(2) The short ballot. As our government has grown more and more complex, the number of officials for whom the citizen must vote has increased, with the result that he has to decide in many cases among rival candidates about none of whom he knows anything definitely. For four or five offices he can be fairly expected the merits of the candidates in the field; but to investigate or remember the relative merits and demerits of a score or more is more than the average voter will do. So he may "scratch" his party's candidate for governor or mayor, but usually votes the "straight ticket" for the minor officials. This works too well into the hands of the political machines. The obvious remedy is to give him only a few officers to vote for and to require the remaining offices to be filled by appointment instead of election.
By this method, not only is the voter saved from needless confusion and enabled to concentrate his attention upon the few big offices, but the responsibility for misgovernment is far more clearly fixed, and the possibility of remedying it made much easier. If a dozen state officials are elected, the average citizen is uncertain who is to blame for inefficiency; each official shoves the responsibility on to the others' shoulders, and it is not plain what can be done except to depose them all, one by one. If a governor only is elected, and is required to appoint his subordinates, the entire blame rests upon his shoulders. If dishonesty or misadministration is discovered, he must take the shame; he may be recalled from office if he is not quick enough in removing the guilty man and remedying the evil.
Further, the right to choose his own subordinates makes the work of the chief much easier, brings a unity of purpose into an administration which is likely to be absent when a number of different men, simultaneously elected, perhaps representing different parties, have to work together. The increased power and responsibility of the chief offices attract able men, men of ideals and training, who do not care for an office whose power is limited by that of various machine politicians who, they know, will hamper them on every side in their efforts for efficient administration. And, apart from this consideration, a man able enough to win election as governor is a far better judge of the men best fitted for the various technical duties that fall to his subordinates than is the general public. Experience shows that the men chosen by chiefs who are elected and held responsible to the people are generally abler than those elected to the same positions by popular vote.
The present movement toward a short ballot, with responsibility clearly denned and concentrated, will doubtless do away ultimately with the clumsy systems by which both States and cities in this country are now governed-the two-chambered legislatures, with their inevitable friction betwixt themselves and with the executive. This method of checks and counter-checks was thought necessary as a safeguard against tyranny, the bugbear of our forefathers, but is now the enemy of efficiency and the haunt of corruption. The much simpler commission form of government, which, originating in Galveston and Des Moines a few years ago, has already, at date of writing, been adopted by over three hundred cities, substitutes for the usual executive and legislative branches a small group of elected officials - commonly five-who, with the aid of appointed subordinates, carry on the whole business of the city. Some such plan may eventually be adopted for states, and even for the national government. [Footnote: R. S. Childs, Short Ballot Principles, Story of the Short Ballot Cities. C. A. Beard, Loose Leaf Digest of Short Ballot Charters. Free literature of the National Short Ballot Organization (383 Fourth Avenue, New York City). C. R. Woodruff, City Government by Commission. E. S. Bradford, Com- mission Government in American Cities. National Municipal Review, vol. 1, pp. 40, 170, 372, 562; vol. 2, p. 661. The American City, vol. 9, p. 236. Outlook, vol. 92, pp. 635, 829; vol. 99, p. 362. Forum, vol. 51, p. 354.]
(3) Direct primaries. Experience has conclusively shown that the caucus system of making nominations for office plays directly into the hands of the machine; its practical result has been that the voter is usually restricted in his nominees of the bosses and the "interests." The direct primary gives the independent candidate his opportunity, and makes it more practicable for honest citizens to determine between what candidates the final choice shall lie. It implies effort on the part of the candidate to make himself known to the voters; but such effort there must always be, unless the candidate is already a conspicuous figure, in order that the citizen may have grounds for his decision. It has in some places led to an exorbitant expenditure for self-advertisement; but this expenditure can be pretty well controlled by legislation. The argument that it does away with the deliberation possible in a caucus wears the aspect of a joke, in view of the sort of deliberation the caucus has in practice encouraged; and discussion does, of course, take place in the public press, which is the modern forum. It is possible, however, that some modified form of the direct primary plan may be better still, such as the Hughes plan, which provided for the election at each primary of a party committee to present carefully discussed nominations for the following year's primary to approve or reject.[Footnote: See Outlook, vol. 90, p. 382; vol. 95, p: 507. North American Review, vol. 190, p. 1] Arena, vol. 35, p. 587; vol. 36, p. 52; vol. 41, p. 550. Forum, vol. 42, p. 493. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 110, p. 41.
(4) PREFERENTIAL VOTING. A more radical movement would abolish primaries altogether and settle elections upon one day by preferential voting. The voter indicates his second choices, and any further choices he may care to indicate. If no candidate receives a majority of first choices, the first and second choices are added together; if necessary, the third choices. In this way the danger, so often realized, of a split vote and the election of a minority candidate, will be banished; it will no longer be possible for a machine candidate, actually the least majority of the people, to win a plurality over the divided forces of opposition. The real wishes of the voter can be discovered and obeyed more readily than with our present troublesome and expensive system of double elections. [Footnote: National Municipal Review, vol. 1, p. 386; vol. 3, pp. 49, 83.]
(5) PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION. By means of preferential voting it is possible to make representative bodies a mirror not of the majority party, but of the real divisions of opinion in a community. One of the great evils in our present system of majority rule is the suppression of the wishes of the minority-which may amount to nearly half the community. [Footnote: Cf. Unpopular Review, vol. 1, p. 22.] Strong parties may go for many years without any representation, or with representation quite disproportionate to their numbers. By the method of proportional representation, every man's vote counts, and every considerable body of opinion can send its representative to council. Men of marked personality, who have aroused too great hostility to make them safe candidates as we vote today, because they would be unlikely to win a majority, can get a constituency sufficient to elect them, while the harmless nobody, elected today only to avoid a feared rival, will have less chance. The evil gerrymander will be abolished, and representative bodies will be divided along party lines in the very proportions in which the people are divided.
Moreover, since on this plan every vote counts, the greatest source of political apathy will be removed-that sense of hopelessness which paralyzes the efforts of the members of a minority party. Corruption will hardly pay; for whereas at present the boss has but to win the comparatively few votes necessary to swing the balance toward a bare majority, in order to have complete control, he will upon this plan secure control only in actual proportion to the number of votes he can secure.
Another advantage of the system lies in the stabler policy it will ensure. Our present system results in frequent sharp overturns, according as this party or that may get a temporary majority. But this battledore and shuttlecock of legislation does not represent the far more gradual changes in public opinion. A system whereby the number of representatives of each party is always directly proportioned to the number of votes cast for that party would make it possible to evolve a careful machinery of government, as is not possible with our periodic upheavals and reversals of personnel and policy.[Footnote: See publications of the American Proportional Representation League (Secretary C. G. Hoag, Haverford, Pennsylvania). National Municipal Review, vol. 3, p. 92. American City, vol. 10, p. 319. Thomas Hare, Representation. J. S. Mill, Representative Government, chap. VII. Political Science Quarterly, vol. 29, p. 111. Atlantic Monthly, vol. 112, p. 610.]
(6) THE SEPARATION OF NATIONAL, STATE, AND LOCAL ISSUES. The obtrusion of national party lines into state and municipal affairs has continually confused issues and blocked reforms in the narrower spheres. Masses of voters will support a candidate for governor or mayor simply because he is a Republican or Democrat, although the national party issues in no way enter into the campaign. Bosses skillfully play on this blind party allegiance, and many a scoundrel or incompetent has ridden into office under the party banner. The separation of local from national elections has proved itself a necessity; in the most advanced communities they are now put in different years, that the loyalties evoked by one campaign may not carry over blindly into another. The direct election of United States Senators has this great advantage, among others, of separating issues; in former days the alternative was often forced upon the citizen of voting for a state legislator who stood for measures of which he disapproved, or of voting for a better legislator who would not vote for the United States Senator he wished to see elected.
(7) Space forbids the further discussion of reforms that aim at improving the machinery of election. The value of anti-bribery laws is obvious, as of the laws that require publicity of campaign accounts, forbid campaign contributions by corporations, and limit the legal expenditures of individuals. [Footnote: Cf. Outlook, vol. 81, p. 549.] The publication at public expense and sending to every voter of a pamphlet giving in his own words the arguments on the strength of which each candidate seeks election has recently been tried in the West. But this is sure, that in one way or other the American people will evolve a mechanism which will make it easier for able and honest men to attain office than for the rogues and their incompetent henchmen.
II. A second set of reforms bears rather upon the quality of legislation than upon the selection of men for office. It is not enough that the way be made easy for good men to attain office; they must, when elected, be freed from needless temptations and given every inducement to work for the interests of the community they represent. Every possible pressure is valuable that can counteract the pull of sectional interests, party interests, or the interests of the great corporations, away from the general welfare. For even the best intentioned officials may yield to the insistence of local or partisan wishes, to the arguments of "big business," or to the lure of personal advantage.
(1) REPRESENTATION AT LARGE. The method of legislation by representatives of local districts leads inevitably to laws that are a compromise or bargain between the interests of the several districts, rather than the result of a desire to further the best interests of the entire community. Congressmen are continually beset by their constituents to secure special favors for them, aldermen are expected to push the interests of their respective wards. Each representative stands in danger of political suicide if he refuses to use his influence for these often improper ends; and legislation takes the form of a quid pro quo:-"You vote for this bill which my section desires, and I'll vote for the bill yours demands." This evil is so great that it may be necessary eventually to do away entirely with district representation.[Footnote: See Outlook, vol. 95, p. 759.]
(2) DELEGATED GOVERNMENT. Another plan, which evades the pressure of local interests while allowing district representation, also avoids the friction and deadlocks which result from government by a group of representatives of sharply opposed parties or principles. By this plan, a representative body is elected, by districts, or at large, by proportional representation; but this body, instead of itself deciding or executing the state or municipal policy, serves merely to select and watch experts, who carry on the various phases of government. These experts remain responsible to the representatives, who in turn are responsible to the people. This method promises to combine concentration of responsibility, efficiency, and business-like government, with democracy, that is, responsiveness to popular control. The national Congress may, for example, appoint a commission of experts on the tariff, agreeing to consider no tariff legislation except such as they recommend; in this way they are freed from all requests to propose this or that alteration in the interests of their State or one of its industries, while the commissioners, not being responsible to any localities, are under no pressure to yield to such requests. Similarly, the right to recommend-or even to enact-legislation on pensions, on river and harbor appropriations, or what not, may be delegated to an appointed body responsible only to the Congress at large; and all the "pork-barrel" legislation, which the better class of legislators hate, but which is forced upon them by the threat of political ruin, may be obviated. [Footnote: Cf. the new (1914) Public Health Council of six members, in New York State, to whom has been delegated all power to make and enforce laws bearing upon the public health throughout the State (except in New York City). See World's Work, vol. 27, p. 495.] The plan of delegating power to appointed experts has very recently been winning approval in municipal government, where it is commonly called the "City Manager " plan. A small body of commissioners are elected and held responsible for the city government; these men may remain in their private vocations, and draw a comparatively small salary from the city. Their duty is to select an expert city manager who will receive a high salary, and conduct personally and through his appointees the whole business of the city. The commissioners may dismiss him if his work is not satisfactory and engage another to take his place. Responsibility is concentrated; mismanagement can be stopped at once, more readily even than by the recall; unity and continuity of policy become possible; in short, the same successful methods that have made American business the admiration of the world can be applied to politics. If this plan becomes widely adopted, as it bids fair to be, politics can become a trained profession, and we can be governed by experts instead of by politicians. [Footnote: See The City Manager Plan of Municipal Government (printed by the National Short Ballot Organization) National Municipal Review, vol. 1, pp. 33, 549; vol. 2, pp. 76, 639; vol. 3, p. 44. Outlook, vol. 104, p. 887.]
(3) THE RECALL. Many of the newer plans for government include a method by which an inefficient or dishonest official can be removed from office by the people, without the cumbersome process of an impeachment. It would not be wise to apply the recall to local representatives, who would then be still more at the mercy of local wishes; but with a short ballot and the concentration of responsibility upon executives or small commissions who represent the community as a whole, it is highly desirable to have a method available for quickly remedying mistakes. The danger of being recalled from office is a salutary influence upon a weak or a self-willed man. And the possibility of it allows the election of officials for longer terms, which are desirable from several points of view: they bring a more stable government, freed from too frequent breaks or reversals of policy; they permit the acquiring of a longer political experience, and stimulate abler men to run for office; they save the public the bother and expense of too frequent elections. [Footnote: See National Municipal Review, vol. 1, p. 204. Forum, vol. 47, p. 157. North American Review, vol. 198, p. 145.]
(4) THE REFERENDUM. A less drastic instrument of popular control over legislation is the referendum, which refers individual measures back to the people for approval or rejection. An official may be efficient and free from corruption, yet opposed to the general wish on some particular matter. In this, then, he may be overruled by the referendum without being humiliated or required to resign his office. Thus not only the improper influence of the machine or the interests may be guarded against by the public, but the unconscious prejudices of generally efficient officials. Of course there is, in the case of both recall and referendum, the possibility that the official may be right and the people wrong. But that danger is inherent in democratic government. The best that can be done is to make government responsive to the sober judgment of the majority; if that is mistaken, nothing but time and education can correct it. [Footnote: See W. B. Munro, The Initiative, Referendum and Recall; The Government of American Cities, p. 321. Political Science Quarterly, vol. 26, p. 415; vol. 28, p. 207. National Municipal Review, vol. 1, p. 586. Nation, vol. 95, p. 324.]
The air is full of suggestions, and experiments are being tried in every direction. There is every hope that America may yet learn by her failures and evolve a system of government that shall be her pride rather than her shame. Our National Government has worked far better than our state and local government, but even that can be further freed from the pull of improper motives, made much more efficient and responsive to the general will. We are in a peculiar degree on trial to show what popular government can accomplish. The Old World looks to us with distrust, but with hope. And though the solution of our political problem involves many technical matters, it has deep underlying moral bearings, and affects profoundly the success of every great moral campaign.
R. C. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life. L. Steffens,The Shame of the Cities. J. Bryce, The Hindrances to Good Government.W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, chaps. VIII, IX. Jane Addams, Democracyand Social Ethics, chap. VII. A. T. Hadley, Standards of PublicMorality, chaps. IV, V. T. Roosevelt, American Ideals. C. R. Henderson,The Social Spirit in America, chap. XI. Edmond Kelly, Evolution andEffort, chap. IX. W. H. Taft, Four Aspects of Civic Duty. E. Root,The Citizen's Part in Government. D. F. Wilcox, Government by All thePeople. L. S. Rowe, Problems of City Government. H. E. Deming, TheGovernment of American Cities. Publications of the National MunicipalLeague (703 North American Building, Philadelphia). Political ScienceQuarterly, vol. 18, p. 188; vol. 19, p. 673;
WHEN the security of peace and an efficient government are attained, the way lies open for the amelioration of social evils. Freedom from war and from political corruption are but the pre-conditions of social advance, which must consist in three things: the healing of existing ills, the reorganization of society to prevent the recurrence of similar ills, and the bringing of new opportunities and joys to the people. Our first step, then, is to consider social therapeutics-the palliation of present suffering, the redressing of existing wrongs; however we may seek, by radical readjustments, to strike at the roots of these evils, we must not fail to mitigate, as best we can, the lot of those who are the unfortunate victims of our still crude social organization. The detailed study of social ills and their remedies has come to be a science by itself, and a science that calls for close attention; for there is more good will than insight a field, and nothing demands more wisdom and experience than the permanent curing of social sores. But it falls to ethics to note the general duties and opportunities, to point out the responsibility of the individual citizen for wrongs which he is not helping to right, and to direct him to the great moral causes in one or more of which an increasing number of our educated men and women are enrolling themselves. A questionnaire recently sent out by the author of this book discloses the fact that over half the college graduates of this country have given time and money to one or more of the campaigns which are being waged for social betterment. [Footnote: Some of the results of this questionnaire were published in the Independent for August 5, 1913, vol. 75, p. 348.] These evils which it is the duty of the State to try to remedy we shall now consider.
What is the duty of the State in regard to:
I. SICKNESS AND PREVENTABLE DEATH? Physical ills are the unavoidable lot of the human race; but by no means to the extent to which they now prevail. A very large percentage of existing sickness and infirmity could have been prevented by a timely application of such knowledge as the intelligent already possess. It is the poverty, the crowded and unsanitary living conditions, the ignorance and helplessness of the masses, that perpetuate all this unnecessary suffering, this economic waste, this drag on human efficiency and happiness. Not only from humanitarian motives, but also from regard for national prosperity and virility, it behooves the State to wage war against preventable illness and safeguard the general health.
How shocking conditions are, in view of the sanitary and medical knowledge we now possess, we are not apt to realize. It is estimated that of the three million or so who are seriously ill in this country on any average day, more than half might have been kept well by the enforcement of proper precautions; that of the 1,500,000 deaths that occur annually in the United States, nearly half could have been postponed. Tuberculosis, for example, is not a highly contagious or rapid disease; it is absolutely preventable by measures now understood, and almost always curable in its earliest stages. Yet half a million people in our country are suffering from it, and about 130,000 die of it annually. Typhoid, which could readily be as nearly eradicated as smallpox has been, claims some 30,000 victims annually. It has been estimated by various statisticians that the nation could save a billion dollars a year through postponing deaths, and at least half as much again by preventing illness that does not result fatally. Tuberculosis alone is said to cost the country half a billion annually, typhoid over three hundred million, and so on. The cost in suffering, broken lives, and broken hearts is beyond computation.
There are many different ways in which the campaign for public health can be simultaneously waged:
(1) The enforcement of quarantine laws, vaccination, and fumigation, should be much stricter than it is in many parts of the nation. By such means the cholera, bubonic plague, and other terrible diseases have been practically kept out of the country, and smallpox has become, from one of the most dreaded scourges, an almost negligible peril. Experience shows strikingly the advantage of isolating patients suffering from contagious diseases; here at least the State, in the interest of the community as a whole, must sternly limit individual liberty. And it looks as if we were at the threshold of an era of "vaccination" for other diseases besides smallpox; typhoid is now absolutely preventable by that means, and the number of diseases amenable to prevention or mitigation by similar methods is yearly increasing. In some or all of these cases there is a slight risk to the patient, in view of which compulsory "vaccination" is in some quarters strenuously opposed. Leaving the discussion of the principle here involved to chapter XXVIII, we may confidently say, at least, that voluntary inoculation against diseases is an increasingly valuable safeguard not only for the individual in question but for the whole community.
(2) Apart from state action, voluntary organizations formed to attack specific diseases, by spreading popular knowledge of preventive measures, and pushing legislation for their enforcement, offer much promise. The Anti-Tuberculosis League can already point to a ten per cent decline in the death rate from that plague in the decade from 1900 to 1910. [Footnote: For methods and results consult the Secretary of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City. Free literature is sent, and information furnished on request.] But while in New York City alone nearly thirty thousand fresh victims are seized by the disease every year, a voluntary organization cannot hope to cope with the situation; the power and resources of the State are needed. The congestion of population, and the lack of proper light and air, which are the greatest factors, perhaps, in the spread of the scourge, must be attacked by legislation. So typhoid must be fought not only by vaccination, but by legislation insuring a pure water supply, proper sewage disposal, and the protection of food from contamination. Measures necessary to eradicate that pest, the house fly, must be enforced, the mosquito must be as nearly as possible exterminated, streets and yards must be kept clean, the smoke nuisance abated, the slaughtering of animals and canning of food sharply regulated, sanitary conditions enforced in homes and factories. One of the prerequisites to any marked improvement will be the "taking out of politics" of the public health service and making it an expert profession.
(3) Another service that the community must eventually, in its own interests, provide, is free medical attendance, by really competent physicians, wherever there is need. Without referring to the suffering and anxiety spared, the expense of this service will far more than be saved the State in the prevention of illness and premature death. The most careful medical inspection of school children, including attention by experts to eyes, ears, and teeth, is of utmost importance; all sorts of ills can thus be averted which the parents are too ignorant or careless to forestall. [Footnote: Consult the literature of the American School Hygiene Association (Secretary T. A. Storey, College of the City of New York). L. D. Cruickshank, School Clinics at Home and Abroad. Outlook, vol. 84, p. 662.] It is earnestly to be hoped that the present chaos of medical education and practice will be soon reduced to a better order; that practitioners who prefer manipulation or mental healing, for example, will, instead of forming separate and antagonistic schools, unite their insight and experience with the main stream of scientific therapeutic effort. The quacks who delude and murder hordes of ignorant victims must be, so far as is practicable, severely punished; and adequate physiological and medical education should be required for all practicing healers, whatever methods they may then choose to employ.
(4) Besides free medical attendance, the State must pro- vide free hospitals for the sick, nurses for the poor, asylums for those who are incapacitated by infirmity from self-support. The care and treatment of the feeble-minded, the insane, the deaf, the blind, the crippled, should always be in the hands of experts; and, so far as possible, work that they can do must be provided. With the enforcement of the measures we have enumerated, the need of such institutions will become much less; but at present they are inadequate in number and equipment, too often managed by incompetent officials, and not always free from scandal. [Footnote: Cf. C. R, Henderson, Social Spirit in America, chap. XV.]
(5) Most important of all, perhaps, is the work that must be done to save the babies. Approximately a third of the babies born in this country die before they are four years old; half or two thirds of these could be saved. Wonderful results in baby saving have followed strict control of the milk supply and the banishing of the fly. Besides this, mothers must in some way be given instruction in the very difficult and complicated art of rearing infants; for many of the deaths are due to simple ignorance.[Footnote: For methods and results in baby-saving, consult the Secretary of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Infant Mortality, 1211 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, Maryland. Also Outlook, vol. 101, p. 190. J. S. Gibbon, Infant Welfare Centers.] Poverty, the necessity of self- support on the part of mothers, also plays a large part; we shall consider in chapter xxx the possibility of state care of mothers during the infancy of their children. II. Poverty and inadequate living conditions? If human illness can be in large measure averted by state action, poverty can be practically abolished. The poor we have always had with us, indeed; but we need not forever have them. There is no excuse for our tolerance of the suffering and degradation of the submerged classes; the causes of this wretchedness are in the main removable. The initial cost will be great, but in the long run the saving to the community will be enormous. Individual effort can only achieve a superficial and temporary relief; and even the two or three hundred charity organization societies in the country are impotent, for lack of funds and of power, to stem the forces that make for poverty. To dole out charity to this family and to that is unhappily necessary in our present crude social situation; but it is not a solution. It not only runs the continual risk of encouraging shiftlessness and dependence, but it does not go to the root of the matter. There will always be inequalities in wealth and room for personal gifts from the more to the less fortunate; but the State must not be content with such patching and palliating, but must strike at the roots of the evil. We will consider the chief causes of poverty and their cure.
(1) The cause that bulks largest is the inadequate wages of a considerable portion of the lowest class. It is obviously impossible to support the average family of five in decency, not to say in health, efficiency, or comfort, with an income of, say, less than a thousand dollars a year, as prices go at time of writing (1914). Yet great numbers of families at present have to exist somehow upon less, even much less. Five million adult male workers in this country receive less than six hundred dollars a year for their work.[Footnote: Cf. Professor Fairchild's comments in Forum, vol. 52, p. 49 (July, 1914).] Even when mothers work who ought to be at home tending the children, even when children work who ought to be in school, the total income is often miserably inadequate. Yet there is ample wealth in the country, if it were better distributed, to pay a living wage to every laborer. By some one of the means which we shall presently discuss, the State must see that all laborers are well enough paid to enable them, while they work, to support in comfort a moderate family.
(2) Involuntary unemployment is the next source of poverty. This is due to many causes: the periodic depressions and failures of industries; the introduction of new machinery, throwing out whole classes of laborers; the enormous influx of immigrants and consequent congestion in the cities of unskilled labor; lack of education, or natural stupidity, which render some men too incompetent to retain positions. Ignorance can be overcome by proper compulsory education laws; all but the actually feeble-minded (who must be cared for in institutions) can, by skillful attention, be taught proficiency in some trade. And with a more widespread education the work that requires no skill can be left to the hopelessly stupid. The congestion of labor in the cities [Footnote: In February, 1914, there were reported to be 350,000 men out of work in New York City (Outlook, March 14, 1914).] can be largely remedied by free state employment bureaus which shall serve as distributing agencies; there is almost always work enough and to spare in some parts of the country, and usually not far away. But more than this is necessary; the State must see that work is offered every man who is able to work. All sorts of public works need unskilled laborers in every city of the country; there is digging to be done, shoveling and sweeping and carting. There are roads to be built, rivers to be dredged, parks to be graded, buildings to be erected, a thousand things to be done. It will be quite feasible, when wages are generally adequate, for the cities, by general agreement, to offer work to all applicants at a wage so low as not to attract men away from other employments, and yet to enable them to support their families decently. The low wages given will save the city much money directly, as well as saving it the care of the indigent. But it will be a feasible plan only when the city's jobs cease to be used as a means of vote-buying by politicians and are offered where they are needed. [Footnote: 1 See W.H. Beveridge, Unemployment. J.A. Hobson, The Problem of the Unemployed. Alden and Hayward, The Unemployable and the Unemployed. C. S. Loch, Methods of Social Advance, chap. IX. Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 8, pp. 168, 453, 499. Review of Reviews, vol. 9, pp. 29, 179. Charities Review, vol. 3, pp. 221, 323. Independent, vol. 77, p.363. National Municipal Review, vol. 3, p.366. The unemployment which is the result of laziness must be cured by compulsory work as in farmcolonies, which have been successful in Europe. Cf. Edmond Kelly, The Elimination of the Tramp.]
(3) The third important cause of poverty is sickness and the death of wage earners. Here the way is clear. When the State has taken the measures we have enumerated for the public health, when it provides competent doctors and nurses, and bears the cost of illness, we shall have only the loss of wages during the illness or after the death of wage earners to consider. And here some form of universal insurance will probably be the solution; this is preferable to state care of dependents, as it carries no taint of charity. This solves every problem but the delicate one, which must be entrusted to expert diagnosticians, of determining to work is caused by physical weakness or mere laziness.
(4) The fourth great cause of poverty, drink, can and must be abolished in the near future, by the means already considered.
(5) There remain three personal causes which need be the only permanently troublesome factors- -laziness, self-indulgence, and the incontinence which results in over- large families. The laziness which prefers chronic inactivity to work is not normal to human nature, and will be largely banished by education, the improvement of health, and the improvement of the conditions and hours of labor. The obstinate cases of unwillingness to work must be cured by compulsory labor in farm colonies or on public works; most such cases respond to intelligent treatment and cease to be troublesome when some physical or moral twist has been remedied. The waste of income in self-indulgence of one form or other is more difficult to deal with; but the law can justly forbid the wage-earner from squandering upon himself money needed by wife and children, and direct that a due proportion of his wages be paid directly to the wife. If neither father nor mother will use their money for the proper welfare of the children, the State must take the children from them though that step should only be a last and desperate resort. Finally, there is the tendency, unfortunately most prevalent among the lowest classes, to have more children than can be decently cared for. To some extent this evil can be remedied by the dissemination of information concerning proper methods of preventing conception [Footnote: There is, however, a danger in the general dissemination of such information- the danger of increasing prostitution by lessening one of the chief deterrents there from.]; to some extent by moral training to self-control and a sense of responsibility. Or the State may undertake the countenance large families; if this is done (see chapter xxx), steps must of course be taken to prevent the marrying of the unfit-or, at least, their breeding. With our rapidly decreasing birth rate, and the spread of education, which will do away with "lower" classes and fit every one in some decent degree to be a parent, this will probably be the ultimate solution. With the disappearance of poverty, the miserable living conditions of so large a proportion of our population will automatically improve. But much should be done directly by the State to prevent such housing conditions as make for physical or moral degeneration. We are far behind Europe in housing-legislation, and conditions in most of our cities are going from bad to worse. There is, however, no need whatever of unsanitary housing; it is merely the selfishness of owners and the apathy of the public that permits its existence. The crowding-which in New York City runs up to some thirteen hundred per acre-can be stopped by simple legislation. The lack of proper light or ventilation, of proper water supply, plumbing, or sewerage, of proper removal of ashes, garbage, or rubbish, is inexcusable. The results of living in the dark, foul-aired, unsanitary tenements of our slums are: a great increase in sickness and premature death; a stunting of growth, physical and mental, and an increase in numbers of backward and delinquent children; the spread of vicious and criminal habits through the lack of privacy and contagion of close contact with the vicious.
We are breeding in our slums a degenerate race,-boys who grow up used to vice, and girls that drift naturally into prostitution; we are allowing disease to spread from them, through the children that go to the public schools, the shop-girls we buy from in the stores, the servants that enter our houses, the men we rub elbows with on the street or in the street-cars. Very salutary are the laws that require the name of the owner to be placed on all buildings; shame before the public may wring improvements from many a landlord who now takes profits from tenements unfit for habitation. But it ought not to be left to the conscience of the individual owner; the State must exercise its primary right to forbid the crowding of tenants into houses which do not afford sanitary quarters and permit a decent degree of privacy.
The duty of the State in regard to the vice caterers is obvious; the commercializing of vice must be strictly prohibited by law and enforced by whatever means experience proves most effective. We must learn to include in this class of enemies of society the manufacturers and sellers of alcoholic liquors, as well as of the less generally used arcotics; but this matter has been already discussed in connection ]with our study of the individual's duty in relation to alcohol. Of the proprietors of gambling dens, indecent "shows," etc, we need not further speak, concentrating our attention instead upon the worst species of vice catering, the commercializing of prostitution. The extent to which the sale of woman's virtue prevails in our cities is scarcely believable. The recent commission of which Mr. Rockefeller was chairman actually counted 14,926 professional prostitutes in Manhattan alone, in 1912; while personal visitation established the existence of over sixteen hundred houses where the gratification of lust could be bought. Not all, certainly, were counted; and this list is, of course, entirely exclusive of the great number of girls occasionally and secretly selling themselves to friends, acquaintances, and employers. Many hundreds of men and women, keepers of houses, procurers, and the like, live on the proceeds of this great underground industry; and to some extent-though to what extent it is, of course, impossible to ascertain the forcible retention of young girls is exist in most of the world's cities. What is being done to abolish this ghastliest of evils? In most great cities, scarcely anything, for two reasons: the one being that so many men, perhaps the majority, secretly wish to retain an opportunity for purchasing sex gratification, the other that the police generally find the protection of illegal vice an easy source of revenue. If the police are honest, they break up a disorderly house-and let the inmates carry the lure of their trade elsewhere. The magistrates fine them, or give them sentences just long enough to bring them needed rest and nutrition, and send them back to their business. Or they drive them out of town-to swell the numbers in the next town. Attempts at legalization and localization are frank admissions of inability or lack of desire to fight the evil; their effect is to make the way of temptation easier for the youth. Compulsory medical inspection gives a promise of immunity from disease which is largely illusory, and entices men who are now restrained by prudential motives. There are, however, many promising lines of attack:
(1) When women gain the vote, they can be counted on to fight the evil. The prostitutes themselves, being mostly minors, and, in any case, anxious to conceal their identity, seldom vote; and the remaining women are almost en masse bitterly opposed to the trade. With women voting, and an efficient political administration inaugurated in our cities, we shall hope to witness the end of the scandalous nonenforcement of existing laws.
(2) The abolishing of the liquor trade will take away the great political ally of the trade in girlhood; and without the demoralizing influence of alcohol fewer men will yield to their passions and fewer girls be pliant thereto.
(3) The Rockefeller Commission disclosed majority of prostitutes are almost wholly uneducated-about half of those questioned had not even gone through the primary school, and only seven per cent had finished the grammar-school work. Compulsory education, vigilantly enforced, will greatly lessen the number of girls who will be willing to take up the life of degradation, suffering, and premature death; especially will this be the case if sex hygiene is properly taught. Approximately a quarter of the girls studied were mentally defective; these should have been detected in the schools and removed to the proper institutions before they fell prey to the clever schemes of the procurer.[Footnote: Of 647 wayward girls recently at the Bedford Reformatory, over 300 were accounted mentally deficient.] For a falling-off in this alarming number of mental defectives we must await scientific eugenic laws to be discussed in chapter xxx.
(4) It is a shameful fact that thousands of girls, dependent upon their own earnings for support, receive less than enough to enable them to live in decent comfort, not to say with any enjoyment of life. Many, of course, waste their earnings on needlessly fine clothes, or at the "shows"; the American fashion of extravagant dress and the craving for amusement are factors of importance in the ruin of young girls. But five dollars, or even seven dollars, a week is not enough to live on in the cities; and many girls are paid no more, even less. The State, in framing its minimum wage laws, or other legislation, must take cognizance of this startling and intolerable situation.
(5) Provision should be made for the care of girls who come alone to the cities. Dormitories with clean and airy bedrooms at minimum cost, and attractive reading- and social-rooms, offering provision for normal social life and amusement, can do much to keep lonely and restless girls out of the clutches of the vicious provision for young men who live alone might avail to lessen to some extent their patronage of houses of vice.
(6) The model injunction acts of a few of our more advanced States "vest the power in any citizen, whether he or she is personally damaged by such establishment, to institute legal proceedings against all concerned; to secure the abatement of the nuisance, and perpetual injunction against its reestablishment." It is too early yet to speak with assurance of the practical working of this method; but it bids fair to make the brothel business more precarious. If, in addition, laws against street soliciting are strictly enforced, the first steps of young men into vice will be made much less alluringly easy than at present.
(7) The most radical and effective measure of all will be to arrest the professional prostitutes, segregate them, and keep them segregated during the dangerous years, except as genuine signs of intention to reform appear, in which case they may be released upon probation. The expense will be, at the outset, considerable. But the girls will be taught trades, and kept at work which will in most cases more than pay for their support. Moreover, the community will, of course, save the vast sums now passed over by its lustful men to these women. The saving of health and life will be incalculable. The girls, although under restraint, will be infinitely better off than they were, and can in most cases, with patience and education, be made ultimately to realize their gain; as they grow older and forget their early years of shame, they can be set free again, with some skilled trade learned, and some accumulated earnings. Professional prostitution will, of course, still flourish to a degree underground; but it will be a highly risky business, attracting far fewer girls, and difficult for the uninitiated young man to discover. With this outlet for lust partially closed, there would no doubt tend to be an increase in solitary and homosexual vice, and in the seduction of innocent girls. But the latter outlet can be checked by raising the "age of consent" to twenty or twenty-one, and punishing the seduction of younger girls as rape. And the former evils, serious as they are, are far less of an evil than the creation of our present wretched class of professional prostitutes. As a matter of fact, there would, beyond all question, be a great diminution in sexual vice, the present amount of it being due by no means wholly to desire that is naturally imperious, but to the artificial fostering of that desire by those who hope to profit financially thereby.
IV. Crime?
The gravest of all social ills is-crime. Its treatment may be considered under the three heads of prevention, conviction, and the treatment of convicted criminals.
(1) To some extent, not yet clearly determined, the causes of crime are temperamental, due to congenital defects or overexcitable impulses. The inherited effects of insanity, alcoholism, and other pathological conditions, make self-control far more difficult for some unfortunates. Such baneful inheritances will some day be minimized by eugenic laws; and individuals whose abnormal mental condition makes them dangerous to society will be kept under permanent restraint. The causes of crime are, however, to a far greater degree environmental. Undernutrition, overwork, worry, and various other sources of poor health, create a condition of lowered resistance to impulse. The herding of the poor into crowded tenements, the inability to find work, the lack of wholesome interests and excitements to provide a normal outlet for energy of body and mind, the daily sight of the luxury of the rich and the bitterness of its contrast with their own need, awaken dangerous passions and reckless defiance of law. The lack of education, contact with absorption of law-defying philosophies of life, tend to make crime appear natural and justified. All of these unhealthy conditions are being attacked under the spur of our new social conscience; and with every step in social alleviation crime diminishes. Criminals are, in general, just such men and women as we; in like situations we too should be tempted to crime. We might all repeat with Bunyan: "There, but for the grace of God, go I!" Give every man and woman a fair chance for happiness in normal ways, and the lure of crime will largely vanish.[Footnote: Cf. An Open Letter to Society from Convict 1776 (F. H. Revell Co.).] Yet human nature in its most favorable circumstances and in its most favored individuals has its twists and its anti-social impulses. For the potential criminal-and that means for every one of us-there must be elaborated also a system of moral or religious training which shall seek to develop the better nature that is in every man and enchain the brute. With such a discipline imposed upon each generation there would be a far greater hope for the repression of evil tendencies, whether due to temperamental perversion or provocative environment.
(2) If there is much to be done in the prevention of crime, there is also much to be done in insuring the prompt conviction of offenders. The legal delays and obtrusion of the technicalities which now so often obstruct the administration of justice, hold out a means to the criminal of escaping punishment, work hardship to the poor, who cannot afford to employ the sharpest lawyers, and needlessly retard the clearing of the reputation of the innocent. The overuse of the plea of insanity has become latterly a public scandal. In certain courts it has sometimes seemed impossible to convict a criminal who has plenty of money or strong political influence. In other cases such men have been set free on bail and proceeded to further may have to wait years for compensation; if they are poor, they may hesitate to set out on the long and dubious course of a lawsuit; or, if they embark upon it, it is only by an agreement wherein the speculator- lawyer takes the lion's share of the compensation. The result of all this friction in the machinery of the courts is an increase in crime, and an increase in the illegal punishment of crime. Lynching, which are such a disgrace to this country, are due primarily to indignation at crime which bids fair to be inadequately punished; they will occur, in spite of their injustice and brutality, until the penalties of the law are made universally prompt and sure and fair.[Footnote: See J. E. Cutler, Lynch Law. Outlook, vol. 99, p. 706.] A wholesome disregard of technicalities, and an interpretation of the law in the line of equity, a rigid exclusion of irrelevant evidence and argument, the provision of an adequate number of courts to prevent the piling up of cases, and of a public defender, of skill and training, to look after the interests of the poor, the removal of judgeships from politics by the general improvement of our political system, and the adjudgment of insanity only by impartial, state-hired alienists-these are some of the reforms that ethical considerations suggest.[Footnote: Cf. W. H. Taft, Four Aspects of Civic Duty, II. Outlook, vol. 92, p. 359; vol. 98, p. 884.]
(3) The ends to be borne in mind in the treatment of the convicted Criminal are four: First, reparation to the injured party must be demanded of him, so far as money will constitute reparation; if he has not the money, his future work must go for its accumulation, so far as that is compatible with the support of his infant children. Secondly, he must be punished severely enough to serve as a warning to other potential offenders and, so far as they are amenable to such fears, deter them from similar crimes. Capital punishment for the worst crimes is shown deterrent than confinement; whether the danger of executing an innocent man is grave enough to offset this public gain is an open question.[Footnote: See A. J. Palm, The Death Penalty.] Thirdly, he must be prevented from doing any more harm; this means confinement just so long as expert criminologists deem him dangerous, whether not at all (unless to deter others) or for life. The old system of giving a fixed sentence is wholly unjustifiable; some are thereby kept imprisoned when there is every reason to believe them capable of living honorably and serving the community as free men, others are let loose, after a term, more dangerous to the community than ever. The habitual criminal, who alternates between periods of crime and periods of imprisonment, should be an unknown phenomenon. The judge should be obliged to pronounce an indeterminate sentence, and leave it to the expert prison officials to decide if, or when, it is safe to release the prisoner on parole. Experience has already shown that few mistakes are made (where prison management is kept out of machine politics); and as the released prisoner is under surveillance, and may be returned to the prison without trial for disorderliness, drunkenness, or other anti-social conduct, he is not likely to do much damage. A second offense would be likely to bring upon him imprisonment for life, which would be within the discretion of the prison officials. This method provides a spur to good behavior, and, when used in conjunction with the reforming influences we are about to consider, works admirably in abolishing the criminal class; whatever criminal class persists-those who cannot or will not reform are kept under restraint for life, where they can do no harm. Fourthly, and most important of all, a painstaking attempt must be made to reform the criminal, to make him a normal, socially useful man. At present our prisons are rather schools of corruption than of uplift; too often first offenders are thrown into association with hardened criminals, and come out after their term of years with their minds full of criminal suggestions, and less able than before to live a normal life. The prison should be a training school for the morally perverted. First of all, the prisoner should be taught a trade, if he knows none, and made competent to earn an honest living. He should be kept at regular work, and his wages used partly to reimburse society for his keep, and partly to support his family, or, if he has none, to give him a new start when he leaves prison. Recent experience shows that the great majority of prisoners can be trusted to work outside the prison, at any ordinary labor, without guards-returning to the prison each evening.[Footnote: See Century, vol. 87, p. 746.] Regular hours, and wholesome living in every way, are, of course, enforced; sports are encouraged in leisure hours, and physical development ensured. Educational influences are brought to bear, through class-instruction, books, sermons, private talks. The individual's mind is studied and every effort made to supplant morbid and anti-social by normal and moral ideas. Few criminals but are amenable to skillful guidance; most of them, could, if pains were taken, be transformed into useful citizens. All this application of modern penological ideas means a greatly increased expense per capita; but this will be largely offset by the work required of all healthy prisoners, and in any case is the best sort of an investment. The prevention of crime is, in the long run, much less costly, even from a purely financial standpoint, than crime itself. On pathological social conditions in general: Smith, Social Pathology. E. T. Devine, Misery and its Causes. M. Conyngton, How to Help. C. Aronovici, Knowing One's Own Community. Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House. S. Nearing, Social Adjustment. Charles Booth, Life and Labor of the People of London. Hall, Social Solutions. C. R. Henderson, Social Duties. W. Gladden, Social Salvation. Public health: H. Ellis, The Task of Social Hygiene, The Nationalization of Health. Outlook, vol. 98, p. 63; vol. 102, p. 764. Literature published by The Committee of One Hundred on National Health (105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City). C. R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, chap. V. World's Work, vol. 17, p. 11321; vol. 21, p. 13881; vol. 23, p. 692. W. H. Allen, Civics and Health. Poverty and living conditions: R. Hunter, Poverty. B. S. Rowntree, Poverty, A Study of Town Life. Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, chap. V. A. S. Warner, American Charities. E. T. Devine, Principles of Relief. S. Webb, Prevention of Destitution. Literature of the American Association of Societies for Organizing Charity, and of the Charity Organization Department of the Russell Sage Foundation (both at 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City). L. Veiller, Housing Reform. Deforest and Veiller, The Tenement-House Problem. J. Lee, Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy. Alden and Hayward, Housing. J. A. Riis, The Battle with the Slum. National Municipal Review, vol. 2, p. 210. Commercialized vice: Jane Addams, A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil. Report of the Chicago Vice Commission: The Social Evil in Chicago. G. J. Kneeland, Commercialized Prostitution in New York City. Outlook, vol. 94, p. 303; vol. 101, p. 245; vol. 104, p. 101. Crime: F. H. Wines, Punishment and Reformation. E. A. Ross, Social Control, chap. XI. R. M. McConnell, Criminal Responsibility and Social Constraint. H. Ellis, The Criminal. A. H. Currier, The Present- Day Problem of Crime. P. A. Parsons, Responsibility for Crime. E. Ferri, The Positive School of Criminology. W. Tallack, Penological and Preventive Principles. E. Carpenter, Prisons, Police, and Punishment. Outlook, vol. 94, p. 252; vol. 97, p. 403. World's Work, vol. 21, p. 14254. North American Review, vol. 138, p. 254. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 20, p. 281.
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.]
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.]
(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.]