To some extent this primitive lure of war still persists. But, fortunately, the glory and excitement of hand-to-hand conflict, the picturesque valor and visible achievement of earlier battles, are now gone. The soldier is but a cog in a machine, usually at a considerable distance from his enemy. He does not know whether his shot has hit or not; if he is wounded it is by an invisible hand. All the strain and fatigue and pain of war remain, but little of its glory and delight. Moreover, whatever normal satisfaction has been found in war can be had, as we shall presently note, in other ways- in all sorts of generous rivalries and useful as well as exciting endeavors that are open to the modern man.

(2) War has necessitated discipline, organization, courage, self- sacrifice, and has thus been a great stimulus to virtues which to some extent have carried over into other fields. It has kept men from sinking into inertia or mere pleasure seeking, fostered energy and hardihood, quieted civil strife, taught the necessity of union and justice at home. The patriotism awakened by struggle against a common enemy has often persisted when the conflict was over, given birth to art and history, and many an act of devotion to the State. But national solidarity and a regime of justice within the State are now our stable possession, while the hardier and heroic virtues can be awakened in other and less disastrous ways. War has ceased to have its former usefulness as a spur to personal and social morality.

(3) Wars of self-defense have often been necessary, to preserve goods that would have been lost by conquest; as when the Greeks at Marathon repelled the barbaric hordes of Asia, or when Charles Martel and the Franks checked the advance of the Saracens at Tours. Offensive wars, even, may have been necessary to wipe out evils, such as slavery or the oppression of neighboring peoples. But in modern times the moral justification of war on such grounds has usually been a flimsy pretext; and certainly the occasion for legitimate warfare is becoming steadily rarer. Nearly always the good aimed at could have been attained without the evils of war. If the American colonies had had a little more patience, they could have won the liberty they craved without war and separation from the mother country-as Canada and Australia have done. If the United States had had a little more patience and tact and diplomacy, it is probable that Cuba could have been saved from the intolerable oppression of Spain without war. Now that the moral pressure of the world's opinion is becoming so strong, and the Hague tribunal stands ready to adjust difficulties, there is seldom excuse for recourse to brute strength. The real cause of war lies far less often in the moral demand that prefers righteousness to peace than in the touchiness, selfishness, and resentments of nations, or their desire for glory and conquest.

(4) War has, directly or indirectly, been the means of spreading the blessings of civilization. Alexander's campaigns brought Greek culture to the Eastern world, the Roman conquests civilized the West, the famous Corniche Road was built by Napoleon to get his troops into Italy, the trans-Siberian railway, the subsidized steamship lines of modern nations, the Panama Canal, owe their existence primarily to the fear of war. But today all lands are open to peaceful penetration; missionaries and traders do more to civilize than armies. And if the building of certain roads and railways and canals might have been somewhat postponed in an era of stable peace, many more material improvements, actually more imperative if less spectacular, would certainly have been carried out with the vast sums of money saved from war expenditures. Whatever good ends, then, war may have served in the past, it is now superfluous, a mere survival of savagery, a relic of our barbaric past, a clear injury to man, in ways which we shall next consider.

What are the evils of war?

(1) We need not dwell on the physical and mental suffering caused by war; General Sherman's famous declaration, "War is hell!" sums the matter up. Agonizing wounds, pitiless disease, the permanent crippling, enfeeblement, or death of vigorous men in the prime of life, the anguish of wives and sweethearts, the loneliness of widows, the lack of care for orphans-it is impossible for those who have not lived through a great war to realize the horror of it, the cruel pain suffered by those on the field, the torturing suspense of those left behind. It is, indeed, a sad commentary on man's wisdom that, with all the distress that inevitably inheres in human life, he should have voluntarily brought upon himself still greater suffering and premature death.

(2) But the moral harm of war is no less conspicuous than the physical. It fosters cruelty, callousness, contempt of life; it kills sympathy and the gentler virtues; it coarsens and leads almost inevitably to sensuality. After a war there is always a marked increase in crime and sexual vice; ex-soldiers are restless, and find it hard to settle down to a normal life. There is a permanent coarsening of fiber. Even the maintenance of armies in time of peace is a great moral danger. The unnatural barrack-life, the requisite postponement of marriage, the opportunity for physical and moral contagion, make military posts commonly sources of moral contamination. Prostitution flourishes and illegitimacy increases where soldiers are quartered; the army is a bad school of morals.

Add to this indictment the stimulus to national hatreds caused by war, the inflaming of resentments and checking of international good will. Frenchmen still nourish a bitter animosity against the Germans for the possession of Alsace and the occupation of Paris. The instinctive racial antipathies of the Balkan peoples have been immeasurably deepened by the recent wars on the peninsula. The eventual brotherhood of man is indefinitely postponed by every war and by every rumor of war.

The interest in war also takes attention and effort away from the remedying of social and moral evils; it is useless to attempt any moral campaign while a war is on. Jane Addams tells us, in Twenty Years at Hull House, that when she visited England in 1896 she found it full of social enthusiasm, scientific research, scholarship, and public spirit; while on a second visit, in 1900, all enthusiasm and energy seemed to be absorbed by the Boer War, leaving little for humanitarian undertakings.

(3) A less obvious, but even more lasting, evil is that caused by the loss of the best blood of a nation. In general, the strongest and best men go to the field; the weaklings and cowards are left to produce the next generation. The inevitable result is racial degeneration. The decline of the Greek and Roman civilizations was doubtless in large part due to the continual killing off of the best stocks, until the earlier and nobler breed of men almost ceased to exist. The effect of modern war is the exact opposite of that of primitive war, where all the men had to fight, and the strongest or bravest or swiftest survived; strength and valor and speed avail nothing against modern projectiles, and it is the stay-at-homes who are selected for survival, in general the weakest and least worthy. War is the greatest of dysgenic forces, and undoes the effect of a hundred eugenic laws.

(4) The vast and increasing expense of war is a very serious matter for the moralist, because it means a drain of the resources that might otherwise be utilized for the advance of civilization. The cost of a modern war goes at least into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and any great war would cost billions. Every shot from a modern sixteen inch gun costs approximately a thousand dollars! Add to this direct cost the indirect costs of war, not reckoned in the usual figures-the loss of the time and work of the hundreds of thousands of able-bodied men, the economic loss of their illness and death, the destruction of buildings, bridges, railways, etc, the obstruction of commerce, the paralysis of industry and agriculture, the ravages and looting of armies, the maintenance of hospitals and nurses, and then, finally, the money given in pensions.[Footnote: The recent Balkan war is reckoned to have cost nearly half a million men killed or permanently disabled, a billion and a half dollars of direct] Add further the cost of the expenditure, besides many billions of indirect expense. The colossal European war just beginning as these pages go to press bids fair to cost immeasurably more aintenance of armies upon a peace-footing-the feeding and clothing of the men, the building and maintenance of barracks and forts, of battleships and torpedo boats, of guns and ammunition, automobiles, aeroplanes, and the increasing list of expensive modern military appurtenances. Europe spends nearly two billion dollars a year in times of peace on its armies and navies-money enough to build four or five Panama canals annually. The entire merchant marine of the world is worth but three billion dollars. More than this, over four million strong young men are kept under arms in Europe, a million more workers are engaged in making ships, weapons, gunpowder, military stores. Over a million horses are kept for army use. This money and these men, if used in the true interests of humanity, could quickly provide adequate and comfortable housing for every European, adequate schooling, clothing, and food for every one. Here is the great criminal waste of our times. In America our waste is less flagrant, but it is steadily increasing. We throw away money enough in these fratricidal preparations to cover the country with excellent roads in short order, or give every child a high school education.

In a way, however, the rapidly growing cost of war and preparation for war is to be welcomed. For it is this that is creating, more than all our moral propaganda, a rising sentiment against war, and will presently make it impossible. When the German militarists became excited over the Morocco incident in 1911, a financial panic ensued, credit was withdrawn, pockets were touched, and a great protest arose which did much to quench the jingo spirit. Japan was induced to sign her treaty of peace with Russia because her money was giving out. Turkey was unable, in the winter of 1913-14, to renew war with Greece for the Aegean Islands, because she could not raise a loan till she promised peace. The growing international financial network, and the revolt of the taxpayers against the incessant draining of their pocketbooks, promise a change for the better in European militarism before very long.

What can we do to hasten world-peace?

There are powerful forces, which without our conscious effort are making for the abolition of war: its growing cost; the extension of mutual knowledge, through the newspapers and magazines, through travel, through exchange professorships and Rhodes scholarships and all international associations; the growing sensitiveness to suffering; the spread of eugenic ideals; and the increasing interest in worldwide social, moral, and material problems. But the epoch of final peace for man can be greatly accelerated by means which we may now note.

(1) We may stimulate counter-enthusiasms to take the place of the passion for war. After all, the great war of mankind is the war against pain, disease, poverty, and sin; the real heroes are not those who squander human strength and courage in fighting one another, but those who fight for man against his eternal foes. The war of man against man is dissension in the ranks. We must make it seem more glorious to men to enlist in these humanitarian campaigns than in the miserable civil wars that impede our common triumphs. [Footnote: Cf. Perry, Moral Economy, p. 32; "War between man and man is an obsolescent form of heroism. . . . The general battle of life, the first and last battle, is still on; and it has that in it of danger and resistance, of comradeship and of triumph, that can stir the blood." And cf. President Eliot's fine eulogy of Dr. Lazear, who died of yellow fever after voluntarily undergoing inoculation by a mosquito, in the attempt to learn how to stay the disease: " With more than the courage and] Further, we should awaken interest in innocent devotion of the soldier, he risked and lost his life to show how a fearful pestilence is communicated and how its ravages may be prevented."] excitements and rivalries-in sports, in industrial competition, in missionary enterprise. A world's series in baseball, or an intercollegiate football season, can work off the restless energies of many thousands who in earlier days would have lusted for war. The revival of the Olympic games was definitely planned as a substitute for war. And men must have not only excitements and rivalries, but real difficulties and dangers-something to try their courage and endurance and train them in hardihood. For this we have exploration and mountaineering, the prosecution of difficult engineering undertakings, the attacking of corruption and the achievement of political and social reforms. [Footnote: Cf. W. James, "The Moral Equivalent of War" (in Memories and Studies), p. 287: "We must make new energies and hardihood's continue the manliness to which the military mind so faithfully clings. Martial virtues must be the enduring cement, intrepidity, contempt of softness, surrender of private interest, obedience to command, must still remain the rock upon which states are built. The martial type of character can be bred without war. The only thing needed henceforward is to inflame the civic temper as past history has inflamed the military temper."]

(2) We may spread popular knowledge of the evils of war. It is incredible that this barbarous method of deciding disputes could be continued if the people generally had a lively realization of its cost in pain, money, and degradation. Already many societies exist for the diffusion of literature on the matter, [Footnote: And of course for other work in the direction of peace. The oldest such organization in this country is the American Peace Society. The Association for International Conciliation, founded in Paris by Baron d' Estournelles de Constant, in 1899, has branches now in all the important countries. Lately we have Mr. Carnegie's endowments for international peace] conscientious editors of journals and newspapers use their columns for peace propaganda, public schools teach children the evils of war, ministers use their pulpits to denounce it. All this, effort must be pushed in greater degree until a general public sentiment is aroused that will insist on the peaceful settlement of all international difficulties.

(3) Indirectly, too, education and association can make war more and more unlikely. We can create a greater knowledge of and sympathy with other nations. We can to considerable extent train out pugnacity, quick temper, resentfulness, and train in sensitiveness to suffering, sympathy, breadth of view. All such moral progress helps in the war against war. We can encourage the interchange of professors and scientists between countries, increase the number of professional and industrial international organizations. The International Socialist party, with its threatened weapon of the general strike against war, may actually prove to be- whether we like it or not the most efficient of all forces. The International Federation of Students (Corda ratres), founded at Turin in 1898, with its branches in all civilized countries, may be of great use. A censorship of the press to exclude all jingoistic and inflammatory utterances may at times be necessary. It is even questionable whether uniforms and martial music ought not to be banished for a while, until the habit of peaceful settlement becomes fixed.

(4) Politically, we must make our public policies so high and unselfish that other nations cannot justly take offense. Most wars are provoked by national greed or selfishness, lack of manners, or the breaking of treaty obligations. The United States, it must be confessed, has to some extent lost the respect and trust of other nations for its high- handed methods and disregard of treaties. Congress is allowed to modify or abrogate any treaty without consultation with the other nation involved; and we have what many critics deem acts of grave dishonor upon our record. [Footnote: For example, the recent abrogation of our long-standing treaty with Russia, without her consent, which has forfeited her friendship; or what seemed to many the violation of our treaty-promise to England by Congress in its exemption, now repealed, of American coastwise shipping from canal tolls. It would be well to engrave over the entrance to the Capitol the Psalmist's words: "He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not."] ways we have needlessly offended and insulted other nations. The voter must watch the conduct of parties and work to elect men who, refraining from provoking other nations, will aim for peace.

(5) Practical steps in the direction of peace may be mentioned. Most important are arbitration treaties. They must be made binding, and made to apply to all matters; the loophole which permits a nation to refuse to arbitrate a matter which it believes to involve its "honor" practically invalidates the treaty altogether, as every matter in dispute may be so construed. Alliances in which one country agrees to help another if the latter has agreed to arbitrate a matter and its enemy has refused, may be of great value. Treaties that guarantee existing boundaries and bind a nation not to extend its territory are useful, even if there is no adequate method as yet of enforcing such guaranties. The question whether we shall increase or decrease our army and navy is hotly disputed. The United States might well lead the way in disarmament, since the oceans that separate us from Europe and Asia are a better protection than forts or fleets, and no nation has enough to gain by fighting us to make it worth the cost. With the great European nations the case is different, and disarmament will probably have to come by mutual agreement. The only valid reason for an American army and navy lies in the power they give us to protect our citizens abroad, or to protect our weaker neighbors against foreign aggression. Perhaps until there is formed an international army and navy, it will be necessary for the most civilized and pacific nations to keep armed, since the less scrupulous nations would remain armed and acquire the balance of power. But the contention that a great armament is the best guaranty of peace is untrue, for two reasons: it is an inevitable provocation to other nations to match it with other great armaments; and the very existence of battleships and weapons creates a temptation to use them. The professional soldier is always eager to see active service, to prove his efficiency, have excitement, win glory and advancement. As the Odyssey puts it, "The steel blade itself often incites to deeds of violence."

(6) The ultimate solution for international difficulties must, of course, be world organization. The beginnings of an international court we have already, the outcome of the first two Hague Conferences, in 1899 and 1907. It must be given greater powers, and backed up by an international executive, legislature, and police. Perhaps the police will be the combined armies of the world put at the service of international justice. This "parliament of nations, federation of the world" is not a Utopian dream; it is hardly a greater step than that by which savage tribes, or the thirteen States of North America, or the South African and Australian States, became welded into nations. It is to be remembered that the wager of battle was the original method of settling private disputes; and even when trial by jury was authorized, the older form of settlement persisted long-being legally abolished in England only as late as 1819. Similarly, the peaceful settlement of international disputes will doubtless before many generations become so universal that it will be difficult for our grandchildren or great- grandchildren to realize that as late as early in the twentieth century the most civilized nations still had recourse to the old and barbarous wager of battle.

H. Spencer, "Patriotism,", " Rebarbarization" (in Facts and Comments). G. K. Chesterton, "Patriotism" (in The Defendant). G. Santayana, Reason in Society, chap. VII. Outlook, vol. 92, p. 317; vol. 90, p. 534. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 16, p. 472. The American Association for International Conciliation (Sub-Station 84, New York City) sends free literature on request. A bibliography of peace literature will be found in their pamphlet No. 64. E. L. Godkin, "Peace" (in Reflections and Comments). W. James, "Speech at the Peace Banquet," and "The Moral Equivalent of War" (in Memories and Studies'). Jane Addams, Newer Ideals of Peace, chaps. I, VII; The Arbiter in Council. J. Novicow, War and its Alleged Benefits. N. Angell, The Great Illusion. W. J. Tucker, The New Movement of Humanity. V. L. Kellogg, Beyond War, chap. I. D. S. Jordan, War and Waste. R. C. Morris, International Arbitration and Procedure. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 22, p. 127. World's Work, vol. 20, p. 13318; vol. 21, p. 14128. Independent, vol. 77, p. 396. Outlook, vol. 86, pp. 137, 145; vol. 83, p. 376; vol. 84, p. 29; vol. 98, p. 59. Hibbert Journal, vol. 12, p. 105.



CHAPTER XXIV

POLITICAL PURITY

AND EFFICIENCY THE attainment of a stable peace is the first public duty; the second is the achievement of an efficient government. Where politics are corrupt and inefficient all social progress is obstructed; and all such ideals of a reshaped human society as the Socialists yearn toward must be postponed until we have learned to run the machinery of government smoothly and effectively. The backward condition of peoples whose government is unintelligent needs no examples. The Russo-Japanese War brought into sharp contrast a nation of limitless resources and fine human stock handicapped and crippled by a selfish bureaucracy, and a much smaller nation, inexperienced and remote from the great world currents, but strengthened and made efficient by an intelligent and patriotic administration. In Persia and Mesopotamia we find poverty, ignorance, desert, where once flourished mighty empires: bad government is the cause. Greece and Italy and Egypt are struggling to recover from centuries of misgovernment. In this country government has been far wiser and more responsive to the community's needs; and yet the apathy of the intelligent public and the intrusion of private greed have distorted and obstructed legislation until social reformers throw up their hands in despair. But there are hopeful signs. The causes of this political mismanagement are being more generally recognized today, and it is probable that the next few decades will witness great strides toward improving the mechanism of American government and banishing corruption.

What are the forces making for corruption in politics?

(1) By one means or other, unscrupulous rulers and officeholders have always been able to replenish their private income by misuse of their official powers. Since popular government was first tried there has existed a class of professional politicians with little regard for the public welfare and ready to do anything to keep themselves in power and fatten their pocketbooks. We have in America the well-known phenomena of the "machine," the "ring," and the "boss," whose motto is "Politics is politics," and who are unashamed to put their interests above those of the people at large. Their control of the machinery of government enables them, unless ingenious provisions prevent, to wink at illegal voting and fraudulent counting of votes, to get the dregs of the population out to the polls, and perhaps intimidate their opponents from voting. The police power has often been misused for such purposes; the gerrymander is another clever method of manipulating the results of elections. Such means, together with the use as bribe money of funds deflected from the public treasury, the blackmail of vice, and the acceptance of "contributions" from favored parties, create a vicious circle which tends to keep in power corrupt officials who have once got hold.

(2) But the power of unscrupulous politicians is made far greater by the support of those whose personal interests they make a business of furthering. Whole sections of the people are pleased and placated and bribed by special legislation in their favor, and as many individuals as possible are given positions. Behind every "boss" there are always hundreds of men who owe their "jobs" to him, and many others who cherish promises and hopes for personal favors. Jane Addams tells us that upon one occasion when the reformers in Chicago tried to oust a corrupt alderman they "soon discovered that approximately one out of every five voters in the nineteenth ward at that time held a job dependent upon the good will of the alderman." [Footnote: Twenty Years at Hull House, p. 316.]

(3) Of especial importance are the great "interests" that are always to be found behind a corrupt administration. These corporations are so dependent upon the good will of the Government for their prosperity, and even for their very existence, that from the primitive instinct of self-preservation as well as from the greed of exorbitant profits, they stand ready to give liberal bribes, or at least to back with money and moral support the party machine that promises to favor them. They control a large proportion of the newspapers and magazines, and are thus able to distort facts, protect themselves from attack, and even stir up a factitious distrust of would-be reformers. As every little contractor naturally favors the "ring" that awards contracts to him, so the great corporations publicly or secretly support it. The liquor trade and the vice caterers-the keepers of gambling dens, illegal "shows," and disorderly houses-back by their money and votes the "machine" that they know will let them alone. But, indeed, the most "respectable" trusts and public-service corporations are often most culpable, and the greatest power behind the throne. Their interest in the personnel of the Government is far keener than that of the average citizen; they can usually succeed, by cleverly specious presentations of the situation, in dividing the forces against them, and often, by "deals," in effecting secret alliances of the "rings" in control of supposedly opposing parties. The poor are right in supposing that these powerful "interests" are their greatest enemy; as that keen observer of our national life, Mr. Bryce, has put it, "the power of money is for popular governments the most constant source of danger."

(4) But, after all, this combination of forces in defiance of the common weal would not be effective but for the comparative indifference of the people, which may thus be called a contributing factor. The average voter feels no stimulus of self-interest in the matter; "what is everybody's business is nobody's business," and the individual finds his personal influence so slight that it seems hardly worth his pains to do anything about it. Occasionally popular passions become aroused and reform movements make a clean sweep; but the result is usually temporary, and when the general attention is turned elsewhere the bosses creep back to power. Modern life has so many more personal interests in it than the ancient republics had, that public affairs seldom become so big and absorbing an interest. And the more public affairs become the concern of a special group of men with dubious reputations, the more politics are shunned by the average citizen. Home life and business, social life and amusements, aesthetic, intellectual, and religious interests, are so much more attractive to him, that he gives little heed to political conditions, lets himself be duped by newspaper talk, and votes blindly some party ticket, without realizing his gullibility and his poor citizenship.

What are the evil results of political corruption?

(1) The obvious result of these conditions is inefficiency of administration and waste of the public moneys. The real interests of city or State are neglected. Streets become filthy, unsanitary tenements are built, firetrap factories and theaters allowed; every effort to improve public health is sidetracked, and the will of the people is subordinated to the will of the gang. Officials are nominated or appointed not for their competence but for their subservience to the organization; the boss himself, inexpert in administration, responsible to no one, and usually bribable, dictates public policy. The public funds disappear as in a quicksand; extravagant prices are paid for building lots and contracts, in return for political support or a share of the loot. Philadelphia before the reform movement of 1911 borrowed fifty-one million dollars in four years, and at the end had practically nothing to show for it, with the city dirty, buildings out of repair, and everything important neglected. One contractor in the "ring" was paid $520,000 a year to remove the city garbage-a privilege which is actually paid for in some cities, the value of the garbage for fertilizer and the manufacture of other products making the collection of it a profitable business.

(2) Another evil result lies in the subordination of general to local interests. The scattered and ineffective "pork-barrel" appropriations of Congress are dictated not by intelligent consideration for the public weal, but by the desire to throw a sop to this and that section of the country, and thereby win votes. Costly buildings are authorized in many towns where they are not needed, river and harbor improvements proceed at a halting pace in a hundred places at once, unnecessary navy yards and custom houses are maintained at heavy cost, the army is scattered at many small and expensive posts. Even the tariff is largely a deal between various manufacturing interests, rather than an instrument of the public good. Most officials consider themselves bound to exert all their influence in favor of their particular constituency's desires; if they cross those wishes they will probably not be reelected, while if they sacrifice the interests of the people as a whole they will be immune from punishment. Most of the state universities, normal schools, asylums, and other institutions have been located where they are as the result of a deal between different sections rather than with a view to the most advantageous site.

(3) To these grave evils we must add the moral harm of selfish and corrupt politics. Standards of honor are blurred, the spirit of public service is almost lost sight of, and the cheap materialism to which our prosperous age is too easily prone flourishes apace. The man who would succeed in politics-unless he is a man of extraordinary personality and favored by good fortune-must be disingenuous and a time-server, must truckle to bosses and do favors for the ring; he must appeal to prejudice and passion and put his personal advancement before his ideals. No one can estimate the evil effect that corruption in politics has had upon the national character. When we add the indirect effects- the distortion of the public news-service, the protection of vice, the insecurity of justice-the moral evils of political corruption are seen to be of gravest importance.

What is the political duty of the citizen?

(1) In the present chaotic state of our machinery of government, where corruption is so easy and efficiency so difficult to obtain, the burden must rest upon every conscientious voter to play his part with intelligence. He must study the situation, keep himself informed as to candidates and issues, watch the conduct of officials, vote at primaries and elections, however irksome and fruitless this effort may seem. Above all, he must use independence of judgment, and not let himself be duped by disingenuous appeals to "party loyalty"; where blind party voting is prevalent there is little stimulus to party managers to nominate able and honorable men or to promote needed legislation. Public opinion must be kept aroused, the sense of individual responsibility awakened, and political matters kept in the glare of publicity. At election times whoever can spare the time should, after learning the local situation, take some part in the campaign, by public speaking, personal soliciting of is a shame that the peaceable home-loving citizen should have to be dragged into this business of politics, which ought to be left to experts to manage; but at present there seems no help for it in most communities.

(2) An important service lies in joining or forming local branches of the leagues which now exist for the pushing of specific political measures, for the investigation and publication of impartial records of candidates, or for the investigation of the expenditures and results of administrations. Under the first head we may classify, for example, the National Short Ballot Organization; under the second head the Good Government Association, that makes it its business to send to each voter in a community a printed statement of the past history of each candidate for office, including the record of his vote on important matters; under the third head there are the Bureaus of Municipal Research. The New York Bureau, incorporated in 1907, conducts a yearly budget exhibit that shows graphically what is being done with the money raised by taxation. Inefficiency and corruption are ferreted out, waste is demonstrated, suggestions are made for economy, for the improvement of administration in every detail, and the amelioration of evil social conditions. By its determined publicity it can do much to energize and modernize city government. [Footnote: Cf. World's Work, vol. 23, p. 683. National Municipal Review, vol. 2. p. 48.]

(3) The outlook for clean and public-spirited young men, with expert knowledge and ideals, who wish to enter a political career, is gradually becoming more encouraging. The reformer in politics must be not merely an idealist, but a man who can do things. He must show his constituents that reform government serves them better than the ringsters. Reform tactics have too often been negative; stopped, but no positive measures for social welfare have been passed. To be successful, a politician must show the people that he understands and is able to satisfy their needs. More effective than any moral house- cleaning in securing the tenure of an administration is its efficiency in promoting better living and working conditions, improving opportunities for recreation and education, or loosening the clutch of the predatory "interests." Moreover, the politician must be a good mixer, willing to work with those who do not share his idealism, good- natured and conciliatory, ready to postpone the accomplishment of much that he has at heart in order to get something done. As organization is in most matters necessary for effectiveness, he must usually work with a party, do a lot of distasteful detail work, and make compromises for the sake of agreements. Happily, the Progressive party has made an out- and-out stand for the application of morals to politics; and the growing movement in the cities toward seeking experts to manage their affairs gives hope that the way will soon be generally open for men of scientific training and high ideals in political life.

What legislative checks to corruption are possible?

It is, of course, an unnatural situation when the ordinary citizen has to spend a lot of time and effort if he would guard against being misgoverned. He ought to be able to tend to his own affairs and leave the machinery of government to those who have been trained to it and whose business it is. And while no political mechanism will ever wholly run itself, without watchfulness on the part of the people, experience shows clearly that it is possible by a wise system to make corruption much more difficult and more easily checked. We Americans are beginning to awake from our complacent self-gratulation and realize that our political machinery is clumsy and antiquated and a standing invitation to inefficiency. The discussion of the relative advantages of legislative schemes belongs to the science of government rather than to ethics; but their bearing upon public morality is so important that certain typical movements must be explained. The stages by which the advanced form of popular government which we have now attained has been reached need not, for our purposes, be considered-the extension of suffrage to the masses, government by representatives, registration laws, the secret ballot, and the like. We need only discuss several reforms now being agitated and tried, whose aim is to make government more responsive to the real wishes and needs of the people, and more difficult of usurpation by selfish interests.

I. We may first speak of several reforms whose aim is to improve our mechanism of election, in order that merit, rather than "pull," shall lead to office, and that officials shall represent the people rather than the political rings. It is not generally true that good and able men are unwilling to accept public office; what they are unwilling to do is to truckle to bosses, to do all the questionable things that will keep them in with the ring, or to spend large sums of money in advertising their claims to the public. So thoroughly have political machines entrenched themselves that it is often practically useless for any one to oppose the machine candidate. Appointees receive their positions for "political services" rendered, or in return for a "campaign contribution" for which they may hope to recoup themselves when in office. To destroy utterly this political "graft" will be impossible until human nature becomes more generally moralized; but to render it more difficult and less common is the purpose of a number of measures, of which we may mention the following:

(1) CIVIL SERVICE LAWS. These require appointments to office, made by officials, to be made on the basis of competitive examinations which shall test the ability and knowledge of the applicants. By this means, within a generation, tens of thousands of positions have been put beyond the reach of spoilsmen, and men of worth have replaced political henchmen. Instead of a great overturn with every new political regime, the man who has now fairly won his position retains it for life, except in case of proved inefficiency. The quality of the public service has been immeasurably improved, the subservience of office-holders to political chiefs abolished. [Footnote: See Atlantic Monthly, vol. 113, p. 270. National Municipal Review, vol. 1, p. 654; vol. 3, p. 316.] But there are still many thousands of offices that have not been brought within the civil service, and there are continual attempts on the part of politicians to withdraw from it this or that class of appointments, that they may have "plums" to offer their constituents. To the most important positions the civil service method is, however, inapplicable; imagine a President having to appoint as his Secretary of State the man who passed the best examination in diplomacy! So many other considerations affect the availability of a man for such posts that the elected officials must be given a free hand in their choice and held responsible therefore to the people. These important appointees will be enough in the public eye to make it usually expedient for the career of the appointers that they pick reasonably honest and able men-especially if the recall (of which we shall presently speak) is in operation.

(2) The short ballot. As our government has grown more and more complex, the number of officials for whom the citizen must vote has increased, with the result that he has to decide in many cases among rival candidates about none of whom he knows anything definitely. For four or five offices he can be fairly expected the merits of the candidates in the field; but to investigate or remember the relative merits and demerits of a score or more is more than the average voter will do. So he may "scratch" his party's candidate for governor or mayor, but usually votes the "straight ticket" for the minor officials. This works too well into the hands of the political machines. The obvious remedy is to give him only a few officers to vote for and to require the remaining offices to be filled by appointment instead of election.

By this method, not only is the voter saved from needless confusion and enabled to concentrate his attention upon the few big offices, but the responsibility for misgovernment is far more clearly fixed, and the possibility of remedying it made much easier. If a dozen state officials are elected, the average citizen is uncertain who is to blame for inefficiency; each official shoves the responsibility on to the others' shoulders, and it is not plain what can be done except to depose them all, one by one. If a governor only is elected, and is required to appoint his subordinates, the entire blame rests upon his shoulders. If dishonesty or misadministration is discovered, he must take the shame; he may be recalled from office if he is not quick enough in removing the guilty man and remedying the evil.

Further, the right to choose his own subordinates makes the work of the chief much easier, brings a unity of purpose into an administration which is likely to be absent when a number of different men, simultaneously elected, perhaps representing different parties, have to work together. The increased power and responsibility of the chief offices attract able men, men of ideals and training, who do not care for an office whose power is limited by that of various machine politicians who, they know, will hamper them on every side in their efforts for efficient administration. And, apart from this consideration, a man able enough to win election as governor is a far better judge of the men best fitted for the various technical duties that fall to his subordinates than is the general public. Experience shows that the men chosen by chiefs who are elected and held responsible to the people are generally abler than those elected to the same positions by popular vote.

The present movement toward a short ballot, with responsibility clearly denned and concentrated, will doubtless do away ultimately with the clumsy systems by which both States and cities in this country are now governed-the two-chambered legislatures, with their inevitable friction betwixt themselves and with the executive. This method of checks and counter-checks was thought necessary as a safeguard against tyranny, the bugbear of our forefathers, but is now the enemy of efficiency and the haunt of corruption. The much simpler commission form of government, which, originating in Galveston and Des Moines a few years ago, has already, at date of writing, been adopted by over three hundred cities, substitutes for the usual executive and legislative branches a small group of elected officials - commonly five-who, with the aid of appointed subordinates, carry on the whole business of the city. Some such plan may eventually be adopted for states, and even for the national government. [Footnote: R. S. Childs, Short Ballot Principles, Story of the Short Ballot Cities. C. A. Beard, Loose Leaf Digest of Short Ballot Charters. Free literature of the National Short Ballot Organization (383 Fourth Avenue, New York City). C. R. Woodruff, City Government by Commission. E. S. Bradford, Com- mission Government in American Cities. National Municipal Review, vol. 1, pp. 40, 170, 372, 562; vol. 2, p. 661. The American City, vol. 9, p. 236. Outlook, vol. 92, pp. 635, 829; vol. 99, p. 362. Forum, vol. 51, p. 354.]

(3) Direct primaries. Experience has conclusively shown that the caucus system of making nominations for office plays directly into the hands of the machine; its practical result has been that the voter is usually restricted in his nominees of the bosses and the "interests." The direct primary gives the independent candidate his opportunity, and makes it more practicable for honest citizens to determine between what candidates the final choice shall lie. It implies effort on the part of the candidate to make himself known to the voters; but such effort there must always be, unless the candidate is already a conspicuous figure, in order that the citizen may have grounds for his decision. It has in some places led to an exorbitant expenditure for self-advertisement; but this expenditure can be pretty well controlled by legislation. The argument that it does away with the deliberation possible in a caucus wears the aspect of a joke, in view of the sort of deliberation the caucus has in practice encouraged; and discussion does, of course, take place in the public press, which is the modern forum. It is possible, however, that some modified form of the direct primary plan may be better still, such as the Hughes plan, which provided for the election at each primary of a party committee to present carefully discussed nominations for the following year's primary to approve or reject.[Footnote: See Outlook, vol. 90, p. 382; vol. 95, p: 507. North American Review, vol. 190, p. 1] Arena, vol. 35, p. 587; vol. 36, p. 52; vol. 41, p. 550. Forum, vol. 42, p. 493. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110, p. 41.

(4) PREFERENTIAL VOTING. A more radical movement would abolish primaries altogether and settle elections upon one day by preferential voting. The voter indicates his second choices, and any further choices he may care to indicate. If no candidate receives a majority of first choices, the first and second choices are added together; if necessary, the third choices. In this way the danger, so often realized, of a split vote and the election of a minority candidate, will be banished; it will no longer be possible for a machine candidate, actually the least majority of the people, to win a plurality over the divided forces of opposition. The real wishes of the voter can be discovered and obeyed more readily than with our present troublesome and expensive system of double elections. [Footnote: National Municipal Review, vol. 1, p. 386; vol. 3, pp. 49, 83.]

(5) PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. By means of preferential voting it is possible to make representative bodies a mirror not of the majority party, but of the real divisions of opinion in a community. One of the great evils in our present system of majority rule is the suppression of the wishes of the minority-which may amount to nearly half the community. [Footnote: Cf. Unpopular Review, vol. 1, p. 22.] Strong parties may go for many years without any representation, or with representation quite disproportionate to their numbers. By the method of proportional representation, every man's vote counts, and every considerable body of opinion can send its representative to council. Men of marked personality, who have aroused too great hostility to make them safe candidates as we vote today, because they would be unlikely to win a majority, can get a constituency sufficient to elect them, while the harmless nobody, elected today only to avoid a feared rival, will have less chance. The evil gerrymander will be abolished, and representative bodies will be divided along party lines in the very proportions in which the people are divided.

Moreover, since on this plan every vote counts, the greatest source of political apathy will be removed-that sense of hopelessness which paralyzes the efforts of the members of a minority party. Corruption will hardly pay; for whereas at present the boss has but to win the comparatively few votes necessary to swing the balance toward a bare majority, in order to have complete control, he will upon this plan secure control only in actual proportion to the number of votes he can secure.

Another advantage of the system lies in the stabler policy it will ensure. Our present system results in frequent sharp overturns, according as this party or that may get a temporary majority. But this battledore and shuttlecock of legislation does not represent the far more gradual changes in public opinion. A system whereby the number of representatives of each party is always directly proportioned to the number of votes cast for that party would make it possible to evolve a careful machinery of government, as is not possible with our periodic upheavals and reversals of personnel and policy.[Footnote: See publications of the American Proportional Representation League (Secretary C. G. Hoag, Haverford, Pennsylvania). National Municipal Review, vol. 3, p. 92. American City, vol. 10, p. 319. Thomas Hare, Representation. J. S. Mill, Representative Government, chap. VII. Political Science Quarterly, vol. 29, p. 111. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, p. 610.]

(6) THE SEPARATION OF NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL ISSUES. The obtrusion of national party lines into state and municipal affairs has continually confused issues and blocked reforms in the narrower spheres. Masses of voters will support a candidate for governor or mayor simply because he is a Republican or Democrat, although the national party issues in no way enter into the campaign. Bosses skillfully play on this blind party allegiance, and many a scoundrel or incompetent has ridden into office under the party banner. The separation of local from national elections has proved itself a necessity; in the most advanced communities they are now put in different years, that the loyalties evoked by one campaign may not carry over blindly into another. The direct election of United States Senators has this great advantage, among others, of separating issues; in former days the alternative was often forced upon the citizen of voting for a state legislator who stood for measures of which he disapproved, or of voting for a better legislator who would not vote for the United States Senator he wished to see elected.

(7) Space forbids the further discussion of reforms that aim at improving the machinery of election. The value of anti-bribery laws is obvious, as of the laws that require publicity of campaign accounts, forbid campaign contributions by corporations, and limit the legal expenditures of individuals. [Footnote: Cf. Outlook, vol. 81, p. 549.] The publication at public expense and sending to every voter of a pamphlet giving in his own words the arguments on the strength of which each candidate seeks election has recently been tried in the West. But this is sure, that in one way or other the American people will evolve a mechanism which will make it easier for able and honest men to attain office than for the rogues and their incompetent henchmen.

II. A second set of reforms bears rather upon the quality of legislation than upon the selection of men for office. It is not enough that the way be made easy for good men to attain office; they must, when elected, be freed from needless temptations and given every inducement to work for the interests of the community they represent. Every possible pressure is valuable that can counteract the pull of sectional interests, party interests, or the interests of the great corporations, away from the general welfare. For even the best intentioned officials may yield to the insistence of local or partisan wishes, to the arguments of "big business," or to the lure of personal advantage.

(1) REPRESENTATION AT LARGE. The method of legislation by representatives of local districts leads inevitably to laws that are a compromise or bargain between the interests of the several districts, rather than the result of a desire to further the best interests of the entire community. Congressmen are continually beset by their constituents to secure special favors for them, aldermen are expected to push the interests of their respective wards. Each representative stands in danger of political suicide if he refuses to use his influence for these often improper ends; and legislation takes the form of a quid pro quo:-"You vote for this bill which my section desires, and I'll vote for the bill yours demands." This evil is so great that it may be necessary eventually to do away entirely with district representation.[Footnote: See Outlook, vol. 95, p. 759.]

(2) DELEGATED GOVERNMENT. Another plan, which evades the pressure of local interests while allowing district representation, also avoids the friction and deadlocks which result from government by a group of representatives of sharply opposed parties or principles. By this plan, a representative body is elected, by districts, or at large, by proportional representation; but this body, instead of itself deciding or executing the state or municipal policy, serves merely to select and watch experts, who carry on the various phases of government. These experts remain responsible to the representatives, who in turn are responsible to the people. This method promises to combine concentration of responsibility, efficiency, and business-like government, with democracy, that is, responsiveness to popular control. The national Congress may, for example, appoint a commission of experts on the tariff, agreeing to consider no tariff legislation except such as they recommend; in this way they are freed from all requests to propose this or that alteration in the interests of their State or one of its industries, while the commissioners, not being responsible to any localities, are under no pressure to yield to such requests. Similarly, the right to recommend-or even to enact-legislation on pensions, on river and harbor appropriations, or what not, may be delegated to an appointed body responsible only to the Congress at large; and all the "pork-barrel" legislation, which the better class of legislators hate, but which is forced upon them by the threat of political ruin, may be obviated. [Footnote: Cf. the new (1914) Public Health Council of six members, in New York State, to whom has been delegated all power to make and enforce laws bearing upon the public health throughout the State (except in New York City). See World's Work, vol. 27, p. 495.] The plan of delegating power to appointed experts has very recently been winning approval in municipal government, where it is commonly called the "City Manager " plan. A small body of commissioners are elected and held responsible for the city government; these men may remain in their private vocations, and draw a comparatively small salary from the city. Their duty is to select an expert city manager who will receive a high salary, and conduct personally and through his appointees the whole business of the city. The commissioners may dismiss him if his work is not satisfactory and engage another to take his place. Responsibility is concentrated; mismanagement can be stopped at once, more readily even than by the recall; unity and continuity of policy become possible; in short, the same successful methods that have made American business the admiration of the world can be applied to politics. If this plan becomes widely adopted, as it bids fair to be, politics can become a trained profession, and we can be governed by experts instead of by politicians. [Footnote: See The City Manager Plan of Municipal Government (printed by the National Short Ballot Organization) National Municipal Review, vol. 1, pp. 33, 549; vol. 2, pp. 76, 639; vol. 3, p. 44. Outlook, vol. 104, p. 887.]

(3) THE RECALL. Many of the newer plans for government include a method by which an inefficient or dishonest official can be removed from office by the people, without the cumbersome process of an impeachment. It would not be wise to apply the recall to local representatives, who would then be still more at the mercy of local wishes; but with a short ballot and the concentration of responsibility upon executives or small commissions who represent the community as a whole, it is highly desirable to have a method available for quickly remedying mistakes. The danger of being recalled from office is a salutary influence upon a weak or a self-willed man. And the possibility of it allows the election of officials for longer terms, which are desirable from several points of view: they bring a more stable government, freed from too frequent breaks or reversals of policy; they permit the acquiring of a longer political experience, and stimulate abler men to run for office; they save the public the bother and expense of too frequent elections. [Footnote: See National Municipal Review, vol. 1, p. 204. Forum, vol. 47, p. 157. North American Review, vol. 198, p. 145.]

(4) THE REFERENDUM. A less drastic instrument of popular control over legislation is the referendum, which refers individual measures back to the people for approval or rejection. An official may be efficient and free from corruption, yet opposed to the general wish on some particular matter. In this, then, he may be overruled by the referendum without being humiliated or required to resign his office. Thus not only the improper influence of the machine or the interests may be guarded against by the public, but the unconscious prejudices of generally efficient officials. Of course there is, in the case of both recall and referendum, the possibility that the official may be right and the people wrong. But that danger is inherent in democratic government. The best that can be done is to make government responsive to the sober judgment of the majority; if that is mistaken, nothing but time and education can correct it. [Footnote: See W. B. Munro, The Initiative, Referendum and Recall; The Government of American Cities, p. 321. Political Science Quarterly, vol. 26, p. 415; vol. 28, p. 207. National Municipal Review, vol. 1, p. 586. Nation, vol. 95, p. 324.]

The air is full of suggestions, and experiments are being tried in every direction. There is every hope that America may yet learn by her failures and evolve a system of government that shall be her pride rather than her shame. Our National Government has worked far better than our state and local government, but even that can be further freed from the pull of improper motives, made much more efficient and responsive to the general will. We are in a peculiar degree on trial to show what popular government can accomplish. The Old World looks to us with distrust, but with hope. And though the solution of our political problem involves many technical matters, it has deep underlying moral bearings, and affects profoundly the success of every great moral campaign.

R. C. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life. L. Steffens, The Shame of the Cities. J. Bryce, The Hindrances to Good Government. W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, chaps. VIII, IX. Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics, chap. VII. A. T. Hadley, Standards of Public Morality, chaps. IV, V. T. Roosevelt, American Ideals. C. R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, chap. XI. Edmond Kelly, Evolution and Effort, chap. IX. W. H. Taft, Four Aspects of Civic Duty. E. Root, The Citizen's Part in Government. D. F. Wilcox, Government by All the People. L. S. Rowe, Problems of City Government. H. E. Deming, The Government of American Cities. Publications of the National Municipal League (703 North American Building, Philadelphia). Political Science Quarterly, vol. 18, p. 188; vol. 19, p. 673;



CHAPTER XXV

SOCIAL ALLEVIATION

WHEN the security of peace and an efficient government are attained, the way lies open for the amelioration of social evils. Freedom from war and from political corruption are but the pre-conditions of social advance, which must consist in three things: the healing of existing ills, the reorganization of society to prevent the recurrence of similar ills, and the bringing of new opportunities and joys to the people. Our first step, then, is to consider social therapeutics-the palliation of present suffering, the redressing of existing wrongs; however we may seek, by radical readjustments, to strike at the roots of these evils, we must not fail to mitigate, as best we can, the lot of those who are the unfortunate victims of our still crude social organization. The detailed study of social ills and their remedies has come to be a science by itself, and a science that calls for close attention; for there is more good will than insight a field, and nothing demands more wisdom and experience than the permanent curing of social sores. But it falls to ethics to note the general duties and opportunities, to point out the responsibility of the individual citizen for wrongs which he is not helping to right, and to direct him to the great moral causes in one or more of which an increasing number of our educated men and women are enrolling themselves. A questionnaire recently sent out by the author of this book discloses the fact that over half the college graduates of this country have given time and money to one or more of the campaigns which are being waged for social betterment. [Footnote: Some of the results of this questionnaire were published in the Independent for August 5, 1913, vol. 75, p. 348.] These evils which it is the duty of the State to try to remedy we shall now consider.

What is the duty of the State in regard to:

I. SICKNESS AND PREVENTABLE DEATH? Physical ills are the unavoidable lot of the human race; but by no means to the extent to which they now prevail. A very large percentage of existing sickness and infirmity could have been prevented by a timely application of such knowledge as the intelligent already possess. It is the poverty, the crowded and unsanitary living conditions, the ignorance and helplessness of the masses, that perpetuate all this unnecessary suffering, this economic waste, this drag on human efficiency and happiness. Not only from humanitarian motives, but also from regard for national prosperity and virility, it behooves the State to wage war against preventable illness and safeguard the general health.

How shocking conditions are, in view of the sanitary and medical knowledge we now possess, we are not apt to realize. It is estimated that of the three million or so who are seriously ill in this country on any average day, more than half might have been kept well by the enforcement of proper precautions; that of the 1,500,000 deaths that occur annually in the United States, nearly half could have been postponed. Tuberculosis, for example, is not a highly contagious or rapid disease; it is absolutely preventable by measures now understood, and almost always curable in its earliest stages. Yet half a million people in our country are suffering from it, and about 130,000 die of it annually. Typhoid, which could readily be as nearly eradicated as smallpox has been, claims some 30,000 victims annually. It has been estimated by various statisticians that the nation could save a billion dollars a year through postponing deaths, and at least half as much again by preventing illness that does not result fatally. Tuberculosis alone is said to cost the country half a billion annually, typhoid over three hundred million, and so on. The cost in suffering, broken lives, and broken hearts is beyond computation.

There are many different ways in which the campaign for public health can be simultaneously waged:

(1) The enforcement of quarantine laws, vaccination, and fumigation, should be much stricter than it is in many parts of the nation. By such means the cholera, bubonic plague, and other terrible diseases have been practically kept out of the country, and smallpox has become, from one of the most dreaded scourges, an almost negligible peril. Experience shows strikingly the advantage of isolating patients suffering from contagious diseases; here at least the State, in the interest of the community as a whole, must sternly limit individual liberty. And it looks as if we were at the threshold of an era of "vaccination" for other diseases besides smallpox; typhoid is now absolutely preventable by that means, and the number of diseases amenable to prevention or mitigation by similar methods is yearly increasing. In some or all of these cases there is a slight risk to the patient, in view of which compulsory "vaccination" is in some quarters strenuously opposed. Leaving the discussion of the principle here involved to chapter XXVIII, we may confidently say, at least, that voluntary inoculation against diseases is an increasingly valuable safeguard not only for the individual in question but for the whole community.

(2) Apart from state action, voluntary organizations formed to attack specific diseases, by spreading popular knowledge of preventive measures, and pushing legislation for their enforcement, offer much promise. The Anti-Tuberculosis League can already point to a ten per cent decline in the death rate from that plague in the decade from 1900 to 1910. [Footnote: For methods and results consult the Secretary of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City. Free literature is sent, and information furnished on request.] But while in New York City alone nearly thirty thousand fresh victims are seized by the disease every year, a voluntary organization cannot hope to cope with the situation; the power and resources of the State are needed. The congestion of population, and the lack of proper light and air, which are the greatest factors, perhaps, in the spread of the scourge, must be attacked by legislation. So typhoid must be fought not only by vaccination, but by legislation insuring a pure water supply, proper sewage disposal, and the protection of food from contamination. Measures necessary to eradicate that pest, the house fly, must be enforced, the mosquito must be as nearly as possible exterminated, streets and yards must be kept clean, the smoke nuisance abated, the slaughtering of animals and canning of food sharply regulated, sanitary conditions enforced in homes and factories. One of the prerequisites to any marked improvement will be the "taking out of politics" of the public health service and making it an expert profession.

(3) Another service that the community must eventually, in its own interests, provide, is free medical attendance, by really competent physicians, wherever there is need. Without referring to the suffering and anxiety spared, the expense of this service will far more than be saved the State in the prevention of illness and premature death. The most careful medical inspection of school children, including attention by experts to eyes, ears, and teeth, is of utmost importance; all sorts of ills can thus be averted which the parents are too ignorant or careless to forestall. [Footnote: Consult the literature of the American School Hygiene Association (Secretary T. A. Storey, College of the City of New York). L. D. Cruickshank, School Clinics at Home and Abroad. Outlook, vol. 84, p. 662.] It is earnestly to be hoped that the present chaos of medical education and practice will be soon reduced to a better order; that practitioners who prefer manipulation or mental healing, for example, will, instead of forming separate and antagonistic schools, unite their insight and experience with the main stream of scientific therapeutic effort. The quacks who delude and murder hordes of ignorant victims must be, so far as is practicable, severely punished; and adequate physiological and medical education should be required for all practicing healers, whatever methods they may then choose to employ.

(4) Besides free medical attendance, the State must pro- vide free hospitals for the sick, nurses for the poor, asylums for those who are incapacitated by infirmity from self-support. The care and treatment of the feeble-minded, the insane, the deaf, the blind, the crippled, should always be in the hands of experts; and, so far as possible, work that they can do must be provided. With the enforcement of the measures we have enumerated, the need of such institutions will become much less; but at present they are inadequate in number and equipment, too often managed by incompetent officials, and not always free from scandal. [Footnote: Cf. C. R, Henderson, Social Spirit in America, chap. XV.]

(5) Most important of all, perhaps, is the work that must be done to save the babies. Approximately a third of the babies born in this country die before they are four years old; half or two thirds of these could be saved. Wonderful results in baby saving have followed strict control of the milk supply and the banishing of the fly. Besides this, mothers must in some way be given instruction in the very difficult and complicated art of rearing infants; for many of the deaths are due to simple ignorance.[Footnote: For methods and results in baby-saving, consult the Secretary of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality, 1211 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, Maryland. Also Outlook, vol. 101, p. 190. J. S. Gibbon, Infant Welfare Centers.] Poverty, the necessity of self- support on the part of mothers, also plays a large part; we shall consider in chapter xxx the possibility of state care of mothers during the infancy of their children. II. Poverty and inadequate living conditions? If human illness can be in large measure averted by state action, poverty can be practically abolished. The poor we have always had with us, indeed; but we need not forever have them. There is no excuse for our tolerance of the suffering and degradation of the submerged classes; the causes of this wretchedness are in the main removable. The initial cost will be great, but in the long run the saving to the community will be enormous. Individual effort can only achieve a superficial and temporary relief; and even the two or three hundred charity organization societies in the country are impotent, for lack of funds and of power, to stem the forces that make for poverty. To dole out charity to this family and to that is unhappily necessary in our present crude social situation; but it is not a solution. It not only runs the continual risk of encouraging shiftlessness and dependence, but it does not go to the root of the matter. There will always be inequalities in wealth and room for personal gifts from the more to the less fortunate; but the State must not be content with such patching and palliating, but must strike at the roots of the evil. We will consider the chief causes of poverty and their cure.

(1) The cause that bulks largest is the inadequate wages of a considerable portion of the lowest class. It is obviously impossible to support the average family of five in decency, not to say in health, efficiency, or comfort, with an income of, say, less than a thousand dollars a year, as prices go at time of writing (1914). Yet great numbers of families at present have to exist somehow upon less, even much less. Five million adult male workers in this country receive less than six hundred dollars a year for their work.[Footnote: Cf. Professor Fairchild's comments in Forum, vol. 52, p. 49 (July, 1914).] Even when mothers work who ought to be at home tending the children, even when children work who ought to be in school, the total income is often miserably inadequate. Yet there is ample wealth in the country, if it were better distributed, to pay a living wage to every laborer. By some one of the means which we shall presently discuss, the State must see that all laborers are well enough paid to enable them, while they work, to support in comfort a moderate family.

(2) Involuntary unemployment is the next source of poverty. This is due to many causes: the periodic depressions and failures of industries; the introduction of new machinery, throwing out whole classes of laborers; the enormous influx of immigrants and consequent congestion in the cities of unskilled labor; lack of education, or natural stupidity, which render some men too incompetent to retain positions. Ignorance can be overcome by proper compulsory education laws; all but the actually feeble-minded (who must be cared for in institutions) can, by skillful attention, be taught proficiency in some trade. And with a more widespread education the work that requires no skill can be left to the hopelessly stupid. The congestion of labor in the cities [Footnote: In February, 1914, there were reported to be 350,000 men out of work in New York City (Outlook, March 14, 1914).] can be largely remedied by free state employment bureaus which shall serve as distributing agencies; there is almost always work enough and to spare in some parts of the country, and usually not far away. But more than this is necessary; the State must see that work is offered every man who is able to work. All sorts of public works need unskilled laborers in every city of the country; there is digging to be done, shoveling and sweeping and carting. There are roads to be built, rivers to be dredged, parks to be graded, buildings to be erected, a thousand things to be done. It will be quite feasible, when wages are generally adequate, for the cities, by general agreement, to offer work to all applicants at a wage so low as not to attract men away from other employments, and yet to enable them to support their families decently. The low wages given will save the city much money directly, as well as saving it the care of the indigent. But it will be a feasible plan only when the city's jobs cease to be used as a means of vote-buying by politicians and are offered where they are needed. [Footnote: 1 See W.H. Beveridge, Unemployment. J.A. Hobson, The Problem of the Unemployed. Alden and Hayward, The Unemployable and the Unemployed. C. S. Loch, Methods of Social Advance, chap. IX. Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 8, pp. 168, 453, 499. Review of Reviews, vol. 9, pp. 29, 179. Charities Review, vol. 3, pp. 221, 323. Independent, vol. 77, p.363. National Municipal Review, vol. 3, p.366. The unemployment which is the result of laziness must be cured by compulsory work as in farmcolonies, which have been successful in Europe. Cf. Edmond Kelly, The Elimination of the Tramp.]

(3) The third important cause of poverty is sickness and the death of wage earners. Here the way is clear. When the State has taken the measures we have enumerated for the public health, when it provides competent doctors and nurses, and bears the cost of illness, we shall have only the loss of wages during the illness or after the death of wage earners to consider. And here some form of universal insurance will probably be the solution; this is preferable to state care of dependents, as it carries no taint of charity. This solves every problem but the delicate one, which must be entrusted to expert diagnosticians, of determining to work is caused by physical weakness or mere laziness.

(4) The fourth great cause of poverty, drink, can and must be abolished in the near future, by the means already considered.

(5) There remain three personal causes which need be the only permanently troublesome factors- -laziness, self-indulgence, and the incontinence which results in over- large families. The laziness which prefers chronic inactivity to work is not normal to human nature, and will be largely banished by education, the improvement of health, and the improvement of the conditions and hours of labor. The obstinate cases of unwillingness to work must be cured by compulsory labor in farm colonies or on public works; most such cases respond to intelligent treatment and cease to be troublesome when some physical or moral twist has been remedied. The waste of income in self-indulgence of one form or other is more difficult to deal with; but the law can justly forbid the wage-earner from squandering upon himself money needed by wife and children, and direct that a due proportion of his wages be paid directly to the wife. If neither father nor mother will use their money for the proper welfare of the children, the State must take the children from them though that step should only be a last and desperate resort. Finally, there is the tendency, unfortunately most prevalent among the lowest classes, to have more children than can be decently cared for. To some extent this evil can be remedied by the dissemination of information concerning proper methods of preventing conception [Footnote: There is, however, a danger in the general dissemination of such information- the danger of increasing prostitution by lessening one of the chief deterrents there from.]; to some extent by moral training to self-control and a sense of responsibility. Or the State may undertake the countenance large families; if this is done (see chapter xxx), steps must of course be taken to prevent the marrying of the unfit-or, at least, their breeding. With our rapidly decreasing birth rate, and the spread of education, which will do away with "lower" classes and fit every one in some decent degree to be a parent, this will probably be the ultimate solution. With the disappearance of poverty, the miserable living conditions of so large a proportion of our population will automatically improve. But much should be done directly by the State to prevent such housing conditions as make for physical or moral degeneration. We are far behind Europe in housing-legislation, and conditions in most of our cities are going from bad to worse. There is, however, no need whatever of unsanitary housing; it is merely the selfishness of owners and the apathy of the public that permits its existence. The crowding-which in New York City runs up to some thirteen hundred per acre-can be stopped by simple legislation. The lack of proper light or ventilation, of proper water supply, plumbing, or sewerage, of proper removal of ashes, garbage, or rubbish, is inexcusable. The results of living in the dark, foul-aired, unsanitary tenements of our slums are: a great increase in sickness and premature death; a stunting of growth, physical and mental, and an increase in numbers of backward and delinquent children; the spread of vicious and criminal habits through the lack of privacy and contagion of close contact with the vicious.

We are breeding in our slums a degenerate race,-boys who grow up used to vice, and girls that drift naturally into prostitution; we are allowing disease to spread from them, through the children that go to the public schools, the shop-girls we buy from in the stores, the servants that enter our houses, the men we rub elbows with on the street or in the street-cars. Very salutary are the laws that require the name of the owner to be placed on all buildings; shame before the public may wring improvements from many a landlord who now takes profits from tenements unfit for habitation. But it ought not to be left to the conscience of the individual owner; the State must exercise its primary right to forbid the crowding of tenants into houses which do not afford sanitary quarters and permit a decent degree of privacy.

III. COMMERCIALIZED VICE?

The duty of the State in regard to the vice caterers is obvious; the commercializing of vice must be strictly prohibited by law and enforced by whatever means experience proves most effective. We must learn to include in this class of enemies of society the manufacturers and sellers of alcoholic liquors, as well as of the less generally used arcotics; but this matter has been already discussed in connection ]with our study of the individual's duty in relation to alcohol. Of the proprietors of gambling dens, indecent "shows," etc, we need not further speak, concentrating our attention instead upon the worst species of vice catering, the commercializing of prostitution. The extent to which the sale of woman's virtue prevails in our cities is scarcely believable. The recent commission of which Mr. Rockefeller was chairman actually counted 14,926 professional prostitutes in Manhattan alone, in 1912; while personal visitation established the existence of over sixteen hundred houses where the gratification of lust could be bought. Not all, certainly, were counted; and this list is, of course, entirely exclusive of the great number of girls occasionally and secretly selling themselves to friends, acquaintances, and employers. Many hundreds of men and women, keepers of houses, procurers, and the like, live on the proceeds of this great underground industry; and to some extent-though to what extent it is, of course, impossible to ascertain the forcible retention of young girls is exist in most of the world's cities. What is being done to abolish this ghastliest of evils? In most great cities, scarcely anything, for two reasons: the one being that so many men, perhaps the majority, secretly wish to retain an opportunity for purchasing sex gratification, the other that the police generally find the protection of illegal vice an easy source of revenue. If the police are honest, they break up a disorderly house-and let the inmates carry the lure of their trade elsewhere. The magistrates fine them, or give them sentences just long enough to bring them needed rest and nutrition, and send them back to their business. Or they drive them out of town-to swell the numbers in the next town. Attempts at legalization and localization are frank admissions of inability or lack of desire to fight the evil; their effect is to make the way of temptation easier for the youth. Compulsory medical inspection gives a promise of immunity from disease which is largely illusory, and entices men who are now restrained by prudential motives. There are, however, many promising lines of attack:

(1) When women gain the vote, they can be counted on to fight the evil. The prostitutes themselves, being mostly minors, and, in any case, anxious to conceal their identity, seldom vote; and the remaining women are almost en masse bitterly opposed to the trade. With women voting, and an efficient political administration inaugurated in our cities, we shall hope to witness the end of the scandalous nonenforcement of existing laws.

(2) The abolishing of the liquor trade will take away the great political ally of the trade in girlhood; and without the demoralizing influence of alcohol fewer men will yield to their passions and fewer girls be pliant thereto.

(3) The Rockefeller Commission disclosed majority of prostitutes are almost wholly uneducated-about half of those questioned had not even gone through the primary school, and only seven per cent had finished the grammar-school work. Compulsory education, vigilantly enforced, will greatly lessen the number of girls who will be willing to take up the life of degradation, suffering, and premature death; especially will this be the case if sex hygiene is properly taught. Approximately a quarter of the girls studied were mentally defective; these should have been detected in the schools and removed to the proper institutions before they fell prey to the clever schemes of the procurer.[Footnote: Of 647 wayward girls recently at the Bedford Reformatory, over 300 were accounted mentally deficient.] For a falling-off in this alarming number of mental defectives we must await scientific eugenic laws to be discussed in chapter xxx.

(4) It is a shameful fact that thousands of girls, dependent upon their own earnings for support, receive less than enough to enable them to live in decent comfort, not to say with any enjoyment of life. Many, of course, waste their earnings on needlessly fine clothes, or at the "shows"; the American fashion of extravagant dress and the craving for amusement are factors of importance in the ruin of young girls. But five dollars, or even seven dollars, a week is not enough to live on in the cities; and many girls are paid no more, even less. The State, in framing its minimum wage laws, or other legislation, must take cognizance of this startling and intolerable situation.

(5) Provision should be made for the care of girls who come alone to the cities. Dormitories with clean and airy bedrooms at minimum cost, and attractive reading- and social-rooms, offering provision for normal social life and amusement, can do much to keep lonely and restless girls out of the clutches of the vicious provision for young men who live alone might avail to lessen to some extent their patronage of houses of vice.

(6) The model injunction acts of a few of our more advanced States "vest the power in any citizen, whether he or she is personally damaged by such establishment, to institute legal proceedings against all concerned; to secure the abatement of the nuisance, and perpetual injunction against its reestablishment." It is too early yet to speak with assurance of the practical working of this method; but it bids fair to make the brothel business more precarious. If, in addition, laws against street soliciting are strictly enforced, the first steps of young men into vice will be made much less alluringly easy than at present.

(7) The most radical and effective measure of all will be to arrest the professional prostitutes, segregate them, and keep them segregated during the dangerous years, except as genuine signs of intention to reform appear, in which case they may be released upon probation. The expense will be, at the outset, considerable. But the girls will be taught trades, and kept at work which will in most cases more than pay for their support. Moreover, the community will, of course, save the vast sums now passed over by its lustful men to these women. The saving of health and life will be incalculable. The girls, although under restraint, will be infinitely better off than they were, and can in most cases, with patience and education, be made ultimately to realize their gain; as they grow older and forget their early years of shame, they can be set free again, with some skilled trade learned, and some accumulated earnings. Professional prostitution will, of course, still flourish to a degree underground; but it will be a highly risky business, attracting far fewer girls, and difficult for the uninitiated young man to discover. With this outlet for lust partially closed, there would no doubt tend to be an increase in solitary and homosexual vice, and in the seduction of innocent girls. But the latter outlet can be checked by raising the "age of consent" to twenty or twenty-one, and punishing the seduction of younger girls as rape. And the former evils, serious as they are, are far less of an evil than the creation of our present wretched class of professional prostitutes. As a matter of fact, there would, beyond all question, be a great diminution in sexual vice, the present amount of it being due by no means wholly to desire that is naturally imperious, but to the artificial fostering of that desire by those who hope to profit financially thereby.

IV. Crime?

The gravest of all social ills is-crime. Its treatment may be considered under the three heads of prevention, conviction, and the treatment of convicted criminals.

(1) To some extent, not yet clearly determined, the causes of crime are temperamental, due to congenital defects or overexcitable impulses. The inherited effects of insanity, alcoholism, and other pathological conditions, make self-control far more difficult for some unfortunates. Such baneful inheritances will some day be minimized by eugenic laws; and individuals whose abnormal mental condition makes them dangerous to society will be kept under permanent restraint. The causes of crime are, however, to a far greater degree environmental. Undernutrition, overwork, worry, and various other sources of poor health, create a condition of lowered resistance to impulse. The herding of the poor into crowded tenements, the inability to find work, the lack of wholesome interests and excitements to provide a normal outlet for energy of body and mind, the daily sight of the luxury of the rich and the bitterness of its contrast with their own need, awaken dangerous passions and reckless defiance of law. The lack of education, contact with absorption of law-defying philosophies of life, tend to make crime appear natural and justified. All of these unhealthy conditions are being attacked under the spur of our new social conscience; and with every step in social alleviation crime diminishes. Criminals are, in general, just such men and women as we; in like situations we too should be tempted to crime. We might all repeat with Bunyan: "There, but for the grace of God, go I!" Give every man and woman a fair chance for happiness in normal ways, and the lure of crime will largely vanish.[Footnote: Cf. An Open Letter to Society from Convict 1776 (F. H. Revell Co.).] Yet human nature in its most favorable circumstances and in its most favored individuals has its twists and its anti-social impulses. For the potential criminal-and that means for every one of us-there must be elaborated also a system of moral or religious training which shall seek to develop the better nature that is in every man and enchain the brute. With such a discipline imposed upon each generation there would be a far greater hope for the repression of evil tendencies, whether due to temperamental perversion or provocative environment.

(2) If there is much to be done in the prevention of crime, there is also much to be done in insuring the prompt conviction of offenders. The legal delays and obtrusion of the technicalities which now so often obstruct the administration of justice, hold out a means to the criminal of escaping punishment, work hardship to the poor, who cannot afford to employ the sharpest lawyers, and needlessly retard the clearing of the reputation of the innocent. The overuse of the plea of insanity has become latterly a public scandal. In certain courts it has sometimes seemed impossible to convict a criminal who has plenty of money or strong political influence. In other cases such men have been set free on bail and proceeded to further may have to wait years for compensation; if they are poor, they may hesitate to set out on the long and dubious course of a lawsuit; or, if they embark upon it, it is only by an agreement wherein the speculator- lawyer takes the lion's share of the compensation. The result of all this friction in the machinery of the courts is an increase in crime, and an increase in the illegal punishment of crime. Lynching, which are such a disgrace to this country, are due primarily to indignation at crime which bids fair to be inadequately punished; they will occur, in spite of their injustice and brutality, until the penalties of the law are made universally prompt and sure and fair.[Footnote: See J. E. Cutler, Lynch Law. Outlook, vol. 99, p. 706.] A wholesome disregard of technicalities, and an interpretation of the law in the line of equity, a rigid exclusion of irrelevant evidence and argument, the provision of an adequate number of courts to prevent the piling up of cases, and of a public defender, of skill and training, to look after the interests of the poor, the removal of judgeships from politics by the general improvement of our political system, and the adjudgment of insanity only by impartial, state-hired alienists-these are some of the reforms that ethical considerations suggest.[Footnote: Cf. W. H. Taft, Four Aspects of Civic Duty, II. Outlook, vol. 92, p. 359; vol. 98, p. 884.]

(3) The ends to be borne in mind in the treatment of the convicted Criminal are four: First, reparation to the injured party must be demanded of him, so far as money will constitute reparation; if he has not the money, his future work must go for its accumulation, so far as that is compatible with the support of his infant children. Secondly, he must be punished severely enough to serve as a warning to other potential offenders and, so far as they are amenable to such fears, deter them from similar crimes. Capital punishment for the worst crimes is shown deterrent than confinement; whether the danger of executing an innocent man is grave enough to offset this public gain is an open question.[Footnote: See A. J. Palm, The Death Penalty.] Thirdly, he must be prevented from doing any more harm; this means confinement just so long as expert criminologists deem him dangerous, whether not at all (unless to deter others) or for life. The old system of giving a fixed sentence is wholly unjustifiable; some are thereby kept imprisoned when there is every reason to believe them capable of living honorably and serving the community as free men, others are let loose, after a term, more dangerous to the community than ever. The habitual criminal, who alternates between periods of crime and periods of imprisonment, should be an unknown phenomenon. The judge should be obliged to pronounce an indeterminate sentence, and leave it to the expert prison officials to decide if, or when, it is safe to release the prisoner on parole. Experience has already shown that few mistakes are made (where prison management is kept out of machine politics); and as the released prisoner is under surveillance, and may be returned to the prison without trial for disorderliness, drunkenness, or other anti-social conduct, he is not likely to do much damage. A second offense would be likely to bring upon him imprisonment for life, which would be within the discretion of the prison officials. This method provides a spur to good behavior, and, when used in conjunction with the reforming influences we are about to consider, works admirably in abolishing the criminal class; whatever criminal class persists-those who cannot or will not reform are kept under restraint for life, where they can do no harm. Fourthly, and most important of all, a painstaking attempt must be made to reform the criminal, to make him a normal, socially useful man. At present our prisons are rather schools of corruption than of uplift; too often first offenders are thrown into association with hardened criminals, and come out after their term of years with their minds full of criminal suggestions, and less able than before to live a normal life. The prison should be a training school for the morally perverted. First of all, the prisoner should be taught a trade, if he knows none, and made competent to earn an honest living. He should be kept at regular work, and his wages used partly to reimburse society for his keep, and partly to support his family, or, if he has none, to give him a new start when he leaves prison. Recent experience shows that the great majority of prisoners can be trusted to work outside the prison, at any ordinary labor, without guards-returning to the prison each evening.[Footnote: See Century, vol. 87, p. 746.] Regular hours, and wholesome living in every way, are, of course, enforced; sports are encouraged in leisure hours, and physical development ensured. Educational influences are brought to bear, through class-instruction, books, sermons, private talks. The individual's mind is studied and every effort made to supplant morbid and anti-social by normal and moral ideas. Few criminals but are amenable to skillful guidance; most of them, could, if pains were taken, be transformed into useful citizens. All this application of modern penological ideas means a greatly increased expense per capita; but this will be largely offset by the work required of all healthy prisoners, and in any case is the best sort of an investment. The prevention of crime is, in the long run, much less costly, even from a purely financial standpoint, than crime itself. On pathological social conditions in general: Smith, Social Pathology. E. T. Devine, Misery and its Causes. M. Conyngton, How to Help. C. Aronovici, Knowing One's Own Community. Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House. S. Nearing, Social Adjustment. Charles Booth, Life and Labor of the People of London. Hall, Social Solutions. C. R. Henderson, Social Duties. W. Gladden, Social Salvation. Public health: H. Ellis, The Task of Social Hygiene, The Nationalization of Health. Outlook, vol. 98, p. 63; vol. 102, p. 764. Literature published by The Committee of One Hundred on National Health (105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City). C. R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, chap. V. World's Work, vol. 17, p. 11321; vol. 21, p. 13881; vol. 23, p. 692. W. H. Allen, Civics and Health. Poverty and living conditions: R. Hunter, Poverty. B. S. Rowntree, Poverty, A Study of Town Life. Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, chap. V. A. S. Warner, American Charities. E. T. Devine, Principles of Relief. S. Webb, Prevention of Destitution. Literature of the American Association of Societies for Organizing Charity, and of the Charity Organization Department of the Russell Sage Foundation (both at 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City). L. Veiller, Housing Reform. Deforest and Veiller, The Tenement-House Problem. J. Lee, Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy. Alden and Hayward, Housing. J. A. Riis, The Battle with the Slum. National Municipal Review, vol. 2, p. 210. Commercialized vice: Jane Addams, A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil. Report of the Chicago Vice Commission: The Social Evil in Chicago. G. J. Kneeland, Commercialized Prostitution in New York City. Outlook, vol. 94, p. 303; vol. 101, p. 245; vol. 104, p. 101. Crime: F. H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation. E. A. Ross, Social Control, chap. XI. R. M. McConnell, Criminal Responsibility and Social Constraint. H. Ellis, The Criminal. A. H. Currier, The Present- Day Problem of Crime. P. A. Parsons, Responsibility for Crime. E. Ferri, The Positive School of Criminology. W. Tallack, Penological and Preventive Principles. E. Carpenter, Prisons, Police, and Punishment. Outlook, vol. 94, p. 252; vol. 97, p. 403. World's Work, vol. 21, p. 14254. North American Review, vol. 138, p. 254. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 20, p. 281.