As to tobacco, since reading the article on it in this number, this Review has really thought more seriously than ever before about (notof) giving up smoking. But many doctors here and in Europe have told us to keep on, and but one has told us to stop. How is it with you? We wonder whether life with tobaccocanseem to those who know only life without it, as bad as life without it seems to those who have known life with it! Perhaps each class should experiment in the other's field.
As to the outlay for mere pleasure, and the destruction of life involved, we wonder how those caused by tobacco would compare with those caused by travel—short trips as well as long, by carriage, automobile, vessel—and aeroplane? Our contributor has seen these paragraphs, and he says, very much to our edification and entertainment:
"It is a relief to know that the tobacco article is not going to interfere with the pleasure which 'This Review' derives from smoking. But the writer confesses to a little surprise at the precocity of an infant which in its first year has acquired the nicotine habit to such an extent as to lead it to consult several physicians on the subject."
[It is many years since, but we remember that in at least two cases, the prescription wasvolunteered. Ed.]
"As for the expense caused by driving for pleasure, our statistics do not give us a conclusive answer, but they at least supply us with an outside figure, for Uncle Sam in counting his horses at the time of the last census distinguished between those on farms and those elsewhere. It is fair to assume that the great bulk of the horses used for pleasure are in the second class, and that they constitute a comparatively small fraction of that class. Now horses not on farms numbered 3,182,789 in 1910, and were valued at $422,204,393. In other words, a third of what smokers spend for tobacco would enable them to buy up all of the horses in a big class, only a fraction of which is used forpleasure, and an equal amount would probably suffice for their keep.
"In the case of automobiles, it is still more difficult to distinguish between those used for pleasure and those used for directly productive or public purposes. However, the object of the article was to call attention not so much to gross figures of expenditure, as to the indirect burden imposed by smokers upon the community at large. The automobilist who is willing to run down innocent wayfarers rather than curb his craze for speed is in the same class with the smoker who so smokes as to destroy property and life. Indeed the two are often identical, and it was no mere accident that led the Massachusetts Forestry Association to depict upon its poster designed to stop forest fires, a party of smoking automobilists bowling along and leaving a trail of fire behind them. If the 'Review' can devise some painless way of eliminating both the reckless smoker and the reckless joy-rider from the landscape, it will kill two undesirable birds with one stone."
And as to alcohol. Well! There's Horace and Schiller and the feast of Cana, and the whiskey Lincoln wanted for his other generals, and lots of other people and facts.
But as to bar-maids, we are bound to say that since the graceful tribute to them on earlier pages was in type, there has been placed in our hands evidence of a crusade against their employment in England, and of its abolition by law in South Australia. See the Memoir of Margaret Ethel Macdonald. London, 1913.
For all we know, the preponderance of argument may be against the substitution of women for men as barkeepers; but we suspect that at least it would diminish the shooting at and by barkeepers, in New York.
And another thing we think we do know—that in these progressive days, it would be hard to find any pursuit in which women are engaged, where there is not agitation to improve it off the face of the earth. Their old-fashioned pursuits of wife and mother have lately been specially honored by such agitation.
A contemporary that we have always very highly "esteemed" (we believe that is the correct term, but we are new in the profession) is now proceeding to fill us with awe. It announces that it is going to circulate privately among its friends, a series of brochures that "will answer big questions." We wish we could do that; but our cotemporary has already engaged the only editor we know of who can. For our poor part, we are apt to encounter in any country grocery some question too big for us to answer. But the answers our esteemed cotemporary is going to send out may occasionally help us in telling how a big question that we don't profess to be able to answer, looks to us. We have already had some help of this kind from the editor in question: on many subjects his glowing imagination has thrown such high lights that we have found places of shadow before unsuspected.
The matter reminds us of Horace Greeley's proposition to issue "for the people," a series of pamphlets for five cents each, to contain only "the pure truth." He did not say where he was going to get it.
In the present agitation regarding decency on the stage, it is probably safe to assume that the proponents for license or liberty or freedom or whatever they call it, admit that there aresomenecessary acts and places which should not be represented on the stage. Now would it not clarify discussion if the said proponents were to draw the line between such inadmissible matters and those that should be admitted? We have never happened to see such a line drawn.
Everybody in every one of them seems to know that something is the matter, but nobody in any seems to know just what, much less, then, a remedy for whatever it is.
Some say it is the suppression of the individual, the glorification of the average. Others say it is college yelling and athletics. Yet others, that it is vocationalizing and the deadly practical. Still others call it the proletariat of the doctorate, the fad of the faculties for immature or imitation research.
Can it be that it is all these things and several more, particularly all those that exist in contrasted pairs, such as discipline and required work according to the standard of the mean, and at the same time, elective studies and the freedom of the city? Or simultaneous college yells and doctor's dissertations. And can it be that all these grow out of a single actual condition which is common to all American higher education, and which compels it to be "lower" at the same time that it is "higher"? For in the present organization of practically every American college and university that condition actually does exist.
It exists by virtue of the fact of the housing in the same dormitories and fraternity houses, and mixing in the same class rooms and laboratories, and providing with the same teachers and deans, and ruling by the same regulations and gum-shoe committees, of dependent preparatory students and independent advanced students.
Our high schools stop short of finishing the preparation of students for University work. Our universities assume part of the high school function along with their own. The GermanGymnasiumand Frenchlycéeinclude the equivalents of the American college Freshmen and part of the Sophomores. They finish up the drill and discipline stage of education. The Continental university begins and carries on the stage of intelligent and self-chosen and independent work. But in the American universities there must be discipline, college yells, drill in routine and elementary work, classes handled on the basis of averages, and teachers of theGymnasiumandlycéetype, existing side by side with recognition and encouragement of the individual freedom of bent, disregard of credit hours and assigned tasks, and scholarly professors and investigators of real university type.
The outcome is that the drill teachers are madepseudo-investigators; the investigators made unwilling drill teachers. The students are invited to soar, and at the same time ordered to march in ranks. Preparatory school rules are made for the sake of the Freshmen, which the Seniors have to obey. Freedom of choice in study is offered because of the Seniors and graduates, to the utter demoralization of the Freshmen.
Because of this impossible juxtaposition of discipline and freedom, drill and inspiration, the American university feels sick. It knows very well that something is the matter with it. It has to be all things to all students, and is, in fact, too little of a real thing to any of them.
The most noteworthy difference between European and American Journalism, as regards news, is the prominence we give to what is technically called the news of the day. Let a great liner be sunk or saved and all the newspapers, even the most conservative, print page on page of repetitious story or comment, playing on the emotions from every point of view. No European paper would feature even the most affecting news on any such scale. Doubtless our American practice is a natural enough tribute from the editors to the mobility of our sympathies, not to say the flightiness of our minds. What the enthralled reader does not realize is that to provide him with the completely modulated thrill of the day scores of important items of routine news have been curtailed to meaningless epitome or wholly suppressed. For several days that duty of daily chronicle which a good newspaper ordinarily performs is intermitted. The most important debates of a congressional year will receive bare notice so long as a heroic Marconi operator is in the public eye. The greatest of foreign statesmen or authors might die in the glorious interim and receive the barest notice; a revolution in Persia would yield to a factory fire on the East Side.
Now something of this disproportion is necessary. No paper could live in America which scrupulously treatednews according to its abstract importance regardless of the reader's cravings. Yet a journal that respects itself has a function of daily chronicle that should under no circumstances be suspended. A really good newspaper ought to be valuable material for the historian, and our best newspaper will several times in every twelvemonth leave him badly in the lurch. For a week he will find admirable reports of say the discussion of a very important measure like the currency bill, and then suddenly theVolturno und kein Ende. Just about the time when mail letters were beginning to tell a certain amount of truth about the Messina earthquake, the telegraphic reports of which were egregious inventions of distant improvisers,The Republicwas saved through the intrepidity of Jack Binns. A correspondent who had been on the ground at Messina and remained in close touch with the rescuers and refugees received the sufficient answer with regard to additional earthquake facts "Jack Binns has killed Messina." Here is obviously both a good and a bad reason. There was every reason for celebrating at length the pluck and loyalty of Jack Binns, and no reason for curtailing the record of one of the greatest disasters registered in history.
The first duty of a good newspaper is to the more important routine news. It is a duty that every American journal neglects at times quite scandalously. The old fashion of relegating striking news of the day to an extra had much to commend it. Abuse of the extra by the yellow press has pretty well killed the practice among the conservative papers. Possibly a discreet revival of the legitimate extra might help matters. But what is really needed is a juster sense of proportion and a clearer conception of duty among editors. With a little insight and much courage a managing editor might make himself the controller of the "news of the day," rather than its mere conduit. In the long run his paper would more than gain in steady prestige what it lost in occasional flurries of sensational success.
Rather than bother our readers and distract their attention from what we have to say, we print in the orthographic forms we are all accustomed to. But we realize that many of these forms are inconsistent and irrational—more so in English than in any other civilized language—and that the difficulty of learning them wastes the time and tissue of our children, and obstructs among foreigners the spread of English to its natural position of a world language, with the blessings that its attaining that position would bring in peace and commerce.
Our orthography is, of course, an evolution. It began with picture symbols, and some of these were gradually changed into the letters of our alphabet. But the signs have always been later than the sounds, and we never had enough of the former to express the niceties of the latter. Therefore imperfections and inconsistencies in any new system proposed should not be fatal against it, if it is enough of an advance on the existing system, and a better advance than any other proposed. The orthography of the future will undoubtedly be eclectic from many proposals, and probably, like the present orthography, from many involuntary and unreasoned practices.
The English Simplified Spelling Society, which contains the leading British authorities, has gone on the principle that it is not worth while to recommend any changes short of a comprehensive scheme for the whole language, and has recommended an approximate one. Nothing more than approximation is possible.
The American Simplified Spelling Board, sustained by Mr. Carnegie, which corresponds in authority with the English society, has not attempted a comprehensive system, but for the worst extravagances and inconsistencies has simply recommended a number of remedies, especially such forms astho,thru, and the following changes in final syllables—saving all silente's, including the one ined; themeingramme, and programme; theuein finalgue; thetein finalette; also the substitution oftfordfinal, when so pronounced.
As is well known, several of the remedial forms are already in considerable use, especially in advertising and other writing where no appreciable demands are made on the understanding or emotions.
From here until we giv notis on a later page, we wil uze som of those forms and a few more—all of which may be not too radical for present use in informal riting, as abuv mentioned, and may be regarded as transitional toward an ideal system. It woud undoutedly be easier to teach children a comprehensiv and consistent sistem than the existing caos minus varius uncorrected partial remedies, as illustrated in the present riting. The authoritys ar agreed that children woud lern a consistent sistem years qicker than the present lac of sistem, and having lernd the consistent sistem, woud pic up the forms they find in newspapers and existing bouks without conscius effort. Then of course a generation familiar with a goud sistem woud soon be suppleid with literature in it. But a rising generation cannot be taut such a sistem before the elders ar convinst of its utility.
We wish to promote such a conviction as far as we can, but no won without experience can begin to realize the difficultys, in fact the impossibility, of presenting new forms with absolute consistency. Words really sound differently in som connections than in others; and habit asserts itself in spite of reson. In half a dozen revisions of these paragrafs, inconsistencys hav bin found every time, and som undoutedly remain. But such inconsistencys ar not permanently inherent in the reform, and shoud not prejudis it. Habits of pronunciation disagree, and even if they did not, perfect discrimination coud not be attaind even with an alfabet twice as large as our present one; and if absolute discrimination wer attaind, it woud sune be nullified by an accent in som new popular song, or from som new popular orator. The only way to keep spelling abrest of language is for lexicografers to cut luse from precedent, and closely follo the actual pronunciation oftheir own times. William D. Whitney used to say that if they had always don that, filological sience woud be much farther advanst.
A special cause of inconsistency is the tendency to preserv what is not very bad, and to make changes as slight as reson wil permit, but when no slight change wil do the tric, to make the change as goud as possibl. But see what somtimes coms. Thewinwriteis utterly useless. Take it off, and we have a fairly good wordrite. But theghinrightis also useless—not pronounst, as is thechin the cognate Germanrecht. If we get rid of it, however, we haverit, which rimes withfit. Now take it all in all, the best way to lengthen thatiis to dubl it, just as in silabls closed with a consonant we alreddy somtimes dubl the vowel—theeinseen, theoindoor.This is not necessary in open silabls.The S. S. S. proposes we shal dubl theainfaather, and theuintuun(tune). Then if we dubl thei, we hav a uniform sistem with the long vowels. This givs usriit. But then the processes we hav just been thru land us withriteandriitfor the same sound.
Of course to represent a sound in more than won way brings perplexity to spellers. Yet several ways are resonabl to let stand until a new generation can be educated to the best. This is a not unresonabl concession to habit, and is not nearly so bad as to let a simbol represent more than one sound, as in the two sounds fortear, and the vowel sounds indoorandpoor.
But we must also take into account what Skeat rightly says—that the simbol for a sound should not be distributed in two places; and thereforeriteis not so good asriit. But theeat the end of a closed silabl to lengthen the vowel, is so intrencht in the language that it woud be doutful policy to attack it yet in words fairly fit to stand, e. g.,fate,mate,bite,mote,lute. So the transition policy we recommend is to let all fairly goud forms stand, but where a form is to bad to stand, change it into the best possibl, asrightintoriit, even at the price of such an inconsistency as leavingritefromwrite, becauseriteis more workabl, thoriitwoud be theoretically better. Som such inconsistencys ar inevitabl, as we cannot start fresh, butmust evolv from an existing inconsistent—very inconsistent—orthografy.
In spelling, as in matters perhaps more important (tho the importance of rational spelling is vastly grater than generally realized), it is wel to recognize the ideal, but to try to advocate at any time only what is workabl at that time.
Now we proceed tu a much clooser approximashon tu an ideal for owr children, so far az it appeerz practicabl with the prezzent alfabet. It wil at first seem a very funny ideal. All such approximashonz wil differ, and wil hav tu fiit it owt, and this wun wil seem at first tu be caos and oold niit, but allmoost enny wun ov them, tu a miind withowt an alien training—tu a chiild's miind, woud be moor orderly and luminus than owr prezzent sistem, or rathther lac ov sistem.
The rezonz for the niu formz which ar not obvius wil be explaind alfabetically after the text.
Moost ov the formz we giv ar recommended by the S. S. B. and the S. S. S. But thair ar itemz on which theze bodyz ar not yet agreed, even among themselvz; yet thair laborz hav reecht the point whair individualz shoud taak hoold and subject the formz thay beleev in tu the strugl for existens and the survival ov the fittest.
The grait difficultyz ar in indicating the vowelz with owr prezzent alfabet, which givz, for instans, oonly the wun simbolafor at leest ait sowndz, and probably moor not generaly discriminated, and the wun simbolefor at leest fiiv,ifor three,ofor foor, and dubld for foor moor, andufor fiiv.
The short vowelz ar dispoozd ov with comparativ eez: for in a silabl cloozd with a consonant, the vowel iz uzualy short, e. g.,bad,bed,did,cod,cub, but unfortunaitly not all short vowelz hav thair silablz cloozd. In Saxon dissilablz, owr ancestorz generaly did clooz the first silabl when it woz short, by repeeting the vowel beginning the folloing silabl, e. g.,gabble,filling,fizzle. But the practis ov cloozing in this way woz generalyrestricted tu dissilabls, az the pronunsiashon ov polisilabls iz apt tu indicait itself,and economy iz wurth considering. In wurdz directly from the Latin, az thair iz les differens ov axent between the silabls, the clozing ov the first silabl az abuv descriibd, iz not yuzual. It woud probably be wel tu introduus it, however. If, for instans, the first silabl wer cloozd inviggor, we shoud not hav such contradicshonz azvigorandvizorsiid by siid.
Az tu the long sowndz, the oonly way tu reprezent them,whair thay ar not determind by pozishon at the end ov an oopen silabl, iz (az allreddy illustrated) by combining the letrz with different letrz, az we now combiin ingain,real,mine,soar,rule: evidentlygan,rel,min,sor,rul, woud not anser the purpus. We hav tu maik theez combinashonz becawz the genius ov owr rais duz not seem tu favor adding letrz tu owr alfabet, inazmuch az we hav allreddy dropt tu valuabl wunz reprezenting respectivlythanddh.
It certanly woud be best, az allreddy propoozd, tu dubl eech vowel for its long sownd, az we allreddy du indeemanddoor. But we hav no exampl ov dubla,i, oru(except in tu or three forren wurdz liikbazaar, and ov coors, owr utterly exentricw), but the S. S. S. recommendzuuinsted ov theooincoon, and dublainfaather, which we accept. We do not need to dubl theabefoorrfinal in monosilabls becawz it haz theahsownd befoorrexept when theafollooz awsownd, iither inwitself or incwexprest azq, e. g. inwar(wawr) orquart(qawrt). The foorgoing givz dubl vowelz for all buti, and we propooz them thair. This iz a compleet sistem baasd on a principl.
Now for sum explanashonz.
abuv = above. The e final propperly maiks theolong, and iz entirely owt ov plais heer and inlove,shove,etc.The sownd ov theoiz propperly ausownd, az inbut, and iz wun ov several cases whair we absurdly yuuzotu expressusowndz.allreddy = already. The silablalpropperly riims withgal,Hal,pal,Sal—rather a riotus set ov silabls, but thay ar whot running down the alfabet givz. And the silablreadpropperly riims withbead, and shoud be spelt herered, butredyshoud riim withneedy, so weproviid an addishonal consonant, in the mood ov owr ancestorz, az allreddy explaind. This iz at the sacrifis ov economy, but the reformd sistemz hav uthther economyz, espeshally in the terminaled, tu compensait. See allsoprezzentandconfiuzd.allso = also. Seeallreddy.allwaiz = always. The S. S. S. recommendzaifor the longasownd az inpair. Seeallreddy.bin = been, which propperly riimz withseen.confiuuzd = confused. Withowt thei, propperly pronownstconfoozd. Moorover we wawnt tu get rid ov the apparent silabl at the end ov such wurdz, not oonly tu economiiz the yuuslese, but allso becawz forrenerz tend to pronowns theedaz a silabl.coors = course and coarse.ooaz indooriz the best simbol for longo, azeeiz the best simbol for longe. Theousimbol we reserv for such wurdz azcoud,shoud,woud. The temptashon tu maik coors riim with Boors, iz ov the devvil: for Boors iz abominably spelt. It shoud be Buurz; and furze shoud be spelt withowt thee. Thair iz no serius objecshon tu makingcoorsserv for bothcourseandcoarse: thair ar allreddy menny cases whaar wun wurd meenz several thingz.determind = determined.Minedcan propperly be pronownst oonly with a longi, and the silabl or wurdmind, with a shorti. Allso seeconfiuuzd.devvil = devil, which with dubl propriety riimz withevil.duz = does, which propperly riimz withgoes.grait = great, which propperly riimz withbeat.havving = having, which propperly riimz withsaving.impruuvd = improved. Tu reprezent ausownd withoiz absurd. Allso seeconfiuuzd.litl = little. Thair iz so litl vowel sownd in the last silabl ov this and menny uthther wurdz as tu be hardly wurth expressing, and thair ar menny difficultyz in duing it.maid = made. Thair iz no objecshun to this from owr allreddy havving a wurdmaid. Seeallwaiz, alsocoors.menny = many, which propperly and suggestivly riimz withzany.no = know: the S. S. B. touk off thew, but after chaingingknockintonoc, bawkt at thisk. We ar a litl moor venchursum.The o iz long by pozishon at the end ov an oopen silabl.nu = knew. Seeno.oonly = only, which woud propperly riim withsonlyif thair wer such a wurd for filial. The S. S. S. recommendzoefor the longosownd, butooiz betr, and we rigl it in az an inishal after the manner ofeels.owr = our, which propperly riimz with iitherpourortour. The vowel sownd inouriz that inowl.practis = practice. Inpracticedwe pronowns theedazt, and thairfor shoud spel it so. But if we maid itpractict, thecwoud be hard. Chainging thectosin the parent wurd givs uspractist, which iz wel simboliizd.prezzent = present, which propperly riimz withdecent.pronowns = pronounce. Seepractis.pronownst = pronounced. Seepractis.propper = proper, which propperly riimz withtoper. Seeallreddy, allsolitl.purpus = purpose.Posepropperly riimz withnose.reecht = reached. Seepractis.riit = right. Theghwurdz hav that simbol cognait with the German gutturalchaz inrecht, tho we du not pronowns it. Butritwoud riim withbit.scollar = scholar. Booth Societyz omit thehinchhard. But that woud leevscolar, riiming withmolar. Seeallreddy, allsolitl.scuul = school. Dubloiz abiuuzd in being maid tu reprezent ausownd. Seeoonly.silabl = syllable. We du not keep the dubl l, becawz this iz a polisilabl: seep. 221neer bottom. In spelling, children and forrenerz, and not thay aloon, ar puzzld betweeniandy. The S. S. B. haz wiizly reservdyfor terminals, and we beleev in it for inishals allso whair thay ar combiind with uthther vowelz. See yuse and yuzed. Also seelitl.simbol = symbol. Seesilabl.simboliizd = symbolized. Seesilabl. Moorover, if we wer tu drop theefromsimbolizedtu prevent forrenerzpronownsing the apparent last silabl, thay woud be in dainger of maiking the ending riim with whot we hav spelt azfizzedand woud now spel azfizd. For this rezon we need theiizdsimbols. Seesimplifiid.simplifiid = simplified. Theiefreequently in English and allwaiz in German haz the longesownd, and in English iz alwaiz confiuuzd with the longesownd inreceiv, etc. Rezervingiifor the longiduz away with that confiuzhon. Tu du away with the confiuzhon between such wurdz azbelieveandreceive, the S. S. B. allreddy reservzie, and the S. S. S.,ee, which we follo.sownd = sound. Seecoorsandowr.thair = their, seeallwaiz.thay = they. Notthaibecawzyiz betr thanibooth az inishal and terminal.tu = too, to and two. The absurdity of reprezenting ausownd byois obvius.We don't need tu dubl the u, becauz the silabl iz oopen.uthther = other. This iz a stumper. The inishal sownd iz theuinbut. Thethpropperly reprezents a singl consonant sownd. Owr Saxon ancestorz had a singl letr for it which we did badly in throing away. That letr the Anglo-Saxons freqently yuuzd tu clooz a silabl (see p. 221) az in siððan,since, and after thay began tu yuuzthinsted ov the ð, thay freqently yuuzdthfor the saam purpus, until its cumbrusnes thru it owt. We stil yuuz the ð in filological publicashonz, tho often allso the Greek θ. If we must yuuzth, for consistency's saak it shoud be repeeted inuthther,bruthther,muthther, etc.Fortunaitly thair ar oonly a scoor ov such wurdz. We riit of thair spelling partly az a curiosity that may be interesting, and partly tu sho the dezirability ov getting bac owr oold letrz. Macaulay's scuulboy nu, if owrz duzn't, that the Greeks wer ahed ov us over tu thowzand yeerz ago, in havving not oonly a singl simbol forth, but a longeand a shorte, and a longoand a shorto.whot = what, which propperly riimz withbat.woz or wuz = was, which propperly riimz withgas.wun = one, which propperly riimz withtone.wurd = word, which propperly riimz withcord. Its vowel is pronownst with ausownd, which it iz absurd tu reprezent byo.wurs = worse, which propperly riimz withhorse. We woud hardly pronownshorseaz we pronownshearse, tho the latter iz allso abominabl: foreapropperly reprezents the sownd indear. The riit way tu spelhearseizhurs, and the riit way tu spelher'sizhur'z.wuz or woz = was, which propperly riimz withgas.yuus or yuuz = use. Seeconfiuuzd.Useiz pronownst bothuzeanduse.Uzeiz a betr way to spel the wurd which we rongly spelooze. Tu yuuz anofor ausownd iz bad enuf, and tu yuuz tu ov them iz wurs—dubly fit forfools.
abuv = above. The e final propperly maiks theolong, and iz entirely owt ov plais heer and inlove,shove,etc.The sownd ov theoiz propperly ausownd, az inbut, and iz wun ov several cases whair we absurdly yuuzotu expressusowndz.
allreddy = already. The silablalpropperly riims withgal,Hal,pal,Sal—rather a riotus set ov silabls, but thay ar whot running down the alfabet givz. And the silablreadpropperly riims withbead, and shoud be spelt herered, butredyshoud riim withneedy, so weproviid an addishonal consonant, in the mood ov owr ancestorz, az allreddy explaind. This iz at the sacrifis ov economy, but the reformd sistemz hav uthther economyz, espeshally in the terminaled, tu compensait. See allsoprezzentandconfiuzd.
allso = also. Seeallreddy.
allwaiz = always. The S. S. S. recommendzaifor the longasownd az inpair. Seeallreddy.
bin = been, which propperly riimz withseen.
confiuuzd = confused. Withowt thei, propperly pronownstconfoozd. Moorover we wawnt tu get rid ov the apparent silabl at the end ov such wurdz, not oonly tu economiiz the yuuslese, but allso becawz forrenerz tend to pronowns theedaz a silabl.
coors = course and coarse.ooaz indooriz the best simbol for longo, azeeiz the best simbol for longe. Theousimbol we reserv for such wurdz azcoud,shoud,woud. The temptashon tu maik coors riim with Boors, iz ov the devvil: for Boors iz abominably spelt. It shoud be Buurz; and furze shoud be spelt withowt thee. Thair iz no serius objecshon tu makingcoorsserv for bothcourseandcoarse: thair ar allreddy menny cases whaar wun wurd meenz several thingz.
determind = determined.Minedcan propperly be pronownst oonly with a longi, and the silabl or wurdmind, with a shorti. Allso seeconfiuuzd.
devvil = devil, which with dubl propriety riimz withevil.
duz = does, which propperly riimz withgoes.
grait = great, which propperly riimz withbeat.
havving = having, which propperly riimz withsaving.
impruuvd = improved. Tu reprezent ausownd withoiz absurd. Allso seeconfiuuzd.
litl = little. Thair iz so litl vowel sownd in the last silabl ov this and menny uthther wurdz as tu be hardly wurth expressing, and thair ar menny difficultyz in duing it.
maid = made. Thair iz no objecshun to this from owr allreddy havving a wurdmaid. Seeallwaiz, alsocoors.
menny = many, which propperly and suggestivly riimz withzany.
no = know: the S. S. B. touk off thew, but after chaingingknockintonoc, bawkt at thisk. We ar a litl moor venchursum.The o iz long by pozishon at the end ov an oopen silabl.
nu = knew. Seeno.
oonly = only, which woud propperly riim withsonlyif thair wer such a wurd for filial. The S. S. S. recommendzoefor the longosownd, butooiz betr, and we rigl it in az an inishal after the manner ofeels.
owr = our, which propperly riimz with iitherpourortour. The vowel sownd inouriz that inowl.
practis = practice. Inpracticedwe pronowns theedazt, and thairfor shoud spel it so. But if we maid itpractict, thecwoud be hard. Chainging thectosin the parent wurd givs uspractist, which iz wel simboliizd.
prezzent = present, which propperly riimz withdecent.
pronowns = pronounce. Seepractis.
pronownst = pronounced. Seepractis.
propper = proper, which propperly riimz withtoper. Seeallreddy, allsolitl.
purpus = purpose.Posepropperly riimz withnose.
reecht = reached. Seepractis.
riit = right. Theghwurdz hav that simbol cognait with the German gutturalchaz inrecht, tho we du not pronowns it. Butritwoud riim withbit.
scollar = scholar. Booth Societyz omit thehinchhard. But that woud leevscolar, riiming withmolar. Seeallreddy, allsolitl.
scuul = school. Dubloiz abiuuzd in being maid tu reprezent ausownd. Seeoonly.
silabl = syllable. We du not keep the dubl l, becawz this iz a polisilabl: seep. 221neer bottom. In spelling, children and forrenerz, and not thay aloon, ar puzzld betweeniandy. The S. S. B. haz wiizly reservdyfor terminals, and we beleev in it for inishals allso whair thay ar combiind with uthther vowelz. See yuse and yuzed. Also seelitl.
simbol = symbol. Seesilabl.
simboliizd = symbolized. Seesilabl. Moorover, if we wer tu drop theefromsimbolizedtu prevent forrenerzpronownsing the apparent last silabl, thay woud be in dainger of maiking the ending riim with whot we hav spelt azfizzedand woud now spel azfizd. For this rezon we need theiizdsimbols. Seesimplifiid.
simplifiid = simplified. Theiefreequently in English and allwaiz in German haz the longesownd, and in English iz alwaiz confiuuzd with the longesownd inreceiv, etc. Rezervingiifor the longiduz away with that confiuzhon. Tu du away with the confiuzhon between such wurdz azbelieveandreceive, the S. S. B. allreddy reservzie, and the S. S. S.,ee, which we follo.
sownd = sound. Seecoorsandowr.
thair = their, seeallwaiz.
thay = they. Notthaibecawzyiz betr thanibooth az inishal and terminal.
tu = too, to and two. The absurdity of reprezenting ausownd byois obvius.We don't need tu dubl the u, becauz the silabl iz oopen.
uthther = other. This iz a stumper. The inishal sownd iz theuinbut. Thethpropperly reprezents a singl consonant sownd. Owr Saxon ancestorz had a singl letr for it which we did badly in throing away. That letr the Anglo-Saxons freqently yuuzd tu clooz a silabl (see p. 221) az in siððan,since, and after thay began tu yuuzthinsted ov the ð, thay freqently yuuzdthfor the saam purpus, until its cumbrusnes thru it owt. We stil yuuz the ð in filological publicashonz, tho often allso the Greek θ. If we must yuuzth, for consistency's saak it shoud be repeeted inuthther,bruthther,muthther, etc.
Fortunaitly thair ar oonly a scoor ov such wurdz. We riit of thair spelling partly az a curiosity that may be interesting, and partly tu sho the dezirability ov getting bac owr oold letrz. Macaulay's scuulboy nu, if owrz duzn't, that the Greeks wer ahed ov us over tu thowzand yeerz ago, in havving not oonly a singl simbol forth, but a longeand a shorte, and a longoand a shorto.
whot = what, which propperly riimz withbat.
woz or wuz = was, which propperly riimz withgas.
wun = one, which propperly riimz withtone.
wurd = word, which propperly riimz withcord. Its vowel is pronownst with ausownd, which it iz absurd tu reprezent byo.
wurs = worse, which propperly riimz withhorse. We woud hardly pronownshorseaz we pronownshearse, tho the latter iz allso abominabl: foreapropperly reprezents the sownd indear. The riit way tu spelhearseizhurs, and the riit way tu spelher'sizhur'z.
wuz or woz = was, which propperly riimz withgas.
yuus or yuuz = use. Seeconfiuuzd.Useiz pronownst bothuzeanduse.Uzeiz a betr way to spel the wurd which we rongly spelooze. Tu yuuz anofor ausownd iz bad enuf, and tu yuuz tu ov them iz wurs—dubly fit forfools.
We may venture upon another (annuthther?) spelling lesson in the next number, especially if owr reederz giv enny siin ov wawnting it; and it may anser sum qeschonz raazd in this lesson. And we may even go so far az tu prezent a fiu miild innovashonz in owr text, az haz bin heroically don by theEducational Review,The Independentand sum uthther periodicalz ov standing.
We woud liik to hieer from owr reedrz on the subject.
Press ofT. Morey & Son, Greenfield, Mass.
The Unpopular ReviewVOL. 1APRIL-JUNE, 1914NO. 2
There is no such thing as capitalism, say the conservatives. It is an empty sound, a curse in the name of a false god, directed by the revolutionaries against the world of things as they are, as they always have been and always shall be. Capitalism is a reality, say the radicals. It is the appropriate designation of the current system—a vulgar, hideous system, a brute mechanism set in motion by the energy of blind greed, a mechanism through which human values and human lives are thrust, to emerge smudged and flat and dead. The soul of capitalism? Pernicious paradox!
Capitalism is no less a reality than was feudalism. The capitalist employer is the most prominent figure in the modern state, just as the knight was the most prominent figure in the mediæval. But the order of knights did not of itself constitute feudalism: equally characteristic was the class of serfs. In a fundamental sense the system consisted in the mutual relation between knight and serf. Capitalism, in like manner, implies a class of employers and a reciprocal and conditioning class of workers, but as a system it consists in the mutual relation of these classes. The conscious existence of the members of both classes is shaped, or at least colored, by the capitalistic relation. Not in the same way, however; for capitalism induces one set of reactions in the minds of the employingclass, and another set of reactions in the minds of the employed. But these diverse reactions are equally the product of capitalism, its inevitable concomitants, its psychical essence.
Capitalism is, to be sure, not the whole of modern life; nor was feudalism the whole of the life of the Middle Ages. In the feudal state there were classes that were not, strictly speaking, under feudal law. Such were the clergy, the merchants and artisans of the towns, the freemen of the villages. Moreover, there were individuals who rose superior to the system, such as the great feudatories, who often assumed a regal freedom from the narrow feudal rules. There were also elements that proved incapable of assimilation, aliens, outlaws, mendicants. But the popular mind, with its inveterate bent towards order and uniformity, generalized the relation beyond the range of its proper application. To the worldly bishop, even the Pope was a great feudatory; to the beggar's apprentice, his master was a species of knight. So at the present time there are numerous elements that are incongruous with capitalism. The independent worker and the small merchant, the professional classes, the artists and the politicians, are not properly governed by capitalistic rules. The great magnates of the industrial world have won for themselves a measure of immunity from the laws that govern the conduct of the typical capitalist-employer. But the predominance of the capitalistic system is evidenced by the fact that all these non-assimilable forms are being translated into capitalistic terms. A farm is no longer a "holding," it is an "investment" or a "job." A political magnate is a "boss" and his supporters are "workers"; the political machine itself is "invested capital." The buildings of church or school are, with increasing frequency, described as "plant." We are beginning to hear of "efficiency control" of college curricula; of the "unit costs" of saving souls. Our most exalted dignitary is "the people's hired man"; and the late King Humbertof Italy was wont to speak of assassination as a "trade risk."
With due allowance for the whimsical quality of some of the instances cited above, we must yet admit that they indicate a general tendency to translate all current experience into capitalistic terms. Such instances are but indications of the collective conviction that capitalism is the most significant fact in modern life. Why then do our conservatives insist upon rejecting the term, upon denying the very content of the concept? Chiefly because those who have depicted capitalism have sketched it in black crayon, instead of painting it in the rosy hues of romance.
To speak of capitalism as endowed with a soul, is indeed a paradox. But the conception of soul is itself paradoxical. The man of science dispenses with it in so far as he can. All that compels us rationally to posit the existence of soul, is its works, good and evil. The hypothesis of a human soul has been forced upon us by the fact that there is in the action of man an element that transcends the needs and purposes of the body, an element that we often see growing into such commanding importance that it reduces the body to the rank of mere instrument. Capitalism, too, appears to subserve purposes that transcend its proper ends. To what end, in profit-making, is the destruction of personality, the corruption of the sentiment of humanity, that the Socialists attribute to capitalism? To the Socialists themselves capitalism appears endowed with a soul, to whose purposes capital's immediate processes are merely instrumental. Only, the soul is one of unmixed evil.
Capitalism, like every other social system, implies a class that rules and a class that is controlled. The ruling class—pacethose political theorists who refuse to knowthat a ruling class exists—is composed of the capitalist employers. And how do the capitalist employers differ from any others of the masters that the world has known? Not merely in that they possess accumulations and pay wages in money. These are incidental facts. What is essential is that the capitalist employers, in so far as they are truly such, are controlled in all their active dealings by the principle of commercialization.
And commercialization is a psychical phenomenon. It is the substitution, in economic conduct, of a process of calculation for a process of feeling and will. The antithesis between the two processes has long been recognized by practical men, under the form of the contrast between "business" and "sentiment." That much maligned abstraction of the economists, "the economic man," is nothing but the capitalistic entrepreneur, reacting as he must to a competitive situation. What the orthodox economists failed to observe is that so-called "economic conduct" is class conduct. It is confined to the merchants and manufacturers of a competitive régime, whose daily life consists in the manipulation of exchange values. Employers who enjoy a monopoly, independent laborers, and even the typical wage earners of capitalism, may—indeed, must—permit their actions to be governed by other motives, as well as by that of profit. But the capitalist employer in a competitive trade is quickly taught by bitter experience that it is not his function to judge and choose. His business is to calculate; and the less non-economic principles of action interfere with his decisions, the more certain he is of success. All elements essential to his business present themselves in the guise of exchange values. All magnitudes, thus, are commensurate: you compare one with the other and choose the greater. Intelligence is required for the ascertaining of relative magnitudes. But the calculation once made, action is determined. Whether you are a man of strong will or weak will, of active feelings or passive, you do not hesitatewhen, in effect, a dollar is offered you in exchange for fifty cents.
It is cool intelligence, not dominant personality, that, under a purely capitalistic system, determines the distribution of the seats of power. The capitalist employers are our ruling class, but of all classes that have ever held power, they least resemble personal rulers. They calculate, but conditions beyond their control determine. And, to be most successful, they must divest their calculations of all elements that are irrelevant to profit making. If I am a capitalist employer, operating under conditions of keen competition, I buy no more readily from an honest man than from a rogue, provided the rogue can give good title to the things he sells. I hire men, Teutons or Slavs or Latins, white, black or yellow, with a sole view to their effectiveness for purposes of profit. I may have private opinions on religion or politics or morals; on the use of alcohol or opium or tobacco. But unless I can relate such manifestations of virtues or vices to the point of profit, I must suppress these opinions, in my active dealings with men. It follows, then, that in all that concerns the capitalist employer, in all that concerns his essential rulership, he is a respecter of the liberties of men.
No one, it is true, is a capitalist employer, pure and simple. In his social life, every one is likely to retain some of his age-old prejudices, and to seek to enforce age-old oppressions. As a business man, no one would be so foolish as to refuse to sit in the same board of directors with any other capable business man, Hellene or βάρβαρος. In his club life, on the other hand, many a business man affects a patrician exclusiveness. The most Christian business man does not refuse to deal freely with atheists, but very likely he refuses to admit them to his house. As a mine operator I should employ negroes as skilled or unskilled laborers, as foremen or bosses, if such employment were favorable to financial results. I might none the less, as a citizen, attempt to exclude them from publicoffice. In business hours, the exercise of personal, political or religious oppression is penalized by technical inefficiency and pecuniary loss. Out of business hours, however, every man tends still to revert to the aboriginal state of manhood, narrow, illiberal, obstinate, oppressive.
Capitalism, furthermore, is far from having attained complete dominance, even in business affairs. Personal whim, as a co-determinant of action, is not obsolete, but merely obsolescent. The president of a great manufacturing corporation of the Middle West detests cigarettes, and has promulgated the rule that no men whose fingers are cigarette stained shall be added to his staff. Mr. Henry Ford intends to confine the benefits of employment in his mills to men who are "worthy," that is, to men who conform to certain standards of conduct that are good in their employer's eyes. There are employers who will not tolerate in their shops the presence of Socialists; others who have engaged in a crusade to exterminate "knockers." In all such cases of essentially personal discrimination an attempt is made, however, to justify it on abstract grounds of efficiency. Cigarette smokers, loose livers, Socialists and "knockers" are poor workmen, assert these employers. The assertion, we all know, is far from being universally true. In so far as it is false, however, it is a gracious falsehood in the light of the spirit of capitalism. It is a concession to the principle that pecuniary considerations alone justify an invasion of personal liberty.
Discrimination on personal grounds is, moreover, so exceptional as to count as amiable eccentricity. It is recognized as a handicap, which can be overcome only by striking superiority in other directions. Mr. Ford may watch over the private conduct of his employees, because he is able to pay much higher wages than anyone else. The manufacturing concern to which reference has been made may discriminate against able workmen with cigarette stained fingers, because it is efficiently organized, and enjoys a monopoly position. Suchinstances are necessarily rare, and are interesting only as a contrast to the businesses controlled strictly by the spirit of capitalism.
Personal oppression may still be exercised within business hours: but it represents an added cost, readily determined by scientific management. The machinery for its suppression is in motion; it cannot forever survive. There is no equally effective machinery for the elimination of the personal oppression that emerges out of business hours. In one's business calculations, one regards a social prejudice, even if it is directed against oneself, as irrelevant to practical action, so long as it finds expression only beyond the realm of business. A persistent slanderer of alien races finds no difficulty in raising a loan from a foreign banker, provided that the security he offers is good. No element of revenge in the relations between Parisian banks and German customers has appeared since the Zabern incident. Indirectly, however, the social influence of capitalistic toleration is very considerable. One who has an alien partner may continue to cherish the heroic myth of Anglo-Saxon superiority, but it will be through desire for consistency, not out of conviction. International financial forays upon weak nations, like the late Six Power loan, have the effect of weakening many a national prejudice. National, racial and religious prejudices retain their pristine vitality only where capitalism has not yet reached a high state of development. It is in Russia and Rumania, economically backward states, not in England and America, the most capitalistic of all, that the policy of expelling heterogeneous elements flourishes. It is in the Old South, still in a precapitalistic stage, that the social gulf between the races is widest. It is on the Pacific Coast, whose whole volume of capitalistic industry could be overmatched by that of a city like Newark, that detestation of an alien race rises to the rank of a political issue.
Toleration and its counterpart, personal liberty, these are the first constituents of the soul of capitalism. Capitalistic toleration, it is true, originates in interest, and is limited by interest. If capitalism admonishes me to tolerate atheism in my foreman, so long as it does not interfere with his efficiency, it equally admonishes me to extirpate excessive piety in his person, if, for example, intervals of ecstatic contemplation divert his attention from my interests. Morally such toleration is vastly inferior to that which is founded upon a broad sentiment of humanity and a recognition of the presumption involved in the prescribing of rules to one's fellow man. But ethical toleration can find lodgment only in the breasts of the chosen few. "Neither do I condemn thee." Of all the miracles, is not this expression of toleration the greatest? Millions upon millions have repeated the sentiment devoutly; but to how few has it become a rule of life!
Capitalistic toleration, on the other hand, is a sentiment not too refined for the most vulgar souls. Indeed, its appeal is probably strongest to the very most vulgar; certainly, to the most selfish. A high-minded employer may seek to bring up his working-folk in the way they should go—that is, his own conception of the Way. It is the greedy materialist who says: "What do I care how my workmen eat and drink and play, what they read, how they vote, worship and marry? It's all one to me, so they deliver the goods." Ethical toleration selects for its votaries the few and the unselfish; capitalistic toleration selects the many and the selfish. And it is for this reason that the liberty based upon capitalistic toleration is the broadest and most substantial of all. "City air makes free," says the proverb. Not because the city is the abode of choice souls, but because the city is capitalistic.
The struggle for religious liberty, it may be said, antedatescapitalism. This is not wholly true; the hot beds of religious liberalism in early modern times were the cities, already becoming capitalistic. The Independents and Quakers of England, the Huguenots of France, the Calvinists of Holland, the Lutherans of Germany, represented a germinating capitalism. If the spirit of capitalism was not yet highly evolved, neither were the liberties sought broadly conceived. The Charter and their own valiant spirits won for the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay freedom to worship God. But there was no freedom, in Massachusetts Bay, to go forth from the Puritan settlement and dance around a maypole. Precapitalistic freedom meant only the removal of specific oppressions, sometimes grave, sometimes trivial, imposed by the constituted authorities. From the natural human disposition to interfere in one another's affairs, to standardize humanity, to excise variations above and below the normal, there never was any freedom, except upon the lawless frontier, until capitalism appeared upon the earth.
A class freedom! say the Socialists, and a hollow one! That the Socialists are permitted to go up and down upon the earth, teaching doctrines that they themselves proclaim to be subversive of the interests of those whom they designate as the ruling class, is sufficient evidence that the freedom is not properly described as hollow. If Karl Marx had appeared in the days of Charles the Great to teach doctrines equally subversive of the existing order, he would have found short shrift indeed. That it is a class freedom is, however, true, in a sense. The capitalist employer, who deals with many men in the course of his business, must learn to tolerate many personal idiosyncracies, and must in turn be met with toleration by many. The forced repetition of acts of toleration tends to mold the temperament of the capitalist employers as a class, and to establish among them a large measure of personal freedom. This repetition is lacking in the experience of the worker. Dealing with one employer alone, or withonly a few employers in infrequent succession, the laborer is less likely to appreciate the significance of the toleration he enjoys, or to learn from the business process itself the need of toleration towards others.
Nevertheless, under capitalism the laborer does undoubtedly make gains in personal liberty which he could not have made under earlier systems. We know what the Spartans did with the Helots who varied above the type of servile manhood. They assassinated them. We know what the Romans did with slaves who thought too manfully. They crucified them. In the long ages of serfdom in Western Europe, what was the natural fate of the serf who held his head too high? The commonplace facts of his torturings were seldom regarded worthy of mention in the Chronicles. Within the last century, however, men have been beaten to death in Europe for daring to maintain their preferences in mating against the wishes of their lords.
Class liberty? Does it mean nothing to the Republican mechanic in Birmingham, Alabama, that a Democratic employer would be universally regarded as a fool for concerning himself with the politics of his men? Does it mean nothing to the Roman Catholic workman that he may live for years in a Protestant community without once encountering discrimination against him on account of religion? Those who affirm that the liberty of capitalism, even in its overflow to the working class, is hollow and meaningless, can never have permitted their study or their imagination to sound very thoroughly the depths of human injury and wretchedness.
So much, however, must be granted: that the liberty afforded the worker by capitalism has its offsets. If the employer no longer regards himself as justified in ordering the private life of his workman, neither does he feel responsible for protecting the workman against the distress accompanying sickness or superannuation, or even commercial disorder. The worker has paid for his freedomwith increased insecurity of his lot. But that the freedom has been bought too dear, would be hard to maintain. Let us suppose that a landowner organizes his possessions upon a feudal plan, and invites working families to come and serve him, yielding implicit obedience to him in all personal matters as well as in matters pertaining to the technique of production. In return for their ungrudging services, let him guarantee them a sufficiency of food, rough clothing, and rude housing, together with rights to maintenance in disability and old age. How many workers will make haste to attach themselves to him? Where workers have tasted of capitalistic freedom, it is safe to say that none would accept the offered privileges.
If capitalism had offered the working class nothing but the crumbs of middle class liberty, the diatribes of the revolutionaries would be not without justification. For admittedly, liberty has been gained in far greater measure by the capitalist employer than by the workman. But capitalism has done vastly more for labor than this. It has given rise to that most interesting and important of all modern social phenomena, the solidarity of labor. As an active, working concept, the fraternity of labor is just as certainly a product of capitalism as is social toleration. The latter is the soul of capitalism, as it manifests itself in the class of employers, the former, as it manifests itself in the class of employees.
To this statement a Socialist will at once take exception. The sentiment of brotherhood, the Socialists claim, originates in the common experiences of poverty and hard labor. But the men at the passages of the Jordan who slew one another over the pronunciation of Shibboleth were doubtless manual workers, and were certainly poor. The merciless strife between Saxon and Celt in England was primarily between men who were all poor and workers.The participants in the Sicilian vendettas, in the Scottish clan struggles, in the Kentucky feuds, might well be honored with the title proletariat, by virtue of poverty and laboriousness of life. Fraternity is too luxurious a plant to bloom upon a barren soil of universal labor and poverty. Every one who reads the documents of middle nineteenth century America is aware of the uncompromising hostility of the American workingman toward the distressed Irish seeking an escape from famine. Later, there is abundant evidence of working class contempt and hostility directed toward the immigrating workmen from Germany and Scandinavia. Twenty years ago it was the Dago that experienced the inhospitality of the workingmen toward their alien brothers; today it is the Wapp—the collectivity of unfortunates of uncouth ways and unimaginable speech that seek refuge here from the poverty and oppression of southeastern Europe. No middle class worshipper of a family tree rooted in the old colonies can hold the Wapp in more profound detestation than do many of our recent arrivals. "Zese tam fools [the Wapps], zey ruins zis tam counthry."
It is the attitude of the unions, we are told, that in the North represents the chief obstacle to the progress of the negro away from the menial services and the unskilled employments. It was the working class that forced, first Chinese, and later Japanese exclusion. It is working class politics that demands a white Australia, and vexes the British Empire over the question of emigration from India. "Workingmen are brothers," say the Socialists. Not by birth and native instincts. Not by virtue of community in labor and poverty. If there is such a thing as a fraternity of labor, it is begotten of capitalism.
An active sentiment of brotherhood, does, unquestionably, spring up under capitalism. Differences of race and religion dwindled to insignificance among the coal miners in the great strike of 1904. The Lawrence and Paterson strikes, and the strike in the copper country,have offered abundant evidence of the growing strength of the feeling of working class solidarity. It would be difficult to cite a single recent strike in which men and women of traditionally hostile races and creeds have not coöperated with the utmost harmony and good will.
No one will deny that the more conscious the workers are of the pressure of capitalism, the more rapidly does the feeling of solidarity develop. This is the moral gain that is afforded by labor disputes. It is a gain which is not to be had without its cost, in the disorganization of industry, the impoverishment of multitudes of working families, the destruction of life and property, and the loosing upon society of evil passions. Is the gain worth its cost? In the opinion of many observers of our social movement, the cost is tremendous, but few of these observers attempt to strike a balance between cost and gain. This is because they have failed to recognize working class solidarity as a significant step in moral progress.
The development of solidarity among American workingmen is proceeding rapidly; in other countries its progress is not less manifest. This is true despite the fact that the problem of creating harmony between hostile races and religions is more serious where uninterrupted continuity on the same soil renders easy the survival of ancient prejudices. The hostility between Czech and German, between Magyar and Slav, is mitigated when the representatives of these warring races work side by side in the same factory, oppressed by the same factory regulations, impoverished by the same crises. Evidence is accumulating, to prove that the internationalism of labor is becoming a reality. It may not be true that French workingmen are already so utterly averse to the idea of shooting down their German brethren as the Socialistic literature and the spokesmen of Socialist and Labor parties would have us believe. But there is very much more than a fervent hope in working class anti-militarism. If French and German workmen might atpresent fail to refuse to kill one another in war, the time is perhaps not far distant when the outcome of an international war may be rendered problematical through the extension of working class solidarity.
For the working class, solidarity is producing results quite analogous to those produced in the class of capitalistic employers by the pursuit of profit. Solidarity is unthinkable without a measure of toleration. The American trade unionist learns to tolerate the alien origin, the broken speech and uncouth manner, the strange religion, and the unexpected outlook upon life, of the foreign workman who must either become a brother unionist and faithful ally, or a scab and an enemy. And out of this toleration is created a sphere of personal freedom from social encroachment such as no workman of an earlier epoch ever enjoyed. Fraternity and liberty, these are the positive acquisitions won by labor out of the very oppression of capitalism. Of the revolutionary trinity only equality remains beyond the visible horizon. And even equality may be brought nearer, if not realized, through the further perfecting of working class liberty and fraternity.
Capitalism is material, gross, ugly. Yes, but it has a soul—toleration, liberty, fraternity. And this, like most souls, is not so much in being as in becoming. It is only in the most highly capitalistic centers that even business has partly freed itself from elements of personal oppression. There is no state nor city in which the fraternity of labor is more than an emerging fact. Under capitalism, workingmen are brothers, but there is still a vast deal of the Cain and Abel in their feelings toward one another. Remove the pressure of capitalism at this instant, and the lessons of fraternity would quickly be forgotten. Relax the profit motive, and mankind would again stand forth in its pristine narrowness and bigotry and cruelty.Conceive for a moment that the United States were now under Socialistic management. With what spirit should we greet the oppressed of other lands, fleeing to us for refuge? We should probably judge of the problem in terms of dividend and divisor: so much food, so many mouths; let not the number of mouths be increased. To be sure, there is an economic fallacy lurking in this syllogism; but when has an economic fallacy ever been crushed except by weight of a brute class interest? Our workingmen are brothers of those of England and France and Germany, under the pressure of cosmopolitan capitalism. But the natural attitude of a group of Socialistic nations toward one another will be a coveting of one another's rich mines and fertile provinces. At least such will be the natural attitude until fraternity, imposed by capitalism, has descended from men's lips and entered into their blood.
There is a wise saying in Karl Marx'sCritique of Political Economy(Preface): "No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society." What Marx said of the material embodiment of capitalism, we can apply to its soul. Capitalism is growing toward liberty and fraternity. But the immense distance we must traverse before this goal can be attained is evidence of the vitality that remains in the system. Were capitalism to be abolished today, the hard-won gains of the last two centuries would vanish. But by this very fact it is proved that capitalism cannot be abolished today.
In its present stage of development capitalism, every one admits, is ugly. Haste and vandalism have characterized the work of constructing it. It is like the wall ofAthens, rough stone upon hewn memorial tablets to the dead, upon the trunks and limbs of statues of gods and men and beasts. The feast of Our Lady of Carmel was beautiful in Palermo; transplanted to New York, it is grotesque. There was dignity in the demeanor of the Lithuanian on his native soil: in the anthracite towns, the Lithuanian is a mortar-disfigured torso, thrown heedlessly into the courses of a rubble wall. All the mixing up of peoples, of customs, of ideals, that an incipient capitalism implies, produces a conglomerate that is inevitably ugly.
And quite apart from the ugliness of discordant combinations, there is an ugliness originating in the very virtues of capitalism. As we have seen, it is the tendency of capitalism to leave human nature free in all that transcends the narrow limits of the process of profit making. And this would be well if, as the optimists assure us, human nature were uniformly beautiful. Those of us, however, who are not committed to dogmatic optimism know that if some part of human nature is most beautiful when unrestrained and unadorned, another part is most seemly when well laced with stays of custom, well draped in garments of convention. At any rate, in the initial phase of the capitalistic liberation of human nature, which we are now experiencing, it is an open question whether our eyes are not more frequently offended than regaled.
It is in the field of material objects, however, that the contrasts between present capitalism and the earlier order are most clearly visible. Time was when the man who built a house granted to the whole community a voice in determining its design. And the community permitted variation from type, but only a moderate, well regulated variation. Thus were the walled cities of the Middle Ages governed by a harmony of construction, which gave to each dwelling, at the very least, a beauty of use and wont. Today in America the builder is free. If he chooses to dwell in a Greek temple or a Gothic chapel or a Chinesepagoda, there is no one to dissuade him. No one, except perhaps an architect whose plans have been rejected or a good citizen at large, ex-officio adviser of an unheeding world.
In the economic field human conduct is narrowly ruled and restricted by capitalism; but in the non-economic field—the greater and more significant part of life—the good and the evil, the beautiful and the ugly, are set free by capitalism, to struggle for existence. Capitalism offers no direct pecuniary rewards for virtue and beauty. Nor, however, does it impose any penalties upon them. Did any earlier order of society impose such penalties? To be sure. Let us recall the contempt for the arts on the part of militaristic Rome, the pride in illiteracy of the glittering mediæval knight. Capitalism does not require a merchant or a banker to become a connoisseur of art. Nor does it require him to apologize for any such variation from typical instincts.
If good and evil must thus strive in a fair field, neither rewarded nor penalized economically, what will be the outcome? The evil will prevail, say those who—strangely enough—describe themselves as idealists. Most of us refuse to engage in prophecies. But so much is clear: the good and the beautiful that may prevail under a thorough-going capitalism must be better and more beautiful than the values of old time. Capitalistic freedom demands that there must be greater variety and wealth of beauty than an earlier order required; capitalistic fraternity demands that charity and toleration must extend beyond the bounds of class and race. Unless the art and the practical ethics of perfected capitalism represent an advance in universality, they will be thrust aside as meaningless and worthless.
It is, to be sure, more difficult to establish fixed values upon a broad basis of human life than upon a narrow one. More difficult were the problems that confronted Euripides the Pan-Hellene, than Sophocles the Athenian.There is a contrast in technical perfection, between the work of Balzac the Frenchman, and Daudet the adoptive Parisian; between that of Kipling the imperialist, and Bridges the Englander; between that of Ibsen the cosmopolitan, and Björnson the Norwegian. But in all these instances the loss in classical perfection is vastly overbalanced by the gain in human worth. There were poets and dramatists in Scandinavia before the days of Holberg. They had an elaborate canon, all the rules of which were violated by Holberg's iconoclastic cosmopolitanism. What has become of the works of Holberg's predecessors? No one can read them. But Holberg was never so widely read and honored as today.
A broader and more liberal humanity than the world has known before—such, after all, is the evolving soul of capitalism. This does not indicate, however, that capitalism will last forever, or deserves immortality. There comes a time when the most responsive body becomes a clog upon the soul, and should accordingly be buried. The body of capitalism is none too responsive; therefore we may be certain that it must, in the end, be discarded. What the succeeding order will be, no man can forecast. But it will not be one of unbridled individualism; for a spirit of fraternity, transcending that imposed by capitalism, will carry the principle of coöperation to lengths beyond present dreams. And it will not be Socialism; for the spirit of toleration and freedom, now only germinating, will have attained to its full efflorescence in institutions that guarantee a range of personal development not compatible with the well-regimented scheme of a Socialistic state. Capitalism will disappear; but can we doubt that it will be honored in history as a most significant stage in the progress of the human soul towards liberty?