"The Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,Hung forth in heaven his golden scales, yet seenBetwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign,Wherein all things created first he weighed,... In these he put two weights,The sequel each of parting and of fight;The latter quick up-flew, and kicked the beam;... The fiend looked up and knewHis mounted scale above; no more; but fledMurmuring, and with him fled the shades of night."
"The Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,Hung forth in heaven his golden scales, yet seenBetwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign,Wherein all things created first he weighed,... In these he put two weights,The sequel each of parting and of fight;The latter quick up-flew, and kicked the beam;... The fiend looked up and knewHis mounted scale above; no more; but fledMurmuring, and with him fled the shades of night."
The great auctioneer brought down his gavel.
"Sold to the Soul of Man, for a price that he can well afford to pay!"
Then I was awake, indeed, and as I looked about me I saw the fields flooded with sunshine, felt the caress of the summer breeze,and heard the song of birds. The children were shouting at their play—and the home was my home.
My brothers, we have a good bargain!
With a couple of chance acquaintances I was discussing everyday activities as reported in the daily papers. A quiet man with a poker face was listening to our talk. Suddenly he contributed a remark:
"This country is going to hell for lack of leadership."
That sounded familiar. It occurred to me that I had heard the remark before. I had heard it even in Canada. Shortly afterwards I learned that the man who had made the remark was a millionaire. Consequently his pontifical utterance did not surprise me. Monied men really feel deeply on the matter—but they expect some one else to give the leadership they so earnestly want. If you listen to their talk you will find that they give about every reason for the lack but the true one.The people lack leadership because they are not candid about where they want to go. There is a lot of talk about social justice, but justice is about the last thing that many people want. In fact, they seem to be afraid that they are going to get it. During the war, when the soldiers were fighting, dying, and passing through hell generally, those who stayed at home enjoyed a prosperity that never was known before. Capital made such profits as never were known before; Labor got such wages as never were known before; farmers, miners, fishermen, lumbermen—men of all classes enjoyed such prosperity as never was known before. And now they are clamoring for leaders who will enable them to keep the blood-bought riches and profits and the wages they got in the world's time of anguish. They are horrified to find that the bloated, unhealthy profits of war are losing their value through the operation of laws of compensation more inexorable than any ever devised by man. Although the Great War revealedthe heroism and spirit of self-sacrifice in many, it aroused the selfishness of still more. That manufacturer blurted out a very prevalent conviction when he said, "Any man who didn't make money during the war must have had something wrong with him." And now these people are clamoring for leaders who will protect them in their selfishness. They want to be led into a beatific era, where each will get more than his share of the good things of life. It is a mistake to think that the big profiteers are the only ones who are to blame for existing conditions. There are shoals and swarms of little profiteers who are just as selfish and rapacious as the big ones. All they lack is capacity and opportunity, like the little devils described by Kipling. They
"Weep that they binToo small to sinTo the height of their desire."
"Weep that they binToo small to sinTo the height of their desire."
Humanity will look in vain for true leadership until it is cleansed of its selfishness.
There are many who are suffering throughno fault of their own—many who gave, toiled, and sacrificed so that freedom might endure, but they are not the ones whose voices are the loudest to-day. They believed that an era of justice and brotherly love would follow victory. To-day they are bewildered and stunned to find that their sacrifices were apparently made in vain. Many of the returned soldiers with whom I have talked are as homesick as they were in France for the conditions they left behind four or five years ago. This home land of insolent wealth and noisy grumblings—of strife and turmoil—is not the land for whose freedom they fought. They find it hard to realize that while they were offering their lives to save the world, the world went money-mad. Can they be blamed if they are touched with discouragement and disgust?
At the present time there is much in the papers about the reëducation of soldiers to fit them for a place in civil life. Here is another case where we are in danger of making a grievous mistake. There is need of reëducation, of course, but the soldiers are not the only ones who need to be reëducated. The present idea seems to be that the soldiers must be reëducated so as to enable them to follow some occupation in our social organization as it now stands. That will not do, my masters! It is not good enough! The military training these men have had educated them to sacrifice everything for the good of humanity—for the protection of their wives and families and for our protection. Now we propose to reëducate them so that they may try to compete with us in a struggle for existence that taxes the strength and resourcefulness of those whose strength is unwounded and who have made no sacrifices. Just think about it for a minute. What chance would our reëducated soldiers have against men who are already over-educated along these lines, and whose careers have not been interrupted by the need of making sacrifices for their country? Practically none, and it will be a poor reward to offer them forwhat they have done, and are doing, to push them into such an unequal struggle.
Every day it is becoming more apparent that the world cannot go on as it was. Unless we rid ourselves of some of our selfishness, we shall be forced to face more grievous problems than we are facing just now. The soldier element in our population and in the population of the world will be too great to be absorbed readily into an unchanged civil life. Our old god, Profits, will be dethroned, no matter how devotedly we worship him. The menace of a food shortage is making many people think more clearly than ever before, and with the possibility of world-hunger before us Prudhon's assertion that "profit is theft" does not look nearly so anarchistic as it did. We see that every man should be rewarded for his services, but the thought that any man should make profits when all are struggling to bear up under accumulated burdens is already beginning to provoke rage. We admit every man's right to make a living, but doubt his right tomake a fortune. Our reëducation has begun, and we must see to it that it goes through properly. We must learn that success should depend on public service rather than on private greed. Not until we have learned that can we expect our soldiers to reënter civil life, and submit to its workaday burdens. And there will be no place in a reëducated world for parasites or people who will expect to live through a claim on the services of others. Though the subject is serious enough, one of Edward Lear's mocking limericks pops into my head as a symbolical description of the new state of affairs that seems inevitable:
"There was an old man who said, 'Well!Will nobody answer this bell?I have pulled day and nightTill my hair was grown white.But nobody answers this bell.'"
"There was an old man who said, 'Well!Will nobody answer this bell?I have pulled day and nightTill my hair was grown white.But nobody answers this bell.'"
I am afraid that the people who expect to get their living simply by ringing a bell will do more than get white hair.
One hates to have anything to do with the promulgation of a new law, especially when temperamentally in accord with the poet Carman who
"Could always be at homeJust beyond the reach of rule."
"Could always be at homeJust beyond the reach of rule."
But the new law is already in existence, and as all I propose to do is modestly to discover its operations, I feel less compunction in the matter. But before making the announcement it is necessary to clear the ground by calling attention to another law that is apparently producing the chaotic conditions that are causing so much alarm at the present time. Then the new law may be offered as a balm that is to cure existing evils. Having reassured the mind of the reader we may now proceed.
Somewhere in his voluminous writings Karl Marx makes the arresting statement that "all capitalistic organizations carry within themselves the elements of their own destruction." (Solomon said long before Marx, "The prosperity of fools shall destroy them.") It might be demonstrated that the destroying element is "greed" for wealth and power, but it is enough to call attention to the fact that the work of destruction is at present in progress. Every morning our newspapers are calling attention to the fact that political parties are destroying themselves through lust for power and because they are dominated by the forces of organized Greed.
Capital is at present in a parlous condition because it is suspected of greedy profiteering and the plain people are in the mood to bring it to book.
Labor, that was enabled to organize because of the work done by Capital in centralizing industry for the purpose of increasing profits, is in danger of destroying itself by itsexactions, by general strikes, and by making labor conditions in the cities so remunerative and attractive that no one wants to stay on the farms to do the necessary but heavy and mussy work of food production.
There are even those who point out that the churches are destroying their usefulness by a rage for over-organization and financial stability, but that is a question that no cautious man would care to review.
Now the cities, those organized centres of humanity, appear to be passionately intent on committing suicide. In this they are receiving material aid from governments, but it seems useless for any one to offer a protest. When a delegation of farmers recently waited on Governor Smith, of New York, to protest against the adoption of daylight saving legislation, he rebuked them severely for their class selfishness. No one seems to realize that daylight saving is simply a gesture in the progress of city suicide. The few laborers to be found on the farms naturally want to take advantageof the daylight saving law, with the result that they are idle in the morning hours when the dew makes impracticable the cultivation of root crops, corn, etc., and the gathering of hay and sheaves. And besides being idle at the expense of the farmers in the morning, they are idle for their own enjoyment in the late afternoon and evening when field work can be attended to most satisfactorily. Besides, the farmer is obliged to do his own milking and chores while his highly paid hired man goes to town to enjoy the movies. The result is that farmers are forced to limit their enterprises to the amount of work that can be done by themselves and their families. In many cases it would not pay them to employ a hired man. Indeed, cases have come under my personal observation where farmers found it more practicable to sell their farms and hire out with farmers who thought they could contend with the new adverse conditions. And presently these farmers who hired out followed the general trend of the rural population and movedto the cities where they could have shorter hours and more attractive conditions.
The "New York Sun and Herald" had an editorial recently in which it spoke of the farmers going on strike. They are not going on strike, but they are limiting productions to what they can do themselves—and the result is the same. They are not doing this from desire, but through the compulsion of circumstances.
Daylight saving, however, is only one of the many methods employed to uproot humanity from the soil and enable the cities to commit suicide by starvation.
Critics of the tariff have shown how the protection of manufactures causes higher wages to prevail in the cities and withdraws men from the productions of food. Agricultural education and the farmers' movement have tended to centre the attention of the farmer on money-making—rather than on home-building—and that is disastrous. The farmer is keeping books, and as home-making cannotbe expressed either by single entry or double entry, he applies the dollar test to everything with the result that in many places food crops are being discarded for profitable cash crops, such as tobacco, sugar-beets, etc.
The farmer is finding out what crops do not pay in dollars and is discarding them—thereby increasing the various shortages. In order to make him efficient in this destructive work, governments are imposing income taxes and compelling the farmer to keep books. And no one is calling attention to the basic fact that farming is above all a home-making business and that money-making is secondary. Our pioneer fathers raised all crops for their own use, with the result that they had plenty and a surplus to feed the cities of those days.
The whole tendency of the time is to make the country more like the cities—to give the farm city advantages. Cities are not content with increasing their wealth and population. They promote radial railways and manufacture automobiles to bring the farmers to thecities. They educate them to patronize the movies and follow the fashions. Every day the farms are becoming more like the cities. Farm children are given city educations and they develop city tastes. The world is mad on the building of cities. Some months ago an enthusiast sitting in the chair beside me in the lobby of a Toronto hotel showed me how the development of hydro-electric power on the Niagara River and the St. Lawrence would finally transform New York State and the Province of Ontario into one vast city from Manhattan to Port Arthur. And he added triumphantly:
"Then we could dictate to the world."
It sounded very progressive and alluring, but as I was waiting for the dining-room to open, the promptings of appetite led me to wonder how this great city of the future is to be fed.
The simple fact is that the country is getting so like the cities that it is stopping the production of food, and unless the tide turns the cities and the country will commit suicidetogether. But as indicated in a previous chapter there is a door of hope. Our fathers laid the foundations of a country civilization, richer and more satisfying than any city civilization the world has known. If we turn in time and build on that foundation the predictions of all the prophets will be confuted.
Now the time has come to announce the new law, the law of reversal which has been touched upon in a previous chapter. It has already begun to operate and all that remains is for the majority to fall in line with it.
And the majority will do this.
In the great crises of the past it was predicted that "a remnant will be saved."
The time has come to announce the reversal of this law and proclaim that "a majority will be saved."
If you stop to weigh recent events, you will find that there is a sound reason for this proclamation. Since the signing of the armistice there have been strikes, both authorized and "outlaw," that interfered with the rights ofthe majority of the people. And the people did not endure them tamely. In Winnipeg, Seattle, New Jersey, and elsewhere the people undertook to do the work that was being stopped by the strikers. In almost all these cases the volunteer workers went too far in their manifestations—forgot the need of adhering to legal methods. But they made it quite clear that the big, quaking, foolish majority is no longer in the mood to put up with the tyranny of noisy minorities. All strikes and disturbances in the transaction of business cause more trouble and suffering to the ordinary citizens than to those who are directly involved. And experience has shown that the ordinary people of Canada and the United States are not ordinary. On the battlefields of Europe the privates on many occasions showed themselves as resourceful as their officers and as ready to cope with difficult problems. Those whose affairs are being interfered with by men who depart from constitutional methods to redress their grievances arenot an ignorant and oppressed mob, but men who have been accustomed all their lives to freedom and legal methods. They are not lacking in courage or initiative, and are entirely capable of calling "bluffs" of all kinds. It so happens that the "bluff" of some irresponsible agitators is the first that has been forced on their attention, and their response is the most cheering news we have had for many a day. It may mean the beginning of a better era. Most of the wrongs from which struggling humanity suffers are due to "bluffs"—some of them very respectable and imposing—and if the people start to call them we shall have a notable house-cleaning. Moreover, all these can be called without departing from the constitutional methods established by our fathers, and which our sons so heroically defended.
All this indicates that after the cities, Big Business, Labor, and even the Farmers' Movement have succumbed to the present passion for suicide, the majority will be saved.
In the days when salvation was only for the remnant, that remnant represented the minority that stood for the rights of humanity. The majority stood for autocratic or theocratic power and destroyed itself by its arrogance and greed.
The birth of Democracy changed all this. The majority now stands for the rights of man—of the plain citizen. Because there was so much to learn before Democracy could realize its possibilities we have been tyrannized over by minorities—bosses, bureaucracies, trusts, labor organizations, and other forms of absolutism. But the great mass of the people stand for individual rights and individual initiative.
The average citizen of the new world
"Stays to his home an' looks arter his folks;He draws his furrer es straight es he can,An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes."
"Stays to his home an' looks arter his folks;He draws his furrer es straight es he can,An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes."
All of them may not be drawing furrows; some of them may be engaged in non-essential occupations; but their instinct is the same. Ifthey are left alone they will leave other people alone. And there is evidence that if they are not left alone something is going to happen. Le Bon points out that the inert mass of the population represents the soul of a nation. If this is true the outlook is all that can be wished. In the new world there is an instinct for order that expresses itself sometimes without waiting for the processes of law. This impatience is regrettable, but the attitude is admirable. It indicates that the day of the remnant is passed and that the majority is to come to its own. The future may have trouble in store for the profiteers, agitators, bureaucrats, and others who are wailing that the world is going to the devil, but the great law of reversal is in operation and
"A majority will be saved."
"A majority will be saved."
Some of my experiences led me to wonder if there is a correspondence course for economists and statesmen. Anyway, I have been coming into contact with thinkers, the perfection of whose theories can only be accounted for on the hypothesis that they are graduates of a correspondence school. They have world-shaping plans that could only be excused on the plea that those who propound them either know God's plan or have a better one. Only a correspondence school could give a man such sublime self-confidence. Still, the reading of many books on economics, and class papers, would have much the same effect as a correspondence course, and that probably accounts for the finished thinkers that are forever putting one down in arguments.
But this is a tough old world and politicsis a science too human to be put into books. The economists take no account of "human cussedness" or the instinct to do anything except what the wise of the world say that we should do. No matter how beneficent your theory may be, we will have none of it—and a good thing it is for the world that we will not.
Still, the correspondence-school statesmen and economists are so much a part of the life of to-day, with its agitations and movements and tiresome futilities, that one must give them some attention. The mildest of these world-shapers are clamoring for the nationalization of everything from railroads to cranberry bogs. Indeed, I have met with thinkers to whom all this would be merely a preliminary step. I have heard it gravely suggested, or rather vehemently suggested, that things will not be right in this world until all the inequalities due to education and variations of brain power are also wiped out. This would give us equality with a vengeance: the kind of blessed equality we have in the stable athome, where the cattle are all chained so that the energetic red cow cannot get more than her share of the food. The simple fact is that in the new world social theories are being reduced to an absurdity, even before being applied. This is the land of violent contrasts, and the programme I laid out for myself has enabled me to see some of these contrasts at their sharpest. I have made it a point to hunt up friends of my youth who have either grown up with the country or have gone down under its progress. In one city on the Canadian prairies I found a friend so prosperous that he was living in the almost sybaritic luxury of a great hotel of the kind that show how railroading pays in Canada. Another friend was "down and out" in the same city, and lending an attentive ear to the wildest kind of propaganda. Being an old friend, the rich man poured forth the story of his prosperity and his wrath against those who are hampering capital and threatening to put an end to progress. Moved by the same bond of sacred friendship,the poor man told of the greed and rapacity of which he had been the victim. The poor man had lacked what another friend called "the monetary clutch," and while he had seen wealth all about him, had been unable either "to have or to hold." How would it be possible for any one to hold the scales between these two men? I didn't try. I passed on to another city, where the same condition developed in another way. An old friend took me to his club, where I enjoyed luncheon with a number of men who were prosperous and satisfied. A few hours later I accidentally found myself at a gathering of city employees who were preparing for a strike. They advocated direct action with guns. "Why not?" they asked. "The Governments of the world are settling their differences with guns and high explosives and why shouldn't the down-trodden use the same method?"
It is almost certain that the social problems pressing for settlement will be settled here first. In one of the old lands a poet wrote:
"Lazarus sits as he sat through history,Through pride of heroes and pomp of kings,At the rich man's gate, the eternal mystery,Receiving his evil things."
"Lazarus sits as he sat through history,Through pride of heroes and pomp of kings,At the rich man's gate, the eternal mystery,Receiving his evil things."
In that land I have seen the people of place and power pass through the streets entirely indifferent to the misery by which they were surrounded, while those who were in misery were so accustomed to that condition that they looked at their oppressors with dull apathy. Here it is different; this is a new country. Dives and Lazarus are both here, but they have known one another all their lives. They were brought up in the same town and played with the same pup. Lazarus received the same public school education as Dives, and perhaps beat him in his classes. He is lacking in respect for him, and if there is any way by which he can force a showdown while Dives is here—before he is in torment—he is going to force it.
But no matter what changes may be adopted, whether revolutionary or reactionary, there is an irreducible minimum of work that must be done. The world must be fed and clothed.
Noticing that much is made of providing milk for children and invalids whenever a general strike is in progress, it seemed worth while to see how the best thinkers propose to deal with the matter in the new world they propose to give us. Remembering that a college president to whom I had mentioned the matter had given me Prince Kropotkin's "Conquest of Bread," I turned to it for information regarding the subject of milk. As might be expected he deals with it in the vague way of people who have no personal knowledge of cows. Just because wheat can be produced by spurts of labor at the proper seasons and requires no care while growing and maturing, he apparently assumed that the milk supply could be secured in the same way. Dealing with the provisioning of the city of Paris under the anarchistic Commune, he sums up the whole matter as follows:
"A population of three and a half million must have at least 1,200,000 adult men and as many women capable of work. Well, then, to give bread and meat to all, it would need seventeen and a half days a year per man. Add three million work-days, or double that number if you like, in order to obtain milk. That will make twenty-five work-days of five hours in all—nothing more than a little pleasurable country exercise—to obtain the three principal products: bread, meat, and milk, the three products which, after housing, cause daily anxiety to nine tenths of mankind. And yet—let us not tire of repeating—these are not fancy dreams."
One night before leaving home, I had to milk the cows, owing to an impending ball game, and while attending to this chore I fell to thinking of the milk supply under Communistic or Soviet rule. These poor people overlook the fact that the cows must be milked every day and twice a day. Under the five-hour-a-day rule the milkers would be differentevery morning and evening, and if the necessary twenty-five days of work were distributed over the year, it is probable that the milkers would be changed every few days. Any dairyman will tell you that with such treatment the cows would probably go dry in a few weeks. Even if they didn't object to the frequent change of the milkers, their flow of milk would be greatly diminished, as they are not fond of strangers fussing with them. The truth of this was brought home to me by the fact that the red cow kicked at me when I sat down beside her and came to rest with her foot firmly planted on my big toe. If that happened to me, what would have happened to some one taking "a little pleasurable country exercise." But perhaps Prince Kropotkin had in mind some strain of cow that I have not yet heard of. He must know of some kind of cow that will give up her year's production of milk in a pleasurable round of five-hour milkings. Yet it is on the teachings of such men that the workers of the worlddepend for plans to right their wrongs and make the world an ideal place to live in. That the condition of the workers should be improved every thinking man must admit, but they will find experience more helpful than the theories of dreamers. Their present plans not only assume that human nature can be changed by a revolution, but that cow nature can also be changed.
Isn't it about time we had an "Old Home Week" for ideas? For the past few years our thoughts, quite naturally and rightly, have been abroad, and we have been grappling with world problems because they were more vital to us than the problems of our every day lives. But a time has come when we can safely come back to our individual interests.
Just now I am inclined to sympathize with the plain citizen who recently found himself obliged to spend an evening with a number of high-thinking friends who were having an improving conversation about world affairs. While the high talk was in progress the plain man was examining his rough and toil-gnarled hands, and he took advantage of a lull in the conversation to ask:
"Can any of you fellows give me a real and sure cure for warts?"
It was a dreadful anticlimax, but it expressed a feeling of weariness with great things that is becoming very common. We are in need of a mental rest. As Bill Nye phrased it, we are in danger of "spraining our thinkers" by grappling with things that are beyond our grasp. Every morning the papers have articles about such subjects as "A League of Nations to enforce World Peace," and so on, and so on. In order to deal with such things intelligently we must think for the planet. A country or an empire is no longer big enough for us. Every scheme for the good of humanity is a world scheme, and the world must be organized to fit it. No wonder the plain man loses his grip on it all and begins to think about his warts.
The curse of the present time is organization. Our civilization has woven about itself a web of organizations that will destroy it as certainly as the poisoned shirt of Nessusdestroyed Hercules. It is organization that makes Business Success possible, and it is under the exactions of Business Success that the whole world is writhing. Much, if not all, of the present-day unrest can be traced back to organized greed—either to the greed of capitalists or the greed of classes. By organizing they get power, and when they get power they abuse it to gratify their own selfishness. The trouble is not due to the principle of organization, but to the fact that we have allowed organization to degenerate into conspiracy. And conspiracy would not be possible without secrecy. If every organization formed under the protection of that one big organization, the Government, of which we are all a part, were subjected to a publicity as pitiless as the Day of Judgment, we would have no cases of three hundred and ten per cent and over. And I can see no sound reason why the workings of business and the operations of capital generally should not be subject to the closest public scrutiny. The Government isforced to do business in public, under the constant criticism of a hostile Opposition, and yet it manages to get along. Even kings and presidents live in the white light that beats upon a throne, and every act that affects the welfare of citizens is open to examination. But the Kings of Industry and all the operations of Big Business must be shrouded in darkness and mystery. Nonsense! Honest business can bear the light of day just as well as honest government. Our Captains of Industry all claim to be serving the public. That is the excuse for the privileges they demand. Then why not let us see how they are serving it? Is it that they are too modest? I am afraid their modesty is much like that of Artemus Ward's noble Red Man who stole a blanket and a bottle of whiskey and then rushed whooping to the wilderness to conceal his emotion. Our Kings of Big Business are very anxious to conceal their emotion—and other things. It is true that they do a great service in building up our countries; but the difficulty is thatthey want the title to all the buildings in their own names.
It doesn't seem to be quite right to be talking about organizations and big organizers this way. I know that a great many people will be offended because they are quite sure they will never get to heaven unless they are organized and belong to exactly the right organization. Nevertheless and notwithstanding, I repeat the assertion that organization is the curse of our time—though it should be a blessing. All organization that is secret in its operations is a menace to the welfare of the people and should have the light turned in on it. It is in secrecy that abnormal profits are piled up. If a cheese factory can be run with the fullest publicity and yet make a decent success, I fail to see why a cloth factory or shoe factory should not be run on the same basis. We are allowing ourselves to be bluffed by the leaders of Big Business and we should be ashamed of ourselves. Few of the men we are cringing before have any real ability.They employ it. All they have is a ruthless greed, and as ninety per cent fail it is probable that most of the ten per cent who succeed owe their success to luck. Turn in the light on the whole lot! We can then do honor to those who are conducting a fair business and rendering service for the rewards they are taking—and we can attend to the others. Implacable publicity would probably do more to correct the high cost of living than anything else. And no organization should be allowed to exist without the fullest publicity regarding all its actions.
Before the outbreak of the war, Judge Brandeis, of the United States Superior Court, wrote a paper about "The Curse of Bigness," which I would like to re-read just now if I could only remember who borrowed it from me. It is rather amusing to remember that he was dealing with trifling little matters such as the Standard Oil Company, railroad mergers, industrial corporations, trusts, and such things. Compared with the schemes that arein the air to-day they were like nursery games. Yet he argued with much logic that when organizations get beyond a certain size they become inefficient and wasteful. Instead of serving the purpose for which they were organized they stifle progress and development. Big organizations do not encourage new ideas as little ones do. Being beyond competition, they become sluggish and reactionary. I cannot help wondering if we shall not have the same difficulty with the big schemes that are being promoted just now. After all they will have to be run by human beings, and there is a limit to human powers. Judge Brandeis showed that business schemes could become too big for even the colossal business brain of J. Pierpont Morgan, and it is just possible that there may be schemes of statecraft too big for the brains of Lloyd George and Mr. Wilson and the others who are grappling with them. And the trouble is that we are all grappling with them and overlooking the fact that the biggest achievement possible to democracy is to give every individual freedom to direct his own affairs. At the present time people have altogether too many ideas about fixing up the world, and too few ideas about the homely tasks of ordinary citizenship. Let us call in our far-reaching thoughts and see what we can find to do right at home. If all of us would do that, the need for world-shaping schemes would probably disappear.
I am afraid there is another check on big schemes that is being overlooked. Even before the war Captains of Industry were finding it hard to get men for their higher command. Only the other day I read an article which bemoaned the lack of men capable of filling five thousand and ten thousand dollar a year jobs. It was asserted that jobs of this kind are going begging because men of the right capacity cannot be found. There are too many men who are fitted for ordinary routine jobs, but only now and then is it possible to find men fitted for big executive jobs. When the workof reconstruction is undertaken in earnest, it will probably be found that the dearth of the right kind of men is greater than ever. The war called for just this kind of men and they have been destroyed by the thousand. Even those who had it in them to do great executive work, and were not fated to lay down their lives in the cause of humanity, have had their energies turned into other channels, and it is possible that many of them will not be able to resume work where they left off. The best brains of the rising generation have been diverted by the war, and the supply of competent executives is likely to prove smaller than ever, just at the time when schemes are developing that will require them more than ever. It is easy enough to find dreamers who can think out schemes for the benefit of humanity, but it is very hard to find men with the necessary executive ability to put them into force. It is quite possible that we must give up some of our finest dreams for the lack of the right kind of men to carry them out. Humanity's losses in material wealth and man-power may be estimated, but its loss in mental and spiritual force is beyond computation. In the meantime the big ideas are being pushed forward, but we must not be too much disappointed if we are forced to return to a "day of little things"—which we are told is not to be despised.
Organizations, no doubt, have their value, but when overdone their effect is more than questionable. At the present time individual initiative, which is probably the greatest force for good in our civilization, is being benumbed and stifled by the mad passion for organization. In the matter of food production we constantly get news about this and that great organization that is arranging to investigate and take action, and the ordinary man gets an entirely wrong idea into his head. He thinks that with all the Government committees and commissions and public-spirited organizations at work, it is entirely needless for him to undertake the little he might be able to do byhis own efforts. This is a serious misconception; many great movements are started that are "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." While organized effort, properly directed, will undoubtedly accomplish great things, individual initiative has been the foundation of practically every success our country has known. This tendency to flock together into organizations whenever there is anything to be done is not an entirely healthful sign. Some recent experiences have led me to mourn the disappearance of an effective though somewhat undesirable type of citizen known in the past. In trying to define the kind of man I am thinking of, I remember a report of a scene in the police court in New York some years ago. A lawyer was examining the badly battered plaintiff.
"What did the defendant say to you on that occasion?"
"He said he would knock my head off."
"And what else?"
"He said he would mop the floor with me."
"And what else?"
"Er—also he done it."
There would be a great deal of progress in this world if it could be said after the plans suggested by each man—"also he done it." The trouble just now is that we all organize and nobody gets his head knocked off and the floor doesn't get mopped up.
In Philadelphia, while being entertained by a friend, I met a ward leader of the new world that is to be. When I heard the familiar title "ward leader," memory cut back on the film a picture of my old friend "Biff" McGuire, ward leader for Tammany Hall. "Biff" held sway in a tough district, and in the words of Spencer he was "in a state of correspondence with his environment." Leaning against the end of the bar with his back against the wall to fend off a possible felon stroke, his pose was one of studied carelessness. One foot rested lightly on the footrail and at his elbow there was a bottle of his "Private Stock." In spite of his care-free attitude, his uneasy eye, even when he was absorbed in conversation, noticed every one who passed through the swinging doors. He did not nod acquaintanceship to all, but those whom he favored were more stimulated than they were by the ministrations of the white-coated bartender. From his corner he dispensed the high, low, and middle justice, bought drinks for his dependents and accepted drinks from men "higher up" who dropped in to consult with him. Altogether he was a heroic if sinister figure, much railed at by the better element. A philanthropist in his evil way he was the sole protector of those who were "fobbed with the rusty curb of old Father antic, the law," and of those whose misfortunes had submerged them beyond the care of decent society. He shielded them under his grimy ægis—in return for votes and other obscure political service. In his rough way he dispensed the only charity that these unfortunates knew, and at all times bore himself as one conscious of his power in shaping the destinies and controlling the affairs of one of the greatest cities of modern civilization. With the picture of "Biff" McGuire in the back of my head, I met thenew "ward leader," a gentle and cultured woman, luminous with the fire of public spirit. She held office in the Philadelphia League of Women Citizens, which has been organized according to the best traditions of the old political machines. To give some idea of the scope and purpose of this Woman's Movement, I shall quote briefly from a folder which she offered for my enlightenment.
The National League of Women Votersis a national organization of women who wish not merely to vote, but to use their votes to the best advantage.The Organization has two purposes—To foster education in citizenship and to support improved legislation.The National League is composed of State Leagues.TheProgrammeis educational and legislative, i.e., to get behind needed reforms, to urge their support and adoption in the platforms of the political parties, and their enactment into laws.TheSloganof the League is "Enroll in the Political Parties." It is organized to do legislative work in order to promote its programme.It isNOT A WOMAN'S PARTY OR A SEPARATE POLITICAL PARTY. The League of Women Voters hopes to accomplish its purpose in two ways: first, by education, as to national and state human needs; second, by the direct influence of its own members who are enrolled voters in the already existing political parties. It is not partisan. It will not support or attack national candidates or national parties. To quote from the Constitution, "The National League of Women Voters urges every woman to become an enrolled voter, but as an organization it shall be allied with and support no party."
The National League of Women Votersis a national organization of women who wish not merely to vote, but to use their votes to the best advantage.
The Organization has two purposes—To foster education in citizenship and to support improved legislation.
The National League is composed of State Leagues.
TheProgrammeis educational and legislative, i.e., to get behind needed reforms, to urge their support and adoption in the platforms of the political parties, and their enactment into laws.
TheSloganof the League is "Enroll in the Political Parties." It is organized to do legislative work in order to promote its programme.
It isNOT A WOMAN'S PARTY OR A SEPARATE POLITICAL PARTY. The League of Women Voters hopes to accomplish its purpose in two ways: first, by education, as to national and state human needs; second, by the direct influence of its own members who are enrolled voters in the already existing political parties. It is not partisan. It will not support or attack national candidates or national parties. To quote from the Constitution, "The National League of Women Voters urges every woman to become an enrolled voter, but as an organization it shall be allied with and support no party."
These be "prave words," but while I listened to her eager exposition of all the good that the League hopes to accomplish, memory played me another scurvy trick. I remembered the one hour of mirth I enjoyed in Ottawa during the Canadian Federal campaign of 1917. A wild-eyed man from Montreal had rushed up to me in the office where I had a temporary desk. Gesticulating furiously he poured out a terrible tale of what was happening in Montreal. In the slum districts all the policecourt habitues were registered as "sisters of soldiers." In that election only such women as were the sisters, wives, mothers, or daughters of soldiers were entitled to vote. According to my passionate informant the election in the riding in which he was working would be controlled by the corrupt vote of these unfortunates. Under the conditions that prevailed in that election I knew it would be impossible to do anything, and when he brought down his fist on a desk and thundered, almost in the words of some forgotten poet,
"These are the deeds that are done in Montreal!"
"These are the deeds that are done in Montreal!"
I was moved to great laughter. I could not help thinking of a woman friend who had been telling me how the women voters would purify politics. She had even introduced me to Mrs. Pankhurst so that I might get the gospel of feminism from the lips of its prophetess.
How the women are going to handle this submerged vote is a problem that I have not seen discussed. Are we to have female counterparts of "Biff" McGuire to herd these voters to the polls?
It seemed strange, and perhaps portentous, that I should have my first contact with the women voters of the United States in Philadelphia, where political methods "make the judicious grieve." What they will do can only be known after their votes have been cast. And if race hatred and narrow nationalism are to play an important part in the coming campaign, it will be interesting to see if they can be swayed by the emotional appeals that are certain to be made. Women are said to be more emotional than men, and it is not likely that the experts of scientific politics will overlook the work that may be done by the "sob-sisters." I have in mind some wonderful "sob-sister" stuff that was used in the last Canadian election. I have always suspected that it was written by a hardened male campaign writer—but that is of no importance. What is important is that the "psychology" of woman is to have a part in the alreadycomplex problem of politics. It seems unkind to doubt that the woman will play a noble and beneficent part in the politics of the future, but I have some glimmerings of the methods that politicians may use to defeat them, and, to lapse into parody: