CHAPTER XXVI

INDUSTRIAL WRONGS

WE have been discussing the treatment of recognized crime. But beyond the boundaries of conduct universally labeled as criminal, there is a whole realm of anti-social action to which the public conscience is only beginning to be sensitive, although it is often far more harmful to the general welfare than that for which men are imprisoned. Especially is this true of the wrongs connected with modern industry. As Professor Ross puts it, [Footnote: Sin and Society, p. 97.] "the master iniquities of our time are connected with money-making"; and so our "moral pace-setters," who are, for the most part, confining their attacks to the time-worn and familiar sins, "do not get into the big fight at all." The root of the trouble is that great power over the lives and happiness of others has been acquired by a small class of irresponsible men, many of whom fail to recognize their privileged position as a public trust and care only for enriching themselves. As we noted in chapter in, the complexification of our industrial life is making possible a whole new range of what must be branded as crimes; endless opportunities have been opened up of money-making at the cost of others' suffering. Often that suffering, or loss, is so remote from the path of the greedy business man that he does not see himself, and others fail to see him, as the predatory money-grabber that he is. The many who have been ruined by unscrupulous competitors are often embittered, the repressed capitalism; but the public as a whole has not been aroused to rebuke this "newer unrighteousness." We must proceed to note its commonest contemporary forms. In our present organization of industry, what are the duties of businessmen:

I. To the public?

(1) The first duty of businessmen is to supply honest goods, in honest measure. Underweight, undermeasure, double- bottomed berry-boxes, bottles so shaped as to appear to contain more than their actual contents, are obviously cheating. Misbranding of goods is now regulated, so far as interstate trade goes, by the Federal Pure Food and Drugs Act; and most States have similar legislation. Misrepresentation in advertisement should be severely punished; the selling of cold storage for fresh products, of part-cotton for all-wool clothing, of less for more expensive woods, and the thousand other ways of panning inferior goods upon an inexpert public for high-grade articles. At present there is little recourse but to carry distrust into all purchasing, learn to be canny, and to recognize differences in quality in all articles needed. But the average man cannot become an expert purchaser; he buys furniture which breaks down prematurely; he pays a high price for clothing which proves to have no wearing quality; he buys patent medicines which promise to cure his physical ills, and is lucky if they do not leave him worse in health than before. Jerry- building, and the doing of fake jobs by contractors, especially for municipalities, is one of the scandals of our times. [Footnote: See Encyclopedia Britannica, article, "Adulteration." E. Kelly Twentieth Century Socialism, book ii, chap. i. For a notorious case of tampering with weights, see Outlook, vol. 92, p. 25; vol. 93, p. 811. For cases of adulteration, Good Housekeeping Magazine, vol. 54, p. 593. F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 45.]

(2) Another duty, less generally recognized by even the more honorable businessmen, is to sell their goods at fair prices. The strangulation of competition by mutual agreements or the formation of trusts, aided often by an iniquitously high tariff, has put many a business for a time on a par with those natural monopolies which, if unregulated, can always exact exorbitant prices for what the public needs. Rich profits have been made by the tucking of a few cents on to the price of gas, or coal, or steel, or oil, or telephone service. Enormous fortunes have been made, at the public expense, by the practical cornering of staple commodities. These hold-up prices should be clearly recognized for what they are-a form of modern piracy. No business man or corporation is entitled in justice to more than a moderate reward for the mental and physical labor expended; the excessive incomes of monopoly are largely at the expense of the public, who, by one means or other, are being compelled to pay more than a fair price for the article. [Footnote: For cases, see C. R. Van Hise, Concentration and Control, pp. 109,145, 149.]

(3) Finally, all business must be looked upon as a form of public service, and the convenience of customers scrupulously consulted. Where there is competition this tends to regulate itself; but our public- service monopolies have too often followed the "public- be-damned" policy. The long-suffering community puts up with inadequate and crowded streetcars, inconvenient train service, a bungled and high- handed telephone system. Railway managements have sometimes been criminally indifferent to public safety, finding it less expensive to lose occasional damage suits than to install safety appliances. Efficiency in serving the public has likewise been sacrificed to dividends; and courtesy, where it is not recognized to have a cash value, tends to disappear. Such indictments point to the widespread existence of the idea that men and corporations are in business for themselves only, and not as fulfilling a public need.[Footnote: For concrete illustrations, see Outlook, vol. 91, p. 861; vol. 95, p. 515. World's Work, vol. 23, p. 579.]

II. TO INVENTORS?

It has not been generally enough recognized that business men owe it to investors to do their best to see to it that they get fair returns on their money invested -and only fair returns. There are a number of ways in which, on the one hand, the investing public is "skinned," and, on the other hand, stock in a business, largely owned by the management itself, has been rewarded with undeserved dividends at the expense of the public.

(1) There are, in the first place, the get-rich-quick swindles, the out-and-out impostures, which have deceived the credulous into investments that never could pay. Bonanza mines, impractical inventions, town lots laid out on the prairie, orange groves that existed only on paper-such bogus hopes have enticed many an honest man and woman, who could ill afford to lose, into turning over their small earnings to the brazen exploiters.[Footnote: For cases, see World's Work, vol. 21, p. 14112.]

(2) But such arrant deception is not the commonest form of wrong. A more usual practice, and more dangerous- because it deceives even the intelligent-is to overcapitalize an honest business, to issue "watered" stock-that is, stock in excess of the actual value of plant, patents, and other assets. These stocks are issued merely to sell. If the business is very successful, its profits may pay a fair return on all this capital; if not, low dividends or none can be paid until the business slowly catches up with its overcapitalization. In all investment-as our industrial organization at present goes-there is risk; but to create a needless risk and deceive the public into taking it is plain dishonesty. The extra money thus sucked from the public goes sometimes to pay excessive salaries to the officials of the company, sometimes to pay excessive prices for patents or plants purchased; there are many subtle ways, known to "high finance," of misappropriating stockholders' money and diverting it to the pockets of the promoters. Many great fortunes have been made in this way; such exploitation is so new to society that it has not yet awakened to its essentially criminal nature. Even if the business is able to pay good dividends on watered stock, the crime of overcapitalization is not lessened, though the harm done is now not to the investor but to the public. Stocks should represent only the actual value of the property, so that dividends may be only a fair return for capital really invested in the business. Where there is sharp competition, the possibility of overcharging the public to make returns on watered stock is cut out, and the loss falls upon the investor. But in the case of monopolies, such as railways, or of combinations which practically stifle competition, the public may be charged enough to "pay a fair dividend to investors," although the money upon which dividends are being made went not into improving the service, but into fattening the promoters' purses. [Footnote: On stock watering, see Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, pp. 561-64. Outlook, vol. 85, p. 562. Political Science Quarterly, vol. 26, p. 88. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 18, p. 151. C. R. Van Hise, Concentration and Control, pp. 115, 142, etc.]

(3) A third method of "fleecing" investors lies in skillful manipulation of the stock market. In ways which are known to the initiated, it is often possible artificially to raise or lower the market value of stocks. Unwary investors are lured in; timid investors are frightened out; through all ticker fluctuations the brokers win their commissions; the skilled financiers and organizers of combinations rake in unearned sums that are sometimes immense, while the losses fall mostly to the lot of the are honestly seeking to put their savings into solid investments. The ethics of the stock market has not yet been clearly decided, and the subject is too big to discuss here. It is mentioned only to point out one more form of social sinning, as yet inadequately punished or rebuked, whereby men of capital and brains have been able to pocket money for which they have given no return to society. [Footnote: For cases, see C. Norman Fay, Big Business and Government. Outlook, vol. 91, pp. 591, 636.]

III. TO COMPETITORS?

(1) The most conspicuous form of wrongdoing, perhaps, to be charged to modern business is the attempt to get monopoly by foul means. The story of too many of our great trusts is a story of competitors ruined by ruthless and unscrupulous methods. The competitor may be hurt by the circulation of falsehoods concerning his business, his right to patents, or the worth of his goods. He may be denied outlet to markets by control of the railway upon which he must depend. If the capital of the concern that is seeking monopoly permits, the price of the article manufactured may be lowered until rivals with less financial backing are forced out of business-after which the price can be raised and losses recouped. With skill and foresight worthy of a better cause, some of the great industrial leaders of our day have eliminated one rival after another and attained that unification of a business which has, indeed, its great economic advantages, but is not to be won at such a bitter cost. [Footnote: See, for example, I. Tarbell, History of the Standard Oil Company.]

(2) Even where monopoly is not sought, there are many unfair methods of competition-unfair to competitors and to the public that both should serve. One method, much discussed in recent years, is that of railway rebates. By this is meant favoritism in freight rates between shippers and between localities. One manufacturer, who is in a position to ship his goods by either of two railways, perhaps by a water route, is given a low rate to get his freight; another manufacturer of similar goods, not so favorably situated, is made to pay a higher rate. Rates from seaboard or river cities, where water competition exists, have often been considerably lower than rates from inland towns on the same line, with a very much shorter haul. In such ways the railway squeezes those whom it can squeeze and is content with a bare profit where it can do no better. Where the railway is controlled by the same interests that control some industrial combination, the favoritism may go even farther, and the railway's profits be sacrificed entirely for the cheaper marketing of that particular trust's article. Against all such inequalities in the treatment of shippers the public conscience has lately protested; the railways are recognized as a public instrument of transportation, which should be open to use by all upon equal terms, at a price which will repay the cost of carriage plus a fair profit. [Footnote: On railway rebates, see H. R. Seager, Introduction to Economics, chap. XXIV, secs 260-63. F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 60, secs. 7, 8. Outlook, vol. 81, p. 803; vol. 85, p. 161.] IV. TO EMPLOYEES?

(1) The first duty of employers is to give to all employees a fair wage. If the business does not pay enough to allow this, it has no right to exist; if the owners are pocketing large salaries, or giving dividends to stockholders, this money should be used first for a proper payment of the workers. So many laborers are at the mercy of the employing class, because of their ignorance, their lack of capital and necessity of work at any wage, and often their unfamiliarity with the language and customs of the country, that it has become possible in many cases to treat them like animals and give them less than enough to sustain life in decency, not to say in comfort. Such a case as that of our benevolent Mr. Carnegie, who million dollars in one year's earnings of his steel trust, while many hundreds of his employees were getting but a miserable pittance and living in vile surroundings, is exceptionally glaring; but in lesser degree the same injustice is being wrought in many industries. Wages have, indeed, been raised gradually, here and there; but not usually by the free will of employers. The callousness of some of the privileged classes toward the underpayment of the lower classes is almost on a par with the attitude of the nobility before the French Revolution.[Footnote: See, for example, Outlook, vol. 101, p. 345.] Fortunately, the public is coming to see not only the wrong done to the helpless poor, but the cost to the community in breeding underfed, ill- housed, criminally tempted classes, and the danger that lies ahead if these classes realize their power before amelioration is effected from above. As a recent writer has put it, Addition Division=Revolution. [Footnote: S. Hearing, Wages in the United States; Social Adjustment, chap. IV. Ryan, A Living Wage.]

(2) Another phase of modern industrial injustice is the overlong hours of work still required in many industries. The race for cheapness of product has blinded manufacturers and the public to the cost in terms of human happiness. An eight-hour day is quite long enough to produce all that is necessary, with the aid of modern machinery; every man should be given a margin of leisure for education, recreation, and social life. And every man should be given the benefit of that one day's rest out of seven which is so precious a legacy to us from the Jewish religion.[Footnote: A joint legislative committee in Massachusetts in 1907 estimated that 222,000 persons in that State were working seven days in the week. Similar, or worse, conditions exist throughout the country.] Those industries that require continuous use of machinery should employ three complete shifts of workmen; and those that must be run every day in the week should have enough extra helpers man. This humanizing of hours cannot be done by individual action, where competition is sharp; but by legislation that bears equally upon all, a generous standard-the eight-hour day and six-day week -can be maintained, with hardship to none and a great increase in the health and happiness of the masses. Especially jealous should the law be for the welfare of women workers. In cotton mills in the South women work ten and twelve hours a day; in canneries in the North they work, during the short season, fifteen and eighteen hours a day, eighty or even ninety hours a week. Particularly should women be protected during the weeks before and after childbirth; as it is, women workers are often ruined in health for life, the rate of infant mortality is shockingly high, and the children that survive are usually subnormal. Girls through overwork are weakened too seriously to bear strong children- which, in any case, they have had no time or opportunity to learn how to nurture and rear. No doubt women should work, as well as men; if not in the home, then outside the home. But the contemporary economic pressure that bears so hard on so many girls and women must be eased not only for their sakes but for that of coming generations. [Footnote: Dorothy Richardson, The Long Day. S. Nearing, Social Adjustment, chap. X. J. Rae, Eight Hours for Work.]

(3) The most piteous form of industrial slavery is that of young children, who should be in school or out of doors, developing their minds and bodies into some measure of readiness for adult work and responsibility, instead of prematurely losing the joy of life and stunting their mental and physical growth. In 1910 some two million children under sixteen were earning their living in this country. Even many thousands of children of twelve years or less are set to work in our factories and canneries. These children get almost no development and wholesome recreation; in great numbers they die early, and if they live it is commonly to fall into some form of vice or crime, and to breed an inferior race. Nothing is more inhumane or more mad than for the community to permit cheapness of goods at such a price. Indeed, child labor means, in the end, economic waste; the ultimate loss in efficiency on the part of these undeveloped, uneducated children, far more than overbalances the temporary industrial gain. The situation has been incredibly shocking; the employers who seek such an advantage over their humaner rivals, and the legislators who have winked at their inhumanity, deserve no mild reprobation. But legislation alone is not adequate to meet the situation; the underlying cause is the insufficient payment of adult workers, which practically necessitates supplementation by what the children can add to the family income. This is one illustration of the way in which all our social problems are tangled together so that it is impossible fully to solve any one without solving the others. When every adult receives wages enough to support a normal family-and when he is content to restrict his family to normal size; when the public schools are made efficient enough to show their evident worth to parents and to attract the children themselves, and a strict truant system takes care that the law is really obeyed; when the sick and defective and aged among the poor are cared for at public expense as a matter of course, there will be no need for children to work to help support the family; and we must endeavor, by the arousal of public opinion and by nationwide legislation, to keep children out of the factories, the shops, and the mines, till they are full-grown and educated. [Footnote: S. Nearing, The Solution of the Child-Labor Problem. J. Spargo, The Bitter Cry of the Children. E. N. Clopper, Child Labor in City Streets. Reports of Annual Meetings of the National Child Labor Committee. (Free literature. 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City.)]

(4) A less appalling, but still sufficiently serious; aspect of industrial unrighteousness is the dirty, crowded, ugly, unsanitary, and sometimes indecent conditions under which many workers in our prosperous age have to carry on their work. Lack of proper lighting, space, and ventilation, unnecessary noises, and general untidiness, undermine the health and morals of laborers; while insufficient fire- protection causes intermittently one tragedy after another. Much has been done in many quarters to improve such conditions; not a few up-to- date factories are models of cleanliness and sanitation, spacious, reasonably quiet, and altogether pleasant places in which to spend the working day. They point the way which all must in time follow. In addition, the provision of reading-rooms, baths, rest- and recreation- rooms, lunch-rooms, athletic fields, and the like, give augury of that happy future when work shall be divorced from ugliness and free from unnecessary physical strain.[Footnote: Sir T. Oliver, Diseases of Occupation. W. H. Tolman, Social Engineering, chaps. III, X, XI. World's Work, vol. 15, p. 9534; vol. 23, p. 294. Outlook, vol. 97, p. 817; vol. 100, p. 353.]

(5) Finally, the callousness to injuries incurred by employees must be sharply checked. Well over a hundred thousand men, women, and children are killed or injured every year in the various industries of this country. Our proportion of accidents is far greater than in Europe; the great majority are preventable by the adoption of known safeguards. What stands in the way is, partly, ignorance and heedlessness on the part of employers, and, still more, the initial cost of installing safety appliances. It is often cheaper to lose an occasional damage suit than to forestall accidents. In coal mines alone we have let thirty thousand men be killed and seventy-five thousand be more or less seriously maimed, in a decade; proportionately about twice as many as in European mines-which are far from ideally safeguarded. There are two ways to check this waste and crippling of human life; one is to keep our legislation up to date, and require the installation of every effective safety device, no matter if the cost to the public has to be increased. The other is to make accidents so expensive to employers that they will have a greater interest in taking measures to prevent them.

Certainly all deaths or injuries in any industry where proper precautions have been neglected must be a criminal matter for the employer. [Footnote: Outlook, vol. 92, p. 171; vol. 93, p. 196; vol. 99, p. 202. World's Work, vol. 22, p. 13602; vol. 23, p. 713.] We must do entirely away with the system whereby accidents to workingmen bear so heavily upon their families. Though it is true that they are commonly due, in some measure, to the carelessness of the worker, his punishment, in the loss of life or limb, is great enough; and if he dies or is incapacitated from supporting wife and children, the burden should fall upon the community, which is able to bear it. It should not be necessary to bring a damage suit against the employer; that method is slow, dubious, and expensive; the corporation, with its expert lawyers, has too great an advantage over the helpless and sorrow-struck poor. In some form, automatic compensation for injuries is destined to become universal; the cost will fall upon the industry, where it belongs, bad feeling between employer and employee will cease, the courts will be freed from a good deal of work, and relief will follow injury with promptness and certainty. [Footnote: H. R. Seager, Social Insurance. Outlook, vol. 85, p. 508; vol. 92, p. 319; vol. 98, p. 49. S. Nearing, Social Adjustment, chap. XII.] What general remedies for industrial wrongs are feasible?

(1) The first step toward an amelioration of our crude and unjust industrial code is to awaken the public conscience to protest against the evils we have enumerated. Publicity, pitiless publicity, alone can lead to redress. These large- scale, impersonal sins must not be so nonchalantly tolerated; instead of applauding and envying the shrewd financier who rakes in unearned profits by clever manipulation, by unscrupulous use of inside information, and disregard of the welfare of workers, competitors, and public, we must brand him as a selfish scoundrel, turn him out of the church, ostracize him in society. Such a man must not be looked upon as a successful businessman any more than a pirate is a successful trader; success must clearly imply obedience to the rules of the game. Taking all that one can grab without punishment is a reversion to barbarism; the unscrupulous magnate is morally no better than a pickpocket. And these men are, in general, responsive to public opinion; it has effected rapid improvement in some points in the past few years. Just so soon as the community conscience is aroused to the point of a general condemnation of industrial robbery, it will cease to flaunt itself so boldly, and lurk only underground with the other furtive sins.

(2) We cannot rely wholly upon the force of public opinion, however; the law must be ready to check those who are insensitive to moral restraints. One by one, the paths of evildoing must be blocked. Especially must the law learn how to punish corporations, which have been the greatest offenders. At present the stockholders throw responsibility upon the directors, the directors upon their managers, and they upon the subordinates who have personally carried through the evil practices. But to punish these subordinates is ineffective, because they have, in general, little money wherewith to pay fines, and will be ready to run the risk of imprisonment for the sake of pleasing their superiors and earning promotion. If they are imprisoned, others can readily be found to step into their places and higher up. It is these superiors who must be held responsible for acts done by their subordinates. If they realize the risk of punishment falling upon their own heads, they will see to it that illegal practices are discontinued. It will probably be necessary to hold directors responsible for the conduct of their managers, and stockholders for the character of their directors. It will then become the business of owners and directors to watch out for lawbreaking and to put men in control who will keep to fair dealing. This will put an end to the easy assumption of the directorship of several corporations at once by men whose names are wanted; directorship will be made to imply actual attention to the affairs of the business. And the stockholders will take pains to elect such directors as will not incur fines for the corporation that will lessen their dividends. [Footnote: For comment on this matter, see Outlook, vol. 88, p. 862.]

(3) Through these two means, public opinion and the law, we must work toward the ultimate solution, the establishment of codes of honor in the professions and industries. Canons of professional ethics have been adopted by lawyers and doctors; any member of these professions who is guilty of breaking these canons suffers loss of prestige and, almost inevitably, financial loss. So must it be in every industry; each must be organized and must formulate for itself its code; so that pressure from within will supplement pressure from without. There is plenty of capacity for loyalty, self-denial, and discipline in men, even in captains of industry; it needs only to be aroused, crystallized, directed. "We may prevent certain specific practices by statutes which make them misdemeanors; but in so doing we have simply cut off one way of reaching an end. Men will get the same result by another route. obtaining money or office in certain specified ways. We must so shape their ambitions that they do not wish to obtain money or office by means that injure the community. We must get them to consider public selfishness as dishonorable a thing as we now consider private selfishness". If a man today crowds himself out of a theater, leaving behind him a trail of bruised women and children, the very newsboy in the street will hiss him when he gets to the door. Such a man will be despised by the public, and in his heart he will despise himself, for taking advantage of his strength to crush others. But if a man gets money or office by analogous processes, the world is inclined to admire the result and forgive the means; and the man, instead of despising himself for his selfishness, applauds himself for his success.[Footnote: A. T. Hadley, Standards of Public Morality, p. 8.] Certainly, unless in these peaceful ways we can transform our present system of grab-as-grab-can into a fair and rational industrial order, changes will come by violence and revolution. There are volcanic passions slumbering beneath the prosperity of our trade and manufacture; there is but a brief respite before society wherein to evolve a measure of social justice. The lower classes are awakening to their power; unless society and government grant them their fair share of the fruits of industry, they will take them through the wreck of society and government. There is no moral problem more pressing than the finding of peaceful remedies for industrial wrongs.

E. A. Ross, Sin and Society. H. R. Seager, Introduction to Economics, chap. XXII. C. R. Van Hise, Concentration and Control, chap. II. A. T. Hadley, Standards of Public Morality. H. C. Potter, The Citizen in his Relation to the Industrial Situation. W. Gladden, The New Idolatry. R. C. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life. H. Jeffs, Concerning Conscience, chaps. XXII, XXIII. C. R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, chaps. VII, IX. J. S. Brooks, The Social Unrest. Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics, chap. V. Buskin, Unto this Last. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 23, p. 455. [For specific references, see footnotes.]



CHAPTER XXVII

INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION

OUR modern industrial evils are so grave and so deep-rooted that it is highly questionable whether the pressure of public opinion, piecemeal legislation, and the development of codes of honor can strike deep enough to eradicate them. Is not, perhaps, the whole system morally wrong? Instead of these endless attempts to cure the natural results of the system, is there not need of a radical reconstruction? Various attempts have been made, divers proposals are offered, in the hope of curing the causes of present maladies and devising a juster system. Many of these are doubtless impracticable, or tend to work more hardship than amelioration. But each proposal, of any plausibility, has a right to a hearing if it offers to end the great wrongs of contemporary industry; we must be very confident that it will not work before we reject it. For some way must be found to right these wrongs, or our whole industrial order will go to smash. We must not condemn too hastily a method which has not had a thorough trial, or whose defects time and experience might remedy. For mistaken experiments can be discontinued; and great as is the danger in incautious radicalism, the danger in "standing pat" is greater.

Ought the trusts to be broken up or regulated?

The greatest sinners are, certainly, to speak generally, the great corporations that we call trusts-though the word "distrust" would better express contemporary feeling! So great has popular hostility to them become that the Democratic party platform of July, 1912, declared that "a private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable," and demanded "the enactment of such additional legislation as may be necessary to make it impossible for a private monopoly to exist in the United States," i.e., "the control by any one corporation of so large a proportion of any industry as to make it a menace to competitive conditions." But is it necessary to destroy this splendidly efficient concentration of industry in order to avoid its evils? The proposal to revert to the older competitive plan is reminiscent of the outcry against machine production a century earlier, and the earnest pleas then made to return to the hand-tool method. "Big business" constitutes one of the greatest advances in human industry, and therefore has surely come to stay. From the era of individual workers owning their tools, mankind advanced to the age of competition between small concerns using machines; no less marked an advance is that to the age of large-scale production and unified industry. Its advantages may be briefly summarized:

(1) The competitive system involves needless duplications of plant, machinery, and workers; clerks stand idly in rival stores, waiting for trade, drummers spend their time in getting trade away from one another, great sums have to be spent on advertising. Monopoly means a saving of all this wasted time, labor, and money.

(2) The competitive system means great fluctuations in industry, constant anxiety, forced cut prices, and frequent failures, with their financial ruin and heartbreak to employers and loss of work to employees. Monopoly means stability, comparative freedom from anxiety, and a saving of the economic confusion and loss of bankruptcies.

(3) The great scale of monopolistic production tends to still further economies. Raw ported in larger quantities, and so at lower cost; less need be kept on hand at a given time. The utilization of by-products, made feasible by large-scale production, has proved, in many cases, a striking addition to human wealth.

(4) Monopolistic production means that more money can be put into improved processes, into plant and machinery, into making factories sanitary, and working conditions pleasant. The conspicuousness of the plant makes it more open to public criticism and more likely to awaken a sense of pride in the owners. Conditions are seldom tolerated in the big concerns that go unheeded in the little shops.

Surely our attempt, then, must be to retain "big business," and cure its evils, rather than to turn the hands of the clock backward by reverting to the wasteful competitive system. If this proves possible, we should work for the organizing of the as yet unorganized industries. Half of human effort is still wasted, through lack of such organization. If the innumerable butcher shops, grocery stores, apothecary shops, dry goods stores, etc, throughout the country, were consolidated locally, and then for some considerable section of the country, we could have greatly reduced prices and greatly improved shops. Mr. Woolworth's chain of five- and ten-cent stores offers a familiar contemporary example of the efficiency and saving to the consumer of such consolidation.

What are the ethics of the following schemes:

I. TRADE UNIONS AND STRIKES? We must, then, consider what methods of regulating, without destroying, monopoly are efficient and morally defensible; and, first, the method into which the working classes have put most of their effort and enthusiasm. The labor-unions have, as a matter of fact, actually effected certain results, which we may rapidly review:-

(1) Their chief accomplishment, and indeed effort, has been the raising of wages and shortening of hours for labor. Their success, however, has fallen far short of their hopes; and it is impossible to say how much more they have accomplished in this direction than would have been effected by other causes without their efforts. As a whole, the employing class disbelieves in the unions and is strenuously disinclined to yield to their desires. And at present the employers are usually stronger than their employees, unless public opinion or legislation forces them to surrender their position.

(2) To some slight extent, but only to a slight extent, they have effected amelioration in other matters have freed labor from the tyranny of company stores, decreased child labor, secured the installation of safety appliances, sanitary conditions, and other needed improvements.

(3) Their social effect has been greatest. They have amalgamated our stream of heterogeneous immigrants and fired them with common understanding and purpose; they have taught the ignorant to cooperate, made them think, frowned to some degree upon vice, insured their members to. some extent against illness and death, and promoted general friendliness among the laboring classes.

On the other hand, their methods have been productive of much harm:

(1) The economic loss due to strikes has been enormous; the employers have suffered heavily, the public has suffered heavily; the laborers have suffered most of all. Social amelioration certainly ought not to have to come about through such wasteful methods and such bitter privation.

(2) The inconvenience caused the public by strikes has often been very great, especially where the coalmines or railways have been affected. Only a few years ago a veritable tragedy was barely averted, when President Roosevelt succeeded, after the most strenuous efforts, in ending the general coal strike in the winter season. A strike of locomotive engineers means obviously a great peril to the traveling public.

(3) The antagonisms and class hatreds engendered by this sort of industrial warfare do infinite moral harm, and retard heavily the peaceful solution of the problems. The class organs always denounce in bitterest terms the opposing class, and lawlessness always lurks in the background.

(4) Apart from their conduct of strikes, the labor unions must answer to many serious indictments. They have endeavored to restrict output, in order to raise prices. They have sought to restrict the number of apprentices in a trade, and have opposed trade schools, in order to keep down the competition for positions. They have insisted on a uniform wage without regard to efficiency. They have opposed scientific management and the increase of efficiency in various industries, in order to retain more workers therein. They have insisted upon the retention of incompetent employees, thereby directly causing railway accidents and other evils. They have often antagonized such other ameliorative methods as profit sharing and government regulation, and have rejected overtures from employers, because these-to quote from a union pamphlet-"remove the scope and field of trade-unionism." They have at times been run in the interests of selfish leaders and seemed chiefly a moneymaking scheme of a few grafters.

There can be no question, on a dispassionate consideration, that the militant methods of the trade unions are an unfortunate and temporary expedient. The grievances which they have sought to remedy are very real and very bitter; and perhaps, on the whole, the unions have done more good than harm, and accomplished results that would not so soon have been effected in any other way. But they have been rather strikingly unsuccessful. After fifty years of propaganda, seventy per cent of all industrial workers remain non-unionized; and there has been a relative loss in their numbers during the past decade. They have never succeeded in cornering the labor market, and there seems to be no prospect of their succeeding. In all events, for a permanent and thoroughgoing solution of labor troubles we must turn to some other method.

II. PROFIT SHARING, COOPERATION, AND CONSUMERS' LEAGUES?

(1) The usual method of profit-sharing is for the employer to set aside voluntarily a certain proportion of the profits of successful years, to be distributed among the employees in addition to their regular wages, the distribution being made proportionate to the amount of each man's wages. It is thus properly called a dividend to wages, and is equivalent to a small ownership of the stock of the business by each worker. The advantage lies not only in the fairer distribution of the profits of a business, but in the interest, contentment, and increased efficiency of the employees. The self-interest of the laborers is enlisted to prevent strikes, and a feeling of good will tends to prevail. Not a few employers are giving a degree of profit sharing as a mere business proposition; and the results have been generally successful. But the method is only a sop. It touches only one of the evils above mentioned, that of underpayment of workers. And, for that matter, it is oftenest introduced where the workers are already well paid. It is possible only in successful and firmly established industries; and even in them, bad years may necessitate a temporary cessation of dividends to wages, and generate resentment in the minds of the laborers, who do not know the precise status of the business. Moreover, since the workers cannot be expected to reverse the procedure in lean years and contribute to the maintenance of the business, it is necessary, in most industries, to reserve a considerable sum from the profits of fat years to tide over possible periods of lean years. It might be possible to enforce by law the accumulation of such a reserve fund, and then the distribution of a fixed percentage of the net profits of the business to labor-instead of permitting all the profits to go into the pockets of owners or stockholders. But such a plan will probably be superseded by or incorporated into some more comprehensive solution for industrial evils, a scheme that can remedy other wrongs besides that of inadequate wages.

(2) Cooperation in production involves democratic management of a business as well as a more radical sharing of its profits. The workers themselves contribute the capital, elect the managers, and divide the profits. By their votes they can determine hours of work, and arrange conditions to suit themselves, so far as their capital allows. Cooperation-when fully carried out-is socialism on a small scale introduced into the midst of a capitalistic regime. Its defects are, first, that it is difficult while that regime lasts to find capital enough-since those who have capital to invest usually prefer to manage the business themselves or to entrust their money to a business conducted on ordinary lines; secondly, that failure means the loss of the hard-earned savings of workingmen; thirdly, that it is difficult to retain skillful managers, since such men usually prefer the opportunities which individualistic business offers of making a larger income; and fourthly, that it is difficult for a democratically managed concern to compete successfully with autocratic business. Political democracies are at a disadvantage in a struggle with tyrannies, if the latter are governed by able men. A one- man policy is more stable, permits of quicker action and a more consistent policy than is possible to a democracy. Exactly so in business, our dictatorial captains of industry have an advantage over their usually less skilled and always less powerful heads, and their smaller capital. The millionaire can cut prices and stand losses which would ruin a cooperative body of workingmen. So that cooperative production has not generally proved successful. In any case, there seems to be no probability of societies of producers being able to supplant the capitalistic concerns; we must turn elsewhere for the solution of our problems.

(3) Consumers' cooperation has been more widely successful. On this plan a number of people contribute the capital of a business in equal small amounts and share the profits in proportion to their purchases. The possibility of excessive profits to a single owner or a small group of owners is thus abolished. But the other evils of autocratic industry remain; laborers are hired for current wages, as by the capitalists, and the temptations to unfair treatment of employees and of competitors remain.

(4) "Consumers' Leagues," so called, have made a business of ascertaining the conditions under which goods are produced, and exhorting their members to purchase only those which have involved fair treatment to the workers. The undertaking is praiseworthy, and has accomplished some good. But its effects are limited by obvious causes. It is extremely difficult in many cases for the consumer to discover the conditions of production of what he wishes to buy. It is a nuisance to have to burden himself with such perplexing considerations. And it is impossible to maintain public allegiance to a white list in face of the temptation of bargain sales. Evils must be attacked at their source; they cannot be effectively controlled from the consumer's end. III. Government regulation of prices, profits, and wages? There are two proposals that promise thoroughgoing cure for industrial evils government regulation of business, leaving it upon its present capitalistic basis, and socialism, the complete democratizing of industry. It seems that one or the other alternative must ultimately be accepted. According to the former, and less radical, plan, publicity of accounts would be required in every industry; and state or national commissions would have full power to supervise the conditions of production, to set a minimum standard below which wages must not fall, to fix maximum prices above which the products must not be sold, to prevent stock- watering, to enforce standards of honesty and good workmanship in goods, to see to it that all competition is carried on fairly, and to forbid excessive salaries to managers. Equal standards would be exacted throughout an industry, and any increased cost of production would result in the raising of prices (except where profits had previously been exorbitant); thus there would be no real hardship upon employers. The minimum wage should not, of course, be set above the actual productive power of labor; and the inefficient laborers who would be thrown out of employment as not worth the standard wage must be looked after by the provision of free vocational education and state employment. Apprentices, cripples, defectives, and persons giving only part time, would be permitted to receive partial wages; and above the minimum wage, differences in stipend would still exist, as now, to stimulate industry and skill. With such provision for safe- guarding the rights of labor, of competitors, and of the public, profits would not be directly regulated; if they became excessive, they would be clipped by the requirement of a lower price for the product, or of more sanitary or safer conditions of production. But the initiative and energy of the owners would be retained by permitting a sliding scale of profits; the higher the wages paid, or the lower the price set upon products, the greater the profits they could be allowed. Thus a premium would still be set upon efficiency. Under this plan monopoly could be carried to any extent; strikes could be absolutely forbidden, and all dissatisfaction settled by the arbitration of the impartial government commission. Monopoly might even be legally maintained by a refusal of charters to would-be competitors, thus insuring to the public the advantages of a completely organized business without leaving the public at its mercy. The natural monopolies, such as railways, telephones, lighting-service, from which private fortunes have often been made at public expense, can easily be regulated by carefully considered and short-term franchises.

Up to date, the partial and tentative trials of this plan have been encouragingly successful. But there are obvious defects in it, which we must notice:

(1) The danger of failures in business would still exist. Some factors would tend to lessen this danger as, the prevention of stock- watering, misappropriation of funds, excessive salaries, and the unfair competition of rivals. But failures could no longer be averted by squeezing wages, neglecting conditions of production, or lowering the quality of goods. The employers may well ask, in bitterness, what right the Government has to close their chances of high profits when it leaves the chance of total loss. Private ownership of business, still retained on the plan we are considering, must involve risk of bankruptcy, with its economic waste and its suffering.

(2) The plant, capital, and management of a business would still be entirely at the disposal of the owner, and handed down in his family or to partners voluntarily taken in. The son of a capitalist, who inherits the business, may be by no means the most deserving or efficient person to carry it on. Industry is not democratic under this plan; justice is attained as a compromise between the interests of capitalists and laborers. Class antagonisms are still fostered; distrust of the impartiality of the government commission would continually be present, and might at any time lead to actual rebellion and violence.

(3) The temptations to corruption would be enormous. The capitalists, with their reserve funds, would be in a position to bribe or unfairly influence any susceptible members of the commissions; and with the danger of bankruptcy on the one hand, and the great prizes to be won on the other, there would inevitably result in the present state of the average human conscience-a great deal of foul play. Commissioners would have an unlimited opportunity of blackmailing employers. Labor members would pull in one direction, and upper-class members in another. The strain upon public morality would be severe.

IV. SOCIALISM? Socialism promises, according to its adherents, to accomplish all the good results of government regulation, while obviating its defects. It behooves us, then, to give it careful and unbiased attention. The movement toward it is, at least, one of the most significant and widespread movements of our times, evoking on the one hand extraordinary enthusiasm and loyalty, so that to millions of men it is almost a religion, and on the other hand deep distrust, impatient contempt, or bitter hostility. Moreover, the movement is steadily growing; we must recognize that it is not a fad, but a deep current, an international brotherhood that numbers in its ranks many able and intellectual men. We may here disregard the inadequate economic theories that have hampered its earlier years, and the Utopian dreams that have been published under its name, and consider it only as a practical program for remedying our acknowledged and serious industrial evils.

The gist of the socialist proposal is that all industry shall be made democratic, as government is now becoming democratic all over the earth. All plants and all capital are to be owned by the State, and all business run as the Post-Office is run, or as the Panama Canal was built. The managers of each industry are to be chosen from the ranks, according to their fitness, for proved efficiency and knowledge of the business. Everybody will be upon a salary, and the opportunity of increasing personal profits by lowering wages, cheating the public, neglecting evil conditions of production, or damaging rivals, will be absent. Thus, instead of trying by an elaborate system of checks to keep within due bounds the greed of man, the possibility of satisfying that greed is definitely removed, and all earnings made proportionate to industriousness and skill. We proceed to summarize the advantages that, it is urged, would follow the inauguration of this industrial democracy:

(1) All industries could be organized and centralized. A vast amount of human effort could be saved, and waste eliminated. Business would no longer, as so often now, be hampered for lack of funds to carry out plans. A special staff could be retained to invent and apply new ideas. In short, just as the trusts now are much more efficient and economical than the small concerns they have superseded, so the completely organized industries of a socialistic regime would be, we are told, in a position to double human efficiency. If the postal business were open to competition, there can be no doubt that we should be paying higher rates today for a much less efficient service. If it were a private monopoly, some one would probably be getting enormous profits out of it profits which now go back into extending the service. The labor saved by industrial unification would be available for a thousand other undertakings that cry to be carried out.

(2) All the industrial wrongs enumerated in the preceding chapter could, it is asserted, be remedied, and all problems adjusted, with comparatively little friction, because it would be to no one's particular advantage to retard such betterment. Those in control of every business, being upon a fixed salary, and having nothing to gain by squeezing laborers or public, would be amenable to a sense of pride in the honesty, cleanliness, and efficiency of their business, and the contentment of their employees. If they were too lazy or stupid to respond to such motives, they could quickly be superseded in office by men who were more ambitious for the fair showing of their branch of the public service.

(3) Opportunity to rise to the control of a business would be open to every laborer in it. The sons of rich men could no longer step easily into the soft berths, whether they were deserving or not. Proved efficiency, plus popularity, would be the road to success. With the higher wages paid to labor (made possible partly by the economic saving through organization, and partly by cutting out the private fortunes now made out of industry), every boy would be able to get a thorough vocational education, and be in a position to strive, if he is ambitious, for leadership. Industrial power would be conferred, directly or indirectly, by popular vote; business would be recognized as a public affair, and nepotism and hereditary advantage banished from it as they have been from politics.

(4) The risk of bankruptcies, with all their attendant evils, would be done away with entirely. Business would have a stability unknown to our present individualistic industry, and businessmen would be freed from that anxiety that drives so many today to a premature grave.

(5) All speculation in stocks would be likewise eliminated. The necessary capital for any new undertaking would be provided by the industrial State, and the undeserved gains and losses of our present system of private investment would come to an end.

(6) Morally, there would be a probable gain in several ways. The elimination of private profit from business would give freer room for the development of a social spirit which is now choked out by the temptation that each owner of a business is under to grab all that he can for himself. There would be no motive, and no fortunes available, for, at least, the most striking forms of that corruption of the press which is such a grave problem today. Municipal theaters would be under no temptation to produce nasty plays. All this exploitation of human weakness and passion is done because it PAYS; if the men at the top were on a salary there would be no such inducement to cater to vicious instincts. The economic pressure that now pushes so many girls in the direction of prostitution would be relieved. The people generally would be dignified and educated by their participation in industrial, as now in political decisions. If some of the tougher strains of character, grit, push, endurance, etc. would be less fostered, the gentler and more social aspects of character would find better soil.

Whether all these advantages would actually accrue, in the degree hoped for, it is, of course, impossible to know. There are, however, at least two grave dangers in socialism which must be squarely faced:

(1) A certain degree of slackness and consequent inefficiency would almost inevitably result from the relaxing of the pressure of competition and the removal of the opportunity for unlimited personal profit. Employees and managers of state and municipal undertakings are apt to take things easily; and there have been usually waste and inertia and extravagance in such enterprises. The probable loss in grit, push, and endurance, mentioned above, might prove serious. We must admit that, on the whole, private business has been managed much better than public business, both in this country and abroad. To a considerable extent, however, the inefficiency of municipal and state undertakings has been due to the clumsiness and corruption of political systems, and can be cured by political reform. That public affairs can be managed as successfully as private business has been demonstrated on many occasions. The parcel post offers a much more economical service than the express companies ever gave. The most efficient and successful engineering undertaking ever accomplished by man the construction of the Panama Canal was a thoroughgoing socialistic achievement. Moreover, in our criticism of public undertakings, we are apt to forget how slack and inefficient the great bulk of private business has been; our attention is caught by the few concerns that have made a striking success, and we overlook the vast numbers that have failed or barely kept alive. Looking at the matter psychologically, observation does not altogether confirm the statement that men need an unlimited possibility of financial reward to work hard. The vast majority of workers today are on salary; and on the whole they probably work as faithfully as the few at the top (continually becoming fewer) who have the spur of private profit.[Footnote: 1 Cf. this testimony in regard to former owners of stores in Minnesota and Wisconsin who have been bought out and retained as managers by cooperative societies: "they work for moderate salaries, and in almost all cases are working as ardently for success as they ever did for their own gain." N. O. Nelson, in Outlook, vol. 89, p. 527.] Not all capitalists are hard workers; much of the real work is done for them by salaried managers. It is very questionable if doctors and lawyers, who work for profits, give any more loyal service to the community than teachers, ministers, or nurses, who work on salary. There would still be the need of earning one's living, and the incentive of rising to positions of higher salary, greater authority, and wider interest. And, after all, most of the really good work of the world is done on honor, from the normal human pleasure in doing things well, and pride in being known to do things well. When freed from the private greed and antisocial class feelings which now inhibit it, this zest in efficient work and loyal service might receive a new impetus. A socialistic regime would surely make a business of inculcating in its public schools the conception of all work as public service; and the pressure of public opinion would bear more heavily upon workers-as there is today much freer criticism of public than of private undertakings. But even if there should be a considerable increase in slackness and a decrease in PER CAPITA production, that economic loss might be more than made up by the saving of labor through organization. And if not, it is true that efficiency is not the only good. Considerations of humanity should weigh with us as well as considerations of moneymaking; if socialism can cure the intolerable evils in our present selfish and chaotic system, a certain decrease in production might not be too great a price to pay.

(2) The running of the complicated socialistic machine would involve a great deal of friction, with consequent dissatisfaction and dissension. Problems would arise on all hands: On what basis should the wage-rate in this industry and in that be determined? How much of the public moneys should be put into this and how much into that undertaking? Was this department head fair in discharging this man and promoting that man? Suspicion of bribery and graft would continually recur. Bad seasons would be encountered, blunders would be made, overproduction would occur, men would be thrown out of employment in the work they had chosen, floods, fires, plagues, and other disasters would sweep away profits; the adjustment of these losses would be an enormously delicate matter. At present, the poor are apt to feel that prosperity for them is hopeless; under a socialistic regime they would expect it, and be loath to see their incomes diminished when things went wrong. Socialism would require a great deal of good temper and willingness to submit to decisions which seemed unwise or unfair. It is highly doubtful if human nature is yet good enough to fit the system.

(3) A third objection to socialism, that corruption would be increased, is a much-debated point. There would be, as now, opportunity for falsification of accounts and embezzlement. Individual promotions would too often hinge upon personal friendship or favors received. The enormous administrative machinery would open up all sorts of new avenues to personal gain at the expense of others, which unprincipled men would be quick to take advantage of. But, on the other hand, no great private fortunes or wealthy corporations would exist to bribe, and no such money-prizes would exist to be won by bribery as are common in our present system. There would be no temptation to adulterate goods, and less of a temptation to award contracts or franchises to friends -since there would be no private profit in it. What supports our political rings today is, above all, the existence of the "interests" wealthy corporations that are making profits enough to spare large sums for "influencing" legislation; these "interests" would no longer exist. On the whole, then, the amount and direction of corruption under socialism is unpredictable; but its possibility should give us pause. The other general objections to socialism are probably less serious; some of them complete misapprehensions. It is certainly not anti-Christian; on the contrary, there are those who believe that it is the necessary the Christian spirit.[Footnote: Cf, for example, W. Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis.] It is not "materialistic" any more than any industrial system must necessarily be. It would not necessarily destroy private property or lessen human freedom, except in the one matter that it would prevent private ownership of the instruments of industrial production and destroy the freedom to conduct business to private advantage. But it is clear that it would involve us in all sorts of complicated and delicate problems of detail which would require generations for satisfactory solution and which might never be satisfactorily solved. And it might, of course, lead to other difficulties now unforeseen, graver and more difficult to meet than we now realize. Surely, then, it is not to be lightly undertaken, and not to be undertaken as a mere revolt of the lower classes against their industrial masters. It must be worked out in great detail, and contrasted with every possible alternative, before cautious statesmen will consent to its adoption. For it would mean a revolutionary change of enormous proportions; and it would not be easy to revert to the earlier order. Our political machinery, under which the vast industrial system would come, must first be reconstructed and made efficient. Religion and public education must be strengthened to meet the new demands upon character and intelligence. It is earnestly to be hoped that if socialism comes, it will come not by revolution, as the result of a class struggle, but by evolution and a general consent, the result of long and careful public discussion. In the writer's opinion, present steps must be along the line of government regulation, with socialism as the possible, but as yet by no means certain, eventual outcome. In any case, there is no simple and sweeping panacea for our industrial ills; the patient thought and experimentation and effort of generations will be required before a satisfactory and stable equilibrium is attained.

Competition VS. concentration: C. R. Van Hise, CONCENTRATION AND CONTROL, chap. I. J. W. Jenks, THE TRUST PROBLEM. E. von Halle, TRUSTS AND INDUSTRIAL COMBINATIONS. F. C. McVey, MODERN INDUSTRIALISM. S. C. T. Dodd, COMBINATIONS, THEIR USE AND ABUSE. R. T. Ely, MONOPOLIES AND TRUSTS. C. N. Fay, BIG BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT. Edmond Kelly, TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIALISM, book II, chap, II; book III, chap. I. A. J. Eddy, THE NEW COMPETITION. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 79, p. 377. FORUM, vol. 8, p. 61. JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, vol. 20, p. 358. Labor unions and strikes: J. R. Commons, TRADE-UNIONISM AND LABOR PROBLEMS. Carlton, HISTORY AND PROBLEMS OF ORGANIZED LABOR. S. and B. Webb, INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY; HISTORY OF TRADE UNIONISM. J. Mitchell, ORGANIZED LABOR. C. R. Henderson, SOCIAL SPIRIT IN AMERICA, chap. ix. Jane Addams, NEWER IDEALS OF PEACE, chap. v. ATLANTIC MONTHLY, vol. 109, p. 758. H. R. Seager, I NTRODUCTION TO ECONOMICS, chap. xxi. F. W. Taussig, PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS, chap. 55. Profit sharing: W. H. Tolman, SOCIAL ENGINEERING, chap. vii. Seager, OP. CIT, chap, xxvi, sec. 281. Adams and Sumner, LABOR PROBLEMS, chap. X. N. P. Gilman, PROFIT SHARING; A DIVIDEND TO LABOR. Outlook, vol. 106, p. 627. QUARTERLY REVIEW, vol. 219, p. 509. Cooperation: G. J. Holyoake, HISTORY OF COOPERATION. C. R. Fay, COOPERATION AT HOME AND ABROAD. Adams and Sumner, LABOR PROBLEMS, chap. x. ARENA, vol. 36, p. 200; vol. 40, p. 632. H. R. Seager, OP. CIT, sec. 282. F. W. Taussig, OP. CIT, chap. 59. Consumers' leagues: Publications of the National Consumers' League (106 East Nineteenth Street, New York City). Government regulation: J. W. Jenks, OP. CIT, Appendices. C. R. Van Hise, OP. CIT, chaps, iii-v. F. W. Taussig, OP. CIT, chaps. 62,63. H. R. Seager, OP. CIT, chap. xxv. C. L. King, REGULATION OF MUNICIPAL UTILITIES. J. B. and J. M. Clark, CONTROL OF THE TRUSTS. E. M. Phelps, FEDERAL CONTROL OF INTERSTATE CORPORATIONS. ATLANTIC MONTHLY, vol. iii, p. 433. OUTLOOK, vol. 99, p. 649; vol. 100, pp. 574, 690; vol. 101, p. 353; vol. 103, p. 476. NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, vol. 197, pp. 62, 222, 350. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS, vol. 23, p. 158. JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, vol. 20, pp. 309, 574. Socialism: Edmond Kelly, TWENTIETH CENTURY SOCIALISM. H. G. Wells, NEW WORLDS FOR OLD. J. Spargo, SOCIALISM. M. Hillquit, SOCIALISM IN THEORY AND PRACTICE. A. Schaffle, THE QUINTESSENCE OF SOCIALISM. F. W. Taussig, OP. CIT, chaps. 64, 65. J. Rae, the roman numerals are both upper and lower case did not standardize PORARY SOCIALISM. R. T. Ely, SOCIALISM. W. G. Towler, SOCIALISM IN LOCAL GOIVERNEMNT. H. R. SEAGER, OP. CIT, sec. 282. N. P. Gilman, SOCIALISM AND THE AMERICAN SPIRIT. R. Hunter, SOCIALISTS AT WORK. JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, vol. 14, p. 257. OUTLOOK, vol. 91, pp. 618, 662; vol. 95, pp. 831, 876.



CHAPTER XXVIII

LIBERTY AND LAW

WE have spoken of the practical defects and dangers inherent in the various proposals that look to the rectification of industrial wrongs. But there is one source of opposition to these proposals that requires more extended consideration-the fear that they-and especially socialism-unduly threaten that ideal of personal liberty which our fathers so passionately served and we have come to look upon as the cornerstone of our prosperity. What is this ideal of liberty, and how should it affect our efforts at industrial regeneration? What are the essential aspects of the ideal of liberty? Throughout a long stretch of human history one of the most vexing obstacles to general happiness and progress has been the irresponsible power of sovereigns and oligarchies. To generations it has seemed that if freedom from selfish tyranny could but be won, the millennium would be at hand. Our heroes have been those who fought against despots for the rights of the people; we measure progress by such milestones as the Magna Charta, the French Revolution, the American Declaration of Independence. To this day we engrave the word "liberty" on our coins; and the converging multitudes from Europe look up eagerly to the great statue that welcomes them in New York Harbor and symbolizes for them the freedom that they have often suffered so much to gain. In Mrs. Hemans's hymn, in Patrick Henry's famous speech, in Mary Antin's wonderful autobiography, The Promised Land, we catch glimpses of that devotion to liberty which, it is now said, we are jeopardizing by our increasing mass of legislative restraints and propose to banish for good and all by an indefinite increase in the powers of the State. More than a generation ago Mill wrote: "There is in the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation; and as the tendency of all the changes taking place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and more formidable."[Footnote: Essay on Liberty, Introductory.] Not a few observers today are reiterating this note of alarm with increasing emphasis. Are their fears well founded? We may at once agree in applauding the liberty worship of our fathers and of our contemporaries in the more backward countries. No secure steps in civilization can be taken until liberty of body, of movement, and of possession are guaranteed; there must be no fear of arbitrary execution, arrest, or confiscation. To this must be added liberty of conscience, of speech, and of worship; the right of free assembly, a free press, and that "freedom to worship God" that the Pilgrims sought. Wherever these rights, so fundamental to human happiness, are impugned, "Liberty!" is still the fitting rallying-cry.[Footnote: The exact limits within which freedom of speech must be allowed are debatable, (a) Speech which incites to crime, to lawbreaking, to sexual and other vice, must be prevented; and (b) slander, the public utterance of grossly disparaging statements concerning any person, without reasonable evidence of their truth. May we attempt to stifle the utterance of (c) such other untruths as are inexcusable in the light of our common knowledge? There are certainly many matters where there is no longer room for legitimate difference of opinion; and the general diffusion of correct knowledge is greatly retarded by the silly utterances of uninformed people. Yet to draw the line here is so difficult that we must probably tolerate this evil forever rather than run the risk of stifling some generally unsuspected truth.] rights are safely won; the danger now is rather of abusing them. We must not forget that liberty is only a means, not an end in itself, to be restricted in so far as may be necessary for the greatest happiness. From our discussion in Part II it should be clear that there are no "natural rights" which the community is bound to respect; liberty must be granted the individual so far, and only so far, as it does not impede the general welfare. We do not hesitate to end the liberty, or even to take the life, of those we deem dangerous to society. We do not hesitate to confiscate the land which we deem necessary for a highway or railroad or public building. Indeed, we hedge personal liberty about with a thousand restrictions by general consent, in the realization that public interests must come before private. We have no need to discuss the doctrine of anarchism [Footnote: For an eloquent defense of anarchism see Tolstoy's writings; here is a sample statement: "For a Christian to promise to subject himself to any government whatsoever-a subjection which may be considered the foundation of state life-is a direct negation of Christianity." (Kingdom of God, chap. IX.) Cf. this utterance of one of the Chicago anarchists of 1886. "Whoever prescribes a rule of action for another to obey is a tyrant: usurper, and an enemy of liberty."]- unrestricted liberty since the general chaos that would result there from, in the present stage of human nature, is sufficiently apparent. Liberty can never be absolute. Indeed, there has been a curious reversal of situation. The older cry of liberty that stirs us was a cry of the oppressed masses against their masters; now it is a slogan of the privileged upper classes against that increasing popular legislation which restricts their powers. Kings are now but figureheads, if they linger at all, in our modern democracies; governments are not irresponsible masters of the people, they are instruments for carrying out the popular will. The real tyrants now, those whose irresponsible authority is dangerous to the masses, are the kings of industry; if the cry of "liberty" is to be raised again, it should be raised, according to all historical precedent, in behalf of the slaves of modern industry rather than in behalf of the fortunate few who give up so grudgingly the practical powers they have usurped. There were those, indeed, who fought passionately for the divine right of kings, those who died to maintain the right of a white man to hold Negroes as slaves; there are those today who with a truly religious fervor uphold the right of the capitalistic class to manage the industries of the country at their own sweet will, unhampered by such legislative restrictions as the majority may deem expedient for the general welfare. But it is a travesty on the sacred word "liberty" that it should be thus invoked to uphold the prerogatives of the favored few. Liberty, in the sense in which it is properly an ideal for man, connotes the right to all such forms of activity as are consonant with the greatest general happiness, and to no others. It implies the right not to be oppressed, not the right to oppress. Mere freedom of contract is not real freedom, if the alternative be to starve; such formal freedom may be practical slavery. The real freedom is freedom to live as befits a man; and it is precisely because such freedom is beyond the grasp of multitudes today that our system of "free contract" is discredited; it offers the name of liberty without the reality. But apart from this questionable appeal to the ideal of liberty, there are not a few who sincerely believe, on grounds of practical expediency, that legislation ought not to interfere any more than proves absolutely necessary with the conduct of industry. This scheme of individualism we will now consider.

The ideal of individualism. The individualistic, or laissez-faire, ideal dates perhaps from Rousseau and the French doctrinaires; its best-known representatives in English speech are Mill and Spencer. Dewey and Tufts have pithily expressed it as follows: "The moral end of political institutions and measures is the maximum possible freedom of the individual consistent with his not interfering with like freedom on the part of other individuals."[Footnote: Ethics, p. 483.] Its leading arguments may be presented and answered, summarily, as follows:

(1) Legislation has so often been mischievous that it is well to have as little of it as possible. The masses are uneducated, the prey of impulse and passion; politics are corrupt; to submit the genius of free ENTREPRENEURS to the clumsy and ill-fitted yoke of a popularly wrought legal control is to stifle their enterprise and interfere with their chances of success. After all, every one knows his own needs best; and if we leave people alone, they will secure their own welfare better than if we try to dictate to them how they shall seek it. "Out of the fourteen thousand odd acts which, in our own country, have been repealed, from the date of the Statute of Merton down to 1872 . . . how many have been repealed because they were mischievous? . . . Suppose that only three thousand of these acts were abolished after proved injuries had been caused, which is a low estimate. What shall we say of these three thousand acts which have been hindering human happiness and increasing human misery; now for years, now for generations, now for centuries?"[Footnote: H. Spencer, Principles of Ethics, part IV, sec. 131.] But to admit that much legislation has been blundering is not to admit that the principle of social control is wrong. Our political system must, indeed, be made must be placed in the way of overhasty and ill-considered lawmaking. But it is not always true that the individual is the best judge of his own ultimate interests; and it is demonstrably untrue that the pursuit by each of what he deems best for himself will bring the greatest happiness for all. The stronger and more favorably situated will take advantage of their position and resources; the weaker, though theoretically free, will in reality be under the handicap of poverty, ignorance, hunger. Such a system is inevitably vicious in its moral effects. To say that in a popular government legislation cannot properly standardize practice, cannot formulate a higher code of public morality than men can be depended upon to attain if unrestrained, is unwarrantably to discredit democracy. If the laws are bad, improve them. If the public is uneducated, educate it. If our system gives us poor lawmakers, change the system. But to give up the attempt at legal control, to leave things as they are or rather, to leave them to go from bad to worse, is unthinkable.

(2) Too much legislation stifles individuality, drags genius down to the dead level of average ideas, tends to produce an unprogressive uniformity of practice. It imposes the conceptions of the past upon the future. "If the measures have any effect at all, the effect must in part be that of causing some likeness among the individuals; to deny this is to deny that the process of molding is operative. But in so far as uniformity results advance is retarded. Every one who has studied the order of nature knows that without variety there can be no progress."[Footnote: H. Spencer, op. cit, sec. 138.] "Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow. Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. ... It is important to give the freest scope possible to uncustomary things, in order that it may in time appear which of these are fit to be converted into customs." [Footnote: J. S. Mill, On Liberty, chap. III.] But the intention of social legislation is to check only such individual action as is demonstrably detrimental; the uniformity produced will be only a uniform absence of flagrant wrongs and adoption of such positive precautions as will make the detection and checking of these harmful acts easy. Beyond this minimum uniformity (which, however, must include an enormous number of details, so manifold have the possibilities of wrongdoing become) there will on any system be ample range for the development of new methods and processes. Whatever danger there once was in choking individual initiative by needlessly paralyzing restrictions, will be, in the long run, negligible in an age of omnivorous reading and free discussion, and in a land whose conscious ideal is improvement, new invention, progress. As a matter of fact, it is chiefly through legislation that new methods of social practice become diffused. Each of our forty-eight States is experimenting in social guidance, trying to thwart this or that sin, to remedy this or that wrong, to work out a plan by which men can happily cooperate in our complex public life. The process of evolving an efficient and frictionless social machine, instead of being retarded by this activity of lawmaking, is actually accelerated thereby. Private business tends to fall into ruts; and one man's ideals are blocked by lack of cooperation from others. Legislation tends not only to preserve the best of past experiments; but, goaded by the zeal of reformers, and pushed by political parties, to drag complacent and inert individuals along new and untried paths. The greatest field for genius lies today in devising successful constructive legislation; and the greatest hope for progress in this era of mutual dependence lies in the winning of a majority for some social scheme that must be generally adopted if at all.

(3) Laws, however beneficent, which rise above the general conscience of the people are undesirable; character should precede legislation. "To conform to custom, merely as custom, does not educate or develop in [a man] any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowment of a human being. . . . He who does anything because it is the custom makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. . . . It is possible that he might be guided in some good path, and kept out of harm's way, without [using his own judgment, powers of decision, self control, etc.] But what will be his comparative worth as a human being? It really is of importance, not only what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it." [Footnote: J. S. Mill, op. cit, chap. III.] A little common sense will show us, however, that there are, and always will be, plenty of occasions for exercising our moral muscle, however closely we hedge in the field of legitimate activity. Prone to temptation as men are, and beset by a thousand wrong impulses, we may well seek to block this and that path of possible wrongdoing without fear of turning them mechanically into saints. On the contrary, we should hasten to use the experience of the past to avert needless temptations from the men of the future.

Our experience has been costly enough; and if it has revealed its lessons too late to save contemporary social life, at least it should serve as warning for our sons. To sacrifice right conduct to moral gymnastics is to set up the means as more important than the end; every good act that can be lifted from the plane of moral struggle and put securely on the plane of habit is a step in human progress, and leaves men freer to grapple with the remaining temptations. If you wish to educate men up to a law, put it upon the statute books if you can, compel attention to it and discussion of the reasons pro and con, show its practical workings; it is far easier to educate conscience up to an existing law than beyond it. Moreover, it must be said that those who prefer to see men left to think things out anew for themselves, without the restraint and guidance of the law, show a singular callousness toward those whom their action, if they choose wrongly, will hurt. If we could trust men to choose aright-but we cannot; and men must be protected against their own stupidity and weakness, and that of others, by the collective wisdom and will.

(4) Individualism makes for prosperity. Offering a fair chance to all, it brings the best to the top; the fittest survive, and win the positions of power; the community as a whole is, then, in the end advantaged. "Free competition in profits coordinates industrial efficiency and industrial reward.This is equality of opportunity, through which every man is rewarded according to his worth to the consumer." [Footnote: F. Y. Gladney, in the Outlook, vol. 101, p. 261.] Unfortunately, however, it is those who are fittest to serve not the community but their own interests that have the best chance to survive-the clever, the privileged, the unscrupulous. Nor is there equality of opportunity where some will not play fair and others have a long start. The individualistic struggle makes for the selection of a type of greedy, self-centered man, with little sense of social responsibility. Even granted that the men who reach the top are the men best fitted to manage the industries of the country, this method of selection of leaders is too wasteful of strength, too hard on the unsuccessful, to be generally profitable. The prosperity of modern industry is due not primarily to its chaotic plan of individual effort and cross-purposes, but to the measure of cooperation we have nevertheless attained, with its consequent division and specialization of labor and large-scale production, aided by the extraordinary development of invention and machinery. The ideal of legal control. The epoch of ultra individualism, of what Huxley called "administrative nihilism," is rapidly passing. Jane Addams speaks of "the inadequacy of those eighteenth-century ideals the breakdown of the machinery which they provided," pointing out that "that worldly wisdom which counsels us to know life as it is" discounts the assumption "that if only the people had freedom they would walk continuously in the paths of justice and righteousness." [Footnote: Newer Ideals of Peace, pp. 31-32.] H. G. Wells remarks, "We do but emerge now from a period of deliberate happy- go-lucky and the influence of Herbert Spencer, who came near raising public shiftlessness to the dignity of a natural philosophy. Everything would adjust itself-if only it was left alone." [Footnote: Social Forces in England and America, p. 80.] It is becoming clear that we cannot trust to education and the conscience of individuals to right matters, not only because as yet we provide no moral education of any consequence for our youth, but because, if we did, the temptations in a world where every man is free to grab for himself would still be almost irresistible. But there are two positive arguments for the extension of legal control that clinch the matter:

(1) Without the support of the law it is often impossible for the conscientious man to act in a purely social spirit. The competition of those who are less answerable to moral motives forces him to lower his own ideals if he would not see his business ruined. The employer of child labor in one factory cannot afford to hire adults, at their higher wage, until all the other factories give up the cheaper labor also. Where sweatshop labor produces cheap clothing for some manufacturers, the more scrupulous are undersold. One employer cannot, unless he is unusually prosperous, raise the wages of his employees or shorten their hours until his competitors do likewise. Improvement of conditions must take place all along the line or not at all. And since unanimous voluntary consent is practically impossible to obtain, and of precarious duration if obtained, the legal enforcement of common standards is necessitated.

(2) Men generally are willing to bind themselves by law to higher codes than they will live up to if not bound. In their reflective moments, when they are deciding how to vote, temptations are less insistent and ideals stronger than when they are confronting concrete situations. To vote for a law which will restrain others, and incidentally one's self, comes easier than to make a purely personal sacrifice that leaves general practice unaltered. To realize that this is true, we need but look at the remarkable ethical gains made now year by year through laws voted for by many of the very men whose practice had hitherto been upon a lower moral level. Very many evils that once seemed fastened upon society have been thus legislated out of existence.[Footnote: For a vivid picture of earlier industrial conditions which would not now be tolerated, see Charles Reade's Put Yourself in His Place.] And if the industrial situation still seems wretched, it is because, in our swift advance, new evils are arising about as fast as older evils are eradicated. The law necessarily lags behind the spread of abuses, so that "there will probably always be a running duel between anti-social action and legislation designed to check it. Novel methods of corruption will constantly require novel methods of correction . . But this constant development of the law should make corrupt practices increasingly difficult for the less gifted rascals who must always constitute the great majority of would-be offenders." [Footnote: R. C. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life, p. 99.] The law can never, of course, cover the whole field of human conduct; it represents, in Stevenson's phrase," that modicum of morality which can be squeezed out of the rock of mankind." Unnecessary extension of the law is cumbersome, expensive, and provocative of impatience and rebellion. Moreover, there is always some minimum of danger of injustice in attempting legal constraint; the law itself, as approved by the majority, may be unfair, or its application to the concrete case may be unfair. The individualists are right in feeling that men must be left alone, wherever the possible results are not too dangerous. But no hard-and-fast line can be drawn between activities that must be left free and those which must be regulated. Such apparently personal matters as the use of opium or alcohol must be checked because the general happiness is, in the end, greatly and obviously enhanced by such restraint. But there will always be, beyond the law, a wide field for the satisfaction of personal tastes and the practice of generosity. There is no double standard; if an act is legally right and morally wrong, that simply means that it lies beyond the boundaries of the limited field which the law covers. The extension of that field is a matter of practical expediency in each type of situation; beyond that field, but working to the same ends, the forces of education and public opinion are alone available. [Footnote: For a discussion of this point, see F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, chap. IX, sec. 9. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 18, p. 18.] Should existing laws always be obeyed? Year by year we are extending our network of laws over human conduct; more and more pertinent becomes the them? and the further question, Are there times when the law may be rightly disobeyed? We shall discuss the second question first. It is obvious that our whole social structure rests upon the willingness of the people to obey the law. The watchword of republics should be, not "liberty," but "obedience"; their gravest danger now is not tyranny, but anarchy. We must individually submit with patience and good temper to the decisions of the majority, even if we disapprove those decisions. We must abide by the rules of the game until we can get the rules changed. And all changes must be effected according to the rules agreed upon for effecting changes. This law-abiding spirit is the great triumph of democracy; only so long as it exists can popular government stand. Though it be slower and exacting of greater effort and skill, evolution, not revolution, is the method of permanent progress. We must, then, band together against any groups that, in their impatience of reform or opposition to the common will, cast aside the restraints of law. However dearly we may long for woman's suffrage, we must sternly repress those excited suffragettes who would gain this end by defiance of law and destruction of property; even if they further their particular cause by their violence-which is highly doubtful-they do it at the expense of something still more precious, the preservation of the law-abiding spirit. Other organizations will not be slow to profit by the lesson of their success; and we shall have Heaven knows how many causes seeking to attain their ends by destructiveness and resistance. Similarly, the more serious and menacing rebellion of labor against law must be firmly controlled; much as we may sympathize with their grievances, we cannot countenance the attempt to remedy them by violence. The Industrial Workers of the World, with action, [Footnote: Cf, in a pamphlet issued by them: "The I.W.W. will get the results sought with the least expenditure of time and energy. The tactics used are determined solely by the power of the organization to make good in their use". The question of 'right' and 'wrong' does not concern us. In short, the I.W.W. advocates the use of militant 'direct action' tactics to the full extent of our power to make them." (Quoted in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, p. 703.)] have made themselves enemies of society. The advocates of "sabotage," the "reds" in the socialist camp, the preachers of practical anarchism, must be treated as among the most dangerous of criminals. On the other hand, the spread of the spirit of lawlessness among the lower classes should serve to warn the upper classes that present social conditions will not much longer be endured.[Footnote: Cf. Ettor (quoted in Outlook, vol. 101, p. 340): "They tell us to get what we want by the ballot. They want us to play the game according to the established rules. But the rules were made by the capitalists. THEY have laid down the laws of the game. THEY hold the pick of the cards. We never can win by political methods. The right of suffrage is the greatest hoax of history. Direct action is the only way."] There is a great deal of idealism among the advocates of violence;[Footnote: Cf, for example, Giovannitti's poem, The Cage, in the Atlantic Monthly, June, 1913.] there is a great deal of sympathy on the part of the public with lawless strikers, with the I.W.W. gangs that have recently invaded city churches, with all those under-dogs who are now determining to have a share in the good things of life. Unless the employing and governing classes meet their demands halfway, gunpowder and dynamite pretty surely lie ahead. Will the spirit of lawlessness spread? Ought we to slacken our process of lawmaking lest we make the yoke too hard to bear? As a matter of fact, it is through more laws, better laws, and a better mechanism for punishing infraction of laws, that we can hope to check lawlessness. Lynching-as we noted in chapter XXV-have been the product of inadequate legislation and judicial procedure; as our laws against the worst crimes become sharper, our police forces more efficient, and our court trials quicker and less hampered by technicalities, they decrease in number. As education on the liquor question spreads, violations of prohibition laws become fewer. The kind of lawlessness that is on the increase is that which exists as a protest against and a means of remedying evils that the laws have not yet properly dealt with. Give us by law an industrial code that will minimize the exploitation of the weak by the strong, bringing a good measure of security and comfort to all, and such outrages as those of the McNamara brothers will cease, or at worst will be merely sporadic and generally condemned. Allow present conditions to drift on without sharp legal guidance, and such outrages will certainly become more and more numerous. The alternative that confronts the modern world is plainly evolution by law or revolution by violence. Individualism: J. S. Mill, On Liberty. H. Spencer, Principles of Ethics, part iv, chaps, XXV-XXIX; Social Statics; and many other writings. J. H. Levy, The Outcome of Individualism. Various publications of the British Personal Rights Association. W. Donisthorpe, Individualism. W. Fite, Individualism, lect. IV. Legal control: Florence Kelley, Some Ethical Gains through Legislation. Jane Addams, Newer Ideals of Peace. E. A. Ross, Social Control, chap. XXXI. D. S. Ritchie, Principles of State Interference. J. W. Jenks, Government Action for Social Welfare. A. V. Dicey, Law and Opinion. J. Seth, Study of Ethical Principles, pp. 297-331. H. C. Potter, Relation of the Individual to the Industrial Situation, chap. VI. W. J. Brown, Underlying Principles of Modern Legislation. Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. 10, p. 113. A. T. Hadley, Freedom and Responsibility. J. W. Garner, Introduction to Political Science, chaps, IX, X. Edmond Kelly, Evolution and Effort. Lawlessness: Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, p. 441. Outlook, vol. 98, p. 12; vol. 99, p. 901; vol. 100, p. 359. J. G. Brooks, American Syndicalism.



CHAPTER XXIX

EQUALITY AND PRIVILEGE

All men, our Declaration of Independence tells us, are created free and equal-that is, with a right to freedom and equality. They are not actually equal in natural gifts, but they ought, so far as possible, to be made equal in opportunity; equality is not a fact, but an ideal. And as an ideal it comes sometimes into conflict with its twin ideal of liberty; the freedom of the stronger must be curtailed when it robs the weaker of their fair share of happiness; but, on the other hand, a dead level of equality must not be sought at the sacrifice of the potentialities for the general good that lie in the free play of individuality. The various projects for securing a greater equality among men must be scrutinized with an eye to their total effects upon human happiness.

What flagrant forms of inequality exist in our society?

Equality is a modern ideal; in former times it was generally assumed that men inevitably belong to classes or castes; that some must have luxury and others poverty, some must rule and others obey. Plato, in constructing his ideal state, retains the walls between the small governing class, the warriors, and the mass of artisans, who are of no particular account but to get the work done. Castiglione, in his Book of the Courtier, declares that "there are many men who, although they are rational creatures, have only such share of reason as to recognize it, but not to possess or profit by it. These, therefore, are naturally slaves, and it is better and more profitable for them to obey than to command."

But the invention of the printing press brought ideas to the masses, the invention of gunpowder brought them power; the colonization of new continents leveled old distinctions of rank; the development of manufacture and commerce brought fortune and power to men of humble origin. The forces thus set in motion have resulted in our day in the general acceptance of political democracy witness in contemporary affairs the inception of the Portuguese Republic, the Chinese Republic, the abolition of the veto-power of the British House of Lords-and are creating a widespread belief in industrial democracy. So complete is our American acquiescence in the principle of equality in the abstract that it is difficult for us to realize the burning passions that underlay such familiar words as Don Quixote's, "Know, Sancho, that one man is no more than another unless he does more than another"; or Burns's "A man's a man for a' that"; or Tennyson's " 'Tis only noble to be good."