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP There are interior forces, which through mysterious co- ordinations of chemical substances and of geometric forms, probably, multiply his bread for him, and there are external forces which check that growth and in many instances destroy it. The occult forces of chemical com- bination, of geometric arrangement and so forth, are, generally speaking, favorable to growth ; those of exter- nal influence, such as winds, frosts, fire and the locust, are, generally speaking, designed to retard growth, and may be, with due caution, considered as checking and re- tarding growth. I say "with due caution" for the sake of what I shall have presently to say of "conservatism." If we transfer this imagery to the body politic, we will note that men run the machinery of government in the same sense in which the farmer grows grain ; that is, they help run it. But in reality more depends upon the human forces back of the men than upon the men, just as more depends upon the sun, the rain, the soil and the element of growth in the grain, than depends upon the farmer. Take any selection of historic events you please and ask yourself fairly the question, "Did men do this?" and your answer will always be, "In part, yes ; in toto, no." Did Lincoln start out with the idea of freeing the slaves ? Did Cromwell start out with the idea of the Long Parlia- ment ? Did Galileo know that he was laying the founda- tions of modern science? Did Robespierre try to abolish the government of France by the means which afterward came about? Did Mark Hanna have the faintest idea of what he was about when he tried to put Mr. Roosevelt on the shelf of the Vice-Presidency ? Did the Hycksos know that they were laying the foundations of the Aryan mi- gration when they invaded Egypt? Did Cincinnatus dream that he was laying the foundations of an American commonwealth when he left his plow? Did Aristotle DUAL FORCES 105 know that the coming world would have to turn again and again to his principles, as often as they really tried to get at the foundations of things ? I have purposely gathered a haphazard mass of material together with the intent of showing that men do not do the running of the machin- ery. They do part of it, and not a very large part, when one considers all the other factors and forces at work. Now let us look at this force which does the larger part of the running of the machinery of the body politic. The philosophers have tried to find it, by studying that body itself. They have thought of that body as a huge hu- man unit, which is altogether wise and proper. They have thought of the telegraph as the nervous system; of the circulation of money as the circulation of blood ; of the transportation of food supplies as being the same in the body politic as in the individual body. They have thought of those who work as "hands" and have called them so, when they spoke of Mr. So-and-So as employing 300 "hands." They have thought of the men who do the thinking and the planning as the "head," and therefore speak of this one or that one as the "head" of the concern. They have thought of our legislative mechanism as the "arm" and have called it the "long arm" of the law. All these terms and thoughts they have culled from the race- mind and have therefore copied into them that suspicion of inerrancy, to which I referred above. This series of ideas does well as a working theory, so far as the body politic is concerned, but it leaves us un- supplied with an idea of the force which runs the body, except in so far as it speaks of "public sentiment" and "public opinion." That these two things are forces, we recognize in the common parlance of the people, when we state the fact that "the House bowed to public opinion," or that "the 106 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP President was forced into his present attitude by public sentiment." All such sentences recognize the thing called "public sentiment" and "public opinion" as a force. The question arises, are they an actual force ? And the answer is, they are as actual a force as magnetism or electricity. Trace the thought for a moment. Take any other hu- man force. The gambling or speculative force. Does it not always act in the same way, and has it therefore not an identity ? It always makes people assume toward cer- tain things the same attitude. It makes a man eager to get something for nothing, whether it be manifested in a horse race, a bout of fisticuffs, an astrological advertise- ment, a bargain counter, or an auction sale of express goods, where you buy a parcel without knowing what is in it. All people act alike under the impulse of this force, just as all apples fall alike under the force of gravitation. So with the manifestation of human force called "puppy love." All children act alike when it strikes them, for the same reason that all dynamoes act alike when electricity strikes them. Take the force of curiosity. All people do the same thing when somebody stares into the sky or points into it with a stick. And then there's the force of imitation. The whole company yawns when one yawns the whole congregation is inclined to cough when the speaker's voice breaks for a moment, and the whole body of people in the ferryhouse can be made to run around the corner of the ferry slip if one starts running soon enough to be seen by those behind, and does it in an interested and natural manner. And when the little boy hands the little girl, his sister, an unusually large piece of cake without direct commands from his mother, she naturally says, "What's the matter wiv it?" because she has intuitively recognized the activity of certain human forces, and now recognizes DUAL FORCES 107 the fact that this proceeding runs counter to previous ex- perience. Human forces have not been sufficiently studied. When they are, they will be found as intelligible and as resolv- able as all others. It is therefore safe to think of the forces which run the mechanism of government as being only partly represented by individuals, but rather and more truly by the aggregate mentality of the group of people under consideration and the force which that ag- gregate mentality exercises. If, now, we take any physical force and study it, we find at the very outset that it manifests itself in a dual form. Electricity has its negative and its positive mani- festation. Gravitation has its two manifestations, which we call centrifugal and centripetal forces. We think of these two forces, one rushing outward from the sun and the other as tending toward the sun, as holding the earth in place between them. A mighty wave of force sweeps out from the sun and would, if permitted to act without its curbing companion force, centripetal force, rush the universe into a whirl of nothingness. But it is curbed by the other side of itself, the inward rush of force toward the sun, and so the globe spins quietly on. So public opinion and public sentiment manifests itself in two ways. There is a wild onward rush of force, called radicalism, which desires to carry all before it and to rush it all into the dim and unknown future. But it has its companion force in conservatism, which tends to hold back and to revert to the past. And with radicalism turned persistently to the future and conservatism turning with equal persistency toward the past, human society quietly turns upon its axis of present interest, without any of the serious dangers forecast by the pessimist, and mostly also without any of the ethic results dreamed of by the opti- 108 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP mist. Suffice it then to think for the present of human force, called "public sentiment," as a thing similar to gravitation, and of radicalism as the centrifugal force, and of conservatism as the centripetal force, and we have a background upon which in the next chapter we shall be able to paint a picture of these two forms of force and of their necessity. RADICALISM 109 CHAPTER XII RADICALISM AS A DYNAMIC FORCE IN CITIZENSHIP THE ELEMENT OF NATURAL SEQUENCE IN REFORMS. WHEN we speak of any generic factor we usual- ly fail to allow for the heterogeneousness of the mass of humanity. No two people are alike. No group of human beings, such as a city, a State or a nation, exists, which does not include a more or less com- prehensive collection of types. When next you hear or tell a humorous story note the manner in which it is received by the group. Take a post-prandial story. The speaker faces a number of peo- ple and the manner in which they receive the story is es- sentially multiform. There is the man with the loud guf- faw; the man who simply smiles, the man who laughs with his face and his hands and his shoulders, and the man who, as the French say, "fails to arrive," and does not see the point of your pleasantry until next day. And within these four boundaries of hilarity lie as many vari- eties of appreciation and demonstration as there are people. Then again there are essential differences. There is the man who thinks no story is funny, unless it be at the same time unclean ; another who considers only such sto- ries funny as involve profanity ; the third, who is keenly alive to puns ; the fourth, who appreciates a story told him, but always spoils it himself, when he tries to tell it ; the fifth but why continue? The fact is that the na- ture of what men consider humorous ranges from the 110 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP appreciation of a brilliant sally to the absorption of men- tal filth you will always find some one along the line of this descending scale who thinks its various sections funny. So with radicalism. Some men consider themselves rad- ical, when they are merely ill-tempered ; others when they have soured; others again, when they are self-opinion- ated ; and yet others, when they are mentally dyspeptic. Hence it comes about that radicalism seems to range from Anarchy to a mild socio-economic fervor. And types could be quoted almost ad infinitum of men, who consider themselves radicals and who cover as wide a territory as mental latitude can conceive. There is the Nihilist, who feels that radicalism means the destruction of men in high places ; the Anarchist, who feels that disobedience to established laws will finally prove the redemption of society ; the Socialist, who clam- ors for the possession of the means of production by gov- ernment; the Communist, who dimly sees a vision of the holding in common of everything; the Agrarian, who, ranging from the ultra-left in the old country, to the en- thusiastic single taxer in this, labors to show that our attitude toward the land will in its final analysis solve all sociologic problems. That practical citizenship involves an ability to know which of these propositions is true and which is not true, goes without saying, because any or all of these various remedies for our social ills will present themselves to the citizen either through the channels of his own party, if he have one, or through a distinctly organized party. And when the time for the exercise of his franchise comes about, he is faced by a variety of "tickets" the Repub- lican party, the Democratic party, the "New Idea," the Independent, the "Civic party" (if somebody will kindly RADICALISM 111 create one), the Prohibition party, the Socialist party, the Labor party, the Social Democracy, the but again, why continue? These human forces are all alike and as different people call different things "funny ;" so differ- ent people call different things "radical." How decide ? Several factors enter into the decision. It would be pleasant and very much easier to give a simple, definite answer, and to select any one of the long list of parties and say : "This is the true party." But it would savor of inertia for I suspect that most men who defi- nitely settle down to such an answer do so because it's too much trouble to work out all of these things. And yet there are a few simple rules that may guide the selection, which can be readily discovered and applied. The first is the segregation of all these methods of polit- ical agitation into two large groups, which may be labeled the intelligent and the non-intelligent. Go back to the humorous anecdote. Here are two men telling you a story. The first man is a burly, good-natured, jovial fellow, whose story reeks with profanity and filth, and who claps you on the back with his huge hand until you gasp for breath and who always tells his story three times if you unguardedly or diplomatically show any signs of appreciation. When he is through it is difficult to tell whether one has listened to a funny story, or whether one has been taking a lesson in physical gymnastics in a men- tal sewer. It may be assumed with perfect safety that gymnastics are useful and that mental sewage probably has as much reason for existence as its physical counter- part. But whether the combination is an essential ingre- dient of human happiness in its most acceptable form, re- mains subject to doubt. Then there is the other man, who sits quietly and tells you an incident, clean as a mountain spring, palpable 112 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP enough for the blind to see and bubbling with the effer- vescence of wit. You quaff it as you would wine. Not a moment need a man hesitate as to the mental drink to be preferred. Wine and sewage are surely far enough apart to allow of ready differentiation. So it is with radicalism. It behooves him who desires to exercise practical citizenship to familiarize himself with the various forms of radicalism, but always as repre- sented by men of intelligence in each movement. Thus the Nihilist who throws a bomb differs essentially from the Nihilist who believes that human society must return to a primitive form of lawlessness before it can appreciate the value of law. The former is unintelligent and therefore the advocate of brute force ; the latter is intelligent and therefore the advocate of educative measures. Both may be harboring a delusion, but the one is an enemy of soci- ety, the other a harmless theorist, if you please. The Anarchist who lacks intelligence is the Anarchist who sends bombs by mail or by express to perfectly innocent people. The intelligent Anarchist is he who sees in the violation of the law by those who feel that they are not bound by law a species of outlawry that shows that the law is invalid and can therefore be dispensed with and set aside. Both may be harboring a fantasm, but one is sub- ject to police regulation, and rightly so, while the other has a right to a patient hearing. It would clear the at- mosphere of our understanding conditions in Russia very much if we felt prepared to make the distinction here in- dicated for the two classes of men in these two groups. The unintelligent Socialist clamors for a rehabilitation of things on a feebly comprehended basis, which rehabili- tation, if tried, would fail miserably ; while the intelligent Socialist sees approaching the time when government con- trol and government ownership, and group ownership of RADICALISM 113 this, that or the other series of conveniences or opportuni- ties will be found to be a very much more sensible way of doing things than the way we follow now. The unintel- ligent agrarian burns his landlord's house and puts the torch to his standing grain; the intelligent agrarian tries to teach his neighbor a rational substitution of ren- tal values to represent Henry George's "unearned incre- ment" and that such substitution by means of the single tax will not be confiscation but solid business sense. Run this line of reasoning through all the various the- ories of political economy with which you have come in contact and you will find that the practical citizen will sift the intelligent understanding and appreciation of an ad- vanced idea from the unintelligent, and will accept the one and reject the other. If at any point this idea comes to him through his party organization he will vote his party ticket ; if it comes to him through a separate and distinct party he will vote the ticket of that party, and if it comes to him through neither source and he finds it im- portant that emphasis should be given to some particular idea at some particular time, he will, through some civic organization, get some men to run for office, who will stand for and pledge themselves to the principles which the voter desires to see carried out, or the principle near- est of attainment. For as we will see in a moment, the unavoidable element of futurity in radicalism frequently involves a step in the direction in which one feels he would like to take a leap. The first rule of the grammar of Radicalism, there- fore, is, "Listen to the intelligent exponent of the theory which seems to you of import, and not to the unintelli- gent exponent of it." The second rule of the grammar is that anything which breaks a natural sequence is doomed to failure. From the 114 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP blossom to the ripened fruit is a series of imperceptible minute steps. There are no leaps. From the laying of the egg to the bird hatched from it is a series of imper- ceptible natural steps. There are no leaps. From the inception of a thought in the mind of the author to the final edition of the book in its printed form is a series of perfectly adjusted steps, whereof one follows the other in normal order. There are no leaps. The author cannot think his book and then expect it to leap forth bodily from his brain in a 10,000 edition. He must write it ; he must have sufficient education in spelling, writing and grammar to make it intelligible to the printer; he must learn to handle a typewriter, if that be required ; he must undergo the drudgery of proof-reading, and, in fact, must take all the steps required, in one shape or the other. And beyond all he must know that somebody wants to read his book after it is written ; otherwise the book, even when produced, will prove a failure. So, with the reforms suggested by Radicalism; there should be in them the element of natural sequence. To plant a group of men into an artificial environment and to ask them to live a life based upon no coherent series of natural traits, militates against one of the first laws of nature. The sentence, "I ask not that my disciples be taken out of the world, but that they be protected in the world," tells this story in the words of highest wis- dom. Any theory which requires artificial environment has in it the seeds of failure. Brook Farm sends its moan of failure through history and is joined by the ghosts of other ventures with plaintive little notes coming from Sinaloa, from Topolibampo, from Economy, Pa., and from the shores of the Hudson, a little nearer home ; not because these movements lacked intelligence, but because they interrupted the course of nature. RADICALISM 115 Let me not be misunderstood as unqualifiedly negating the value of artificial helps. Luther Burbank has demon- strated that marvels can be accomplished by artificial helps properly applied under the laws of growth. But the thing grafted must always in its nature resemble the thing whereupon it is grafted. It is perfectly feasible to graft a Keifer pear upon one of its wild progenitors, but it could not be done with a watermelon vine. It is al- together permissible to graft a plum on a peach, but to do the same with sugar cane will produce no results. Hence, the second rule of the grammar of Radicalism is, avoid breaks of nature's sequences. The third rule of that grammar is, "Festina lente," i. e., "Make haste slowly." Realizing that the driving force of Radicalism is the thought of the future, we can readily see that that thought of the future should, while being held in mind intact and complete, never exclude the various essential steps in the progress of its unfold- ment. Thus, when a man starts a business he must have in mind the kind of success he is aiming at, and yet never deceive himself with the idea that that success will fall into his lap while he waits, or that it will grow on a neighboring tree by some species of magic. The propo- sition he has in mind may be a radical one ; it may be the attainment of a purpose entirely new to the world; it may be the final achievement of some social condition ; of some business combination; of some engineering enter- prise; of some one thing, whatever its nature, whereof the world has never dreamed, yet he must needs allow, and allow amply for the intervening steps, and he must have those steps as carefully planned as the ultimate ob- ject. The business man, before he puts his first man on the road in a small way, aye, before he looks around for his 116 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP office or store, must have in mind the kind of stock he is going to carry, the cost and selling price, the disposition of his advertising matter and the routes to be taken by "those fifty salesmen whom he is going to have some of these days" or he might as well not begin. The suc- cessful business man is he who has the details of his busi- ness well in hand. And wherever there be a reform or a radical movement, the details of which have not been thought out, there is a movement which will die away more or less successfully, I was going to say, lamentably. Step by step do things not only go, but they must be so planned. Whatever is premature, cannot be made to thrive under the force of public opinion, or to be carried by that one side of it, which is the force of building upon the future, called Radicalism. Let us say that a group of citizens have in mind the restoration of power to the people, from whom it has been taken by the "interests." That this taking away has occurred no one doubts, least of all the "interests," for the man who deprives another of his right, or of his rights, is every whit as well aware of it, as is that other, only he makes no noise about it, while the other does. In a fight the man who inflicts punishment on the other is just as much aware of it as is the panting opponent, but he is not making as much noise about it. In fact, in or- der to win in the battle he had to reserve all his forces, and he had none to waste in noise. Hence the party which holds the advantage is the one which makes least noise about it. But it would be stupid to think that it does not know it. Now, if the proposition be to restore the disturbed equilibrium sensibly and rationally, but radically, the ul- timate form of that restoration must be held well in mind. It would be unwise to hold it in mind as ultimate confisca- RADICALISM 117 tion of property, or as a form of leveling communism, or as a reduction to primitive conditions. Nature cannot be forced back upon herself. If the effort be made there is violence. Look at the French Revolution as an illus- tration of this form of unwisdom. Whatever be the ul- timate goal and it is not within the province of my shortcomings to shape it let the steps toward that goal be carefully planned and considered. Take some local forms as experiment stations. Try your recalls, your referendums, your direct votes, your civil service, your single tax, your what not, locally first. If it works lo- cally it will spread into the county naturally, and thence to the State and thence into the Nation. Galveston did that with its government by commission. Judge Lindsley did that with the first appreciation of wayward children, which they ever officially received. Mr. Wines did that with prison reform in Illinois. And the citizen who sees practical citizenship in reforms and in the advancement of radical ideas, can make no serious error if he plans not only the goal, and let that be as rad- ical as he please, but also the distinct steps that lead to that goal, not only as steps, but in the order in which they are to be taken. Hence the third rule of this gram- mar is "Festina lente" "make haste slowly." Think out the entire proposition, and be not swept off your feet by the brilliancy of the ultimate attainment into the chasm of the unfinished and the unpremeditated. The fourth rule of the grammar is, "Criticism is good, in small doses ; suggestion of a remedy is better in doses of any convenient size." It may be necessary occasion- ally to criticize simply for the corrective effect of criti- cism. But in most instances it is quite as easy to add to the criticism, if criticism there need be at all, the sugges- tion as to how the things criticized can better be done. 118 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP Any suggestion thus offered, whether it be actually car- ried out, or whether it only leads to a fuller and freer discussion of the subject under advisement, is as much part of practical citizenship, as voting the ticket which will successfully express the ideas one is advocating. The idea that citizenship means simply voting is in itself as entirely erroneous as the idea that Christianity means going to church on Sunday morning and one evening a week. These exercises are infinitesimal parts of the entire subject. The man who goes to church on Sunday and weighs out fourteen ounces to the pound on Monday, or makes a disgraceful political deal on Tues- day, or grinds the face of the poor all the rest of the week, or, in fact, does anything unmanly, lacks the prop- er understanding of the word "Christianity" and has substituted for it the word "churchianity," which, while it may be perfectly harmless in itself, is a dangerous substitute for the real article. And the man who thinks that citizenship means to drop a bit of paper into a box on a certain day, or to move a few levers on a machine and then go away, makes the same mistake as does his church confrere. Citizenship means to take reasonable cognizance of the ideas which make for civic betterment, both in the local field and in the larger fields of the coun- ty, the State and the Country. It means to know some- thing of measures and of men ; to study the force called Radicalism and to know what it is that is of value in the future ; to study the force called Conservatism ( of which more will be said in the next chapter) and to see what it is in the past that should be conserved and what thrown out. In fact, Christianity is manhood on the spiritual plane, and citizenship is manhood on the natural plane. Or, in other words, Christianity means to treat your neighbor fairly and righteously so far as your mental RADICALISM 119 attitude toward him is concerned; and citizenship means to treat him fairly and righteously so far as his natural possessions, his property, his rights to opportunity, and the brawn of his good right arm are concerned. Chris- tianity means to make a square deal with the mind of your neighbor, and citizenship to make a square deal with his body. And intelligent Radicalism gathers from the future and forecasts into the future the things and proposi- tions which will accomplish the greatest good to the greatest number at as near a point of time as feasible. 120 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP CHAPTER XIII TO RADICALISM HOW IT IS ALLIED WITH MORALITY. IT is impossible to do justice to this section of our subject unless we first understand thoroughly one of the laws of these human dynamic forces, namely, that of the shifting standard of morality. And it may be ap- propriate to premise a definition of morals. The casual reader means by "morals" a certain code of written and unwritten laws concerning the relations of the sexes in our social organism. Hence by "immoral" he means any- thing which violates that code. This restricted view is quite true and quite proper, but it is rather too closely confined to serve the purposes of a consideration of the huge forces of which we are here treating. It must be widened to meet the boundary lines set by the larger philosophers the line of whom begins with Parmenides and Zeno and seems to come to a legiti- mate close in Henry James the elder. In order that the reader may thoroughly appreciate this broader view of the term "morals," let me quote the definition given by Henry James in his "Morality and the Perfect Life." Says he: "Morality, then, is conditioned upon a conflict or an- tagonism between nature and society, between self-love and charity, between my natural inclination and my so- cial sympathies. When I practically subject my natural inclinations or appetites to my social sympathies you pro- nounce me a good man; when I practically subject the CONSERVATISM 121 latter to the former, you pronounce me an evil man. Or let me state the same truth in larger characters. Morality is conditioned upon an antagonism between the private and public elements in humanity, upon a conflict between me and the race, between myself and some other self. Accordingly I am either morally good or morally evil, as I practically abase myself to others, or practically exalt myself above them." That this definition, which is practically that of Par- menides modernly worded, widens the horizon as to the definition of "morals" goes without saying. But that it also makes the discussion of morals in their wider sense appropriate in the consideration of the human dynam- ic called "Conservatism" also follows, since the present and most acute manifestation of Conservatism is that which concerns itself with the maintenance of the rights of the individual as against the rights of society at large. If the struggle between Conservatism and Radicalism, as it exists in civilized society today, be closely examined it will be found to group people into two large aggre- gates, one of which we have designated the "interests," because it struggles for the maintenance of what may be designated private (or corporate) interests as apposite to, if not opposed to, the interests of the communality rep- resented by the other group. If you look into the railroad question, for instance, through the eyes of President Roosevelt, the most ardent exponent of Radicalism in that line, you will see the proposition from the side of the "people ;" if you look at it through the eyes of Edward H. Harriman, you will see it as it presents itself to those individuals in whose hands the control of the railroads has come to rest. That both these sides, the "people" as a mass, and the men in whose hands the railroads now lie, 122 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP as to control and ownership, have certain definite and tangible rights, no one doubts for a moment. That the "people" have a right to demand certain service is admit- ted that the "interests" have a right to certain "re- turns" is also admitted. This is not the place to enter at large into this discussion. The point here emphasized is merely that the dynamic called "Radicalism" tends un- consciously to represent the group, while the dynamic called "Conservatism" tends, with equal unconsciousness, to represent the individual. Hence in its unguarded mo- ments, Radicalism tends to speak of itself as "We, the people ;" while Conservatism is equally inclined, in its un- guarded moments, to speak profanely on the same topic, and to claim a "divine right of property." Both views are extreme, but representative. Suffice it, then, for present purposes to assume that Conservatism is somehow allied with the thing we call "morals or morality," and to make an effort to trace this relationship, let us first widen the horizon. Granting that morality in a restricted sense refers to the relations of men and women, let us add to that relation another thought, and that is the relations of the individual to the group, or of the group to the individual. Let us call the group "society," for the sake of brevity. Any vio- lation of the social status then becomes immoral. To steal, to kill, to defame, to overreach, to violate any law of the social organism, is immoral. It is, under this con- sideration, as immoral to create fictitious values by the "watering" of stock as it is to violate the marriage com- pact it is as immoral to take advantage of "opportu- nity" as it would be to be contributory to the running of a house of ill fame. In fact, this aspect of "morals" widens the proposition to cover all crime against society, whatever its nature, and to consider as "immoral" any CONSERVATISM 123 breach of the law, under which society has found it use- ful and contributory to its continued existence to live. It is essential to emphasize this wider view or definition of the word, since otherwise no correct concept of the topic under consideration can be formed. But the basic laws of morals are not as rigid as the superficial thinker is inclined to make them. When we speak to the Amer- ican of "morals," even when limited to the sense to which he is accustomed, he tends to think of the term as re- ferring to the conditions of the relationship of men and women as held by society in America. But if he will per- mit himself to look at the question of these relationships through Japanese eyes, he will note that Japan, rightly or wrongly, looks at this particular item of human life in a different way. If he were to examine the books of the Board of Health in an Austrian municipality he would find there items which would shock his sensibilities thor- oughly, but to which an Austrian, of exactly the same grade of culture and civilization as himself, would be en- tirely callous. In the same way the distinctive boundary lines which America draws about women, married and unmarried, are entirely different in their contour and topographic situs from those drawn in other countries, whence comes the strange fact that foreign women look askance upon what our women permit themselves to do, while our women return the compliment, which simply demonstrates that, even so far as one feature of the gen- eral question is concerned, standards differ essentially, and the carrying forward of any one standard always in- volves a lack of recognition, sometimes amounting to con- demnation, of any or all others. No American municipality, occupying the vantage ground of higher standards, would for a moment permit itself to follow either the Austrian or the Japanese plan 124 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP of handling that edge of the sex question which borders on and overlaps the boundaries of the permissible. And an Austrian or a Japanese would look with distrust upon our method of controlling the question, and call it by names not necessarily in the dictionary of courtesy. The first point, then, which is here to be made and held in mind is that "morals" are not at any one time a rigid thing and equally regarded in all places. Neither are "morals" any more rigid when regarded at different periods of time in the same place. Continuing first along the lines of the sex question, it may be noted that the morals of Old Testament times differ from those of the New Testament. The moral tone of the Court of Solomon and of that of David, together with the individual lives of these semi-barbaric rulers, will not stand the test of the standard required by the Great Central Figure of the New Testament, nor that set by the early Christian church. Does it not very seriously confuse the student of the Old Testament, if he permits himself to project the life of the Patriarch Abraham, with the names of Sarah, of Hagar, of Keturah and many others attached to his, or that of Jacob, with the names of Leah and Rachel and Bilhah and Zilpah at- tached thereto, into one of our Western States, say, Utah, and then to listen to sermons on the saintliness of these typical figures? His confusion instantly vanishes if he admits the main factors of evolution in historic so- ciology, as he is compelled to admit them in biology, and watches how the tremendous intelligence called "the hu- man force" in these chapters has gradually been elimi- nating these, at present, undesirable forms and substi- tuting others more in harmony with advanced standards of morality. If he will take a moment's time and ask some intelli- CONSERVATISM 125 gent Turk or Mohammedan what is meant by the move- ment called the "Beha Ullah," that gentleman will in- form him that polygamy was permitted by the prophet for certain sociologic reasons. That a good Mohamme- dan was compelled to take into his family women related to him and dependent upon him for their maintenance physically (and according to some thinkers spiritually also), and that these constituted his subordinate family, while he had virtually only one wife, with whom the mar- riage relation was maintained. That foreigners misun- derstood things and brought about an evil report does not alter the actual status of the case among earnest and true believers in Allah. So the Mohammedans were al- ways told that they must have only one wife, and usually had only one wife, while their family might have to con- sist of several women, whom, according to the laws and customs of the country, somebody must "own," and for whom somebody must pay the taxes. This economic situ- ation is now being remedied by the Behai. The number of women for whom one property owner is held respon- sible, besides his wife, is reduced to one additional woman, usually a relative, or the relict of a relative, while the methods of taxation are being revised, so as to change even this feature. If the student will note how this in- dication warrants the statement that morals are being uplifted to a higher standard, and if he will compare this advance with advances made along other lines, such as prisons, tenement houses, the conditions of labor, and so forth, he will have a background upon which he can safe- ly entertain thoughts on these topics which will be per- fectly sane and amenable to rational co-ordination and modification. Take another illustration the slave trade. Apart from the serious politico-economic blunder committed by 126 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP Leopold of Belgium recently, and a little shadow of peonage here and there, there is no slave trade, and if a Christian were to indulge in it, he would be most seriously violating the standard of morals. Yet the days in which this standard was not so high are not at all in the dim and far distant past, but rather in the near historic fore- ground. Samuel McChord Crothers, in his delightful "Pardoner's Wallet," one of the most unique books which it has been my pleasure for some time to read, says: "Half a century ago there were a dozen thrifty argu- ments for human slavery. They are, abstractly speak- ing, as good now as they ever were, but they have passed out of cultivation. "When a great evil has been recognized by the world there is revision of all our judgments. A new principle of classification is introduced, by which we differentiate the goats from the sheep. It is hard after that to revive the old admirations. The temperance agitation of the last century has not abolished drunkenness, but it has made the conception of a pious, respectable drunkard seem grotesque." He might have added that even if we have not gained much in the way of restriction of an illicit traffic in the immoralities of drink, we are at least spared in our novels the disgusting pictures of drunken parsons, so common in the whole line of writers that arises in Addison and runs through Fielding and Smollet, and closes with Dick- ens. There are at least no more of those reprobates among Anglo-Saxon peoples, and there may even be a chance of their disappearing from the group of Russian rural "popes," if the temperance agitation now so strong in Germany can be made to cross the line into Little Rus- sia. Moral standards as to drunkenness have been quite distinctly raised. But to resume with Mr. Crothers : CONSERVATISM 127 "It (the temperance agitation) has also reduced the business of liquor selling to a decidedly lower place in the esteem of the community. So, too, when we read to-day of the horrors of the slave trade, we reconstruct in our imagination the character of the slave trader, and a bru- tal wretch he is. But in his day the Guinea captain held his own with the best. He was a good husband and father, a kind neighbor, a generous benefactor. Presi- dent Ezra Stiles, of Yale College, in his 'Literary Diary,' describes such a beautiful character. It was when Dr. Stiles was yet a parish minister in Newport that one of his parishioners died, of whom he wrote : 'God had blessed him with a good Estate, and he and his Family have been eminent for Hospitality to all and Charity to the poor and afflicted. At his death he recommended Religion to his Children, and told them that the world was nothing. The only external blemish on his Character was that he was a little addicted to the marvellous in the stories of what he had seen in his Voyages and Travels. But in his Dealings he was punctual, upright and honest, and (ex- cept as to the Flie in the Oyntment, the disposition to tell marvellous Stories of Dangers and Travels, &c.) in all other Things he was of sober and good moral charac- ter, respected and beloved of all * * *' &c. "It was in 1773 that this good man died in the odor of sanctity. It is quite incidentally that we learn that he was 'for many years a Guinea captain and had no doubt of the slave trade.' His pastor suggests that he might have chosen another business than that 'of buying and selling the human species.' Still, in 1773 this did not constitute an offense serious enough to be termed a fly in the ointment. In 1785 Dr. Stiles speaks of the slave trade as 'a most iniquitous trade in the souls of men.' Much may happen in a dozen years in changing one's 128 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP ideas of moral values. In another generation the civilized world was agreed that the slave trade was piracy. After that there were no fine Christian characters among the 'slave traders.' ' It would be of interest to follow out the line of mathe- matics so ingeniously started by Mr. Crothers. If it took from 1773 to 1785 for the conviction to get a start in the minds of a comparatively small group of individuals, and if it took until 1835 for this group to be enlarged to the size it assumed under Lovejoy, William Lloyd Garrison, Phillips, Gerrit Smith and John Brown ; and if again it took until the middle of 1862 for it to be made an en- forced political issue of the war, and until 1870 for the readjustment to assume some kind of reasonable outline, then we have a chronology whereby to anticipate the measurement of the next manifestation of the same hu- man force which put the North and the South into an attitude of war one against the other and finally forced the issue in 1861. For if morals are a shifting basis, then the same kind of shifting may be anticipated along simi- lar lines. If, for instance, we have hitherto considered the enor- mous aggregations of wealth, which have arisen among us, as normal and moral, and the first warning voices are just about now beginning to be raised, then, according to previous experience, we are now about at the point at which Dr. Stiles was in reference to the slave trade in 1785. And if it took until 1835, a period of about fifty years for public sentiment, or public opinion, to shape and mold a sufficient number of minds up to the proper standard of height and depth of resolve, and if in addi- tion to that it took further twenty-six years to bring the issue to its pinnacle and force the overthrow, then the reformer of to-day may estimate the length of time that CONSERVATISM 129 may possibly lie between the present form of his desire and its future and ultimate achievement, unless, indeed, the men of a coming generation shall have learned more of these human forces and the manner of their operation and shall profit by that knowledge to bring on the crisis more rapidly and less acutely. But it is perfectly easy to see that the regime of the "corporation" stands now upon the same edge of mass- consciousness upon which the slave trade stood in 1785. It is being recognized as immoral by quite a large group of thinkers, and their thought will gradually pervade, as leaven does pervade, the mass, and will gradually lift the standard of business morals to a point where the term "piracy" will find another equally logical application, as it does in Dr. Stiles's "Literary Diary." It is with the recognition of the fact clearly in mind that the force called "Conservatism" must intuitively and by nature stand for the conservation of that which is es- tablished, or of the established order of things, and that hence it must stand to-day for what it will to-morrow ad- mit as being immoral and outgrown, that we are now pre- pared to study the force of Conservatism as it manifests itself in both its intelligent and its unintelligent forms, and to that study will we apply ourselves in the next chapter. 130 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP CHAPTER XIV CONSEEVATISM AS THE CENTRE OF A WHEEL AND RADICAL- ISM AS THE CIRCUMFERENCE NOBILITY OF MANHOOD. THE reader is reminded that we are studying a series of human forces, which, as a whole, are as subject to investigation as are physical forces. He is likewise reminded that the great mass of human force presents two giant aspects, called Radicalism and Conservatism, in the same way that the great mass of physical force presents two manifestations called, respec- tively, centrifugal and centripetal aspects one a force that drives onward, the other a force that holds back. When they are thought of in the same plane, Conser- vatism stands for the centre ; Radicalism for the circum- ference. As a wheel, in order that it may be a wheel and perform the uses of a wheel, must needs have a centre or an axis, and a circumference, and, as the centre must al- ways stand utterly or comparatively still, while the cir- cumference must always travel at some rate of speed, so the force called Conservatism, and the men and women representing it must needs stand utterly or comparatively still, while the force called Radicalism and the men and women representing it must be constantly looking for new methods of expressing the life that is in them. Both are necessary; both are essential to the social structure. A centre without a circumference is dead a circumfer- ence without a centre is unthinkable. A wheel that is all axis would not turn ; a wheel that is all circumference and without a centre could not be built. NOBILITY OF MANHOOD 131 Hence, whether these two groups of persons like it or not, one is as essential as the other. And the world of human interests could not move very far along the lines of eternal progress and purpose if either were perma- nently eliminated. But the whole complex of the situation is impossible of review, if we confine our investigations to any one par- ticular feature of the case. That has been done thus far. We have thought of Conservatism in its relation to prop- erty rights, as we have of Radicalism. If any one were to ask the questions, "What do the radicals and the conser- vatives want?" the answer in general, so far as America is concerned, would be : "The conservatives stand for pri- vate ownership of land, of public utilities, of opportu- nity. They stand for the vast aggregates of fortunes, which imperil our social structure; they stand for the preservation of the interests. The radicals stand for municipal ownership, State ownership, Federal control and some of them for Federal ownership of certain pub- lic utilities, for radical changes in relation to the question of property rights, amounting, in some cases, to meas- ures dangerously near confiscation." And, so far as the general thought upon the subject is concerned, the answer is right, for its chief manifestation is that. It shows more in relation to property and property rights than it does in relation to anything else. There is, however, an almost unfathomable depth of essential life behind and beyond this surface manifesta- tion. And it is this depth which should be admitted, and toward the probing of which an effort can profitably be made. What lies behind the clinging to the established order of things ? What is back of its many, many mani- f estations ? In religion and the church we find it as a series of su- 132 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP perstitions, as a conglomeration of beliefs, which have grown obsolete and out of date. Yet men hesitate to throw them aside, because of some innate uncertainty as to the propriety of such rejection. The priest and minister who has long ceased to believe that apostolicity is con- ferred by the imposition of hands, and who believes that priests and ministers are born and not made that the imposition of hands makes a man a priest or a minister just as little as it makes him a poet or a mechanic or an artist hesitate to do anything which will in any wise interfere with the general respect of the people for the cloth. Why? Science is as full of superstitions as the church. It has changed from the bullular theory of light, which it ac- cepted because of the ponderous weight of the name of Newton, to the vibratory theory. It has changed from the concept of the molten interior of the earth, which was merely the scientific form of the church's old-fashioned "hell-fire" theory, to that of a probable solidity of the earth's centre ; it has changed from the thought of impos- sible activity of force "over space" to the possibility of such action under the consideration of the newest results of radio-activity ; yet it revises its theories with the ut- most caution and with a sullen slowness that demonstrates an extreme conservatism. Why? Socio-economics are working hard at the question of the original rights of property; yet in the face of the uncertainty of original possession, we cling to the old theories with the strength of despair. Why? We give ourselves certain valid reasons, superficially. In the question of vested rights, we say and we say it with propriety, that there are certain enterprises which absolutely require personal and individual initiative. The huge tunnels, a fever for the boring of which has broken NOBILITY OF MANHOOD 133 out among us of late, cannot well be capitalized by any one municipality, nor by a series of closely neighboring municipalities, since they depend too largely upon long- distance traffic to warrant such a localization of capitali- zation. There must be a Pennsylvania Railroad, a Pub- lic Service Corporation and Interborough Transit Com- pany back of such enterprises. The same thing is true in the question of labor vs. capital. True as the griev- ances of labor are, and serious as the changes of social fabric, which they indicate may be, the fact remains that the upbuilding of a great business enterprise depends al- most totally upon the initiative and energy of the one man who started it, and to whom methods of running his business should not be dictated. Loud as our objections now are to the "octopus," it must be admitted that the "octopus" is a necessary step, even toward Federal owner- ship, if that should come, as doubtless it will come. Seri- ous as may be the objections to the acquirement of huge wealth in the hands of one man, it must be admitted that if that one man be a man like Mr. Carnegie there are cer- tain library features, certain peace conference features, painted upon the screen of Homestead riots and Steel Trust concerns which somewhat modify the crudity of outline which otherwise thrusts itself upon a revolting sensibility. Thus we must admit that there is some strength and some validity in the arguments brought forward in ref- erence to the property aspect of the situation. But that aspect of the matter is a secondary one. It is secondary in the careful consideration of the deeper question. The property which a man owns, the clothes he wears, the wealth he possesses, have some import, but beside the question of his manhood and of his character, they pale into insignificance. And it is the vast possibility of this 134 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP depth of "manhood" which true Conservatism instinctive- ly, though sometimes mistakenly, tries to represent. So when we come to study the "holding back" sense in the aggregate group of humanity, called Conservatism, we feel a depth of real humanity back of this "holding back," this hesitation to take up the new and drop the old, which deserves careful attention on the part of those who desire to understand the human forces back of the changes we call politics and civics and other names. For ultimately the question is a question of collective manhood, not a question of collective property. If Radi- calism could bring about collective property-holding be- fore it can help the Almighty bring about collective man- hood, it would only sow the seeds of another, a later and a fiercer revolution. And if Conservatism permits itself to be blinded by the minor question of property rights, to the larger and truer question of the "rights of man," it will bring about an early revolution marked by such violence or absence of violence as the wrath of man or the peace of God may be able to throw into the tipping scale of balanced destiny. And here we have in a nutshell the final answer to the question: "What is true Conservatism and what is true Radicalism?" There is a Radicalism which rings untrue because it interprets democracy as being a dead level and a low level. It starts with the proposition that the lowly man has the same rights as the man of high degree. This is a true premise. But in the practical working out of that premise there is a hidden suggestion that all men be- ing equal means that all men shall occupy the same level. True, again, but which level? Ah, here is the most seri- ous question which can ever face the voter. Be careful how you decide upon that level. Is it to be the level of an effete monarchy carried into our land by hordes of NOBILITY OF MANHOOD 135 men and women who have no opportunity to grow? Is that the level we Americans desire to attain in our striv- ing for the true democracy ? The level of the Continental Sabbath, of the Continental regulation of the sex ques- tion? The level of the Continental system of an aristoc- racy of wealth and all the absurdity, to use the mildest term, which that involves ? Or is it the level, that higher level, which lay dormant in the hearts of our Puritan fathers and Pilgrim mothers ? That higher level of mor- als, of principle, of moral and ethical courage that marked the life, the words and the farewell message of the Father of His Country? Decide in your own mind what level it is that you are working for, ye friends of Radicalism. There is a dead and a low level which it is entirely possible to obtain, but is the obtainment worthy and will it be satisfactory when it comes about ? There is a level to be obtained ; it is the medium line formed by the determination of the man in the trench to have for his children opportunities which he himself had not, and by the co-operation of the man in the auto, who realizes that Burns voiced a truth of tre- mendous import when he sang "A man's a man for a' that and a that." And the Conservative is not doing his wisest when he tries to make others understand that the dignity of privi- lege consists in the amassing of wealth; the inglorious search for an ancestral tree, the roots and branches of which he takes pains to garnish with oblivion; or the fawning imitation of a foreign aristocracy, which holds together by means of artificial restrictions and the un- natural cement of quasi-criminal copartnerships. We have no such aristocracy in America, nor can it live in the air of freedom and equal opportunity which blows through the hallways of our history from the mountain 136 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP peaks of solid sense whereon were dictated the words of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. But there is nobility of manhood and of purpose for which true Conservatism stands and must stand. It must stand for the right to the entertainment of high ideals. If its hands are free from the arduous heaviness of actual toil, let those hands be turned toward the attainment of high ideals of manhood and of womanhood along such lines of activity as normally and readily present them- selves to the man of high purpose and the woman of sweet desire. Let them create an atmosphere of clean and noble and lofty ideals ; let them uphold the hands of poet and seer; of the men and women who dream royal dreams of the ultimate heights which humanity can and shall attain. And when the time comes that their affairs are in such shape that they can have before them hours and days of leisure, let those hours be occupied with thought of how the uplift of the mass, that ultimate up- lift which must needs come, can be furthered and its ad- vent and its blessing hastened. EGOTISM 137 CHAPTER XV EGOTISM, THE PIVOTAL DEAD CENTRE OF MORAL INERTIA, NOW GIVING WAY TO ALTRUISM. AS we study physical forces, the first one we note as everywhere prevalent is gravitation. We have no very definite idea as to what gravitation really is. We know that it is something which makes an apple or a stone fall to the ground. This begets an idea that it is a downward tendency of force. That it makes water run down hill ; that it makes water seek its level. This "downward" tendency holds its own in the mind until we begin to puzzle about the earth being a huge globe hung in space and then drop a pebble to the ground at night. That pebble is evidently falling upward, if at the same hour of the day it was falling downward. For regulating relative direction by the sun, as we uncon- sciously do, we were standing head up in the day time, but we hang feet up at night. Consequently, the pebble falling toward the feet at night is falling upward. The scientist was therefore early compelled to assume a dead centre somewhere in the globe, toward which all things naturally fall, and with that dead centre, which he loca- ted several degrees south of the actual centre of the earth and a little to one side of the axis, he rested fairly con- tent. I say, fairly content, because the dead centre and its gravitational possibilities really leave quite a few things, such as the fact that the ocean does not fly off the earth at a tangent and a few other items, large and small, altogether unexplained. But it serves as a general 138 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP theory fairly well, if we assume that things, if let go, tend to fall toward some common dead centre, or deadly level. This thought, of course, involves its converse, namely, that all other forces must virtually or potentially act against this dead centre gravitation. If I lift a stone; if I pump water into a tank ; if I dam it up against its tendency to run down hill ; if I hurl a railroad train along over tracks ; if I catch the wind in sails and thereby sail a boat ; if I generate steam, electricity, magnetism, in fact, any other utilizable force, I counteract gravitation. I make things do that which, if left alone, they will stop doing. Consequently every other force, utilized in any of a thousand possible ways, is the opposite of gravita- tion, of the dead centre, of inertia ; and gravitation is the negative of all other forces. Consequently, again, as soon as activity ceases, the force of the deadly level be- comes operative. If I stop giving my garden attention it will fill in with weeds ; if I give the culture of my mental garden no attention it will fill with rank weeds of gossip, profanity, "loose talk" and other mental purslane and crabgrass. If I let a municipality run to weeds its offices will be filled by slipshod idleness, and its affairs will grow rank in more ways than one. If the same thing is done with a State or with a Federal government these govern- ments will show the same symptoms. The fact is, that all things tend naturally to the weed condition ; toward the dead centre ; toward mental or mor- al inertia, unless constantly guarded and "tilled" by those who feel that every force, to be a useful force at all, must counteract the pristine force of "gravitation." In individual characters we call this dead centre "ego- tism." For as God created a dead centre about which each earth in the universe shall revolve, so he created a EGOTISM 139 dead centre about which each human mind should revolve, and this dead centre is the "Ego" or the "Proprium" of the philosopher. That is, our natural tendency is to re- volve about certain needs, which early impress themselves upon all the various layers of our consciousness, upon our "stream of consciousness," upon our subliminal self and upon our subconsciousness. They clothe themselves in the familiar sentences: "A man must live," "A man must eat," "Look after number one," "No one else will do it for you," "Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost." These are the same in all languages and among all nations, and involve the recognition, made more or less apparent to the possessor of the "said natural mind" by the force of circumstance and the innuendo of environment. It is therefore quite true that the tendency of Nature is toward egotism. Nature compels one to realize that he needs food ; that he needs clothing ; that he needs shelter, and so forth. It emphasizes personal needs in the most merciless ways. And the early years of life and the early conditions of society are necessarily egotistic. But if Nature emphasizes the needs of the ego, the "spirit" em- phasizes with equal persistence and tenacity the "needs" of the "other man." We have so long thought of "spirit" as some unnatural or supernatural thing that we have failed to realize that one of the prime manifestations of "spirit" is society. For if Nature turns her attention and the attention of the individual to self, then spirit must needs, by the very law of the converse, turn the attention of itself and of the individual to the "other fellow." We have so long thought of "spirit" as synonymous with "ghost" and "spook" that this simple reversion to its normal interpretation gives a sense of shock. And there may be quite serious 140 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP objection brought to this interpretation of "spirit." Yet careful and persistent study of the line of investigation set forth in these chapters will bear out this return to its primitive meaning. At any rate, let it be admitted, for the time being, that man can either turn his attention to himself or he can turn it to the other man. Let us call the attention turned to himself "egotism," and the attention turned to the other man "altruism," and we have the two dominant forces which control human affairs ; one called "inertia" and the other "energy" in physics. Now stop for a moment more on the point at which man naturally and normally turns from the attention to self to the attention to the other man to the point where he stands at the parting of the ways between the real natural and the real spiritual life. Take a young man who has just left his boss and set up for himself. What has happened? There is subtle change in his attitude. Before he set up his own business, he was good-naturedly careless. If things did not go exactly right, he might lose his job, but he could soon find another. So he grew more or less unreservedly saucy toward the people who objected to things that went wrong, or he shrugged his shoulders and stated calmly that he was obeying orders and had no personal respon- sibility. But as soon as he began to work upon his own business, the man to whom he tried to sell something, or the man from whom he hoped to obtain a contract, or the man whom he expected to have as his customer or patron, rather than let the man across the way have him, loomed large and larger. In fact, when he stopped working for anybody and set up for himself, he began to reckon with the "other man." And the more one digs down into the fundamentals of society, the more one finds that over half our life is lived because of the other man ; because we do EGOTISM 141 not want to offend him; because we do not want his en- mity ; we do not want his opposition ; we want his respect, his sympathy, his love. And so, as we grow away from the crudity of youth or of the absence of responsibility, we grow naturally toward the amenity of maturer life and toward the sense of consideration and of responsibility, which it generates. We should now feel prepared to enter upon the same force of egotism, as it manifests itself in the aggregate, but before we do so it may be well to give the student an idea of how to trace a force. Every force is traced by its manifestations. No one has ever seen a force as such. It must always be studied by the results obtained by it or from it. In thus studying a force it is best to apply to the investigation some law of mathematics to give the various steps taken in the in- vestigation surety and conciseness. If we had a number of fractions to handle in mathematics, we would find first a common factor or a common denominator. Some number or quantity, to which all the various fractions would stand in some determinable relation. Thus, if I desired to add one-seventh and one-fifth, and three- eighths, I should find some number which could be divided by seven, five and eight. In the same way, if I am making an effort to trace some relationship between any of the fractional manifestations of forces extant in the world of matter, I should try to find some common factor, some common multiple, some common divisor, some common denominator. In fact, I should try to find some one thing that they all have in common. If now I ask a scientist the question about any series of physical forces: "What have they in common?" his answer would probably and readily be : "They have several things in common. They are all, so far as we know, rectilinear ; they all start out 142 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP from a given point and travel in right lines through vor- tices toward another point; they are all subject to modi- fication by other forces ; they can all be transmuted one into the other ; they all vibrate." Let us take the last common factor. The student real- izes, of course, that light is a method of vibration; that heat is vibration ; that sound is vibration ; that electricity is vibration, and so forth. Hence he has a common measure, and he can begin at any point in the scale and show the relation between the number of vibrations called sound and between the number called heat and the num- ber called light and so forth. He can trace the substances and conditions required by each of these various series of vibrations how heat and sound require air; how light requires something called ether, and so forth. In other words, the search for a common factor, for some one thing which the forces to be studied have in common, is the first step in the acquirement of useful knowledge about the force to be studied. Now, let us look for that manifestation of human force which acts like egotism in the individual. How does egotism act in the individual ? It revolves always about man himself and his needs. These may, in some instances, be elaborated to cover his family, his wife, his children, his father, his mother, but in each instance these other words simply stand for an enlarge- ment of the ego. The man works for himself, he talks for himself, he ingratiates himself, he uses his friends for himself. In fact, there does not really exist any other person in his world but himself. Now take any one factor in civic life, with which you have grown familiar. As an example, take the word "vote," and apply it to the study of a definite human force. When we undertake to get to the bottom of a va- riety of unpleasant experiences, which we have had dur- EGOTISM 143 ing the past few years, we find them all to run out into the words "vote for him." For some reason the G. A. R., that body of men who fought for their country, and who doubtless deserve all the kindly hero-worship lavished up- on them, has been placed upon a vicarious and precarious pension list, which shows a vitality that startles even the American, accustomed as he is to the almost infinite sup- ply of resource of a gigantically prosperous country. Why? Because somebody wanted the G. A. R. to "vote for him." The colored man has been thrust into a posi- tion of discomfort and annoyance to himself and to his white brother ; he occupies the anomalous position of hav- ing the same rights as the white man, yet those rights are everywhere denied him. He is not wanted in the factory, he is not wanted in the white man's club. He is not wanted at the white man's table, and when the President braves that opinion or sentiment, he is roundly scored for it. But he may "vote for him." Who is there back of the colored man who wants that vote? Why was all this use- less anomaly engendered? Why could not the colored man have been permitted slowly to grow up to the larger responsibility of citizenship? It was because somebody wanted his vote. And what did he want it for? That he might be put in office and gather the spoils, which Jack- son admitted into our political system, for which gratu- ity we have had reason to be sorry ever since. And when the foreigner came to our shores what hap- pened first? By all sorts of direct but devious ways he was hurriedly naturalized. Before he could realize our institutions and what he was voting for he was voted. Why? Because somebody wanted him to "vote for him." And then in the West on the sandlots there arose the most absurd cry that ever was raised. The cry of the "yellow peril." Because of some local "sandlot" difficulty, 144 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP which has since then vanished into thin air, there was a cry of "Down with the heathen Chinee." At first it was in a spirit of rough sport, which was common during the days when the Far West hovered on the ragged edge of civilization and miners "shot up" the town for the fun of the thing. The cry was then taken up in sober earnest by "labor." It may be safely assumed that labor was in that particular instance deluded. But the cry was taken up. Why? Because somebody wanted "the labor vote." Somebody wanted labor to "vote for him." And a similar cry was taken up against the "Octopus" of the railroads in the Far West, because of the farmer and because some- body wanted the "farmer vote." Everywhere the same common factor "to vote for him." Just as in the study of physical forces we found a common factor, "vibration," so here we find a common factor, "the ballot," and back of it the huge manifesta- tion of the force of egotism, the politician. It will be remembered that this chapter began with the premise that egotism is perfectly natural. Hence the politician is "perfectly natural." He is decidedly un- spiritual. He is the manifestation of mental and moral inertia. He appears as soon as the good citizen rests supinely at home and does not concern himself with the affairs of his town or his county or his State or his Coun- try. He appears as the weed appears in the garden when the gardener neglects the hoe. And he appears for the same reason. As all things deteriorate when not con- stantly under supervision, as a garden runs to weeds, so civics run to politics, when not cared for and attended. But it was also premised that egotism is a crude and preparatory state. It must needs presently give way to the consideration of the "other man." Our entire social structure passes from a condition of ego- EGOTISM 145 tism to a condition of altruism, as the life of the indi- vidual passes from egotism to altruism. As a man when he turns from employe to employer finds the "other man" looming large upon his horizon, so in civic work and in citizenship, when American society turns from its con- templation of itself to its contemplation of the "other man," it will naturally and normally turn from the nat- ural condition of egotism, typified by the politician to the "spiritual" condition of altruism, tentatively typified by the men and women we call "civic workers," "social workers," "reformers" and similar names. And the assumption of this book is that that stage has been reached and that the doom of the politician has been sealed and his deathknell sounded. The assumption is based upon the fact that the Race has attained its Man- hood ; that we have come to a point in international life where men can speak calmly of international polity; when they can formulate plans for the actual attainment of "a federation of the world;" when it is no longer a dream that the nations of the world will presently be fed- erated in the same way in which the States of the Union were federated into the government known as the "United States." For the dim shadow of all the nations of the world as one huge "Federation of Nations," a "world family" is already trembling on the threshold of race- consciousness. America is taking her place among the nations of the earth. We are no longer living in that supreme isolation so long secured by our position between two vast oceans ; ever since our soldiers appeared within the walls of Chi- na ; ever since President Roosevelt called the Portsmouth Conference; ever since the Spanish fleet was brushed calmly from the face of the waters, we have awakened to the "other man" and to the fact of the presence of the 146 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP other man, and to the fact that it is essential that we should assume certain definite attitudes toward him, dif- ferent from our hitherto assumed attitude of humorously ignoring his existence. He is to be reckoned with, not be- cause of our weakness, but because of the very fact of our enormous strength and resourcefulness. And there lies the difficulty. For if we were a weak "world power" it would be easy to know what we must do. We would have to arm, and to arm, and to arm. But, being a giant and the strongest power on the face of the earth, it be- comes obligatory to think seriously of the very opposite thing, and to "reckon" how we can disarm, and disarm, and disarm, and to use our soldiers and our sailors only as an international police force. Not to fight, but to pro- tect the interests of the world. It is on the ground of this palpable growth of the new internationalism, of this growth of the recognition of the "other man" in the shape of the "other nation," that this book assumes that we have as a Nation reached the point where egotism changes to altruism, and likewise assumes the equally deducible conclusion that we have come to the virtual end of the incarnation of national egotism, which we have learned to call the "politician." For during the earlier and cruder stages of a nation's life, the egotism of national life grows legitimately in- carnate. But when the national life advances to its ma- turer and riper condition, that cruder form of egotism will vanish as naturally as did the mastodon from the pre- glacial ranges of Sweden, and the bison from the wind- swept prairies of our own Northwest. They pass before the encroachment of the "tide of civilization" and we ask our students to note closely the gradual extinction of a species which will take place before their eyes during the next two or three decades. COMMERCIALISM 147 CHAPTER XVI THE GIANT EGO OF COMMERCIALISM, OTHERWISE KNOWN AS THE TRUST, IN ITS THREE FORMS. IF we compare boyhood and youth we are immediately struck by a number of salient features which they have in common, and another series in which they differ. Leaving out of consideration at present the features which the boy and the youth have in common let me emphasize a few in which they differ. If the growing boy differs from the youth in any one thing it is in the matter of appetite. The normal boy is most essentially healthy in his appetite. In fact, it may be said of him that he inclines toward greed in the mat- ter of food supply. He wants a little, or rather, he wants a lot of everything on the table, and he is not al- ways certain when he has enough. Youth differs from boyhood in the fact that its appetite is not necessarily as ravenous as that of the boy. It may grow even some- what choice in the matter of food. So when boys get together to play a game the first item is noise and an egregious lot of it. Turn a group of boys loose in a field for a game of ball and the first step is babel undiluted. And immediately after this explosion comes the squabble as to choice and selection of candi- dates. When youth plays its games it is less boisterous as to the first entrance upon the ground. In fact, the ath- letes of a college are inclined to enter the field rather in silence, and if any noise be deemed necessary, it must come from the "bleachers." The matter of choice of 148 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP candidates being already settled and determined, that feature is eliminated, and in its place come the tactics of the game, the twirling of the ball, so that the player most interested in that ball may not know exactly where it will be at a certain point of time and space ; or the tactics of the flying wedge and other devices which youth has thought of as being essential in the game of football, for instance. If the student will turn these features of boyhood and youth over to the field of socio-economics, he will find that the politician represents egotism in its boyhood form and that the trust represents egotism in its youthful form, as yet, and I wish most earnestly to emphasize this modifying phrase, since it is of the utmost importance. Youth and boyhood are preliminary to manhood, and they must needs be passed through. No individual or- ganism, and no organized aggregate, can leap over either of these two preliminary steps to manhood. They are both perfectly natural, and therefore absolutely to be reckoned with. The politician represents the boyhood stage, because when he takes up his stand in the game of life it is taken up frankly and candidly on the ground of greed. He is never in political office for his health. Health in his case, as in the boy's, manifests itself in greed for supplies. He wants all there is on the municipal, the county, the State or the Federal table, or as much of it as he can lay hands on, and he is not always certain when he has enough. And when he begins to play the game of politics he leaps bois- terously into the ring. The fact that he hires a brass band and a group of loud-mouthed spellbinders to do the "boistering" for him does not alter the figure seriously. And when the brass band explosion is over he wrangles as to the selection of candidates. How well I remember COMMERCIALISM 149 when, as a boy, one of us used to swing the bat about himself and throw it to the next boy, and then they measured hands on the handle, and there was a halo of glory about the face of the last boy if he could, after the last handbreadth, swing the bat about his head once by what he later in life called "a bare majority." Later in life he substitutes the ballot and the voting machine for the handbreadths on his bat. The more one runs the eye over the picture and com- pares the one with the other, the more one grows con- vinced that the politician represents the ego of the nation in its boyish condition. Now note the trust. It enters into the arena quietly like the college athletes. If there is any noise it will have to come from an enthusiastic series of bleachers in shape of newspapers and skilfully worded newspaper advertising. No one is asked to elect its officers. That is attended to without invitation to the public. It is a serious matter and it is quietly done. There is no brass band. There is need of none. And when the game of socio-economics begins, the tactics are the same. The man most interested in the rise and fall of the ball (or of the stock, if you prefer the maturer word), must be alert of eye and swift of determination, if he wants to be at the exact spot of time and space to meet the ball in its oncoming. He needs training which he rarely gets outside of Wall Street, a fact which so many energetic players forget who think they know things which they do not know, since the knowing of them re- quires special training. This is obtainable only in one spot, but they often forget it to their detriment, though not necessarily to the detriment of the other players of the game. The thought of the untrained player trying the game resembles too much the matching of a kinder- garten nine against a college team to require comment 150 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP upon any feature of it except its pathos. And that is too palpable for words. Again, if the trust takes up the other game, which is supposed to be played with a football (the ball being usually conceived humorously by cartoonists as a small man with large glasses, labeled "The Common People,") there is a flying wedge, or some other form of tactics, which is gradually beginning to call as much attention to its brutality as did its symbolic predecessor before the new football rules went into effect. Let me say right here, that I firmly believe that those concerned will soon revise the rules of the trust game in the same way and for somewhat the same reasons. That it is in its most brutal form now, and that the little man is jumped on and trampled upon mercilessly under the guise of a fair game no one doubts for a moment. It would be interesting to follow the resemblances be- tween the "boyhood" politician and the youth "trust" further, but enough has been said for our readers to carry the analogy as far as they please to carry it. Nor is it the playful analogy which it seems to be. The deeper the thought expended upon it, the more seriously can the analogy be taken. It may, therefore, for the purposes of this chapter, be assumed that the first, or boy manifestation of our na- tional egotism was the politician and that he is followed in a perfectly natural way by a more elaborate national egotism, which is called the "trust." This development may be called perfectly natural, since it follows from our forms of development as naturally as the creation of a river follows from the confluence of a multitude of brooks and streams. There is nothing unnatural about the huge organizations of our day, except their overcapitalization. In fact, at bottom they are the anticipated form of econ- COMMERCIALISM 151 omics, for which the Socialist is looking; they are the natural outcome of the substitution of co-operation for competition. For, if the trust be looked at in its ulti- mate analysis and stripped of its external vileness of de- meanor, of the brutality complained of just above, it will be found to be a perfectly legitimate expression of co- operation and of its substitution for competition. And no one, who has any knowledge whatever of socio- economics, will admit for a moment the truth of the old adage, that competition is the life of trade, if competi- tion is to be accepted as altogether unrestricted competi- tion. Unrestricted competition should be more aptly termed the death of trade, since in its ultimate analysis, it means cut-rate work, which is the gentler and more courteous term for "cut-throat" work. The idea of com- petition is by nature limited to certain territories and cer- tain possibilities and does not extend beyond them. Com- petition for labor, when the supply of labor is limited, evi- dently means that certain men must carry their labor to market without a possible equivalent for it. And compe- tition, without restriction, in trade, means that the man who has the largest amount of physical strength holds out. The smaller man dies along the road. In other words, competition can be fair only where two or more individuals or groups of individuals are equally matched and given the same and exactly the same opportunity. Where this cannot be done and in more than half the conditions of life it cannot competition is not an avail- able factor for progress. But combination or the "trust" is as yet (and I beg the reader again to note the phrase) in its cruelly brutal form, a form which it will naturally lose as it advances from the exuberant brutality of youth toward the maturer fairness and sense of responsibility, which comes with the larger manhood, on the threshold of 152 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP which we stand. As yet the trust is frankly and disgust- ingly brutal. It uses the equivalent of the flying wedge called in political parlance the feature of "standpatism ;" that this is the form of "solid phalanx" tactics goes with- out saying. It is still backed by partially understood economic laws disguised and skilfully disguised as tariff, high tariff and tariff for revenue and other keywords, which seemed unintelligible to most of our statesmen with the exception of Mr. McKinley, whose ideas on the sub- ject were the most rational which have as yet been made public. And before we have, with a view to practical citizenship, gone into a careful study of the tariff, of reciprocity and free trade, the question of the trust will remain a question. But when that has been done, the tremendous volume of the "trust" river formed of the vast aggregation of numberless channels of trade and brooklets and streamlets of enterprise, will no longer be the raging torrent it is now, and it is recognized as such an aggregate of "water" by the inerrancy of the popular mind. After that study has been accomplished, the flow of the river will be regulated and it will become a bless- ing to those located along its banks. It is by no means as dangerous a torrent as it seems to be to the eye that is holden by fear begotten of ignorance or of unintelli- gence. I have no desire whatever to sing the praises of the trust. My desire is simply to call attention to the fact that these huge combinations of capital and of merchan- dise have come to stay. They are perfectly legitimate products of our present form of civilization and of the socio-economic world. But that they are now in an in- tolerable form of youthful exuberance, based upon our primitive ideas of a tariff for the protection of "infant" industries, and that they play fast and loose with the COMMERCIALISM 153 dominance of two parties in the field, is simply due to the fact that the game they are playing presupposes certain boundaries. Beyond this the game does not play. That at one time the two sides in the game are called Republi- can and Democratic, at another, labor and capital; at yet another, employer and employe; at still another, tariff and reciprocity (or free trade), and by yet other names at yet other times, makes as little difference to the game and the results of it as does the fact that at one time Harvard plays Yale and at another Cornell plays Princeton. The rules are the same ; the game is the same ; the tactics are the same. As the Good Book says in its quaint language of long ago, "The two dreams are one dream." There are, however, two further points to add. It is well for the citizen, in his pursuit of knowledge and es- pecially in his pursuit of the knowledge of practical citi- zenship, which ultimately leads to his choice of principles, of party, of measures and of men, to recognize the trinity which inevitably appears in all manifestations of life, whether individual or aggregate. In this case he has the trust, the combine (or holding company) and the mon- opoly. The two first seem to be, from all appearances and accounts, good but boisterous youths. The latter is a shifty fellow, who needs close watching. He may need stripes and lockstep before he learns to behave. In other words, the trust is a perfectly normal growth of our in- dustrial system, which needs regulation and assiduous cultivation under intelligent and less sordid leadership; the combine (in its most perfected form of "holding company") wants the most careful cultivation, since it is a plant of exuberant growth and one that requires con- stant and steady pruning and trimming, based as it is on estimated values, rather than on actual values, which are, 154 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP or should be, the basic elements of trust building. But monopoly, handled in the old country in entirely differ- ent ways from those employed here, and usually associ- ated with the government, and probably wisely so, re- quires the most painstaking supervision and almost in- cessant restriction, unless ways can be found to make it useful for the public good, by and through Federal chan- nels. This may some day mean government ownership, in such cases as coal fields, oil fields and the like. The tremendous possibilities involved in the private owner- ship of such sources of wealth militate against all other relationships of labor, capital, land and values, unless wisely and intelligently handled by all the people for all the people, which is a paraphrase of government own- ership. Meanwhile, and in the second place, whatever is done either directly or indirectly in this matter should be done on the ground of two general propositions. The one is that which guides the engineer in bridging almost im- possible gaps of traffic. He must put in his subway, or his tunnel, or his new bridge in the most natural way possible, utilizing the flow of tide to lift his structure into place; recognizing the silt in the rock when he places his tunnels; realizing the law of air pressures when he sinks his caissons. And he must do the whole thing without interfering with traffic in any way. When next you travel, note what the engineers are doing on the line of railroad over which you travel. They are sinking tunnels, they are blasting, they are bridging, they are boring, they are building, and traffic is not in any serious way delayed. Now and again a train is compelled to wait a few minutes, but almost before rest- less America can thrust its head out of a resisting win- dow, the cars start up again. And they do so because COMMERCIALISM 155 the traffic on the road requires it. Public comfort, one of the phases of the tremendous force called public opinion or public sentiment ( here used as an actual force and treated as one would treat of electricity or magnet- ism or steam or gravitation), calls for it. So it will in the case of bridging the chasm between the last stages of individual enterprise with its elaborate competition, which was supposed to be the life of trade, but which in many instances has proved the death of trade, and the early stages of sane trust management. It must be done without serious interference with trade conditions and economic potentialities, and it will be done with a view to having the youth, now overflowing with a rank exuberance, and playing a violent game of ball, with the general public as the ball, curbed, put upon its honor, and taught to be a respectable and law abiding citizen. For it must never be forgotten that the corpo- ration is a corporation; that it is a body, that it is a citizen and that it can be made to be a law abiding citi- zen, as readily as an individual can be so trained. It will not be difficult when once the real line of work and the real line of least resistance along which this can be accomplished shall have been found. Nor is it difficult to find this line. In fact, that iner- rant subconsciousness which underlies all mass-thought and therefore all race-thought, has already guessed it. It has called the thing a "trust." I am aware that the name came about apparently by chance. But the stu- dent of philosophy takes pleasure in denying any such thing as chance. There is an inerrant perception in the names which popular intuition applies to things. Take the names of the two great parties; the "Republican" (made from the Latin for "public affairs") and the Democratic ( made from the Greek for "people's power"), 156 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP and think over all the friends you can recall in both great parties, and see whether the most logical thought would care to change these perfectly spontaneous names, which were born as intuitively as the word "trust" was born. They fit as accurately as though they had been thought out for centuries. We know, of course, that the first movement was cre- ated and named from the fact that certain men were named as "trustees." Now, the fact is, that in all the quasi-public, the semi-public utilities corporations, the central body is just that. It may have, in the exulta- tion of its overyouthful vigor, forgotten it. But time will bring it very definitely back to its consciousness. If need be, and it meet with any great and hampering ob- tuseness, time will "hammer it in" as popular language hath it. But that realization will not now be very long lost. It seems almost wholly gone in some of our great corporations, but it will be vitalized with startling rapid- ity, when the time comes for that vitalization, and it will be vivified without effort on the part of any individual or group of men. It will come about with perfect nat- uralness and, as we usually say, of itself. Just as youth turns to manhood with perfect naturalness, so will ag- gregate youth, or the trust, turn to sober manhood by simply being faced with the more serious problems, which are in store for it. Legislation may play some little part in it, but not a very large part, since you cannot legislate a youth into a man, although you may set a period of years after the lapse of which you choose to consider him legally a man. But he will not really be a man until he has felt the first serious affairs of dawning manhood, and has had a hand- ful of heavy responsibilities deprive him of a few nights' sleep. He will then one day wake a man, not before. COMMERCIALISM 157 And the suspicion may be safely entertained that the time is not very far distant when such awakening is in store for those who are at the storm-centres called "trusts." And will not that awakening simply mean a keen reali- zation that what these men hold is a "trusteeship?" That, though they may have for the moment forgotten it, they are holding public property and public opportu- nity, and public grants and public gifts in trust for the people and that they will be ready and think of it willing to render an account of their stewardship, when such accounting is called for? That will be the day of manhood for the trust. 158 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP CHAPTER XVII RACE DYNAMICS AND A SURVEY OF THE HUMAN FORCE BACK OF THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIETY. IN coming to the close of the second general section of our work in the study of practical citizenship, we ask the reader to follow a summary of what has been placed before him, and to concentrate into a unital thought the elaboration of previous chapters. In the first section we took up the machinery of gov- ernment as such, somewhat in the same way as though we had taken up an individual body and shown the elab- orate machinery of its organic structure, its heart, its lungs, its brain, its nervous system and so forth. In the second section we took up the consideration of the forces which run the machinery. We considered egotism, altru- ism, public sentiment, radicalism, conservatism and other manifestations as such, somewhat in the same way as we would have done had we been studying the forces which drive the mechanism of an individual body, such as the nervous forces, the dynamics of the mind, with its in- hibitions, its impulses, its derivative manifestations forces running from physical hunger to curiosity. It seems proper to close this second section with a sum- mary review of the sum total of forces, which we have been studying as running the machinery of the body politic. The reader will recall that we gave a tentative name to this totality of force in the eleventh chapter and designated it "public sentiment" and "public opinion." It was admitted in that chapter, that these names were RACE DYNAMICS 159 vague, but it was also maintained that the tremendous reality, the giant human force so denominated, was a perfectly comprehensible and "studiable" thing. If the reader will gather the threads of the intervening chap- ters he will find that it has so proved. That, though it is in itself an intangible and invisible force, as in fact is every other force, physical or mental, yet its results and its manifestations lead to such palpable conclusions, that there is no avoiding the ultimate analytic sequence cul- minating in the thought, that this invisible and intangi- ble force is a huge entity, a thing separate and separable from the individual intelligence of man, which is mov- ing along intelligent lines for the accomplishment of an intelligent purpose. Writers like Maeterlinck, in his wonderful work on the "Life of the Bee," realize the fact that above and beyond the aggregate body of the hive both of a hive of bees and a human hive lies that in- tangible but purposeful force which makes bees and men do things for which they have no immediate reason, but which contains and involves an ulterior and ultimate rea- son that far over-rides the littleness of the immediate needs and requirements of environment, inclination and heredity. Maeterlinck calls this entity that lies on the edge of aggregate consciousness, the "spirit of the hive." The Frenchman calls it, as it hovers on the edge of the consciousness of the crowd, "PEsprit du corps." When it manifests itself in a city, we call it "the civic spirit." When it is manifest at the edges of consciousness of a nation we call it "patriotism" and in every instance it makes people do that which for themselves and of them- selves they would not do. It, therefore, involves possi- bilities, which lie beyond the edge of individual necessity or requirement. If, now, we could take all mankind together into one 160 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP giant unit, we would find hovering upon the "upper edge" of its consciousness, if I may so speak, a tremen- dous intelligent force, which I have called the "human force" and sometimes the "Divine human force." This force has an intelligence and a purpose of its own, dif- ferent from that of any one or of several of its consti- tuent parts, and lying beyond the confines or borders of the immediate and distinctive requirements or needs of that one or those several. The Christian theologian calls this actuality "God," and reasons about it as best he can. The Hindu calls it Nirvana, or the "edge of the breathing of Om." The Scandinavian Skald called it "Valhal," the ultimate "choice" of the aggregate, and he called the things which carried him to it, usually typified by women, "Valkueren," which any one who understands the older forms of the Germanic tongues will recognize as "free choice" or "free will." And many peoples have called it by many names. But they have always thought about and reasoned about and philosophized about the same thing, namely, about the ponderous, massive, gran- itic (Victor Hugo calls it), invisible and intangible some- thing which broods over humanity and with a Divine persistence develops its ulterior and ultimate purpose. Let us trace the dim outline of this purpose as it shadows forth from the steps which we can see and have seen it take. But before we do so let me presume upon the reader's patience once again to recall the elementary and fundamental philosophy of force. Every force is in- visible. It becomes visible only through its effects. Hold a magnet under a glass plate and scatter upon the plate a handful of iron filings and you will see those iron filings more or less rapidly assume a certain definite form. This form is the form of the otherwise invisible force. Con- ceive of humanity as a mass of infinitely small atoms, RACE DYNAMICS 161 human mites, human motes, human midgets, and see them arranging themselves into forms of social life, into king- doms, into empires, into republics ; and then hold in mind the assumption from which the writer starts, that back of them as back of the iron filings, there is an otherwise invisible force, which is moving them more or less swiftly into line with itself and its form, and you have the pic- ture which is in the mind of the author. While he real- izes that in points it may militate against the concept of human free agency which some of his students may have in mind, he asks their indulgence and that, for pur- poses of elaborating the general thought, it be granted for the time. Now note the gradual unfoldment of the purpose of this invisible "Humanity." It begins in the lowest strata of life. It quietly and dispassionately opens out the first initiaments of a grand totality of purpose by cautious degrees and steps. It builds a mineral kingdom, and presently impresses upon that kingdom the desire to at- tain or to at least imitate the kingdom immediately above itself, namely, the vegetable. Its constituent minerals ar- range themselves, by reason of some hitherto unintelligi- ble force, into crystals, each of which shall come as close to the next higher kingdom, as feasible. And you have the beautiful plant forms which minerals assume. There is the delicate tracery of frost on your window pane and on your sidewalks; the beautiful fronds of fern, which the crystallized aqueous vapors of the atmosphere pre- cipitate by reason of frost upon any cold surface; the daisy which a snowflake tries to build of itself; the ar- borescent forms of every mineral substance, if it be given an opportunity at free development. And when the vegetable kingdom has been created by means of that mysterious step across the hiatus, which 162 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP separates one degree of creation from another, which eludes our deepest cunning of analysis and mocks the mightiest efforts of scientific reason, we find it doing the same thing. It tries to produce forms which shall be as nearly animal as it can make them. It will try to attain, or, at least, imitate the kingdom immediately above it, that is, the animal kingdom. It will produce a sensitive mimosa, which shrinks from the touch as would a delicately organized animal. It will produce a "Venus Pitcher" with a distinctly organized digestive system like an animal. It will produce a sponge, that puzzle of the naturalist, which does not itself seem to know whether to conduct itself like a plant or like an ani- mal, and therefore does both. And when the vegetable kingdom has been established, the animal kingdom grows out of it by some mysterious means. Again the distinct borderline between the two is overstepped by the intelligence back of it all, which is aiming at a definite purpose, and which is taking all these steps in and toward the attainment of that purpose. And immediately the animal kingdom does the same thing. It, too, tries to imitate the higher or human kingdom. It produces simian forms so closely resem- bling the human as to serve as a serious stumbling block in the way of self-respect. It produces traits of in- stinct and of palpable reasoning in animals which are so thoroughly human as to puzzle the very elect. Yet it leaves each kingdom intact, and the cat of Bubastes so evidently knew as much as the cat of to-day, that an- other line of rebus is added to the enigma. The human family produced, the upward process seems to have changed its method from a series of dis- crete or separate degrees to the elaboration of a con- tinuous plane of life, upon which a new series of dis- RACE DYNAMICS 163 crete or separate degrees were established. We note men beginning the socializing process. At first it is in its crudest and most animal forms, so that there is but little difference between the herd and the tribe. But soon tokens of a higher intelligence and of a plan of that higher intelligence begin to appear. The nomad turns sessile. The city is born. The city assumes a definite attitude toward the country. It and its overlord estab- lish a definite relationship on abstract lines with and toward the man of the field. Slavery, serfdom and feu- dalism appear. Militarism is born. The knights pass in solemn procession over the stage and carry the halo of the Grail and King Arthur's Round Table from the edge of dreams in the past into the abyss of oblivion just this side of Walther von der Vogelweide. And back of it all is this tremendous intelligence, shaping, molding, pushing, urging, realizing its pur- poseful designs of making man a socialized being. Watch the unseen developing human society from the days of the caveman and up to the days of the skyscra- per and you will note that there is back of it the purpose of socialization. It is this of which the Socialist dreams ; it is this that lies at the bottom of the efforts of the com- munist ; it is this that actuates the reformer, whether his name be Savonarola, Bebel or Colby. It is the more or less acute realization of the fact that the animal lives for itself alone, while man lives for society, for the neighbor, for the aggregate, and his humanity depends almost en- tirely upon his attainment of this mental attitude and its fruition. Step by step the purpose unfolds. Mili- tarism establishes empires ; they are toned down to king- doms, to constitutional monarchies, until finally the evo- lutional forces reach the republic that form of govern- ment which seems most conducive to the production of 164 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP those forms of life in which the sociologic factor is em- phasized on both sides and for both parties of a trans- action; that is, in which group can work for and serve group. That form of life in which the individual can serve the individual is evidently the primitive form ; that in which the group can serve the individual is the next, being the form of feudalism, of militarism, of any form of autocracy in which the many serve the one. The third step is evidently that in which the individual serves the group, which is that form where, while the lineage of blood is recognized, the person selected to be King is more or less of a figurehead, behind which the group acts and through which it speaks. This is the form of the conditioned or modified monarchy, usually called consti- tutional monarchy. And the final step, the only step left to be taken, as those will see who have learned the possible combination of two things, is that of the relationship of group to group, the step which the human force is now taking, and the threshold of the achievement of which we have just fairly crossed. For we are living in the day when group serves group. Our form of government is dis- tinctively that of a group of persons serving another group. The President is evidently only one of a group of persons representing government. We select quite a large body of men and call it Congress, or Senate or Assembly, or City Council, or Board of Freeholders, or State Commission, and we hand over to their care the charge of certain interests of the larger group of per- sons called the Nation, the State, the county, the city or other names. We gather a group of people and call it the postoffice and cause it to serve another group of peo- ple and call that the Nation. Another group of persons gathers and is termed a railroad corporation and it RACE DYNAMICS 165 serves a certain group of other persons scattered over a certain fixed and defined area, large or small. Another group gathers and serves yet another group and we have the trust, or the corporation, or the department store, or a public service corporation, or an apartment- house, or a towel supply company, or a hotel, or a body of window cleaners. I have again purposely selected a few groups from a great many and from as varied a mass as possible to show the thorough way in which the body public is per- meated by these groups of socialized workers, who gath- er together for the performance of a certain definite use, a social service. If now we go back over the ground, and note that the invisible force here called the Human Force has evi- dently been steadfastly at work evolving a definite plan, and that the final accomplishment of that evolution in- volves the form of social service with which we are now familiar, we are prepared to take additional note of the various incidental factors, which enter into the detailed construction of the picture. If you and I were watch- ing the construction of some great building, and our at- tention were confined to the ground upon which the building is to stand, we would find that progress is com- paratively slow. A lot of men are digging and delving and making huge holes in the ground, and blasting and laying tremendous foundations. The work is apparently quite slow, and to the unintelligent mind, rather reckless and not at all pretty. But we know, while this is going on, that there are a number of large concerns, rolling mills, smelters, firms of architects, folks in mines and quarries, men in the lumber camps and men at the forge, busy forming, shaping, casting, smelting, drawing and doing a thousand and one things, each independent of 166 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP the other, and some of them not even acquainted with each other. Presently, when all these several and in- dependent kinds of work have been going on for some time, each in itself to the eye of the casual observer rather purposeless, somebody who has the matter in hand gathers all these threads together and they begin more or less rapidly to concentrate upon the lot of ground which we have been watching, and where men have been digging apparently useless holes and laying ostensibly uncalled for foundations. Great masses of stone marked and labeled to fit into a certain spot; massive girders, huge iron and steel things, difficult to describe, begin to gather, as though by magic, and more quickly than any one would think who is not familiar with the working of the thing, there is a skyscraper towering to the clouds and an army of human ants hurrying into it in the morning and out of it at night. If you will look at our little world with this picture in mind you will find a series of apparently independent groups of persons called nations, working upon a gen- eral form of control called government, one group de- vising this, another that form. You will find them busy upon a series of groups of things called churches, schools, hospitals, institutions and other names, and then what happens? Presently the hand that has the whole matter in charge begins to concentrate all of these vari- ous efforts into one giant whole, the world family under the shadow of whose imminent birth we are standing. The international family, of which we in America have already so decided a foretaste, stands just beyond the threshold. And while we are approaching more or less rapidly this culmination of the Divine Plan, a plan of salvation, because, as Henry James says, "Society is the redeemed RACE DYNAMICS 167 form of man," we note the further incidents, which aid in this apparently marvelous rapidity of growth. The press, the discovery of steam, the vast army of dis- coveries which have been made of late, all coincide with the evolvement of this larger manhood. They were un- known before because not rationally utilizable hitherto. But now they all come into play to aid the spirit of the larger altruism, which is the final effort of Provi- dence toward the accomplishment of its ultimate pur- pose. And we have form after form of socialized life, not only the two old and original forms, the church and the State, but also the more definitely altruistic forms, such as the school, the hospital, the factory, the huge farm, the corporation, the departmental work, in which special- ists handle specific forms of use or of difficulty; all of these indicate that the growth of that side of humanity, in which it is to continue to exist as a socialized form of life, is gradually being attained. And it is the back- ground of this picture, the intelligent force, the mind which has planned it all, the intelligence which has never for a moment lost hold upon the tiller whereby the ship is steered, that we referred to in previous chapters, when we indicated the shadowy outlines of the thing called "public opinion," and "public sentiment" and the other forces which mold and shape human destiny both as to individuals and as to nations. And the few symptoms which I have been able to gather together into these chapters should be regarded as what they are; single tones in the vast harmony called "the destiny of the race," single lines, as touches of light and shade on the canvas painted by the Divine Artist; single arches and naves and transepts in the Temple of Humanity, built by the Architect of Souls. PART III ACTION AND PRACTICE CHAPTER XVIII SOME CIVIC OBLIGATIONS IN RELATION TO THE CITY AND A FEW HINTS FOR VOTERS. IT has been my endeavor to set before the reader and the student of these chapters the general struc- ture of government as a piece of mechanism, and to give a general survey of the human force, which runs it. This third section is designed to note and co-ordinate the "functionings" of the machine, when it runs prop- erly, with reference to the individual citizen. This ultimate relationship is, of course, the "practical citizenship" to be set forth, and when the subject opens it must needs open with the reiteration of an idea pre- viously stated, namely, that citizenship does not consist of voting any more than religion consists of singing hymns. The casting of a ballot, while an important item, is nothing but an incidental function in citizen- ship, just as the singing of a hymn, involving as it does probable attendance upon Sabbath worship, is an im- portant item ; but it is nothing more than an incident in the religious life and experience of the individual. Membership with the church universal, or, as it is symbolically called, citizenship in the city of God, in- volves prayer, the singing of hymns and the attendance 169 170 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP upon services, but religion also involves menial atti- tudes ; it involves obligations toward the neighbor ; it in- volves charity toward him; it involves service rendered him, which is service rendered to God, as distinct from emotional or intellectual worship, for "what ye have done to the least of these, ye have done to me," said one who knew Him best of all. Religion involves active service toward the helpless; it involves respect for the "other man's" opinion; it involves numberless obligations, which, together with the external observances of worship and the Sabbath, constitute "citizenship" with the church. Membership with the State, or natural citizenship, while it includes the intelligent casting of a vote, in- volves also as many obligations as does membership with the church, or spiritual citizenship. And in order to place these obligations as clearly as possible before the reader, it is best to begin with that relationship which comes nearest home, namely, the re- lation of the citizen to the city. At first, the citizen is inclined to feel that when he has elected a number of men and called them the "city au- thorities" he has done all that is required of him. But that idea, together with that title, both belong to old lines of thought that are not feasible or practicable for modern cities and the work involved in them. For to segregate the men elected to office and demand that they should "run" a town is absurd. Take an illustration : Suppose a body of citizens has elected some one to "keep the streets clean," and that then that body of citizens does everything in its power to litter them up throws papers, and boxes, and ashes, and everything else out into the streets. Is that a think- able relationship? Of course not. The first thing any ACTION AND PRACTICE 171 sensible man does, who is selected (or elected) to keep the streets clean is to ask the citizen to keep them clean. He gives him directions as to ashes and garbage ; he puts up boxes into which the citizen can throw his newspaper and his banana peels, and he specifies certain places, such as depot platforms and corridors of large buildings, etc., where he tells him not to expectorate. Virtually, it is not the official that keeps the streets clean ; it is the citizen, and if the citizen does not realize fully that keeping streets clean is as much a part of citizenship as voting, he may elect officials by the dozen or score, and his streets will not be clean. The "white wing" and the scavenger are only "aids" to the citizen. But on the original sense of obligation toward the clean- liness of streets as an obligation of citizenship depends the ultimate cleanliness or defilement of the streets. That an extension of this thought into other lines of municipal activity constitutes "practical citizenship," so far as the city is concerned, is evident. And in doing this three lines of possible relationship suggest them- selves almost instantly. One is that the obligations of citizenship, as to the various departments of the mu- nicipality, are best met by the citizen being well in- formed; the other by the citizen being active in civic work, and the third by the citizen being willing to as- sume public office at any time, whenever, in his estima- tion, the requirement points directly to him and he is com- petent to fill the office and to perform its functions. Let us summarize these three possibilities: 1. To be well informed. With many minds informa- tion is a matter of mass; with others it is a matter of order. One man thinks he knows a thing, if he knows a lot about it; another thinks he knows a thing, when the information he has concerning it is so ordered in his 172 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP mind as to be available at a moment's notice, a condi- tion usually described in popular parlance as "having such a thing at your fingers' ends." Whatever the habit of individual minds may be, "practical citizenship" means to be well informed, and if that information can be held in mind in a definite and a systematic way it is improved by such holding. The citizen would, therefore, inform himself as to the assets of his city, as to the facilities of his city, as to the functions of his city. In any case, it will be his city. He will never permit himself to say : "They are going to do so and so." He will always say (and think) "We are going to do so and so." It is his city, not some one's else. And whatever is being done, good, bad or indifferent though it be, he is doing it. Before this sense of aggregate co-partnership arises in a man's mind, he is only a fractional citizen. He boards and lodges in a town. It is not his city. This point in business is well known. The man who says about his business, about his firm, about the house, that "They have decided to charge $3.50 for this thing," can perform only one service for that business and that is to hand in his resignation. Only the man who says "We find that we will have to charge $3.50 for this," whether he be manager, salesman or office boy, has a right to think of himself as part of that particular business, and the business concern that is constituted of men who say "we," from the president of the board of directors down to the janitor, is a success from the outset. Whenever a body of men find it necessary, for any reason whatever, to speak of each other as "they," that body of men is approaching the end of its aggregate existence. And it will topple over with a crash proportionate to its size. So the citizen who says "they" is thereby virtually ex- cluding himself from citizenship. ACTION AND PRACTICE 173 And of this city, which is his city, par excellence, he should know the assets. He should know what about the city stands for wealth, and what part of the things so standing represents productive wealth and what part represents simply available asset. The productive asset, (which socio-economically is virtually "capital") in- cludes the city streets, its water front, its wharfage, its markets, its privileges, usually given in the form of license for this, that or the other venture. The other form of asset (socio-economically described as "wealth") includes the public buildings, the school buildings, the housing of his light and water plants, the parks and playgrounds, and similar values. His relation to these is one of general interest, both as to the condition and the disposition of them. He need not concern himself necessarily with the amounts of money these things stand for, or the kind of sinking fund and bonding arrangements made for them, un- less he be a financier; then his city has the claim upon him, that he should go carefully over the reports of the city and note whether the most advantageous terms are made by the city officials, and whether any improved method of doing things, has been more recently devised and whether it be applicable in the kind of city he in- habits, and with the number of inhabitants it contains or taxable values it represents. Otherwise his interest is general, and one of the essential features of the prac- tical working out of that interest will be mentioned in a moment. Next he should be fairly informed as to the facilities of his city. Whether it has or should have its own water, light and sewage plant ; whether it has or should have a garbage incinerator ; what happens to things when they go out of his sight or out of his hands; what the na- 174 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP ture of the school buildings, of the market halls, the playgrounds is, and how they are located, and where. And finally he should give himself time to know a little something about the police, the fire department and the civil offices of his city. He should be informed as to the ordinances which are before his city council; as to the resources from which his police force derives its sala- ries ; whether those sources be the wisest, whether they be at all proper or improper; whether the fire service be efficient, and if not, how its efficiency can be improved. All this looks exceedingly complex. But it is, in reality, the simplest thing in the world. It means simply a general interest, and that interest is usually adjusted by the fact of notification of departments. If, for in- stance, the automobilist finds a particularly serious con- dition of affairs in the roadway within city limits some spot where the plumber did not properly replace the roadbed when he introduced water into a house, or where the contractor permitted his men to be negligent in the reconstruction of that roadway a 'phone call to the street department, or a letter, will very frequently reme- dy the matter. A serious break in the sidewalk; some particularly offensive poster; a palpably professional beggar at the front or back door with the usual "iron- holder" obligato; red lamps neglected on some obstruc- tion of the roadway or sidewalk at night. A moment at the 'phone will suffice to call up the police department and to give the location of the thing complained of; or a 'phone message may be sent to the Bureau of Chari- ties as to the beggar. A thousand and one opportunities for "practical citizenship" might be thus catalogued. But these will suffice to indicate how to make the town you live in a cleaner, a better and a healthier town, and to secure for it the results which naturally follow this ACTION AND PRACTICE 175 policy appreciation of realty, better conditions and surroundings for the citizen and his children, and the comfort of a reasonably conducted municipality. 2. But concerted action is better than individual action ; hence the further obligation of the practical citi- zen as to civic organizations in his city. Here matters are discussed by several or by many, and the collective wisdom of many in conference gathered will elicit knowl- edge which to the individual is inaccessible or unsecura- ble. From such organizations as centres he can also be helpful to those upon whose shoulders the burden of the city's work rests directly. He can bring to bear upon the city's problems the wisdom gained by other munici- palities, by asking men from those municipalities to come to address his club ; to tell him how, in that city, the commission was substituted for our ridiculous ward sys- tem of political machinery, and how it works ; how that city went about it, to avoid borrowing money in antici- pation of taxes ; how it managed to make its public bath a self-supporting, aye, a paying institution; and other slices of Utopia, which he might otherwise never have brought to his attention. Through such organization he can also question candidates, and pledge them, what- ever they may choose to call themselves politically, to a certain policy in the conduct of public affairs. Again a thousand and one things could be catalogued as being brought within the pale of practical citizenship so far as the municipality is concerned through the civic or- ganization. 3. And finally, practical citizenship requires of the man who has been chosen to fill an office, serious appli- cation to the requirements of that office. The most hope- less confusion and discreditable repute have been brought upon cities, because the incumbents of office did not take 176 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP that office seriously. They looked up the stubs of the books of their predecessor, and they imitated him. They gave no original thought to the routine of the thing. They did not do in municipal business what they did and had to do in their private business. Any kind of primitive bookkeeping would do for the city; any kind of concrete would do for its contracts; any kind of feed would do for its horses ; any kind of lumber would do for its public buildings. Public business and private business differ not at all. A city is a large firm, whereof all citizens are partners, paying in their quota in taxes and drawing out their profits in the shape of streets, light, water, schools, po- lice protection, fire protection and so forth, and the busi- ness of such a concern, with a thousand partners can be as efficiently and as methodically conducted as can that of a concern with three partners or with ten. Any defection on the part of those entrusted with the busi- ness of the municipality and any neglect to use the very best business methods re-acts upon the city and upon the tax list, and upon the class of inhabitants which that city will attract. And practical citizenship for the man elected means thorough familiarity with the department entrusted to him by his fellow citizens and as discriminating a ser- vice for that department as though it were his own busi- ness. And that virtually it is. For if the city be his city (and citizenship absolutely rests upon that assumption) then is the city's business actually his business and it should be so conducted. CHURCH AND STATE 177 CHAPTER XIX THE CITIZEN AND THE CHURCH AND THE DUTY OF THE FORMER TO STUDY THE QUESTION. AS we approach the obligations of practical citi- zenship toward the church we grow instantly aware of the extreme complexity of the sub- ject. None is more so, especially in America. In many other countries, custom, the habit of think- ing of the relations of Church and State as being au- thoritatively fixed, the presence and continuous exist- ence of a State church and other facilities, make the problem less perplexed. But in America we have no precedent of ages; we have no State church; we have no authoritatively fixed conditions, even in the Roman Catholic churches and among the Jews, such as exist in other countries. For the Roman Catholic Church in America distinctly dif- fers from the same denomination in other countries, and a congregation like the Jews, which in all other coun- tries must needs live up to certain profoundly inscribed, because inherited, mandates, and under irritating re- strictions imposed by the policies of State, is here as utterly free as if it were newly born, and therefore in this country develops along lines that would prove sources of amazement in any other land. Whether this condition of things is best for each of the churches concerned ; whether the old Puritan Fathers were or were not right in their effort at unanimity and uniformity in ecclesiastical matters, when they laid the 178 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP foundations of our religious life, no longer matters. We are faced by an absolutely complex and apparently ir- rational proposition. And the sincere citizen, who claims fairness for himself and for his neighbor, and who real- izes that religious liberty is inscribed in the very heart of our Constitution and of our institutions, is at times sorely puzzled by movements which arise, some of them large and some small, which infringe upon the borders of civic rights and wrongs and overstep them. These movements come to the citizen in the efforts of "religious fanatics," as they are called, and largely through the question of marriage. He may be unfa- miliar with the fact that the psychic centres of theologic thought in the brain lie close upon the fringe of the psychic centres of sex life, and that hence many forms of so-called religious unbalancement are intimately as- sociated with irregularities in the conception of the rela- tions of men and women; but he cannot avoid noting the fact that from Teed to Dowie there is a line of single theologic movements, involving bizarre methods of rea- soning, and attaching to that method certain tenets in reference to marriage with which he does not coincide, either individually or as a member of the nation. And at no point is this matter borne in upon him so strongly as a citizen and as a form of civic obligation as when it assumes the proportions which it did in Mormonism. Beginning in a theologically disturbed brain, the two centres worked by induction, as they always do; using the word "induction" as it is used in electricity. The suggestion, however, seemed to fall in that instance into less sterile ground than is usually the case. The infec- tion spread until we have the difficulty presented by the polygamy practised by the Mormons in the early six- ties and in the popular mind accepted as still flourishing, CHURCH AND STATE 179 though to the judicial mind that does not seem to be the case. Here we have an enlarged and acute form of the difficulty of deciding where the lines of the church end and where the lines of the State begin. In fact, this opens out the consideration of a variety of fundamental principles, because it demands of the citizen certain kinds of concrete action. He is asked, for instance, to help unseat a Senator; to prevent the election of another; to assume certain definite attitudes upon the question of marriage and accordingly upon the question of divorce, and other relationships, presented to him locally by the policy of the police in reference to the disorderly house and the keepers and frequenters of such houses. All these are questions of practical citi- zenship and the mind should assume its attitudes definite- ly and squarely; otherwise hesitation and uncertainty may in an acute crisis deprive citizenship of its values. It is not the purpose of this chapter to prescribe definite at- titudes. It proposes to call for definite thought in the matter and lay the broad foundations for such thought. Primarily then, the citizen of the State is faced by his citizenship (or membership) in the Church. If he be a Catholic, his church will tell him distinctly what he is to think upon the question of marriage or divorce. If he be a member of certain Protestant denominations, they will take exactly the same attitude as that of the Roman Church. If of others, that attitude will differ and he will, instead of stringency in the matter of divorce, be asked to assume an attitude of leniency, with such modi- fications as to the marriage of divorced persons as seem to suggest themselves from his consideration of his church laws and his State laws. In either case there is a conflict of citizenship. His manner of looking at marriage will be different when he 180 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP regards himself as a citizen of the church from that which he must needs assume if he regards himself pri- marily as a citizen of the State, as would those whose church affiliations are relaxed, broad, liberal or nil, as the case may be. And so he must needs turn somewhere for instance, to help unseat a senator; to prevent the will be of little avail, if it be not based upon some definite theory of churchmanship and of statesmanship. And it is here that the vagueness of the matter has its inception. If marriage be considered a church rite, then it must be regarded in a way differing from that which will arise if it be considered a State function or a civil contract. For if marriage be a question of the church, then it grows into a religious question, and men on religious grounds must be permitted to think and act in reference to the marriage question as their conscience dictates. That means that the American citizen can, for instance, prescribe no laws to Utah, as to the unity or plurality of wives. But that has already been done. Hence the Federal Government has wittingly or unwittingly as- sumed the same attitude toward marriage which has been assumed by the older countries, and that is that it is primarily a civil contract with which the church is con- cerned only incidentally. If this be the decision of the Federal Government, in what relation can the Catholic Church stand to that de- cision ? For that body assumes, and under the Constitu- tion has a perfect right to assume, that marriage is a religious ceremony, a sacrament of the church, and as such entirely beyond the range of the functions and ob- ligations of the State. The reader will see that he is here facing a fundamental difference of viewpoint, and that will immediately clear up his first obligation of prac- tical citizenship. CHURCH AND STATE 181 This first obligation is to make himself thoroughly fa- miliar with the question of marriage and divorce; with what has been done in line with that question by the Federal Government; by the various States; with what the women have done, are doing and propose to do ; for this question should certainly be considered a "woman question" more than any other. He should become fa- miliar with the various incidental questions connected with the larger proposition ; the question of the property rights of single women, of married women and of widows ; the question of legitimacy of birth and what it involves. In other words, practical citizenship in this case involves co-operation with every force and with every movement which is trying to settle so vexed a problem. And it may assist him fundamentally to hold in mind the theory upon which other countries base their claim that marriage, in Christian countries, is a civil contract. That claim is based upon the fact, that in the gospel story, the founder of Christianity distinctly establishes two sacraments, namely, Baptism and the Holy Supper. For these, formulas are given, indications are furnished. Any other function of the church or State is a matter of deduction. Hence the conclusions of older govern- ments based upon the establishment by the Founder of the Christian Church of only two sacraments, are that marriage, birth, death and other questions now custo- marily thought of as functionings of the church, are es- sentially functionings of the State. This thought is worthy of much consideration and conclusions from it should largely influence the attitude of the citizen upon the questions at issue. On somewhat similar grounds would be placed the con- sideration of the question of education, as presented in its three most familiar phases, namely, the parochial 182 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP school, or church school, not necessarily confined to the Catholic Church, though most largely present with and through that church; the question of the theological bias given a college or university, and finally the ques- tion of the introduction of any form of religious instruc- tion into the public school, involving even the simple reading of the Bible, or the use of the "Lord's Prayer." That these are matters of practical citizenship with ref- erence to the church is evident, and that they may de- scend sufficiently far into the limits of the practical as to occasionally influence the vote on the Board of Edu- cation in any city, needs but reference to incidents which have recently happened in some of our larger Western cities. The school, together with other similar involvements, instantly projects the question of taxation into the fore- ground, and the issue is raised : "Shall a school founded by a religious institution or denomination be taxed? Is it sufficiently close in its alliance with our public school system, to be free or exempt? And if a school as church property may be taxed, why should not other church property be taxed, especially property whose use can- not be traced as being distinctively ecclesiastic, for in- stance a cemetery, a book room handling general pub- lications, an office building, of which only sections are used for actual "church" purposes, while others are rented out to individuals or corporations as profit pro- ducers ?" In fact, it opens the general question of church taxation. There is no need citing further instances, though many there be, that could be so cited. Suffice it to say that practical citizenship involves the careful considera- tion of fundamental principles, and the best answer that can be given to the questions: "Where ends the jurisdic- CHURCH AND STATE 183 tion of the church, and where that of the State? And in cases where the boundary line is dim and not clearly de- finable, where should the church give way and where the State?" In the settlement of these questions it may be helpful to call to mind and to keep in mind the following tenta- tive definitions of church and State, in their coherent se- quence. The church may be: One A building. Two A group of men and women worshipping in a building, as "The First Church." Three A series of groups of believers, admitting the same creed and guided by the same discipline, as "The Methodist Church." Four A larger group of persons following one teach- er, but comprising many different expressions of theo- logic opinion, as the "Christian Church," comprising the Roman Catholic, the Greek Catholic and many, many sects, large and small, of Protestants, with a few smaller groups of the so-called "heterodox." Five An abstract attitude of mind, prescribing that a man, no matter what his religious denomination, shall "do as best he knows how," which activity makes him a member of the "Church Universal." Six The attitude of one mind toward another. The relation of men to men as mental beings. Seven The relation of the soul to its Maker. These last two definitions are derived from philosophy, and are usually involved in instruction conveyed by our deepest thinkers. The State may be: One A bit of geography. Two The people living on that bit of geography. (If, for instance, I say: "The State of New Jersey pro- 184 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP duces no coal, and no iron to speak of," I mean the State of New Jersey as a bit of geography. When I say "The State of New Jersey is the mother of trusts" I mean that the people of the State have followed a policy, through their lawmakers, which needs revision. ) Three The body of habits, customs and incidents called "laws of the State," as in the sentence, "Be it en- acted by the State of New Jersey," if ever it should be adopted. Four The commercial, financial and public interests of the State, virtually the "body politic," based upon its railroads, its telegraphs, its shipping facilities and so forth. Five The relation of a series of groups of men as to their property rights, therefore as physical beings in- volving health, comfort, policing, fire protection and other functions. These are the State in its philosophic sense. Hence we make the philosophic deduction, which may prove useful in any ultimate conclusion to be formed along the lines here indicated, that the church is the re- lation of men to men as to mentality, as to mental rights and privileges, while the State is the relation of men to men as to their physical rights and privileges. Any question involving abstract mentality, as such, is a church question. Any question in any way bordering upon the physical and involving physical things is a State question, sometimes involving the co-operation of the church, sometimes setting it aside. THE SCHOOL 185 CHAPTER XX SEVEN FEATURES THAT HELP IN MAKING THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS A SUCCESS VALUE OF PARENTS* ASSOCIATIONS. NO one for a moment doubts that the school is the basic structure of modern civilized society. As fares the school, so fares the nation. An er- ror made in school is more difficult of eradication than an error made in any other portion of the administration of governmental machinery. Neither does any one doubt that America has an ad- mirable school system. We actually train into the minds of pupils more of citizenship than can be done by the school system of any other country. There may not be about our system the regularity, the clockwork, the thorough empiric training that marks the system of edu- cation in other countries, but we certainly have about our system the elements that make for manhood in the most marked degree. These elements, assisted by certain fea- tures are what make our schools the success they are. I need dwell upon these features only briefly, since they are known to my readers. They are seven in number. In the first place, so far as legislative aspects are concerned, it may be safely assumed that the school law, as such, is least influenced by politics. While politics plays a part and an undesirable part in the general adjustment of school matters in city, town and village, it plays none in the enactment of the law, or virtually none. Very rare- ly do our teachers, our principals or our superintendents 186 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP seek to influence legislation in any way. Nor is a State Board of Education sufficient of an inducement in the way of emolument or possibilities of advancement to al- lure the self-seeking politician. Hence the school law of a State is apt to be about as good a law as the intelligence of the people at large through their lawmakers and the exigencies and circumstances of the case will produce. This is the first point favorable to our schools. The second point is the efficiency of our teachers. There can be little doubt as to that. Though there may be here and there a case where an incompetent person se- cures a position in a school, that case is so rare as to serve as an incidental exception that merely goes to prove the rule. Those of us who have had reason to watch the work of the schools most closely are struck at once and permanently impressed with the devotion of the teachers and workers to their work and the universality of that devotion. The next points favorable to our schools are the in- troduction into its course of studies and work of one or the other form of manual training, alongside of which may be placed the laboratory and workshop, which nat- urally grow out of manual training, and the practical side of education as shown in business and household training in such forms as are familiar to those who have looked into school matters, especially in our large cities. These familiar items, which cover the three of the seven points here to be enumerated, need no further elaboration. The sixth point is the excellent care which the school takes of the health of its scholars. Nothing receives larger or more intelligent attention. The sanitary fa- cilities of our newer school buildings seem to leave ab- solutely nothing to be desired. The care taken to pre- vent contagion, to give advice and aid to the parents and THE SCHOOL 187 to children by the school physician or the trained nurse engaged by the school authorities; the co-operation re- ceived at the hands of the local Boards of Health all of these again are factors which enter into our school life and work to its decided advantage. And finally I may call attention to the most recent forms of help which the school derives from two things introduced one within its walls and the other without. Too high commendation of the school city and of the parents' association cannot be given. The former is an enormous help to the population of the school, not only in learning to assist in the government of its own internal affairs, but also in laying deep the foundations of citi- zenship. No one factor will contribute so largely to the making of good and intelligent citizens as the school city. Think of the advantages boys and girls thus trained will have over those not so trained. When these children grow to manhood and womanhood the sense of civic re- sponsibility which comes with adult citizenship will not bear about it the stamp of novelty which it does to those who have not had the advantage of training such as the school city gives. The child which has been mayor, coun- cilman, policeman, health officer or some other form of official in the miniature city which was his room in school is very much more competent to be of service to the com- munity when the adult days come of which such service will form a part than will the man or woman whose child- hood has not been blessed by such an advantage. And finally, the other factor, which has grown up out- side of the walls of the school yet virtually and practi- cally a part of it and of its system of work. This is the "parents' association." It is largely through this that the responsibility of the citizen toward the school can be most adequately met. For it naturally forms the con- 188 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP necting link between the home and the school. Although the movement is still in its incipiency, it commends itself most favorably to those parents who are anxious that their children should derive the utmost advantage from their school life, and few parents there be to whom this thought is devoid of interest or value. If these associ- ations can be made as popular and as powerful for good as they deserve to be and to be made, they will afford the most intelligent, direct and efficient means for the citizen to discharge his obligation toward the school. They will serve as an easy and legitimate channel for information ; they will serve as an incentive to children and teachers ; they will facilitate acquaintanceship with the conditions of the school, which acquaintanceship is the first and most important obligation of the citizen. The thought of sending a little one to school and then dropping all sense of obligation toward that little one or the school he is in, savors too much of antiquated forms of paternalism to need comment or even mention. For it is a foregone conclusion that the mother who sends her child to school, immediately adds that school to her house- hold obligations. True that the teacher exercises the privileges of maternity in her place for the hours of the child's presence in school, but the health of the child in school, its morals, its welfare is thereby not removed from its own mother. It becomes part of that mother's house- hold duties, to know what is going on in the school, and, either alone or in company with other women, through women's clubs, through parents' associations, or through her husband, to keep thoroughly informed as to what is going on and what is not going on. So far as these seven points are concerned the attitude of practical citizenship toward them is affirmative and lends all possible support to them. THE SCHOOL 189 CHAPTER XXI HOW THE SCHOOL, SYSTEM IS ENFEEBLED AND WHAT THE CONSCIENTIOUS CITIZEN SHOULD DO IN THE MATTEE. THERE are five points, so far as my studies have hitherto carried me, which militate against the efficiency of our school system, and it becomes an obligation of practical citizenship to consider the means whereby these deficiencies shall be remedied. The first is the curriculum. Our school is a connecting link between the kindergarten and the university. It cannot well be considered by itself. For we must grad- uate the boys and girls who pass through our schools into one or the other of the colleges waiting for them at the other end of their school terms, if so be they or their parents have decided upon the completion of their studies in one of these institutions, and a large percent- age of our public school scholars and of the scholars of our private and parochial schools have this as an end. This gives us our first difficulty with the curriculum. For we have three distinct grades of children in our schools: First, that grade which is studious and whose ultimate end is the college and all it stands for ; second, that grade which will not go to college, but will at the first opportunity enter business life, and third, that grade which brings to the school a heavy, dull and in various ways imperfect mind, and for which the school must serve as a kind of amender of deficiencies. This grade after school life closes (and it closes for these children at the very earliest opportunity) drifts out into unskilled labor. 190 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP Thus far our curricula have not been able to meet this particular series of grades. One reason for their not do- ing so is probably because those who framed them have hesitated to admit to themselves the presence of this third or lowest grade. Unfortunately many in this grade are furnished to the schools from defectives taken from the ranks of foreigners and to some extent of our colored population. And as soon as an effort is made to follow the natural lines of distinction, a hue and cry is raised on national or color lines, and the matter must be ad- justed as best it can or dropped, and former conditions reintroduced. There seems to be no other remedy in sight than the construction of a threefold curriculum, or of a curricu- lum of threefold application one grade making and meeting the highest requirements for those who are aim- ing at a college education; another the medium require- ments of those who are going out into the ranks of skilled labor and business professions, and an easily maintained lower and simpler standard for those who seem naturally to tend toward the ranks of unskilled labor. It is the height of absurdity to train a bright young Anglo- Saxon mind, which is preparing for Yale or Harvard or Cornell, along the same lines as that of a case of partially arrested development, which drifts into the school simply because of the inability of the parent to furnish the special training required in that case. The only remedy thus far discovered is the preparatory school, which is designed to stand between the boy and the girl from our high schools and the entrance examination for college. And this is a fair arrangement for those only who can afford it. It shuts out the deserving scholar whose par- ents are not able to afford it, and who is for this, that or the other reason, disbarred from the free scholarship de- THE SCHOOL 191 signed to meet his case. I have reason to know that many bright minds lose the opportunity at the kind of training which would be most acceptable to them and their nat- ural guardians for the reasons above given. A threefold curriculum seems to be the only remedy for this undesir- able condition thus far available, and where it has been tried it has met with unqualified success. From the curriculum we naturally come to two other points of enfeeblement of our school system, namely, the labor union and the retarded pupil. It is rather an odd juxtaposition of things, as they arrange themselves under the eye of the student, and yet it is perfectly intelligible. The labor union comes into play in this way. It follows, from what has been said in regard to the curricula, that many, if not most, of our boys and girls go from school into the ranks of skilled or unskilled labor. And here they are met by rules and regulations which labor has thought itself compelled to adopt for self -protection. It is evident that the attitude of the labor union as to the kind of education required by those to fill its ranks must needs have a large and either a useful or a pernicious influence upon our system of education and its results. Take, for instance, the boy who has made good use of the advantages given by manual training in the school and has laid a fair foundation to a trade. When he steps out into the world for which he is prepared, that world faces him by certain regulations which forbid his en- trance. He is not wanted in the trade for which he is prepared, or preparing. Some one is called for who is not as well prepared as he, in order not to interfere with the workings of the machinery whereby labor has hither- to thought it necessary to guard itself. This condition has not yet been of long enough standing to seriously im- press the boys from school, but its militant and obstruc- 192 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP tive policy is beginning to be felt, and that policy is not favorable to the best results from our school system. It is to be hoped that labor will either itself find a better so- lution for this phase of its unfortunately complex prob- lem or will cease to put into the lead of its movements men who are palpably incompetent to frame a policy which will not be suicidal to the interests of labor. And alongside of the retardation involved in the ani- mosity of the labor union to the best results of the school stands the other feature of retardation, which has been partly involved in what has been previously set forth on this subject that is, whether it be quite fair to the bright boy or girl to make them constantly wait for the catching up of that incessant stream of pupils from other shores and from the ranks beyond which lies the moot problem of the "color line," which stream moves slowly owing to its large admixture of minds, which would nor- mally come under the head of various degrees of more or less marked "arrested mental development." Without a careful adjustment of these unfortunate combinations, the school cannot do its best work, and it depends upon the intelligent citizen in the exercise of practical citizen- ship to make an effort to so answer this involved and com- plex problem as to make his answer fair to the labor union, as an effort on the part of labor to protect itself, and at the same time square with the policy of the Amer- ican nation, that the colored man and the alien and their children shall have the same rights as the white and the native. And finally, briefly, the two last points. One, the ques- tion of morals, and the other, that of taking the school out of politics. That the morals of scholars require keen surveillance goes without saying. Whether our present methods of oversight are the best that can be devised is THE SCHOOL 193 doubtful. Events transpire constantly from the outbreak of more or less serious evidences of immorality, in the sense of the involvement of the sex question, to the larger outbreak of actual burglary committed by boys moving in "good society" in order to get at the answers of their exam, questions, thus involving the ethic side of morals ; which events lead one to feel that the vigilance exercised over the moral aspect of relationships in school is not as close and as thorough as is to be desired. There is room for improvement there. And the question of taking the school out of politics is it really a question? Is it not rather the statement of an absolute necessity ? No sane man can possibly en- tertain a desire for a moment to continue the system of political control under which the school system of many States is suffering in its local aspects. Deadlocks over the appointment of teachers and janitors; incom- petency of political "ward heelers," who fit into a Board of Education to which they are elected about as well as would a smokestack into a mandolin case, but who are nevertheless placed there by men whose conscience has been paralyzed ; the struggle for appointment on certain committees which are supposed to make "returns" for political services rendered all these and many other things of that nature are entirely out of place in the school system. It should be taken out of politics at the earliest possible date. In what way this is to be efficiently done, whether by an elective school board of smaller size, say nine members, from the city or town at large ; whether by an appointive board of that size; whether by the creation of govern- ment by commission and by the placing of the head of the school board on that commission; in whatever way 194 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP the best sense of citizenship finally decides the question, in some one of these ways should the school be taken out of politics. It should, indeed, be one of the chief inter- ests of practical citizenship to see to its early removal from the baneful pale of local politics. HUMANITARIANISM 195 CHAPTER XXII OBLIGATIONS TOWARD THE WORK OF HUMANITARIAN- ISM VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY CONTRIBU- TIONS LABOR UNIONS AND CO-OPERATION. THE municipality may be considered in a number of ways. It has an economic aspect, in that it has certain available assets, such as streets, wharves, parks, markets, and so forth. It has a financial aspect, in that it costs such and such a sum to run it, and that sum must be provided in some way, either by direct or indirect taxation ; by provision, as by bonds and other forms of indebtedness, or by vol- untary contributions, as in cases of calamity, or in the work of charity, for the most part. The municipality may also be regarded from an edu- cational aspect, and inquiry made as to its schools, its churches, its lecture courses, its art galleries, and so forth. Then there are its esthetic, its moral and many other aspects. In this chapter it is proposed to take up the sense of civic obligation from the aspect of the voluntary con- tribution that is, from the side of the humanitarian work. It is evident that there are three sources from which the necessary funds for the running of a city may be derived. The first is from its natural assets. This has been recklessly neglected in most cities in the past, and values have been donated to private individuals and cor- porations in such careless and munificent ways that it seems incredible that the civic conscience awoke to this 196 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP criminal waste only at as late a day as it did. But it has awakened to it, and many inquiries are going on as to the retention of the communal value for the entire body politic, and these inquiries will doubtless lead to tangi- ble and satisfactory results. The second source of funds is by "involuntary contribution," most common among which are direct taxation and enforced contribution, usually of a political nature. The third is that of volun- tary contribution. The last has usually been called upon most in reference to that section of human society which we designate our "unfortunate brother." Some section of human society has always been, and probably will al- ways be, in this category. For various good and suffi- cient reasons, and from various more or less clearly un- derstood causes, we have the poor always with us, and it grows consciously or unconsciously into a civic obliga- tion for those who are more fortunate to help those who are less so. This obligation can be met by the individual either as an individual or through an organization. The tendency of the age is toward the latter method. It follows the general trend of evolution in this, as does all else. Every other effort of human life, from capital on the one hand to labor on the other, tends toward union and unification. So it is with charity and with the humanitarian work of our municipalities. It is growing more and more cor- porate. In olden days it was quite natural that it should be almost entirely individualistic ; and history and novels tell us ample stories of how wealth in olden days felt and met its obligation toward poverty in altogether individu- alistic ways. The lord at the manor gave largess to those dependent upon him; the feudal lord fed and cared for his retainer in health and in sickness ; the laird fed Jock. This was the individualism of the olden days and it per- HUMANITARIANISM 197 sists into our day in a great many instances, where the wealthy carry forward their individual charities in more or less modestly concealed ways, and where the good wife of the house thinks of "her poor" even if she does not speak of them. The propriety and advisability of this form of individ- ualistic giving is not here called into question. It is only brought to the attention of the student to show that the tendency of the age is the other way that is, toward corporate giving, toward the regulation of charity under bureaus of associated charities and under federations of social workers. There is a general sense, or rather aware- ness, that this is the better way. The supervision of a Bureau of Charities, which devotes its entire time to the work of investigating the worthiness of cases and to the rational alleviation of poverty by the re-establishment of manhood and manhood possibilities, is a valuable substi- tute for the individualistic care, which has not time to go into detail and to study the worth of a case before it con- tributes toward the alleviation of its possible distress ; and the possibilities of pauperization by the individualistic method are so much greater than by the associate method, that the latter urgently commends itself to those who have looked into the matter at all seriously. To this general trend toward the associate work, there have been added, and may be added several features which are in themselves very desirable, and which have in sev- eral instances passed beyond the boundaries of the merely suggestive. Of these I may be permitted to adduce three. The first is municipal charity. In many municipalities it is doubtless the case that the persons entrusted with the care of the poor in its manifold forms, as poorhouses, homes for the indigent, pension lists, and other forms, are altogether competent to manage affairs to the advan- 198 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP tage of the city. Thus, in a nearby community those who are managing the poor-farm for the city have realized that the value of the property has been enormously en- hanced in the past few years, owing to the growth of population in the vicinity, and they are considering the advisability of selling the farm and removing to some less valuable territory. Items of this kind will be found in many cities. But in some cases the wisdom of those in control of the municipal poor would be enhanced, if it could be brought in contact with the skilled worker in humanitarian fields. It would react to the benefit of the town and to the advantage of the individual who is helped, if the methods of the Bureau of Associated Chari- ties could be adopted for municipal wards, rather than the spasmodic helps which are given. It is to be much de- sired, therefore, that the conferences between charity and social workers and the officials of our poorhouses, jails, reformatories and houses of detention for the helpless wards of city, county and State should be not only con- tinued, as they are in New Jersey, but made as much more comprehensive and thorough as it is possible to make them. For the sooner city, county and State intro- duce the methods of investigation of the Bureau of As- sociated Charities and avail themselves of the work al- ready done by such organizations, the sooner will munici- pal, county and State work be more efficiently done. The second is the work of associated charity in its form of voluntary organization. Here straws show in what way the wind of further co-operation blows. It is a distinct pleasure to chronicle the ramifications of the work in specific localities. Here is an instance of admir- able work done in New York. Whoever thought of this clever method of fighting the great white plague deserves more than honorable mention in the Hall of Fame. Here HUMANITARIANISM 199 is the reverse side of a transfer given out on a Sunday re- cently on all the lines of New York City : "Consumption in Early Stages Can Be Cured. "Take your case in time to a good physician, or to a dispensary and you may be cured Do Not Wait. "Consumption is 'caught' mainly through the spit of consumptives. "Friends of Consumption Dampness, Dirt, Darkness, Drink. "Enemies of Consumption Sun, Air, Good Food, Cleanliness. "If you have tuberculosis, do not give it to others by spitting ; even if you have not, set a good example by re- fraining from a habit always dirty and often dangerous. "The Committee on the Prevention of Tuberculosis of the Charity Organization Society." The ingenuity which conceived the thought in the first place, and then managed the play on alliteration of "D" in "Dampness, Dirt, Darkness, Drink," which will arrest attention where the rest might not, evinces symptoms of absolute genius. With an endless series of facilities thus employed to meet the ignorance that lies back of disease, which is the cause of almost thirty per cent of all pover- ty ; to investigate the worth of cases ; to push the work of provident savings funds and other means of thrift and education in thrift, the aspect of the problem of the poor will soon show a favorable change and a marked one. Reference here to the federation of giving is hardly necessary. I need only remind the reader that it is a proposition to combine all giving that is, to unite all the financial sides of various charitable and humanitarian as- sociations into one fund, toward which those who are able may contribute all they feel that they can spare for char- ity in any one year, and from which it will be distributed 200 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP to the various organizations pro rata and according to their specific and provable needs. This is an important advance, since it will obviate the repeated calls for char- ity to which persons of means are supposed to respond during the year, and will concentrate effort. A third item, which may prove of interest, and which naturally embodies a suggestion, came to the mind of the writer some time ago, when he noticed a wagon selling coal by the bucket in a town where this method had not hitherto been common. The incident awoke all the dor- mant reminiscences of how the poor pay three prices for their coal, while the rich pay only one price, because of their larger opportunity. The house before which the wagon stopped was that of a laboring man, temporarily out of work. This suggested the question whether the union to which this laborer belongs had considered "co- operation" at all. In England, where this whole labor problem has been thoroughly thrashed out, and definite results have been obtained, one of the first steps, after the formation of the union, and the various struggles to which that gave rise, was the introduction of co-operation. And the thought clung rather tenaciously, because it seems such a distressing instance of things out of plum and out of perspective, when the poor man is made to pay higher for coal and other necessities than the rich man, when the latter can more readily afford the higher price. And it clung more tenaciously, because of the fact that there are two sidings on the local railroad available to the labor union, if it should decide that it is a proper use of its contributed funds to buy coal by the carload and distri- bute it to its members at a low figure, and at such times when the savings in the provident fund seem to make it advisable. It seemed as legitimate a use for those funds as any to HUMANITARIANISM 201 which they are now put. In some ways it seemed rather a better use than some others. And the mind extended the suggestion to other staples and necessities, such as flour, sugar, potatoes, and began to ponder the feasi- bility of the labor and trades unions considering the ques- tion of co-operation at an early day. 202 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP CHAPTER XXIII IMPORTANCE OF A HIGH MORAL TONE IN A COMMUNITY AND WHY IT SHOULD BE MAINTAINED. IN this work the term "moral" has always been used in the wider sense which attaches to its original de- rivation from its Latin root. The word is here used as though it were derived from the root "moror" "to re- main behind, to linger, to tarry," and is referred to those lasting elements of human experience which go to make up the sum total of our inheritance from past ages, the body of things found to have been wise, good and effi- cient for the maintenance of human society in its most desirable form, and which have, therefore, "remained be- hind" while others perished. And the term "moral" differs from "ethical," "religi- ous" and similar and synonymous terms in that it refers to a body of truth gathered from life experiences. Hence it is here used in a sense wider than that which confines it to the question of sex, to which it is usually restricted. A thing is moral or immoral, not because it refers to the relation of men and women to one another, but because it agrees with or violates that large body of experience which the race has gathered and gained and realized as good and efficient for the retention of society in "good form." We therefore use this latter expression in some- what the same sense and we speak of a thing as being in "good form" because it has been found to secure prompt movement of the mass with little or no friction. In this sense any violation of order is immoral. It is MORAL TONE 203 moral to live according to the Ten Commandments ; it is immoral to live in contravention to them. It is moral to live within one's means ; it is immoral to live beyond them. It is moral to use means of advertisement properly ; it is immoral to use the billboards of a town for the display of incongruous indecency under the guise of melodrama or burlesque. It is moral to be respectable ; it is immoral not to be. It is moral to print a good newspaper ; it is immoral to give it a yellow tint. The list is long, but these few items, gathered as far apart as feasible, will serve to convey the idea that we use the word in its widest and most comprehensive sense. If now the word "tone" be added, the reference of practical citizenship to "moral tone" will instantly ap- pear. Every aggregate of men has a certain moral tone. That tone may be low or it may be high. The question which it is to be for the welfare of that aggregate is not difficult of solution. It is to be high. Any lowering of moral tone is impractical; it is unwise; it is harmful. Somewhat in the same way as the physician tries to keep up the "tone" of his patient's system, will the good citizen try to keep up the moral tone of his community ; and for the same reason, if you ask the physician why he pre- scribes a "tonic," he will say, because it is necessary to maintain the "tone" of the system, in order that it may be able to resist the encroachment of disease ; in order that it may make the patient able to fight for the restoration of his health. In fact, he will say, if the tone of the system had been kept up, the patient would not have been a patient. He would have resisted the "cold," the "grip," the "nervous exhaustion," the "malarial germ," or whatever it was that found him lacking in resistance. For exactly the same reason does the good citizen try 204 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP to maintain the "moral tone" of his community. He does so because the lowering of the moral tone exposes the community to social diseases in the same way as the lower- ing of the physical tone exposes the body of the individ- ual to diseases. It will be remembered that we have per- sistently maintained the correspondence between the body individual and the body politic, and the emphasis here placed upon the two tonalities referred to "moral tone" and "physical tone" is a reversion to the original prin- ciples enunciated in earlier chapters. Good behavior has, therefore, a side which is not always recognized and which has failed of recognition hitherto, largely because our moralities were hitherto based upon the egotistic view of society, while we are now trying to base them upon the altruistic view. Thus, for instance, in the older dispensations of the church, we looked upon salvation as individual salvation; good behavior insured to the person concerned his own salvation. Little else was emphasized. In the new dispensation, while the former concept is infringed upon in no way, there is added the idea that only that man can go to heaven deservedly who brings a friend with him. He cannot go alone. He must bring others with him. His life and that of his neighbor are so intimately interrelated that the sense of being alone is relegated to that time when Deity first announced that "it is not good for man to be alone," and there was a help- meet created for him. So to-day, in civic work, we are emphasizing the "social fabric," and we are endeavoring to do so in most rational ways. For is it not perfectly clear that the lowering of the moral tone of a community exposes that community to disease, as the lowering of physical tone exposes the individual body to disease? Take a class of children in school. It can readily serve as an illustration, because of concreteness and com- MORAL TONE 205 pactness. The teacher maintains a "moral tone" in that class and the boys and girls are asked to behave in cer- tain dignified and orderly ways. Why? Because of the individual boy or girl? Only in part. It is almost en- tirely because of the class as a class. There are certain liberties which could be granted to those who are nat-> urally, or by disposition or by home training inclined to be well behaved and orderly. But they are not granted, because there are certain others in the class whose moral tone is naturally low, and who would drag the class down with them. It would not be useful work for the teacher to admit as a standard of morality the standard entertained by the mischievous, the disorderly, the filthy-minded pupil or pupils. The chaos, the disorder, the sense of mental unclean- ness which would soon follow such a lowering of stand- ards would react in unenviable ways and would destroy the work of the school. The purpose for which the school was created and built would be frustrated and made void. The mental fiber of the boys and girls would be undermined, and the citizens produced would be open to and liable to all the various forms of social disease, which grow in the soil of disorder, mental uncleanliness, laxity of discipline, lack of co-ordination in thought and absence of self-control. Hence, though we live in a land which is democratic in its government and republican in its institution, and "proclaims liberty throughout all the world," yet we restrain that form of liberty in schools, which bears too close a resemblance to the broth- er of the mob license. When this principle, which is fundamental to the enjoyment of liberty by the mass, is applied to the lar- ger aggregate of a city, a town, a municipality, we find that in that aggregate there must also be maintained 206 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP order, and for the same reason. Relaxation of the ele- ments of law and order means encroachment of social disease. Hence, though we are a liberty loving people, we must restrain license, or we destroy liberty. And the attitude of practical citizenship on that ques- tion is one that needs scarcely any elaboration. Every citizen is called upon to be orderly and to make a decided and continuous effort to maintain the moral tone of his community to assume an attitude of fair and open- minded kindliness toward every form of literature, amusement, theatre, newspaper, which the varied needs of the citizens in the community may crave and thence create. But there should be a line of standards, beyond which he will not allow things to proceed without deci- ded protest on his part, if needs be, enforced by appeal to the law and the police. The good citizen, who in every instance is the practi- cal citizen, has decided views upon what is good litera- ture in his newspaper. He can tell a clean and carefully edited paper from any shade of reportorial hysteria. He realizes and appreciates how much of the undesira- ble, the morbid, the unnatural and the unclean the vigi- lant blue pencil keeps out of his mental food. And he supports that paper which stands for the moral tone of the community. He knows the value of a clean stage. He knows the tremendous influence of the melo- drama upon the more or less excitable side of the com- munity. He realizes fully the danger to which the gen- eral public is exposed from any lowering of the stand- ards of the stage. The mental atmosphere men breathe can be and is vitiated as readily as the physical air they live in, and the mental degeneracy that follows the one resembles in every way the physical degeneracy that fol- lows the other. MORAL TONE 207 The good citizen will follow the amusements of the people and their trend, and will lend his support to those which are healthy and will deny it to those which are unhealthy, because immoral. He will note the outbreaks of profanity, of indecency, of ambiguity, which seem to come to the sane mind in its aggregate form about in the same way as they come to the insane mind in its in- dividual form. The literary efforts of children turned loose from school, with a bit of chalk, the manifestations of indeli- cacy on billboards and in shop windows, where theatre posters are displayed; the taking apart of human anat- omy in patent-medicine advertisements in the public press and manifold other forms of the lowering of moral, tone he resents, because he has a right to his own mental cleanliness, and a larger right to it, than his neighbor has to his mental uncleanliness, simply because the un- cleanness of that neighbor's mind, like the uncleanness of his body, breeds mental vermin and disease, and the good citizen and his children are exposed to it. And he may call upon the clergy and such agencies as are es- tablished for the maintenance of mental sanitation to keep the mental atmosphere clean, with the same rights and prerogatives wherewith he may call upon a board of health to keep the physical atmosphere and the water courses of the city clean. And to the vigorous protest against having his moral tone lowered by a lower standard, begotten either in this country or another, he adds the positive work in social settlements, in boys' clubs, in neighborhood houses, in civics clubs, which tends toward the uplift of morals. This he does not because of his own individual, personal welfare, since we have passed the threshold of altruism, but for the welfare of his municipality, realizing that 208 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP a lowering of moral tone involves the more or less rapid decay of society, the reversal to more or less pronounced forms of barbarism and the encroachment upon the rights, privileges and privacy of good citizenship on the part of that which is unclean and which requires control because it lacks self-control. And it grows more and more into a conviction with him, that even in a republican country there must be re- straint; there must be conservation of order, of decency, of law, since upon such conservation depends the liberty of the largest number. IDEALS 209 CHAPTER XXIV PROBLEMS OF THE NATION DEPEND FOR THEIR SOLUTION UPON THE MAINTENANCE AND REALIZATION OF IDEALS. AND now we take up the final words in a task which has been a pleasure and which we sincerely hope has been of service to those who have ex- tended to these chapters the courtesy of perusal. We advance to the borderline between nature and spirit and gaze forth into the realm of ideals. Nor is this an inappropriate time for such contemplation. For the serious problems which face the American Nation, as a nation, depend for their solution upon the maintenance and the realization of ideals. It is the bringing down of ideals to the plane of actuality. Every reader of the Bible knows, that it conveys the teaching that the realm of ideals shall be brought down into the world of actualities. It teaches it in general ways ; it emphasizes it in specific ways. Throughout all the wonderful Shemitic imagery of the Old Testament; throughout the ennobling grandeur of the Psalms; throughout the calm dignity of the teachings of Jesus ; throughout the marvelous metaphor of the Prophets and the Apocalypse of John, the Divine, there runs this scar- let thread of idealism to be made actual ; of the ideal that seeks to be and needs to be real. And all along the edge of things, along the fringe of that peculiar tissue of marvels, wherewith God talks to his children in the Won- derbook, there runs that "ribband of blue" which dem- 210 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP onstrates and clamors for the Divine Truthfulness of the statements made, of the conditions described, of the pic- tures limned upon the background of history with a skill clearly Divine. But more than that. The Divine Author introduces several narratives which show His intent clearly, as clearly as they demonstrate their own divine origin. They impress the reader at first with a sense of the marvelous, which is quite normal and not at all unusual. For the things described are deeply recondite, even if the inter- pretation which is sometimes given for the transactions is calculated to set aside what might otherwise have to be considered miraculous and so challenge contradiction on the part of the reasoning mind. And, therefore, af- ter the first impression of awed mystery wears away, there is left the sober conviction, that these remarkable stories are the only efficient means of telling a series of equally remarkable facts, which under other word-garb would not be fully set forth. The reader may recall that in an earlier chapter I called his attention to the remarkable story of Joshua battling in the valley, while Moses sits upon the rock with uplifted hands. It will be remembered that so long as the hands of Moses were uplifted so long did Joshua succeed in the valley and so long did he overcome his enemies. And if the hands of Moses sank, then did Joshua fail of conquest. Evidently, if it were desired to write the story of how our actual successes in the humbler walks of life depended upon the uplift of our ideals, no arrangements of thought-pictures could com- pare in excellence with this. Hence, the conclusion is entirely permissible, that, apart from whatever of his- toric value the incident may have, it admirably expresses the thought, that the maintenance of ideals is essential IDEALS 211 to ultimate success in the "valley of the shadow of death" as the natural realm of life is poetically called in the sacred Scriptures. Nor is it difficult to find proof of this. From the earli- est days to the present those men have been successful in the realm of actuality and of real things, who have main- tained the ideals which they saw before them. The con- cept, which makes such men as Froebel, Washington and Lincoln, possible is an ideal concept. They hold firmly to the ideals which they have set before them and their success in the field which they have chosen for themselves, or, rather, which Providence has chosen for them, de- pends entirely upon the uplift of the hands of Moses, the ideal of the law; for whether we read "Moses and the prophets" or "the law and prophets" in our Book, it is the same thing. It is this concept of the idealization of the law, this uplift of it to its highest pinnacles, which is, and ever must be, the final achievement of practical citizenship. But there is another picture of infinite value to him who tries to fathom the mysteries of being either of the individual or of the aggregate. It is the weirdly out- lined picture of the building of the "Tabernacle." We all remember the charms and fascination, wherewith this picture nestled away in our child heart in those days when God was not a dream or a theological question and the life of the world not an enigma or a "Riddle of the Universe," but merely an accepted fact, held by the sub- lime faith of childhood, to which we shall presently reat- tain, if there be any truth in the law, propositionally stated by the Divine Mercy that anointed the lips of Jesus, when He said : "Unless ye become as little children ye shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven." In those dim days, when God was building your soul and mine and 212 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP drawing it tenderly into the innermost recesses of the subconscious mind, to keep it safe against the day when we would grow into sufficiently adult manhood to be en- trusted with the further development of it and asked to share in the responsibility of that further development; in those days we listened with breathless interest to the story of the building of that soul. We took it for granted that God would call it a "Tab- ernacle" and a "Temple." Why should we not? The child knows what the man doubts and disbelieves. It seemed the height of naturalness that God should lift the law to the mountaintop, that He should take Moses up to the highest pinnacles of thought and love attainable and should there show him the thing called character and call it the "pattern of the tent which was shown thee in the Mount." How natural it all was ; how divinely logi- cal. And then that He should tell Moses to go down into the wilderness, the "howling wilderness of everyday life," and reproduce there the ideal which had been shown him. The boards and their sockets, the curtains and hangings, the sevenfold lampstand, the source of mental light, the twelvefold table of the "bread of faces," that food of the soul; and the altar of incense, that incense which is "the prayer of saints." It was all perfectly logical, because our child mind, be- ing nearer the sources and springs of life than we could ever be again, realized that that was just what it was set- ting forth to do. In those dream-days of boyhood and youth, when we thought out our ideals, when we walked and watched and prayed upon the high pinnacles of ut- ter loyalty, of true friendship, of disinterested love, of ambitions, that were based upon our desire to be of use to humankind in those days we were looking rapt and intent upon the patterns of that manhood and woman- IDEALS 213 hood which we intended to build in our hearts and life, when we stepped out into the egotistic glare of the sun of the desert of life and took up the burden and heat of the day. And again, if any one were to desire to write the story of this intention, of this longing to bring to ultimate and legitimate fruition these ideals which people the higher regions of the mind and of the soul, what more fitting story could he indict than this wonderful, quiet, simple tale of how the tabernacle is shown in the moun- taintop and reproduced in the valley? Hence again the assumption is a perfectly proper one, that the story, apart from whatever its historic values may be, was so told as to convey this higher spiritual lesson. Hence again the ultimate standard of practical citizenship is not only the maintenance of ideals in the higher reaches of mind and soul, but the bringing down of those ideals to be made actual in the world of outer things, in the busy humdrum world of men and women, in the gray fog of the valley, of ignoble and unfinished things, which presses inward upon the consciousness of our better self and enshrouds and sometimes endeavors to suffocate it. And in the vast realm of ideals which lies just beyond the curtain wherewith Divine Mercy veils our future from us, there lie ideals which are of eternal application. For there we see looming large above all others, those which have about them the stamp of the eternal and spiritual since they tower far above the domains of time and space. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity; these ideals, dreamed of by France in the days when she was writing history in blood and materialized by America, when she cast the statue of George into bullets, seem to be inwoven into the background of the fabric of the great republic of which we are privileged to write ourselves citizens. And 214 PRACTICAL CITIZENSHIP below them, resting like the finger of dawn upon the hill- tops of ambition, are those glorious institutions, where- by the citizens of the great republic attain their high purposes, namely, the public school, the Sabbath, sancti- fied by our ancestors, and the nobility of womanhood, which is as peculiar to America as are the other two ideals. And yet below, touching the ridges of towering crags of the mental world, as the faint green of mosses that cling to them, are those ideals of rectitude and civic virtue for which we strive, when we try to make the ballot sacred, the right of citizenship valuable and the voice of the people the voice of God. And as we bring these ideals down toward the mists of the valley, those mists writhe, hover, wreathe and part, and we have displaced many of them and given more or less tangible shape to many of those things which in the days when Dickens wrote "Oliver Twist" and "Little Dorrit" were ideals as yet unborn upon earth. And the mists that have wreathed upward and have died away in the light of the rising sun of American citizenship are those which we called slavery, lottery and other evils of which we have cleared our civic atmosphere, and we are wrestling bravely with others, as wrestled Jacob with the angel. We shall attain them, not perfectly (for Jacob limped when he had wrestled all through the night with the celestial presence) ; yet could not that Presence with- hold his blessing, and he called the name of that place "Peniel" the "face of God." So we are wrestling still with political corruption, with child labor, with drink, with the gambler, who makes insecure the foundations of trade by reason of his senseless passion and greed, with Mormonism, with the corporation and with many other shadows of the valley. But within the bosom of practical citizenship lie dormant the powers which will lift up the IDEALS 215 hands of Moses and cause Joshua to prevail In his strug- gle in the valley, and which will enable the strength of American citizenship to ascend the mountain top, face there the awful Presence of Unseen and Unfathomed Deity, and there be shown the pattern of the tabernacle which it is to build in the arid reaches of the desert of Egotism, of self-aggrandizement, of greed and the pas- sion for that which belongs to others. And we, American citizens, will continue the work. Plank after plank, curtain after curtain, rope after rope, socket after socket, will we continue to mold the mystic forms of that tabernacle until it is all upreared and the glory of the Holy One shall cover it and fill it and hover above it a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW 30m-l,'15 YB 08369 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY