Full text of "International university lectures, delivered by the most distinguished representatives of the greatest universities of the world, at the Congress of arts and science, Universal exposition, St. Louis .."

See other formats

International
university
lectures

by Google

Digitized by Google

ALMA MATER

rhof.'xjnivi / '■<: »f the Statue, by Unuiel <■'. French

The colossal figure <•[ !• rench'* A; ma Mater adorns the fine suite of .-tone slops
leauin^ up to the picturesque hhrary liuiliiing of ("olmuhiu University. Ir is a
Imntze statue, gilded with pure ^'uhl. The female figure ty jiit'v nijr " Alma Mater
is represented us sittinu' in a eiiair <-f cia — ie shape, her clhnws resting on the arm*
.it' the chair. iWh hands :uv raise- 1. T.e li^ht hand Imld* ami i> supported liv a
sceptre. On her head is a ela--ic wreath, and «.tt her lap lies an <>j>en hook, from
which her eyes seem to have j i< ; .een rai-ed in meditation. Drapery falls in *etui-
eh-ie I'dds t'runi her nc k to her -andallcd feel, only [lie arm-- and iteek heing left
ii ire.

Kvery I'niver-Uty man eherishe- a kindly feeling for his Aima Mater, and the
famous Amerieau >eulptor. Daniel (.'. French, lias heen most successful in his artistic
i -cation of (Jie " |-Y^tetin<r Mother" spiritualized — the famili ar ideal of the mother
i t minds trained to thought and eon-cciatcd to intellectual service.

Digitized by Google

International

University Lectures

Delivered by the Most Distinguished
Representatives of the Greatest
Universities of the W orld

At the Congress of Arts and Science

Universal Exposition, Saint Louis

VOLUME IX.

NEW YORK

I AL]
1909

UNIVERSITY ALLIANCE, Inc.

Digitized by Google

University Alliance, inc

Digitized by Google

TABLE OF CONTENTS

VOLUME IX

POLITICS

Conceptions of Nineteenth Century Politics

By William Archibald Di nm.m,, Professor of Political
Philosophy, Columbia University.

Tendencies of the World's Politics 23

By Elisiia Benjamin Andrews, Chancellor of the Univer -
sity of Nebraska.

Problems of Political Theory 43

By Gi;qk(E Gkakton Wilson. Professor of Social ami Po -
litical Science, IT. S. Naval College.

National Administration 63

By James Bhyci:. Ambassador to the United States from
ftreflt Britain.

Diplomatic Representatives 85

By John Watoox Pontes, Diplomatist.

Contemporary Development of Diplomacy 107

By David Jayne Hill, United States Ambassador to Ger -
many.

Municipal Administration 1J3

By Jane Appams. Head of Hull House Settlement, Chi -
cago. .

Bibi.iikraphy: Department of Politics 154

til

AS 3

EALlL

. 1

CONTENTS-Continued.

SOCIOLOGY.

PACK

Social Regulation 1C1

By A. Lawbenck Lowell, Professor of the Science of Gov -
ernment, Harvard University.

Function of the Family 181

By Gkori k Ku.iott Huwahu, Professor of Sociology, Uni -
versity of Nebraska.

Social Problems of American Farmer:, l'J7

By Kk.nyon I.kixii BiTTKnrin-n. President of Rhode Island
College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arta.

The Urban Community L'l!)

By J. Ja8tbow. Professor of Political Economy. University
of Berlin.

The Industrial Group — Labor and Capital L'37

By Wlk.nkk Sombaht. Professor of Political Economy, Uni -
versity of Breslau.

Indus tria l Ev olution 251

By Richahd T. Ely. Professor of Political Economy. Uni -
versity of Wisconsin.

Social Policy Relating to the Dependent Group 271

By Chables Richmond Hendkbson, Professor of Sociology,
University of Chicago.

The Problem of Poverty 295

By Emu. MU.nstkrukr<;, President City Charities, Berlin.

BiBLiocBAPHY Department of Social Science 318

by Google

FULL PAGE PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES

VOLUME IX.
Illuminated Stmlolic Frontispiece.

pace

Right Honorable Jam eh Bryce, Ambassaikw to U. S G!>

The Banquet op Plvto , 1C3

Feast of Lucullus 275

THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF NINE-
TEENTH CENTURY POLITICS

BY WILLIAM ARCHIBALD DUNNING

[William Archibald Dunwiwo, Lleber Professor of History and Po-
litical Philosophy, Columbia University, b. Plalnfleld, New Jer-
sey. A.B., A.M., Ph.D., LL.D., Columbia University. Fellow, Lec-
turer, Adjunct Professor, and Professor, Columbia University.
Member of American Historical Association; American Political
Science Association; New York Historical Society; Massachusetts
Historical Society (corresponding). Authob of Essays on the
Civil War and Reconstruction; History of Political Theories.
For nine years managing editor of Political Science Quarterly.]

When Louisiana was acquired by the United States the
politics of the world was centered about a single nation,
and the politics of this nation was centered about a single
individual. France and Napoleon epitomized the domi-
nant principles of the day; revolutionized France meant
liberty and equality, the rights of man, national democ-
racy ; Napoleon meant the resistless armed might of demo-
cratic propagandism. Before the enthusiasm of the
French nation and the genius of their chosen leader the
principles, the practices, and the men of the old regime
vanished from Western Continental Europe. Only in
Russia and in the British Isles did conservatism find a se-
cure refuge, and from these points of support, with the
principles and material resources of England as its chief
dependence, it waged unrelenting war on all things French
and all things Napoleonic, and in the end it was triumphant

With 1815 came the termination of the long wars; the
smoke and shouting of battle passed away and the read-
justment of institutions and political systems began. Re-
action was manifest everywhere; the dogmas and the men
that for nearly twenty-five years had cowered in the re-

2 NINETEENTH CENTURY POLITICS

motest and obscurest hiding-places of the Continent, now
assumed control of political life, and a war of extermina-
tion was entered upon against everything that had been
identified with the Revolution. But the work of the
French Republic and the Napoleonic Empire had been too
thoroughly done throughout western and central Europe
to permit of ready eradication, even by the drastic methods
employed by Metternich and his satellites. Liberalism,
proscribed and hunted by the triumphant powers, lived
nevertheless, and resisted its adversaries with the weapons
that were nearest at hand— conspiracy, assassination, in-
surrection — as well as by ceaseless agitation and debate,
so far as these were permitted in practical politics, and at
last, but only when the middle of the century had been
reached, it had secured a definitive triumph throughout the
better part of Europe. After the revolutionary wave of
1848, the prevailing governmental systems, as well as the
prevailing beliefs in both scientific and popular thought,
expressed with more or less completeness the principles for
which the liberals had contended. And far more fully
than anywhere in Europe, these principles pervaded the
government and the general life of that growing people
across the Atlantic, whose development had already begun
to make them a factor of large significance in the affairs
of the civilized world.

This conflict between liberalism and conservatism, then,
may be taken as marking in a general way a period in
nineteenth-century politics. The influence of the antithesis
of doctrine appeared in every phase of the political life
of the time, and in most phases this influence was de-
cisive. In the internal affairs of every country, the strug-
gle for the realization of liberal ideas furnished the most

Digitized by Google

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF 3

conspicuous incidents. France was the recognized leader
and gave the impulse to all Europe in this respect, and the
history of her party politics is merely a recital of the strife
of liberalism and conservatism. Spain and the Italian
states exhibited a series of transformations in govern-
mental institutions with the same division as the basis.
The German states experienced many vicissitudes of agita-
tion and insurrection, but the hand of Metternich was
strong in central Europe, and while liberalism got a foot-
ing in some of the smaller states, the time of the greater
did not come until 1848, and even then the success of the
liberals was but temporary in Austria and greatly qualified
in Prussia. England felt the effect of the spirit of the
times in the great struggles for Catholic emancipation and
Parliamentary reform and in the abortive movement of the
Chartists. Even Russia had a little experience of upris-
ing for liberal government in 1825 at the accession of the
first Nicholas, and a very serious experience with the com-
bination of liberalism and nationalism in the Polish war of
1830. And finally, at the other extreme, across the At-
lantic, the United States exhibited the influence of the
Zeitgeist by the transition from the Jeffersonian to the
Jacksonian type of democracy. When we glance at the
international politics of the period we find the same influ-
ence largely operative. The grouping of the great powers
in reference to their policy of supervision over the affairs
Europe was frequently determined by the real or as-
sumed bearing of the policy on the great issue between
liberalism and conservatism. Metternich's astute sugges-
tion that the Greeks, in their struggle for independence,
were liberals in insurrection against their legitimate sov-
ereign, the Sultan, illustrates the potency of the leading
idea of the time, as a force for diplomats to conjure with.
The policy of England toward Spain's American colonies

NINETEENTH CENTURY POLITICS

during the twenties, with the incidental though hardly an-
ticipated result of our own Monroe Doctrine, had for its
foundation Canning's dislike of ultra-conservatism, while
the long and influential entente between the English re-
formed government and the government of Louis Philippe
rested notoriously on the sympathy between the leaders
of political thought in the two countries, as opposed to
the autocratic and reactionary influence represented by the
three Eastern powers.

Assuming, then, that the struggle between liberalism and
conservatism was the characteristic mark of the practical
politics of the period extending to the middle of the cen-
tury, let us consider what were the principles of political
science that were involved in the struggle and its result.

Fundamentally, nineteenth-century liberalism meant de-
mocracy. Its ultimate aim was to break down the bars
which excluded from political life the classes of people
whose intellectual, social and economic significance was be-
coming unmistakably predominant For its immediate aim
it demanded liberty and equality. The content of these
much-abused terms was explained in accordance with the
philosophy of the eighteenth century, that is, by the dogmas
which had been demonstrated by Montesquieu and Rousseau
and had been formulated in the Declaration of the Rights
of Man. Liberty was held to consist in a series of rights
defined by nature itself, and equality in the possession of all
these rights by every man by the fact of his humanity.
Within the sacred circle of these rights no governmental
power could intrude. Against every claim of authority to
do so as derived from God or custom or tradition was
opposed the decree of supreme and beneficent nature. The
precise character of nature — this kindly source of human
rights — was no less variously and indeterminately defined
by nineteenth century than it had been by eighteenth-cen-

Digitized by Google

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF 6

tury philosophers; and the list of rights that were deduced
by laborious speculation from nature in the abstract bore a
suspiciously close resemblance to one which could be com-
piled from the very concrete constitutional law of England
and the United States. Yet nature — whatever the diver-
sity of ideas connoted by the term ; and nature interpreted
by reason, regardless of the skeptic's query, Whose reason ?
— continued throughout the period we are discussing to be
the ultimate basis of the liberal creed.

It was, however, in regard to civil rather than political
rights that the code of nature was considered conclusive by
all shades of liberals. As to political rights, especially that
of the Suffrage, liberalism was much divided. The more
extreme spirits in its ranks were quite sure that nature and
reason immutably prescribed participation in all the func-
tions of government as the right of every man. Less radi-
cal elements found in nature the right of representation, but
not of participation, in political functions; and many were
loath to admit that even participation in the designation of
a representative was within nature's gift to every man.
Finally those liberals who shaded imperceptibly into the
ranks of conservatism itself, maintained that while nature
enjoined indisputably the guarantee of civil rights to every
man, the assignment and enjoyment of political authority
was a matter of human expediency, varying with times,
places, and circumstances, and not determinable a priori.
Liberty for all, authority for the qualified, was the maxim
of this school.

The list of names identified with these various shades of
purpose and belief — the honor-roll of early nineteenth-cen-
tury liberalism — includes many which have no meaning to
the present generation, but a few which still symbolize some-
thing distinctive in theory or in practical achievement.
France furnishes Benjamin Constant, Royer-Collard, Guizot,

6 NINETEENTH CENTURY POLITICS

Tocqueville, Lafayette, Comte, Louis Blanc; Germany gives
Fichte and Hegel (whose systems, conceived in the spirit
of liberty, had, however, the defect of extremely refined ab-
straction, that they could be as readily adapted to the sup-
port of reaction as of progress), Rotteck, Welcker, and the
ultimately Americanized Lieber; England offers Bentham
and his radical followers, Grote, the two Mills, and the re-
doubtable Brougham; Italy gives Mazzini, and all Europe
the group of devotees who worshiped the thought and
carried into operation the wild schemes of that amiable
fanatic

The conservative opposition to the views and purposes
represented by the foregoing names was embodied for the
most part in the royal and aristocratic classes of the old
regime. Its practical spirit was expressed in that curious
intermonarchic agreement known as the Holy Alliance; in
the forcible interference to suppress constitutional govern-
ment in Italy, Spain, and elsewhere ; in the rigorous espion-
age and censorship over thought and expression throughout
Europe; in the bitter resistance of the aristocracy in Eng-
land to the diminution of their ancient prerogatives by Par-
liamentary reform ; and in the extreme assertions of aristo-
cratic and monarchic privilege which led to the explosions
of 1830 and 1848. Philosophically, conservatism expressed
itself in three theories: First, that of the divine right of
the old monarchic and aristocratic order — that political au-
thority emanated from God and could not be questioned by
any merely human agency; second, the theory that if nature
were to be consulted at all as to the basis of political organi-
zation, her answer would be that inequality and not equality
was the universal principle among men, and that, therefore,
aristocracy and not democracy was the order of nature;
third, the theory that the appropriate social, legal, and po-
litical institutions for any people were to be discovered, not

Digitized by Google

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF 7

through any assumption as to the nature of man in general,
but by a consideration of the character of the particular
people as revealed in its history, and that the institutions
which had come to prevail at any particular time through
peaceful development must be presumed to have more in-
herent justice and validity than any others that might be
suggested.

Of these three views, the first, which defended absolute
monarchy on the ground of mystical divine right, was al-
ready antiquated, and in the prevailing rationalism found no
adherents save a few obscurantists. The second view had
a more intellectual support, and was sustained in a manner
that at times manifests no little force by Ludwig von Haller,
whose bulky volumes are now rarely opened. The third
view characterized the most moderate of the conservatives
and determined the actual solution of the problems of the
time. It afforded a ground on which the least extreme of
both liberals and conservatives were able from time to time
to stand together. It triumphed in the Whig reforms in
England and in the July Monarchy in France, and it pro-
foundly influenced, if it did not fully control, the applica-
tion of that principle which on the whole expresses most
fully the contribution of this period of the nineteenth cen-
tury to political science, — the principle, namely, of con-
stitutionalism in both state and government.

Let us consider for a moment the source and nature of
this principle. To liberals of every shade in this period, the
indispensable token and guarantee of the liberty which they
sought was a body of law which should to some extent con-
trol and determine the power and procedure of the persons
who exercised political authority. With few exceptions,
the liberals demanded that this body of law be expressed in
a written document. "Constitution" came to mean specific-
ally "written constitution," and the triumph of liberalism is

8 NINETEENTH CENTURY POLITICS

no more significantly shown than by the fact that at the
middle of the century a great majority of states in the civ-
ilized world were equipped with instruments of this kind.
But the written constitution was so intimately associated in
origin and character with revolution that the established
conservative powers could never contemplate it save
with abhorrence. Its earliest appearance had been in the
abortive efforts of the English Independents during the
Puritan Revolution to formulate an operative system that
should embody their ideals; it had been resorted to in
America on a large scale when the colonies separated from
the mother country; and it had figured multitudinously in
France between the Bourbon of 1789 and the Bourbon of
1815.

Moreover, the content as well as the history of the written
constitution made it an object of abhorrence to ultra-con-
servatism. Two features were generally insisted upon as
indispensable: first, a distinct enumeration of the rights of
the individual with which government was under no cir-
cumstances to interfere ; second, a description of the organs
of government and a body of rules determining their actual
operation. The individual rights normally secured were
those that had come to be known as natural rights, and the
organs of government with which the practice of written
constitutions was associated included some form of popular -
representative assembly. But both natural rights and popu-
lar representation were, of course, diametrically opposed to
the ideas of the old regime, and, furthermore, the most fun-
damental conception of the nature of state and government
that underlay the theory of a written constitution was un-
acceptable to conservatives of every shade. For to the
liberals the constitution was the expression of the people's
will, and had no more of permanence or immutability than
that will. As Rousseau had demanded on principle, and as

Digitized by Google

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF 9

several of the American states had undertaken in practice,
the people must assemble in convention at not infrequent in-
tervals to declare whether they would longer maintain the
existing system. State and government, in other words,
were mere creations of the will of certain groups of in-
dividuals, and a constitution was merely the formal expres-
sion of that will at any given time.

Upon this view of political fundamentals conservatives of
every shade made aggressive war. The high priests of
autocracy saw only horrid sacrilege in any meddling by the
common people with the divine mystery of the state. To
suppose that any written phrases, open to the interpretation
of the vulgar, could express the essentials in political life
was to the obscurantists and mystics supreme foolishness.
No constitution, declared Joseph de Maistre, the most bril-
liant exponent of this view, results from deliberation. In
every constitution there is something that cannot possibly
be written — that must be left in venerable obscurity under
penalty of destroying the state. The more there is that is
written, the feebler is the political structure. When a na-
tion begins to reflect upon itself, its laws and its life are
already determined. Sovereignty is an emanation from
God himself, and man must not tamper with it.

Something of the spirit of these phrases of de Maistre
appears also in the thought of the scientific and the historical
schools of conservatism. To the theory that the state is
made, they oppose Topsy's idea, that it merely grows.
Burke's glowing denunciation of the French Revolution
gives the keynote of their cry. Men are in the state and
subject to government, not through their own deliberate
choice, but through an inexorable decree of their nature.
The constitution of a given political society is never to be
found in any document, however carefully framed and how-
ever solemnly proclaimed as the fundamental law. The

10 NINETEENTH CENTURY POLITICS

bond which truly unites and determines a people in their
social and political life consists in the aggregate of the num-
berless conventions and understandings through which in
the course of ages the varying relations and institutions of
the community have been developed and adapted to its great-
est convenience. In other words, — and in the phrase which
became the distinguishing mark of a prevailing school of
political philosophy, — the state is not a mechanism, but an
organism. There is, indeed, a mystery in the state, but it is
the mystery of all life and growth ; and the remedy for in-
tolerable ills in the state, as in the individual, is not the char-
latan's panacea of death and resurrection, however attract-
ive and logical the prescription may appear, but the wise
physician's careful study of the history and character of the
particular condition, followed by the removal of defects in
this organ and in that, without any pretense of touching
the life principle itself.

This general view was that on which the practical consti-
tutionalism of the first period of the century was worked
out. It was the doctrine which the reforming Whigs in
England applied, as against the demand of Bentham, and
the Radicals for a remodeling of institutions in accordance
with their a priori scheme. It was the doctrine which in-
spired the famous protest of Savigny against codifying and
thus assuming to stereotype German private law. It was ,
the doctrine, finally, which is clearly revealed by an exami-
nation of the content and working of the constitutions that 1
resulted from the agitations of the period we are discussing.
These constitutions were, indeed, written constitutions; but
how different in character from the type which had been
conceived in the enthusiasm of the early Revolution! In
many cases the actual document announced itself to be, not
the deliberate expression of a people's will, signifying their
choice of government, but the grant of certain institutions

Digitized by Google

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF 11

by a monarch to his subjects. Liberties were indeed guar-
anteed to the man and the citizen, but rarely the sweeping
immunities that had figured in the Declaration of the Rights
of Man. A representative legislature was in every case pro-
vided for, but rarely so organized as to interfere with the
ancient domination of the aristocratic classes, or endowed
with such power as to insure the development of more popu-
lar institutions. And above all, there very early appeared
the vexed question of the right of interpretation — the ques-
tion which in the long run showed to every one that a writ-
ten constitution was not a remedy for all the ills that poli-
tical life is heir to, but merely a palliative for some particu-
lar evil conditions at some particular times. It was under
color of an interpretation of a written constitution that
Charles X of France issued his July Ordinances and precipi-
tated the Revolution of 1830; it was by an interpretation
of the Prussian constitution that Bismarck carried through
his policy of the conflict time — an interpretation, moreover,
which he, with characteristic cynicism, readily abandoned
when it ceased to serve his purpose ; and it was through in-
terpretation that the constitution of the United States — the
written constitution par excellence, the most wonderful in-
strument, according to Mr. Gladstone, ever struck off at a
given moment by the thought and purpose of man — was
made the basis for the resolute efforts of two great masses
of fellow citizens to annihilate each other.

The written constitution had, indeed, done its work by
the time it had become generally prevalent. In its true char-
acter it was found to be not an indispensable feature of every
sound political system, but merely an ingenious expedient
for facilitating the transition from one system to another.
Through it the political ideals and characteristic principles
of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have been
crystallized and put into form for permanent exhibition.

NINETEENTH CENTURY POLITICS

Political antiquarians are thus enabled to study the past at
their ease; lawyers can wrangle and construe and assert —
sometimes with real belief at the basis of their assertion —
that in the articles and sections and phrases and words of
the document are to be seen the essence of the state ; but be-
hind and all around the scanty code the real life of the body
politic goes serenely on, regardless of all the puny efforts to
cramp and fetter it.

In the development of nineteenth-century constitutional-
ism, the chief types — the unwritten and the written, or, in
the terms suggested by Mr. Bryce, the flexible and the
rigid — have been furnished by Great Britain and the United
States respectively. In the long run the British type has
proved the more permanent ; for the limitations on govern-
ment and on sovereignty itself, which were originally the
characteristic mark of American constitutionalism, have in
large measure disappeared, and on the impressive but un-
stable foundation of necessity and destiny has arisen for the
contemplation of mankind that structure which to the fore-
fathers would have seemed such a monstrosity — the unwrit-
ten constitution of the United States.

The second period of the nineteenth century, embracing
the decades from the sixth to the ninth inclusive, has, for the
controlling topics of its politics, both theoretical and prac-
tical, nationalism and socialism. This is the period of Bis-
marck and Lincoln, of Karl Marx, and, equally significant
in the opposite sense, of Herbert Spencer. The constitu-
tional liberty of the individual, secured by the strenuous
struggle of the previous decades, was now subordinated
to the demand for national unity in governmental organiza-
tion and for majority rule in economic organization.

Digitized by Google

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF 18

The idea of nationality, as the normal and natural cri-
terion of political organization and independence, was by
no means new in this period, but it now gained overwhelm-
ing importance from the practical work of Bismarck and
Cavour in Europe and from the terrific struggle through
which the principle was maintained in the United States.
The working out of the idea was attended by a change of
relative position among the European Powers. France
was supplanted by Germany as the central figure. France,
with a homogeneous population and a compact territory
under a unified government, had only that interest in the
principle of nationality which was incidental to the ambi-
tion of the third Napoleon. England, with Ireland on her
hands, was necessarily cold toward the doctrine of nation-
ality per se. Her philosophy easily conceded that the
Poles were not Russians because they said they were not,
and that the South Carolinians were entitled to independ-
ence of the United States because they believed they were;
but it could not admit that Irishmen were not English-
men or were entitled to independent government for any
such reasons. The German, the Italian, and the American
peoples, however, were able to make the principle of na-
tionality predominant in both theory and practice. Yet,
it is not to be presumed that either Bismarck or Cavour
was under any illusion as to the abstract conclusiveness of
nationality as a principle ; to them the cause of the Hohen-
zollern and the Savoyard dynasties, respectively, was as
much end as means in the policies which they carried
through. And, even as to the United States, the time has
probably now come when it will not be held unpatriotic, as
it certainly is not untruthful, to say that sordid considera-
tions of selfish sectional interest played a large, if not a
decisive, part in the struggle through which national unity
was preserved.

Digitized by Google

14 NINETEENTH CENTURY POLITICS

The triumph of nationalism in the seventh decade of
the nineteenth century was promptly followed by a trans-
formation of the principle that has determined in large
measure the later stages of political development through-
out the world. In the first period of the century national-
ism had been the sister creed of liberalism. National in-
dependence and constitutional government had commonly
been united as summing up what was just and natural in
the aspirations of a people. In the name of both princi-
ples together the Poles had fought for independence of
Russia, the Belgians had achieved their independence of
the Dutch King, and the Magyars and Italians had resisted
the Austrian Dominion. Nationalism had been essentially
defensive in character and application; its goal had been
the release of a people from alien governmental control.
But the events of the sixties revealed a new and widely dif-
ferent aspect of the doctrine. Nationalism passed from
defense to aggression. Its chief end came to be, not the
release of a people from foreign rule, but the subjection
of every people to its appropriate domestic rule. In the
name of the nation politicians, theoretical and practical,
demanded a re-ordering of the world. God and nature
and human reason and history were all triumphantly shown
to have decreed that in the homogeneous population in-
habiting a continuous territory should be the final and un-
questionable unit of political organization. "National
unity" superseded the time-honored "consent of the gov-
erned" as the justifying principle of sovereign dominion.
Love of liberty and of self-government, once the noblest
theme of poetry and philosophy, now became mere grace-
less "particularism." In the name of the nation, Han-
overians, Saxons, and Hessians were incorporated in the
Prussian state; in the name of the nation eleven million
Southerners were harried into subjection to the govern-

Digitized by Google

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF 15

ment at Washington. Political science mapped out the
whole world into geographic unities, in each of which it
was solemnly declared to be the end of all human destiny
that some ethnic unit should be neatly and eternally
ensconced.

There were difficulties in the practical application of this,
as of every other ultimate principle. Ethnic homogeneity
was in last analysis rather hard to define. Some clear ob-
jective test was needed to determine where one nation
ended and another began. Identity of blood, of language,
of religion, of traditions, of history, were all duly tried
and all alike found wanting. Nor was the bounding of
geographic unity any easier in practice. Alsace, we know,
was and doubtless still is German, because it is east of the
Vosges, but equally French because it is west of the Rhine.
The Alps were undoubtedly ordained by God and nature
to be the divider of nations; but it is hazardous to assert
the same of the scarcely less formidable Rockies. Yet
with all these difficulties perfectly apprehended, the idea
still persists that there is something peculiarly natural and
permanent and rational in the so-called national state.
Switzerland and Russia and Austria-Hungary are all
looked upon as rather out of the orbit of the scientific
student of politics because they do not conform to the
canons of ethnic and geographic unity.

Without examining farther the characteristics of this
peculiarly nineteenth-century idea of nationality, let us look
a moment at the influence which the idea has had upon
the development of the conception of liberty. Pari passu
with the realization of democratic ideals in governmental
organization, there had developed the antithesis of the two
systems of thought familiar to us as socialism and individ-
ualism. But vaguely and obscurely manifested during the
first half of the century, the conflict between the two be-

16 NINETEENTH CENTURY POLITICS

came well defined and furious with the triumph of consti-
tutionalism in 1848-1849. Both the opposing systems de-
rived their lineage from the earlier liberalism. The so-
cialist claimed that, with the people in control of the gov-
ernmental organization, there could be no limit set to the
power which they could justly exercise; restrictions that
had been insisted upon before, when political authority was
in the hands of the one or the few, had no justification, he
declared, when authority was in the hands of all. The
sovereignty of the people and the welfare of the people he
interpreted as involving necessarily the supremacy and the
primary interest of the classes which had just obtained
political recognition, and the powers of government, he in-
sisted, should be used as freely for the benefit of these
classes as they had heretofore been used for the benefit of
the classes now deposed. The individualist, on the other
hand, steadfastly maintained that the rights of man had not
ceased to exist with the triumph of democracy. The end of
government, whether controlled by classes or by masses,
was to protect these rights, not to override them. The state,
indeed, had no other cause for its existence than to assist
the individual in developing the powers that are in him,
and any application of the public resources to other ends
than this was tyranny and despotism.

This modern doctrine of individualism, having its source
in the idealism of the German Fichte and Humboldt at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, received a very per-
fect development through the works of the English Mill
and Spencer in the fifties and sixties. It is, indeed, not too
much to say that the whole magnificent system of Syn-
thetic Philosophy was wrought out by Spencer to furnish
a scientific foundation for the individualist thesis which he
laid down in the first edition of his Social Statics. Eng-
land at this date had just abandoned her ancient system of

Digitized by Google

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF 17

agricultural protection, and her philosophers, followed by
many in other lands, were enthusiastically in favor of ex-
tending over the whole field of commerce and industry the
laisses-faire which had been applied to English agriculture.
The paternalism, which, after all, lies always close behind
the fraternalism of the socialist, was, without doubt, dis-
tinctly overpowered by that ardor for individualistic lib-
erty which was so widespread in the two decades follow-
ing the middle of the century. If since then socialism and
paternalism have gained the upper hand, and government
is now conceived rather as an agency for the positive pro-
motion of the interests of those classes who control it, the
result may be traced to that passion for nationalism which
supplanted the passion for constitutionalism. With the
cry that industrial independence was essential to the com-
plete national life, the United States and Germany took the
lead in reversing the tendency which England's free-trade
policy had created, and gradually all the leading nations of
the earth fell into line with them. In the presence of uni-
versal tariff barriers, in which the powers of government
are most extensively and ingeniously employed for the pri-
mary advantage of specific classes, it is hard to find an
adequate ground on which to resist the demand of any
other class for a similar employment of governmental
power in behalf of its interests. Nationalism has sounded
the knell of individualism — whether forever or not, it re-
mains for the future to disclose.

Another conspicuous feature of nineteenth-century poli-
tics that experienced serious if not irreparable disaster
through the nationalistic movement was the doctrine of
federalism. As the principle upon which the United States
developed its astonishing progress in the first half-century,
federalism came to be regarded as the touch-stone of pure
gold in governmental organization. The most logical con-

18 NINETEENTH CENTURY POLITICS

stitution-makers in the world, the publicists of Latin
America, brought forth a large crop of systems embody-
ing this vital principle. Witness the United States of
Mexico, the United States of Colombia, the United States
of Venezuela, the United States of Brazil, and so on. Only
yesterday our government relieved itself of the embarrass-
ment in diplomatic intercourse caused by this very sincere
flattery. By order of the Department of State, we are
henceforth to be, not the "United States," but "America,"
distinguishing ourselves from our sister republics by simply
appropriating to our exclusive use the name of the hemis-
phere of which they are a part. Though federalism was in
its first application merely a more or less mechanical de-
vice for combining previously well-defined and independent
political units into a single system, there came later to be
found in it the invaluable principle of local self-govern-
ment. The partition of power between central and state
organizations was treated, not merely as an essential to
the union of distinct sovereignties, but as a guarantee of
individual liberty against all sovereignty. But the sweep
of nationalizing sentiment obliterated this beneficent con-
ception. In realizing the ends and aspirations of the na-
tion, the autonomy of states received as little consideration
as the rights of individuals. Centralization of power, in
the name and for the purpose of national unity, accom-
panied the progress of every body politic in which federal-
ism had for any reason obtained a hold.

Ill

After this very general survey of the tendencies mani-
fested in the nationalistic stage of the century's progress,
we are able to understand readily the influences which have
produced the later and final stage. This, covering the last

Digitized by Google

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF 19

fifteen or twenty years, may with a fair degree of accu-
racy be designated the era of the new imperialism. The
events that have given character to the period are so recent
and familiar as not to need detailed recital. The broad
principle that has underlain them is that the nation, per-
fected through the suppression of individualism and of
federalism, must break the bonds of ethnic and geographic
homogeneity and project its beneficent influence into the
world at large. Such, at all events, is the philosophic the-
ory of the movement. The practical aspects of the opera-
tion have, of course, been of a rather less exalted nature.
The impulse has come from the demand for markets on
the part of the highly stimulated industries of Germany
and the United States. It was in the eighties that the Ger-
mans instituted that picturesque world-wide hunt for co-
lonial lands that gave such a shock to Great Britain and
such amusement to the rest of mankind. It was in the
early nineties that Africa was parceled out, with a brave
paraphernalia of "spheres of influence" and "hinterlands"
for the parcelers, but with no sign of respect for ethnic and
geographic unity among the parceled. Three years later
the unmistakable ambition of the American people to mani-
fest their power beyond their national boundaries was
thwarted, though with great difficulty, by President Cleve-
land; but in 1895 he also gave way, and by his Venezulean
message unchained the passions and aspirations which
found a temporary satisfaction in the incidents and results
of the war with Spain. The United States, the most per-
fect type of advanced democracy and nationalism, entered
fully upon the task of governing distant and hopelessly
alien peoples by the methods of autocracy. In the move-
ment for the final partition of Asia into spheres of influ-
ence for the European powers — a movement to which the
indomitable will and energy of one brave little Asiatic

20 NINETEENTH CENTURY POLITICS

people have raised up an obstacle which at the present mo-
ment seems likely to be insuperable — the great American
Republic has taken a recognized part as a regulating, if
not a promoting, factor. There no longer remains one
first-class nation whose conscious aim is rather internal per-
fection than external dominion — not one that does not see
in dependencies the indispensable proof of political compe-
tence. Under such circumstances it needs no exalted in-
telligence to see that constitutionalism and nationalism have
been definitively superseded as controlling dogmas in the
world's politics.

What, now, is the meaning of this new imperialism? Is
there in it anything really new? Is it any different from
the imperialism of Athens in the days of Pericles or the
imperialism of Rome under the late republic? Has it for
its underlying principle anything different from that pro-
claimed by Machiavelli, that no state, whether monarchic
or popular, can live a peaceful and quiet life, but each must
either conquer or be conquered? Or anything other than
the doctrine of the doughty Thomas Hobbes, transferred
from individual to nation, that life consists in an unceasing
struggle for power that ends only with the grave? Or
anything different from the principle to which the theories
of evolution lend support, that a nation, like any other
organism, must either grow or die, and that its growth in-
volves the absorption of other organisms?

To very many thoughtful supporters of the new imper-
ialism a way of escape from the implications of these ques-
tions appears in the conception that the modern movement
is essentially altruistic, — that it is founded upon duty to
others rather than satisfaction of our own desires. This is
not a new idea in the history of politics. Athens pointed
to the beneficent effects of her supremacy upon the sub-
ject states. The philosophical clients of the plundering

Digitized by Google

FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTIONS OF 21

Roman proconsuls could always declaim with great effect
upon the rescue of suffering peoples from misrule and upon
the uplifting influence of the pax Romana. Likewise, the
supporters of our modern imperialism find comfort in the
good that has been done. The British in India, it is pointed
out, have abolished suttee ; the French in Africa have made
Timbuctoo accessible to the methods of modern commerce
and to the allurements of Parisian art; the Germans have
made the forms of their bureaucracy familiar in darkest
Kiao-Chow; and the United States has begun at least to
inspire in its Philippine subjects a longing for the English
language and a respect for the clothing of the temperate
zone.

Whether or not the bestowal of these and other even
more important blessings of Aryan civilization upon races
that yearn passionately to be uncivilized, is the true and an
adequate justification of the modern imperialism, it is not
the province of this paper to determine. Its function is
fulfilled in merely setting forth the succession of ideals and
leading principles that has characterized the past century.
The constitutionalism of the first period took a form which
was in some measure novel in the history of politics; the
nationalism of the second period presented also certain
features that had no precedent; but the imperialism that
closed the century's record can hardly be said to have mani-
fested thus far any characteristics that distinguish it from
the movements in which throughout all history the power-
ful governments of the earth have extended their sway over
the weak and incapable.

THE TENDENCIES OF THE WORLDS POLITICS
DURING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

BY ELISHA BENJAMIN ANDREWS

[Elisha Benjamin Andbews, Chancellor of the University of Ne- j
braska since 1900. b. HlnBdale, New Hampshire, January 10, .
1844. A.B. Brown University, 1870; ibid. Newton Theological In-
stitution, 1874; LL.D. Brown University; ibid. Nebraska Univer-
sity; ibid. Chicago University; University of Berlin, 1882; Uni-
versity of Munich, 1883; Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
President of Denlson University, Ohio, 1875-79; Professor of
Homiletlcs, Newton Theological Institution, 1879-82; Professor of
Political Economy and History, Brown University, 1882-88; Pro-
fessor of Political Economy and Finance, Cornell University,
1888-89. President of Brown University, 1889-98; Superintendent
of Chicago Public Schools, 1898-1900. Member of American
Economic Association; Loyal Legion; United States Delegate to
Brussels Monetary Conference, 1892. Author of Institutes of
General History; Institutes of Political Economy; History of the
United States; History of the United States in Our Own Times;
Outlines of Principles of History; Outlines of Cosmology.}

In speaking of the politics of a period, I suppose that we
contemplate, in the main, three orders of elements: (1)
Political psychology, viz., theories, thoughts, beliefs, and
feelings, so far as these are conceived of as fertile and
causal; Boulanger's influence for a time in France, for in-
stance. (2) Political movements, whether these have at-
tained definite results or not. Chartism in England would
illustrate and so would the Abolitionist crusade in the
United States. (3) New political creations, such as new
states, leagues, alliances, conquests, policies, institutions,
maxims, codes, modes of political procedure, or shiftings
of political emphasis.

These three sets of elements may perhaps be brought
together without confusion under the general caption of
political movement considered in itself, in its causes, and
in its results.

Reversing this order and proceeding from surface to

Digitized by Google

U. THE WORLD'S POLITICS

center, we notice, as a good way to get started, alterations
in the political geography of the last century. Even apart
from the boulcverscment wrought by Napoleon, when, for
the time, Europe did not venture to stereotype any maps,
the century was a rather busy cartographer. I mention
only historically significant changes and omit all details.

The United States has come to embrace the whole terri-
tory lying west of the old Thirteen to the Pacific, besides
Alaska, the Philippines and Porto Rico. Spain is no
longer an American power; all her old dependencies here,
save Porto Rico, now an appendage of the American Re-
public, having become sovereign states. Brazil, independ-
ent of Portugal since 1823, is a republic, the last American
political community to oust a monarch.

Great Britain grew greater and still greater; South
Africa became hers ; so did Egypt, for, though the Union
Jack is not unfurled there, its flagstaff, in the person of
the Earl of Cromer, is firmly planted by the Nile, which
answers every purpose. It is understood that railway and
telegraph concessions to British parties, all the way from
Rhodesia to the head waters of the Nile, connect those two
British poles of the African continent. Australia and New
Zealand were nominally British in 1800, but their erection
into veritable membership of the Empire occurred later.

British rule in India was fairly begun by Give's victory
at Plassey, June 23, 1757, but it was rickety till 1798, when
Lord Mornington, later the Marquis of Wellesley, became
governor-general, with his policy of uncompromising Brit-
ish paramountcy over all native princes, — a policy con-
summated when, at Disraeli's instance, Victoria was pro-
claimed Empress of India in 1877. Since then Upper
Burma has been made British, British India thus covering
the whole of southern Asia, from Baluchistan, itself a
British dependency, to the meridian halving the Gulf of

Digitized by Google

TENDENCIES OF THE TIMES 25

Siam. To this add Ceylon, the Straits, and Hong Kong,
which are British out and out, and the vast and valuable
sphere of British influence in China. Innumerable minor
dependencies and protectorates I omit, as of no bearing on
my discussion.

Since the Second Peace of Paris, France has lost Alsace
and much of Lorraine, but has gained, and holds with
sovereign or some looser tenure, Savoy, Algeria, and Tunis,
Madagascar, rather important districts in West Africa,
French India and Indo-China, Cochin China, Annam, Cam-
bodia, and Tongking, besides minute islands and mainland
patches here and there over the earth.

The Congo Free State was erected during the eighties,
the United States first recognizing its flag in 1884.

On the Continent of Europe, the Congress of Vienna
and the Second Peace of Paris restored the map to about
the form it had in 1791. The number of states was much
reduced, chiefly by quashing ecclesiastical principalities.
The Germanic Confederation replaced in a very general
way the Holy Roman Empire. Prussia was vastly in-
creased in size, thus put in a way to gain, in 1866 and 1870,
still more extensive increments of territory and of power,
insuring her the headship, as against Austria, of the new
German Empire, which, in 1871, succeeded the confedera-
tion.

The nineteenth century saw the various governments of
Italy unite under a single sovereignty for the first time
since Justinian; Greece independent of Turkey; Egypt, also
all the northern provinces in Europe that were formerly
vassals of Turkey, free from their suzerain save in name,
or, in some cases, tribute.

At the Congress of Vienna originated the European con-
cert idea, — the system of relegating the weightiest affairs
of European politics to the great powers for decision,

26 THE WORLD'S POLITICS

which has since become a recognized part of international
law. The congress was an epoch in international law.
Private international law may be said to have had its birth
here, as public international law had its birth at the Con-
gress of Westphalia. Certain valuable forms and rules
for international intercourse date from this congress. A
lively interest now first began to be manifested in Europe's
common weal. New agreements were here set in train
for the free navigation of rivers having an international
character. The powers united to do away with the slave
trade and directed new attention to the rights of foreigners
resident in any land. "The business policy of the eight-
eenth century had as its fundamental principle that one
nation's gain is another's loss. Now for the first time a
European treaty appealed to the doctrine of the new po-
litical economy, that the alleviation of commerce is for the
common interest of all peoples." 1 Only in tariff legisla-
tion has Adam Smith been ignored. In this field even
Great Britain is considering whether or not to disown him.

The five powers of the Holy Alliance sought at the Con-
gress of Aix la Chapelle and still more at the congresses
of Laibach and Verona, to fix as a bottom tenet of inter-
national law the principle of dynastic legitimacy. They
damned as revolution all limitation by constitutions of a
sovereign's power and all tampering with the territorial
lines traced at Vienna. They further assumed the duty
of protecting in their possessions the sovereigns then on
thrones, and of assuring and guarding the public law of
Europe as they understood it.

This effort the march of events and of European public
opinion, which by this time began to count for a good deal,
soon brought to naught and rendered ridiculous. The
Bourbons ceased to reign in France. Revolutions in Italy

>V. Treltschke.

Digitized by Google

TENDENCIES OF THE TIMES 27

dispossessed a number of families restored in 1815. The
Pope surrendered his temporal power. Belgium was sep-
arated from Holland, and Savoy joined to France, while
Austria lost her best Italian lands. Germany became a
unit and an empire, besides appropriating Alsace and most
of Lorraine. The Spanish American republics remained
independent of Spain.

October 27, 1860, Lord John Russell sent abroad per-
haps the boldest dispatch which a British Minister ever
drew: "The governments of the Pope and the King of
the two Sicilies, he said, provided so ill for the welfare of
their people that their subjects looked to their overthrow
as a necessary preliminary to any improvement. Her
Majesty's Government were bound to admit that the Ital-
ians themselves are the best judges of their own interests.
Her Majesty's Government did not feel justified in declar-
ing that the people of southern Italy had not good reasons
for throwing off their allegiance to their former govern-
ment. Her Majesty's Government therefore could not
pretend to blame the King of Sardinia for assisting them.
We cannot wonder that such words as these spread in
Italy like flame, that people copied the translation from
each other, weeping over it for joy and gratitude in their
homes, and that it was hailed as worth more than a force
of one hundred thousand men." 1

The principle of the balance of power among nations,
which the Congress of Vienna applied with such mechan-
ical fidelity, lapsed into desuetude, giving way to the max-
ims of non-intervention and respect for each people's sov-
ereignty.

Louis Napoleon's wish to interpose for the South in the
American Civil War, and Great Britain's unwillingness,
which deterred him, are remembered by all. On Prussia's

i Morley's Gladatone II. 15. 16.

THE WORLD'S rOLITICS

seizure of Schleswig and Holstein in 18G4, and of Hann-
over, Electoral Hesse, Nassau and Frankfort in 180G,
powerful influences in England and France wrought for
intervention, but in vain. At the Schleswig-IIolstein
crisis, Lords Palmerston and John Russell were for war,
and bemoaned the timidity of their colleagues; but Victoria
was strongly against them and prevailed. In Great Britain
still louder cry for intervention was heard, first when Louis
Napoleon made himself Emperor, and again as his fall be-
came imminent; but both times the Ministry was immov-
able. Public sentiment in the fatherland demanded Ger-
man intervention in favor of Kriiger during the South
African War, but the imperial government resolutely held
aloof.

In fine, while the right of a nation, in certain cases, to
interfere for mere equilibrium's sake with a neighbor na-
tion's extension schemes may, perhaps, still be defended in
abstract international law, the corresponding practice in
international politics is dead and buried.

The last century also saw given up. or at least greatly
decreased, ideality of aim, whether in international or in
national politics, part result, perhaps, of the state's com-
pleter freedom from church influences. Natural rights are
little pleaded any more. You must claim acquired rights
or get out of court. It is frankly admitted that politics
has its field right here in this actual earth and that earth
is not yet heaven. In politics now we do the best we can,
then feeling it a duty to be satisfied, provisionally, be the
results never so far from ideal. "Hope not for the republic
of Plato," says Marcus Aurelius, "but be content with ever
so small an advance, and look on even that as a gain worth
having."

It would be a mistake, however, to suppose current poli-
tics less genuinely moral or humane than the politics of

Digitized by Google

TENDENCIES OF THE TIMES 29

the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when it could be
said:

"Earth is sick
And Heaven is weary, of the hollow words
Which states and kingdoms utter when they talk
Of truth and Justice."

Any surmise of deterioration ought to be dissipated by
noticing the numerous and momentous questions which
nations have of late been settling by arbitration, the treaties
of arbitration now existing, or the erection, by the fifteen
most powerful states on earth, of The Hague Tribunal for
quieting disputes such as once usually meant war.

I cannot subscribe to the theory that the course of his-
tory is directed wholly by economic causes, — the so-called
economic interpretation of history. But there is one econ-
omic might which shapes human events to an even greater
extent than the advocates of that theory have observed; I
mean the money power ; and it is among the philanthropist's
most gratifying notes that this incalculably strong force is
at every crisis of strained relations between nations ex-
erted on the side of peace. As a preservative of peace the
money power deserves rank alongside The Hague Tribunal.

It is worth notice that the freest populations are the ones
which multiply the most rapidly. The population of the
United States and Great Britain with their dependencies
and protectorates is now some 522,000,000. Sir Robert
Giffen a little time ago made the population of Europe and
of nations of European origin, like the United States,
something over 500.000,000; the United States, 80.000,-
000; the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and the
white population of South Africa, 55,000,000; Russia
about 135,000,000; Germany, about 55,000,000; Austria-
Hungary, 45,000,000; France, 40,000,000; Italy, 32,000,-
000; Spain and Portugal, 25,000,000; Scandinavia, 10,-

30 THE WORLD'S POLITICS

000,000; Holland and Belgium, 10,000,000; other Euro-
pean countries, 20,000,000. A century ago, adds Sir Rob-
ert, the figure corresponding to this 500,000,000 would not
have been more than 170,000,000.

The point is that the development was not uniform, but
the most marked in the Anglo-American section, where a
population of some 20,000,000, which was about the figure
for the United States and the United Kingdom together
a hundred years ago, has grown to not less than 130,000,-
000. Russia and Germany also show remarkable increases,
but nothing like the Anglo-American.

The system of "spheres of influence," so admirably
elucidated by Professor Reinsch, is a creation of the cen-
tury, its chief exemplification, at present, being in China,
where Russia, Germany, Great Britain, and France all have
footholds.

The storm-center of world politics, always in the East,
has moved on to the Far East, Great Britain and Russia
continuing to be the head contestants.

Thwarted by Turkey in his resolve to connect the Black
Sea for naval purposes with all the oceans, the Muscovite
reconnoiters toward India, only to find the Khaibar Pass
occupied by men he has seen elsewhere. Nothing daunted,
the British being busy in South Africa, the Colossus plants
one foot near the ice- free water on the Persian Gulf, the
other on the ice-free water at Port Arthur, the tip of
Chinese Manchuria, which 6500 miles of railway connect
with St. Petersburg. A Russo-Japanese war ensuing from
this move, the Briton counters by pocketing Tibet.

The chess-game is interesting, but hardly as yet bears
out Mr. Tarde's view that one or the other of these powers,
or at any rate some nation, is destined to world-empire.
Too many checks and balances are in reserve. For in-
stance, suppose Great Britain at this moment in the ascend-

Digitized by Google

TENDENCIES OF THE TIMES 31

ant; yet, as I once heard Archibald Colquhoun explain,
Russia's methods of colonization in Asia are superior to
the British, being less radical. Again, the day that sees
Great Britain victorious over Russia may also see Canada,
Australia and South Africa independent nations. But
should Russia then swing dangerously to the fore, the en-
tire Anglo-American world would be one flint, fire-striking
rock against her, while Germany would be as likely to side
with England as France with Russia.

Mr. Tarde's theory is too a priori, too "previous;" as is
that of Mr. Pearson and others who proclain the yellow
peril, whether from Chinese industrial or from Japanese
military efficiency; and also that of those who, gleefully
contemplating The Hague Tribunal and the rapid progress
of arbitration, expect all war to end the day after to-
morrow.

Having glanced at what may be considered the chief po-
litical creations, crystallizations, faits accomplis, of the
century past, we go back upstream to sight the main move-
ments whence those new formations casually sprang.

Notice, first, the centralizing tendency, including (1) the
enlargement of the territories ruled from a single center,
accomplished or not by the spirit of imperialism, and (2)
the strengthening of the central authorities in all nations.
Both forms of the tendency are observed in the United
States, in Russia, in Germany, and in Italy; also in the
foreign takings of England, Germany, France, and Chile,
in Austria's reluctance to end in any degree her lordship
in Italy, and in the impulse which Austria shares with
Russia to appropriate as much as possible of the Balkan
Peninsula.

Modern means of communication by steam and telegraph
immensely facilitate the unifying of large and widely sepa-
rated bodies of men. Railways and telegraphy explain

32 THE WORLD'S POLITICS

why our generation could witness the rise in Germany of
the first solid central government there in all history, giv-
ing the lie at last to Niebuhr's saying that anarchy was the
God-ordained constitution of the German people.

But for the agencies named, the United States could not
be permanently or strongly ruled as a single nation, and the
victory of central government in the Civil War would have
been in vain. But for them, further, no Dominion of Can-
ada and no Australian Federation would exist.

National expansion would undoubtedly have gone much
further than it has but for the antagonism it encounters
from the disposition of blood-related communities to get
together under the same governments. Blood is not only
thicker than water ; it is thicker than the ink in which pacts
are written or constitutions printed. In determining the
boundaries of states, a wholly new prominence has come to
be assumed by consanguinity, the nation political inclining
to coincide with the nation as an affair of race.

Ireland's wish to shake off or minimize English rule
illustrates this, as does the centrifugal energy tending to
dirempt Hungary from Austria and Norway from Sweden.
The centripetal working of the idea is seen in the unity of
Germany and of Italy. Many think that the German Em-
pire will in time embrace German Austria and Italy Ital-
ian Austria. Slavic races, too, desiderate political unity,
but the feeling as yet ends in sighs, brochures, editorials,
and speeches, choked there, it would seem, through dread
of Russia's supposed absorption policy.

Both these tendencies — to centralize and government-
ally to group consanguineous peoples — are insignificant be-
side the one next to be named, the republican or democratic,
so pronounced in the political history of my hundred years.

When the American Revolution broke out, a method of
governing states to which we of to-day can give no tenderer

Digitized by Google

TENDENCIES OF THE TIMES 83

name than absolutism was practically universal. Even
Great Britain was no true exception. Not a constitution
in the sense now usual existed in all the world.

Since then absolutism in government has given way, no
longer existing in any state of first rank. Only the Czar
and the Sultan rule in the old fashion, and even they are
bound by public opinion, local and ecumenial, considerably
to heed the popular wish. Monarchy has been dispensed
with by many peoples, in form as well as in substance; in
the rest most of its old power is gone. Civilized lands are
ruled in unprecedented measure for the people and by the
people. Suffrage has been enormously extended, serfs and
slaves set free. Of all the emancipation edicts and statutes
on record, an overwhelming majority hail from days
since the French Revolution. The list of those uttered dur-
ing this period in Germany alone makes up a half-page
close fine-print note in Roscher's Political Economy.

This strongly-marked democratic period had its proxi-
mate and for us its practical opening in the French Revo-
lution, though its absolute origination must be referred to
the Cromwellian revolution in England. Sir Henry
Maine has pointed out that the characteristic doctrines
which that revolution propounded were then wholly new to
mankind. They were, moreover, then set forth in almost
the very form now familiar to all civilized men. The
"Agreement of the People," issued in the name of the Com-
monwealth army and dated January 15, 1649, clearly enun-
ciates that sovereignty resides in the people. It would have
placed supreme legislative power in a representative as-
sembly elected for a limited term, given equal voting privi-
leges to all payers of taxes, established religious freedom,
and separated church from state. Even the idea wrought
into our governmental system, of limiting the legislature's
function by certain vital principles fixed beforehand in a
constitution, is clearly embodied in that Agreement.

34 THE WORLD'S POLITICS

That Agreement of 1649 and the debates and struggles
by which men sought to give it effect furnished Locke and
Algernon Sidney their alphabet and their inspiration, which
they in turn passed on to Rousseau and to the American
revolutionists.

While all this is to be admitted, still Guizot's remark that
every characteristic element of modern civilization has been
mediated to the world through France is substantially true
of democratic government as it has come to be practiced.
It is the product of the French Revolution.

Whatever opinion may be held of its character in other
respects, no one can question the importance of that revo-
lution in shaping political ideas and affairs since. Descrip-
tion and discussion in fact hardly hint at the radical, per-
vasive and lasting changes which the revolutionary move-
ment effected in the political condition of Europe, not a
single element of which escaped positive influence there-
from.

The main significance of the revolution does not lie in the
facts that France, from a condition of abject weakness,
making her the scorn of Europe, suddenly rose up, changed
her form of government, and in a few years forced a con-
tinent to her feet, her empire surpassing Charlemagne's
in size and recalling that of Augustus ; it resides rather in
the irresistible will first revealed in all this against mon-
archical, feudal, and ecclesiastical oppression and unreason,
— "organic torpor," a decayed, inefficient, and inexpress-
ibly burdensome public system. The cause of these brilliant
deeds was passion for a rational public order, educated and
developed by a series of French writers and fired to frenzy
by Bourbon tyranny, stupidity, and immorality.

Pressed by his Minister to attend to affairs of state,
Louis XV would retort, "Bah, the crazy old machine will

Digitized by Google

TENDENCIES OF THE TIMES

last out my time, and my successors must look out for them-
selves."

"Unhappy man" — you are hearing Carlyle — "there as
thou turnest in dull agony on thy bed of weariness, what a
thought is thine ! Purgatory and hell-fire, now all too pos-
sible in the prospect; in the retrospect, — alas, what thing
didst thou do that were not better undone? What mortal
didst thou generously help? What sorrow hadst thou
mercy on ? Do the five hundred thousand ghosts who sank
shamefully on so many battlefields from Rossbach to Que-
bec, that thy harlot might take revenge for an epigram,
crowd round thee in this hour? Thy foul harem 1 The
curse of mothers, the tears and infamy of daughters! Mis-
erable man ! thou hast done evil as thou couldst ; thy whole
existence seems one hideous abortion and mistake of
nature."

Only thus from its causes can the Revolution be justly
judged. If it is so viewed, its errors and excesses may be
explained and in part condoned, as the inevitable friction
generated in producing a great and worthy piece of work
against fearful resistance.

I cannot agree with those writers, like Taine and Sir
Henry Maine, who reprobate the Revolution itself, believ-
ing that whatever good it wrought could have been accom-
plished without it. "The French Revolution," declares
Bisset, "was the work of philosophers, and it was, com-
pared with the English revolution, a failure and ended in
Caesarism, that is, in the government of hell upon earth."

In this hostile mode of estimating the movement,
Burke's Reflections led the way, swayed too much in their
judgment of it as a whole by the fate of the unfortunate
Marie Antoinette, who had so impressed the author when
in France.

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years," he says, "since I

Digitized by Google

36 THE WORLD'S POLITICS

saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles,
and surely never lighted on this orb, which she scarcely
seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just
above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated
sphere she just began to move in, glittering like the morn-
ing star, full of life and splendor and joy. O, what a revo-
lution ! and what a heart must I have to contemplate with-
out emotion that elevation and that fall!"

Sir James Mackintosh's Vindiciae Gallicae introduced
the appreciative criticism of the Revolution, whose freshest
note Frederic Harrison has sounded in saying: "The his-
tory of our entire nineteenth century is precisely the history
of all the work which the Revolution left. The Revolu-
tion was a creating force even more than it was a destroy-
ing force; it was an inexhaustible source of fertile influ-
ences ; it not only cleared the ground of the old society, but
it manifested all the elements of the new society. It would
be easy to show that the last fifty years of the eighteenth
century was a period more fertile in constructive effort than
any similar period of fifty years in the history of mankind.
. . . Truly we may call the Revolution the crisis of modern
reconstruction.

" 'When France in wrath her giant limbs upreared,
And with that oath which smote air, earth and sea.
Stamped her strong foot and said she would be free.' n

Bisset, of all men, should admit that the Revolution did
not end in Caesarism. "If there is one principle in all mod-
ern history," to quote Frederic Harrison again, "it is this :
that the Revolution did not end with the whiff of grapeshot
by which Bonaoarte extinguished the dregs of the Conven-
tion."

In France the fires of republicanism never went out,
though at times smouldering. They burst forth powerfully
under Louis Philippe in the Second Republic, in the present

Digitized by Google

TENDENCIES OF THE TIMES 37

republic — these republics no new creations, but adjourned
sessions, as it were, of the original. Since 1789 every anti-
republican polity arising in France has passed its life in un-
stable equilibrium.

Elsewhere in Europe as well, old style political ideas be-
gan to lose power. Constitutions were in time introduced
in all the German states. A national-liberal party rose in
Prussia, which at last, after so many ages, made the political
unity of Germany a reality.

This result might have been attained much earlier but for
the conflict of the sentiment for unity with that for consti-
tutional rule. Prussian policy was strongly anti-republican.
King William and Bismarck were, so late as 1863, still
heavily tarred with Metternich's brush, repelling liberals
like Rotteck, Welcker, and Gagern, in the center and south,
in lands which the confederation of the Rhine had embraced,
even when they were convinced that Prussian victory meant
a united fatherland. Union finally came by compromise,
Prussia turning more liberal, the ultra-liberals insisting less
on ideally free institutions at once.

Italy, even more than Germany, took impulse towards
freedom and unity from the good influences connected with
French occupancy.

Great Britain, where the good seed fell into the best
ground, benefited infinitely from the Revolution. Few
English, to be sure, sympathized with Dr. Price in seeing
^ a millennium at hand. "What an eventful period is this,"
he exclaims in a sermon, part of which Burke quotes: "I
am thankful that I have lived to see it. I could almost say,
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine
eyes have seen thy salvation."

Soberer men avowed sympathy with the essential in the
new movement. Fox was among these. He believed Pitt's
repressive measures to be of dangerous tendency.

38 THE WORLD'S POLITICS

On Pitt's death, Sir Walter Scott wrote:

"Now is the stately column broke,
The Beacon light Is quenched In smoke,
The trumpet's silver sound is still.
The warder silent on the hilL"

One can imagine Fox reciting this, not as a threne but as
a paean.

The career of British liberalism since Fox and Pitt's day I
has been peculiarly proud. To it is mainly due that noble
succession of reform acts extending the franchise until man-
hood suffrage is realized in Britain more perfectly than in
the United States. Laws have been passed unshackling
British trade, greatly to the benefit of the common people.
Popular election has been carried into counties and cities,
placing the peasant and the mechanic in condition to hold
his own against wealth and rank as he could never do before.
The extra voting power of the rich has been mostly an-
nulled, the public service purified and opened to the humb-
lest, the administration of justice immensely improved. A
system of public education has been launched, by which the
poorest youth may win intelligence that shall be worthy of
his freedom and enable him to utilize and enjoy it

Nor is the train of causation starting from the French
Revolution exhaustively conceived without recalling again
the freedom of the Spanish-American republics, the rise and
life of the democratic party and of the Monroe Doctrine
in the United States, the creation of Belgium, and the liber-
ation of Greece.

Hardly had the French Revolution democracy begun its
race when it suffered serious arrest. An absolutist reaction
set in: in France itself, under Napoleon, the restored Bour-
bons, and, later, the Second Empire; Metternich arose and
the Holy Alliance; strife for free institutions was repressed
in Germany, Italy, and Spain ; reform became and for a time
remained a hateful word all over Europe; Louis XVIII

Digitized by Google

TENDENCIES OF THE TIMES 39

dated the state papers of 1814 as of the nineteenth year of
his reign, affecting to ignore all that had passed since Louis
XVI's death.

Qtoeen Victoria once said: "As I get older I cannot
understand the world. I cannot comprehend its littleness.
When I look at men's frivolities and littleness it seems to me
as if they were all a little mad." This insanity of petty-
mindedness was never more patent than in Germany after
Napoleon's fall.

The German Confederation was Metternich's too! to stay
the advance of liberalism. The presence of the French in
Germany had quickened and generalized the wish for con-
stitutional and hatred of personal rule. While peril lasted
the powers heeded. Czar Alexander received Poland on
condition of granting it a constitution. Frederic William
promised Prussia a constitution ; Article 13 of the Confed-
eration Acts declared that each of the confederate states was
to have a constitution with representation. Liberals fully
expected that before long constitutional methods would
prevail all over the Continent as in England.

Bitter disappointment resulted, the next period being but
a record of Metternich's triumphs, of monarchy mean de-
vices to evade their pledges and to hush the popular cry.
Save Saxe-Weimar, not a state in the Confederation
obtained at this time a liberal ground law. Bavaria, Wiirt-
temberg, and Baden, which had felt France most, had char-
ters by 1820, but these modified absolutism only a little, and
were given partly to spite the larger states surrendering to
reaction.

The privileges which were here and there conceded were
vitally vitiated by appearing as grants, not as rights. All
seeking by the people to wrest concessions was viewed as
Jacobinism with reign of terror behind. Press, pulpit,
school, and platform were under gag laws, patriots ex-

40 THE WORLD'S POLITICS

eluded, exiled, or silenced by an infamous system of es-
pionage, which Napoelon would have blushed to own.

All this proved in vain, however. The good leaven went
on permeating the meal till all west Europe was leavened.
Liberal ideas, domestic, and streaming in from Switzerland,
Italy, Greece, England, and France, especially during her .
revolution of 1830, proved at last more than a match for
Metternich; and when the new revolution of 1848 rocked
to its base every throne of Continental Europe, he fell and
his system was doomed.

Men had come more and more into Gladstone's state of
mind in 1851, when he wrote: "It is a great and noble
secret, that of constitutional freedom, which has given us
the largest liberties, with the steadiest throne, and the most
vigorous executive in Christendom. ... I am deeply
convinced that among us all systems, whether religious or
political, which rest on a principle of absolutism, must of
necessity be, not indeed tyrannical, but feeble and inef-
fective systems ; and that methodically to enlist the members
of a community, with due regard to their several capacities,
in the performance of its public duties, is the way to make
that community powerful and healthful, to give a firm seat
to its rulers, and to engender a warm and intelligent devo-
tion in those beneath their sway."

Republicanism has encountered, and is still struggling .
therein, a second impasse, which threatens to be far graver
than the first.

A wide and deep remission of philanthropy marks the in- „
telligence of our time, partly speculative in origin, as seen
in Nietzsche, who ridicules consideration for one's enemies
and for the weak, as slaves' ethics ; partly resulting from ful-
ler acquaintance with the inferior races of men. Tongues
thoroughly trained in trick gymnastics stick at vocables like
"equality," "brotherhood," "the race," "humanity," much
more than when only missionaries had first-hand familiarity

Digitized by Google

TENDENCIES OF THE TIMES 41

with Bushmen and Igorrotes. Such a generalization as
"man" does well enough in zoology, but in practical ethics
it finds its position harder and harder to keep. The changed
thought promptly sidles over on to political ground. Hav-
ing radically subordinated certain races to others, we find it
easier, if not inevitable, to subordinate certain classes.

Another boulder badly obstructing democracy's path is
socialism. The socialists have, agreeably to their wish, con-
vinced great multitudes that their programme is simply
the logical working-out of democracy. At the same time,
against their wish, they have begotten the conviction in
others that socialism put in practice would mean anarchy,
communism, leveling, a crusade against the highlands of
men's life in the interest of the bog. It would build forth
the social body utterly without regard to heterogeneity,
allowing no place for the genius, the artist, the dreamer, the
mugwump, the non-conformist, the rebel. The Church in
its worst days never meditated rendering life so insipid.
Prisoned in the iron orderliness socialism must bring, real
men would cry out with Walt Whitman:

"O, Bomethlng pernicious and dread,
Something far away from a puny and pious life,
Something unproved, something in a trance,
Something escaped from the anchorage and driving free.'*

I care not what others may say, but as for me, give me the
privilege of nonconformity or give me death.

The modern liberal deems a never so mountainous district
preferable to a dead level. If democracy is that, and he
frequently fears it is, he will none of it. Rather, he shouts,
my kingdom for a horse with a man astride! If it is the
only alternative, give me monarchy, aristocracy, even pluto-
cracy, rather than the democracy which stifles and kicks the
individual.

Again, liberalism has disappointed early expectations.

42 THE WORLD'S POLITICS

Its devotees at first looked for economic and moral as well
as political millennium as soon as men were set free from
monarchic rule.

But it is clear that the device of simply knocking off men's
political shackles falls short. Bare civil liberty does not
constitute or assure social weal. Society sunders itself
worse than ever into disparate and hostile classes. Poverty
and oppression have not come to an end. This century of
political equality, of status changed to contract and of a
ballot for all, is precisely the one wherein pessimism has
been born, which is no longer the smart hobby of a few,
but the fixed conviction of multitudes.

Distracted over so many unfulfilled prophecies, a host of
liberals almost conclude that they have been following an
ignis fatuus, to turn from which is the beginning of wisdom.

Lastly, the gaucherie of popular government is executive
functioning, and especially in war, renders it odious with a
great and increasing number.

The modern mind is of a practical turn. Men theorize
less than formerly, but administer better. We delight in
facile practice, in bringing things to pass. Familiarity with
colossal businesses, railway systems, trusts, where single
minds with absolute authority produce wonders in the way
of dispatch, coordination, and combination, brew relish for
order and rapidity in business, and discontent for the slow,
lumbering, awkward methods which, to date, most democ-
racies insist upon in conducting public affairs.

The inclination is, therefore, observable on every hand to
allow executives longer rope, a freer hand, more independ-
ence in detail from legislatures and from the constituency.
Whereunto this will grow, none can tell. As it is, however,
clearly inconsistent with the democracy hitherto expounded
and practiced, it helps to swell and spread the conviction that
democracy, at least democracy as we know it, cannot be the
final polity.

I
i

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OF POLITICAL THEORY

BY GEORGE GRAFTON WILSON

[George Grafton Wilson, Professor of Social and Political Science,
Brown University, and Lecturer on International Law at the
United States Naval War College. A.B. Brown University, 1886;
A.M.ibid. 1888; Ph.D. ibid. 1889. Member of Historical, Eco-
nomic, and of Council of Political Science and International Law
Associations. Author of International Lata Situation*; Interna-
tional Law Discussions ; joint author of International Law; and
author of articles on political science and international law and
relations.]

It is not uncommon for such as call themselves "prac-
tical" to give slight regard to the serious politico-scientific
presentation of a topic bearing upon the management of
state affairs. They say, "O, that is the point of view of a
theorist ;" "he is bringing in historical illustrations. These
do not apply to present conditions;" "that is all right in
theory, but it will not work in practice ;" or "I have no re-
spect for those fine-spun theories that never lead to any-
thing."

Such opinions are not confined to "practical politicians,"
but find expression elsewhere, even in the works of those en-
gaged in the presentation of the claims of other than the
political sciences. The critics sometimes see little reason
for the existence of political science, and still less for the
elaboration of political theory.

To such detractors the first problem of political theory
would be for it to prove its right to exist.

It is true that practical necessities gave rise to political
phenomena long before any theoretical consideration of poli-
tics was conceived. The state existed prior to political spec-
ulation and independent of it. The fact of this priority of
existence does not, however, prove that political theory may

POLITICAL THEORY

not have a right to be any more than the fact of the exist-
ence of electricity before the existence of theories in regard
to its nature would discredit the theories which have given
such beneficent results to man. These theories have not
modified the essential nature of electricity, but have made it
possible for man to control electrical energy for his own
purposes. The problem of political theory is in part so to
reveal the nature of political energy that it may be controlled
for man's benefit. If this can be done, even those who de-
mand "practicability" would grant that political theory has
a right to be.

In the consideration of the right of political theory to be,
it must at the outset be admitted that, like other theories,
there have been theories in the political field that have been
only in small part tenable and others not at all tenable by a
normal mind.

Here there arises the problem of the relation of political
theory to political action. It must be admitted that political
theories have often influenced political action most pro-
foundly. The works of Aristotle have again and again be-
come not merely the subjects of study for those interested in
Greek literature, but for those engaged in political affairs.
They have been used as the sources of arguments for deter-
mining practical political action. Eginhard in his Life of
Charles the Great states that the great ruler delighted in the
works of St. Augustine, especially in De Civitate Dei}
The influence of the works of Grotius upon the political
policy of his contemporary Gustavus Adolphus is evident.
In some of its aspects the French Revolution was a crude
attempt to work out what was thought to be a correct politi-
cal theory. The influence of the same theories is evident in
the enunciation of some of the fundamental principles upon

1 "Delectabntur *t l(bri* tancti AugutHni, prarripueque hit qui Dc Civitate
Dei praetitulati tunt." Eginhard, Vita Karoli, cap. 24.

Digitized by Google

THE PROBLEMS OF

which the United States Government was founded. The
debates upon the adoption of the Constitution of the United
States, the Federalist Papers, and the writings of other of
the early political leaders in the United States show the in-
fluence of the understanding of political theory. The pol-
itical movements of the first half of the nineteenth century
in Europe show how the theory that a nationality had a
right to embodiment in a political unity influenced practical
politics. Theories as to what a state might do in the way
of determining economic prosperity have been the basis of
many political party struggles, and claims based upon lack
of understanding of political theories have led to the down-
fall of "practical politicians" and political parties.

Those widely versed in political theory have also often
been leaders in the political activities of their times. This
has been particularly true in Germany, and some of the great
development of that state can be traced to a recognition of
the worth of political theory as a guide for practical action.
Where political studies have received the most careful atten-
tion and most rational consideration, there the political ac-
tion has been in general most consistently progressive.

It is as reasonable to believe that practical political affairs
may be more properly understood and directed when the
theories underlying political action are comprehended, as it
is reasonable to expect similar treatment of affairs in other
lines of human activity when the underlying theories are
understood.

It would seem, then, that political theory has in the past
strongly influenced human activity, that men who have led
in political affairs have often been guided by political theor-
ies, and that in itself political theory would have the same
reasons for its existence as the theory of other studies deal-
ing with human activities. If political theory can lead to
action so disastrous to human well-being as has sometimes

POLITICAL THEORY

been the case, then there is reason for an investigation in
order that sound and beneficent theories may take the place
of those of the opposite character.

Those who would attempt to discredit often do not know
what is the nature of political theory at present nor what
has been its influence in the past ; indeed, while decrying the
theorist, they as practical men may be acting upon princi-
ples which the theorist has enunciated, and their successes
may be due to the correctness of the theory or to its fitness
for the conditions at the time existing.

Again, problems of political relationship arising in conse-
quence of the growing importance of the state itself and the
extension of its powers in comparison with such institutions
as the family and the church ha*ve emphasized the import-
ance of political theories.

The growth of parties, schools, systems, governmental
policies, and the like, based upon theories makes necessary
attentive study of their bases. Many of these parties dis-
tinctly call themselves by the theory name, as in the case of
the "socialistic party," the "nationalist party/' etc. The
courts of justice often incline toward a theory in accord with
a political platform, and in some cases judges are elected
for the purpose of supporting a party theory.

As the state is one of the most important of the products
of human association in its effects upon associated life and
in its influence upon the individual, there is a final and suf-
ficient reason for the mastery of the fundamental principles
of its being, and with these political theory purports to deal.

Even this brief survey shows that political theory has a
right to exist and to claim respect, though it must always be
admitted that there may be false as well as true theories.

Granting that political theory has a right to be, the next
general problem is one of subject-matter.

One of the first difficulties in regard to the subject-matter

Digitized by Google

THE PROBLEMS OF

is that of discriminating between the political and non-po-
litical in the data of human association. Much of the data
relating to early human association which has been used as
a basis for political theorizing is certainly very imperfectly
understood, and in some cases the data are not reliable for
political theorizing, as they were gathered with an entirely
different purpose in view.

Some writers speak of the Hebrew theocratic state, of
primitive states among aboriginal tribes, and of states bound
only by family ties or by clan relationships. If the organiz-
ation prevailing among the early Hebrews and these other
early relationships are to be called states, then the problem
of dealing with these and modern states under the same
system of definitions becomes very difficult, even in theory.
The points of identity in organization between a savage
tribe and the British Empire would not be many, and to at-
tempt to give a common explanation for each would lead to
absurdities. It is evident that some of the confusion and
differences which have arisen are due to the attempt to ac-
count by political theory for non-political facts. Dunning,
in his History of Political Theories (p. xvii), has observed
that a history of political theories "would begin at the point
at which the idea of the state, as distinct from the family
and the clan, becomes a determining factor in the life of the
community.*' It would not be maintained that any particu-
lar date or degree of civilization could be fixed upon as a
prerequisite for political action. It is affirmed that there
exists a problem for both the student of political theory and
political science in the way of discrimination between the
political and non-political in early social data.

Another important question in the consideration of the
subject-matter would be as to when and under what circum-
stances social data would become political data properly to
be used for political theorizing. Dunning, in accord with

POLITICAL THEORY

the position above taken, says, "Of all the multifarious pro-
jects for fixing the boundary which marks off political from
the more general social science, that seems most satisactory
which bases the distinction on the existence of a political
consciousness."

The subject-matter presents another difficulty from the
fact that the data upon which political theory must draw do
. not remain fixed. Even if agreement were to be had upon
definitions, the content would change with the change in
human relations. To adapt political theory to the dynamic
character of the subject-matter is an ever-recurring problem.

Much of early political theory and, to some extent, present
political theorizing is concerned about the doctrine of form
of the state, — the question as to whether monarchy, olig-
archy, or democracy is the best form. This is a problem of
some importance, but is insignificant in comparison with the
problem of rendering efficient such form as may exist. The
consideration of political data without predisposition in
favor of any particular form of political organization will
discover efficiency under varying forms and also will dis-
cover that in most instances the efficiency is not due to the
form of organization.

By political theory is generally understood the theory cen-
tering upon the state. One of the primary problems would
therefore be to determine what the state is, and upon this
definition would depend much of the scope of the theory.
After establishing a definition, which the great diversity in
existing definitions shows to be no easy task, the problem of
determining the relations of the states to each other, to
other political institutions, and to other social institutions
arises. This involves the question of the limits of state
action, one of the most difficult of all problems and one
upon which much discussion has been had. This will, in
part, depend upon the conception of such political ideas as

Digitized by Google

THE PROBLEMS OF

sovereignty, law, etc. In the field of performance of state
functions and the exercise of state activities there are ques-
tions of relationships. The separation and limitation of
powers, the character and range of governmental activity,
and the nature of government itself become problems for
political theory. The subject-matter of political theory is
varied, and different writers have given to it very diverse
treatment. The same general subject-matter has in some
instances, particularly in the eighteenth century, given rise
to theories leading to entirely opposite conclusions, and
later individualistic and socialistic theorists have used the
same subject-matter in support of the contentions of their
respective positions.

Admitting that political theory has a right to existence,
and that from the extent and nature of its subject-matter
diverse conclusions may be drawn, the next general problem
becomes one of method. It would need no argument to ar-
rive at the conclusion that a theorist starting with a series
of political axioms would arrive at different conclusions
from those of a theorist who viewed the state as an histori-
cal evolution or that a believer in "the divine right of kings"
would evolve a different theory from that of an advocate of
the social contract theory. The problem of method easily
becomes a significant one for the political theorist. Indeed,
it has been claimed by some that the method is the most im-
portant of all the problems as to political science and theory.

Various methods have been used by political theorists.

The formal explanation of political facts which has
viewed the state as static and subject to logical analysis has
profoundly influenced political theory. Certain valuable
conclusions can doubtless be drawn from such theorizing.
The tendency of this method is toward a purely legal view
of the state. The method of pure logic, as it has been
called by some writers upon the Continent, tends to give a

POLITICAL THEORY

narrow point of view, while at the same time the view gains
influence from its positiveness.

A more positive method was that which assumed its defi-
nitions and the reasons for them, as well as assumed certain
political axioms ; then, by deductive reasoning in regard to
the assumed state, and also in regard to the assumed charac-
ter of man, drew its conclusions. This doctrinaire school of
theorists corresponded in some respects to the Manchester
school of economists.

The historical method corrects many of the errors conse-
quent upon the rise of the above method. It shows what
analysis or logic cannot show, viz.: that reason is not the
source of certain political institutions and phenomena, but
rather that their source is in special conditions which arose
in some earlier time. The doctrinaire method, with its
axioms and formulae, regards such phenomena as excep-
tions. In a negative way the historical method gives to
political theory the data for correcting conclusions of the
two first-mentioned methods.

In a positive manner, the historical method furnishes po-
litical data in their "time-setting," making possible the in-
terpretation of political phenomena with reference to their
conditioning circumstances. The method of comparison has
also served most efficiently in political investigation and in-
terpretation. Montesquieu gained not a little by its use.
De Tocqueville says, "In America I have seen more than
America; I have there sought an image of democracy it-
self." 1

In connection with the question of method, there is the
problem of freeing political theory from the extended use of
analogy which has often given a false idea of the nature
of the political facts. In the case of the biological analogy
which has been most extensively used, there has often been

1 De la Democratic en Amerique, i, p. 19.

Digitized by Google

THE PROBLEMS OF

a tendency to make little or no discrimination between physi-
cal and political phenomena. This method has doubtless
served a purpose in strengthening the idea of the unity of
the state, but an analogy cannot take the place of correct
reasoning. Of this T. H. Green says, "If it were held,
then, that the state were an organized community in the
same sense in which a living body is, of which the members
at once contribute to the function called life, and are made
what they are by that function, according to an idea of
which there is no consciousness on their part, we should
only be following the analogy of the established method of
interpreting nature." 1

As by these and other methods other facts are presented,
the problem of reconciliation of the points of view thus
gained comes to the political theorist. He must also recog-
nize the modern tendency to give a sociological interpreta-
tion to many of these facts, which is now as marked as was
the tendency to give a legal interpretation at an earlier time.

It is evident that each method may be capable of render-
ing service to the political theorist. To give to the con-
clusions of each the proper value and place is a problem de-
serving and receiving more and more attention.

In considering the more concrete problems of political
theory one of the first is that which is concerned with the
origin and basis of the state. This problem is one that very
early received attention from political theorists and writers
upon political subjects. Its solution may make a great dif-
ference in the working-out of other portions of a general
theory of the state.

To some writers both of early and later periods, political
life is innate, and man is man only as he is political. It
should be observed that among those using somewhat simi-
lar terms in regard to this basis of the state in the nature of

» Principle* of Political Obligation, sec. 125.

POLITICAL THEORY

man, there is often a wide difference in the content of these
terms. Some draw one conclusion along the lines of a
natural law as the basis of the state and others another.
Some base the state in might or force and enter upon the
elaborate explanations to account for the source of this
force, which they claim makes the state possible.

The theory that the state is the product of "natural law"
gave to the term "natural law" and its various modifications
the most divergent interpretations.

The same may be said of the attempts to base the state in
a "social contract."

That there are still problems in regard to the origin of
the state will be evident in the comparison of the points of
view of almost any of the recent discussions upon the sub-
ject. Some even question the right of the state to be.

These problems have occupied so much of the space in
the books upon political topics that more than a mere men-
tion of the fact that the problem of origin still remains
seems unnecessary.

These theories as to the origin of the state serve to show
that there is a problem for the political philosopher in the
distinction of causes of political phenomena from conditions
of political phenomena. It is possible that had this ques-
tion been earlier raised, political theory would have been
more advanced. The attempt to account for non-political
facts by political causation has been common in the field
of theory. A clear discrimination between the phenomena
that condition and those that cause political activity removes
many difficulties. Not all theorists would agree in regard
to the respective categories. It is probable, however, that
to most investigators soil, climate, configuration of the land
and sea-lines would, in general, condition political develop-
ment. The solution of the problem of placing conditioning
phenomena in their proper relations is one which will bear

Digitized by Google

THE PROBLEMS OF

valuable results. The elimination to a great extent of time
and space in human relations has removed conditions favor-
able to the individualistic theory of the state and furnished
new problems.

Before discussing further problems, it seems fitting that
. a question that logically might have been raised earlier
should be proposed, viz. : What is the state as the subject
about which political theory centers?

The problem of definition is not a simple one. There are
many excellent descriptions of a state which contain an enu-
meration of such of the conditions of state existence as seem
to the given writer desirable, such as the number of persons,
the territorial basis, or the end for which the state exists.
These facts in regard to the state may be enlightening to a
general reader, but become a source of confusion when at-
tempt is made to use them in a definition for political theo-
rizing, as would be the case in a chemical experiment where
a bottle bearing a given name contains not merely what the
name indicates, but other chemicals as well. Frequently ac-
cidental attributes are regarded as essential and are accord-
ingly made a part of the definition. The attempt should
therefore be made to exclude from the definition everything
not essential to the state and to include everything essential.

While the writer of this paper was requested to set forth
some of the problems of political theory only, it may not
be out of place to offer a tentative definition of the state.
Whether or not this definition meets the standards which the
problem of definition sets forth, it has in actual use been
found a convenient point of departure for political theoriz-
ing. The definition offered for consideration is that the
state is a sovereign political unity.

This definition is offered in part that the proposition of
subsequent problems may be somewhat more definite, and
that, if possible, their solutions may be less complicated.

POLITICAL THEORY

The terms used in the definition need for themselves defini-
tion, and in their definition important theories are involved.

The term "political" has had various meanings placed
upon it and its content has increased or diminished from time
to time till now, in the days of world-politics, its content is
very different from what it was in the days of the Grecian
city-state. The word seems, however, to have attained a)
fairly clear meaning at present as the term for public in
distinction from private affairs of men.

When coupled with the word "sovereign," the unity is
marked off from any other in which men are associated.
The problems connected with sovereignty will be considered
later.

By the definition, the state is distinguished from a social
unity. Consequently, there are many problems of the rela-
tionship between the state and voluntary organizations
within and without the state. There may remain and does
remain the problem of determining how far the state, e. g.,
shall concern itself with religious affairs, but here it will be
a problem of determining the external conditions of relig-
ious life rather than the religious life itself. That the state
could only condition non-political life, not create or destroy
it, has been a lesson which nearly all religions have been
slow to learn. It may be said of the conduct of state au-
thorities toward other human activities that they have often
mistaken the power to condition for a creative or causal' r
power and have attempted to solve by state agencies prob-
lems which could only be solved by other means.

Whatever be the definition of the state, the doctrine of
sovereignty is generally regarded as the central doctrine
of political theory. Few topics have been the subject of
more extended treatment, and as there does not even yet
seem to be an agreement as to what is meant by the term
sovereignty, it may be assumed that here will be found an

Digitized by Google

THE PROBLEMS OF

important problem. The word is used in different senses by
different writers and not infrequently in different senses by
the same writer in succeeding pages. With comparatively
few exceptions, as will be seen from Merriam's History of
Sovereignty since Rousseau, the doctrine of sovereignty ad-
vocated by a given writer was based upon the grounds of
temporary political expediency rather than upon philosoph-
ical reasoning. That the. theorists of the present day should
show the same tendency would be natural, and hence arises
the necessity for guarding against the influence of psycho-
political environment of the period.

Closely related in its results to this influence of environ-
ing conditions is that which leads writers to give to earlier
political or other concept an importance and emphasis com-
mensurate with that which it has previously received. This
is particularly true in regard to the emphasis placed upon
the doctrine of sovereignty. It might be proper to raise
the question whether too much attention has not been given
and is not now given to the consideration of the doctrine in
its various forms. Whatever be the answer to this question
the problems connected with the exercise of the supreme
political authority are becoming complex to a high degree
through the differentiation consequent upon new forms of
dependencies and modern interstate relations.

Bryce, in his essay on "The Nature of Sovereignty," 1
says, after discussing various confusions in regard to the
subject of sovereignty, "Had the qualifying terms 'de jure'
or 'de facto' been added every time the word 'sovereignty*
was used, most of these difficulties would have disap-
peared." Later (p. 54G), he says in speaking of interna-
tional relations, "Nevertheless, where some legal tie has
been created between two or more states, placing one in a
lower position, we may say that inferiority exists de jure,

1 Btudie* in History and Jurisprudence, p. 542.

POLITICAL THEORY

while if there is an actual and continuing disposition of the
weaker one to comply with the wishes of the stronger,
there is inferiority de facto. Where the laws made by the
legislative authority of one state directly bind the subjects
of another state, the latter state cannot be called in any
sense sovereign." Burgess 1 says: "Really the state cannot
be conceived without sovereignty, i. e., without unlimited
power over its subjects; that is its very essence." These
quotations show the tendency shared also by many writers
to establish an extreme definition for sovereignty.

Such definitions give rise to the problem of classification
and determination of the character of the so-called half-
sovereign, parti-sovereign states, or fragments of states.'
At the same time the extreme definition of sovereignty
gives rise to the problem of the political status of members
of federal states, confederations, and other unions. To
this problem some give the terse solution that such are not
states at all, but retain their names as such only by courtesy
and should receive consideration only as administrative
divisions. This is the position which has been growing
more and more into the political theory of the past forty
years. The question arises as to whether this theory has
not simply reflected the actual political development of the
period.

Are states which voluntarily make treaties limiting the
range of their freedom of action therefore no longer sover-
eign ? If so, just what kind of a treaty renders the loss of
sovereignty certain? Is it such a treaty as the defensive
treaty between Great Britain and Japan, the Triple Alli-
ance Agreement, the Arbitration Treaties of 1904, or the
Anglo-Franco Agreement in regard to North Africa? All
of these limit the free exercise of sovereign powers in cer-

1 Political Science and Constitutional Law, i, p. 57,
*JclHnck, Vel?cr Btaattfragmente,

Digitized by Google

THE PROBLEMS OF

tain respects. What is the position of neutralized states?
Such problems as these become of practical importance for
international law. While international law admits that "it
is not inconsistent with sovereignty that a state should vol-
untarily take upon itself obligations to other states, even
though the obligations be assumed under stress of war, or
fear of evil," 1 yet there remains the problem of determining
the limit to which obligations may be assumed without loss
of sovereignty. A state may be deeply in debt and still be
classed as sovereign, may be neutralized, may be closely
bound to another or to several other states, may be inter-
nally disorganized, may be insignificant in area, population,
and power, or seemingly may lack all attributes but recog-
nition in the family of nations, and still be regarded as sov-
ereign in international law. Is it necessary to answer that
some of these "are sovereign because they are states and
are states because they are sovereign ?"

The problem arises as to how far sovereignty may be
said to exist among these so-called states, and further, how
such conceptions as spheres of influence and the like shall
be regarded, and, again, how far sovereignty can be di-
vided in states of various forms. Indeed, the question
may be seriously raised whether there is at the present day
with the close system of international relationships any sov-
ereign state and whether with an extreme definition of sov-
ereignty theorists will not soon be discussing a political
phenomenon which has no corresponding entity in fact.

With such political doctrines as the "concert of powers,"
"dominant influence," "Monroe Doctrine," "world confer-
ences," etc., will not new and wide modification of a theory
enunciated in the sixteenth century be necessary?

There are also numerous problems centering about sov-
ereignty as viewed from an internal as well as from the in-

* Wilson and Tucker, International Law, p. 40.

POLITICAL THEORY

ternational standpoint. Here the problems of federation,
confederation, colonies, protectorates and other subdi-
visions need merely to be mentioned as suggestive of fruit-
ful fields for discussion.

Again, such questions as the residence of sovereignty, the
divisibility of sovereignty, the nature of the legal sovereign,
and many others offer problems which are not yet fully
solved.

All definitions of the state recognize its political nature
and that it may exercise its authority in political affairs.
This does not, however, solve the ancient problem of the
limit to which the state may extend its authority. In an-
cient days, when the state was everything and man was
held to exist for the state, the problem was much more sim-
ple than in the days of pronounced individualism. The
problem of the limits of state interference has always been
a difficult one. The reaction against the medieval state
with its privileged classes left a strong prejudice against
state interference which the doctrines of individualism
strengthened. The problem is to establish the proper de-
gree of state regulation. As the state is political, its action
should be for public ends. The solution of the limits of in-
terference with and regulation of individual action can in
part be determined by theory as to what is individual and
what public; e. g., religion is now generally regarded as
personal and not subject to state regulation, while freedom
to worship is regarded as something to be secured by pub-
lic authority as conducive to public well-being. The state
exists for civic purposes. The individual considers his life
as his own to be lived in freedom. To determine at what
point the state authority may properly begin or cease is
easy in extreme instances. There is, however, c wide zone
in which this question is open to debate ; e. g., undoubtedly
the proper education of children is a moral duty resting

Digitized by Google

THE PROBLEMS OF

upon the parent, and to relieve the parent of this duty may
weaken him morally, yet the state in many instances edu-
cates the child and compels him to attend school even when
the parent may object. The question of the nature of the
interference aids in clearing the problem of interference of
some difficulties. If interference is classified, as with (a)
beliefs, (b) property, and (c) conduct, a general solution
of the problem can be more easily reached. Beliefs would
in general be individual. Property is a least protected by
the state, if not made possible by the state. Conduct may
be individual or may affect the state. With beliefs the state
would not interfere; over property the state must have
jurisdiction, and in regard to conduct the state itself must
judge.

The problem of how far the state may regulate conduct
is partly solved by reference to the existing body of law,
which gives to the state extreme rights, even to the power
of putting an end to a subject's existence in some instances.
This gives rise to the problems centering upon the right to
punish crime which has received much theoretical attention.
It is granted that certain acts should lead to the exercise of
counter acts by the person who suffers, by his family or
friends, by the community, or by some properly constituted
power. There might be danger both to the offended and
offender if the exercise of force was uncontrolled. The
right to exercise such force has therefore in most cases
been asserted to belong to the state. The problem of the
efficient and just exercise of force therefore appears.

What political weight should be given to a particular in-
dividual because of his possessions, status, capacities, etc.,
is a problem once thought to be solved, but again arising.

The problems centering about the varied ideas of liberty,
freedom, and equality have been greatly modified by the
influence of the theory of evolution. The problems form-

POLITICAL THEORY

erly having an individualistic basis are now calling for a
sociological solution.

Other such problems as rest upon the attempts to regu-
late power and responsibility in state agents, to create a
form of state control that shall be adapted to political needs,
and problems having practical ends in view demand theo-
retical consideration.

From the theoretical point of view all these problems
must be solved in the light of the solution of another prob-
lem to which all bear a relationship, viz. : the problem of
the end or ideal for which the state exists. Bluntschli 1
formulates as the proper direct end of the state, "the devel-
opment of the national capacities, the perfecting of the na-
tional life, and, finally, its completion, provided, of course,
that the process of moral and political development shall
not be opposed to the destiny of humanity." This is an ex-
cellent example of the influence of the time-spirit upon po-
litical theory. The development of the theory of national-
ity and the emphasis upon the embodiment of nationality
in state form was a mark of his time and is reflected in his
theory. Other theories as to the end of the state reflect the
influence of the times as well. Sometimes it is protection
of the individual, sometimes development of culture, some-
times perfection of liberty, and so through a long list of
special ends.

The solution of the problem of the end of the state will
depend upon the theory of the nature of the state. If the
state be regarded as an organism, the end will naturally be
found within itself. If the state be regarded as an organ-
ization, the problem of the end becomes open to broader
discussion. Is the state ever anything other than political ?
Can its acts ever be other than public acts ? Does the state
exist for other than political ends ? There are varying an-

* Theory of the State, p. 800.

Digitized by Google

THE PROBLEMS OF

swers to such questions, though the tendency is to answer
all in the negative. If answered in the negative, then a
step toward the setting forth of the end^of the state is
taken. Will not the end be in line of progressive public
well-being, as the state is an organization based upon the
will of human beings ?

Even if all these problems were set forth in proper form
and solved, if there is to be progress in human association
and organization, and such seems to be the destiny, the po-
litical theorist has the great problem which early confronted
Plato, the problem of formulating such political ideas and
ideals as shall cause mankind to aspire to the progressive
realization of the possibilities of human development.

NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

BY JAMES BRYCE

[Jam£8 Bstce, Member of the British Privy Council, M. P. for Aber-
deen, b. Belfast, May 10, 1838. B.A. Oxford University, 1862;
D.C.L. ibid. 1870; Hon. LL.D. Edinburgh, St. Andrew's and Glas-
gow Universities, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Uni-
versity of Toronto, University of Michigan; LittD. University of
Cambridge, Victoria University; Doctor of Political Science, Buda
Pesth University. Post-graduate of Oxford and Heidelberg. Bar-
rister-at-Law, Lincoln's Inn, 1868; Regius Professor of Civil Law,
Oxford, 1870-93; Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
1886; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Member of Cabi-
net in Mr. Gladstone's last Ministry, 1892*94. Ambassador to the
United States, representing Great Britain. Foreign member of
the Institute of France and Royal Academies of Turin, Brus-
sels, and Naples; Societa Roraana di Storia Patria; Correspond-
ing Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Royal Acad-
emy of Canada, and Literary Society of Iceland. Author of The
Holy Roman Empire; The American Commonwealth; Studies in
History and Jurisprudence; Impressions of South Africa; Studies
in Contemporary Biography; and many other works.]

The subject of national administration, on which I am
invited to address you, is one of wide scope as well as great
importance. It covers so large a field, it ramifies into so
many branches of inquiry, that all I can attempt in the lim-
ited time allotted is to sketch its outline and to indicate the
chief topics which would need to be discussed in detail were
a detailed discussion possible. It is a bird's eye survey of
the landscape rather than a description of its features that
I must proceed to attempt.

By national administration I understand the whole ac-
tion of the state in maintaining and defending itself and in
securing for its members, the citizens, what it undertakes to
do for them. It is that organization which the community
has created for the two great purposes of self-preservation
and of mutual benefit. Speaking more precisely, it has four
aims. The first is the defense of the community against

Digitized by Google

64 NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

external forces, i. e. t neighbor states or tribes, who were in
early times presumably enemies. The second is the defense
of the persons or bodies that govern the community against
internal forces that may assail it, i. e. t against rebellion.
The third is to provide for the members of the community
the things for the sake of which the state is primarily
formed, viz., order and the enforcement of civil rights, or,
in other words, peace and justice. The fourth is to extend
to members of the community various advantages which
they might conceivably provide for themselves, but which it
is supposed that the state through its servants can provide
more efficiently. I omit the provision of religion, because
many modern states leave it on one side and do not touch
on the administration of dependencies, because this is fre-
quently absent

Of these aims, the first three have always existed in every
community deserving to be called a state, and till quite re-
cent times they covered all the services an administration
was expected to render. Government existed for the sake
of defense or conquest — in rude time defense passes nat-
urally into conquest — and of order. In other words, the
work of a national administration might be summed up as
war and justice, and of these justice came second. But
within the last two centuries, and especially during the
nineteenth century, the last of the four grew apace, and
now in the more advanced countries, more than half of the
functionaries whom a national administration employs, as
well as a considerable part of the money it spends, go to
providing the citizens with things which in earlier times
they either did without or provided for themselves. Such,
for instance, are police, the transmission of letters and
other articles, internal communications by railway or tele-
graph, the instruction of the young, the health or safety of
persons engaged in various employments, the construction

Digitized by Google

A7<;/// //(>.v. /.u//:.v />ati /:.

Digitized by Google

NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 65

of works of real or supposed public utility, the develop-
ment of material resources (agriculture, forests, fisheries),
the supplying of information serviceable for commerce or
industry.

It is in this direction that new work is being undertaken
in so many ways and on a daily increasing scale. But in all
branches of administration there has been a prodigious ex-
tension of state action. It is not only that the progress of
civilization creates new wants and leads to new demands;
the old functions also have become more complicated with
the progress of science. Armies are larger; navies are
larger; both are incomparably more costly, because all the
processes of war are more elaborate. These two services
cost in England to-day nearly $300,000,000, as much as the
total expenditure of the national government was for all
purposes sixty years ago. At the siege of Port Arthur, Ja-
pan has probably already spent $5,000,000 in projectiles
discharged and ships destroyed, not to speak of the loss of
men. The whole tendency of recent years has been to
throw upon national administration more work, to require
from it more knowledge and skill, to intrust it with the ex-
penditure of more money, to make its efficiency more essen-
tial, since it is expected to help the nation in competition
with other nations, and to expose its members, the civil
servants of the state, to more frequent and stronger temp-
tations. This evident tendency to widen the sphere of na-
tional administration raises the question, What kinds of
work ought it to undertake, and from what ought it to ab-
stain ? Here we have a topic more than large enough for a
whole course of lectures, so I will indicate only the most
general considerations that apply to it. These considera-
tions are not the same for all countries. In some countries
the people are backward, ignorant, uninventive, and may
need more leading from their government than is needed in

66 NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

other countries. In some countries the standard of honor
and purity among officials may be comparatively low, and
it may, therefore, be unsafe to intrust to such officials the
disposal of large sums of money or the management of
costly enterprises. Apart, however, from these local
sources of difference, there are three general considerations
tending to dissuade a wide extension of such functions of a
government as are not essential to the defense and internal
order of a country. One is the danger of discouraging or
superseding individual enterprise. The greatness of a state
depends in the last resort on the vigor, the alertness, the
self-reliance of its citizens. To reduce their initiative, to
teach them to follow passively instead of leading and guid-
ing their administration, may be the worst service you can
do them. A second ground for caution is the risk of reduc-
ing the amount of care and forethought which people take
for their own interests. If you carry too far your efforts
to protect them either against physical harm or against self-
indulgence, or against fraud, evils which their own activity,
self-control, or prudence might avert, you may so discour-
age the habit of looking after their own interests as ulti-
mately to do more harm than you prevent Leading-
strings destroy the sense of individual responsibility.
Lastly, you may incur the danger of making the adminis-
tration too powerful a factor in the social and political life
of the country ; you may teach it to feel itself a master in-
stead of a servant; you may form the wholesome habit of
obedience to the law into the slavish habit of obedience to
the official. Did time permit one could illustrate these risks
from the examples of some modern countries, which have
been led, partly by an exaggerated conception of the all-
pervading grandeur of the state, partly by the natural tend-
ency of officials to grasp at more power, partly by an hon-
est wish to effect improvements with the utmost speed, to

Digitized by Google

NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 67

push far beyond the old limits the interference of public
authorities in fields formerly left to the individual. Doubt-
less there is one important argument on the other side to be
regarded. It does not follow that what government leaves
alone is left alone for the benefit of the individual citizen.
The monopolist — be he a man or a combination of men who
are rich, who are active, who are able, who are perhaps also
unscrupulous, though not necessarily unscrupulous, for we
must not allow the resentment which some combinations
have evoked to prejudice us against all those who try, pos-
sibly by fair means, to draw vast branches of business
within their grasp— is in the field ; and he may not only ex-
trude the individual, but may appropriate to himself im-
mense gains which the action of government might have se-
cured for the community. These are cases, therefore, in
which national administration may undertake work which
otherwise it would have declined, because in doing so it is
really protecting the interests of the individual as a business
man and a taxpayer, and preventing the growth of a power
which might reach dimensions dangerous to the commu-
nity as a whole. Nevertheless, it may safely be said that
the general presumption is in favor of leaving individuals
to do whatever it is not either necessary or, at least obvi-
ously, advantageous that the state should do for them.
State intervention can doubtless often be shown to be de-
sirable, even where it is not essential. But the burden of
proof lies on those who would introduce it, for natural laws
generally, though I repeat not always, work better than
human devices intended to modify them.

Before leaving this question let me note that I am speak-
ing primarily of national administration, not of public ad-
ministration generally. There are some kinds of work not
safe or suitable for the government of the state, which local
authorities may properly undertake. The objections above

68 NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

indicated need to be qualified when we apply them to local
elected bodies, through which the energy of the private
citizen may exert itself and which may check the domi-
nance either of private monopolists or of an organized
bureaucracy. In England, for instance, we are now ex-
perimenting in large extensions of the work of local mu-
nicipal and county councils, and we hope for good results.

Let us pass to consider what are the principles that
should determine the character of a national administra-
tion, and what are the conditions of its efficiency. I do
not enter into the question of its structure, nor into the
distribution of functions between it and the local authori-
ties of the country, for these matters depend largely on the
political constitution. They are different in a federation
like yours from what they are in a unitary country like
Great Britain ; they are different in free states and in ab-
solute monarchies. They are different in highly central-
ized countries like France from what they are in England.
Yet one point deserves to be noted: To be strong for
national purposes a government need not be centralized.
For all administrative purposes the United States supplies
an obvious example, and an administration which controls
all local affairs may not only reduce the habit of inde-
pendence among the people, but may also, if the country
is managed on a party system, become an engine of mis-
chief. The best scheme seems to be one which leaves to
local authorities, and preferably to elected local authori-
ties, all such functions as can safely be intrusted to them,
together with a limited power of taxation for local pur-
poses, while retaining some measure of control by the cen-
tral administration in case they overstep either the statu-
tory limits of their powers or the limit of a discretion ex-
ercisable in good faith, and in a spirit neither corrupt nor
oppressive. To fix the precise amount of control to be so

Digitized by Google

NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 69

reserved for the central administration is no easy task.
But it is not an impossible task, for in England, where it
has been tried, we find that comparatively few difficulties
arise in practice.

Passing on to principles which apply to administrative
systems in general, there are some points that may be taken
for granted. There must be a systematic organization of
the work in each department of administration ; there must
be proper regulation for promotion and for discipline
among the officials. But the question of providing for the
representatives of each great department in the political
scheme of the national government, whether in the private
council of an autocrat or in the cabinet of a constitutional
country, or in the ruling assembly, presents grave and in-
teresting problems.

It is essential that those who do the departmental work
of a country in all its main branches, such as collection
and expenditure of revenue, preservation of order, educa-
tion, carrying-out of various administrative statutes,
should be in close touch with the political organs of na-
tional life; and this in several ways. They must be re-
sponsive to public opinion ; they must be liable to have their
action criticised publicly and freely; they must have op-
portunities of defending their conduct when so criticised;
they must have means of suggesting changes in the law
' which their administrative experience shows to be neces-
sary, and of tending to the legislative power evidence and
arguments in support of their proposals. These are mat-
ters which an autocratic government can deal with readily
enough if it has the wisdom and public spirit to do so, for
there the executive which conducts the administration is
also the legislative authority which changes the law. The
weak point of such a government is the want of control by
public opinion. But in a popular government administra-

Digitized by Google

70 NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

tion and legislation may be quite disjoined. I will en-
deavor presently to show how in England and her colonies
provisions have been made for conjoining them which
have, on the whole, worked well and given satisfaction to
the people.

Now let us come to what is the most material thing, the
persons who compose the administration, *. e., the civil
service of the country.

Their first and highest merit is honesty, and the rules of
the service must be such as to help them to be honest by
removing temptation as far as possible from their path and
by keeping them under vigilant supervision. The second
requisite is capacity, that is to say, not merely general abil-
ity and diligence, but also such special knowledge and skill
as their particular line of duties requires. The increasing
specialization of all kinds of work, due to the progress of
science and the further division of labor in a civilized so-
ciety, makes this need. more urgent than formerly. It is,
however, still imperfectly recognized, except perhaps in
Germany, where persons entering official life receive an
elaborate special training.

In order to secure capable and diligent men, the civil
service must be made attractive; that is, it must offer ad-
vantages such as to draw into it persons who might expect
to obtain wealth or distinction in other occupations, as, for
instance, in the legal or medical or literary or engineering
professions, or in commercial business. How is this to be
done? Many things go to make people seek public em-
ployment. Nowhere, perhaps, is it so much sought as in
Greece, — a poor country offering few careers to a surplus
of educated and aspiring men ; yet those who know Greece
know that the attractiveness of the profession has not given
Greece an exceptionally efficient civil service. But, speak-
ing generally, the way to draw talent into state service is

Digitized by Google

NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 71

to make it perfectly open to all citizens, to make it perma-
nent, to pay it well, and to make it socially respected. Posts
ought to be filled by appointment or other than by election.
Election by the people is almost sure to be made on party
grounds, and party views are no guide to the finding of
a capable man whose business it will be to do official work
into which party views do not or ought not to enter. Elec-
tion by a legislative body, such as an assembly or a city
council, may give better opportunities than does a vote
at the polls for ascertaining the qualifications of a candi-
date ; but it is likely to be made for other reasons than the
candidate's fitness, — possibly party reasons, possibly the
wish to please a candidate's friends. The only way to fix
responsibility is to give the function of selection to a single
person and make it his interest as well as his duty to select
carefully and honestly. To secure even this is so difficult
that an examination either fixing a minimum level of
knowledge or awarding posts by open competition has been
found a valuable expedient.

The reasons for making the civil service a permanent
service are no less obvious. Unless a man is sure that he
will not be dismissed except for some fault, he will not
spend his time and money in getting a proper preparatory
training, and will not feel that sort of interest in his work
and loyalty to the nation as his employer which go so far
to make him do his work, well. If, moreover, the occu-
pants of the posts are frequently changed, the experience
they have acquired will be lost to the public and the new
appointee will be for a time less competent, because he will
have to learn his work. As respects payment, it ought to
be on a scale properly adjusted to the cost of living and
to the incomes made in other occupations requiring a simi-
lar amount of knowledge and skill, though, of course, the
scale may fairly be fixed somewhat lower in respect of the

Digitized by Google

72 NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

permanence of the employment as compared with the risks
which the professional or commercial man has to face. It
is a good plan to let part of the remuneration take the form
of a pension, which is practically deferred pay contingent
on good conduct. Where poverty forbids the public serv-
ant to live in a style corresponding to his social position, he
is more likely to yield to the temptation of supplementing
his salary in an illicit way. The social status of the civil
service does not indeed wholly depend on what the govern-
ment gives as payment. Much turns on the habits and
traditions of the people, though the amount of payment is
a considerable factor in making men seek that career. In
Germany, for instance, and in France official salaries are
lower in proportion to the cost of living and to the incomes
of professional and business men generally than are the
salaries of civil servants of the same class in England,
while their average ability is as good. It would seem that
employment is more sought after in the two former coun-
tries than in England because Frenchmen and Germans
have a relatively stronger sense of the grandeur of the state
and because state service carries a relatively higher social
standing.

Not less important is the principle, amply approved by
experience, that the servants of the state must be kept en-
tirely out of strife of political parties. Appointments ought -
not to be made on party grounds; promotion ought to be
made either by seniority or by merit; no political work
ought to be expected from officials, nor should they be suf- •
fered, even if they desire it, to join in political agitation.
It may, indeed, be doubted whether they and the country
would not benefit by their exclusion from the suffrage, but
no one who knows the temper of democracies will suggest
this as a practical measure. Rather may it be deemed
what is called a "counsel of perfection," for no nation

Digitized by Google

NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 73

seems to have adopted or to be in the least likely to adopt
it. The mode of promotion raises difficult questions. If
it is by seniority only, able men will be kept out of the
higher posts until perhaps the best working years of their
life are over, while dull men may happen to be at the top.
If seniority is disregarded, there will be many jealousies
and heart-burnings among the veterans who are passed
over, and imputations of favoritism will be made, possibly
often with reason, for it is so hard to say who are the men
most worthy of advancement that an unconscientious head
of an office may indulge his personal predilections or yield
to the pressure of his friends urging the claims of their
friends. An old Scotch official is reported to have said
that he always gave the posts to the best men, but he usu-
ally found that his relatives, belonging to the same vigor-
ous stock as that from which he came, were the men. I
can say from experience that the exercise of patronage is
one of the most difficult as well as the most disagreeable
parts of an administrative work. Whatever care one takes,
mistakes will occur, and for one friend you make three
enemies.

Between the political form of a government and the ex-
cellence of its administration there is no necessary connec-
tion. It used to be thought that despotisms were favorable
to efficiency, and doubtless such autocratic eighteenth-cen-
tury reforming monarchs as Frederick the Great did im-
prove the management of their state affairs. The example
of Rome supported this view: her provincial administra-
tion, bad under the Republic, improved immensely under
the earlier Empire, and it was indeed the strong and
skilled civil service that more than anything else enabled
the Eastern Empire so long to resist the foes that encom-
passed it on every side. But the least pure, and probably
one ot the least efficient, administrations in Europe, is that

Digitized by Google

74 NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

of Russia; Turkey is, of course, much worse, but then the
Turks are still a barbarous people. The civil service of
England under a polity practically democratic is better to-
day than it was under the oligarchial rule which lasted till
1832, and it may, along with that of France, claim to be
the best in Europe after the German, which is, probably,
the most efficient in the world.

It is, however, true that in popular governments the civil
service is exposed to some special dangers. There is a
danger that it may be used in the game of politics ; a dan-
ger that its members may try to secure their own ends by
bringing pressure to bear upon politicians. In Australia,
where the railways belong to the state governments, the
railway employees, forming in some places a considerable
proportion of the electors, gave so much trouble by their
efforts to obtain higher pay that they were at last taken
out of the local constituencies and given separate repre-
sentation. A difficulty of a quite different kind is that the
masses of the people, not realizing how much skill and
capacity are needed in officials holding the highest kinds
of posts, may be unwilling to pay adequate salaries. The
voter to whom $1000 (£200) a year seems vast wealth
does not see why he should pay one of his servants $10,000
(£2000). Yet a capable official may save the nation twice
that sum annually by his exceptional skill.

It may give some concrete vitality to these general ob-
servations if I illustrate them by a few references to the
administration of Great Britain, of which I know some-
thing practically, having been at one time at the head of
one of the largest public departments. In Britain, the na-
tional administration is practically a growth of the last
seventy years. Before the Reform Act of 1832 the only
public offices were the Treasury, the Foreign Office (the
names were not then the same), the departments of the

Digitized by Google

NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 75

Navy and Army. There was a Home Office and a Board
of Trade and Foreign Plantations, which pretended to look
after North America (not very successfully) and the West
Indies, but they had very few duties and a very small staff.
There was no India Office (though a germ of it existed
in the Board of Control), no Colonial Office (colonial work
went along with war), no Education Office, no Local Gov-
ernment Board, no Post-Office, no Board of Agriculture,
no Scottish Office. Yet this increase of the central de-
partments in England is not due to a suppression of local
authorities, for these are far more numerous and more im-
portant now than they were in 1832, and are more im-
portant than in any other of the large countries of Europe.
Each of the great departments is presided over by a lead-
ing politician ; the chief among these have seats in the
Cabinet. The civil service, which is under these chiefs,
has for a long time been a permanent service, the members
of which are not dismissed except for misconduct or in-
efficiency. A few of the highest posts are political, and
change with a change of government, but these are little
more than forty in number. Ambassadors are members of
the permanent service, and so are colonial governors,
though occasionally some person of special fitness is
brought in from outside. Every one is obliged to retire
not later than at sixty-five years of age and is then entitled
to a pension, which may, after forty years' service, be as
high as two-thirds of the salary which was being received
when the time for retirement came. Till 1855 posts were
filled by the patronage of the head of the office, which was
usually exercised either by favoritism or else to win or to
reward political support. In 1855 a strict entrance ex-
amination was instituted, and in 1870 the great majority
of the posts, higher as well as lower, were thrown open to
competition, an experiment that had already been made

76 NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

with the large and highly paid civil service of India. A
few posts at the top and the bottom still remain outside
the competitive system. The former, among which, of
course, were embassies and governorships, may, in some
cases, only with the sanction of the Treasury, be filled by
the appointment of an outsider ; and in this way good men
are occasionally brought in where the office may contain
no man specially qualified, while there are also occasional
jobs, which personal friendship or party affiliation have
prompted. The places at the bottom not awarded by ex-
amination are now not numerous and receive quite small
salaries; they are mostly petty appointments in the cus-
toms, needing nothing more than honesty and diligence.
Even those are a vexation to members of Parliament to
whom their constituents apply for recommendations, and
there is a general wish to take them altogether out of the
sphere of political patronage, as postmasterships recently
have been taken out. In one or two offices there still ex-
ists a system of what is called limited competition, t. e.,
the candidate must be nominated by the head of the de-
partment and a competitive examination is held to select
the best men from among the nominees. This prevails in

the F O . It is not hard to obtain a nomination,

and the nomination is deemed to afford some guarantee
that the candidate is in the position of a gentleman and may
be trusted not to betray or misuse whatever knowledge of
confidential matters he may obtain.

All the examinations are conducted by a body called
C. S. G., under regulations regarding subjects and marks
for excellence approved by the Treasury and published.
Complaints are sometimes made that an examination in
literary and scientific subjects does not prove a man's fit-
ness for practical life, and least of all for the work to which
in India a youth of twenty-six may be set, of governing

Digitized by Google

NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 77

hundreds of thousands of people. But the answer is that
neither does a system of political patronage secure fitness
in point of character, while it offers far less security for
intellectual competence. Accordingly, the competitive
system has taken root and is not likely to be abandoned.
It satisfies the popular desire for equality, and it has raised
the level of ability without lowering the level of integrity
in the civil service. The officers employed by local au-
thorities (such as city and county councils) are usually
also permanent, i. e., are not removed except for miscon-
duct or inefficiency. No executive officer is elected by the
people.

The British civil service is broadly divided, omitting
some minor details, into two sets of officials, who corres-
pond, roughly speaking, to that distinction which holds
its ground in England between those who are and who are
not what is conventionally called "gentlemen." The sec-
ond division clerks have duties of a more mechanical and
less responsible kind, which needs a less complete educa-
tion, and they receive salaries of from £70 ($350) to £300
($1500) a year, a very few going as high as £500 ($2500).
There are about three thousand in all, and the competi-
tion is keen and copious. The first division, higher class,
or men who have received a high education, usually at a
University, have salaries which, beginning at £200
($1000), rise in the first class of this division to £1000
($5000) by gradual increment. Some few of the great
posts have a salary of £1500 ($7500) or even £2000
($10,000). In the Indian colonial service the salaries are
generally higher and the length of service does not exceed,
except in very special cases, twenty-five years, after which
the official can retire at £1000 ($5000) a year pension.

Promotion in the lower grades of both divisions is by
seniority, but for important posts this is disregarded, and

Digitized by Google

78 NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

men may rise by merit. Where exceptional ability is
shown, a person may be raised from the second into the
first division.

Those who have had experience in the working of an
office generally wish that they had a freer hand in promo-
tion than our system allows. They would like not only
to secure quicker advancement to capable men, but also
more frequently to bring in from outside men of excep-
tional talent, and to be able to offer them exceptional
salaries. I have already indicated the dangers incident to
the giving this freedom to the head of a department. It
might be allowed to the best Ministers and the best perma-
nent heads of departments; they, of course, have more to
do with all promotions, save those to the highest places,
than the Minister has, for they know the staff much more
intimately. But it would be abused by all but the most
conscientious.

Three other topics need a passing mention. One is the
general control which the Treasury exercises over all the
departments, through its power of fixing salaries, through
the fact that it has to approve and present to Parliament
and defend in the House of Commons the estimates for the
expenses the departments incur in the public service, and
through the fact that in some cases statutes make its con-
sent necessary to certain acts of the other departments.
The Treasury is really the keystone of the British official
system, holding the various departments together; and I
remember how frequently it used to happen that when some
change in organization was desired, or when some new
kind of work was to be undertaken, one had to say to the
permanent head, "We must now see the Treasurer about
this. He can meet the objections they will probably raise."

A second point has already been adverted to. It is the
supervision of local authorities all over the country by

Digitized by Google

NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION 79

some of the central departments, and to some extent by
the Home Office, to a still larger extent by the Board of
Education and the Local Government Board. This last in
particular has received by various acts important functions
in watching, and if need be, arresting or controlling the
action of county and district councils and of city and bor-
ough councils. This control, however, is not arbitrary
and hardly even discretionary, for it chiefly consists in re-
quiring them to observe strictly the provisions of the stat-
ute law. Nor dare the local government board act in an
arbitrary way. The county councils are powerful bodies,
powerful socially as well as legally, for they contain many
men of high position and great influence. The borough
councils are also strong, and have great strength in the
House of Commons through their parliamentary repre-
sentatives. There is, therefore, little risk of encroach-
ment by the central government on the powers of these
local bodies.

A third topic has been already mentioned in passing,
viz., the relation between the civil service of the country
and the political organs of government, — the Cabinet and
Parliament. In Britain this relation is secured by the plan
which places a leading parliamentary politician, who is
necessarily also prominent in one of the two great parties,
at the head of each of the great departments, about twelve
in number. He, sitting in Parliament, speaks for the de-
partment to Parliament and to the nation. He is respon-
sible for everything the department does or omits to do.
He has to explain its policy, to defend its acts, to stand the
fire of parliamentary criticism. He may be every day pub-
licly questioned, and he is bound to answer, unless he can
say that the matter is confidential and that the interests of
the public service require him to keep silence. It is to him
that suggestions are made by members of Parliament and

Digitized by Google

80 NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

others regarding needed legislation or administrative ac-
tion. It is he who receives deputations complaining of
something done amiss, or asking that something should
be done. It is he who appoints royal commissions or de-
partmental committees to investigate and report on diffi-
cult problems. When his permanent departmental ad-
visers think that legislation on any topic is needed, it is he
• and his parliamentary under-secretary, if he has one, who ,
bring in the bill and argue for it in Parliament. So
through him the department obtains the means of extend-
ing the scope of, or improving, its own action, and thus of
better serving the country. Finally, as he is a member of
the Cabinet, he consults his colleagues on such departmental
questions as involve exceptionally large interests or have
a political bearing, obtains their sanction for any new de-
parture, and thus sees that the policy of the department is
in harmony with the general policy which the Cabinet is
following and which its supporters presumably approve.
Thus the harmonious working of the whole machinery is
insured and the department is kept in that close touch with
public opinion which is essential to the proper conduct of
affairs under a free constitution. It is a further advantage
that as the parliamentary opposition almost always contains
some person who has been head (or under-secretary) of
each department, there are always men in Parliament be-
sides the men actually in office who can bring practical ex-
perience to bear on departmental questions when they come
up. It is now our custom that a former head of a depart-
ment, though he is expected to watch and to attack (when
necessary) the action of his successor in office, helps his
successor to pass department bills which raise no contro-
versy over the principles on which the two parties are op-
posed. There are almost always friendly and often con-
fidential relations between the present Minister and the ex-

Digitized by Google

NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

Minister for each department, and the advantage of these
relations is so evident that the rank and file of the two
hostile parties, though seldom backward in their criticism
of what are called "the two front benches," take no serious
objection to the custom just described.

The English civil service impressed me, when I saw it
at close quarters, as being an efficient service. Twenty
years ago it had not quite as much first-class ability, either
at home or in India, that is, quite as large a proportion of
the available talent of the country as perhaps it ought. But
with the coming up of younger men admitted under the
competitive system, the level of capacity has been rising.
Many of the best men from the great universities now
enter it. It is, perhaps, still deficient in special training
for the scientific side of administrative work, but this de-
fect diminishes as better provision is made for instruction
in these subjects, a matter heretofore neglected in England.
It is not always abreast of new ideas and expedients, but one
can hardly expect a public service using public money to
be as bold and enterprising as private firms. It maintains
an extremely high level of purity, scandals being almost
unknown. It has a strong corporate public spirit and sense
of duty to its own reputation and to the country. It exerts
a great and, I think, a growing influence upon legislation
and upon the way in which legislation is carried out in
practice. This it does, not because the law allows a wide
stretch of power to officials, for in this respect England
resembles the United States, and gives no such free hand
as France and Germany do, but because each department
has formed its own settled habits and traditions, and im-
presses these traditions and its own views upon its parlia-
mentary head. That head is, no doubt, its absolute mas-
ter. But he is obliged by his want of special knowledge
to lean upon the experience and judgment of his staff, and

82 NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

he needs a keen mind and a firm will if he is to overrule
their counsels. The permanent officials usually serve him
loyally, whatever their private political views may be. The
trust he reposes in them and the credit they enjoy in the
country are due to the fact that a civil servant is under-
stood to have no politics and must not meddle with party
controversies, either by speaking at meetings or by writ-
ing in the press. It is against constitutional doctrine to
impute any blame or attribute any policy or any responsi-
bility to a member of the permanent civil service. Policy
and responsibility belong to the parliamentary head, be-
cause he has the power of controlling and, if necessary, of
dismissing, for serious fault, his subordinates.

In my own country of Scotland a sermon — and this ser-
mon would be for Scotland a short one — usually winds up
with what is called "The Application." If I am to append
an application to this discourse, in extenuation of the dry-
ness of which I must plead the overmastering necessity of
severe compression, the practical lesson to be enforced is
the following:

Every country which desires to be well administered
must keep two things vital. One is to keep its public
service pure. To keep it pure it ought, in these days of
increased temptation, to be well paid. If it is well paid, it
is sure to attract plenty of ability, and ability may be
trusted, under an honest and careful system of promotion,
to find its way to the top.

The other thing is to make appointments by merit and
promotions by seniority and merit combined. For this
purpose it must be kept out of politics. Let admission to
the public service and advancement in the public service be
altogether removed from the political pressure of legis-
lators and unaffected by the political opinions of candi-
dates. Forbid the civil servant to canvass or to speak or

Digitized by Google

NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

to write on any party political questions. Teach him to
regard himself as the servant of the whole nation, and not
of a party in the nation. You are no doubt debarring him
from one of the privileges of a citizen. But he has other
privileges which the ordinary citizen does not possess, and
his special powers carry with them special disabilities. He
must submit to the latter if he is to be trusted in the exer-
cise of the former.

The chief danger which seems to threaten political life
in our times is the growing power of wealth and the tend-
ency to abuse public authority and public office for the sake
of private gain. This was a gross evil from the despot-
isms and oligarchies of former days, and an evil from
which it was hoped that democratic government would de-
liver us. It has, however, reappeared under new forms,
and in many countries it threatens the honest and efficient
working both of the elective and of the administrative ma-
chinery of the nation.

The grander and the wider the part which administra-
tion plays in the highly developed modern state, attempting
a hundred new tasks and handling sums of money of un-
exampled magnitude, so much the more essential has it
become that the machinery of government should be
worked with a high-minded and single-minded devotion
to the interests of the whole people.

It is for the people themselves to secure this by showing
that keen and sympathetic watchfulness over administra-
tion which the founders of the American Republic nearly
three hundred years ago gave to those simple and homely
institutions, the product of long English centuries, out of
which the vast fabric of your present national government
has grown. The state is no doubt only a name for the
totality of the individuals who compose it. But it repre-
sents, or ought to represent, those individual citizens in

84 NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION

their highest aspect, in their most earnest hopes. It em-
bodies the hallowed traditions of their past. It looks for-
ward to an ever-widening collective effort after progress
in the future. A state wisely, purely, energetically ad-
ministered is not only itself the product of an enlightened
and upright people : it is a mighty factor in helping to cure
their faults, to cultivate their virtues, to bring them nearer
and nearer to their ideal of a happy and noble life.

Digitized by Google

THE PROPER GRADE OE DIPLOMATIC

REPRESENTATIVES

BY JOHN WATSON FOSTER

[John Watson Footer, Lawyer, Washington, D. C. b. Pike County,
Indiana. March 2, 1836. A.B., A.M. Indiana University. 1865;
LL.D. Wabash College, Princeton and Yale Universities. United
States Minister to Mexico, 1873-80; to Russia. 1880-81; to Spain.
1883-85 ; Special Ambassador to Russia, 1897 ; President of National
Arbitration Conference, 1904-05. Member of Washington Acad-
emy of Sciences; President of Washington Archeological Society,
etc. Author of various magazine articles and diplomatic sub-
jects; also many books ]

In the letter inviting me to speak on this occasion, I have
been requested to prepare a paper on present problems in

diplomacy.

Had I been asked to treat of present problems in inter-
national law, I would have found a wide field open for our
consideration. That branch of jurisprudence is a progress-
ive science. Old theories, such as mare clausum and the
three-mile ocean limit, are being discarded or modified by
the changing conditions of commerce and invention, and
new principles are sought to be introduced into the code of
nations. The question of the exemption of private property
from seizure on the high seas in time of war, advocated
more than a hundred years ago, is still under discussion and
likely at no distant day to be accepted by the nations. The
practice of blockade has undergone marked changes in the
past century, and the theory of peaceful blockade is under
present-day discussion. Modern warfare has created new
questions. It is requiring a revision of the contraband list
and a more accurate definition of the rights of neutral ports,
accepting more humane methods, and raising new topics, as
the use of mines on the high seas and the proper restrictions
as to wireless telegraphy.

Digitized by Google

86 DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES

But in diplomacy, strictly so-called, we find few topics of
present-day discussion. The one which I consider of most
importance is that to which I ask your attention — the proper
grade of diplomatic representatives.

International law is of modern origin and recent growth,
the attempt at its codification only dating to the seventeenth
century, and it scarcely came to be recognized as binding
upon nations before the nineteenth; but the practice of
sending and receiving ambassadors or diplomatic repre-
sentatives has existed among nations from the earliest re-
corded history. The ancient Egyptians are known to have
frequently observed the practice; early biblical history con-
tains references to the custom ; it was quite common among
the Greek states, and observed by Rome both during the
Republic and the Empire.

But in all these cases and during the early period of
modern European nations, embassies or missions were only
used on special or extraordinary occasions, and were of a
temporary character. Not until late in the fifteenth cen-
tury did the diplomatic service become permanent in its
character and the governments establish resident em-
bassies or missions. This stage of organized growth was
reached, however, a century and a half before Grotius be-
gan the task of giving shape and authority to international
law. Still, the rights and duties of diplomatic representa-
tives were at that period imperfectly defined. This is seen
in the accounts of the great congresses or conferences, fol-
lowing the long wars of the European powers — those of
Westphalia, Ryswick, and Utrecht; and the controversies
then developed over the rank or relative standing of the
respective ambassadors had a marked influence in fixing
more accurately their status, but not until the Congress of
Vienna in 1815 did the grade of the members of the diplo-
matic corps become authoritatively established.

Digitized by Google

THE PROPER GRADE OF

It is a matter of some interest or curiosity in this con-
nection to recall the fact that the question has been mooted,
both in Europe and America, whether, in the existing con-
ditions of the world, the diplomatic system is necessary and
its utility justifies its expense. It is claimed that with the
present development in steam communication, the rapid
transmission of intelligence by electricity, and the general
diffusion of news by the press, diplomatic negotiations
might readily be carried on directly between the foreign
offices of the various governments, that the interests of
citizens and subjects might be attended to by consuls, and
that on extraordinary occasions the business might be in-
trusted to special temporary missions. With many the
diplomatic service is regarded as a purely ornamental
branch of government and its maintenance a useless ex-
penditure of public money.

This subject was, some years ago, considered by a special
committee of the Parliament of Great Britain. Lord
Palmerston, the Prime Minister, and the best informed and
most experienced statesman of his day in international af-
fairs, was examined. John Bright put to him the ques-
tion, "Whether it would not be practicable to transact the
ordinary business by means of written communications be-
tween the two foreign offices, and when anything arose
requiring particular attention to have a special mission of
some member of the Cabinet ?" Lord Palmerston replied :
"I do not think it would;" and proceeded to give the reasons
for his belief.

Mr. Cobden propounded the following: "If you go back
two or three hundred years ago, when there were no news-
papers, when there was scarcely such a thing as international
postal communication, when affairs of state turned upon a
court intrigue, or the caprice of a mistress, or a Pope's Bull,
or a marriage, was it not a great deal more consequence at

Digitized by Google

88 DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES

that time to have ministers at foreign courts . . than it is
in these constitutional times, when affairs of state are dis-
cussed in the public newspapers and in the legislative assem-
blies? . . . Under these circumstances, are not the func-
tions of an ambassador less important now than they were
two or three hundred years ago ?"

Lord Palmerston replied : "I should humbly conceive that
they are more important on account of the very circum-
stances which have just been stated. ... I should think
that the change which has taken place with regard to the
transaction of public affairs in Europe tends to make diplo-
matic agents of more importance rather than of less import-
ance."

This question has been made more than once the subject
of inquiry by the Congress of the United States, and the
various Presidents and Secretaries of State have given their
opinion in favor of the utility and necessity of the service,
and the Congress has continued to authorize it. The con-
trolling judgment is well expressed in the language of Sec-
retary Frelinghuysen to Congress: "Diplomatic representa-
tion is a definite factor in the political economy of the world ;
and no better scheme has yet been devised for the dispatch
of international affairs, or for the preservation of friendly
relations between governments." President Harrison, after
his retirement from public life, left on record his view of it
as follows :

"The diplomatic service has sometimes been assailed in
Congress as a purely ornamental one ; and while the evident
necessity of maintaining the service is such as ought to save
it from the destructionists, it is quite true that our diplo-
matic relations with some of the powers are more cere-
monious than practical. But we must be equipped for emer-
gencies, and every now and then, even at the smallest and
most remote courts, there is a critical need of an American

. .... * . ...... ....

Digitized by Google

THE PROPER GRADE OF 89

representative to protect American citizens or American
interests."

The grade or rank of diplomatic representatives has been
the subject of discussion and fierce controversy from the
date of the first establishment of permanent missions, more
than four centuries ago, and although it was thought to have
been finally and definitely settled at the Congress of Vienna
in 1815, and that settlement was accepted and followed by
the United States, it has recently been a source of discussion
and embarrassment at Washington. To fully understand
the question, it will be proper to make some reference to this
controversy in the past.

A diplomatic envoy is the representative of his govern-
ment or sovereign, and his claim of rank is for his country
and not for himself; so that the controversy in the past has
been one of nations rather than of persons. During the
medieval period the struggle of the European nations for
preeminence in rank was the special feature of the era, and
it gave rise often to the most absurd pretensions. It was
sought to be maintained for various reasons, such as: The
title of the sovereign, the size of the dominions, the antiquity
of the royal family or date of independence of the country,
the nature of the government (whether monarchy or repub-
lic), the population, its achievements in arms, the date of
the conversion of the people to Christianity, and even the
services rendered to the Pope or the Church. Up to the
time of the Reformation, the Pope was universally recog-
nized in Christendom as having precedence over all sove-
reigns ; next in order was the Emperor of Germany, as suc-
cessor of the Roman Emperor, and below them a constant
strife existed among the nations. For a time the republics
were refused what were termed "royal honors," but finally
Venice, the United Netherlands, and Switzerland were ac-
corded recognition in the order of precedence here named,

Digitized by Google

00 DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES

The title of Emperor was sought to be made exclusive to
the old German Empire, and Russia was forced to wait
several generations after its ruler assumed that title before
being accorded recognition as such. Four centuries ago the
Pope of Rome, by virtue of his conceded preeminence and
ecclesiastical authority, sought to settle the vexed question
by issuing an order fixing the relative rank of the then exist-
ing nations of Christendom. It illustrates the intensity of
feeling which the question had aroused to state that, not-
withstanding the high papal authority of that date, this arbi-
trary settlement was not accepted and was only observed in
Rome, and even there merely for a brief period. It also
illustrates the evanescent character of the honor and the
changes of the governments of the world, to note that of the
score and a half of nations enumerated in the papal order,
only three (England, Spain, and Portugal) exist to-day
with the royal titles then accorded them. It is also curious
to note that in this table of precedence England stood eighth
in order and Russia does not appear in the list

A large part of the deliberations of the great congresses
of European nations, up to and even including the early
part of the last century, was taken up in settling the ques-
tion of precedence among the envoys or delegates. This
was notably so at the Conference of Westphalia. At the
Congress of Ryswick a warm debate occurred over the de-
mand of the ambassadors of the Emperor of Germany
that a particular space should be set apart for their
carriages, and that this should be the post of honor; a
fierce quarrel occurred over the allotment of rooms, and in
the conference-room a single table had been provided; but
no agreement could be reached as to the order of seating,
and so in that room they all stood, and another room was
provided in which there was no table, and the envoys sat in
a circle. At the Diet of Regensberg the precedence of the

Digitized by Google

THE PROPER GRADE OE 91

ambassadors was decided by an arithmetical rule by which
each had precedence over the rest twice in ten days. At
Utrecht a round table was used, but this lost its accommo-
dating qualities when it was discovered that the place of
honor was opposite the door of entrance, and that every
place of honor has a right and left. At this congress a
quarrel for precedence took place between the footmen of
the several ambassadors, in the account of which it is re-
corded that it "threatened to retard the peace of Christen-
dom." Addison gives an amusing account in the Spectator
of a discussion over it which he heard in one of the coffee-
houses of London, the result of which he sums up in these
words : "All I could learn at last from these honest gentle-
men was that the matter in debate was of too high a nature
for such heads as theirs, or mine, to comprehend." Macau-
lay, in his History of England, describes in his best vein the
Congress of Ryswick. which well illustrates these idle con-
troversies.

The contest of envoys to these international congresses of
the past have not been more animated and absurd than
those of the envoys to the several courts of Europe. Many
amusing and sometimes tragic incidents have been narrated
of the latter, from which I give some instances. It is re-
lated that the Spanish ambassador to England, in 1661, in
order to secure a place in the royal procession next to the
King and before his French colleague, attacked the latter's
coach in the streets of London, hamstrung his horses, and
killed his men, thus vindicating his country's greatness.
When the plenipotentiaries of France and Austria met to
settle the conditions of marriage between Louis XIV and
Maria Teresa, in order to preserve the full dignity of their
nations, they stepped together, with the right foot, side by
side, into a council chamber hung in corresponding halves
with their respective colors, and sat down at the same in-

92 DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES

stent, precisely opposite each other, at a square table, on
two mathematically equivalent armchairs. A story is told
of two newly arrived envoys from Italy and Germany, who,
being unable to agree on which should first present his cre-
dentials to the King of France, stipulated that whoever
reached Versailles the soonest on the day of their reception
should take precedence of the other. The Prussian went
the night before the audience and sat on a bench before
the palace until dawn. The Italian, arriving early in the
morning, saw the Prussian there before him and slipped sur-
reptitiously through the door of the King's bedroom and
commenced his salutation. The Prussian rushed after him,
pulled him back by the skirts, and commenced his harangue.
The memoirs of diplomatists and the histories of Europe are
full of the exalted and absurd contentions of envoys, but the
foregoing are sufficient to illustrate their extreme and often
farcical pretensions.

None of the monarchs of Europe was more insistent upon
his rank than the "Little Corporal*' when he made himself
Emperor of France. On inviting the Pope to attend his
coronation, it was stiplated that the same ceremonies
should be observed as at the coronation of the ancient Kings
of France ; but on the arrival of the Holy Father, the latter
was astonished to sec Napoleon take precedence over him,
as if there were no question about it. In 1808 he caused
the edition of the Almanack dc Gotha to be seized, because,
as was its custom, it arranged the reigning houses alpha-
betically and did not place Napoleon first.

The question of the precedence of nations extends into
the negotiations and framing of treaties. In former times
the more powerful or more ancient of nations claimed the
right to be first named in conventions and other diplomatic
instruments, and not until the nineteenth century has it been
vielded. As one of the younger nations, the experience of

Digitized by Google

THE PROPER GRADE OF 93

the United States illustrates the progress made toward
equality of treatment. In all of its treaties made in the
eighteenth century it was named last. France first recog-
nized with the United States in its treaty of 1803 (the
Louisiana Purchase) the practice of the alternat, that is, the
right of each chief of state to have his name and the name
of his plenipotentiary appear first in the original copy of the
treaty or other instrument which he retains. Great Britain
refused to concede this right to the United States in the
treaty of peace of 1814, and in anterior conventions, but,
upon the insistence of the latter, yielded it in the treaty of
1815 and thenceforward. It was first conceded by Spain in
the treaty of 1819. The Spanish negotiator in consenting
intimated that on signing he might deliver a protocol
against its use being made a precedent for the future ; where-
upon the stout John Quincy Adams informed him that the
United States would never make a treaty with Spain with-
out it.

The contest as to the rank of the states, which had been
waged for centuries, was sought to be settled at the Con-
gress of Vienna of 1815. A committee was appointed with
instructions to fix the principles which should regulate the
rank of reigning monarchs and all questions connected
therewith. The committee submitted a report to that end;
but after a long discussion, the powers abandoned the pro-
ject as one too difficult to realize, and confined their action to
prescribing the composition and rank of the diplomatic
corps only at their respective courts. But since that period,
by the practice of governments, it has come to be recognized
by them all that there can be no rank or precedence among
independent and sovereign nations, but that all must stand
on an equality in their negotiations. For instance, at the
Conference of Paris in 1856, one of the most important in
that century, the representatives sat at a round table in the

• ..

Digitized by Google

94 DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES

alphabetical order, in the French language, of their national
titles. In the Bering Sea Tribunal of Arbitration of 1893
the United States had precedence over Great Britain be-
cause of this order of arrangement. The same practice was
observed at The Hague Peace Commission of 1899. At
that conference it was expressly declared by the representa-
tives of the great powers of Europe, "Here there are no
great, no small powers; all are equal, in view of the task
to be accomplished."

The United States, when at its independence it entered
the family of nations, accepted the order prescribed by the
Congress of Vienna in 1815, which, with the addition made
in 1818, recognized the composition of the diplomatic corps
in four classes, to wit: ambassadors, ministers plenipoten-
tiary, ministers resident, and charges d'affaires, with rank
in the order named. For more than a century this country
sent abroad, as its highest diplomatic representatives those
of the second class, and this practice was observed up to a
recent date. But the ministers plenipotentiary of the
United States at the capitals of the great powers of Europe
where ambassadors were maintained, have repeatedly com-
plained that they were often humiliated and their usefulness
sometimes impaired by the lower rank which they were
assigned in the diplomatic corps, and this assertion gained
general currency and acceptance through the press. It is
true that ambassadors take precedence over ministers in the
order of reception and seating on public occasions, at enter-
tainments, and, at some European capitals, in order of their
admission to interviews at the foreign office. It certainly is
not agreeable to a minister of the great American Republic,
who arrives first at the foreign office, to be required to step
aside and give place to the representative of Turkey or
Spain and wait till the latter' s audience is concluded with the
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, simply because he bears the

Digitized by Google

THE PROPER GRADE OK 95

title of ambassador. Mr. Bancroft, the American minister
at Berlin, when subjected to this treatment protested against
it, and Prince Bismarck decided that the practice should not
be continued. Other American ministers who were made to
suffer inconvenience or humiliation from the custom might
possibly, by firm or considerate remonstrance, have obtained
relief. The remedy uniformly suggested has been to raise
the grade of representatives at the capitals named to that
of ambassador; but the successive secretaries of state de-
clined to make the recommendation to Congress. Such
was the action of Secretary Marcy in 1856. Secretary
Frelinghuysen said that the department could not, "in just-
ice to its ministers abroad, ask Congress to give them higher
rank with their present salaries ; neither could it with pro-
priety appeal to Congress for an allowance commensurate
with the necessary mode of life of an ambassador." When
in 1885, Mr. Phelps, the American minister to Great
Britain, urged that the mission be raised to an embassy,
Secretary Bayard replied: "The question of sending and
receiving ambassadors, under the existing authorization of
the Constitution and statutes, has on several occasions had
more or less formal consideration, but I cannot find that at
any time the benefits attending a higher grade of ceremonial
treatment have been deemed to outweigh the inconveniences
which, in our simple social democracy, might attend the re-
ception in this country of an extraordinarily foreign privi-
leged class."

Notwithstanding the reasons given by successive secreta-
ries of state against the creation of the grade of ambassador,
the Congress of the United States in 1803 did just what
Secretary Frelinghuysen said would be an injustice to
American ministers — authorize the grade without increas-
ing the pay of its representatives. The legislation to this
effect was inserted as a clause in one of the regular appro-

Digitized by Google

96 DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES

priation bills, and was passed through both chambers with-
out a word of discussion or comment. If its effect in chang-
ing a practice of the government for a hundred years had
been made known at the time, it is extremely doubtful
whether it would have secured the approval of the Congress.

An ambassador has been held in Europe to be the special
or personal representative of his sovereign, and to stand in
his place at the foreign court, with the right to claim audi-
ence at any time with the head of the state, and entitled to
privileges and honors not accorded to other envoys of
nations. This claim had some force when the monarch
could boast, "I am the state;" but with the establishment
of constitutional government and a responsible ministry, all
foundation for such a claim was removed, and it certainly
should have no place under a republican form of govern-
ment.

Events in Washington following the passage of the law
creating the grade of ambassador in the American diplo-
matic service have shown that Secretary Bayard was not
astray in his fears as to "the inconvenience which in our
simple social democracy might attend the reception in this
country of an extraordinarily foreign privileged class."
The reception of ambassadors from Great Britain, France,
Germany, Russia, and Italy, in reciprocity for the nomina-
tion of American ambassadors to those countries, was fol-
lowed by the scandalous scenes in the Senate Chamber on
the first inauguration day following their appointment,
when in the zeal of the subordinate officials to show special
honor to those newly created and exalted dignitaries, all
the other members of the diplomatic body were neglected
and left to find their way to their residences without an
opportunity to witness and honor the induction of the new
President into office; and, if the press reports are to be
credited, further trouble was occasioned by the question of

Digitized by Google

THE PROPER GRADE OF 97

the proper location of the ambassadors at the last inaugura-
tion. Then came the problem whether the Vice-President
of the United States should make the first call upon the
new ambassadors, and the further question whether the Sec-
retary of State, who stands second in succession to the
presidency, and on the death of the Vice-President first in
succession, should give place at entertainments and public
functions to those dignitaries. These momentous questions
were doubtless settled aright in the light of European pre-
cedents, and the good sense and prudence of the eminent
gentlemen who hold the ambassadorial rank have, it is prob-
able, prevented other embarrassing and foolish questions
from arising; but these events and those which attended the
advent of the Mexican ambassador, whose coming was re-
sented by the European ambassadors, as well as the recent
unpleasant incident at the White House, when the am-
bassadors collided with the Supreme Court, would have been
avoided if the Act of 1893 had not been passed. When
the act creating ambassadors was passed by Congress, the
government of the United States had grown to recognized
greatness and dignity in the eyes of European sovereigns,
its diplomatic service had in the past hundred years and
more won deserved honor and distinction, and it did not re-
quire the bauble of a title to give its envoy greater standing
or efficiency. I doubt very much whether the absence of
rank has ever prevented any really able minister of the
United States from rendering his country a needed service.

I have referred to the theory that ambassadors, because of
their supposed investiture of a special capacity to represent
their sovereign or head of their state, have the right to de-
mand an audience at any time with the chief of the nation
to which they are accredited, and that such right does not
pertain to diplomats of the next lower grade of ministers
plenipotentiary. It is a theory which has come down from

98 DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES

the medieval period, but in modern times has become pure
fiction. Vattel says of ambassadors that their "representa-
tion is in reality of the same nature as that of the envoy" or
minister plenipotentiary. Calvo, one of the highest living
authorities on international law, referring to the claim that
ambassadors "have a formal right of treating directly with
the sovereign, of which the others [ministers] are deprived,"
says: "This is a distinction without a meaning, especially
since the organization of modern nations no longer rests ex-
clusively upon the monarchical principle, and therefore ren-
ders it impossible for sovereigns personally to conduct inter-
national negotiations. ... In our eyes the agents of the
first two classes are exactly on the same line from the point
of view of their character as of their duties and powers."
Martens, the leading authority on diplomatic ceremonies
and practice, writes: "Considered from the point of view
of international law, all diplomatic agents, without regard
to their class, are equal. This equality is shown by their
all possessing, in a like degree, all diplomatic rights. . . .
Many writers have tried to infer from the rules of Vienna
that ambassadors, as representing the person of their sove-
reign, have, in distinction from other diplomatic agents, the
formal right of treating with the sovereign to whom they
are sent, and of being received in audience by him at any
time. We cannot admit this inference. As Prince Bis-
marck opportunely remarked, 'No ambassador has a right
to demand a personal interview with the sovereign/ The
constitutional government of West European monarchies
compels ambassadors to treat with the minister of foreign
affairs." Lawrence (T. J.), one of the latest authors on in-
ternational laws, says: "Ambassadors, as representing the
person and dignity of their sovereign, are held to possess a
right of having personal interviews, whenever they choose
to demand them, with the sovereign of the state to which

Digitized by Google

THE PROPER GRADE OF

they are accredited. But modern practice grants such inter-
views or suitable occasions to all representatives of foreign
powers, whatever may be their rank in the diplomatic
hierarchy. Moreover, the privilege can have no particular
value, because the verbal statements of a monarch are not
state acts. Formal and binding international negotiations
can be conducted only through the minister of foreign
affairs."

It has been seen that the increased expense of maintaining
an embassy was one of the reasons given by American secre-
taries of state against the creation of the grade of am-
bassador. The style of living or the establishment which a
diplomatic representative maintains has been given great
importance, especially in the European capitals. It is a
curious fact that in the early period after the establishment
of embassies or legations it was the practice for the gov-
ernment to which the ambassador was accredited to defray
his expenses. For instance, we have the record that the
Court of Vienna in 1679 appropriated a sum equal to $2000
per week to meet the expenses of the Russian embassy, and
of the Turkish embassy something over $1000. A century
later the Turkish embassy at the same court cost the latter
2000 rubles daily. The papal legate at Paris in 1625 cost
the King of France 2500 livres daily. The celebrated Lord
Macartney, British embassy to China, is said to have cost
the Chinese Government a sum equal to $850,000.

But in the course of time these splendid and extravagant
expenditures became both burdensome to the court which
furnished them and humiliating to the representatives of the
country receiving them, and it came to be the practice of
each government to defray the expenses of its own mission ;
but it was assumed that this should be done on a scale be-
fitting the dignity and standing of the nation, and govern-
ments are supposed to keep this standard in view in making

100 DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES

their appropriations for the diplomatic service. An envoy
who is sent abroad to represent his country ought not to be
expected to maintain a more expensive establishment than is
warranted by the salary paid him, and yet every American
ambassador accredited to the capitals of Europe, who in any
degree meets the expectations of his countrymen, spends
annually much more than he receives from the national
treasury.

But the government of the United States is not the only
one which fails to meet the expenses of its embassies. In
his testimony before the parliamentary committee from
which I have already made extracts, Lord Palmerston stated
that the salary of the British ambassador in Paris was not
sufficient to meet the outlay actually made by him ; and yet
the salary and allowances of the British ambassador are
more than three times as great as those received by the
American ambassador to that capital. I have been in-
formed on the best authority that when the post of British
ambassador in Paris became vacant a few years ago by the
retirement of Lord Dufferin, it was offered in succession to
three British statesmen of prominence, who declined the
honor on the ground that they could not afford the extra
expense that would necessarily have to be met from their
private purse.

This fact may suggest the inquiry whether the style of
living of ambassadors and the demands made upon them
have not exceeded the proper bounds, and whether there is
not some force in the argument used to justify Congress in
its course, that it is not becoming our democratic repre-
sentatives abroad to maintain such an ostentatious and ex-
travagant style of living. The change of the American
legations to embassies in the European capitals seems to
have called for the maintenance of large houses or palaces
and a much more lavish style of living, which have so great-

Digitized by Google

THE PROPER GRADE OF 101

ly increased their expenditures that only persons of wealth
can afford to accept these posts. It is a sad day for any
country, but more especially for a republic, when its highest
offices cease to be rewards of merit and fitness and when
they can only be filled by rich men.

Many incongruities and embarrassments result from the
continued adherence to the several grades or rank in the
diplomatic service established a century ago by the Congress
of Vienna. The great powers of Europe, the United
States, and Mexico send to other governments respectively
the four grades of diplomatic representatives, and even a
fifth grade has been added by some of them, who clothe
consular officers with diplomatic functions under the title of
"diplomatic agent," but no uniformity of action is observed.
France, for instance, accredits an ambassador to Switzer-
land, but ministers plenipotentiary are sent by the other
neighboring powers — Germany, Austria, and Italy. On the
other hand, France accredits only a minister plenipotentiary
to its neighbor, Belgium. Another illustration of irregu-
larity or inconsistency is found in the diplomatic body to the
independent government of Morocco. There are minis-
ters plenipotentiary from Germany, Great Britain, France,
Italy, and Spain, ministers resident from Austria and
Russia, charges d'affaires from Denmark, and the United
States is represented by a consul-general, who acts in a dip-
lomatic capacity, but in grade stands below all other powers.

Each government determines for itself the grade of rep-
resentative it will send to other countries, but the govern-
ment to which the representative is sent claims and exercises
the right of receiving or rejecting such person because of
grade. But reciprocity of grade is not always observed.
A representative of a lower grade is sometimes received
from a country to which one of a higher grade is sent.
The irregularity of rank is likely at any time to create dip-

Digitized by Google

102 DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES

lomatic embarrassments, as it already has in more than one
instance. We have seen that the reception at Washington
of an ambassador from Mexico was resented by the am-
bassadors of the European powers. As one of them re-
marked to me, they did not regard Mexico as sufficient in
population and importance to exercise the right of ambassa-
dorial appointment Suppose China, embracing more than
one fourth of the population of the earth, older by thou- '
sands of years than the oldest of the so-called great powers
of Europe, and possessing a high grade of civilization and
intellectual attainments, should accredit ambassadors to
those powers — upon what reasonable ground could they be
rejected ? And yet should they have an intimation that such
was the intention of that ancient empire, it is more than
probable that its foreign office would receive such repre-
sentations as would lead it to desist from its intention.

The most serious embarrassment resulting from this dif-
ference in grade of diplomatic representation is furnished
by the relations at present existing between the United
States and Turkey. For a number of years past these rela-
tions have been in a most unsatisfactory condition. In no
country of the Western world could the old fiction of the
ambassador as the personal representative of the sovereign
to-day approach so nearly a reality as in Turkey, as the
Sultan is more fully than any other monarch the personal
ruler of the state. All the great powers of Europe, and
even the Shah of Persia, are represented at Constantinople
by ambassadors, and they exercise the right of access to the
Sultan at will to discuss official matters. The American
ministers plenipotentiary have represented to their country
that it is very difficult to get any just and proper consider-
ation and dispatch of their business, because of the irre-
sponsible character of the Secretary for Foreign Affairs or
even of the Grand Vizier, as all important matters are de-

Digitized by Google

THE PROPER GRADE OK

103

termined by the Sultan; and that, as they do not possess
the ambassadorial character, they cannot without great diffi-
culty have audience with him to discuss official business.

To remedy this embarrassment, President McKinley
caused application to be made to the Turkish Government
for the appointment by the two governments respectively of
ambassadors; but the proposition was not accepted by
Turkey. The condition of the interests of American citi-
zens in that empire continuing to be very unsatisfactory,
President Roosevelt renewed the application for the appoint-
ment of ambassadors ; but it was again rejected. It cannot
well be understood in the United States why this application
should be refused, when ambassadors from much smaller
and less powerful countries, like Italy and Persia, are re-
ceived at Constantinople.

Last year a delegation of some of the most prominent
citizens of the United States, representing large property in-
terests in the Turkish Empire, made a visit to Washington
and laid before the President a memorial, setting forth that
American citizens and property in that empire were denied
the rights and protection which had been secured by the am-
bassadors of the great powers of Europe to their subjects
and property interests. The President, being impressed
with the justice of the memorial, caused a cable instruction
to be sent to the American minister in Constantinople,
directing him to ask for an audience of the Sultan in the
name of the President, to enable him to communicate a mes-
sage from the President to the Sultan on the subject of the
memorial. After a delay of some weeks an audience was
granted on the express condition that the minister should be
limited to delivering the message of the President, but that
he would not be permitted to discuss the subject with the
Sultan.

Even this decisive action of the President seems to have

104 DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATIVES

had no effect, as the American citizens continued to be de-
prived of the rights and privileges enjoyed by the subjects
of the great powers of Europe, and for a third time an ap-
plication has been made and rejected for the reception of an
American representative with the grade of ambassador.
The press has informed us that the American minister at
Constantinople, under renewed and urgent instructions from
Washington, pressed for a settlement of the question at
issue, but that he was greatly delayed and embarrassed by
the fact that the ministry have no real power to dispatch
any important public business, because the Sultan reserves to
himself that prerogative, and that, not being an ambassador,
he found great difficulty in reaching the Sultan. Mean-
while this important question remained undetermined, and
it became necessary to dispatch a formidable American fleet
to Turkish waters to evidence the President's interest in the
question, and the fleet was held in the Turkish port until
the demand of the United States was complied with. What
more striking argument can be presented against the mainte-
nance of the various grades in the diplomatic service?

There is no good reason why the representatives of the
smallest American republic or European principality should
have a different standing, for instance, at the foreign office
in London from that freely conceded to him in the Peace
Conference of the nations at The Hague; neither should it *
be expected that any government would be forced, because
of a mere grade in the diplomatic hierarchy, to maintain
a more lavish display at a foreign court than its principles -
or convenience would determine.

The remedy for the embarrassments arising from diplo-
matic rank is a simple one. In the reference I have made
to the foolish contests which were carried on for centuries
by the nations of Christendom, great and small, for preced-
ence, we have seen that only one solution of the problem

Digitized by Google

THE PROPER GRADE OF

105

could be found, and that was so simple we wonder now that
so fierce a warfare could have been possible, that is, recog-
nition of the equality of sovereign nations, so that to-day
the smallest republic of Central America is equal in nego-
tiations and at international conferences with the most
powerful empire of Europe. There will be no satisfactory
settlement of diplomatic rank until all dictinctions and
special privileges are abolished and a single grade is estab-
lished in all the capitals of the world.

Digitized by Google

THE CONTEMPORARY DEVELOPMENT OF

DIPLOMACY

BY DAVID JAYNB HILL

[David Jatns Hill, LL.D. b. Plainfleld, New Jersey, 1850. A. B.
Bucknell University, 1874; Graduate Student, Universities of Ber-
lin and Paris, and of Ecole Libre des Sciences Polltiques, Paris, in
1888 and in 1897; Honorary LL.D. Colgate University, 1884; Union
University, 1902; University of Pennsylvania, 1902. Professor of
Rhetoric, Bucknell University, 1877-80; President, ibid. 1880-88;
President of University of Rochester, N. Y., 1889-96; Assistant Sec-
retary of State of the United States, 1898-1903; Professor of
European Diplomacy, Columbian University, 1899-1903; Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States
to Switzerland, 1903-05; Envoy Extraordinary and Minister
Plenipotentiary to the Netherlands, 1905; United States Am-
bassador to Germany, 1908. Fellow of the Association for the
Advancement of Science; Member of American Academy of
Political and Social Science; Member of American Historical As-
sociation. Authob of various text-books of rhetoric, psychology,
and economics; Genetic Philosophy, 1893; International Justice
with a Plan for r .ts Organization, 1894; The Conception and
Realization of Neutrality, 1902; A History of Diplomacy in the
International Development of Europe, 1905.]

Among the great interests modern times, none is more
deserving of public attention than the transaction of inter-
national business. Every ship that discharges a cargo in
a foreign port, every telegraphic message from beyond the
sea, every exchange of commodities across a national
frontier, imparts to the world a deeper sense of its unity
and solidarity.

While private enterprise, seeking legitimate extension,
is thus becoming international, public functions are passing
through a significant process of development. Politically
and legally, the surface of the earth is held under the sov-
ereignty of independent governments, sometimes remote in
space from the territories over which they exercise control,
and all intent upon extending their power and importance.

107

Digitized by Google

108 CONTEMPORARY DIPLOMACY

At a moment when industry and commerce have become
most keenly aware of a world-wide interest, the political
system is most vigorously emphasizing the power of terri-
torial control. The situation thus created presents the
most intricate diplomatic problem of our time, — the recon-
ciliation of political conceptions originating in an age of
national isolation and general hostility with the rising tide
of human activity which is asserting, and will never cease
to assert, the rights of commercial intercourse.

I. The Classic Conception of Diplomacy

The fundamental doctrine of diplomacy is the absolute
sovereignty of the state. Raised by this theory above all
laws, each state exists for itself alone. Without distinc-
tion of governmental forms, empires, kingdoms, and re-
publics alike all pretend to possess those unqualified at-
tributes which ancient Roman theory accorded to a prac-
tically universal empire. When the great national mon-
archies rose out of the ruins of the ancient system, each
assumed the imperium which Rome had formerly exer-
cised, and subsequent constitutional transformations, while
profoundly modifying the state as regarded from within,
have never affected its sovereign pretensions. The exist-
ing international system, therefore, presents the contradic-
tion of merely territorial sovereignties claiming the pre-
rogatives of absolute power. The tardy recognition of
formal equality among them has, indeed, conceded some-
thing to the order of fact ; but this concession confronts us
with the anomaly of actually limited and theoretically co-
equal political entities, all assuming to possess supreme au-
thority.

The diplomacy based on this conception has been ren-
dered classic by gifted writers, who draw their inspiration

Digitized by Google

DEVELOPMENT OF

from these pretensions. Its patron saint is Machiavelli,
its consummate apostle, Talleyrand. Its maxims, crea-
tions of eighteenth century philosophy, — half imagination
and half metaphysics, — have been formulated by Ancillon
and Count de Garden. "Whoever can do us harm, wishes,
or will wish, to injure us. Whoever, by superiority of
force or geographic position, can injure us is our natural
enemy. Whoever is unable to harm us, but can, by the
extent of his power or the advantage of his position, in-
jure our neighbor, is our natural friend. These proposi-
tions, concludes Ancillon, "are the pivots upon which all
international intercourse turns.*'

The forces of a state are grouped by Count de Garden
under four rubrics: territorial, pecuniary, military, and
federative. A nation becomes strong by extending its
frontiers, augmenting its material wealth and credit, main-
taining a powerful military organization, and entering into
conventional arrangements with other powers for its own
exclusive advantage.

All this implies that national prosperity consists in ac-
quisition and expansion, unlimited in principle and meas-
ured only by the energies of the nation. It is egoism made
public, systematic, and absolute. Self-aggrandizement be-
ing the mainspring of national life, all our neighbors are
our natural enemies ; for they will take all that we do not
appropriate, and when they are able, will strip us of what
we already possess. The only means of preserving na-
tional existence is, therefore, to appropriate so much and
to possess it so securely that we may become irresistible.

The normal relation of human societies, according to
this conception, being one of permanent hostility, material
greatness is the one purpose of public action, and armed
force the only safeguard of existence. In this system, the
diplomatist has no other function than to exercise his per-

Digitized by Google

110 CONTEMPORARY DIPLOMACY

sonal cunning in securing the preponderance of his sov-
ereign master. Since the destruction of competitors is an
indirect method of increasing our own superiority, the aims
of diplomacy — according to this school of thought — are not
only to keep our own secrets, but to discover those of our
neighbors; not only to form favorable relations with other
powers, but to destroy those of our rivals ; not only to es-
tablish our own commerce, but to undermine and defeat
the commercial enterprises of others. Depth of knowledge,
rectitude of principle, elevation of character, and regard
for the common good may be personal adornments; but
they are not indispensable to a diplomatic agent, and may
even embarrass his success.

Let us admit that nations cannot exist without a primary
regard for their own interests ; that force is the final safe-
guard of justice in every form of human society ; and that
war may sometimes be necessary and even become a duty.
But is it true that suspicion and hostility, rather than mu-
tual confidence and friendship, are the natural basis of in-
ternational relations? Is it true that honor, justice, and
cooperation can produce a reign of prosperity and security
within the boundaries of particular states, but must ob-
stinately halt at the national frontiers and refuse to pass
beyond them?

It is time to treat the classic axioms of diplomacy as
economists have treated the fictions that so long separated
economic philosophy from the realm of fact The theory
of the physiocrats, that a nation can be prosperous only as
it develops agriculture; and the doctrine of the mercantile
school, that national prosperity consists in the accumula-
tion of precious metals, are both now seen to be without
foundation. Production is a vital process as manifold as
human wants and human faculties, and wealth a state of
satisfaction not capable of being measured in the terms of

Digitized by Google

DEVELOPMENT OF 111

one commodity. Modern thought has mu.tc it plain that
the deductive method has crippled and disfigured every
science which it has ever attempted to organize; for no
concrete being is the incarnation of a single principle, and
no living thing is incapable of transformation. The law
of evolution is as applicable to the forms and elements of
human society as it is to the natural world. The sociology
of nations presents no exception; and diplomacy needs to
be brought down from the realm of false abstractions and
unverified traditions, and made to grasp the full signifi-
cance of the facts and forces of contemporary progress.

Since the great classic masters of diplomatic science
formulated its theories, a profound transformation, half-
conscious but wholly inevitable, has taken place. Public
attention may accelerate this movement and public indif-
ference may retard it, but no conceivable influence can
wholly destroy its work. Since the era of absolutism —
which the French Revolution interrupted and the Congress
of Vienna attempted to restore — the constitutional move-
ment has placed charters of popular rights in the hands of
nearly all civilized peoples, and the work of national unifi-
cation has thrown new light on the moral nature of the
state. In place of chance aggregations of disparate ele-
ments, held together by arbitrary force, homogeneous na-
tions have come into the foreground of history to work out
their natural destinies. Within these states, law, order,
justice, and security have come to be respected. But the
crown and completion of the political system — the estab-
lishment of law, order, justice and security between na-
tions — still remains inchoate.

How are these great aggregations of humanity to be
brought under the laws of social well-being and progress?
Diplomacy must seek the answer from those historic forces
and those forms of human knowledge which have modified

Digitized by Google

112 CONTEMPORARY DIPLOMACY

and still continue to modify the conditions under which its
task is to be accomplished. In a general sense, the whole
onward movement of human knowledge and culture — in-
cluding the art of warfare, the means of transportation and
communication by steam and electricity, the influence of the
press, the diffusion of education and culture, the expansion
of the horizon of public interest by trade, travel, and the
prompt publicity of remote occurrences — has transformed ,
the organization of society. But we may, in particular,
better comprehend the task of modern diplomacy by con-
sidering some of its relations to history, jurisprudence,
ethics, economics, and education.

II. The Relation of Diplomacy to History

"History," as De Tocqueville has remarked, "is the
breviary of the diplomatist." It not only explains the na-
ture of his functions, but it is the record of his achieve-
ments. It recalls the former existence of a vast inter-
continental state,— comprising parts of Asia and Africa,
and nearly all of civilized Europe,— embracing a single
faith, governed by a single code of law, and comprising
nearly all that then existed of human civilization. It shows
how the political unity that held in the embrace of one
universal empire the Britain and the Numidian, the Span-
iard and the Assyrian, and for centuries made of the Medi-
terranean a Roman lake, realized a state that included a
great part of humanity. It explains how an organization
so complete and powerful was finally overwhelmed and
dismembered by a mistaken policy toward the despised bar-
barians who surrounded it. It reveals the psychological
and moral unity of Europe in that marvelous transforma-
tion of the barbarian kingdoms into another vast empire
founded on community of religious faith, the reunion of

Digitized by Google

DEVELOPMENT OF

113

free assemblies, and the organizing capacity of Charles the
Great. It proves the practical futility of the imperial con-
ception by the whole course of subsequent events. The in-
evitable dismemberment of the medieval empire into inde-
pendent kingdoms, the development of feudal society as a
means of local defense, the inadequacy of merely local gov-
ernment for the necessities of industrial and commercial
growth, the rise of the great monarchies as a means of
emancipation from feudal servitude, and the reconciliation
of local sovereignty and universal authority in the forma-
tion of modern states, are all consecutive links in a chain
of irrefutable argument by which the diplomatists vindi-
cates the indispensability of his science to the world.

It is an historical certainty that the permanent organiza-
tion of mankind must henceforth rest on the basis of inde-
pendent political communities. No one familiar with his-
tory can imagine the possibility of reestablishing a uni-
versal empire. No thinker permeated with the historical
spirit entertains a serious hope of a general federation of
sovereign states. Smaller political communities may, per-
haps, be gradually absorbed in the larger; but the great
powers give no promise to coalescence, and no indication
of uniting to form a permanent confederation. These
great masses of organized human energy may still modify
their frontiers, but they will continue for centuries to con-
front one another, as fixed and enduring on the surface of
the earth as the stars in the firmament

The task of the diplomatist is, therefore, neither a van-
ishing nor a declining enterprise. It is one which, on the
contrary, in the presence of the bristling array of terrific
instruments of destruction on sea and land, assumes an
ever-increasing solemnity and responsibility. The diplo-
matist should know the history of these great national en-
tities, and of their relations to one another, as a compe-

Digitized by Google

114 CONTEMPORARY DIPLOMACY
•

tent physician would wish to know the life-record of a
delicate or dangerous patient; for the present — in nature
and in life, individual and national — is but the epitome and
expression of the past. The future knows no other guide,
and it is from history that we are to gather the formulas
of present action.

In view of its importance, it is astonishing that no com-
plete history of diplomacy exists in any language. Such
a history would include not only an account of the rise and
progress of international intercourse, but an exposition of
the motives by which it has been inspired and the results
which it has accomplished. But even this statement does
not fully define the scope of such an undertaking; for an
intelligent comprehension of diplomacy must also include
a consideration of the genesis of the entire international
system, and of its progress through the successive stages
of its development. Thus regarded, it would be seen that
diplomacy — taken in its largest sense, and including the
foreign policy of nations — possesses the deepest qualities
of human interest; for the whole fabric of present inter-
national relations, embracing its laws, usages, privileges,
and obligations, is the result of past diplomatic activity.

If, therefore, the diplomatist is deeply indebted to the
historian and would gladly increase his indebtedness, his
guild is prepared to make a rich return in compensation.
It is from his archives that the most precious and trust-
worthy materials of history are to be derived. It is his
dispatches that explain the origin and causes of every war
and the terms and conditions of every peace. It is in the
correspondence and records of his government and in the
details of his letters, memoirs, and reminiscences that the
whole psychology of international policy must be sought.

A new type of history came into being when Von Ranke
in Germany and Mignet in France turned their attention

Digitized by Google

DEVELOPMENT OF

115

to unused diplomatic sources. For fifty years past, in-
numerable scholars have ransacked the archives of the
European governments, gathering a rich harvest of data
and documents relating to special questions; and thus, at
last, international events, studied from many angles of ob-
servation, as from a multitude of photographs, begin to as-
sume their just proportions. On some future day, when
the scientific historial has made full use of this authentic
material, a mirror will be held up to nature, in which not
only the diplomatist may perceive the lessons of past ne-
gotiations, but citizens of once opposing nationalities may
discern the true merits of great controversies, so easily dis-
torted by patriotic pride and popular tradition. Every
such revelation, by diminishing the role of passion and
prejudice, will narrow the chasm which separates peoples,
by enabling them to discover that in their most bitter con-
tentions there were two sides where they have been ac-
customed to see but one.

Passing over a multitude of instances, a single example
may serve to illustrate what remains to be accomplished in
the vast and fertile field of diplomatic history. Toward
the close of his reign, his Holiness, the late Pope Leo XIII,
opened to the use of historical scholars the secret Archives
of the Vatican. Thus, for the first time were presented
to the scrutiny of the historian the records and correspond-
ence of the most ancient international institution in the
world. The reports of the papal nuncios alone fill more
than four thousand volumes, divided into twenty-one
groups, according to the places from which they were writ-
ten. There are, besides, letters of importance covering
centuries of intercourse by kings, princes, cardinals, bish-
ops, and eminent individuals

The labor bestowed upon this rich collection of docu-
ments has already borne precious fruits, but a vast propor-

Digitized by Google

116 CONTEMPORARY DIPLOMACY

tion of its contents still remains to be explored. The Aus-
trian and Prussian Institutes have published a part of the
reports of the nuncios emanating from Germany, but the
great mass of these reports still remains untouched. The
French School at Rome has published many valuable docu-
ments found in the papal archives, including the registers
of several popes, and also a number of special studies, such
as the scholarly works of Deprez and Pelissier, which ex-
emplify what may yet be done for the history of diplomacy,
now, for the first time, rendered possible in the scientific
sense.

But even when made accessible in printed form, the con-
tents of diplomatic archives have little human interest until
they are placed in those relations which render them sig-
nificant to the public mind. No text-book of mathematics
is more dull and unattractive than a volume of treaties;
yet, when we enliven its dreary text by bringing upon the
scene the national interests involved, the deep, human senti-
ments affected, the exciting drama of negotiation, the
deadly struggle and ardent aspiration which its contents
represent; when we follow the conflict of which this dull
document forms the conclusion, and perceive in it a vic-
tory of peace and intelligence that swallows up and sym-
bolizes the victories of war ; when we see in it the triumph
of a just cause, the sepulchre of a false ambition, the ruin
of a hopeless system, or the consecration of a great prin-
ciple, we realize that nothing serves better to mark the
rising tide of human progress. But when a treaty of
peace becomes a yoke of servitude imposed by force upon
a prostrate people, defeated in a just cause, we learn how
infinitely far the triumphs of arms are removed from the
triumphs of reason ; and that the least certain path to equity
is that appeal to force which adds to the misfortune of in-
justice the calamity of defeat.

Digitized by Google

DEVELOPMENT OF 117

III. The Relation of Diplomacy to Jurisprudence

Trial by battle has long since been suppressed in all civ-
ilized communities, as essentially barbaric and irrational;
yet great nations continue to arm themselves for future
conflicts, and appeal to the God of battles to crown them
with victory. What is it, then, which justifies the use of
armed force by the state, while the forcible avenging of
private wrongs is condemned in the individual? What is
it that dignifies with the honorable name of "war" the con-
fiscation of property and the taking of human life by public
determination, when these are punished as "robbery" and
"homicide" if perpetrated by private persons?

Jurisprudence replies that the state is an association of
human beings organized for the attainment of common
ends, — among them public peace, justice, and security of
life and property, — acting in the interests of all, not for
the benefit of one or a few. Its laws are the necessary
antidote for anarchy, and its authority to make and enforce
them is derived from its "sovereignty."

It is precisely this conception of "sovereignty" that re-
veals the transformation of human thought with regard to
the organization and relations of the state. In the Roman
Republic, it signified simply "the majesty" of the Roman
people, but under the Empire it lost its connection with
the constituent elements of the state, and was translated
into "the will of the Emperor." In the revival of Roman
law that accompanied the formation of modern states, it
assumed the form of absolute monarchy, and accepted the
formula, "Whatever is pleasing to the Prince has the force
of law." In the philosophy of the revolutionary era, the
source of authority was sought in the people, but without
losing its absolute character. The doctrine of "popular
sovereignty," in its crude and unanalyzeri form, suggests

Digitized by Google

118 CONTEMPORARY DIPLOMACY

that whatever is pleasing to the majority has the force of
law, — an inference which might be used to justify any
enormity which a vicious or misguided multitude might
choose to perpetrate upon the few, or upon the rights of
foreign peoples.

Such a conception of the state would be as false as it is
inadequate, and no thoughtful and well instructed jurist i
would defend it. The essence and justification of the state
lie in the social purpose which it seeks to accomplish, as
defined in its constitution, for the bare and formless will
of a people cannot serve as its foundation. A state is not
a chance or arbitrary association of men bent on a preda-
tory expedition. Such a group of human beings would be
called a mob rather than a commonwealth. Nor can such
an aggregation of men rise to the dignity of a state by
mere organization and discipline, as a band of highwaymen
might be subordinated to the direction of a chief. A state
is brought into being by historic conditions which unite
men in a body politic for the purpose of self-regulation
and the realization of common ends of order, justice, and
security. The state, therefore, is a moral entity, in which
all private benefits are subordinated to public well-being.

It is only as a moral entity,— or, as it has even been
called, as a "moral person," — possessed of will, intelligence,
and determining principles, that a form of human society
can claim the attributes of a state. Otherwise, it is merely
a form of force, without prerogatives founded on juridical
conceptions. What, then, is "sovereignty," if not the pre-
rogative of a state to command its own constituents, to
make and enforce laws, to guard its own being and inde-
pendence from aggression, and to be recognized as a moral
entity?

Such is the modern juristic conception of the state, and
as such it holds its place in the family of nations. Is it, then,

Digitized by Google

DEVELOPMENT OF 119

a moral entity when seen from within, and devoid of all re-
lation to law and justice when regarded from without?
The qualities which support and justify its claim to "sov-
ereignty" within establish its place as a responsible agent
in all its intercourse with other bodies politic. To say that
the state exists solely for itself, and is subject to no law
or principle which it chooses to deny or disregard, is to
destroy at its root all civil authority whatever. The indi-
vidual does not voluntarily enter the state; he is placed in
it by an act of nature. By another act of nature, nations
of men exist side by side, forming separate political com-
munities. Whatever principle of natural right subordin-
ates the subject o? citizen to the legal jurisdiction of his
birth, coordinates coexisting sovereign states and creates
between them reciprocal rights and obligations.

Before the time of Gentilis and Grotius, the states of
Europe had as little regard for each other's rights as rival
bands of brigands; but these great jurists and their suc-
cessors, appealing to the intelligence of all nations, by dis-
closing the existence of universal principles inherent in
human nature, convinced mankind that even in a state of
war, laws are not wholly silent.

In his great work on The Laws of War and Peace, Gro-
tius, appealing to the universal rights of humanity, pointed
out that the state, existing for the realization of justice,
must apply just principles even in its use of force. A body
politic, refusing to be governed by rules of justice, thereby
forfeits its claim to sovereignty; for, in declining to per-
form its obligations, it destroys the only logical foundation
of its rights.

It is for the recognition of this universal juridical bond
between all nations that international jurists have labored
during the last three centuries. Natural law, the Chris-
tian religion, the jurisprudence of Rome, general custom,

Digitized by Google

120 CONTEMPORARY DIPLOMACY

common consent, and conventional agreement have all
been advanced as furnishing proper elements for the con-
struction of that international code which all jurists have
agreed does, or should, exist; and all these elements have
afforded contributions to that great body of principles and
usages which constitute the present system of international
law.

Vague and undetermined as this body of jurisprudence
is, no civilized nation denies its existence and its general
authority. On the contrary, most nations not only recog-
nize it, apply it, and appeal to it, but in some manner
formally adopt it as a part of their own municipal law.
The United States of America has not only done this, but
has by constitutional provision declared that treaties with
foreign powers constitute "the supreme law of the land;"
and has attempted, in a digest prepared at public expense
and by official direction, to define with minute exactness
the whole body of international law. Such a course, if
followed by all nations, would furnish the materials for
the ultimate formation of that formal international code
which jurists like Bluntschli and David Dudley Field have
endeavored to construct

What, then, is necessary to establish between nations the
observance of those principles of equity which are uni-
versally recognized in civilized communities? Interna-
tional law possesses no guaranty except the good faith of
nations and of their public men, and no penalty for open
violation except such as the injured party may be able to
inflict. In the society of nations, there is neither legis-
lature, nor judiciary, nor executive.

For this reason, one of the most important events of the
nineteenth century was the establishment of a permanent
international tribunal at The Hague. As in the case of
the Supreme Court of the United States, which to-day

Digitized by Google

DEVELOPMENT OF 121

regulates the most important controversies of forty-five
great commonwealths, its inauguration was greeted with
doubt and distrust ; and because it has not in the few years
of its existence proved a preventive of wars and a touch-
stone of universal peace and concord, it is still, perhaps,
regarded in some quarters as a mere chimera.

It is true that The Hague Tribunal at present appeals
to us by its possibilities rather than by its actual achieve-
ments, but its mere existence, composed of jurists among
the most distinguished in the world, is an immense gain
to civilization, and cannot fail to promote the pacific set-
tlement of international disputes. It adds to the dignity
of this tribunal that, by the munificence of a wise, gener-
ous, and cosmopolitan benefactor, a splendid palace of
justice is soon to be erected for its use, in a country whose
thrift, integrity, and place in history make it a fitting seat
of international mediation.

But the progress of this movement is not merely theo-
retical and material. One of the founders of The Hague
Court has initiated parliamentary action that is spreading
out into a network of treaties by which questions not af-
fecting national honor and independence are, henceforth,
to be referred to this tribunal. His Majesty the King of
England has been especially active in promoting these con-
ventions; and their Majesties the German Emperor, the
King of Italy, and the King of Spain, and his Excellency
the President of France, have united in concluding treaties
by which these great powers are setting the example to
smaller states of an appeal to law and justice as the normal
standard of public action.

While the age is fortunate in possessing among its rulers
and public men enlightened leaders who truly represent the
progress of thought and society, it would be visionary to
expect that, hereafter, rivalry or misunderstanding may not

Digitized by Google

122 CONTEMPORARY DIPLOMACY

again bring into violent collision the vast armaments which
continue to increase rather than diminish. The raison
d'ttat which has so often plunged nations into armed con-
flict still controls public policy ; and although there may be
a growing disposition to respect acquired rights, there are
still abundant opportunities for contention.

IV. The Relation of Diplomacy to Economics

The most potential source of peril to public peace and
international justice is, at present, the conflict of economic
interests. The irresistible increase of population, the de-
mand for territorial expansion, the development of the co-
lonial system, and the struggle for new spheres of influ-
ence, in the quest for raw materials and foreign markets,
create a situation fraught with danger.

It is to the science of economics that diplomacy must
turn for the means of averting this danger. Questions of
far-reaching consequence still remain unanswered. Is the
political control of territory necessary to the enjoyment of
its commercial advantages? Is it a profitable enterprise
to divide the world into purely national markets, thereby
excluding ourselves from the areas of trade held by other
nations? Is it more remunerative to acquire, control, and
defend colonial possessions than it would be to share their
advantages with others under the protection, wherever
necessary, of an international police? Is it not possible
to diminish the cost of modern navies by intrusting the de-
fense of commerce to an international marine governed by
an international code?

These questions are not addressed to any particular na-
tion, nor is it intended to answer them in any definite
sense; but simply to call attention to the problems that
press equally upon all, and to inquire if there is not a pa-

Digitized by Google

DEVELOPMENT OF

123

cific solution of them based on the principle of general wel-
fare.

The classic maxims of diplomacy forbid all cosmopolitan
benevolence and represent the hostility of national interests
as inherent, inevitable, and permanent; but those maxims,
if logically applied, would have prevented all political
progress founded on the sacrifice of private interests for
the public good. Every advance which the world has made
in civilization has resulted from the perception the mutual
advantage might be obtained by harmonizing conflicting
interests. The formation of the American Union, the uni-
fication of Italy, and the consolidation of the German Em-
pire are among the greatest achievements of modern his-
tory, and illustrate the prosperity that may be realized from
mutual concession for the common good. Out of strug-
gling colonies and rival principalities great states came into
being, blessed with unexampled prosperity, because their
constituent parts ceased to waste their energies in obstruct-
ing one another's welfare and joined their forces for mu-
tual benefit.

Beneath the surface of political phenomena flows a great
historical current which deserves the attention of thought-
ful men. The expansive instinct of humanity changes its
direction of action according to the obstacles it has to over-
come. In the era of political inequality, the general as-
piration was for liberty, which created in the eighteenth
century a struggle for national independence; but in the
constitutional era that followed, the larger human relations
were revealed, and in the nineteenth century was developed
the idea that modern nations are essentially interdependent.
The special task of the twentieth century will be to recon-
cile these two great conceptions, and to unite independent
states in bonds of peace, amity, and fruitful intercourse.

This, in the broadest sense, is a task of diplomacy, but

Digitized by Google

124 CONTEMPORARY DIPLOMACY

it is also a problem of economics ; and its most vital ener-
gies will be derived from economic considerations. At
present, the cost of national armaments has reached an
overwhelming height, and raises the practical questions:
How long will the wealth-producing population continue
in silence to support this burden? and, How long will the
wealth-producing population confide in the ability of gov-
ernments to meet their financial obligations?

Diplomacy would be untrue to its high vocation if it did
not direct public attention to this costly guardianship of
peace. It is true that it is not for aggressive warfare and
inconsiderate bloodshed that these millions are expended;
and that, so long as great nations continue to arm them-
selves, others must do likewise in self-defense; but the day
is coming when humanity, feeling its kinship of suffering
more keenly than its hereditary fears, will cry out in uni-
versal protest against a system which does violence to its
better instincts. No process of thought or of negotiation
will be too costly if it can open the door of exit from the
condition of mutual distrust that arrays great nations
against one another in constant apprehension of hostile in-
tentions. Next to national honor, which need never be
sacrificed, the one great interest of mankind is peace.

V. The Relation of Diplomacy to Ethics

But there is a deeper spring of human action than the
desire for material welfare, and the costly sacrifices of war
are its best witness. We must not, in the name of eco-
nomic selfishness, nor even of mistaken moral sentiment,
condemn the measures needful for national defense. A
morbid idealism has proclaimed the dogma that no war is
just, that bloodshed is never right, and that all exercise
of force is wrong. Such a doctrine owes its very possi-

Digitized by Google

DEVELOPMENT OF

125

bility to the protection of institutions that would not exist
for a single day if society had not the force and determina-
tion to destroy its enemies. There is no idea of "right"
except in opposition to that of "wrong," and because ex-
istence itself is an equilibrium of energies, force is the
necessary basis of society. It is in the awful heat of bat-
tle that the state has triumphed over anarchy and justice
established a throne upon the earth. In a world of min-
gled good and evil, there can be no perpetual peace.

Of this no one is more fully conscious than the diplo-
matist, whose negotiations would degenerate into empty
words if they were not supported by a material force cap-
able of vindicating disregarded rights. But certainly the
measure of force is in no sense the measure of international
rights and obligations, which exist independently of mili-
tary strength. The little states have the same right to
existence and to respect as the great powers ; for, as moral
entities, all civilized nations, pursuing a common end, have
an equal claim to ethical consideration.

It will be a great advance in education when our text-
books on ethics devote their concluding chapter to inter-
national morality, for no ethical system can be complete,
either in a public or a scientific sense, which does not in-
clude in the scope of its theory the moral functions of the
state and the ethics of international intercourse. When,
in the schools of all civilized countries, the young are
taught that moral obligation does not end with national
frontiers, that states are moral entities subject to the great
principles of ethics, and that treaties once freely accepted
are sacred; when national history has learned to be fair
and honest in its representation of other nations, a new
era of human development will be opened, and diplomacy
will enter upon a new period of efficiency.

The national conscience of every people cannot fail to

Digitized by Google

126 CONTEMPORARY DIPLOMACY

be touched by the mere recital of the decalogue which will
be written in that new Book of Genesis :

I am the God of truth and righteousness, and thou shalt
have no other gods before me ;

Thou shalt not steal ;

Thou shalt do no murder;

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's industries, nor his
foreign commerce, nor his colonial possessions, nor any-
thing that is thy neighbor's;

Thou shalt honor thy wise men and thy teachers of
righteousness, that thy name may be long in the land which
the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Who will venture to complete that august code of public
duty? Who, bravest of all, will dare to apply it in prac-
tice? Yet, who will be so bold as to deny its application
to the affairs of nations?

Diplomacy already reveals the influence of that growth
in public morality which is characteristic of our time. The
day has passed away forever when intelligent men would
accept Sir Henry Wotton's definition of an ambassador as
"a clever man sent abroad to lie for his country." Per-
manent diplomatic success cannot be based on falsehood;
and the highest attribute of a statesman is to discern just
and enduring relations, and build his policy upon them. A
venerable and experienced ambassador once confessed to
the writer that he had for months deceived himself and
seriously misled his government by assuming that a certain
minister of foreign affairs meant the opposite of what he
said. Afterward, with shame and humiliation, he was
obliged to confess his error.

VT. The Relation of Diplomacy to Education

The advance made since the middle of the last century
in the principles and methods of diplomacy are chiefly owing

Digitized by Google

DEVELOPMENT OE 127

to two causes, both of which are educational. The first
of these is the better preparation of men for the work of
establishing just and reasonable international relations.
In nearly all the countries of the world — except the United
States of America — candidates for the diplomatic service
are rigorously examined before they are received, not only
in international law and history, but in the laws, languages,
and constitutions of other countries, and especially in com-
mercial geography and the statistics of foreign trade. The
result is that the men who serve modern governments as
diplomatic representatives are coming to have, in general,
a knowledge of what is true, what is just, what is expe-
dient, and what is right in the relations and conduct of
foreign states. They constitute a valuable body of peace-
makers and public advisers, whose counsel is useful because
it is based on knowledge.

The second cause is the enlightenment of public opinion
by means of travel, the press, and the increased interest in
foreign trade. Even where the people do not participate
in affairs of state, they are beginning to regard with a new
solicitude the part their governments are taking in the
great field of international politics. Statesmen and diplo-
matists are, therefore, working in the presence of a public
interest more keen and intelligent than has ever before been
awakened in questions of foreign policy.

To train men for the diplomatic service and to create
and guide public opinion in the right way, through the
knowledge and influence of properly qualified journalists,
legislators, and other public officers, special schools, like
the Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques at Paris, have been
established in several countries, in which international sub-
jects are receiving increased attention, but no educational
enterprise of a truly international character has yet been
undertaken.

Digitized by Google

128 CONTEMPORARY DIPLOMACY

Here is a vast, fruitful, and wholly uncultivated field for
public benefaction. One can imagine a time when teachers
and students of different nationalities will meet at a com-
mon center, or pass from country to country to examine and
discuss, in a scientific spirit, questions which concern the
general welfare. If it is true that at the heart of every
controversy there is a right unsatisfied, it is equally true
that for every right intelligence can devise a mode of satis-
faction. It is not by force, or the menace of force, that
human differences are finally to be adjusted; it is by the
calm verdict of unruffled reason, pursuing an honest path
to an honest end.

Intelligent patriotism is as sensitive to national honor as
it is solicitous for national success, and good men every-
where wish for nothing so ardently as to be understood.
The sword has had its day of glory ; great states have come
into being; public order has fought its way to the seat of
power; and from the elevation of the throne and the parlia-
ment, men may at last reason together in tones that are
audible. True patriots will everywhere feel a new thrill of
pride and confidence in their rulers and leaders when they
behold in them the triumph of great principles of reason
and conscience ; for these are the elements that dignify our
human nature, lifting it above the passions of the moment,
and connecting it with the permanent interests of mankind.

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OF MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

BY JANE ADDA MS

[June Addaks, Head of Hull House Settlement, Chicago, b. Cedar-
▼ille, Illinois, September 6, 1860. B.A. Rockford College; LL.D.
University of Wisconsin. President of Hull House Association
since 1889. Authob of part of Philanthrophy and Social Pro-
gre«$; Democracy and Social Ethics.]

We are accustomed to say that the machinery of gov-
ernment incorporated in the charters of the early American
cities, as in the federal and state constitutions, was worked
out by men who were strongly under the influence of the
historians and doctrinaires of the eighteenth century. The
most significant representative of these men is Thomas Jef-
ferson, whose foresight and genius we are here to com-
memorate, and their most telling phrase is the familiar
opening that "all men are created free and equal."

We are only now, however, beginning to suspect that
the present admitted failure in municipal administration,
the so-called "shame of American cities," may be largely
due to the inadequacy of those eighteenth-century ideals,
with the breakdown of the machinery which they provided,
and, further, to the weakness inherent in the historic and
doctrinaire method when it attempts to deal with growing
and human institutions.

These men were the legitimate successors of the sev-
enteenth-century Puritans in their devotion to pure princi-
ple, but they had read poets and philosophers unknown to -
the Pilgrim fathers, and represented that first type of
humanitarian who loves the people without really knowing
them, which is by no means an impossible achievement.
"The love of those whom a man does not know is quite
as elemental a sentiment as the love of those whom a man

129

Digitized by Google

130 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

does know," but with this difference, that he expects the
people whom he does not know to forswear altogether the
right of going their own way, and to be convinced of the
beauty and value of his way.

Because their idealism was of the type that is afraid of
experience, these founders of our American cities refused
to look at the difficulties and blunders which a self-govern-
ing people was sure to encounter, and insisted that the
people would walk only in the paths of justice and right-
eousness. It was inevitable, therefore, that they should
have remained quite untouched by that worldly wisdom
which counsels us to know life as it is, and by that very
modern belief that, if the world is ever right at all, it must
go right in its own way.

A man of this generation easily discerns the crudeness
of that eighteenth-century conception of essentially unpro-
gressive human nature, in all the empty dignity of its "in-
born rights of man," because he has grown familiar with
a more passionate human creed, with the modern evolu-
tionary concqrtion of the slowly advancing race whose
rights are not "inalienable," but are hard won in the tragic
processes of civilization. Were self-government to be in-
augurated by the advanced men of the present moment, as
the founders were doubtless the advanced men of their
time, they would make the most careful research into those
early org?nizations of village communities, folkmotes, and
mirs, those primary cells of both social and political organi-
zation where the people knew no difference between the
two, but quite simply met to consider in common discus-
sion all that concerned their common life. They would in-
vestigate the craft guilds and artels, which combined gov-
ernment with daily occupation, as did the self-governing
university and free town. They would seek for the con-
nection between the liberty-loving medieval city and its
free creative architecture, that most social of all the arts.

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OF

131

But our eighteenth-century idealists, unconscious of the
compulsions of origins and of the fact that self-govern-
ment had an origin of its own, timidly took the English
law as their prototype, "whose very root is in the relation
between sovereign and subject, between lawmaker and those
whom the law restrains," and which has traditionally
concerned itself more with the guarding of prerogative
and with the rights of property than with the spontaneous
life of the people. They serenely incorporated laws and
survivals which registered the successful struggle of the
barons against the aggression of the sovereign, although
the new country lacked both nobles and kings. Misled by
the name of government, they founded their new cities by
an involuntary reference to a lower social state than that
which they actually saw about them. They depended upon
penalties, coercion, compulsion, and remnants of military
codes to hold the community together ; and it may be pos-
sible to trace much of the maladministration of our cities
to these survivals, to the fact that our early democracy
was a moral romanticism, rather than a well-grounded be-
lief in social capacity and in the efficiency of the popular
will.

It has further happened that, as the machinery, groan-
ing under the pressure of the new social demand put upon
it, has broken down from time to time, we have mended
it by giving more power to administrative officers, dis-
trusting still further the will of the people. We are willing
to cut off the dislocated part, or tighten the gearing, but
we are afraid to substitute a machine of newer invention
and greater capacity.

A little examination will easily show that, in spite of
the fine phrases of the founders, the government became
an entity by itself away from the daily life of the people;
not meant to be set off against them with power to oppress,

Digitized by Google

132 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

as in the case of the traditional European governments, but
simply because its machinery was so largely copied from
the historic governments which did distrust the people,
that it failed to provide the vehicle for a vital and genu-
inely organized expression of the popular will. The
founders carefully defined what was germane to govern-
ment and that which was quite outside its realm ; whereas
the very crux of local self-government, as has been well
said, is involved in the "right locally to determine the scope
of the local government," in response to the local needs as
they arise.

They were anxious to keep the strings in the hands of
the good and professedly public-spirited, because, having
staked so much upon the people, whom they really knew
so little, they became eager that they should appear well,
and should not be given enough power to enable them to
betray their weaknesses; as a kind lady may permit her-
self to give a tramp five cents, believing that, although he
may spend it for drink, he cannot get very drunk upon so
small a sum.

All might have gone well upon this doctrinaire plan, as
it still does in many country places, if there had not been
a phenomenally rapid growth in cities upon an entirely
changed basis. Multitudes of men were suddenly brought
together in response to the nineteenth-century concentra-
tion of industry and commerce — a purely impersonal tie;
whereas the eighteenth-century city attracted the country
people in response to the more normal and slowly formed
ties of domestic service, family affection, and apprentice-
ship. Added to this unprecedented growth from indus-
trial causes, we have in American cities multitudes of im-
migrants coming in successive migrations, often breaking
social ties which are as old as the human family, and re-
nouncing customs which may be traced to the habits of

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OK

133

primitive man. Both the country-bred and immigrant
city-dwellers would be ready to adapt themselves to a new
and vigorous civic life founded upon a synthesis of their
social needs, but the framers of our carefully prepared city
charters did not provide for this expanding demand at the
points of congestion. They did not foresee that after the
universal franchise has once been granted, social needs and
ideals are bound to enter in as legitimate objects of po-
litical action; while, on the other hand, the only people in
a democracy who can legitimately become the objects of
repressive government are those who are too underdevel-
oped to use the franchise, or those who have forfeited their
right to full citizenship. We have, therefore, a municipal
administration in America which is largely reduced to the
administration of restrictive measures. The people who
come most directly in contact with its executive officials,
who are the legitimate objects of its control, are the vicious,
who need to be repressed; the poor and semi-dependent,
who appeal to it in their dire need; or from quite the re-
verse reason, those who are trying to avoid an undue taxa-
tion, resenting the fact that they should be made to sup-
port that which, from the nature of the case, is too barren
to excite their real enthusiasm.

The instinctive protest against this mechanical method
of civic control, with the lack of adjustment between the
natural democratic impulse and the fixed external condi-
tion, inevitably produces the indifferent citizen and the so-
called "professional politician ;" the first who, because he is
not vicious, feels that the real processes of government do
not concern him, and wishes only to be let alone; and the
other who easily adapts himself to an illegal avoidance of
the external fixed conditions by assuming that those con-
ditions have been settled by doctrinaires who did not in the
least understand the people, while he, the politician, makes

Digitized by Google

134 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

his appeal beyond those to the real desires of the people
themselves. He is thus not only the "people's friend," but
their interpreter. It is interesting to note how often sim-
ple people refer to "them/* meaning the good and great
who govern but do not understand, and to "him," mean-
ing the alderman who represents them in these incompre-
hensible halls of state, as an ambassador to a foreign coun-
try to whose borders they could not possibly penetrate and
whose language they do not speak.

In addition to this difficulty, inherent in the difference
between the traditional and actual situation, is another,
which constantly arises on the purely administrative side.
The traditional governments which the founders had
copied, in proceeding to define the vicious by fixed stand-
ards from the good, and then to legislate against them, had
enforced these restrictive measures by trained officials,
usually with a military background. In a democracy, how-
ever, the officers intrusted with the enforcement of this re-
strictive legislation, if not actually elected by the people
themselves, are still the appointments of those thus elected,
and are therefore good-natured men who have made
friends by their kindness and social qualities.

The carrying-out of repressive legislation, the remnant
of a military state of society, is, in a democracy, at last put
into the hands of men who have attained office because of
political "pull," and the repressive measures must be en-
forced by those sympathizing with and belonging to the
people against whom the measures operate. This anom-
alous situation produces almost inevitably one result: that
the police authorities themselves are turned into allies of
vice and crime, as may be illustrated from almost any of
the large American cities, in the relation existing between
the police force and the gambling and other illicit life.
The officers are often flatly told that the enforcement of

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OF

135

an ordinance which the better element of the city has in-
sisted upon passing is impossible; that they are only ex-
pected to control the robbery and crime that so often asso-
ciate themselves with vice. As Mr. Wilcox has pointed
out in The American City, public sentiment itself assumes
a certain hypocrisy, and in the end we have "the abnormal
conditions which are created when vice is protected by the
authorities;" in the very worst cases there develops a sort
of municipal blackmail in which the administration itself
profits by the violation of law. The officer is thoroughly
confused by the human element in the situation, and his
very kindness and human understanding are that which
leads to his downfall.

There is no doubt that the reasonableness of keeping the
saloons in lower New York open on Sunday was apparent
to the policemen on the East Side force long before it
dawned upon the reform administration, and yet that the
policemen were allowed to connive at law-breaking was
the cause of their corruption and downfall.

In order to meet this situation, there is almost inevitably
developed a politician of the corrupt type so familiar in
American cities, who has become successful because he has
made friends with the vicious. The semi-criminal, who
are constantly brought in contact with administrative gov-
ernment, are naturally much interested in its operations,
and, having much at stake, as a matter of course attend
the primaries and all the other election processes which so
quickly bore the good citizen whose interest in them is a
self-imposed duty. To illustrate: It is a matter of much
moment to a gambler whether there is to be a "wide-open
town" or not; it means the success or failure of his busi-
ness; it involves not only the pleasure, but the livelihood,
of all his friends. He naturally attends to the election of
the alderman, and to the appointment and retention of the

Digitized by Google

136 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

policeman; he is found at the caucus "every time," and
would be much amused if he were praised for the perform-
ance of his civic duty. But because he and the others who
are concerned in semi-illicit business do attend the pri-
maries, the corrupt politician is nominated over and over
again.

As this type of politician is successful from his alliance
with crime, there also inevitably arises from time to time
a so-called reformer, who is shocked to discover this state
of affairs, this easy partnership between vice and adminis-
trative government. He dramatically uncovers the situa-
tion, and arouses great indignation against it on the part
of the good citizen. If this indignation is enough, he cre-
ates a political fervor which constitutes a claim upon public
gratitude. In portraying the evil he is fighting, he does
not recognize, or at least does not make clear, all the human
kindness upon which it has grown. In his speeches he in-
evitably offends a popular audience, who know that the
political evil exists in all degrees and forms of human weak-
ness, but who also know that these evils are by no means
always hideous. They resent his overdrawn pictures of
vice and of the life of the vicious ; their sense of fair play
and their deep-rooted desire for charity and justice are all
outraged.

If I may illustrate from a personal experience: Some -
years ago a famous New York reformer came to Chicago
to tell us of his phenomenal success and his trenchant
methods of dealing with the city "gambling-hells," as he
chose to call them. He proceeded to describe the criminals
of lower New York in terms and phrases which struck at
least one of his auditors as sheer blasphemy against our
common human nature. I thought of the criminals whom
I knew, of the gambler for whom each Saturday I regu-
larly collected his weekly wage of $24, keeping $18 for his

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OF 137

wife and children, and giving him $6 on Monday morning.
His despairing statement, "The thing is growing on me,
and I can never give it up," was the cry of a man who,
through much tribulation, had at least kept the loyal in-
tention. I recalled three girls who had come to me with
a paltry sum of money collected from the pawn and sale
of their tawdry finery, that one of their number might be
spared a death in the almhouse and have that wretched
comfort during the closing weeks of her outcast life. I
recalled the first murderer whom I had ever known, — a
young man who was singing his baby to sleep, and stopped
to lay it in its cradle before he rushed downstairs into his
father's saloon, to scatter the gang of boys who were
teasing the old man by giving him orders in English which
he could not understand, and refusing to pay for the drinks
which they had consumed, but technically had not ordered.

For one short moment I saw the situation from the point
of view of humbler people, who sin often through weak-
ness and passion, but seldom through hardness of heart;
and I felt that such sweeping condemnations and conclu-
sions as the speaker was pouring forth could never be ac-
counted for righteousness in a democratic community.

The policeman who makes terms with vice, and almost
inevitably slides into making gain from vice, merely repre-
sents the type of politician who is living off the weakness
of his fellows, as the overzealous reformer, who exagger-
ates vice until the public is scared and awestruck, repre-
sents the type of politician who is living off the timidity of
his fellows. With the lack of civic machinery for simple
democratic expression, for a direct dealing with human
nature as it is, we seem doomed to one type or the other —
corruptionists or anti-crime committees. And one sort or
the other we shall continue to have so long as we distrust
the very energy of existence, the craving for enjoyment,

Digitized by Google

138 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

the pushing of vital forces, the very right of every citizen
to be what he is, without pretense or assumption of vir-
tues which he does not really admire himself, but which
he imagines to have been set up as a standard somewhere
else by the virtuous whom he does not know. That old
Frankenstein, that ideal man of the eighteenth century, is
still haunting us, although he never existed save in the
brain of the doctrinaire.

This dramatic and feverish triumph of the self-seeker,
see-sawing with that of the interested reformer, does more
than anything else, perhaps, to keep the American citizen
away from the ideals of genuine evolutionary democracy.
Whereas repressive government, from the nature of the
case, has to do with the wicked, who are happily always in
a minority in the community, a normal government would
have to do with the great majority of the population in
their normal relations to each other.

After all, the daring of the so-called "slum politician,"
when he ventures his success upon an appeal to human sen-
timent and generosity, has something fine about it It
often results in an alliance of the popular politician with
the least desirable type of trade-unionist as the reformer
who stands for an honest business administration becomes
allied with the type of business man whose chief concern it
:s to guard his treasure and to prevent a rise in taxation.

May I use, in illustration of the last two statements, the
great strike in the Chicago Stock Yards, which occurred a
few weeks ago? The immediate object of the strike was
the protection of the wages of the unskilled men from a
cut of one cent per hour, although of course the unions of
skilled men felt that this first invasion of the wages, in-
creased through the efforts of the unions, would be but
the entering-wedge of an attempt to cut wages in all the
trades represented in the Stock Yards. Owing to the re-

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OK

139

fusal on the part of the unions to accept the arbitration
very tardily offered by the packers, and to their failure to
carry out the terms of the contract which they made ten
days later, the strike in its early stages completely lost the
sympathy of that large part of the public dominated by
ideals of business honor and fair dealing, and of that grow-
ing body of organized labor which is steadily advancing
in a regard for the validity of the contract and cherishing
the hope that in time the trades-unions may universally
attain an accredited business standing.

The leaders, after the first ten days, were therefore
forced to make the most of the purely human appeal which
lay in the situation itself, that thirty thousand men, includ-
ing the allied trades, were losing weeks of wages and sav-
ings, with a possible chance of the destruction of their
unions, on behalf of the unskilled, the newly arrived Poles
and Lithuanians who had not yet learned to look out for
themselves. Owing to the irregular and limited hours of
work — a condition quite like that prevailing on the London
Docks before the great strike of the dockers — the weekly
wage of these unskilled men was exceptionally low, and
the plea was based almost wholly upon the duty of the
strong to the weak. A chivalric call was issued that the
standard of life might be raised to that designated as
American, and that this mass of unskilled men might se-
cure an education for their children. Of course, no other
appeal could have been so strong as this purely human one,
which united for weeks thousands of men of a score
of nationalities into that solidarity which comes only
through a self-sacrificing devotion to an absorbing cause.

The strike involved much suffering and many unfore-
seen complications. At the end of eight weeks the union
leaders made the best terms possible, which, though the
skilled workers were guaranteed against reduction in wages,

Digitized by Google

140 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

made no provision for the unskilled, in whose behalf the
strike had been at first undertaken. Although the hard-
pressed union leaders were willing to make this concession,
the local politicians in the meanwhile had seen the great
value of the human sentiment, which bases its appeal on
the need of the "under dog," and which had successfully
united this mass of skilled men into a new comradeship
with those whom they had lately learned to call com-
patriots. It was infinitely more valuable than any merely
political cry, and the fact that the final terms of settlement
were submitted to a referendum vote at once gave the local
politicians a chance to avail themselves of this big, loosely
defined sympathy. They did this in so dramatic a manner
that they almost succeeded, solely upon that appeal, in
taking the strike out of the hands of the legitimate officers
and using it to further their own political ends.

The situation would have been a typical one, exemplify-
ing the real aim of popular government, with its concern
for primitive needs, forced to seek expression outside of
the organized channels of government, if the militia could
have been called in to support the situation, and thus have
placed government even more dramatically on the side of
the opposition. The comparative lack of violence on the
part of the striking workmen gave no chance for the bring-
ing in of the militia, much to the disappointment of the
politicians, who, of course, would have been glad to have
put the odium of this traditional opposition of government
to the wishes of the people, which has always been dramat-
ically embodied in the soldier, upon the political party
dominating the state but not the city. It would have given
the city politician an excellent opportunity to show the con-
cern of himself and his party for the real people, as over
against the attitude of the party dominating the state. But
because the militia were not called his scheme fell through,

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OF

141

and the legitimate strike leaders, who, although they passed
through much tribulation because of the political inter-
ference, did not eventually lose control.

The situation in the Chicago Stock Yards is an excellent
epitome of the fact that government so often finds itself,
not only in opposition to the expressed will of the people
making the demand at the moment, but apparently against
the best instincts of the mass of the citizens as a whole.

For years the city administrations, one after another,
have protected the money interests invested in the Stock
Yards, so that none of the sanitary ordinances have ever
been properly enforced, until the sickening stench and the
scum on the branch of the river known as "Bubbly Creek"
at times make that section of the city unendurable. The
smoke ordinances are openly ignored, nor did the city meat
inspector ever seriously interfere with business, as a recent
civil-service investigation has demonstrated, while the
water-steals for which the Stock Yards finally became no-
torious must have been more or less known to certain offi-
cials. But all of this merely corrupted a limited number
of inspectors, and although their corruption was complete
and involved the entire administration, it did not actually
touch large numbers of people. During the recent strike,
however, twelve hundred policemen were called upon to
patrol the yards inside and out — actual men possessed of
human sensibilities. There is no doubt that the police in-
spector of the district thoroughly represented the alliance
of the city hall and the business interests, and that he did
not mean to discover anything which was derogatory to
the packers, nor to embarrass them in any way during the
conduct of the strike. But these twelve hundred men
themselves were called upon to face a very peculiar situa-
tion because of the type of men and women who formed
the bulk of the strike-breakers, and because in the first

Digitized by Google

142 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

weeks of the strike these men and women were kept con-
stantly inside the yards during day and night. In order
to hold them there at all, discipline outside the working
hours was thoroughly relaxed, and the policemen in charge
of the yards, while there ostensibly to enforce law and
order, were obliged every night to connive at prize-fight-
ing, at open gambling, and at the most flagrant disregard
of decency. They were there, not to enforce law and order
as it defines itself in the minds of the bulk of healthy-
minded citizens, but only to keep the strikers from molest-
ing the non-union workers, which was certainly commend-
able, but, after all, only part of their real duty. They
were shocked by the law-breaking which they were ordered
to protect, and much drawn in sympathy to those whom
they were supposed to regard as public enemies.

An investigator who interviewed one hundred policemen
found only one who did not frankly extol the restraint of
the strikers as over against the laxity of the imported men.
This, of course, was an extreme case, brought about by the
unusual and peculiar type of the imported strike-breakers,
of which there is much trustworthy evidence, incorporated
in affidavits submitted to the mayor of Chicago.

It was hard for a patriot not to feel jealous of the trades-
unions and of the enthusiasm of those newly arrived citi-
zens. They poured out their gratitude and affection upon
this first big, friendly force which had offered them help
in their desperate struggle in a new world. This devotion,
this comradeship and fine esprit de corps, should have been
won by the government itself from these scared and un-
trained citizens. The union was that which had concerned
itself with real life, shelter, a chance to work, and bread
for their children. It had come to them in a language
they could understand, and through men with interests akin
to their own, and it gave them their first chance to express

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OF

143

themselves through a democratic vote, to register by a
ballot their real opinion upon a very important matter.

They used the referendum vote, the latest and perhaps
most clever device of democratic government, and yet they
were using it to decide a question which the government
presupposed to be quite outside its realm. When they left
the old country, the government of America held their
deepest hopes and represented that which they believed
would obtain for them an opportunity for that fullness of
life which had been denied them in the lands of oppressive
government.

It is a curious commentary on the fact that we have not
yet attained self-government, when the real and legitimate
objects of men's desires must still be incorporated in those
voluntary groups, for which the government, when it does
its best, can afford only protection from interference. As
the religious revivalist looks with longing upon the fervor
of a single-tax meeting, and as the orthodox Jew sees his
son staying away from Yom Kippur, but to pour all his
religious fervor, his precious zeal for righteousness which
has been gathered through the centuries, into the Socialist
Labor party, so a patriot finds himself exclaiming, like
Browning's Andrea del Sarto: "Ah, but what do they,
what do they, to please you more ?"

So timid are American cities in dealing with this per-
fectly reasonable subject of wages in its relation to munici-
pal employees that when they do prescribe a minimum
wage for city contract work, they allow it to fall into the
hands of the petty politician and to become part of a po-
litical game, making no effort to give it a dignified treat-
ment in relation to cost of living and to margin of leisure.
In this the English cities have anticipated us, both as to
time and legitimate procedure. Have Americans formed
a sort of "imperialism of virtue," holding on to the pre-

Digitized by Google

144 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

conceived ideas of self-government, and insisting that they
must fit all the people who come to our shores, even al-
though we crush the most promising bits of self-govern-
ment and self-expression in the process? Is the Americans
attitude toward self-government like that of his British
cousin toward Anglo-Saxon civilization, save that he goes
forth to rule all the nations of the earth by one pattern
whether it fits or not, while we sit at home and bid them
to rule themselves by one set pattern? — both of us many
times ruining the most precious experiments which em-
body ages of travail and experience.

In the midst of the city, which at moments seems to
stand only for the triumph of the strongest, the successful
exploitation of the weak, the ruthlessness and hidden crime
which follow in the wake of the struggle for mere exist-
ence on its lowest terms, there come daily accretions of
simple people, who carry in their hearts the desire for mere
goodness, who regularly deplete their scanty livelihood in
response to a primitive pity, and who, independently of the
religious which they have professed, of the wrongs which
they have suffered, or of the fixed morality which they
have been taught, have an unquenchable desire that charity
and simple justice shall regulate men's relations.

The disinterestedness, although as yet an intangible
ideal, is taking hold of men's hopes and imaginations in
every direction. Even now we only dimly comprehend
the strength and irresistible power of those "universal and
imperious ideals which are formed in the depths of anony-
mous life," and which the people insist shall come to real-
ization, not because they have been tested by logic or his-
tory, but because the mass of men are eager that they
should be tried, should be made a living experience in time
and in reality.

In this country it seems to be only the politician at the

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OF

145

bottom, the man nearest the people, who understands this.
He often plays upon it and betrays it, but at least he knows
it is there.

This is perhaps easily explained, for, after all, the man
in this century who realizes human equality is not he who
repeats the formula of the eighteenth century, but he who
has learned, if I may quote again from Mr. Wilcox, that
the "idea of equality is an outgrowth of man's primary
relations in nature. Birth, growth, nutrition, reproduc-
tion, death, are the great levelers that remind us of the
essential equality of human life. It is with the guaranty
of ideal opportunities to play our parts well in these pri-
mary processes that government is actually concerned,"
and not merely in the repression of the vicious nor in
guarding the rights of property. There is no doubt that
the rapid growth of the Socialist party in all crowded cen-
ters is largely due to their recognition of those primary
needs and experiences which the well-established govern-
ments so stupidly ignore, and also to the fact that they are
preaching industrial government to an industrial age which
recognizes it as vital and adapted to its needs. AH of that
devotion, all of that speculative philosophy concerning the
real issues of life could, of course, easily be turned into a
passion for self-government and the development of the
national life, if we were really democratic from the modern
evolutionary standpoint, and did we but hold our town
meetings upon topics that most concern us.

In point of fact, government ignores industrial questions
as the traditional ostrich hides his head in the sand, for no
great strike is without its political significance, nor without
the attempt of political interference, quite as none of the
mammoth business combinations of manufacturers or dis-
tributors are without their lobbyists in the city council, un-
less they are fortunate enough to own aldermen outright

146 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

It is merely a question as to whether industry in relation to
government is to be discussed as a matter of popular in-
terest and concern at the moment when that relation might
be modified and controlled, or whether we prefer to wait
a decade and to read about it later in the magazines, horri-
fied that such interference of business with government
should have taken place.

Again we see the doctrinaire of the eighteenth century
preferring to hold to his theory of government and ignoring
the facts, as over against the open-minded scientist of the
present day who would scorn to ignore facts because they
might disturb his theory.

The two points at which government is developing most
rapidly at the present moment are naturally the two in
which it genuinely exercises its function, — in relation to
the vicious and in relation to the poor and dependent.

The juvenile courts which the large cities are inaugur-
ating are supplied with probation officers, whose duty it is
to encourage the wavering virtues of the wayward boy, and
to keep him out of the police courts with their consequent
penal institutions, — a real recognition of social obligation.
In one of the most successful of these courts, that of Den-
ver, the judge, who can point to a remarkable record with
the bad boys of the city, plays a veritable game with them
against the police force, he and the boys undertaking to be
"good" without the help of repression, and in spite of the
machinations of the police. For instance, if the boys who
have been sentenced to the State Reform School at Golden
deliver themselves without the aid of the sheriff, whose
duty it is to take them there, they not only vindicate their
manliness and readiness "to take their medicine," but they
beat the sheriff, who belongs to the penal machinery, out
of his five-dollar fee, over which fact they openly triumph.
A simple example, perhaps, but significant of the attitude
of the well-intentioned toward repression government.

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OF

147

As the juvenile courts are beginning to take an interest
in the social life of the child, in order to prevent arrest, on
the same principle the reform schools are inaugurating the
most advanced education in agriculture and manual arts.
A bewildered foreign parent comes from time to time to
Hull House, asking that his boy be sent to a school to learn
farming, basing his request upon the fact that his neigh-
bor's boy has been sent to "a nice green country place."
It is carefully explained that the neighbor's boy was bad,
and was arrested and sent away because of his badness,
and it is quite possible sometimes to make clear to the man
that the city assumes that he is looking out for himself
and taking care of his own boy ; but it ought to be further
possible to make him see that, if he feels that his son needs
the education of a farm school, it lies with him to agitate
the subject and to vote for the candidate who will secure
such schools. He might well look amazed, were this ad-
vice tendered him, for these questions have never been pre-
sented to him to vote upon. Because he does not easily
discuss the tariff, or other remote subjects, which the po-
litical parties present to him from time to time, we assume
that he is not to be trusted to vote on the education of his
child ; and in Chicago, at least, the school board is not elect-
ive. The ancestors of this same immigrant, from the days
of bows and arrows, doubtless taught their children those
activities which seemed valuable to them.

Again, we build enormous city hospitals and almshouses
for the defective and dependent, but for that great mass of
people just beyond the line from which they are constantly •
recruited we do practically nothing. We are afraid of the
notion of governmental function which would minister to
the primitive needs of the mass of people, although we are
quite ready to care for him whom misfortune or disease
has made the exception. It is really the rank and file, the

148 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

average citizen, who is ignored by government, while he
works out his real problems through other agencies, and is
scolded for staying at home on election day.

It is comparatively easy to understand the punitive point
of view, which seeks to suppress, or the philanthropic,
which seeks to palliate; but it is much more difficult to
formulate that city government which is adapted to our
present normal living. As over against the survival of
the first two, excellent and necessary as they are, we have
the many municipal activities of which Mr. Shaw has told
us, but we have attained them surreptitiously, as it were,
by means of appointed commissions, through boards of
health endowed with exceptional powers, or through the
energy of a mayor who has pushed his executive function
beyond the charter limit. The people themselves have not
voted on these measures, and they have lost both the educa-
tion and the nourishing of the democratic ideal, which their
free discussion would have secured and to which they were
more entitled than to the benefits themselves.

In the department of social economy in this Exposition
is an enormous copy of Charles Booth's monumental survey
of the standard of living for the people of London. From
his accompanying twelve volumes may be deduced the oc-
cupations of the people, with their real wages, their family
budget, their culture-level, and to a certain extent their
recreations and spiritual life. If one gives one's self over
to a moment of musing on this mass of information, so
huge and so accurate, one is almost instinctively aware that
any radical changes, so much needed in the blackest and
the bluest districts, must largely come from forces outside
the life of the people: enlarged mental life from the edu-
cationalist, increased wages from the business interests, al-
leviation of suffering from the philanthropists. What ve-
hicle of correction is provided for the people themselves?

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OF

149

What broad basis has been laid for modification of their
most genuine and pressing needs through their own initia-
tive? What device has been invented for conserving, in
the interests of the nation, that kindliness and mutual aid
which is the marvel of all charity workers who know the
^ poor? So conservative an economist as Marshall has
pointed out that, in the fear of crushing "individual initia-
tive," we every year allow to go to waste untold capacity,
talent, and even genius, among the children of the poor,
whose parents are unable to shelter them from premature
labor; or among the adults, whose vital force is exhausted
long before the allotted span of life. We distrust the in-
stinct to shelter and care for them, although it is as old
and as much at the foundation of human progress as is
individual initiative itself.

The traditional government of East London expresses
its activity in keeping the streets clean, and the district
lighted and policed. It is only during the last quarter of
the century that the London County Council has erected
decent houses, public baths, and many other devices for
the purer social life of the people; while American cities
have gone no farther, although they presumably started at
workingmen's representation a hundred years ago, so com-
pletely were the founders misled by the name of govern-
ment, and the temptation to substitute the form of political
democracy for real self-government, dealing with advanc-
ing social ideals. Even now London has twenty-eight
borough councils in addition to the London County Coun-
cil itself, and fifteen hundred direct representatives of the
people, as over against seventy in Chicago, with a popula-
tion one-half as large. Paris has twenty mayors with cor-
responding machinery for local government, as over
against New York's concentration in one huge city hall, too
often corrupt.

Digitized by Google

150 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

In Germany, as the municipal and social-economic ex-
hibits of this Exposition so magnificently show, the gov-
ernment has come to concern itself with the primitive es-
sential needs of its working-people. In their behalf the
government has forced industry, in the person of the large
manufacturers, to make an alliance with it, and they are
taxed for accident insurance of working-men, for old-age
pensions, and for sick benefits; indeed, a project is being
formed in which they shall bear the large share of insur-
ance against non-employment, when it has been made clear
that non-employment is the result of financial crisis brought
about through the maladministration of finance. And yet
industry in Germany has flourished, and this control on
behalf of the normal working-man, as he faces life in the
pursuit of his daily vocation, has apparently not checked its
systematic growth nor limited its place in the world's
market.

Almost every Sunday, in the Italian quarter in which I
live, various mutual benefit societies march with fife and
drum and with a brave showing of banners, celebrating
their achievement in having surrounded themselves by at
least a thin wall of protection against disaster, setting up
their mutual good will against the day of misfortune.
These parades have all the emblems of patriotism ; indeed,
the associations represent the core of patriotism — brothers
standing by each other against hostile forces from with-
out. I assure you that no Fourth of July celebration, no
rejoicing over the birth of an heir to the Italian throne,
equals in heartiness and sincerity these simple celebrations.
Again, one longs to pour into the government of their
adopted country all this affection and zeal, this real
patriotism.

Germany affords, perhaps, the best example of this con-
cern of government for the affairs of the daily living of

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OF

151

its wage-earners, although Belgium and France, with their
combination of state savings-banks, with life-insurance and
building-associations, backed by the state, afford a close
second in ingenuity and success. All this would be im-
possible in America, because it would be hotly resented by
the American business man, who will not brook any gov-
ernmental interference in industrial affairs. Is this due
to the inherited instinct that government is naturally op- •
pressive, and that its inroads must be checked? Are we
in America retaining this tradition, while Europe is gradu-
ally evolving governments logically fitted to cope with the
industrial situation?

Did the founders cling too hard to that which they had
won through persecution, hardship, and finally through a
war of revolution? Did these doctrines seem so precious
to them that they were determined to tie men up to them
as long as possible, and allow them no chance to go on to
new devices of government, lest they slight these that had
been so hardly won? Did they estimate, not too highly,
but by too exclusive a valuation, that which they had se-
cured through the shedding of blood?

Man has ever overestimated the spoils of war and tended
to lose his sense of proportion in regard to their value.
He has ever surrounded them with a glamour beyond their
deserts. This is quite harmless when the booty is an
enemy's sword hung over a household fire, or a battered
flag decorating a city hall ; but when the spoil of war is
an idea which is bound on the forehead of the victor till it
cramps his growth, a theory which he cherishes in his
bosom until it grows so large and so near that it afflicts
its possessor with a sort of disease of responsibility for its
preservation, it may easily overshadow the very people for
whose cause the warrior issued forth.

We have not yet apprehended what the scientists call

Digitized by Google

152 MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION

"the doctrine of the unspecialized," what the religious man
calls "the counsel of imperfection," and the wise educator
calls "the wisdom of the little child." If successful strug-
gle ends in survival, in blatant and tangible success, and,
as it is popularly supposed to do, in a certain hardness of
heart, with an invincible desire to cling fast to the booty
which has been thus hardly acquired, government will also
have to reckon with the many who have been beaten in this
struggle, with the effect upon them of the contest and the
defeat ; for, after all, they will always represent the major-
ity of citizens, and it is with its large majority that self-
government must eventually deal, whatever else other gov-
ernments may determine for themselves.

We are told that mere successful struggle breeds emo-
tion, not strength ; that the hard-pressed races are the emo-
tional races ; and that wherever struggle has long prevailed
emotion is the dominant force in fixing social relations.
Because of this emotional necessity all the more does it
seem a pity that American municipal administration has so
long confined itself to cold and emotionless areas, dealing
as it must with the immigrants who come to us in largest
numbers from the lands of oppression, and who vote quite
simply for the man who is kind to them. We do much
loose talking in regard to American immigration; we use
the phrase "the scum of Europe," and other unwarranted
words, without realizing that the underdeveloped peasant
may be much more valuable to us here than the more highly
developed, but also more highly specialized town-dweller,
who may much less readily develop the acquired character-
istics which the new environment demands.

To demand protection from these so-called barbarians
in our midst, who are supposed to issue forth from the
shallows of the city and to seize upon the life and treasure
of the citizens, as barbarians of old cam? from outside the

Digitized by Google

PROBLEMS OF

153

city walls, is, of course, not to have read the first lessons
of self-government in the light of evolutionary science, and
to have scarcely apprehended the truth that it is, after all,
from the mass, from the unspecialized, that reforms pro-
ceed.

In spite of the danger of bringing biology bodily over
into the social field, it is well to remember that all biolo-
gists agree that when any growth of new tissue must take
place it cannot come from the highly specialized cell, whose
powers are already turned in one direction, but that it must
come from the primitive cell, which has never perfected
any special function and is capable of development in any
direction.

Professor Weaver, of Columbia, has lately pointed out
that "the cities have traditionally been the cradles of lib-
erty, as they are to-day the centers of radicalism," and that
it is natural that brute selfishness should first be curbed and
social feeling created at the point of the greatest conges-
tion. If we once admit the human dynamic character of
progress, then we must look to the cities as the focal points
of that progress ; and it is not without significance that the
most vigorous effort at governmental reform, as well as
the most generous experiments in ministering to social
needs, have come from the largest cities. Are we begin-
ning to see the first timid, forward reach of one of those
instinctive movements which carry forward the goodness
of the race?

If we could trust democratic government as over against
and distinct from the older types, — from those which re-
press, rather than release, the power of the people, — then
we should begin to know what democracy really is, and
our municipal administration would at last be free to attain
Aristotle's ideal of a city, "where men live a common life
for a noble end."

Digitized by Google

WORKS OF REFERENCE RELATING TO POLIT-
ICAL THEORY

(Prepared through courtesy of Professor W. W. Willoughby.)

Austin, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined.

Bluntschli, Allgemeine Staatslehre. (English translation, The

Theory of the State.)
Bobnhak, Allgemeine Staatslehre.
Bosanquet, The Philosophical Theory of the State
Bbtce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence.
Bubgess, Political Science and Comparative Constitutional Law.
Cablyle, A History of Medieval Political Theory.
Dicey, Law of the Constitution.
Duguit, L'Etat, le droit objectlf et la loi positive.
Dunning, A History of Political Theories, vols, i and u.
Gierke, Die Staats- und Korporationslehre. (One section translated

into English, with an introduction by Maitland, under the "Po-

HUcal Theories of the Middle Age.")
Green, Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation.
Holland, The Elements of Jurisprudence.
Ihebino, Der Zweck im Recht

Janet, Histoire de la science politique dans ses rapports avec la mo-
rale.

Jelxjnkk, Das Recht des modernen Staates.

Die Lehre von den Staatenverbindungen.

Gesetz und Verordnung.
Mebbiam, American Political Theories.

Ostbooobski, Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties.

Pollock, History of the Science of Politics.

Rehm, Allgemeine Staatslehre.

Ritchie, Natural Rights.

Schmidt, B., Der Staat

Schmidt, R, Allgemeine Staatslehre.

Seeley, Introduction to Political Science.

Sidgwick, The Elements of Politics.

The Development of European Polity.
Willoughby, The Nature of the State.
Social Justice.

The Political Theories of the Ancient World.
154

Digitized by Google

POLITICS AND DIPLOMACY.

155

WORKS OF REFERENCE RELATING TO THE
SECTION OF DIPLOMACY

{Prepared through courtesy of David Jayne Hill, LLJ).)

No general bibliography of this subject can be attempted here,
bat the following special indications may be found useful:

I. The classic conception of diplomacy dates from the time of
Machlavelli, whose work II Principe, published in 1532, is an expo-
sition of the theory of a successful state as conceived by Machlavelli
and his Italian contemporaries. See, in addition to this work, trans-
lated by Detmold under the title of The Prince, London, 1882, for the
life of Machlavelli Villari, Niccolo Machiavelli e i suoi tempi, Florence.
1877, translated by Linda Villari, London and New York, 1892; for
the diplomacy of his time, De Maulde-la-Claviere, La diploma-tie au
temps de Machiavel, Paris, 1892; for the literature, expository and
critical, Mohl, Oeschichte und Literatur der StaatsuHssenschaft, Er-
langen, 1855; and for the influence of Machiavelli, Ferrari, Machia-
vel JugC dee revolutions de notre temps, Paris, 1849; Mundt, Machia-
velli und der Gang der europaischen Politik, Leipzig, 1853, and Sy-
monds, The Age of the Despots, London, 1902.

The more modern form of the classic conception of diplomacy
may be found in Bielfeld, Institutions politlques. The Hague, 1760;
Ancillon, Tableau de* revolutions du systcme politique de T Europe,
Paris, 1823; De Garden, Trait6 complet de diplomatic, Paris, 1833;
and Tableau de la diplomatic, Paris, no date.

II. On the relation* of diplomacy to history, special references are
hardly practicable, owing partly to the great mass of details and to
their technical character. Some idea of the labor already expended
upon the Archives of Venice, so Important for the history of
diplomacy, may be obtained from Toderini and Cecchetti, Uarchivio
di stato in Venezia nel decennio 1866-1875, Venice, 1876; and of the
historical value of the Papal Archives, hitherto imperfectly explored,
from Gachard, Les archives du Vatican, Brussels, 1874, compared
with the use subsequently made of them. The examples cited,
Deprez, Les prtliminaires de la guerre de cent ans, Paris, 1902, and
Peiissier, Louis XII et Ludovic Sforza, Paris, 1896, published In the
Bibliothcque des E coles franchises (TAthtnes et de Rome, are In-
tended only to illustrate the class of work lately done, and still re-
maining to be done, with these sources.

For the general history of modern diplomacy may be named Stof-
fela D'Alta Rupe, AbrigC de Thistoire diplomatique de TEurope,

Digitized by Google

156

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Vienna, 1888; Debldour. Histoire diplomatique de V Europe, Paris,
1891; Malet, HUtoire diplomatique de T Europe aux XV lie et XVIIIe
rtecles, Paris, 1894; and Bourgeois, Manuel historique de politique
6trangere, Paris, 1897. The last three contain bibliographies.

III. On the relation of diplomacy to jurisprudence, besides the
standard works on jurisprudence and International law, see Ward,
An Enquiry into the Foundation and History of the Law of Nations
in Europe, London, 1796; Wheaton, History of the Law of Nations in
Europe and America, New York, 1845, translated into French, Leip-
zig and Paris, 1846; Hosack, Rise and Growth of the Law of Nations,
London, 1882; Walker, A History of the Law of Nations, Cambridge,
1899; De la Gueronniere, Le droit public et V Europe modeme, Paris,
1876.

For the International Tribunal at The Hague, see Holls, The
Peace Conference at The Hague, New York, 1900; Foster, Arbitra-
tion and The Hague Court, Boston, 1904; Descamps, Mdmoire sur le
fonctionnement du premier tribunal d'arbitrage constitui au sein de
la Cour Permanente de La Haye, Louvaln, 1903 ; Penfleld, Some Prob-
lems of International Arbitration, address before the New York State
Bar Association. January 20, 1904; Dean, Preserving the World's
Peace, In The World's Work for March, 1905.

IY. The literature bearing on the relation of diplomacy to
economics is too varied and voluminous for even a partial citation
here, for it includes the entire theory and history of population,
production, commerce, and colonization. Many Interesting facts may
be found in Mill, The International Geography, New York, 1900;
and Adams, A Textbook of Commercial Geography, New York, 1901.
Synthetic treatment is much to be desired.

The problem of cosmopolitanism versus nationalism is dtBcussed
from many points of view in Novicow, Die Foderation Europas, Ber-
lin, 1901, and other works in French and Italian by the same author.

V. The relation of diplomacy to ethics has received practically
no specific treatment, which can proceed only from a moral concep-
tion of the state and the conscience of enlightened peoples.

VI. For a knowledge of the place accorded to diplomacy In mod-
ern education, reference may be made to the programmes of colleges
and universities. Among these, the courses of study offered by the
Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques at Paris and by the 8chool of
Jurisprudence and Diplomacy of The George Washington University,
at Washington, D. C are the most complete. For the educational
attainments required for admission to the diplomatic service of the
various countries, see their respective official foreign office publica-
tions.

Digitized by Google

POLITICS AND DIPLOMACY 157

WORKS OF REFERENCE RELATING TO THE
SECTION OF COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION

Bbose, M., Die deutsche Koloniallitteratur, published annually at
Berlin.

Caldscott, A., English Colonization and Empire, London, 1897.
Dilke, Sib C. W., Problems of Greater Britain, London, 1890.
Egebton, H. B., A Short History of British Colonial Policy, London,
1894.

Gibault, A. Prlncipes de colonisation et de legislation coloniales, 2
ed.

Ohdtiw, A. P. C, List of Books relating to Colonisation, Library of

Congress, Washington, 1900.
Hootkaas, J. C, Repertorium op de Koloniale Litteratuur, 1595-1865,

Amsterdam, 1874-80. Supplement by A. Hartmann, The Hague,

1895.

Ireuuto, A., Tropical Colonization, New York, 1900.
Jenkyfts, Sot H., British Rule and Jurisdiction beyond the Seas, Ox-
ford, 1902.

Kxnobley, Mabt H., West African Studies, London, 1901.
Louteb, J. de, Staats en Administrate Recht Tan NederL India,
Hague, 1895.

Lewis, Sib Geobge C, On the Government of Dependencies, Oxford,
1891. (Originally published In 1841, this book is valuable, not
only as a most philosophical discussion, but also as expressing
the general attitude toward colonies during the middle period
of the nineteenth century.)

Leboy-Beauueu, P., De la Colonisation chez lea peuples modernes,
Paris, 1902.

Lucas, C. P., Historical Geography of the British Colonies, Oxford,
1887-1901.

Merit axe, H., Lectures on Colonization and Colonies, London, 1861.

Mobbis, H. C, The History of Colonization, London, 1897.

Moubet et Bbukel, L'Annee coloniale, published annually in Paris.

Contains a bibliography of French books and articles.
Petit, Ed., Organisation des Colonies Franchises, Paris, 1895.
REiwscn, P. S., Colonial Government, New York, 1902.

Colonial Administration, New York, 1905.
Hoschxb, W., Kolonien Kolonialpolltik und Auswanderung, Leipzig,

1885.

Saussube, L. de, Psychologle de la colonisation franchise, Paris,
1897.

Digitized by Google

158

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Strachet, Sib J., India, 2 ed., London, 1903.

WnxouoHBY, A. P., Territories and Dependencies of the United
States, N. Y. 1905.

Zimmebmann, A., Die europ&lschen Kolonien, Berlin, 1896-1901.

Colonial Administration, 1800-1900. A useful compilation from writ-
ers od colonial politics and from documentary sources, made by
the Bureau of Statistics of the Treasury Department, under the
direction of O. P. AuBtin, Washington, 1901.

Catalogue of the Library of the Royal Colonial Institute, London,
1895; First Supplement, 1901.

The Statesman's Year- Book; contains brief bibliographies on the
various colonies.

The British Parliamentary Papers (Blue Books) ; contain an annual
account of the administration of the various British colonies.
(List published by P. S. King & Son, Westminster.)

The Colonial Office List* published annually in London (semi-of-
ficial.)

Statistical Abstract for the Several Colonial and other Possessions

of the United Kingdom.
Administrative reports published in the various colonies.
Annuaire Colonial; appears since 1888, and is now published by the

French Colonial Office.
Each of the French colonies also publishes an annuaire, a summary

of the administrative organization with lists of officials, e. g.:
L' Annuaire general commercial et adminlstratif de l'lndo-Cblne

frangaise, Paris and Hanoi.
The German Parliamentary papers (Welssbflcher) on colonial af«

fairs,

Deutsches Kolonialblatt and Kolonlalee Jahrbuch, both published by

the German Colonial Office.
The Seven Colonies of Australia, annual.
The Wealth and Progress of New South Wales, annual.
The New Zealand Official Tear-Book, annual.
Kolonial-Verslag, annual, Batavla.

Annual Report of the Philippine Commission, Washington,
The Philippine Gazette, Manila,

Digitized by Google

POLITICS AND DIPLOMACY 159

ADDITIONAL WORKS OF REFERENCE RELAT-
ING TO THE SECTION OF COLONIAL
ADMINISTRATION

(Prepared through courtesy of Professor Bernard Moses.)

Austin, O. P., Colonial Administration, 1800-1900, Washington, 1901.
Dubois, Syatemea Colonlaux et peuplea Colonlsateurs, Paris, 1895.
Gaffabel, Lea Colonies, franca! Beg, Paris, 1899.
Hebbebo, Polltlca de Espafla en Ultramar, Madrid, 1890.
Lajvessan, J. L. de, L 'Expansion Colonials de la France, Paris, 1886.
Leboy-Beauuiu, P., De la Colonisation chez les peuplee modernes,
Paris, 1898.

Lewis, 8ib George, On the Government of Dependencies, Oxford,
1891.

Oboeas, La Pathologle des races humalnes et le probleme de la colo-
nisation, Paris, 1886.

Roscheb, W., Kolonlen, Kolonialpolltik, und Auswandering, Leipzig,
1886.

Zimmebmawk, A., Die europ&lschen Kolonien, Berlin, 1896-1901.
Reports of the United States Philippine CommiBBlon, Washington,
1900-1903.

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL REGULATION

BY A. LAWRENCE LOWELL

[A. Lawrence Lowell, Professor of the Science of Government, Har-
vard University, b. Boston, Massachusetts, December 13, 1856.
A.B. Harvard, 1877; LL.B. ibid. 1880. Authob or Essay* on Gov-
ernment; Government* and Parties in Continental Europe, etc.;
joint author, with Judge P. C. Lowell, of Trantfer of Stock in
Corporation*; with Prof. H. Mors* Stephens, of Colonial Civil
Service.}

It has been said that the object of every writer is to draw
a new diagonal line through the field of human knowledge.
Men love to point out the connection between things ap-
parently so far apart as the spots on the sun and economic
crises, or as the invention of bills of exchange at Venice and
the rise of the mendicant orders. But the topic assigned to
me at this Congress, "The Unity and Inner Relations of the
Political, Legal, and Social Efforts of Society," has little
of the charm of novelty. The path is well trodden; and,
until a new philosophic light breaks forth, whatever is said
on this subject must be trite; what c?n be said in a short
address must obviously be superficial.

Let us take, first, the relation between politics and juris-
prudence, using the term politics, not in the narrow sense in
which it is currently employed, to denote the struggles of
political parties, but in the larger sense of the conduct of
public affairs.

Law both provides the framework within which political
life goes on, and it is also the result of that life. It is like .
the shell of a mollusk, or the trunk of a tree.

Whatever definition we take of law whether we regard it
as the command of a superior, or accept the theory that it
rests upon intrinsic natural justice, we may say that it is
that part of the rules of human conduct which is enforced,

161

Digitized by Google

162 SOCIAL REGULATION

or at least may be enforced, by public authority ; such a defi-
nition, although vague, is wide enough to include on the one
hand primitive law, where the public authority is rudiment-
ary, and on the other hand public international law, — a
body of rules which a number of civilized nations habitually
obey.

Now so far as politics does not deal with pure questions
of persons, either in the sordid form of distributing spoils,
or in the higher aspect of selecting efficient persons for
office, it is concerned mainly with the creation of law ; not
that the direct aim and object of political activity is always
legislation, but legislation in some form is usually the in-
direct, if not the immediate, consequence of political
achievement; and this is true where at first sight the con-
nection may appear remote. Political questions concerning
foreign affairs, for example, often give rise to treaties, to
the recognition of some principle of international law, or to
a change in the legal relations of territory. A successful
effort in a city to obtain clean streets, or a pure water-
supply, is almost certain ultimately to leave its mark upon
the statute-book. It is hard to conceive of a struggle, even
over a matter of administrative discretion, that is not likely
to result in legislation, or subordinate legislative ordinance,
or in the increase or diminution of taxation. That which
does not exclusively concern persons almost of necessity in-
volves principle; and if a decisive issue is reached the vic-
torious principle is likely to be established by law. So that
the political warfare of to-day leaves its traces in the legis-
lation of to-morrow.

This may be the case, although the immediate result of
the contest is not embodied in positive law. The constitu-
tional rule about the responsibility of ministers has become
firmly established in England, and all her self-governing
colonies, without any recognition in the law. Yet the prin-

Digitized by Google

77//- ixi>ti-i or r; .no

P!uti>W,iz'ni fro;,\ <','/<■ I '.tutting by . ! .i.vW.'/; luuribthb,

Hrm<pie ! .s <-r S> niposia were wr\ trnptcnt in ancient (irctce. The P.anqnct
of Plato, reproduced here from 1' tiKTl).n'l;'s original painting, gives us a
lively idea of such e:iteri:iitiiiie:ils :it \tlu n-. The c:ip>vnnut was heightened
hy agreeable conversation atui by the introduction of music and dancing.
Si »niet nnes p'.iilosi 'pineal subjects were discussed, although a s\ mji'»-ium. a»
thi' On.rk term inip'"<^. was originally only intenrh d as a drinking pai-y
I be quests i cchucd on eonelie.s ami were crowned with garlands of [lower-.

bettcrbach's great painting present s a s\ ni])o>ium (•• which the banquet ev».
m inding Socrates, were invi'cd by Plato to celebrate the tragic victory ot
Agathon, and. a> they were not in the mood •,>, hard drinking. they di-mi-M 'l
the Hate girl, and entertain', d earli other with t'le praise of low. '* I la- Man-
<|i:«t of Plato - ' won universal admiration when it was fir-t placed on vww
at lite lute: national Kxhibiti on i,f Mumcli m iS(»<-

Digitized by Google

Google

Digitized by Google

POLITICAL CONTROL 163

ciple has deeply affected legislation. It has given rise to
statutes that would doubtless not have been enacted other-
wise, and in fact it has created the body that really initiates
all the important legislation in those countries.

So far as law is the result of political struggle, it is some-
what in the rear of social evolution, and represents not the
last stage of human thought, but the next to last. For a
rule of conduct is usually followed by large numbers of
people before an attempt is made to enforce it on the rest,
and it is certainly largely recognized as a rule that ought
to be observed for some time before it is made compulsory
by public authority; while, on the other hand, laws that
have been outgrown, and have ceased to be in harmony with
social conditions, often remain in force for a considerable
period before they are repealed or become quite obsolete.
Law represents, therefore, the crystallized elements of social
evolution, while politics deal with the fluid or transient ele-
ments. It deals with questions that arouse immediate in-
terest, and involves a constant effort to transform current
opinion into law.

No doubt some laws are ephemeral. They are the result
of abortive political efforts to bring about a change. In
that case they do not represent the next to last stage in
social evolution, but an aspiration, an effort to anticipate
and create a future stage, an attempt to give effect to prin-
ciples for which their advocates erroneously believe the com-
munity is prepared. The history of legislation contains
many such wrecks of unseaworthy statutes, and they are not
less numerous to-day, in spite of the far greater power of a
state to enforce its laws. Legislation intended to promote
what a friend of mine calls "righteousness by statute" is
particularly common in the United States, because of the
easy and irresponsible way in which statutes are enacted,
and because it suits both the idealistic temper and the prac-

164 SOCIAL REGULATION

tical qualities of the people to pass unwise laws designed to
work moral reforms, and then leave them unenforced.

Most prominent among statutes of the kind are the liquor
laws in many places, the evasions of the law being some-
times clandestine, sometimes open, and sometimes done with
the connivance of the authorities. Statutes of this class are
passed on many subjects, out of good nature, or in defer-
ence to the urgent appeals of deputations of influential citi-
zens. They may be enacted without any serious intention
of enforcing them, or they may be such that local opinion —
as is often the case with game laws — or the difficulty of
proving violation — as in the case of laws concerning railway
rates — make it very difficult to enforce them. Some of
these laws are harmless ; others are demoralizing to the men
who evade them and weaken the law-abiding character of
the people ; while others are a fertile source of political cor-
ruption. The author of The Boss, an exceedingly acute
study of New York city politics, written under a feigned
name, and far less widely known than it deserves to be, has
pointed out that sumptuary laws, which can be violated on
payment of a contribution to the campaign fund of the
party, are almost a necessity for the support of the machine
in the city.

Apart from tentative, ephemeral, and inoperative statutes,
political contests are the struggles of political growth, and
the political growth of a nation is eventually embodied in
its laws.

All this may be supposed to refer to public rather than to
private law. Napoleon expressed that idea when he said:
"The legislature should legislate, *. e., construct grand laws
on scientific principles of jurisprudence, but it must respect
the independence of the executive as it desires its own in-
dependence to be respected. It must not criticise the gov-
ernment, and as its legislative labors are essentially of a

Digitized by Google

POLITICAL CONTROL

165

scientific kind, there can be no reason why its debates should
be reported." 1 In other words, he regarded private civil
jurisprudence as a science, quite independent of politics and
public opinion. This may be true of the construction of a
code based upon existing law ; but it is certainly not true
of legislative changes. In countries with a popular govern-
ment, deliberate alterations of the law are made to-day only
with the consent of representative bodies, which are in-
tended for that purpose to reflect public opinion.

Such a relation to politics is not limited to statutes. Law
is created every day by bodies of learned lawyers. It takes
the form of precedents established by courts of justice in the
course of the decision of actual cases, — the so-called judge-
made law ; nor is this process confined to jurisprudence af-
fecting private persons. The distinction, indeed, between
public and private law in no way coincides with the differ-
ence between statutory and judge-made law ; for, in the first
place, private law is freely made or changed by statute ; and
in the second place, the most important body of judge-made
law in Continental Europe to-day is the French droit ad-
ministratis; which regulates the official rights and duties of
state functionaries and is, therefore, pure public law. In
this connection it may be noted, in passing, that in Anglo-
Saxon countries the administration of public law can be
safely intrusted to the ordinary courts, because there are
always in them a number of judges who have had actual
experience of public life. Chief Justice Marshall could
hardly have laid, as he did, the foundations of constitutional
interpretation had it not been for his knowledge of national
affairs acquired in the public service, and the same principle
applies to every court when called upon to deal with ques-
tions that touch administration. A certain sprinkling of

1 Quoted In Ilbert's Legislative Method* and Form*, p. 208. The original
letter docs not appear to DO extant

Digitized by Google

166 SOCIAL REGULATION

judges with political experience is needed to supplement
those trained simply by study and at the bar. This is one
of many cases where the efficiency of a public body depends
upon the presence in small quantities of what in large doses
would be a poison.

A full discussion of the relation of politics in the larger
sense of the word to judge-made law would entail an exami-
nation of many conflicting theories of jurisprudence. In
his Beruf unserer Zeit fur Gesetzgebung und Rechtswissen-
schaft, Savigny, the most celebrated opponent of codifica-
tion, declared that, for the most part, law, like language, has
developed by a process of natural growth in accordance
with the character of the people. Von Ihering, pushing
Savigny's comparison of the growth of law and language
farther, perhaps, than the author really intended, criticised
his theory, and insisted that, instead of developing by the
same quiet, unconscious process as the rules of grammar,
law was, and always had been, the result of a struggle be-
tween conflicting aims and principles. As this is not in-
tended to be a discourse on jurisprudence, but merely an
attempt to point out certain relations existing at the present
day, it is not necessary to consider how far such doctrines
are really in conflict, and how far each of them is historically
true. ' Nor is it necessary for our purpose to analyze Aus-
tin's theory that law is a command, and that courts in estab-
lishing precedents are creating law by virtue of a legislative
power delegated to them by the sovereign. Austin was not
an historian, but a philosopher who based his theories upon
the facts that came under his immediate observation. His
insight into contemporary matters was keen and accurate,
and although his admiration for judge-made, or as he has
called it, "judiciary law," was by no means unbounded, his
analysis of its real nature is one of the best parts of his
book. He made, however, an admission which certainly

Digitized by Google

POLITICAL CONTROL 167

goes far towards upsetting his theory that the courts exer-
cise a delegated legislative power. After declaring that
"the sovereign administering the law through subordinate
courts of justice is the author of that measureless system of
judge-made law or rules of law made judicially which has
been established by those subordinate tribunals in directly
exercising their judicial functions," Austin goes on to say :
"In this country, where the rules of judge-made law hold a
place of almost paramount importance in our legal system,
it can hardly be said that Parliament (the so-called legisla-
ture) is the author of those rules. It may, indeed, be said
that Parliament, by not interfering, permits them to be
made, and, by not repealing them by statute, permits them
to exist. But, in truth, Parliament has no effective power
of preventing their being made and to alter them is a task
which often baffles the patience and skill of those who can
best command parliamentary support." 1

Now this remark is interesting because it would seem
that the legislature is constantly acquiring greater capacity
of controlling and reversing judge-made law. In the past
we have seen cases where the legislature has found it im-
possible to carry out its will, and where courts have virtu-
ally made a statute of no effect by their interpretation.
This was true in the celebrated case of the English Statute
of Uses, which was designed to prevent the creation of
subordinate interests in land, but is commonly said to have
resulted only in the addition of three words to every con-
veyance. A very striking example in later days is the de-
cree of the French Government of National Defence in
1870 repealing the provision in the constitution of the year
VIII that protected public officials from suit or prosecu-
tion. The decree was intended to remove all hindrances

> Austin's Jurisprudence, Campbell's Students' Ed., p. 99. This does not
appear In the original edition of Austin's work.

Digitized by Google

168 SOCIAL REGULATION

in the way of bringing the officials before the ordinary
courts ; but the Tribunal of Conflicts decided thc.t it applied
only to their personal protection, and did not affect the
principle of the separation of powers which, as understood
in France, forbids the ordinary judges to pass upon the
legality of official acts. This example of the exercise of
power by a court to defeat the intent of the legislature is
certainly very recent, but it could hardly have occurred
except in the revival of the ordinary functions of govern-
ment after a period of revolution.

Austin's remark, however, still retains some truth.
Even at the present day the legislature has no effective
means of anticipating by statute the doctrines laid down
in judicial decisions, and does not always find it easy to
alter them after they have been made. A representative
assembly that would reject by an overwhelming majority
a bill to enact a certain principle of law may hesitate to
reverse that principle when it has been sanctioned by the
courts. It often happens that a negative course is the
most prudent and politic for a representative chamber, and
this gives real force to judicial initiative.

Nevertheless the decisions of the courts on important
questions of law attract so much attention to-day, and the
power and flexibility of legislatures has increased to such
an extent, that the enactment of a statute to change a prin- .
ciple judicially declared is less difficult than it was form-
erly. Judge-made law has, therefore, become subject to
legislative revision to a greater extent than in the past. -
In giving their decisions the courts are, and it is of most
fundamental importance that they should be, absolutely
free from political control, but the growth and stability
of the law they make depends ultimately on its accord with
the public sense of justice. Law cannot endure perma-
nently upon any other basis. At the close of the Middle

Digitized by Google

POLITICAL CONTROL 169

Ages the customary law of most of Continental Europe,
having failed to develop with advancing civilization, was
swept away by the advent of the Roman law. Such a legal
revolution could hardly occur again, because with the
growth of legislative power the control over judge-made
law is more rapid and more constant. If the courts are
too closely bound by precedents which are no longer
adapted to social conditions, or if their judgments do not
accord with the public sense of justice, their law will be
changed by statute. So that judge-made law, not the de-
cisions in particular cases, but the principles established by
those cases, is to-day ultimately subject to political ap-
proval. The nineteenth century has certainly shown that
in Anglo-Saxon countries the vitality of judge-made law
has in no wise diminished; but it endures upon the condi-
tion that the principles of law so established must be in
general accord with the sense of justice of the community ;
and that where this is not the case they can be and will be
set aside.

Let us now turn to the relations between social science
on the one hand and politics and jurisprudence on the
other.

The collections of people treated in the various sections
under the Department of Social Science at this Congress
fall into two distinct classes. They appear to be dis-
tinguished in the programme by the terms community and
group, and hence those expressions will be used in this
paper, the word "group" indicating a body of people who,
as the cause or result of similar conditions, display similar
feelings and opinions ; while the so-called communities have
in addition a sense, or at least a much stronger sense, of
solidarity and of common interest, some organization, and a
capacity for common action. In short, the members of
one class have similar, and those of the other have common,

Digitized by Google

170

SOCIAL REGULATION

sentiments and opinions. The line between these classes
is not absolute, and the classes themselves are by no means
fixed. A body of persons, that form at one period of the
world's history a group, may at another form a commun-
ity. The family and the local community were, of course,
true communities before the dawn of history; and certain
bodies of people, such as the dependent group, and still
more clearly the groups of lunatics, feeble-minded, and in-
fants, have never been, and could hardly be, communities
at all ; but, on the other hand, bodies of men pursuing the
same occupation, though usually mere groups, have be-
come communities at times and under exceptional condi-
tions. The trade-guilds of the Middle Ages were com-
munities of this kind, and many bodies of workmen that
had previously been nothing more than groups have de-
veloped into communities during the last hundred years.
The trade-unions of the present day are both an expres-
sion of a sense of solidarity and an attempt to turn a
group of workmen into a true community.

Now, although neither of these classes can be left out
of account in the study of politics and jurisprudence, the
community, with its capacity for common action, is by far
the more important of the two. Groups involve less diffi-
cult problems for both politics and jurisprudence, because
in their case the only matter to be considered is the wel- /
fare of the group and of the public at large. In the case
of communities the question is further complicated by the
wishes and the action of the community itself. This may
or may not lead to a more just solution according to the
wisdom, moderation, and mutual respect, or the animosi-
ties and the exasperation, of the various bodies of men
concerned. But in any case it adds to the elements of the
problem. Whether the movement, for example, to trans-
form bodies of workmen into communities in the form of

Digitized by Google

POLITICAL CONTROL 171

trade-unions has been beneficial or not, it has certainly,
from the point of view both of politics and of jurispru-
dence, made labor questions more pressing and more com-
plex.

In treating of the relation of communities to politics
and jurisprudence, we must distinguish between those that
are based upon status and those that are voluntary. For
although this distinction applies to groups as well as to
communities, it is naturally far more important in the
latter case.

The classification of social entities according as they are
based upon status or upon voluntary association requires,
however, both explanation and definition. In some cases
the members become such without any voluntary action
or possibility of choice on their part. This is true of chil-
dren born into a family, and, in an early period of society,
into a tribe or local community. Then there are cases
where the membership, while not assumed for the purpose
of membership, is the result of a condition or status which
is voluntary in the sense that in theory, at least, the condi-
tion is the result of choice, or might have been avoided.
That is the case with the dependent and criminal groups.
It is the case also with the urban and rural communities.
A man is free to live in a city or not as he pleases, but he
usually moves his abode to a city, or remains there be-
cause his occupation or engagements lead him to do so,
not because he desires to be a member of an urban com-
munity. In all groups or communities of the foregoing
kinds the membership is the inevitable result of a status
which may itself be voluntary or not; and these are the
only kinds of groups treated under the different sections
of Department 22 at this Congress. But there is another
kind of entity, the membership in which is purely volun-
tary, because the members belong to it not on account of

Digitized by Google

172 SOCIAL REGULATION

any extrinsic condition or status, but for the sake of the
group itself. How far the choice is really deliberate or
free, and how far the result of environment, of the asso-
ciation of ideas, and of suggestion, over which the indi-
vidual has little actual control, we must leave to the psy-
chologists, and especially to the Section on Social Psy-
chology. We are concerned here only with the political
and legal aspects of the problem, and from that point of
view the membership may be regarded as voluntary. Of
such a character are social and learned clubs of various
kinds, religious bodies, philanthropic organizations, and,
let us add, political parties. In this connection it may be
observed that the trade-unions are striving to become com-
munities based upon status instead of voluntary associa-
tion. This effort lies at the foundation of the conflict over
the open and closed shop. The policy of the closed shop,
if successful, would drive every man who pursued a cer-
tain occupation into the trade-union; while the principle
of the open shop leaves the union a voluntary body, and
for that reason any one familiar with the trend of civiliza-
tion will be very much inclined to doubt whether the effort
is likely to succeed.

As an example of the political and legal problems pre-
sented by communities based upon status, we may take
the race question. This problem, in one shape or another,
faces most of the great civilized nations at the present day,
either in their national or their colonial administration. A
number of solutions of it have been essayed. The simplest
and most drastic is that of expelling or excluding the
weaker race. At various times in the world's history the
Jews have been expelled from different countries. The
Chinese are now excluded from the United States and from
Australia. But expulsion on a large scale is clearly im-
possible to-day among civilized people, and exclusion is
possible only under favorable conditions.

Digitized by Google

POLITICAL CONTROL 173

In other cases an attempt has been made to transform
or absorb a race. This is the solution commonly tried by
the governments of Continental Europe. It is manifestly
out of the question except when the differences are not very
profound. It may or may not be possible to make Slavs
into Germans, or vice versa, but no one would expect to
make Europeans and Chinese interchangeable. Even as
between European races the efforts in this direction have
not of late been generally successful.

The third solution is to ignore the difference of race and
legislate as if it did not exist. That was the solution ap-
plied in this country after the Civil War ; but it cannot be
said to have fulfilled the hopes cherished by its authors,
and the present generation, even in the Northern States,
seems inclined to regard it as neither satisfactory nor final.

The fourth solution has been that of disregarding the
rights of the weaker race altogether. This has been tried
at various periods in the world's history, especially in the
case of colonies. It is safe to say it will never commend
itself permanently to the conscience of mankind.

Other partial solutions have been tried, more or less
deliberately, and with varying degrees of success. This is
not the place to follow them in detail, but merely to point
out that the problem is one that will hang heavy on the
hands of the twentieth century; and that with the growth
of popular government and the increasing industrial, in-
tellectual, and social opportunities throughout the world,
the task of governing a people that is not homogeneous
has become far more difficult. Although these very forces
may tend to efface race differences where they are not pro-
found, the differences are often so great that one can en-
tertain little hope that they will disappear.

Except for the questions arising from race, legal and
political problems connected with status have tended to

Digitized by Google

174

SOCIAL REGULATION

decline in importance, while those connected with volun-
tary associations are increasing in gravity, and are likely
to do so for a considerable time to come. Man's mastery
over the forces of nature, and the improvement in trans-
portation that is bringing the whole world into active com-
petition, have made cooperation upon a large scale a neces-
sity. One form of this has been economically highly suc-
cessfully. That is the combination of small amounts of
capital into great corporations, and its very success has
made abuses possible and legislation necessary. Trans-
portation has also made the wants of all civilized mankind
more alike, while the diffusion of a common elementary
education and the ease of communication have brought
about uniformity of thought and the possibility of combi-
nation in all directions. Hence associations of many
kinds which, being capable of good and evil, must be regu-
lated by law, and must often be the subject of political
action.

The solution of social and political questions by the pro-
gressive thinkers of the eighteenth and the early part of
the nineteenth centuries was based mainly upon individual-
ism. They considered man, not combinations of men, and
they regarded all individuals as equal, isolated, and inde-
pendent units. The prophets of democracy, supposing
that each person would think for himself, failed to appre-
ciate the contagious quality of ideas and the compulsory
power exerted over opinions by organized bodies of men.
They assumed also that the real interests of all men were
fundamentally in harmony, and hence they saw no strong
motive for combination. The English individualists,
moreover, looked upon freedom to combine as an essential
part of personal liberty, and they did not perceive a danger
that the right might be so abused as to encroach upon the
liberty of others. This is very clearly put in Professor

Digitized by Google

POLITICAL CONTROL 175

Dicey's Law and Public Opinion in England during the
Nineteenth Century.

Rousseau, whose acumen in grasping the real nature of
a problem is more striking than his good sense in finding
the solution of it, perceived the difficulties that might arise
in his ideal commonwealth from the presence of combina-
tions of men. He saw that his principle of a common will,
ascertained by counting votes, and then accepted as the
unanimous wish of the whole people, would be futile where
there was an organized minority. He declared, therefore,
that a community is incapable of a common will where
factions or sects exist. If he really imagined that any
community would ever arise without those incumbrances,
he showed that although a good philosopher, he was a bad
prophet. He was a particularly luckless prophet, because
he wrote just at the time when the era of invention was
about to open the gates for the greatest development of
voluntary combinations of men that the world has ever
known, and when in public life the very democracy which
he preached was about to make political parties a recog-
nized and permanent element in the state.

He was, however, a good philosopher, because he was
right in believing that the presence of associations, or
groups, or bodies of men of any kind, makes the opinion
or action of a community quite a different thing from what
it would be if no such bodies existed; and this for several
reasons.

In the first place, a composite majority made up of ma-
jorities of fractional parts is a very different thing from
a majority of the whole people, and may be exactly the
reverse of it. Each man in such case puts himself into
the hands of some body of men whose will is in Rousseau's
sense general as regards him, and partial as regards the
rest of the community.

Digitized by Google

176 SOCIAL REGULATION

Then man is only in a small degree a rational animal,
and is mainly a creature of suggestion. He takes his
opinions largely from the society of which he is a part.
In fact he does not so much join a church, for example, or
a political party, because he agrees with its objects, as he
accepts its policy because he belongs to it. An associa-
tion becomes indeed an end in itself, and thus a body may
act in a way that the bulk of the individuals who compose
it would not act if left to themselves.

In the second place, a large body of men has power to
affect the destinies and curtail the freedom of action of
other people in a way that individuals could not do. Even
without acquiring an actual monopoly, a trust or a huge
corporation can drive smaller rivals out of business, or
force conditions of labor or trade, or affect the method of
conducting other distinct trades, when smaller concerns
would have no such power. Moreover, they can do it
without resorting to any conduct that would be illegal, op-
pressive, or even improper in the case of individuals. The
same thing is true of trade-unions, or any other combina-
tions of men on a large scale. To take a most familiar
illustration: An individual may buy or sell where he
pleases, and the motives for his choice are nobody's affair;
but if a large number of men agree not to trade with a
certain person it becomes a "boycott," and a terrible en-
gine of compulsion.

It follows that formidable combinations stand in a pe-
culiar position. Their acts have different effects from
those of individuals. Their moral rights and duties are
not the same, and they must to some extent be subject to
peculiar laws. The difficulty in dealing with them comes
in drawing the line between freedom of combination and
the liberty of the individual. The question — in some ways
akin to the problem of reconciling order and progress,

Digitized by Google

POLITICAL CONTROL

which has at times occupied so much attention in Europe —
will loom large in the twentieth century.

While dealing with voluntary associations it is interest-
ing to observe how far we have already gone in solving
an important problem arising out of their development. I
refer to the case of political parties. The greatest con-
tribution to the art of politics in the nineteenth century is
expressed in the phrase "Her Majesty's Opposition." It
implies a recognition that organized bodies of men who
are loyal to the state and to the established form of gov-
ernment, but who are opposed to the administration in
power, have a right to exist and to carry on an active
propaganda. Germs of the modern party system can, no
doubt, be traced farther back in some countries, but the
system cannot be said to have developed fully until the
nineteenth century. The legitimacy of party as a factor
in public life is now fully admitted in all countries which
have possessed popular government for a considerable
length of time, and it is admitted to some extent in all
countries that have a popular element in their governments.
The system is, however, based upon a number of condi-
tions.

On the one side there must be a recognition that differ-
ences of political opinion are legitimate and may be advo-
cated by argument and all the proper arts of persuasion.

On the other side the opposition must not urge revolu-
tionary opinions. It must not be what is sometimes called
irreconcilable, that is, it must not aim at the destruction
of the existing foundations of government and of society.
The limits of legitimate difference in political opinions
vary, of course, from place to place and from time to time ;
but it is necessary that the limit should be generally recog-
nized at any given moment, and this is one of the most
important functions of a constitution.

178 SOCIAL REGULATION

Then again the means employed by each party for ob-
taining power must be proper, and for this reason many
laws have been enacted in the nineteenth century against
the bribery of voters, and provisions have been made to
prevent intimidation— by the device, for example, of the
secret ballot.

Finally, there must be a universally recognized means
of determining which opinion ought to prevail. This is
another function of a constitution and of constitutional
law.

The party system is by no means without grave faults,
but without it popular government could not have endured.
The system has reconciled to a great extent liberty of po-
litical opinion and action with the stability of popular in-
stitutions.

One of the chief problems of the twentieth century will
be the regulation of other combinations of men, whether
based upon race or upon voluntary associations for indus-
trial and other purposes; and that problem will involve
politics, jurisprudence, and social science. The solution
will not be the same as that adopted in the case of political
parties, but some hints may, nevertheless, be obtained
therefrom, such as the plan of leaving the right to organ-
ize free, but regulating the ends and means of operation.
In one point certainly the example set in the case of po-
litical organizations must be followed. It is that of ac-
cepting the natural tendencies of a progressive age instead
of trying to run counter to them. The method of ap-
proaching the problem and the principles applied to it will,
no doubt, be different in different countries and under
varying conditions; but just as the nineteenth century
showed an inclination to lay too much stress on the indi-
vidual, we may perhaps expect in the twentieth century a
reactionary tendency to treat bodies of men too much col-

Digitized by Google

POLITICAL CONTROL

179

lectively. But the true and, therefore, the permanent so-
lution must be found in keeping in mind both the indi-
vidual and the group, and politics and jurisprudence can
be wisely directed only by a thorough study of the psy-
chology of the group; in other words, the effect of the
group upon the mental attitude of the individual.

SOCIAL CONTROL AND THE FUNCTION OF

THE FAMILY

BY GEORGE ELLIOTT HOWARD

' [Gkobge Elliott Howahd, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science and!
Sociology, University of Nebraska, b. Saratoga, New York, 1849;
A.B. University of Nebraska, 1876; Ph.D. ibid. 1894; student of
History and Roman Law, Universities of Munich and Paris, 1876-
78. Professor of History, University of Nebraska, 1879-91; Pro-
fessor of History and Head of History Department, Lei and Stan-
ford Jr. University. 1891-1901; Professor of History, Cornell Uni-
versity, summer term, 1902; Professorial Lecturer in History,
University of Chicago, 1903-04; Professor of Institutional History,
University of Nebraska, 1904-06. Member of American Historical
Association; American Political Science Association; and Ameri-
can Sociological Society. Author op Local Constitutional History
of the United States (1889); Development of the King's Peace
(1891) '.Modern English History and Biography, in New Interna-
tional Encyclopaedia (1902); History of Matrimonial Institutions
(3 vols., 1904); Preliminaries of the American Revolution
(1905).]

It is needful in the outset to mark the differentiation and
to observe the close interrelations of the family, marriage,
and the home. The problems of the family are necessarily
involved in those of the home and marriage. The three
forms of development are distinct in concept, but in their
life or functions they constitute a trinity of interdependent
institutions. Westermarck has suggested that in its origin
marriage rested more on family than the family upon mar-
riage. Biologically, of course, marriage comes first in the
union of the sexes ; yet it is certain that the culture-types of
marriage have been determined less by the sex-motive than
by the economic needs of the family, — the bread-and-butter
problem in the struggle for existence. To-day this fact is
decidedly true. In our age of social self-consciousness, of
dynamic sociology, the reformer who would act wisely will
not seek help in definitions bnt in a comprehension of the
economic and spiritual needs of the family and those of the

161

Digitized by Google

182

SOCIAL CONTROL

individuals which compose it. As in other cases, there
must be an adjustment of functions to the environment.
The social uses of the family and still more those of the
home are too often neglected while speculating on the nature
of wedlock and the ethics of divorce.

Accordingly the fundamental question which confronts
the student of this trinity of institutions is the problem of »
social control. In the Western world the extension of the
sphere of secular legislation practically to the whole prov-
ince^ — the whole outward or legal province— of marriage is
a fact of transcendent interest. In this regard the Reform-
ation marks the beginning of a social revolution. Luther's
dictum that "marriage is a worldly thing" contained within
it the germ of more history than its author ever imagined.
The real trend of evolution has not at all times been clearly
seen or frankly admitted ; but from the days of Luther, how-
ever concealed in theological garb or forced under theologi-
cal sanctions, however opposed by reactionary dogma, pub-
lic opinion has more and more decidedly recognized the
right of the temporal lawmaker in this field. In the seven-
teenth century the New England Puritan gave the state, in
its assemblies and in its courts, complete jurisdiction in
questions of marriage and divorce, to the entire exclusion
of the ecclesiastical authority. For nearly three quarters of
a century the clergy were forbidden to solemnize wedlock,
while at the same time marriages were freely dissolved by
the lay magistrate. Even the Council of Trent, by adjust-
ing the dogma regarding the minister of the sacrament,
had already left to Catholic states the way open for the civil
regulation of matrimony, a way on which France did not
hesitate to enter. Definitively the state seems to have
gained control of matrimonial administration.

As a result in the United States, not less clearly than else-
where in countries of Western civilization, marriage and the

Digitized by Google

FAMILY FUNCTION

183

family are emerging as purely social institutions. Liber-
ated in large measure from the cloud of medieval tradition,
their problems are seen to be identical in kind with those
which have everywhere concerned men and women from
the infancy of the human race. Biologically they are indeed
a necessary result of man's physical and psychic nature;
but institutionally they are something more. Modern juris-
prudence is a practical recognition of the fact that matri-
monial forms and family types are the products of human
experience, of human habits, and are, therefore, to be dealt
with by society according to human needs.

The greatest fact in social history is the rise of the state;
and in the more vital or organic sense the state has never
been so great a social fact as at the present hour. Moreover
its authority, its functions, are ever}' day expanding. The
popularization of sovereignty has but added to its power.
With the rise of this mighty institution all lower organisms
have lost something or all of their institutional character.
In the culture-stage of civilization the gentile organization
is no more. The clan and the tribe have disappeared. The
function of the family as the social unit, as a corporation
held together by the blood-tie, has likewise vanished. In
a perfectly logical way, however paradoxical at first place
it may seem, the social function of the individual has ex-
panded with that of the state. The process of socialization
and the process of individualization are correlative and mut-
ually sustaining operations.

Consequently out of the primary question of social con-
trol arises the problem with which we are here chiefly con-
cerned : the problem of protecting the family against harm
from the dual process of disintegration just referred to.
Already many changes of vast sociological meaning have
taken place, but the most vital characteristic of the family
survives. From the infancy of the human race, in the light

Digitized by Google

184

SOCIAL CONTROL

of our fullest knowledge, monogamy appears as the prevail-
ing type of sexual life. Under diverse conditions, religious,
economic, or social, there have been many aberrations from
that type; but, at first for biological or economic and later
for ethical or spiritual reasons, always the tendency has been
toward a more clearly differentiated form of the single pair-
ing family. Among all peoples, whether Christian, Jew, or
Gentile, the highest ideal of marriage is that of lifelong
partnership.

On the other hand, under the twofold leveling process,
the interrelations of the members of the family group are
being gradually transformed. The patriarchial authority
of the house-father is crumbling, although here and there
it is still sustained by the relics of medieval tradition. The
wife is declining to pass into the husband's hand, in tnanu
viri, but physically and spiritually she is more and more
insisting on becoming an equal member of the connubial
partnership. Not only are sons and daughters legally
emancipated at a reasonable age ; but during nonage, in the
most englightened households, their individuality is being
recognized in a way which would have shocked social senti-
ment a few generations ago. Young boys and even young
girls show a tendency to cut the parental moorings and em-
bark in affairs for themselves. The business precocity of
Ihc American youth is notorious. Moreover, the state in
the interest of the larger social body is attacking the ancient
constitution of the household. It is taking a hand in the
rearing of the young. Through educational requirements,
factory laws, and other child-saving devices it is invading
the ancient domain of the parent. Little by little, to use
the generalization of Dr. Commons, the original "coercive"
powers of the family under the patriarchial regime have
been "extracted" and appropriated by society. Thus the
family becomes "less a coercive institution, where the chil-.

Digitized by Google

FAMILY FUNCTION

185

dren serve their parents, and more a spiritual and psychic
association of parent and child based on persuasion." The
state, the "peculiar coercive institution," he declares, in the
interest of children's rights has "annexed" a large part of
the patria potestas; and "all families are thereby toned up
to a stronger emphasis on persuasion as the justification of
their continuance." 1 In fact the leveling tendency just con-
sidered, instead of being a serious menace to the family, is
probably a regenerative force. The question is, may the
old legal patriarchial bonds be adequately replaced by spir-
itual ties, and thus a nobler type of domestic life be pro-
duced?

In more sinister ways the solidarity of the family appears
to be menaced through the individualism fostered by our
economic and industrial systems, operating chiefly in great
urban centres. With the rise of corporate and associated
industry comes a weakening of family ties. Through the
division of labor the family "hearthstone" is fast becoming
a mere temporary meeting-place of individual wage-earners.
The congestion of the population in cities is forcing into
being new and lower modes of life. The home is in peril.
In the vast hives of Paris, London, or New York the fami-
lies even of the relatively well-to-do have small opportunity
to flourish — for self-culture and self -enjoyment. To the
children of the slum the street is a perilous nursery. For
them squalor, disease, and sordid vice have supplanted the
traditional blessings of the family sanctuary.

Furthermore, the social trinity is seriously threatened
by two opposite tendencies, each of which is, in part, the
product of present urban and industrial conditions. On
the one hand, marriage is shunned and the home is ceasing
to be attractive. For very many club life has stronger

;. "The Family." In his Sociological Viev> of Sovereignty,
of Sociology, y, 683 tL, 688-680,

Digitized by Google

186

SOCIAL CONTROL

allurements than the connubial partnership. For the poor,
sometimes for the rich, the great city has many interests
and many places more attractive than the home circle. The
spirit of commercial greed and the love of selfish ease, not
less than grinding penury, restrain men and women from
wedlock. On the other hand, the urban environment has
the opposite effect. In the crowded, heterogeneous, and
shifting population of the great towns marriages are often
lightly made and as lightly dissolved. Indeed, the re-
markable mobility of the American people, the habit of
frequent migration in search of employment, under the
powerful incentives of industrial enterprise, gold-hunting,
or other adventure, and under favor of the marvelously
developed means of transportation, will account in no
small degree for the laxity of matrimonial and family ties
in the United States.

Yet these perils, although serious, need not become fatal.
They are inherent mainly in industrial institutions which
may be scientifically studied and intelligently brought into
harmony with the requirements of the social order. The
problems of the family are at once ethical, sociological, and
economic. If the home is to be rescued from the encroach-
ments of the shop and the factory, it must be earnestly
studied in connection with the problems of organized in-
dustry and with those of state or municipal control of the
great public utilities. Already through improved facili-
ties for rapid transit the evils resulting from dense popu-
lation are being somewhat ameliorated. Of a truth every
penny's reduction in street-railway fares signifies to the
family of small means a better chance for pure air, sound
health, and a separate home in the suburbs. The disper-
sion of the city over a broader area at once cheapens and
raises the standard of living. Every hour's reduction in
the period of daily toil potentially gives more leisure for
building, adorning, and enjoying the home.

Digitized by Google

FAMILY FUNCTION

187

There is another result of social evolution which to many
persons seems to be just cause of alarm. The liberation
of woman in every one of its aspects profoundly involves
the destiny of the family. It signifies in all the larger ac-
tivities of life the relative individualization of one-half of
human kind. This means, of course, a weakening of the
solidarity of the family group so far as its cohesion is de-
pendent upon the remnants of ancient marital authority.
Will the ultimate dissolution of the family, as sometimes
predicted, thus become the price of equality and freedom?
Or rather, is it not almost certain that in the more salu-
brious air of freedom and equality there is being evolved
a higher type of the family, knit together by ties, sexual,
moral, and spiritual, far more tenacious than those fostered
by the regime of subjection ?

In particular the fear that the higher education of
woman, in connection with her growing economic inde-
pendence, will prove harmful to society through her re-
fusal of matrimony or maternity, appears to be without
real foundation. It is true that the birth-rate is falling.
So far as this depends upon male sensuality — a prevalent
cause of sterility; upon selfish love of ease and luxury —
of which men even more than women are guilty ; or upon
the disastrous influence of the extremes of wealth and pov-
erty—of which women as well as men are the victims — it
is a serious evil which may well cause us anxiety; but so
far as it is the result of the desire for fewer but better-
bom children, for which, let us hope, the advancing culture
of woman may in part be responsible, it is in fact, a posi-
tive social good.

It is true also that, while fewer and fewer marriages in
proportion to the population arc taking place, men as well
as women are marrying later and later in life. The mar-
riage-rate is falling and the average age at which either

Digitized by Google

188

SOCIAL CONTROL

sex marries is rising. Here, again, for the reasons just
mentioned, the results are both good and bad. Certain
it is that early marriages and excessive child-bearing have
been the twin causes of much injury to the human race.
It is high time definitively to expose the dual fallacy, de-
rived mainly from ancient military and theological tradi-
tion, that early marriages and many children should be
favored at all hazards. The gradual advance of the mar-
riage-age man mean better mated parents and more stable
families. Moreover, if it be admitted that a falling birth-
rate is a sign of national decadence, it should be considered
that an increasing population may now be sustained by
families smaller than in earlier times. Better sanitation,
the scientific mastery of prevention of disease, and the
lessening of the ravages of war are producing a decrease
in the death-rate which more than keeps pace with the fall
in the rate of births. In the last few decades the average
length of human life has been considerably increased.
Fewer children are born, but they are much better in
quality.

There is really no need to be anxious about the destiny
of the college woman. It is not marriage or maternity
which she shuns; but she is refusing to become merely a
child-bearing animal. It is simply wrong wedlock which
she avoids. She has a higher ideal of matrimony. The
rise of a more refined sentiment of love has become at
once a check and an incentive to marriage. With greater
economic and political liberty, she is declining to look upon
marriage as her sole vocation. As a wife she asks to be
admitted to an even partnership with the husband in the
nurture of the family and in doing the world's work. Thus
the liberation movement means in a high degree the so-
cialization of one-half of the human race.

Jt is perhaps not surprising that of all the alleged evils

Digitized by Google

FAMILY FUNCTION

189

which threaten the integrity of the family divorce should
be commonly looked upon as the most dangerous. In
Europe as well as in America the divorce-rate is rising
while the marriage-rate is falling. It is higher in the
United States than in any other country collecting statis-
tics except Japan. In this instance as in others it does not
follow that the individualistic tendency is necessarily
vicious. Nowhere in the field of social ethics, perhaps, is
there more confusion of thought than in dealing with the
divorce question. Divorce is not favored by any one for
its own sake. Probably in every healthy society the ideal
of right marriage is a lifelong union. But what if it is
not right, if the marriage is a failure? Is there no relief?
Here a sharp difference of opinion has arisen. Some per-
sons look upon divorce as an evil in itself; others as a
"remedy" for, or a "symptom" of, social disease. The one
class regards it as a cause; the other as an effect. To the
Roman Catholic and to those who believe with him divorce
is a sin, the sanction of "successive polygamy," of "polyg-
amy on the installment plan." At the other extreme are
those who, like Milton and Humboldt, would allow mar-
riage to be dissolved freely by mutual consent, or even at
the desire of either spouse. According to the prevailing
opinion, as expressed in modern legislation, civil divorce
is the logical counterpart of civil marriage. The right of
the state to dissolve wedlock is conceded, although it is
clear that in marriage the family relation is more vital than
the contract by which entrance into it is sanctioned. The
rupture of that relation is indeed "revolutionary," as has
been strongly insisted upon; but the state in granting di-
vorce is merely declaring a revolution which in reality has
already taken place.

Yet divorce is sanctioned by the state as an individual
right, and there may be occasions when the exercise of that

Digitized by Google

190

SOCIAL CONTROL

right becomes a social duty. Loose divorce laws may
even invite crime. Nevertheless it is fallacious to repre-
sent the institution of divorce as in itself a menace to social
morality. It is a result and not a cause ; a remedy and not
the disease. It is not immoral. On the contrary, it is
quite probable that drastic, like negligent, legislation is
sometimes immoral. It is not necessarily a virtue in a
divorce law, as appears often to be assumed, to restrict the
application of the remedy regardless of the sufferings of
the social body. If it were, the only logical course would
be to imitate South Carolina and prohibit divorce entirely.
The most enlightened judgment of the age heartily ap-
proves of the policy of extending the legal causes so as
to include offenses other than the one "scriptural" ground,
as being equally destructive of connubial happiness and
family well-being. Indeed, considering the needs of each
particular society, the promotion of happiness is the only
safe criterion to guide the lawmaker either in widening or
narrowing the door of escape from the marriage bond.

The divorce movement is a portentous and almost uni-
versal incident of modern civilization. Doubtless it sig-
nifies underlying social evils, vast and perilous. Yet to
the student of history it is perfectly clear that it is but a
part of the mighty movement for social liberation which
has been gaining in volume and strength ever since the
Reformation. According to the sixteenth-century re-
former, divorce is a "medicine" for the disease of mar-
riage. It is so to-day in a sense more real than Smith or
Bullinger ever dreamed of; for the principal fountain of
divorce is bad matrimonial laws and bad marriages. Cer-
tain it is that one rises from a detailed study of American
legislation with the conviction that, faulty as are our di-
vorce laws, our marriage laws are far worse: while our
apathy, our carelessness and levity regarding the safe-

Digitized by Google

FAMILY FUNCTION

191

guards of the matrimonial institution are well-nigh incredi-
ble. The centre of the dual problem of protecting and
reforming the family is marriage and not divorce.

In fact there has been a great deal of hasty and mis-
directed criticism of American divorce legislation. Often
it rests upon the facts as they were eighteen years ago,
when the government report was compiled. Meantime
great improvements have been made. Little by little the
codes of the fifty-two states and territories, freed from
their most glaring faults, are approximating to a common
type. If American legislation is on the average more lib-
eral than that of other lands, it would surely be rash to as-
sume that it is worse on that account. The question is:
Has American social liberalism, in this regard as in so
many other respects, increased the sum of human happi-
ness? Is there any good reason for believing that what
De Tocqueville said fifty years ago is not to-day true?
"Assuredly," he wrote, "America is the country in the
world where the marriage tie is most respected and where
the highest and justest idea of conjugal happiness has been
conceived."

The divorce movement in America is in part an inci-
dent of a great transition phase in social progress. It can-
not be denied that the increase in the number of divorces
is largely due to the new economic and intellectual posi-
tion of woman. The wife more frequently than the hus-
band is seeking in divorce a release from marital ills; for
in her case it often involves an escape from sexual slavery.
Indeed there is crying need of a higher ideal of the mar-
riage relation. While bad legislation and a low standard
of social ethics continue to throw recklessly wide the door
which opens to wedlock, there must of necessity be a broad
way out. How ignorantly, with what utter levity, are
marriages often contracted; how many thousands of par-

Digitized by Google

192 SOCIAL CONTROL

ents fail to give their children any serious warning against
yielding to transient impulse in choosing a mate ; how few
have received any real training with respect to the duties
and responsibilities of conjugal life? What proper check
is society placing upon the marriage of the unfit? Is
there any boy or girl so immature, if only the legal age of
consent has been reached; is there any "delinquent" so
dangerous through inherited tendencies to disease or
crime ; is there any worn-out debauchee, who cannot some-
where find a magistrate or a priest to tie the "sacred knot ?"
In sanctioning divorce the welfare of the children may well
cause the state anxiety ; but are there not thousands of so-
called "homes" from whose corrupting and blighting
shadow the sooner a child escapes the better both for it
and society?

In some measure the problem of the family has now
been stated. What are the means available for its solu-
tion? The raising of ideals is a slow process. It will
come only in relatively small degree through the statute-
maker. Yet the function of legislation is important.
Good laws constitute a favorable environment for spiritual
progress. Already much effective work has been done,
yet in almost every direction there is urgent need of re-
form. In particular our matrimonial law should be thor-
oughly overhauled. The so-called "common law mar-
riage" — a fruitful source of social anarchy— ought to be
absolutely abolished. The illogical and awkward system
of optional lay or ecclesiastical celebration should be super-
seded by obligatory civil marriage on the European model.
The administrative system governing the preliminaries of
marriage should be amended so as to relieve America
from the scandal of clandestine weddings of the St. Joseph
(Michigan) pattern. The achievement of a wisely con-
ceived and carefully drafted uniform matrimonial law for

Digitized by Google

FAMILY FUNCTION

193

the entire country ought to be more zealously taken in
hand. At present, through the state commissions on uni-
form legislation, practical workers are urging the adoption
of a model statute relating to divorce. Perhaps conven-
tions of groups of states might be used to advantage. In
the end it may be found necessary, under a constitutional
amendment, to appeal to the federal power. What service
could a national legislature render more beneficent than
the creation of a code embracing every division of the in-
tricate law of marriage and divorce? Aside from its edu-
cational value as a moral force, such a code in material
ways would prove a powerful guaranty of social order
and stability.

Far more important in the solution of the problem is the
function of education. Apparently the salvation of the
family must come mainly through the vitalizing, regenera-
tive power of a more efficient moral, physical, and social
training of the young. The home and the family must
enter into the educational curriculum. In the sphere of
the domestic institutions, even more imperatively than in
that of politics or economics, there is need of light and pub-
licity. It is vain to turn back the hand on the dial. The
process of individualization for the sake of socialization
should be frankly accepted. The old coercive bonds of
the family cannot be restored. A way must be found to
replace them by spiritual ties which will hold father, mother,
and child together in the discharge of a common function
in the altered environment.

The new social education must grapple fundamentally
with the whole group of problems which concern the fam-
ily, marriage, and the home. Through conscious effort
the home should become an educational institution in
which the family receives its most intimate training. In
the work every grade in the educational structure from

194

SOCIAL CONTROL

the university to the kindergarten must have its appro-
priate share. Already departments of sociology, social
science, domestic science, and physical culture are giving
instruction of real value ; but the training should be broad-
ened and deepened. Moreover, the elements of such a
training in domestic sociology should find a place in the
public school programme. Where now, except perchance
in an indirect or perfunctory way, does the school-boy or
girl get any practical suggestion as to home-building, the
right social relations of parent and child, much less re-
garding marriage and the fundamental question of the
sexual life? Indeed, almost the entire methodology of
such instruction has yet to be devised. Is it visionary to
hope that right methods may be developed for safely deal-
ing even with such matters?

In the future educational programme sex questions must
hold an honorable place. Progress in this direction may
be slow because of the false shame, the prurient delicacy,
now widely prevalent touching everything connected with
the sexual life. The folly of parents in leaving their chil-
dren in ignorance of the laws of sex is notorious ; yet how
much safer than ignorance is knowledge as a shield for
innocence 1

It is of the greatest moment to society that the young
should be trained in the general laws of heredity. Every-
where men and women are marrying in utter contempt of
the warnings of science. Domestic animals are literally
better bred than are human beings. There must be a
higher ideal of sexual choice. Experience shows that in
wedlock natural and sexual selection should play a smaller,
and artificial selection a larger, role ; the safety of the social
body requires that a check be put upon the propagation
of the unfit Here the state has a function to perform.
In the future much more than now, let us hope, the mar-

Digitized by Google

FAMILY FUNCTION

195

riage of persons mentally delinquent or tainted by neredi-
tary disease or crime will be legally restrained.

Moreover, the social culture of the future must con-
sciously foster a higher race-altruism which shall be capa-
ble of present sacrifice for the permanent good of the com-
ing generations. A wise sociologist has already outlined
the elements of a new science of Eugenics — a science deal-
ing with all the influences which improve and develop to
advantage the inborn qualities of the race. 1 Indeed, fam-
ily sentiment in some measure must yield to race senti-
ment. Too often at present family sentiment is but an ex-
pression of avid selfishness and greed which are no slight
hindrance to sociological progress. "When human beings
and families rationally subordinate their own interests as
perfectly to the welfare of future generations as do ani-
mals under the control of instinct," says Dr. Wood*, "the
world will have a more enduring type of family life than
exists at present." May we not confidently believe that
the family, surmounting the dangers which beset it, is
capable of developing new powers and discharging new
functions of vital importance to mankind? In the even
partnership of the domestic union, knit together by psychic
as well as physical ties, the house-father and the house-
mother are already becoming more conscious of their
higher function and responsibility as father and mother of
the race.

'Gallon, Eugenicn: It$ Definition, Scope, and Aim$, in American Journal of
Sociology, X, 1 ff.

•Dr. Thomas D. Wood, Some ControWmg Ideal* of the Family Life of the

Digitized by Google

THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN

FARMERS

BY KENYON LEECH BUTTERFIELD

[Kenton Leech Butterfield, President of Rhode Island College of
Agriculture and Mechanic ArU since 1903, and Professor of Po-
litical Economy and Rural Sociology. Since July 1, 1906, Presi-
dent of Massachusetts Agricultural College, b. Lapeer, Michigan,
June, 1868. B.S. Michigan Agricultural College; A.M. University
of Michigan. Assistant Secretary of Michigan Agricultural Col-
lege, 1891-92; Editor, MichiganJJrange Visitor, 1892 96; Superin-
tendent, Michigan Farmers' Institutes, 1895-99; Field Agent,
Michigan Agricultural College, 1896-99; Instructor in Rural So-
ciology, University of Michigan, 1902.)

The title of this paper indicates that, for the present
purpose, the words "the rural community" have been in-
terpreted to apply chiefly to farmers. Eight millions of
our people are classed by the census as "semi-urban." The
village problem is an interesting and important field for
social investigation, but we shall discuss only the condi-
tions and needs of farmers.

In America the farm problem has not been adequately
studied. So stupendous has been the development of our
manufacturing industries, so marvelous the growth of our
urban population, so pressing the questions raised by mod-
ern city life, that the social and economic interests of the
American farmer have, as a rule, received minor consid-
eration. We are impressed with the rise of cities like
Chicago, forgetting for the moment that half of the Ameri-
can people still live under rural conditions. We are per-
plexed by the labor wars that are waged about us, for the
time unmindful that one-third of the workers of this coun-
try make their living immediately from the soil. We are
astounded, and perhaps alarmed, at the great centraliza-
tion of capital, possibly not realizing that the capital in-

197

Digitized by Google

198 AMERICAN FARMERS

vested in agriculture in the United States nearly equals
the combined capital invested in the manufacturing and
railway industries. But if we pause to consider the scope
and nature of the economic and social interests involved,
we cannot avoid the conclusion that the farm problem is
worthy of serious thought from students of our national
welfare.

We are aware that agriculture does not hold the same
relative rank among our industries that it did in former
years, and that our city population has increased far more
rapidly than has our rural population. We do not ignore
the fact that urban industries are developing more rapidly
than is agriculture, nor deny the seriousness of the actual
depletion of rural population, and even of community de-
cadence, in some portions of the Union. But these facts
merely add to the importance of the farm question. And
it should not l>e forgotten that there has been a large and
constant growth both of our agricultural wealth and of
our rural population. During the last half-century there
was a gain of 500 per cent in the value of farm property,
while the non-urban population increased 250 per cent.
Agriculture has been one of the chief elements of America's
industrial greatness; it is still our dominant economic in-
terest, and it will long remain at least a leading industry.
The people of the farm have furnished a sturdy citizen-
ship and have been the primary source of much of our
best leadership in political, business, and professional life.
For an indefinite future a large proportion of the Ameri-
can people will continue to live in a rural environment.

In a thorough discussion of the "social problems of
American farmers" it would be desirable first of all to
analyze with some detail the general question which we
have called the farm problem. Only thus can we under-
stand the social difficulties of the rural community, the

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF 199

significance of the social agencies designed to meet those
difficulties, and the real ambitions and needs of the farm-
ing class. But time will permit merely a concise, and
necessarily a somewhat dogmatic, statement of what the
writer believes to be the ultimate farm problem in America.
We may perhaps most quickly arrive at the conclusion by
the process of elimination.

Current agricultural discussion would lead us to think
that the farm problem is largely one of technique. The
possibilities of the agricultural industry, in the light of
applied science, emphasize the need of the farmer for more
complete knowledge of soil and plant and animal, and for
increased proficiency in utilizing this knowledge to secure
greater production at less cost. This is a fundamental
need. It lies at the basis of success in farming. But it
is not the farm problem.

Business skill must be added, business methods en-
forced. The farmer must be not only a more skillful
produce-grower, but also a keener produce-seller. But the
moment we enter the realm of the market we step outside
the individualistic aspect of the problem as embodied in the
current doctrine of technical agricultural teaching, and are
forced to consider the social aspect as emphasized, first of
all, in the economic category of price. Here we find many
factors — transportation cost, general market conditions at
home and abroad, the status of other industries, and even
legislative activities. The farm problem becomes an in-
dustrial question, not merely one of technical and business
skill. Moreover, the problem is one of a successful in-
dustry as a whole, not merely the personal successes of
even a respectable number of individual farmers. The
farming class must progress as a unit.

But have we yet reached the heart of the question? Is
the farm problem one of technique, plus business skill,

200 AMERICAN FARMERS

plus these broad economic considerations? Is it not per-
fectly possible that agriculture as an industry may remain
in a fairly satisfactory condition, and yet the farming
class fail to maintain its status in the general social order?
Is it not, for instance, quite within the bounds of proba-
bility to imagine a good degree of economic strength in
the agricultural industry existing side by side with either
a peasant regime or a landlord-and-tenant system? Yet
would we expect from either system the same social fruit-
age that has been harvested from our American yeomanry?

We conclude, then, that the farm problem consists in
maintaining upon our farms a class of people who have
succeeded in procuring for themselves the highest possible
class status, not only in the industrial, but in the political
and the social order — a relative status, moreover, that is
measured by the demands of American ideals. The farm
problem thus connects itself with the whole question of
democratic civilization. This is not mere platitude. For
we cannot properly judge the significance and the relation
of the different industrial activities of our farmers, and
especially the value of the various social agencies for rural
betterment, except by the standard of class status. It is
here that we seem to find the only satisfactory philosophy
of rural progress.

We would not for a moment discredit the fundamental -
importance of movements that have for their purpose the
improved technical skill of our farmers, better business
management of the farm, and wiser study and control of .
market conditions. Indeed, we would call attention to the
fact that social institutions are absolutely necessary means
of securing these essential factors of industrial success. In
the solution of the farm problem we must deliberately in-
voke the influence of quickened means of communication,
of cooperation among farmers, of various means of edu-

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF

201

cation, and possibly even of religious institutions, to stimu-
late and direct industrial activity. What needs present
emphasis is the fact that there is a definite, real, social end
to be held in view as the goal of rural endeavor. The
highest possible social status for the farming class is that
end.

We may now, as briefly as possible, describe some of
the difficulties that lie in the path of the farmers in their
ambition to attain greater class efficiency and larger class
influence, and some of the means at hand for minimizing
the difficulties. A complete discussion of the farm prob-
lem should, of course, include thorough consideration of
the technical, the business, and the economic questions im-
plied by the struggle for industrial success; for industrial
success is prerequisite to the achievement of the greatest
social power of the farming class. But we shall consider
only the social aspects of the problem.

Rural Isolation

Perhaps the one great underlying social difficulty among
American farmers is their comparatively isolated mode of
life. The farmer's family is isolated from other families.
A small city of perhaps twenty thousand population will
contain from four hundred to six hundred families per
square mile, whereas a typical agricultural community in
a prosperous agricultural state will hardly average more
than ten families per square mile. The farming class is
isolated from other classes. Farmers, of course, mingle
considerably in a business and political way with the men
of their trading town and county seat ; but, broadly speak-
ing, farmers do not associate freely with people living un-
der urban conditions and possessing other than the rural
point of view. It would be venturesome to suggest very
definite generalizations with respect to the precise influ-

Digitized by Google

202

AMERICAN FARMERS

ence of these conditions because, so far as the writer is
aware, the psychology of isolation has not been worked
out. But two or three conclusions seem to be admissible,
and for that matter rather generally accepted.

The well-known conservatism of the farming class is
doubtless largely due to class isolation. Habits, ideas,
traditions, and ideals have long life in the rural commun-
ity. Changes come slowly. There is a tendency to tread
the well-worn paths. The farmer does not easily keep in
touch with the rapid modern development, unless the move-
ments or methods directly affect him. Physical agencies
which improve social conditions, such as electric lights,
telephones, and pavements, come to the city first The
atmosphere of the country speaks peace and quiet Na-
ture's routine of sunshine and storm, of summer and
winter, encourages routine and repetition in the man who
works with her.

A complement of this rural conservatism, which at first
thought seems a paradox, but which probably grows out
of these same conditions of isolation, is the intense radi-
calism of a rural community when once it breaks away
from its moorings. Many farmers are unduly suspicious
of others' motives; yet the same people often succumb to
the wiles of the charlatan, whether medical or political.
Farmers are usually conservative in politics and intensely
loyal to party; but the Populist movement indicates the
tendency to extremes when the old allegiance is left be-
hind. Old methods of farming may be found alongside
ill-considered attempts to raise new crops or to utilize un-
tried machines.

Other effects of rural isolation are seen in a class pro-
vincialism that is hard to eradicate, and in the development
of minds less alert to seize business advantages and less
far-sighted than are developed by the intense industrial

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF

203

life of the town. There is time to brood over wrongs,
real and imaginary. Personal prejudices often grow to be
rank and coarse-fibered. Neighborhood feuds are not un-
common and are often virulent. Leadership is made diffi-
cult and sometimes impossible. It is easy to fall into per-
sonal habits that may mark off the farmer from other
classes of similar intelligence, and that bar him from his
rightful social place.

It would, however, be distinctly unfair to the farm com-
munity if we did not emphasize some of the advantages
that grow out of the rural mode of life. Farmers have
time to think, and the typical American farmer is a man
who has thought much and often deeply. A spirit of
sturdy independence is generated, and freedom of will and
of action is encouraged. Family life is nowhere so edu-
cative as in the country. The whole family cooperates for
common ends, and in its individual members are bred the
qualities of industry, patience, and perseverance. The
manual work of the schools is but a makeshift for the old-
fashioned training of the country-grown boy. Country
life is an admirable preparation for the modern industrial
and professional career.

Nevertheless, rural isolation is a real evil. Present-day
living is so distinctively social, progress is so dependent
upon social agencies, social development is so rapid, that
if the farmer is to keep his status he must be fully in step
with the rest of the army. He must secure the social
viewpoint. The disadvantages of rural isolation are largely
in the realm of the social relations, its advantages mostly
on the individual and moral side. Farm life makes a
strong individual; it is a serious menace to the achieve-
ment of class power.

A cure for isolation sometimes suggested is the gather-
ing of the farmers into villages. This remedy, however,

<304

AMERICAN FARMERS

is of doubtful value. In the first place, the scheme is not
immediately practicable. About three and one-half bil-
lions of dollars are now invested in farm buildings, and it
will require some motive more powerful than that inspired
by academic logic to transfer, even gradually, this invest-
ment to village groups. Moreover, it is possible to dis-
pute the desirability of the remedy. The farm village at
best must be a mere hamlet. It can secure for the farmer
very few of the urban advantages he may want, except
that of permitting closer daily intercourse between families.
And it is questionable if the petty society of such a village
can compensate for the freedom and purity of rural family
life now existing. It may even be asserted with some de-
gree of positiveness that the small village, on the moral
and intellectual sides, is distinctly inferior to the isolated
farm home.

At the present time rural isolation in America is being
overcome by the development of better means of com-
munication among farmers who still live on their farms.
So successful are these means of communication proving
that we cannot avoid the conclusion that herein lies the
remedy. Improved wagon-roads, the rural free mail de-
livery, the farm telephone, trolley-lines through country
districts, are bringing about a positive revolution in coun-
try living. They are curing the evils of isolation, without
in the slightest degree robbing the farm of its manifest
advantages for family life. The farmers are being welded
into a more compact society. They are being nurtured
to greater alertness of mind, to greater keenness of ob-
servation, and the foundations are being laid for vastly
enlarged social activities. The problem now is to extend
these advantages to every rural community — in itself a
task of huge proportions. If this can be done and isola-
tion can be reduced to a minimum, the solution of all the
other rural social problems will become vastly easier.

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF 205

Farmers* Organisation

Organization is one of the pressing social problems that
American farmers have to face. The importance of the
question is intrinsic, because of the general social necessity
for cooperation which characterizes modern life. Society
is becoming consciously self-directive. The immediate
phase of this growing self-direction lies in the attempts
of various social groups to organize their powers for group
advantage. And if, as seems probable, this group activity
is to remain a dominant feature of social progress, even
in a fairly coherent society, it is manifest that there will
result more or less of competition among groups.

The farming class, if at all ambitious for group influ-
ence, can hardly avoid this tendency to organization.
Farmers, indeed, more than any other class, need to or-
ganize. Their isolation makes thorough organization
especially imperative. And the argument for cooperation
gains force from the fact that relatively the agricultural
population is declining. In the old day farmers ruled be-
cause of mere mass. That is no longer possible. The
naive statement that "farmers must organize because other
classes are organizing" is really good social philosophy.

In the group competition just referred to there is a ten-
dency for class interests to be put above general social wel-
fare. This is a danger to be avoided in organization, not
an argument against it. So the farmers' organization
should be guarded, at this point, by adherence to the prin-
ciple that organization must not only develop class power,
but must be so directed as to permit the farmers to lend
the full strength of their class to general social progress.

Organization thus becomes a test of class efficiency, and
consequently a prerequisite for solving the farm problem.
Can the farming class secure and maintain a fairly corn-

Digitized by Google

20G

AMERICAN FARMERS

plete organization? Can it develop efficient leaders? Can
it announce, in sound terms, its proposed group policy?
Can it lend the group influence to genuine social progress?
If so, the organization of farmers becomes a movement of
preeminent importance.

Organization, moreover, is a powerful educational force.
It arouses discussion of fundamental questions, diffuses
knowledge, gives practice in public affairs, trains individ-
uals in executive work, and, in fine, stimulates, as nothing
else can, a class which is in special need of social incentive.

Organization is, however, difficult of accomplishment.
While it would take us too far afield to discuss the history
of farmers' organizations in America, we may briefly sug-
gest some of the difficulties involved. For forty years the
question has been a prominent one among the farmers,
and these years have seen the rise and decline of several
large associations. There have been apparently two great
factors contributing to the downfall of these organizations.
The first was a misapprehension, on the part of the farm-
ers, of the feasibility of organizing themselves as a polit-
ical phalanx; the second, a sentimental belief in the possi-
bilities of business cooperation among farmers, more es-
pecially in lines outside their vocation. There is no place
for class politics in America. There are some things legis-
lation cannot cure. There are serious limitations to co-
operative endeavor. It took many hard experiences for
our farmers to learn these truths. But back of all lie
some inherent difficulties, as, for instance, the number of
people involved, their isolation, sectional interests, in-
grained habits of independent action, of individual initia-
tive, of suspicion of others' motives. There is often lack
of perspective and unwillingness to invest in a procedure
that does not promise immediate returns. The mere fact
of failure has discredited the organization idea. There

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF 207

is lack of leadership ; for the farm industry, while it often
produces men of strong mind, keen perception, resolute
will, does not, as a rule, develop executive capacity for
large enterprises.

It is frequently asserted that farmers are the only class
that has not organized. This is not strictly true. The
difficulties enumerated are real difficulties and have seri-
ously retarded farm organization. But if the progress
made is not satisfactory, it is at least encouraging. On
the purely business side, over five thousand cooperative
societies among American farmers have been reported.
In cooperative buying of supplies, cooperative selling of
products, and cooperative insurance the volume of trans-
actions reaches large figures. A host of societies of a
purely educational nature exists among stock-breeders,
fruit-growers, dairymen. It is true that no one general
organization of farmers, embracing a large proportion of
the class, has as yet been perfected. The nearest approach
to it is the Grange, which, contrary to a popular notion,
is in a prosperous condition, with a really large influence
upon the social, financial, educational, and legislative in-
terests of the farming class. It has had a steady growth
during the past ten years, and is a quiet but powerful factor
in rural progress. The Grange is, perhaps, too conserva-
tive in its administrative policy. It has not at least suc-
ceeded in converting to its fold the farmers of the great
Mississippi Valley. But it has workable machinery, it
disavows partisan politics and selfish class interests, and it
subordinates financial benefits, while emphasizing educa-
tional and broadly political advantages. It seems fair to
interpret the principles of the Grange as wholly in line
with the premise of this paper, that the farmers need to
preserve their status, politically, industrially, and socially,
and that organization is one of the fundamental methods

Digitized by Google

208 AMERICAN FARMERS

they must use. The Grange, therefore, deserves to suc-
ceed, and indeed is succeeding.

The field of agricultural organization is an extensive
one. But if the farm problem is to be satisfactorily solved,
the American farmers must first secure reasonably com-
plete organization.

Rural Education

It is hardly necessary to assert that the education of that
portion of the American people who live upon the land in-
volves a question of the greatest significance. The sub-
ject naturally divides itself into two phases, one of which
may be designated, as rural education proper, the other as
agricultural education. Rural education has to do with
the education of people, more especially of the young, who
live under rural conditions; agricultural education aims to
prepare men and women for the specific vocation of agri-
culture. The rural school typifies the first; the agricul-
tural school, the second. Rural education is but a section
of the general school question ; agricultural education is a
branch of technical training. These two phases of the
education of the farm population meet at many points,
they must work in harmony, and together they form a
distinct educational problem.

The serious difficulties in the rural school question are
perhaps three : first, to secure a modern school, in efficiency
somewhat comparable to the town school, without unduly
increasing the school tax; second, so to enrich the cur-
riculum and so to expand the functions of the school that
the school shall become a vital and coherent part of the
community life, on the one hand translating the rural en-
vironment into terms of character and mental efficiency,
and on the other hand serving perfectly as a stepping-stone

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF 209

to the city schools and to urban careers; third, to provide
adequate high-school facilities in the rural community.

The centralization of district schools and the transpor-
tation of pupils will probably prove to be more nearly a
solution of all these difficulties than will any other one
scheme. The plan permits the payment of higher wages
for teachers and ought to secure better instruction; it per-
mits the employment of special teachers, as for nature-
study or agriculture; it increases the efficiency of superin-
tendence; it costs but little, if any, more than the district
system ; it leaves the school amid rural surroundings, while
introducing into the school-room itself a larger volume, so
to speak, of world-atmosphere; it contains possibilities for
community service; it can easily be expanded into a high
school of reputable grade.

There are two dangers, both somewhat grave, likely to
arise from an urgent campaign for centralization. Even
if the movement makes as great progress as could reason-
ably be expected, for a generation to come a large share,
if not a major portion, of rural pupils will still be taught
in the small, isolated, district school; there is danger that
this district school may be neglected. Moreover, increased
school machinery always invites undue reliance upon ma-
chine-like methods. Centralization permits, but does not
guarantee, greater efficiency. A system like this one must
be vitalized by constant and close touch with the life and
needs and inspirations of the rural community itself.

Wherever centralization is not adopted, the consolida-
tion of two or three schools — a modified form of central-
ization — may prove helpful. Where the district school
still persists, there are one or two imperative requirements.
Teachers must have considerably higher wages and longer
tenure. There must be more efficient supervision. The
state must assist in supporting the school, although only

210 AMERICAN FARMERS

in part. The small schools must be correlated with some
form of high school. The last point is of great import-
ance because of the comparative absence in country com-
munities of opportunity near at hand for good high-school
training.

Agricultural education is distinctively technical, not in
the restricted sense of mere technique or even of applied
science, but in the sense that it must be frankly vocational.
It has to do with the preparation of men and women for
the business of farming and for life in the rural com-
munity.

Agricultural education should begin in the primary
school. In this school the point of view, however, should
be broadly pedagogical rather than immediately vocational.
Fortunately, the wise teaching of nature-study, the train-
ing of pupils to know and to love nature, the constant illus-
trations from the rural environment, the continual appeal
to personal observation and experience, absolute loyalty to
the farm point of view, are not only sound pedagogy, but
from the best possible background for future vocational
study. Whether we call this early work "nature-study"
or call it "agriculture" matters less than that the funda-
mental principle be recognized. It must first of all edu-
cate. The greatest difficulty in introducing such work
into the primary school is to secure properly equipped
teachers.

Perhaps the most stupendous undertaking in agricultural
education is the adequate development of secondary edu-
cation in agriculture. The overwhelming majority of
young people who secure any agricultural schooling what-
ever must get it in institutions that academically are of
secondary grade. This is a huge task. If developed to
supply existing needs, it will call for an enormous expendi-
ture of money and for the most careful planning. From

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF 211

the teaching viewpoint it is a difficult problem. Modern
agriculture is based upon the sciences ; it will not do, there-
fore, to establish schools in the mere art of farming. But
these agricultural high schools must deal with pupils who
are comparatively immature, and who almost invariably
have had no preparation in science. Nor should the
courses at these schools be ultra-technical. They are to
prepare men and women for life on the farm — men and
women who are to lead in rural development, and who
must get some inkling at least of the real farm question
and its solution. The agricultural school, therefore, pre-
sents a problem of great difficulty.

A perennial question in agricultural education is : What
is the function of the agricultural college? We have not
time to trace the history of these colleges, nor to elaborate
the various views relative to their mission. But let us for
a moment discuss their proper function in the light of the
proposition that the preservation of the farmers' status is
the real farm problem, for the college can be justified only
as it finds its place among the social agencies helpful in
the solution of the farm question.

In so far as the agricultural college, through its experi-
ment station or otherwise, is an organ of research, it should
carry its investigations into the economic and sociological
fields, as well as pursue experiments in soil fertility and
animal nutrition.

In the teaching of students, the agricultural college will
continue the important work of training men for agricul-
tural research, agricultural teaching, and expert super-
vision of various agricultural enterprises. But the college
should put renewed emphasis upon its ability to send well-
trained men to the farms, there to live their lives, there to
find their careers, and there to lead in the movements for
rural progress. A decade ago it was not easy to find col-

212 AMERICAN FARMERS

leges which believed that this could be done, and some ag-
ricultural educators have even disavowed such a purpose
as a proper object of the colleges. But the strongest agri-
cultural colleges to-day have pride in just such a purpose.
And why not? We not only need men thus trained as
leaders in every rural community, but if the farming busi-
ness cannot be made to offer a career to a reasonable num-
ber of college-trained men, it is a sure sign that only by
the most herculean efforts can the farmers maintain their
status as a class. If agriculture must be turned over
wholly to the untrained and to the half-trained, if it cannot
satisfy the ambition of strong, well-educated men and
women, its future, from the social point of view, is indeed
gloomy.

The present-day course of study in the agricultural col-
lege does not, however, fully meet this demand for rural
leadership. The farm problem has been regarded as a
technical question, and a technical training has been of-
fered the student. The agricultural college, therefore,
needs "socializing." Agricultural economics and rural so-
ciology should occupy a large place in the curriculum. The
men who go from the college to the farm should appre-
ciate the significance of the agricultural question, and
should be trained to organize their forces for genuine rural
progress. The college should, as far as possible, become
the leader in the whole movement for solving the farm
problem.

The farm home has not come in for its share of atten-
tion in existing schemes of agricultural education. The
kitchen and the dining-room have as much to gain from
science as have the dairy and the orchard. The inspira-
tion of vocational knowledge must be the possession of
her who is the entrepreneur of the family, the home-
maker. The agricultural colleges, through their depart-

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF

213

ments of domestic science — better, of "home-making" —
should inaugurate a comprehensive movement for carry-
ing to the farm home a larger measure of the advantages
which modern science is showering upon humanity.

The agricultural college must also lead in a more ade-
quate development of extension teaching. Magnificent
work has already been done through farmers' institutes,
reading courses, cooperative experiments, demonstrations,
and correspondence. But the field is so immense, the num-
ber of people involved so enormous, the difficulties of
reaching them so many, that it offers a genuine problem
and one of peculiar significance, not only because of the
generally recognized need of adult education, but also be-
cause of the isolation of the farmers.

It should be said that in no line of rural betterment has
so much progress been made in America as in agricultural
education. Merely to describe the work that is being done
through nature-study and agriculture in the public schools,
through agricultural schools, through our magnificent ag-
ricultural colleges, through farmers' institutes, and especi-
ally through the experiment stations and the federal De-
partment of Agriculture in agricultural research and in the
distribution of the best agricultural information — merely
to inventory these movements properly would take the
time available for this discussion. What has been said
relative to agricultural education is less in way of criticism
of existing methods than in way of suggestion as to funda-
mental needs.

The Ethical and Religious Problem.

Wide generalizations as to the exact moral situation in the
rural community are impossible. Conditions have not been
adequately studied. It is probably safe to say that the
country environment is extremely favorable for pure family

214 AMERICAN FARMERS

life, for temperance, and for bodily and mental health. To
picture the country a paradise is, however, mere silliness.
There are in the country, as elsewhere, evidences of vul-
garity in language, of coarseness in thought, of social im-
purity, of dishonesty in business. There is room in the
country for all the ethical teaching that can be given.

Nor is it easy to discuss the country church question, i
Conditions vary in different parts of the Union, and no
careful study has been made of the problem. As a general
proposition it may be said that there are too many churches
in the country, and that these are illy supported. Conse-
quently, they have in many cases inferior ministers. Sec-
tarianism is probably more divisive than in the city, not
only because of the natural conservatism of the people and a
natural disinclination to change their views, but because
sectarian quarrels are perhaps more easily fomented and less
easily harmonized than anywhere else. Moreover, in the
city a person can usually find a denomination to his liking.
In the country, even with the present overchurched con-
dition, this is difficult.

The ideal solution of the country church problem is to
have in each rural community one strong church adequately
supported, properly equipped, ministered to by an able man
— a church which leads in community service. The path
to the realization of such an ideal is rough and thorny.
Church federation, however, promises large results in this
direction and should be especially encouraged.

Whatever outward form the solution of the country
church question may take, there seems to be several general
principles involved in a satisfactory attempt to meet the
issue. In the first place, the country church offers a prob-
lem by itself, socially considered. Methods successful in
the city may not succeed in the country. The country
church question must then be studied thoroughly and on the
ground.

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF 215

Again, the same principle of financial aid to be utilized in
the case of the schools must be invoked here. The wealth
of the whole church must contribute to the support of the
church everywhere. The strong must help the weak. The
city must help-***^ country. But this aid must be given by
cooperation, not by condescension. The demand cannot be
met by home missionary effort nor by church-building con-
tributions; the principle goes far deeper than that Some
device must be secured which binds together the whole
church, along denominational lines if must be, for a full
development of church work in every community in the
land.

Furthermore, there is supreme necessity for adding dig-
nity to the country parish. Too often at present the rural
parish is regarded either as a convenient laboratory for the
clerical novice, or as an asylum for the decrepit or inefficient.
The country parish must be a parish for our ablest and
strongest. The ministry of the most Christlike must be to
the hill-towns of Galilee as well as to Jerusalem.

There is still another truth that the country church cannot
afford to ignore. The rural church question is peculiarly
interwoven witlythe industrial and social problems of the
farm. A declining agriculture cannot foster a growing
church. An active church can render especially strong
service to a farm community, in its influence upon the re-
ligious life, the home life, the educational life, the social
life, and even upon the industrial life. Nowhere else are
these various phases of society's activities so fully members
one of another as in the country. The country church
should cooperate with other rural social agencies. This
means that the country pastor should assume a certain lead-
ership in movements for rural progress. He is splendidly
fitted, by the nature of his work and by his position in the
community, to cooperate with earnest farmers for the social

216

AMERICAN FARMERS

and economic, as well as the moral and spiritual, upbuilding
of the farm community. But he must know the farm prob-
lem. Here is an opportunity for theological seminaries:
let them make rural sociology a required subject. And,
better, here is a magnificent field of labor for the right kind
of young men. The country pastorate may thus prove to
be, as it ought to be, a place of honor and rare privilege.
In any event, the country church, to render its proper serv-
ice, not alone must minister to the individual soul, but must
throw itself into the struggle for rural betterment, must help
solve the farm problem.

Federation of Forces.

The suggestion that the country church should ally itself
with other agencies of rural progress may be carried a step
farther. Rural social forces should be federated. The
object of such federation is to emphasize the real nature of
the farm problem, to interest many people in its solution, and
to secure the cooperation of the various rural social agencies
each of which has its sphere, but also its limitations. The
method of federation is to bring together, for conference and
for active work, farmers, especially representatives of farm-
ers' organizations, agricultural educators, rural school-
teachers and supervisors, country clergymen, country
editors, in fact, all who have a genuine interest in the farm
problem. Thus will come clearer views of the questions at
issue, broader plans for reform, greater incentive to action,
and more rapid progress.

Conclusion

In this brief analysis of the social problems of American
farmers it has been possible merely to outline those aspects
of the subject that seem to be fundamental. It is hope that
the importance of each problem has been duly emphasized,

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF 217

that the wisest methods of progress have been indicated,
and that the relation of the various social agencies to the
main question has been clearly brought out. Let us leave
the subject by emphasizing once more the character of the
ultimate farm problem. This problem may be stated more
concretely, if not more accurately, than was done at the
opening of the paper, by saying that the ideal of rural bet-
terment is to preserve upon our farms the typical American
farmer. The American farmer has been essentially a
middle-class man. It is this type we must maintain. Agri-
culture must be made to yield returns in wealth, in oppor-
tunity, in contentment, in social position, sufficient to attract
and to hold to it a class of intelligent, educated American
citizens. This is an end vital to the preservation of Ameri-
can democratic ideals. It is a result that will not achieve
itself; social agencies must be invoked for its accomplish-
ment. It demands the intelligent and earnest cooperation
of all who love the soil and who seek America's permanent
welfare.

Digitized by Google

THE RELATIONS OF THE URBAN COMMUNITY
TO OTHER BRANCHES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

BY J. J ASTRO W

(Translated by Professor Charles W. Beidenadel, Ph.D., University

of Chicago.)

[J. Jabtbow. Ph.D., Professor of Political Economy, University of
Berlin; Economic Adviser of the Berlin Senior Merchants' Asso-
ciation; Member of the Executive of the Charlottenburg Munici-
pality, b. September 13, 1856. Universities: Breslau, Berlin,
Gottlngen, 1874-78; Ph.D. Gottingen. 1878. Docent at the Berlin
University, 1885. Author of Strafrechtliche Btellung der Bkla-
ven bei Deutschen und Angelsachsen (1878) ; Qeschichte des deut-
schen Einheitstraunxes (1884; 4th ed. 1891; prize paper); Deut'
sche Oeschichte im Zeitalter der Hohenstaufen (1893); Dreiklas-
sensystem (1894); Einrichtung von Arbeitsnachweisen (1898);
Kommunale Anleihen (1900); BozialpoUtik und Verxoaltungswis-
senschaft, Vol. i; Arbeitsmarkt und Arbeitsnachweis, Qexoerbege-
richte und Einigungsamter (1902); Krisis auf dem Arbeits-
markte (1903). Editor of Jahresberichte der Cteschichtstcissen-
schaft (1881-94); Soziale Praxis (1893-97); Das Getoerbegericht
and Der Arbeitsmarkt (since 1897).]

If we want to gain information about the relations of the
subject of this paper, the urban community, to kindred
sciences, we proceed in the easiest way by considering that
the urban community has three other communities beneath
itself, above itself, and at its side ; beneath itself the family,
above itself the state, and at its side the rural community.

Wherever an urban community formed itself, it found the
already existing family ; by this fact it has been directed in its
development. Nowhere is the urban community an original
community grown out of individuals, but it is everywhere a
coalition of existing social formations. The formation of a
higher order is determined by the elements from which it has
grown. And even to-day, after the urban community has
long ago attained to independent activity separated from the

219

Digitized by Google

220 THE URBAN COMMUNlfY

family, the influence of that origin is still evident in the
selection of the objects of its activity. Perhaps there is no
country in which this dependency is more apparent than in
Germany.

The principal objects of activity of a German urban com-
munity, t. e., those which bring the greater part of the citi-
zens, either actively or passively, in contact with the com-
munity and which characterize the urban community, are
the school and charities. Both are an integral part of
familiar activity.

The school originated when a part of education, instruc-
tion, was separated from the family and instituted for sev-
eral families in common. The municipal school is an insti-
tution established for the purpose of making this part of
education common to all families of the city (or to make the
common education possible). As long as the families paid
school fees according to the number of the children using
the school, the public school was a common institution of all
participating families. Where the fees are abolished this
connection is dissolved and a part of the familiar duties have
been transferred to the community. But now the different
parts of education are so closely connected that no part could
be separated from the whole without drawing other parts
along. Even the school libraries which furnish the pupils
reading material in their leisure hours recognize that the
child is, in a certain measure, under their supervision and
care during the time in which it does not go to school.
Since not only mental but also physical culture is the object
of instruction, and since special stress must be laid upon this
in accordance with the old saying, "mens sana in corpore
satw," also the care of the body becomes a part of the
activity of this institution. The cities begin, therefore, to
connect baths with the institutions (Schul-brausebiider),
and the sanitary supervision, in the hands of school physi-

Digitized by Google

RELATIONS TO SOCIAL SCIENCES

221

cians, is performed from the higher point of view that in a
country with universal education this supervision gives the
best opportunity to review the sanitary condition of the
future generation and to prevent, at least with good advice
and little remedies, the diseases of eyes, teeth, etc., on which
the necessary care is not bestowed in the families, as experi-
ence has shown. Free instruction contains the recognition
that the community has taken up this part of education in-
stead of the family. From this the deduction is made that
the community must furnish not only the common means
of instruction, but also the individual means for every child,
not only the means of teaching, but also of learning. To a
certain degree an agreement in this much-disputed demand
has been reached, inasmuch as it is considered to be, under
all circumstances, the duty of the school administration to
provide children with school-books. There is still a contro-
versy whether this provision shall become general or shall
be confined to the cases of poor families (more expressly:
whether the provision of school-books shall be general or
subsidiary). If, according to the Latin proverb, "plenus
vetiter non studet Hbenter," — a full stomach is not inclined
to study,— certainly an empty one is less capable of it. The
impossibility to instruct hungry children urges the necessity
of feeding the pupils ; it is done as a formal school institution
(in Switzerland, and in Norway) or in connection with
charitable societies, as is preferred in Germany. This de-
velopment is spreading fast. Now the needs of life urge to
proceed from feeding of children also to clothing them (to
furnish shoes in mountainous regions) ; now the apparently
useless recreations which make life more enjoyable cause
play and sport to be added to instruction; they open an infi-
nite space for the extension of the school to activities which
had formerly belonged to the family. In no country of the
world is this more evident than in America.

Digitized by Google

222 THE URBAN COMMUNITY

But also m other respects the activity of the urban com-
munity of the public school draws its objects from the
family. Formerly the family itself had been the school for
the education of the girls ; the daughters received their edu-
cation for their duties as mother and wife by their activity
in the family. The more the family is dissolved by the drift
of the women to the trades, and the more the home educa-
tion is impaired, the more the family is in danger of losing
that important historical connection which is founded upon
the tradition of the mother to her daughter. Here the
school appears as a remedy, as it offers instruction to girls
in domestic science for their future activity in the family.

The familiar origin of urban activity shows itself also in
charity, in a different way but not less clearly, either in
public institutions for the poor or in the care for the poor
in their homes. In either case urban charity has the same
object as the care of the family for its members. Only in
one instance the activity of the family is entirely replaced;
in the other it is supplemental ; this difference determines the
two systems of the charity administration. English charity,
a large indoor relief system, gives every one who does not
find in the family what life demands, a compensation, but it
demands (at least according to the rules) that the poor give
up his family and move into the urban poorhouse ; only ex-
ceptionally he is supported while living within the family.
The opposite system is followed in Germany : as long as it
is possible, the poor is permitted to remain in his abode, and
urban charity furnishes only the necessary additional sup-
port; only in exceptional instances, if no other way is pos-
sible, is the poor separated from his family and sent to the
poorhouse. But in either system familiar duties are trans-
ferred to the city. It would be a mistake to believe that this
development is confined to those countries in which legisla-
tion recognizes the obligation of charity. There are no

Digitized by Google

RELATIONS TO SOCIAL SCIENCES 223

longer any large cities without public charity, whether legis-
lation urges it or not. France is considered the classical
country of exclusively voluntary charity. But while French
legislation has not mentioned expressly the obligation to
establish administrations of charity, it has instituted obliga-
tory branches of charity for a great many special cases, so
that France surpasses, in many respects, even the countries
with obligatory charity ; and where charity is voluntary, it
is voluntary not only for the individuals but also for the
communities, the largest of which have gone farthest in
performing voluntary charitable duties. In the United
States of America, where there is no uniform system and
where all intermediate degrees from strictly voluntary to
completely obligatory charity exist, the necessity of uniform
administration appeared most urgent in the urban centres of
population. As London has set an example by its Charities
Directory, so did New York with the great idea of the local
concentration of its charitable institutions. A constantly
growing circle of private, of familiar activi^occupies itself
with charity, by rising from the idea of removing existing
need to the higher idea of preventive charity. Thus the
administrations of charity either endeavor to improve sani-
tary conditions as sources of pauperism, or they attempt
to diminish the lack of employment and occupation by car-
ing for finding work more easily, by erecting small houses
at the right time in order to prevent the ill effects of ab-
normal high rates of renting, etc. With all these aspirations
charity does not create any new objects of its activity, but it
selects certain activities from those of the family which are
appropriate for the wide circle of the community. Charity
is the intermediate stage through which a number of activi-
ties pass in order to be taken out of the hands of the family
and to be performed at first only under compulsion of neces-
sity and in a provisory manner, and later to become a prob-
lem of enormous significance.

Digitized by Google

224 THE URBAN COMMUNITY

For example : To procure a dwelling is the matter of the
family. A place of refuge for the homeless and the induce-
ment to build little cottages when no houses are available is
a provisory assistance through charity; the policy of land
and of home is a great modern communal problem.

While school and charity demonstrate, especially by the
example of Germany, that the sphere of communal activity
is determined by the condition that the authority finds every-
where the family, yet a number of other urban problems rep-
resent activity taken from the family, as water-supply and
canalization. Often it is said that the modern technic has
not done anything to facilitate housekeeping, since the wife
stands even to-day at the primitive hearth and must work
with the same primitive utensils which her great-grand-
mothers and their ancestors had possessed. But in those
days housekeeping comprised also carrying water into the
house and removing the garbage. To-day it is difficult to
imagine how in high apartment houses the burdens of house-
keeping could be overcome, if these two functions had not
been taken by the urban community from the family. And
this transition was accomplished so thoroughly that it is not
even noticed, because it does not occur any more to any one
that the powerful accomplishments of modern technic in
water-supply and canalization are only common activities of
housekeeping.

As the little cell of the family exists beneath the urban
community, so there is, above it, the great encompassing
circle of the state. (Department 20, Section C, "National
Administration"). Here, however, the features of a uni-
form typical picture cannot be ascertained; but two abso-
lutely different cases must be distinguished : First, the state,
extended over wide areas which needs a division into pro-

Digitized by Google

RELATIONS TO SOCIAL SCIENCES 225

vinces for its own purpose. Even if a subdivision is made,
the smallest district will still be apt to contain several settle-
ments. By mere self-division a state does not yet attain to
formation of communities; an urban community cannot be
spoken of, because there does not exist any local community.
In this wise, we must think, the old division into counties
and hundreds in entire western Europe was made in the
epoch when the Roman-Germanic states were constituted.
If in reality sometimes the smallest district, the hundred,
coincided with a settlement, it was a mere accident. This
can still be seen in countries where the constitution of the
parish depends upon geographical division. Even the small-
est district, the parish, comprises the parochial village with
the filial villages. By accident the entire parish may be one
settlement, no more nor less; but usually either the parish
will comprise several settlements, or a large urban settlement
will be divided into several parishes.

The opposite extreme we find, if the community itself is
the state. The classical example for this city-state is Athens.
Here the commonwealth has never been anything else but
the community of the Athenian citizens. The market-place
where they assembled to discuss the affairs of their com-
munity and their environs remained the centre in which the
most important affairs of an insular empire were decided,
whose members are considered only allies of the Athenians.
In a great measure the same was repeated at Rome. The
city of Rome remained the Roman commonwealth (repub-
lica Romana). Only he who possessed citizens' rights in
this city was a citizen of the empire. In order to appease
the revolting Itali, who wanted to have their share in the
government, no other means could be found than to grant
them citizens rights in the city of Rome. And the unity of
the empire, as it was understood since Caracalla, was only
founded upon the fact that every inhabitant of each province

226 THE URBAN COMMUNITY

of the far-spread empire was simultaneously a citizen of the
city of Rome. While city and family stood in close rela-
tions from the very beginning, the relations between state
and city cannot be traced on those distinctly visible lines
which pointed out the ways to the statesman.

The embodiment of free urban communities into a firmly
organized state is a problem. An important part of the
difficulties in the structure of the administrative organization
of the different states has to deal with this one problem.
How difficult it is to comprehend, in this regard, national
peculiarities is shown especially by the various, partly con-
trasting opinions which can be heard, in a foreign country,
about the condition of the urban communities of Germany.

Frequently one finds there the notion that a free civic
activity does not exist at all in Germany. This conception
was formed in consequence of certain occurrences in Ger-
man urban life which have gained publicity and attracted
greatest attention. These were cases in which the govern-
ment of the state had not sanctioned the elections of mayors
and members of the magistracy. Of foreigners who have
spent some time in Germany, especially of Americans, one
hears quite often the opposite opinion, that they were as-
tonished by the great, free, and fruitful activity of citizens'
spirit which they recommend to their own countries as an
example. In reality, either conception is correct ; there exist
limitations for the German cities which are unconformable
to citizens' self-administration and, as the experience of other
states shows, unnecessary for the purpose of a firm state
organization. But there remains, nevertheless, a consider-
able space for free activity, for great aims. However con-
scious we must remain in Germany that we have to strive
after the improvement of the position which is prescribed to
the cities in the state, yet we are not forced, in view of this
need of improvement, to decline the favorable judgment of

Digitized by Google

RELATIONS TO SOCIAL SCIENCES 227

the foreign nations about the accomplishment and partly also
the organization of our cities. We must not believe that
the difficult problem of the embodiment of the free city into
the German state organism has been solved; but we may
probably accept the complement that a remarkable attempt is
made in this line. The difficulties to be considered can be
clearly seen from history.

From the thirteenth to the sixteenth century the urban
development of entire western Europe bears that bold feat-
ure of autonomic expansion of culture and power which we
have seen in the ancient "city-states" of Athens and Rome.
The history of Italy consists almost exclusively of the his-
tory of its urban communities. If Milan sacks Lodi and
Como, this means that in its realm no other citizen's right
shall exist besides the Milanese. At the time of the Cru-
sades, Genoa and Venice founded a circle of settlements
around the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea which had
their common government in the city authorities of Venice
and Genoa. The same was the case when in Spain the
urban community of Barcelona took an equally independent
position by which it was enabled to establish its own mari-
time law and to spread it among all maritime nations ; when
the Provencal and French cities, at the time of the great
wars with the English kings, appeared as independent pow-
ers, and when in Germany Liibeck and its allies engaged in
northern European politics with the supremacy over Scandi-
navian empires. In Germany the development was furth-
ered by the assumption that the monarch, by virtue of his
imperial title, was at the same time the lord of the world ;
even the recognition of their belonging to the empire did not,
therefore, diminish their independence. This period of the
independency of the cities was followed in Germany by an
epoch (about from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century)
of rising princely territorial power which forced the cities

228

THE URBAN COMMUNITY

into the greater organism, justifying their despotism by their
utility. In a third period beginning with Stein's municipal
order (Stein's Stadteordnung) an attempt is made to re-
animate the free forces of the citizens and to retain them
nevertheless in connection with the state. In four years
Prussia and Germany will celebrate the centennial anniver-
sary of this law enacted in 1808; but we stand, nowadays,
still in the midst of the attempt which had then only been
begun.

The relations between city and state go far beyond politics
and administration ; it is only a section from the problem of
the relations between large centres of population and the
community of the people. As an example of the influence
of a capital upon the entire country, always the position is
mentioned which Paris holds in France. Not only the three
great French revolutions have originated in Paris, but also
literary taste, theater, painting, sculpture and architecture,
the fashions are dictated to the country by Paris. The very
contrary relations exist in America. The founders of the
Union have placed the seat of the government in a city
which should be nothing more but the seat of the federal
authorities. And, although Washington has developed,
contrary to the intentions of its founders, into a metropolis
and enjoys to-day the just reputation of being one of the
most beautiful cities of the world, yet this urban community
has never been of much political importance in the history of
the Union. Its inhabitants, excluded from the right of vot-
ing, are rather bound to let themselves be ruled than to claim
predominance. While in the position which Paris takes in
France there is still a faint remembrance of the ancient city-
state, Washington represents the strongest logical contrast.
Also in the whole intellectual life of the American people
there is no movement that has taken its issue from the
population of Washington.

Digitized by Google

RELATIONS TO SOCIAL SCIENCES

229

III

The urban community which has beneath itself the family
and above itself the state, has at its side the rural com-
munity. Although much has been written about the differ-
ence between urban and rural communities, yet the simple
truth should not be forgotten that the natural difference be-
tween city and village is in their size. That the city is large
and the village is small, nobody will dispute. Only in the
question where the limit shall be drawn, the opinions differ.
Frequently it is said that only the metropolis, cities with
more than one hundred thousand inhabitants, are real cities.
This opinion imparts to the word "city" a significance that;
never before had been attached to it. If the languages of all
peoples have formed the word "city" without thinking of a
large city, there must be something which the smallest com-
munities (that may still be named cities) have in common
with the largest centres of population and which, at the same
time, separates them from the still smaller places, the vil-
lages. It is not difficult to find it out. One needs only
wander from village to village, for a few weeks, and then
arrive in a town of two to three thousand inhabitants in
order to become aware of the difference. There one can
find shelter only through a village's good will or be received
hospitably by some one who only occasionally accommodates
a transient stranger, though he is not a professional hotel-
. keeper. Here one finds regular hotels which provide for
the stranger. There it is difficult to find a servant who can
do the most necessary repairing of clothing, and, in emer-
gencies, as sickness, one is helpless. Here one finds tailors,
shoemakers, physicians, druggists, etc. The city begins with
the division of labor.

In this point our subject does not only approach the sub-
ject of industrial common life (Department 22, Section D,*

• The program of the Congress Is not exactly followed In this arrangement

Of the lectures.— Ed.

230 THE URBAN COMMUNITY

"The Industrial Group,") and economic history (Depart-
ment 19, Section A), but also the whole large group of social
culture (Division G). I shall add some words about the
manifold relations of urban life to social culture. In social
regard the city differs from the country in two points : the
few inhabitants of a village are, generally considered, homo-
geneous; the many inhabitants of the city are dissimilar.
These combined factors give the urban community its im-
portance in the cultural movement.

In the programme of this Congress under "Social Cul-
ture" the topics "Education" and "Religion" are discuss*!.
Of the first group, Education (Department 23), we have
discussed at length one of the most important points, the
School (Section B), as an example to show how the urban
community takes its tasks from the familiar community.
The school is certainly not an urban, but just as well a rural
institution ; it belongs to the urban community not because
this is a city but a community. But no other example
demonstrates so clearly that the solution of the cultural prob-
lems of the community is really reached except in the urban
communities. Also in all other points of this Department
(23) the enormous urban influence becomes manifest. The
educational theories originated in cities. The two great
founders of modern pedagogy, Rousseau and Pestalozzi,
have sprung from cities. The universities can, in their
modern organization, be traced back, in Europe as well as
in America, to the model established by Bologna and
Paris, centres of urban culture. The numerous foundations
of universities in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were
made exclusively in cities; they represented the reaction
against the older, monastic, world-shunning learnedness, as
also only those monastic orders took hold of them, which
in the two preceding centuries had sought their seats not in
rural loneliness, but in the cities, and were supported there
by the people, the beggar monks, the mendicant friars.

Digitized by Google

RELATIONS TO SOCIAL SCIENCES 231

If we call the cities centres of culture, we want to ex-
press, of course, that they shall not wish to retain their ac-
quired possession of culture. They city acquires cultural
treasures, but only in order to let them radiate and in order
to begin, thereupon, the work began on new materials. Its
educational work is a constant renunciation of acquired
privileges. This is shown especially clearly in America in
the history of the library movement. This movement has
begun especially in the cities. First it was the ambition of
each city to surpass the country by the possession of a public
library, accessible to everybody. To-day it is the ambition
of the cities to induce the country to follow their example.
On my wanderings through small towns on the coast of
Massachusetts I have visited, in each place, the public lib-
raries, such as in no European state have been carried out
into the villages.

The country can, however, claim for itself a certain su-
periority in religious culture (Department 24), much rather
than in education. The development of Buddhism proves
that rural solitude and contemplation are able to imprint
their stamp upon great world religions. But Christianity
shows the influence of urban culture. Though the origin of
Christianity may be found in the synagogue of Capernaum,
a little community, almost more rural than term-like, that
was so poor that it had to accept its house of worship as the
donation of the foreign captain, yet the work of the founder
of this religion attained to its penetrating significance only
when He stepped upon the soil of the city. And this fact
lives still in tradition so powerfully that it is scarcely com-
prehended that Christ passed but few days in Jerusalem.
The founder of the Mohammedan religion was a merchant,
and even in the oldest doctrines of Islam the interest in com-
munication becomes evident. The connection of religious
and urban culture is shown also by the fact that a sanctuary

Digitized by Google

232 THE URBAN COMMUNITY

and sacred place to which the processions of many pilgrims
are directed bears in itself the germ of an urban centre ; not
only Mecca and Medina, but also the Parthenon and Capitol,
the height of Zion, the medieval Rome, and the multitude
of bishops' seats in all European countries. And even if,
now, we want to designate the life after death with a
worldly metaphor, we do not select any of those steads, re-
moved from the world, which have induced lonesome men
to contemplative meditation about the last truths, but we
select even now the idea of an urban community and we
speak of the "heavenly Jerusalem."

The universal cultural significance of the urban com-
munity is also expressed by the secondary meaning which
the expression "urban" has in various languages. As in
classical Latin urbanus and rusticus point out the difference
between higher and inferior culture, so the word "urbane"
is still used to denote refined manners, contrary to boorish
manners. But we find also, in languages, traces of that
mission of the city to spread culture and to gain advantages
only in order to let others partake of them. From the city
the word "citizen" is derived, as "burgher" from burgh
and borough, and citoyen from cite. But after the citizens'
rights and duties had been placed in relations of more gen-
eral validity, they were transferred to the larger com-
munity.

The notion of the citizen is probably the most important
contribution made by the urban communities to modern
political culture.

Literature

My treatise occupies itself merely with the formal char-
acter of the urban community. Only through examples
has it been shown how its formal peculiarities find actual
expression. To treat exhaustively this part of the subject

Digitized by Google

RELATIONS TO SOCIAL SCIENCES 233

it would be necessary to discuss all branches of urban ad-
ministration. But this is the subject of a special theme
(Department 20, Section E, "Municipal Administration").
By means of the different branches of administration the
doctrine of the urban community is connected with each
human discipline whose object can become in some way the
object of administration ; hence not only, as has been shown
by an example, by means of the school administration with
the entire pedagogical science, but likewise by means of
the sanitary administration with medical science (Depart-
ment 17), by means of the administration of buildings and
ways with the entire science of engineering and architect-
ure (Department 18; cf. the example of water-supply and
canalization), by means of the administration of transpor-
tation and economics with political economy (Department
19), etc. All these connections are left to Department 20,
Section E, which, in a certain sense, runs parallel to this
section. But in the following review of the literature I
shall consider it at least so much that a bridge is formed
for the investigator.

German literature or urban community is split in three
literary directions, that exist side by side almost without
mutual contact; the historical, juristic, and administrative.

Historical literature, especially the literature on the
origin of the German municipal constitution, is very
copious. Into the hypotheses concerning this origin Heus-
ler attempted to bring light by his orientating treatise. Al-
though more than thirty years have elapsed since, this
orientating treatise is still indispensable. (A. Heusler,
Der Ursprung der dcutschcn Stadtmerfassung, Weimar,
1872.) Doch muss fur den gegenwartigen Stand der
Forschung hinzugenommen vverden : K. Hcgcl, die Entste-
hung des deutchen St'ddtcivescns, Leipzig, 1898. The ex-
traordinarily large literature on the development of single

23-4

THE URBAN COMMUNITY

German cities is collected in the section Stddtewesen in
Dahlmann-Waitz, Quellcnkunde der deutschen Geschichte,
Neubearbeitung von Altmann und Bernheim, Gottingen,
1904. The German history which describes adequately the
influence of city and country is : K. Nitzsch, Geschichte des
deutschen Volkes bis sum Augsburger Religionsfrieden.
Nach dessen hinterlassenen Papieren und Vorlesungen her-
ausgegeben von G. Mat thai, Leipzig, 1883-1885.

The German juristic literature on municipal law is in-
fluenced especially by the fact that the most prominent Ger-
man thinker who made the legal relations between state
and city the object of his studies made only occasional sci-
entific remarks about Germany. This is Gneist, in whose
works the investigation of English conditions is treated al-
most exclusively. Thus the juristic literature has re-
mained in the hands of officials. The juristic literature on
the position of the cities within the state organism repro-
duces especially the opinions of governmental bureaucracy
expressed in ministerial rescripts, etc.; the municipality
yields to these opinions now unwillingly, then uncon-
sciously. Also he more liberal teacher of state law is un-
der this influence. In Ronne's Preussisches Staatsrecht
this subject is not treated by the author, but in an addi-
tional volume: Schon, Recht der Communalverbande in
Preussen, Leipzig, 1897. Only lately new life has been •
brought into this state literature, as the juristic side of
municipal constitution was regarded from the urban point
of view. Preuss, a student of Gneist, is at present the only
teacher of state law who follows this direction. Preuss,
Das Stadtische Amtsrecht in Preussen, Berlin, 1902.

The administrative and social literature starts, in Ger-
many at present, with the numerous attempts of reform of
different parts of urban life, which are being made in al-
most all German cities. However, it might suffice to point

Digitized by Google

RELATIONS TO SOCIAL SCIENCES 235

to the results which we owe to the great German municipal
exposition of 1903. The administration of almost all im-
portant cities of Germany had united for this purpose. The
exposition was held in Dresden where, during the preced-
ing winter, the Gchc-Stiftung established a course of lec-
tures in which an historian, a geographer, a statistician, a
political economist, a philosopher, etc., should each express
his opinion about urban culture. The lectures have been
collected and printed in the Jahrbuch der Gehe-Stiftung, 9
Bande, Die Grosstadt, Vortrdge und Aufs'dtse von B'uchcr,
Ratzel, v, Mayr, IVacntig, Sitnmel, Th. Petermann, D.
Schdfer. After the close of the municipal exposition its
president caused a large work to be compiled about each of
the different sections; this book may be considered a
synopsis of the latest progress in the different branches of
German municipal administration; its author is Wuttke
(Dresden, 1904). Finally the pamphlets which the city
of Dresden had distributed at the exposition and in which
the various branches of administration were described offer
an intelligible introduction into a municipal administration
which can serve as an example. (Fiihrer dutch das Vor-
waltungsgcbiet der Stadt Dresden, 1903.)

Most German municipal regulations prescribe the annual
publication of an administrative report. The city of Ber-
lin goes beyond the legal obligation and publishes besides
these annual reports quinquennial statements of acknowl-
edged excellence. Where the putting in print was not
usual, even this has been of advantage to literature, as in
the first edition a comprehensive review was given. In
this way the first administrative report of the city of Essen
contains an introduction into the development of modem
municipal administration. (Die Vcrwaltung der Stadt
Essen itn 19. Jahrhundert, 1 Band, Venvaltungsbericht
crstattet von Oberbur germeister Zwcigert, Essen, 1902.)

Digitized by Google

236 THE URBAN COMMUNITY

Schoeneberg, one of the quickly risen suburbs of Berlin
which had been a rural community until lately, at the time
of its admission to the immunities and privileges of a town,
published an exhaustive and retrospective report of its ad-
ministration which describes the development of a great
urban community (1899). In connection with the bicen-
tennial jubilee of the city of Charlottenburg, in 1905, the
same subject will be treated, upon a broad historical basis,
in Gundlach's work (under the press) Gcschichte der Stadt
Charlottenburg, Berlin, 1905 ; the entire modern municipal
administration will there be discussed. Finally I should
like to call attention to the fact that I have taken the ex-
amples in the first volume of my work Socialpolitik und
Verwaltungswissenschaft, Berlin, 1902, mostly from the
modern municipal administration of Germany and foreign
countries.

Digitized by Google

THE INDUSTRIAL GROUP

BY WERNER SOMBART

(Traiulated from the German by W. H. Price, Harvard University.)

[Werneb Sombabt, Special ProfeBsor of Political Economy, Univer-
sity of Breslau, since 1890. b. Ermslehen, Saxony, January 19,
1863. Ph.D.; Recorder of Chamber of Commerce of Bremen, 1888-
90. Author or Socialism and Social Movements of the Nineteenth
Century; Modern Capital; and numerous other works of note on
political and social economy.] *

My task is to sketch the historically peculiar circum-
stances of life amid which the industrial proletariat lives.
By the industrial proletariat I mean the body of wage-
earners in the service of modern industrial capitalism. And
I intend to point out the relation of these conditions to
modern progress in general. This problem might be at-
tacked in either of two ways, — first by making prominent
those phenomena, such for instance as state interference,
which have a peculiar significance in the establishment of
a definite social ideal and which furnish encouragement,
as well, for undertaking definite reforms. This is the po-
litical point of view.

A second method would be to correlate such of these
phenomena as we are able to recognize as the points of de-
parture, the occasions, or the conditions from which arise
the movements of the laboring class itself. This is the evo-
lutionary point of view, from which can be answered the
question, What makes the social movement possible? In
the language of Hegel and Marx this sort of inquiry would
be called the dialectic method. And this is the method of
inquiry which will be adopted here.

In order rightly to judge the conditions of existence of
the modern proletariat we must first of all understand what
it has lost as compared with other groups of people, what

287

Digitized by Google

238 THE INDUSTRIAL GROUP

it no longer possesses of the conditions of living of its own
former generations. Hence I must pay special attention
to European conditions, which indeed are necessary to an
understanding of all social phenomena. My discourse
cannot be more than an introduction to a big subject.

Estrangement from nature is the most important feat-
ure of the proletarian existence. The contact of the coun-
try lad with nature ceases, — the friendly relation with the
animal world, the growing up with the elements, rain,
storm, and inclement weather, the dependence upon the
events of nature, the rotation of summer and winter, of
day and night. The modern industrial wage-earner be-
comes a characteristic representative of that artificial race
of men now growing up in cities. Away from his natural
environment, that is, away from home, the thousandfold
spiritual ties and tender sentiments are lost. His home is
the world, he is a child of the world.

Another feature of the laborer's existence is his libera-
tion from old institutions which confined him but restrained
him as well. Among these was the village community
with its customs and its usages, its festivals and fashions,
which in part survive in the smaller towns. Propinquitas!
But the proletariat has cosmopolitan customs and usages.
Thanks to the development of commerce, provincial man-
ners are abandoned.

There was also the family group. Not only is the old
family connection, with its far-reaching interdependence,
giving way, but the immediate family is also losing its
binding power because the economic basis upon which it
rests is disappearing owing to labor away from home, night
work, and the labor of children and women who no longer
find satisfactory employment at home. The early employ-
ment of children and youth makes them independent at an
early age, and thus is weakened the discipline over children

Digitized by Google

LABOR AND CAPITAL 239

by parents. To this must be added the sordidness of the
dwelling-houses in cities, for this narrows even more the
basis of family life.

We must note, also, the decay of trade-associations built
up by the medieval handicrafts, by which membership in a
definite craft provided the individual ample internal and
external status. Membership in a trade, however, is losing
its hold as a result of the frequent change of occupation.
For an individual passes with greater ease than formerly
from one occupation to another, while the array of labor
arrangements mobilized for a united productive activity
has to be constantly remarshaled owing to the influence of
the modern revolutionizing technique. The mechanical ar-
rangement of individual operations which constitute an in-
dustry leads to a constant change, just as surely as a per-
sonal classification leads to the stereotyping of the industry.

Another cause of the decay of the trade fellowship is the
dissolution of the intimate relation of the worker and his
work. Activity is no longer the expression of a lively hu-
man interest, it is only the mechanical turning-off of some
one simple process. The empirical technique of the olden
time rested upon personal skill ; the modern technique rests
upon objective science. The organization of industry upon
the principle of the division of labor separates the laborer
from his work and makes him a mere soulless piece-worker
in the social process of production. The capitalistic organ-
ization also separates the worker economically from his
work. He is no longer economically interested in the re-
sults of his work.

The old servile rights and obligations have been de-
destroyed. Every earlier time has recognized mutual re-
sponsibilities with respect to the dependent man, which in-
deed bound him, made him unfree, but gave him physical
and moral support, protected him from hunger, and helped

240 THE INDUSTRIAL GROUP

him over crises in his life, such as sickness. Even the slave
or serf had this claim upon his lord. The journeyman of
the Middle Ages was united to his master by a close fellow-
ship supported by the feeling of moral obligation. This
relation is disappearing. The modern workman is a
"free" laborer, legally free, who now stands only in a busi-
ness relation with his employer; services are rated on both
- sides at a money value. Therewith he is free to go hungry
because without protection from commercial crises. He
must win his bread from day to day and be prepared at any
time to lose his position. In other respects his freedom is
a mere formality; he cannot exercise it by not working;
he can at best change masters. But this is becoming closed
to him because capital is being monopolized in trusts. As
soon as he succeeds in finding work, he is for the greater
part of his life driven to the hardest drudgery in the service
of the capitalistic undertaker. He is then less free than
any Turkish peasant who plows with his oxen in a free
field.

How will, how can this "free," that is to say, uprooted
cosmopolitan live? This is the question which presents
itself for him as well as for all who have experienced the
same process of emancipation. This is the question of the
time, which receives only one definite response from the
proletariat. The recovery of the content of life is to be
sought in two ways, — by means of pleasure and by means
of labor. Pleasure as one of the features of life is neces-
sarily denied to the great mass, clearly from external
causes, perhaps also from internal causes, because people
are still too "sensible" to find a motive of life in pure
pleasure, material or spiritual, i. e., in estheticism! They
still require self-sacrifice, an object, morals. There re-
mains clearly open only the second way, — labor. "To
labor and not to despair," has been proclaimed as the watch-

Digitized by Google

LABOR AND CAPITAL 241

word for our hollow age. And the poet sings so sweetly

" 'T1b labor alone that helps us along

Over this wilderness of gloomy doubt;
It gives to each passing moment a goal
Which our life Itself Is without."

But how it is with the labor of the wage-earner? Often
enough he has no work at all. The condition known as
"being out of work" has established itself as a matter-of-
course accompaniment of capitalism, — another novelty of
our age. But also, by the time he finds work its power of
yielding satisfaction has for the most part been lost. This
is, perhaps, the most significant consequence of modern
civilization. Labor as the sanction of life, as the director
of energy, has ceased to round out the worker into the
complete man and hence to make him peaceful and con-
tented. The reason for this lies in the peculiarity of mod-
ern technique as well as the organization of modern busi-
ness, for the modern factory labor is in large measure de-
structive of health, above all because it calls for too intense
an exertion, and because of that disregard for the limits of
human endurance which characterizes the modern technical
development.

Moreover, labor has frequently become a disagreeable,
repulsive act, in the depths of the earth and amid the noise,
dust, and heat of many modern factories. Labor has be-
come more and more monotonous and unrhythmical, mere
piece-work of unvarying nature in the modern great indus-
tries built up by division of labor and consolidation. The
laborer is now separated from his work, he creates no
longer, he fashions no longer, he brings nothing to com-
pletion, nothing appears as his work, nothing in which his
labor is embodied. He is no more than a secondary wheel
in a gigantic mechanism.

The labor of the modern industrial wage-worker has

Digitized by Google

242 THE INDUSTRIAL GROUP

thus lost all concreteness, all qualitative significance, and
so has for him only an abstract and hence purely quanti-
tative significance. And so it becomes a burden of which
he seeks to be relieved as much as possible. (If we realize
this we come to comprehend the endeavors for shortening
the hours of labor, which give the characteristic impress
to the modern labor movement.) And so also it comes to
be measured in the terms of the money for which it is ex-
changed. Thus it was that the wage-earner was involved
in the circle of ideas of the capitalistic world. The mech-
anism which accomplished his inclusion was the piece-wage
system, after the pure money-wage had already accustomed
him to value all labor power in terms of money. This
valuation in money is imbued in him from early youth, for
he enters "service" early, at a period of life when hitherto
a youth lived without responsibility as a dependent mem-
ber of a family.

Here lie the roots of all class strife between proletariat
and entrepreneurs, who are now at odds regarding their
respective shares in the joint product. "The right to the
whole produce of labor!'* The foregoing sketch of the
peculiarities of proletarian life explains what we mean by
the modern "social movement," wherein the proletariat
struggles against the position into which capitalism has
brought it.

When we observe the proletariat setting forth to eman-
cipate itself from its position, and see how the movement
is carried on with the passions of hatred and envy, the con-
viction forces itself upon us that the origin of the move-
ment is not hopeless misery, for this is no characteristic of
the proletariat. The cause is rather the contrast which the
laborer observes between his own frequently pinched posi-
tion and that superabundance of wealth in which many of
the employing class live, wealth which the laborer has, in

Digitized by Google

LABOR AND CAPITAL 243

his own opinion, produced. For in their service he wears
himself out. And this contrast is constantly brought to
his attention, not so much because he sees that insolent
wealth used in display, oftentimes vain enough, — the poor
serfs of the Middle Ages endured that sight, — but rather
because he daily witnesses the accumulation of new for-
tunes, whose possessors grow rich before his very eyes.
Frederick Albert Lange accurately and forcibly expressed
this attitude when he once said, "The spirit of jealousy
never completely disappears while a poor man lives in the
neighborhood of a rich man ; it may, however, be rendered
very dull by constant relative wealth." But by fluctuating
relations and by every occasion which makes the present
contrasts more striking, the feeling of envy is quickened.
To this, what we might call objective insecurity of wealth
relations, which is characteristic of our times, and which
the proletariat observes, is added another insecurity which
for the laborer is a subjective one. This is the uncertainty
as to the means of his livelihood, the fact that he does not
know from day to day whether he is going to earn his
bread. For an industrial depression may result in the
wholesale discharge of laborers, and thus in widespread
famine.

It is this continual change which brings to a member of
the proletariat a consciousness of his position. The in-
creasing intellectual training, to which his life in great cities
powerfully contributes, enables and inspires him to reflect
upon the causes of this insecurity and upon the contrast
between his own position and that of the rich. And then
a secret is revealed to him, the discovery of which becomes
the ground of justification for the modern agitations of
the laboring class, the secret, namely, that all the circum-
stances of his existence are not founded in unchangeable,
natural relationships. On the contrary, they are based

244 THE INDUSTRIAL, GROUP

upon the peculiarities of the prevailing social and economic
organization. "No man can assert any right against na-
ture, but in society distress at once assumes the form of
an injustice inflicted upon this or that class." (Hegel.)
Thus the ground is prepared upon which a social move-
ment may be developed, for now a point of attack is found,
— the existing social order.

And to the extent that social criticism of this sort be-
comes refined and sharpened, as discontent and the desire
for improvement become intensified, another circumstance
which defines the position of the wage-earner becomes more
and more intolerable. This is his dependence upon his
employer. This dependence is no longer a legal one, as
in the time of slavery, but is no less complete on that ac-
count. It appears in the fact that the laborer is assigned
to his position by the entrepeneur through stress of hunger ;
it appears in the humiliating subordination under the com-
mand of an entrepreneur. It often assumes a medieval
form when the factory-owner regards himself as the "patri-
arch" of his people and seeks to guide and determine their
lives. It reaches out into the sphere of political right when
the capitalist classes use their power in order to limit the
participation of the wage-earners in the activity of the
state.

Apparently these are the causes of the proletarian criti-
cism of the existing organization of society, yet we must
attend to some other special conditions of life among the
modern laboring classes in order to understand the peculiar
current of ideas which we continually meet with in all
clamors for the "emancipation" of the proletariat These
might be distinguished on the one hand as a tendency to-
ward communistic dreams, and on the other as a love for
the masses.

The love of the masses and regard for the masses fol-

Digitized by Google

LABOR AND CAPITAL

245

lows immediately from the association of each individual
wage-earner with his thousands of fellow workers, all of
whom are united by no other tie than their common labor
in the service of the entrepreneur. They are grouped to-
gether without distinction, like grains in a heap of sand,
. and outside the factory undertake no higher social activity
than some sort of union. What capitalism has tossed to-
gether, in crowds, in great cities and centres of industry,
is, as we say, an inarticulate mass of individuals who have
completely broken with the past, who have cut themselves
loose from all communal ties, from home, village, and
kindred, beginning life anew with a complete destruction
of their old ideals. The laborer's only support is the com-
rade of his fate, who signifies as little as he, and who like
himself does not belong to any historic community. With
this individual he allies himself, and becomes his confed-
erate. Hence arises a host of confederates who are dis-
tinguished by one thing above all others, not by individual-
ity, not by common tradition, but by their mass, their
massiveness. Never in the history of the world have so
many individuals stood together for united action. Never
in history has the impetus of mass-action so characterized
any movement as has this of the proletariat. Everywhere
we hear "the heavy tramp of the labor battalion" with
which Lassalle sought to frighten his opponents. And if
we would picture to ourselves the social movement of our
day, it invariably appears to us as an inexhaustible stream
of men hardly one of whom stands out clearly, flowing
over the whole land as far as the eye can see, to the farthest
horizon where the last of them roll away into the dark-
ness. Translated into psychological terms, it signifies that
there has grown up in the individual a tremendous strength-
ening of the consciousness of combined power, and a strong
mass-ethical feeling to conflict with class-ethical doctrine.

Digitized by Google

246 THE INDUSTRIAL GROUP

Membership in his class, therefore, signifies for the wage-
earner exactly what for others membership in a noble rank,
in a community, a city, or a state has implied. With
pride, he proclaims, Prolctarius sum.

The dissolution of all quantitative or individual distinc-
tion in the mass, now viewed and, therefore, now valued
only qualitatively, is parallel with and affects in the sanuf
manner the development of modern technique in other di-
rections. Only he who has familiarized himself with their
peculiarities will be in a position to understand the im-
portant features of the proletarian movement, and above
all to comprehend the above-mentioned communistic ten-
dency.

The increasing differentiation and integration of separ-
ate economies, their absorption into an indissoluble whole,
on the one hand, and on the other, the progressive special-
ization and organization of labor in the modern "great in-
dustries" constitute what has been called the socialization
of the process of production. This socialization has
brought it about that a particular commodity appears no
longer as the product of individual labor but as the joint
product of common labor. Formerly the cobbler who
made a pair of boots regarded himself as the fashioner of
this particular article. The laborer in a modern shoe fac-
tory, who pursues only a single task in the general process,
has lost this personal relation to the particular product./
To-day the actual process is collective for individual ar-
ticles, and, therefore, to the task laborer engaged in it,
the conception of a collective organization of general pro-
duction is no more strange. In the same way, however,
and at the same time, the idea occurs to the laborer in the
great city, of a common, of a communistic consumption.
This idea is made more and more familiar to him by the
character of his own home surroundings.

Digitized by Google

LABOR AND CAPITAL

217

The separate dwelling, which satisfies man's original in-
stinct for privacy, loses for the poor man in his congested
tenement more and more of its charm. Instead, he feels
a growing liking for public places where he can satisfy
more completely his material and immaterial needs. Work-
ingmen's clubs, public reading-rooms, concert-halls, and
beer-gardens become a new home for the masses in great
cities. The aggregated advantages of the public institu- *
tions, the public gardens and parks and museums, with
their uninterrupted series of pleasures and delights, rise in
the estimation of the laborers as the charm of their private
or family life diminishes. The family itself dissolves un-
der the influence of the excessively long day or night work
away from home, through woman's labor, and the early
employment of children. The result is that the proletariat
is involuntarily led to transfer the weight of its interest
from the individual to the social life.

Now, however, to gain a full understanding of the mod-
ern social movements, we must become acquainted with
the general conditions of the time under which they oper-
ate. Here also a few remarks are necessary. That which
distinguishes the modern time is, above all, an alertness
such as I can think of in no other time. A current of life
flows through present-day society, of which no other time
has known, and thus is made possible a stimulus between
individual members of society, which was before incon-
ceivable. This has been brought about by the machinery
of commerce which capitalism has provided. The possi-
bility of communicating across a great country within a
few hours by means of the telegraph, the telephone, and
the newspaper; the possibility of transferring from one
place to another great masses of people by the modern
facilities of transportation, has brought about an apprecia-
tion of the solidarity of the great masses, and a sense of

Digitized by Google

248

THE INDUSTRIAL GROUP

omnipresence that to earlier times was unknown. This is
especially true of the great towns of the present. The pos-
sibility of great mass-movements is thus extraordinarily
increased. And in like manner is attained that develop-
ment within the mass which we are accustomed to call
education. Knowledge, and with knowledge pretensions.

Closely connected with this activity, however, is that
phenomenon which we call the nervousness of our time,
the lack of composure, the hurrying, the restlessness per-
vading all the walks of life. Through the peculiarity of
business relations in all branches not only of economic, but
also of social life, this restless spirit prevails. The era of
free competition is manifest in all fields. Every one vies
with his neighbor. No one longer finds joy in life. Beau-
tiful contemplative peace is gone.

And finally, one more suggestion. This might be called
revolutionism. For there never has been a time which
has experienced such a complete subversion of every form
of existence. Everything is in a fluid state, business, sci-
ence, art, morals, religion. All ideas are in such a ferment
that we are finally driven to the conclusion that there is
nothing certain left. And this is one of the most import-
ant criteria for the interpretation of the modern social up-
heaval. For it explains two different things. In the first
place it accounts for that destructive criticism of existing
conditions which seeks to throw a bad light upon every-
thing; which casts to the scrap-heap all former ideas in
order to bring new ones to market. This critical spirit
first took its rise among the bourgeoisie, who applied it to
political, moral, religious, and esthetic relations. The pro-
letariat is now adopting the same critical spirit, and apply-
ing it to the whole intricate field of economic and social in-
stitutions.

That revolutionary spirit produces, furthermore, fanat-

Digitized by Google

LABOR AND CAPITAL

249

ical ideas concerning the possibility of a blissful future
state. Since miracles have been realized before our own
eyes, such as none could have hoped for; why not still
more? Why not anything we wish? Thus the revolu-
tionary present becomes the breeding-ground for the social
Utopias of the future. Edison and Siemens are the spirit-
ual fathers of Bellamy and Bebel. Here we have at hand
the elements of which are constructed the "Socialism and
Social Movements" of our time.

Digitized by Google

CERTAIN PSYCHOLOGICAL PHASES OF INDUS-
TRIAL EVOLUTION

BY RICHARD T. ELY

[Richaed T. Ely, Ph.D., L.L.D., Professor of Political Economy, Uni-
versity of Wisconsin, b. Ripley, New York, 1854. Graduate, Co-
lumbia University, 1876; Fellow in Letters, Columbia University,
1876-79; student at Universities of Halle, Heidelberg, and Geneva,
and at Royal Statistical Bureau, Berlin, 1877-80; Ph.D., Heidel-
berg University, 1879. Professor of Political Economy, Johns
Hopkins University, 1881-92; Director, School of Economics, Po-
litical Science, and History, University of Wisconsin, 1892; Sec-
retary, American Economic Association, 1885-92; President.
American Economic Association, 1899-1901. President, American
Association for Labor Legislation, 1906. Editob, Macmlllan's
Citizen's Library of Economics, Political Science and Sociology.
Author of French and German Socialism; Taxation in American
States and Cities; Introduction to Political Economy; Outlines
of Economics ; Socialism and Social Reform; Social Law of Ser-
vice; Monopolies and Trusts; Labor Movement in America; Past
and Present of Political Economy; Problems of To-day; Social
Aspects of Christianity; The Coming City; Studies in the Evolu-
tion of Industrial Society; with Dr. George Ray Wicker, Elemen-
tary Principles of Political Economy.]

•

A few years ago we heard a great deal about a new for-
ward movement in economic theory that was attributed to
a profounder study of the psychological forces at work in
man's socio-economic activities than had previously been
made. Professors Menger, Bohm-Bawerk, and Wieser,
leaders in the so-called Austrian school of economists, were
most prominent in this renaissance, and their chief service
was a new elaboration of the theory of value based upon
a more careful analysis of man's mental processes. But
the distinguished German economist, Adolph Wagner, of
the University of Berlin, who long before the Austrians
were widely known, achieved fame, has frequently insisted
upon a deeper study of psychological forces in our indus-
trial life as a condition of an improvement in economic
science, Wagner's treatment of capital affords illustration.

251

Digitized by Google

252 INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION

An examination of psychical considerations disclosed by
the study of economic society, he tells us, gives reason to
believe that only under private ownership will there be a
sufficient accumulation of capital.

Strangely enough, with all this emphasis upon the psy-
chology of economic life, the peculiarly psychical elements
at work in industrial evolution have received little dis-
tinctive attention even at the hands of scientists, while their
existence appears to be almost unknown to those whom we
ordinarily call the educated public. Nevertheless, it is pre-
cisely the so-called psychological considerations which are
decisive in the elaboration of a wise policy as well as in
the correct scientific treatment of industrial problems. In
other words, in my opinion we have had the smallest at-
tention given to the psychological considerations precisely
in that field of economics where the psychological method
is likely to yield the richest returns. It is my purpose now
and here simply to throw out a few suggestions which go
to prove that we cannot understand industrial evolution
unless we give careful consideration to psychical forces at
the same time. These considerations, it is hoped, will
throw some light upon a correct solution of important in-
dustrial problems.

The fact of the evolution of industrial society is gener-
ally recognized, although its implications are not a part of
our familiar knowledge. A study of the history of in-
dustrial society reveals clearly that we have passed through
various stages. It is not necessary when we say this that
we commit ourselves to any particular theory of stages.
According to the old and well-known classification man-
kind has gradually progressed from the hunting and fish-
ing stage to the pastoral stage, from the pastoral stage to
the agricultural stage, and then has passed through the
agricultural stage to the handicraft stage, and finally to the

Digitized by Google

PSYCHOLOGICAL PHASES OF 253

machine stage of production. Each one of these economic
stages has, of course, a subclassification into phases. This
gives us simply a general line of industrial evolution and
does not imply that every portion of the human race must
pass through the same stages and the same phases of evolu-
tion within the stage. It would take an undue amount of
space to enter into a discussion of the scientific arguments
and reasons for the position that this classification is sound.
It seems necessary, however, on account of the limitations
of the human mind, to divide our industrial evolution,
which has a history of thousands of years, into periods in
order to help us arrange our facts systematically and ac-
cumulate knowledge. We find men in historical periods
living in each one of these stages. Each stage has in its
full development characteristics of its own distinguishing
it from the preceding and likewise from the following stage,
when we consider these also in their full development. Be-
tween the stages at their culmination we have the transi-
tional periods where one gradually changes into the other.
No one will deny that the handicraft stage of the Middle
Ages is radically different from the industrial life that we
live now. Now, it is precisely when we consider our in-
dustrial evolution psychologically that we find the most
meaning in the division of our economic or industrial life —
for the two terms here are used interchangeably — into
stages and sub-stages, designated as phases. As we pass
from stage to stage and from phase to phase in the stages
we notice certain changes in those habits, mental traits,
and characteristics which lead to success. We have a cer-
tain psychical type of man corresponding to every phase
in our industrial evolution. Wliere an individual has this
psychical nature he is in harmony with his environment.
The absence of this psychical nature results in disharmony
and lack of adjustment. This is our first main position.

Digitized by Google

254 INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION

Our second main position is that as we advance from
lower to higher stages a better man is required. What is
essential in a higher stage is not a later period of time but
a greater control gained over nature by man. The pur-
pose of our economic activity is to gain subsistence through
control over nature, and just in proportion as we gain
more abundant subsistence through increased control over
nature we may be said to advance to higher stages and
phases in our economic life.

Our third position is that there are those who in their
life do not keep pace with the general industrial move-
ment. They are left behind and, unless special measures
are taken to prevent it, a period of rapid movement means
a relatively large number who are unable to adjust them-
selves to conditions.

One fourth main position is that the movement in our
economic life has continued for thousands of years and that
those who are most advanced economically are separated
psychologically by thousands of years from those living in
the earliest conditions. They are the descendants of gen-
erations of men who have had all this time for adjustment,
an adjustment secured very largely by natural selection.

If we reflect upon the change from the agricultural stage
to the handicraft stage it will help us to understand these
psychological features in industrial evolution. The handi-
craft stage is one in which man gained a greater control
over nature, first, through the larger use of tools of a
higher kind; second, through greater wealth accumulation
with a devotion of a larger part of this wealth, particularly
in the form of capital, to the preparation for future needs ;
third, through closer association with his fellows. Let us
examine in its implications each one of these three meth-
ods by means of which nature has, to an increasing extent,
been subjugated. The use of more tools of a higher kind

Digitized by Google

PSYCHOLOGICAL PHASES OF 255

means more complex brain operations. As we go forward
in our industrial life an examination of the features of
this life shows clearly that the man who is fully equal to it
has to meet increasingly severe mental tests. Next we ob-
serve that a greater degree of self-control is required as a
condition of success in a higher stage of economic life.
Wealth must be accumulated not for immediate consump-
tion but for future consumption. This means abstinence
and self-control. It has been found necessary to pay some
men of a low type twice a day in order to induce them to
continue their work. A man of an advanced economic
type will make an effort now without the slightest thought
of reaping the fruit of the effort inside of ten years. The
closer association of man with his fellows is one of the
means whereby we gain increased power over nature; and
as our efforts in production advance associations of an
economic character continually become larger and closer.
This means the ability to work for others steadily and per-
sistently in organic relations. If large success is to be
achieved there must be power to command and a readiness
to obey while a state of liberty is at the same time main-
tained.

What has been said finds an increased emphasis when
we compare the present machine stage of production, char-
acterized by a high degree of competition, with the earlier
handicraft stage. Especially are alertness, adaptability,
and quickness of adjustment conditions of large success at
the present time. The ties of an economic character bind-
ing us to our fellows have increased extensively and in-
tensively with unprecedented rapidity. The term "indus-
trial society" has only recently become familiar, and this
is a result of these ties. As a further result we have a
growing social self-consciousness which imposes its own
problems upon members of an economic society, but which

Digitized by Google

256 INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION

at the same time is one of the essential conditions of our
advanced life.

It follows naturally enough that those who succeed in a
lower stage are crowded down and out in a higher stage.
It is proved conclusively by history and by present ob-
servation of easily accessible facts. The piratical merchant
who is a hero in an earlier stage hangs from the yardarm
in our stage. The ancient Germans, Tacitus tells us,
thought it a disgrace to gain by the sweat of the brow what
could be secured by the sword. There is no room for
doubt that many a modern bandit would, in an earlier and
cruder stage of society, have been a hero. This is, per-
haps, a sufficiently familiar observation, but the implica-
tions of it are often overlooked even by scholars when they
come to treat present economic problems. Men are in
varying degrees mentally prepared for the present eco-
nomic conditions which have been gradually reached dur-
ing thousands of years. Within the nation there are those
who, in mental traits and characteristics, are only imper-
fectly prepared for modern economic life and must be
treated correspondingly. Man's mental and moral make-
up is capable only of a limited modification after the period
of maturity, and even in the case of children heredity sets
a limit to the possibilities of modification, although this
limit is a far more flexible one. To take a very marked
illustration, we have, in the United States, on the one hand,
the Negroes, and on the other hand, the Redmen, who,
themselves or their near ancestors, were brought up in a
stage of industrial society separated from ours by a period
of hundreds if not thousands of years. Is it conceivable
that in a short period they can acquire those characteris-
tics, such as forethought, careful planning, and awaiting
results, which lead to success in the most advanced eco-
nomic society? What is true of these races is true only

Digitized by Google

PSYCHOLOGICAL PHASES OF 257

in a less marked manner of other classes of society. We
may lay it down as a general proposition that during the
past century the generalization of economic progress has
been more rapid than the generalization of psychical traits
corresponding to the phases of industrial evolution through
which we have been passing. We have a society which,
broadly speaking, has become cooperative under competi-
tion, but many men have not acquired those psychical char-
acteristics which adapt them to a society at the same time
cooperative and competitive.

This point, that there is a lack of correspondence be-
tween many men and classes of men and the particular
phase of industrial evolution reached at a given moment is
one to which in my opinion great importance should be at-
tached; and I beg, therefore, to offer an illustration taken
from the changed and changing conditions of American
agriculture. Not that I mean thereby to imply the ab-
sence of similar changes elsewhere. Quite the contrary.
I take this illustration because it is familiar to me from ob-
servation and because it is especially striking.

Successful agriculture is becoming daily a more compli-
cated occupation, requiring a larger and higher type of
man as time goes on. We have more and better ma-
chinery and less and less merely manual toil. We plant,
cultivate, dig, and harvest by machinery. This means the
accumulation of an increasing amount of capital, and await-
ing results or a lengthening-out of the period between ef-
fort and the fruition of effort; also it means the capacity
to handle the machinery effectively.

We have a continuous evolution from simplicity to com-
plexity. As Professor Elwood Mead has well said in one
of his Irrigation Reports: "The traction engine and the
automobile have both an assured place in the economic op-
erations of farms. Improvements in electrical transmis-

258 INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION

sion render it certain that water power is to be used more
largely than in the past. Farm buildings, instead of being
simply storage places for grain or shelters for live-stock,
are becoming as complex in their designs and uses as fac-
tories." 1

Irrigation also shows the need of a new type of man in
agriculture. The old-type farmer was by training an in-
dividualist. He looked to himself for success, and his
isolation in his activities so influenced his character that his
individualism seemed to become a part of his nature. But
when the farmer from Old England or New England goes
to the "Far West," where the only agriculture is irrigated
agriculture, he must unlearn his individualism and become
a cooperative man as a condition of success. The first
farmers in a state like Colorado cultivate the bottom lands
by means of simple, inexpensive ditches. Even this im-
plies the use of more brain power, as a knowledge of the
proper ways to apply water to secure the best result is re-
quired. But as time goes on the ditches must be made in-
creasingly large and expensive in order to cultivate the
higher, so-called bench lands, which it is discovered are the
more fertile. A single ditch means the investment of hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars. Reservoirs are next con-
structed so as to save the flood-waters and to equalize the
supply of water, bringing water to crops late in the season
when natural streams run dry. The relations of farmer to
farmer and of farmers to others who need water for manu-
facturing purposes or for urban purposes become daily
more complicated, until the solution of the problem thus
presented becomes a task worthy of the best intellects of
our time. Now it is said that it requires a high type of
man to succeed in agriculture in a state like Colorado, and

Review of Irrigation I area! I gat Ion for 1902. Washington. D. C. In tha
Annual Report of the Office of Experiment Stations, p. 368. United States De-
partment of Agriculture.

Digitized by Google

PSYCHOLOGICAL PHASES OF 259

I must say that I have never elsewhere seen farmers who,
as a whole, impressed me as so active and alert, so much
like capitalistic manufacturers. Those equal to the task
set by irrigated agriculture seem to make large gains, and
the others to be crowded down and out. At the same time
the proper regulation of the economic relations involved
in irrigated agriculture is a condition of the utilization of
natural resources and also a condition of liberty, for with-
out regulation we have the oppression of the weak and the
tyranny of the strong.

The American Economic Association has recently pub-
lished a monograph by Dr. H. W. Quaintance, instructor
in economics in the University of Missouri, that throws a
good deal of light on the nature of agricultural develop-
ment. It is entitled The Influence of Farm Machinery on
Production and Labor. One fact brought out clearly is
the newness of our present farm implements and agricul-
tural methods. It is stated that agriculture in our colonial
period was not markedly different from that of Egypt two
thousand years ago. On the other hand it is shown that
on an average for our nine principal crops, namely, barley,
corn, cotton, hay, oats, rice, wheat, potatoes, and rye,
nearly four-fifths of the present yield is due to the use of
farm machinery. That is to say, farm labor is esti-
mated to be nearly five times as effective in the pro-
duction of these crops as it was as recently as 1850.
With the exception of one of the nine crops, namely,
cotton, a decrease of labor is absolute as well as rela-
tive. But this means difficulty of adjustment along
several lines and also increased demands upon brain
power and moral force. It requires a far larger amount
of capital than formerly to carry on agriculture with suc-
cess and consequently hired laborers have been increasing
rapidly in states like Illinois. It requires a better man to

260 INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION

use machinery than to carry on agriculture by the old meth-
ods. Consequently we find a large increase in the daily
wages of workmen employed in the production of crops
which require a use of machinery and a knowledge of ma-
chinery on the part of the hired laborers. On the other
hand it is stated that the average daily wages of agricul-
tural laborers who are engaged in those branches of agri-
culture which require little machinery have actually de-
creased.

Even more striking are recent methods in corn culture
which are being introduced in the Central West. We have
long heard about pedigreed stock and now we are becom-
ing familiar with pedigreed corn (maize). A bulletin
published by the University of Illinois in August, 1903,
gives an analysis of corn taken from forty ears, each of
which represents seven generations of pedigreed corn and
each bred with reference to some particular quality. It is
not enough to raise corn, but corn must be raised for spe-
cial purposes in order to achieve the largest success. Stock-
feeders want protein in corn, and by breeding it is easy to
make a variation of 100 per cent in protein. Manufac-
turers of starch and of glucose sugar want more starch in
the corn. They, however, want less protein. It is stated
in an earlier bulletin, likewise of the University of Illinois,
that "the yield of corn can be increased and the chemical
composition of the kernel can be changed as may be de-
sired either to increase or decrease the protein, the oil, or
the starch." The purpose of this reference to pedigreed
corn is to bring out clearly the significance of economic evo-
lution with respect to the kind of man who is going to
achieve the greatest success in agriculture.

The use of automobiles elsewhere than in agriculture of-
fords further illustration of the thesis under consideration.
Automobiles are not used so much as they would be in

Digitized by Google

PSYCHOLOGICAL PHASES OK 261

retail trade because the employees are so frequently not
equal to the higher requirements thereby set. A grocer's
boy who can drive a horse may not always be trusted with
the automobile. But progress is simply delayed. In the
end those not equal to the higher requirements will be
pressed down and out and will render existence more diffi-
cult in the overcrowded ranks of those with the minimum
skill and capacity.

Let us now seek illustration in certain phases of the labor
problem. A good illustration is afforded by a comparison
between transportation by the steam railway and transpor-
tation by a wagon drawn by oxen or horses. The more
advanced kind of transportation carries with it higher
physical and moral requirements for those engaged in it.
Not only are temperance and sobriety requisites, but eye-
. sight must be tested as a condition of employment for the
locomotive-driver, whereas an inferior man may drive a
team of horses.

The minimum wage established so generally by trades-
unions has a similar consequence. Those who are not
equal to that degree of efficiency warranting this minimum
wage are crowded out of their trade. This is a condition
for which, in some cases at least, provision has been made
by labor organizations, so clearly has it been recognized.

On the other hand we have an antinomy, as we may call
it, in the fact that this same industrial evolution has in
consequence of the division of labor given us some employ-
ments of a routine character exceedingly simple, apparently
soul-deadening, and very poorly paid. These occupations
fall to the most helpless classes in the community, recruited
by those crowded down and out of those kinds of labor
requiring growing efficiency.

All this we may bring into direct connection with the
struggle for equality of opportunity. The progressive evo-

Digitized by Google

2G2 INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION

lutionary stages of industrial society set increasingly diffi-
cult tasks, and as a result of the unequal development of
men we have capacities almost infinitely varied when they
are applied to these tasks.

The subject of contract brings before us in a new way
the increasingly complicated nature of modern industrial
society and enables us to see it from a new viewpoint. This
is of particular importance in the consideration of the labor
problem. Labor remuneration is governed by contract and
contract determines the other conditions of employment.
Now modern contract becomes daily a more intricate affair,
which, for its interpretation, taxes the ingenuity of our
ablest legal minds. On the other hand it requires a rather
developed mind to grasp even the essential elements of con-
tract. One of the obstacles to reform in Turkey is said to
be the difficulty the ordinary Turk has in understanding
the significance of time. 1 Yet the concept time is one of
the first elements in the labor contract. Let us pause for
a moment to consider the difficulties with which we are
confronted when we consider contract. Contract must be
viewed as sacred. It is a necessary foundation of our socio-
economic order. We admire the man "that sweareth to
his own hurt and changeth not." Thomas Jefferson wrote
in his Bible opposite that verse and the verses accompany-
ing it in the Psalms, "the description of a perfect gentle-
man." And we feel that he was right. Yet in contract
we have all the hardnesses, injustices, and cruelties of na-
ture. It is simply a medium through which existing forces
find expression. The individual must obey his individual
contract; but it is apparent that there must be a higher
power, a public power, controlling, regulating contract, for-
bidding some contracts, determining the conditions of

» North American Review, August, 1904, "ObiUclea to Reform In Turkey."
by Charles MorawlU.

Digitized by Google

PSYCHOLOGICAL PHASES OF 263

others, and in extreme cases dispensing from the obliga-
tion of contract, as the courts in Germany may do in the
case of usury. Public authority must be the binding and
loosing power. Let us again seek an illustration in irri-
gation. From the Platte River system in Colorado,
Wyoming, and Nebraska more than two thousand ditches
take water. The absurdity of the idea that voluntary
agreement expressed in unregulated private contract can
divide up this water satisfactorily becomes apparent on a
few moments' reflection to one who knows even the pri-
mary elements of the problem involved. 1

If space were sufficient it would be interesting to consider
at some length those who are left behind by industrial evo-
lution and the problem that they present. We have those
who make up the element in our population that has been
called the submerged tenth. These must be carried as
painlessly as possible for themselves but without injury to
society. Criminals are included in this submerged tenth.
It is now generally conceded by criminologists that they
should be shut up during criminality and that the aim in
their incarceration should be reformation. It is also clearly
perceived that we must define our terms and not place
among the criminal class those who by nature do not be-
long to it. No one can say how large the class of natural
criminals is, but it us much smaller than has been fre-
quently supposed. When we look at the facts of the case
we discover that in our bungling we have been making
criminals of men. It is as true as it is trite to say that the
ordinary county jail is a school of crime. Through juvenile
courts and modern methods we know how to reduce the
number of criminals.

We may consider also the feeble-minded who require

i Blwood Mead s 'Review of Irrigation InTertlgntfon." In the Annual Report
of Experiment Station* for 1902, pp. 374, 375, United State* Department of
Agriculture.

264 INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION

custodial care and those educational methods that will give
them the highest development possible. At the same time
they must be confined to prevent reproduction.

We have the insane who are not equal to the strain of
modern life. Thus we could continue. We have a per-
manent condition in those left behind in the transition from
stage to stage and from phase to phase. The only way
that this can be prevented is through the control of repro-
duction of human species. Something can be done in this
direction and is being done, as for example, in Wisconsin,
where the feeble-minded are confined, and as in Connecticut,
which has the most advanced legislation in this country on
the subject of marriage.

The main industrial problem is found in the conditions
of the great mass of men who are capable of development,
but require help to help themselves in order that they may
become equal to modern industrial conditions.

We have, as we advance, and with every stage in our
advancement, an increased expensiveness of adjustment on
account of the greater demands on the individual in the
more complex society. This is part of the price of indus-
trial progress, and the wealth to pay this price is furnished
in the very increased productivity which causes the higher
price.

The great problem then is the creation of institutions in -
accordance with the needs of the different elements in the
community, if we arrange these into classes to correspond
to their mental and moral characteristics. We have as a -
matter of fact been creating such institutions during the
past one hundred years. All civilized lands have been en-
gaged in this activity and they have created institutions to
serve the purposes of classes of men with widely varied
needs and capacities even in opposition to preconceived and
generally accepted theories. This has been particularly

Digitized by Google

PSYCHOLOGICAL PHASES OF 265

the case in the United States. I believe that this is an ex-
planation which throws new light on social progress. The
movement is destined to continue as it is an inevitable out-
come of that mighty struggle for equality of opportunity
which is shaping human history.

We also have this economic problem when we come to
deal with those of other nations as we do in this era of ex-
pansion. It is a problem, for example, to what extent land-
ed property in severalty, with its free sale and purchase, is
adapted to those tribes of people who have not acquired the
type of mind which has been gradually evolved by the most
civilized nations during the course of their history. Let us
once more take the case of the North American Indian. If
this line of argument is valid, is it possible that in a few
short years he should become adapted to that form of prop-
erty which the most highly developed people in the world
have reached as a result of an evolution of hundreds and
thousands of years? If the problem is to change the nature
of the Indian, must we not shape our institutions to his con-
ditions and allow him generations to adapt himself to the
most modern institutions? If this line of argument is true,
we must expect that the results of property in land in sever-
alty among the Indians will be that they will lose their land.
To prevent alienation of the land allotted to the Indians for
the period of twenty years seems absurd, as the real problem
is a change of Indian nature.

Continuing this line of thought, that we must provide
institutions adapted to the needs of the various classes in the
community, we come to the problem of insurance. The
gifted and capable can make their way and do make their
way in competitive society based upon private property if
they do not meet with accidents. It is absolutely impossible
that the ordinary man should prepare for all the contingen-
cies of modern industry. Accidents may befall the worker

Digitized by Google

266 INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION

just at the initial period of activity, and they may come in
middle life. It is beyond possibility for the ordinary man
with ordinary wages to make adequate provision therefor
through his own unaided efforts. The solution of the prob-
lem of contingencies is found in insurance, which is making
such rapid headway throughout the world and in which Ger-
many has left all the rest of the world so far behind. There
is no greater labor problem than that of insurance. This
can be provided by government or by private individuals.
In the United States great private corporations are doing
something in this direction. There are obvious limitations
to what can be accomplished by private effort. A great pro-
portion of the wage-earners must always be employed by
private individuals or by firms and corporations not suf-
ficiently powerful and stable to furnish satisfactory insur-
ance. Apart from this, there arises the question, To what
extent may a really desirable freedom of movement be im-
peded if employment and insurance are furnished by the
same persons ?

I think it is now generally conceded that the risks of in-
dustry should be borne as a part of the cost of production,
and this must be secured by general measures. England
has, perhaps, gone as far as possible through employers'
liability. The investigations of the Industrial Commission
of the United States show that, to a very great extent, the ,
blame for accidents cannot be laid either on the employer or
on the employee, as accidents are a natural outcome of pro- 1
duction. In many cases there is blame, especially when the
best safety appliances are not provided, but the establishment
of blame does not bring with it a remedy for the economic
incapacity of the individual wage-earner. Much govern-
mental activity in the way of supervision is required to make
the industry bear the burden of the accidents and contin-
gencies which befall the workers and to make indemnity
certain.

Digitized by Google

PSYCHOLOGICAL PHASES OF 267

The question of pensions is closely connected with that of
insurance. When old age is reached we have also reached
an appropriate period of rest. Competition has done its
work and society has no further economic services to expect
from the individual. The problem is to provide for those
who have reached old age without weakening the springs of
right economic activity in others.

Returning once more to competition, the trite phrase, a
high ethical level of competition, suggests a large number of
problems and appropriate methods for their solution.
Society determines what we may call the rules of the game
and does so in accordance with its ideals, which gradually
become clearer as social self-consciousness becomes more
pronounced. When we determine that no child under four-
teen shall be employed in a manufacturing establishment we
do not lessen competition, but we simply determine one of
its conditions. We make one of the rules of the game.
That is what we do in all our labor laws, in our pure-food
laws, etc.

This suggests in the United States the subject of inter-
state competition and, for the world as a whole, the subject
of international competition and its bearing upon the general
level of competition. Just as we cannot in local matters
rely upon voluntary effort, because we have the problem of
the twentieth man who, through the force of competition,
tends to drag others down to his own mean ethical level,
so it would seem that in one state or nation we cannot rely
upon other states and nations to establish as high a level of
competition as we might desire. This object has been agi-
tated more or less for three quarters of a century, but so far
little that is very tangible has been reached. An Inter-
national Labor Conference was called by Switzerland fif-
teen years ago, but Switzerland gave way to the German
Emperor, William II, and a congress was held in Berlin,

Digitized by Google

268 INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION

March 15 to 29, 1890. But the first international treaty
designed to protect labor is that between Italy and France
dated April 15, 1904. A beginning has been made and
that is all that we can say. Fortunately up to the present
time it has not been clearly demonstrated that any nation or
even a state within a nation has suffered on account of a
high level of competition. Success in competition depends
upon the kind of man who is engaged in industrial pursuits,
and a high level of competition naturally means a larger and
better man, and consequently an ability to maintain one's
own in competition. Generally speaking it is those nations
and those parts of nations which have done the most for the
workers that are most dreaded in competition. It must be
admitted, however, that as we draw closer and closer to-
gether in our economic life and as world economy gains
relatively upon national economy, the problem of inter-
national economic legislation, particularly international
labor legislation, gains in importance.

The presence of monopoly in modern industry is one of
the facts revealed by a survey of industrial history; mon-
opoly has existed in the past in all civilized countries as well
as in the present. In a study of the industrial history of
England we come upon the words "monopoly" and "exclus-
ive privilege" on almost every page of that history. The
ceaseless iteration of the terms becomes almost wearisome.
So far as monopoly itself is concerned, meaning thereby
exclusive control over some portion of the industrial field,
we have no new thing. The character of monopoly has
simply changed with the progress of industrial evolution.
The significant monopolies of our own time are those which
are extra-legal. They have not grown up as a result of the
intention of the lawmakers nor indeed have they come as a
result of any conscious desire on the part of society as a
whole. Certain industries have shown monopolistic tend-

Digitized by Google

PSYCHOLOGICAL PHASES OF 269

encies by virtue of their inherent properties, and there is an
increasing tendency in civilized countries to recognize this
fact and to make these pursuits, the so-called natural mo-
nopolies, also legal monopolies in order to prevent waste and
to secure certain gains resulting from monopolistic methods.
It is recognized by the common law of England and America
and, I think I may say, by what corresponds to our common
law in other countries, that private monopoly uncontrolled
is a menace to public weal, inasmuch as it removes the
benefits of competition and creates special privileges.
Monopoly due to external conditions is not like those extra
gains coming to one as a result of peculiar excellence and
which are suitable rewards for social service. The
monopoly due to external conditions or to facts and forces
external to the individual tends, so far as we can judge
from history, to repress initiative and invention on the part
of the individual. Consequently, the extra gain from
monopoly is a gain not for social service but for social dis-
service. We have rewards either without service or with-
out adequate service. We have then a special privilege
which is hostile to the general interest and particularly to the
wage-earning classes. The problem then before us is a
problem of control of monopoly in such a way that we may
remove the oppression of laborers and of others and retain
equality of opportunity. This control may be secured either
through direct ownership and management of the monopol-
istic industry or through regulation. We find both methods
resorted to. In the case of industries of a routine character
which can be carried on in accordance with certain general
principles, public ownership seems on the whole to secure
better results. It is in accordance with the principles of
property to give control, and when we have private owner-
ship and public control we are attempting to unite two an-
tagonistic principles. This is an industrial problem which

Digitized by Google

270 INDUSTRIAL EVOLUTION

carries with it a great many subordinate problems. It is
enough at this time and place to point out the nature of the
problem.

Closely connected with the foregoing is a compact organ-
ization, (a) of capital, (b) of labor, also revealed to us by
a general survey of industrial history and present economic
industrial life. This survey reveals to us, and in my mind
demonstrates the futility of efforts to suppress the large
organization of capital and the large organization of labor.
The only right method can then be to guide and direct both
kinds of organizations in such a way that they may sub-
serve the public interest.

What has been said in regard to industrial problems is
general in its nature and designed to be merely suggestive.
It presents specific problems of industrial society as problems
produced by industrial evolution and also as problems which
are largely psychical in their nature. The laws and institu-
tions demanded are those which are required to meet the
needs of the various classes in the community which are al-
most infinitely varied with respect to acquisitions, achieve-
ments, and capacities. We present one side of the problem
when we say that we must create institutions to answer
the needs of the various classes in the community. We
present a different side of the problem when we say that we
must attempt to adjust all members of society by educational
processes to their physical and more particularly their social
and economic environment in its highest manifestation.
This gives us the dynamic side of our problem. We must
not simply attempt to meet the needs of a class with a low
average of mental traits and moral characteristics, but we
must attempt so far as possible to raise each class to the
highest level. We have thus indicated the two great lines
of movement of modern nations in their attempts to solve
the industrial problems of the present age.

Digitized by Google

THE DEFINITION OF A SOCIAL POLICY RELAT-
ING TO THE DEPENDENT GROUP

BY CHARLES RICHMOND HENDERSON

[Chabixs Richmond Henderson, Professor of Sociology, University
of Chicago, and Head of Department of Ecclesiastical Sociology
in the Divinity School, b. Covington, Indiana, December 17,
1848. A.B. University of Chicago, 1870; A.M. ibid. 1873; B.D.
Baptist Union Theological Seminary, 1873; D.D. told, 1885; Ph.D.
Leipzig, 1901. Pastor, Terre Haute, Indiana, and Detroit, Michi-
gan, 1873-92; Professor, University of Chicago since 1892. Mem-
ber of American Economic Association; Academy of Political and
Social Science; Membre de la Societe" generate de prisons; Presi-
dent of National Conference of Charities and Corrections, 1899;
President of National Prison Association, 1902; Membre du
Comit6 International institu par le Congres de 1900 pour la
preparation du Congres de 1905; Member of Executive Commit-
tee, Bureau of Charities, Chicago; President of National Chil-
dren's Home Society. Authob or Social /Settlement*; 8ocial
Spirit in America; Social Elements; Modern Methods of Charity;
Modern Prison Systems; Introduction to the Study of the De-
pendent, Defective, and Delinquent Classes; and other works on
sociology; also associate editor of American Journal of Sociology,
and others.]

The subject of the social treatment of dependents has
been approached through several different disciplines, ac-
cording to the previous training and bias of the investigator
and writer. The economists have dealt with the topic as a
problem of finance, of public expenditure, and of production,
wages, and the distribution of the product of industry.
Since the money spent in public relief must be raised by tax-
ation, and since the method of giving relief affects the
efficiency of labor and the rate of wages, the economists
were right in giving serious attention to this matter. 1 The
Poor-Law has naturally been treated by legal writers be-
cause it was a vital part of the system of control by govern-
ments in all modern countries, especially in northern Europe

« Here may be mentioned, among many. Malthus. Chalmars, J. 8. Mill, Paw-
c*tt, Roocbor.

271

Digitized by Google

272 THE DEPENDENT GROUP

and the English colonies and their offspring. The "police
power" of the state covers this function. 1

The older "moral philosophy" or "moral science" sought
to answer the question : "What is our duty to the very poor,
and how can we best fulfill that duty?" In reality that is
one problem of what may be called a branch of social science,
differentiated as "social technology."' For the steps that
. we take in accumulating facts about the dependent group, in
the classification of sub-groups, in the determination of
causes, in the statistical measurement of misery, and in
the definition of social aims, all culminate and find their
supreme value in their contribution to the solution of this
question : "What is our duty to the helpless poor and how
may we best fulfill that duty?"

When we come to deal with special classes of dependents
we encounter a series of professional disciplines and arts.
For example, the care of the insane is a branch of the
medical art, and only alienists who devote their lives to this
department are trusted to speak with highest authority.
This is also true of the public care of epileptics. The care
of the feeble-minded, idiots, and imbeciles is chiefly a mat-
ter of a pedagogical specialty, although medicine and surg-
ery lend important aid, as in physical culture, the thyroid
treatment, etc. The care of normal dependent children is
best determined by considerations of general education, and
here we are brought into the field of the teacher and to the
problems of domestic institutions.

It thus appears that the study of the social treatment of
dependents makes drafts on almost all the funds of human
knowledge, uses all the methods and results of investigation,
and employs in turn all the great institutional agencies of
the community.

_ 1 Bee E. Freund, Police Power, 1904.
* My article, American Journal of Sociology, January. 190L

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL POLICY TOWARDS 273

This essay does not profess to announce for the first
time any new discoveries or results of special original in-
vestigations as yet unpublished, but rather to mark the
present stage of knowledge on the matter before us, and to
indicate some of the points on the frontier of experiment
and research where further data are needed. If, in thus re-
stating the subject, some slight increment to science may be
added, it will be incidental to the main purpose of the
exposition.

Any attempt to describe the system of charity even in one
country would result in a dry, tedious, and disappointing
sketch. The essential features of modern methods fill a
large volume, and detailed accounts require many volumes.*

It would seem expedient to select a theme which will lead
us to consider the most recent and successful endeavor of
students of social science, (1) to construct a special dis-
cipline which is clearly marked off by its subject-matter and
is deserving of independent and systematic treatment; and
(2) to consider a method of taking up particular problems
of practice, so as to guide experiment into the most economi-
cal and promising paths.

A social policy is not aimless and irrational, but moves
toward an end, seeks to realise a good. Soon or late social
science, in the course of its development and specialization,
must encounter the problem of values and standards which
does not complicate the studies of inorganic nature, as chem-
istry, physics, and astronomy, and only incidentally biology.
Thus, for example, we are forming judgments as to the best
methods of dealing with dependents. What do we mean by
"best" ? We are really thinking of the welfare of depend-

* Modern Method* of Charity Syttemt, by the writer and others, MacmUlan
Company. 1904.

274 THE DEPENDENT GROUP

ents and of the people of the community of which they are
members. Many specific ends we have in mind, as the
restoration of the sick and the insane to health, or the miti-
gation of distress when cure is impossible; the improvement
of the touch, hearing, sight, and skill of the feeble-minded ;
the proper nutrition and development of neglected infants;
peaceful and quiet existence for aged men and women in
almshouses ; and many more such purposes. We give social
honor and praise to the rich men who endow hospitals, and
to the physicians and nurses who faithfully give their lives
to the sick. It is evident that modern societies act as if they
knew that such ends are rational and worthy.

But there is both theoretical and practical interest in the
wider scientific problem: What is the general social end?
For we neither know the full extent of social obligation
nor the relative value of a particular object or institution
until we see the specific action in its place in a comprehensive
system of ends. Our theory is incomplete and our system
of agencies falls short, and our devices are either super-
fluous and exaggerated, or halting and inadequate, until our
definition of the ultimate purpose of social action and con-
duct is clear and rationally justified. 1

Since we cannot, here at least, critically follow this argu-
ment to a satisfactory conclusion, we may assume what
society actually takes for granted, and what we find im-
plied in all social institutions, laws, societies, movements,
governments, that health, sanity, intelligence, morality,
beauty, etc., are desirable for every human being.

The standard by which we judge a social policy must be a
multiple standard, like the compensating pendulum of a re-
liable clock. The standard here assumed as valid includes
the following ideas: (1) Welfare, well-being, analyzed
into its various unanalyzable elements of health, wealth,

i Sec SUoifflltr, WirthicKaft und Recht.

Digitized by Google

A hfi.isr or u\ a.!.' s

lland-!<ji>i!cd Photogravure from the fahitinz by (ixsUr R. C. Houhujer.

The name (>f T.ueullii- is proverbial tor extravagance and luxury. A
single feast cost him $IO,ooo. The painting, reproduced here, depict- a
Summer Repast at the house of Luculhis in Tusc.ulum. I he artist, M.
HoulaiiKer, \vn- awarded the medal of honor when this painting was exhibited
at the Paris Salon in 187S.

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL POLICY TOWARDS 275

knowledge, beauty, sociability, ethical Tightness, and re-
ligious faith, is the most general conception involved
(analysis of A. W. Small). (2) The welfare of all men,
not of a limited class, must be the ideal, the regulative
principle. Neither the political will of a democratic age
nor the authority of an ethical philosophy countenances any
standard for social conduct which is not universal, purely
human. Persons cannot ethically be treated as means to
ends outside themselves. No policy which is partial to a
family, a dynasty, an order, a church, a class, at the ex-
pense of others, can be defended. (3) Therefore our
standard is set up for the defense of the helpless child, the
undeveloped, the tardy, the incapable ; not because of what
they can now do for society, but because they are human
and have potential capacity for future development. (4)
The analysis of social ends shows that we include all quali-
ties and kinds of the humanly desirable. As a nature-ob-
ject every person must have a certain minimum of food
and shelter, and, normally, the race-interest asks for pro-
vision for propagation, maintenance, and protection of
healthy offspring. Hence the demand of our standard
that all capable human beings have a chance to work and
produce wealth, material objects of desire. As a psychical
person, one who must find his own way in a knowable
world, each human being must be taught what he can learn
of the knowledge possessed by his community, and his
power to learn must be developed. Culture must be many-
sided, even in an asylum for idiots or a prison for the
criminal. (5) Scientific social ethics transcends merely
qualitative analysis of social elements of welfare, and is
ambitious to employ mathematics as far as possible in the
accurate and quantitative measurement of its standard.
Our age is trying to define at least a minimum standard of
life for all citizens. This process has already gone farther

276 THE DEPENDENT GROUP

than many citizens are aware. The standardising of
weights and measures is a recent addition to the functions
and offices of our federal government at Washington, and
it marks an advance in the technical arts. At many points 1
we are seeking to standardize the conditions of welfare of
human beings. Naturally we are here concerned with a
minimum standard; if we can discover and fix this measure,
the more capable, aspiring, and energetic members of so-
ciety may safely be left free to enjoy all above that level
which they can justly acquire and rationally use.

At this hour no rational (scientific) standard for the
minimum income of wage-earners has been generally ac-
cepted. (1) The rough rule of average employers is "the
law of supply and demand;" which law actually leads to
the destruction of human life on a gigantic scale for the
sake of profits. It has no final social justification. (2)
The gradation of wages according to the rate of profits
is not rational nor equitable. The fluctuations and in-
equalities under such a rule would be unendurable. 2 (3)
The rule of the "sliding scale," which means that the rate
of wages fluctuates with the price of the commodity pro-
duced, has no ultimate basis in reason, and does not pro-
vide a socially acceptable minimum rate. (4) The rule of
the strongest, in the fight between trade-unions and em-
ployers' combinations, which gives the advantage to the
party which holds out longest, is simply a barbarous make-
shift, with a rational standard far in the dim background.
And where unions and combinations do agree the result
is simply more hardship for the consumers, and bears with
greatest weight on the very poor. (5) The only rational
starting-point is a minimum standard below which public
morality expressed in sentiment, custom, trade-union regu-

1 See C. R. Henderson, Practical Sociology in the Service of Social Bthict,
"Decennial Publications of the University of Chicago," 1902.

»The Outlook, August, 1904, articles by Messrs. Hand and Poole.

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL POLICY TOWARDS 277

lotions, moral maxims, and law, will not permit ivorkers to
be employed for wages.

As I have elsewhere discussed this minimum in relation
to the industrial group, it remains only to indicate the con-
tribution which charity work has made to the discussion
of a standard. The dietaries of asylums, orphanages, hos-
pitals, and prisons are the outcome of a long series of ex-
periments in chemical and physiological laboratories, in
army and navy, in camp and mine, as well as in these in-
stitutions of charity and correction.

One field for the adoption of a standardized minimum
remains to be cultivated, that of adequate outdoor relief
to needy families in their homes. The stupid complacency
with which only too many public officials and private
benevolent societies pretend to relieve the destitute, while
leaving many of them still partly to depend on begging,
theft, or vice, is a sad commentary on the state of knowl-
edge in this region. One result of this unscientific guess-
work, where measurement is already possible, is that much
public money is spent on the burial of pauper children
which should have gone to feed and nourish them into vig-
orous producers of wealth.

Charity, in American cities, is far behind its task. It
does not even have knowledge of those who need its aid.
Under the "Elberfeld" system there are friends of the de-
pendent in every small district of the city, and the individ-
uals on the border of suffering can easily find their way
to a helper. In America the public funds are frequently
accessible only in one central office, and even when there
is outdoor relief it is limited in amount.

There are many people in comfortable circumstances, and
many charity workers, who think that our American charity
is very nearly adequate. This optimism, I believe, is not
based on facts, and is positively a barrier to necessary im-

Digitized by Google

278 THE DEPENDENT GROUP

provements. My own conviction is based on long personal
observation and on certain professional testimonies and
statistical data. For example: Physicians who practice
among the poor frequently report sickness and mortality
which arise from "starvation diseases." Teachers of pub-
lic schools in poor quarters make similar statements. The
London and Chicago measurements of children in reforma-
tory schools show an enormous ratio of dwarfed, underfed
children. The reports of boards of health in American
cities contain evidence of the same conditions.

A very common answer of some charity societies to this
charge is that they are able to give relief to all applicants.
But, with these facts before us, the answer is not decisive.
People by the tens of thousands are trying to exist and
bring up children in homes which are unfit for human hab-
itation, and on food which is insufficient to meet the mini-
mum requirements of growth. They do this because they
either do not know where to apply for help, or because
they know that, unless actually ready to perish, they will
be treated as able-bodied and "not needing relief," or be-
cause they prefer to suffer from hunger and cold and dis-
ease rather than ask alms.

I do not claim that charity should attempt to relieve all
distress. No doubt the idleness and vices of men produce
much misery which philanthropy cannot reach. No doubt
moral reformation and schemes of thrift, insurance, educa-
tion, and general sanitation will in time remove many of
the causes of this distress. But what I urge is that we do
not now realize the actual enormity of suffering from pov-
erty, that our methods of finding out are very inadequate,
and that our optimism is as cruel as it is unscientific. So
long as many influential charity workers are teaching rich
and well-to-do people that we are almost at our goal we
shall never awaken the public to put forth the necessary

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL POLICY TOWARDS 279

effort to cope with the overwhelming evils of extreme need
in our industrial centres. 1

The present efforts of the permanent Census Bureau of
the nation, supported by the National Conference of
Charities and Correction, by the National Prison Associa-
tion, and by all experts, to collect continuous and reliable
statistics relating to paupers and criminals, should be sup-
ported by all citizens. It is to be hoped that funds will be
furnished to professors and students in university depart-
ments of social science for investigations in this field.

It might be thought that the elements of welfare in the
higher regions of intellectual, esthetic, and moral culture
are too refined, indefinite, and ethereal to be standardized.
But all countries which have compulsory school attend-
ance, at least up to a certain age, declare thereby that they
have adopted a minimum standard of education; and they
compel competitive exploitation of youth to await for ma-
turity of body and mind. Child-labor laws are themselves
the definite legal expression of a mathematical measure-
ment of a social duty.

The trade-union world is stating its minimum standard
more and more definitely, and insisting on it with courage
and constancy, though sometimes also with acts of lawless-
ness and atrocity which show disregard of community wel-
fare. This minimum standard includes such factors as the
eight-hour day, the sanitary work-place, protected ma-
chinery, the age of beginning apprenticeship, and a mini-
mum rate of wages for each branch of industry. The ef-
fect of the successful and general application of this stand-

1 One illustration of an attempt to fix a minimum standard mar here b«
Riven: "Dr. Frankel. of the United Hebrew Charities of New York, in a study
of income and expenditure of a family Just above the line of dependency, shows
the disbursements for one month to have been about $32. the receipts Trom all
sources (Including $5 from lodgers) during the same period were from $33 to
$35." Solomon C. Lowenatefn In Jrtrtth Charity, June. 1904. p. 210. See also,
Charles Booth. Life and Labor; Rountree, Poverty: a Study of Town Life;
B. T. Devine. Principle* of Relief. Dr. Dcvine's book was not yet published
when this paper was written.

Digitized by Google

280 THE DEPENDENT GROUP

ard upon the incapable and the feeble deserves our atten-
tion; but the enforcement of the minimum, being a com-
munity interest, should not be left to trade-unions, but
should be, as far as possible, a matter of law and govern-
mental action.

In the maintenance of this minimum standard we are
compelled to face the problem of immigration of foreign-
ers whose standard of living is below this minimum. So
long as hordes of this class are permitted to come freely to
America, to live herded in unfit habitations, and to com-
pete for places with our naturalized citizens who have al-
ready won an advance, the case is hopeless for our own
people.

Uncritical and traditional requirements of ethics produce
an unreasoning sentimentalism which wreaks injury upon
the race. The ethical demands of the future will become
more exact, more capable of explanation and justification,
because they will rest both upon inherited instincts of sym-
pathy and also upon calculations of the consequences of
methods on social welfare in our own and coming ages.
Many of the moral standards of our times need to be pro-
foundly modified by this process of scientific testing and
experimentation.

The general form of our present problem is this : What
is the best system and method of promoting the welfare
of the dependent group considered as a vital part of the
entire community? It is chiefly a problem of technique.
This technique is a mode of action by a community. It is
known and has its reasons in relation to the rational order
of society. It can be taught and learned, for it is taught
and learned. Hence it is a subject of science and has won
proper recognition as a topic in this Scientific Congress.

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL POLICY TOWARDS 281

This technique is learned originally as other scientific con-
clusions are reached, — by systematic observation of social
phenomena, by induction from facts, by performing ex-
periments with methods under varied conditions, by invent-
ing working hypotheses and putting them to the test of
reality.

We are students of causes in a rational system of life;
only we are trying to discover forces and conditions which
will bring about a desired result, and we are not merely
trying to explain a fact completed. We set before us not
merely an effect to be accounted for, but a state of society
and of persons which we desire and will to produce, on
the ground that we represent it to ourselves as desirable.
We are mentally adjusting a system of means to good ends,
and not merely looking for the process by which what
actually exists once came to be. One of these processes is
just as truly scientific as the other, although the difficulty
of prevision and provision is greater than that of explain-
ing the past.

Ill

Elements in a Social Policy relating to the Dependent

Group

(1) We need to distinguish as sharply as possible, both
in social thought and action, the members of this group
from those who belong to the industrial group. Perhaps
one of the most disastrous forms of mental confusion is
that of confounding these two groups and so treating them
alike. The dependents have long been played off against
the wage-earners, and are even now frequently used to
lower the standard of living of the competent so as to re-
duce many of the self-supporting to beggary, shame, and
demoralization, with a long train of vicious consequences

■

Digitized by Google

282

THE DEPENDENT GROUP

through heredity for the future race. The typical his-
torical example here is the national degradation which
threatened the English people before the reform of the
poor-law about 1834, when poor-relief was given as a sup-
plement to wages, with the consequence that all common,
unskilled laborers were fast becoming paupers as a condi-
tion of mere existence; and pauper labor proved to be in-
capable of producing wealth enough to support the nation.

But we do not have to go so far to discover flagrant illus-
trations of the same tendency, even in the fortunate eco-
nomic conditions of the United States. There has not been
an important strike in the past decennium, involving large
numbers of low-skilled laborers, when charity-supported or
charity-assisted persons or semi-criminals did not offer
themselves in crowds to compete with the strikers. 1 The
"parasitic industries" are found in all cities, that is, indus-
tries in which the income which supports the family comes
partly from wages, partly from charity, partly from vice,
and partly from the physical and moral capital of the next
generation.

Under a previous head the minimum standard of human
existence has been defined as closely as the nature of the
subject and our present knowledge permit. The critical
test lies here : Those who can earn the minimum in com-
petitive society belong to the industrial group; those who
cannot earn this minimum belong to the dependent group.
This is a rough measure, but it is far better than no stand-
ard, and it is practically correct. In fact, it is already
more or less consciously applied in every instance where
public poor-relief is given. Of course, no thoughtful per-
son will take us to mean that there is an impassable bar-
rier between the two classes, so that dependents cannot be

1 It Is notorious that many of tho professional "strlVe-broaVcrs" arc fce
vagrant class, on the borderland between vice, pauperism, and crime.

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL POLICY TOWARDS 283

helped to ascend into and remain in the industrial group;
and there will always be some difficulty to decide the status
of those on the border-line.

The members of the dependent group, who cannot earn
even the minimum wage necessary to a human existence,
are now actually supported by society; but frequently, and
on a large scale, in such a way and by such methods as to
keep them down and drag others to their level. For ex-
ample, the products of charitable and correctional institu-
tions are sometimes put upon the market in such quanti-
ties and massed at such points as to reduce the wages of
self-supporting work-people below the level of the mini-
mum. In the sewing industries very serious evil is thus
introduced.

(2) A social policy relating to the dependent group
must isolate the criminal group. One of the plagues of
public and private charity is the anti-social criminal, the
sturdy rogue and vagrant, the debased drunkard, the cun-
ning thief, who mix in the throng of the merely dependent
and appropriate by impudence or craft the fund intended
for the helpless and incapable. At the door and desk of
the municipal lodging-house may be seen daily the sifting
and judging process — one of the most delicate tasks which
ever test the judicial faculties of man. The same problem
often confronts the friendly visitor in the homes of the
poor, — as when one is called to help the wife and infant
children of a lazy or absconding husband and father.

Recent experiments and discussions at this dividing-line
have shown that the rough and ready, but overworked,
"work-test," even as a "workhouse test," is but one factor
in the best method. One difficulty is that the motley multi-
tude called the "unemployed" is composed of unlike ele-
ments, the vagrant, the inebriate, the petty unsuccessful
thief, the burglar "down on his luck," the physical degen-

Digitized by Google

284

THE DEPENDENT GROUP

erate, the enfeebled convalescent just staggering back from
a hospital, the stranded country youth, the unskilled la-
borer seeking a job without trade-union card, and others;
some with hard palms and thick muscles, some with deft
but delicate fingers, some accustomed to cold and heat,
some with prophetic cough ready to perish with slight ex-
posure to sun or storm.

In order to treat with fairness, discrimination, wisdom,
and humanity all these "unemployed," and to transfer to
the machinery of the criminal law those with whom charity
cannot deal, several tests are necessary, and a merely auto-
matic, mechanical method is totally irrational, (a) First
of all a judicious, firm, courageous, and humane agent is
necessary. The evil of depending entirely on a single
coarse test, as the stone-pile, the bath, the workhouse, is
that it seems to make the man unnecessary. It has long
been observed that in an asylum for the insane where all
the patients are kept within steel cages, one or two brutal
attendants can carry out the policy; but where freedom,
fresh air, play, industry, and rational treatment are given,
the hospital must have many gentle, strong, and trained
nurses. So exclusive reliance on a stone-breaking test tends
to place surly and cruel keepers in charge of all applicants
for shelter and aid, and thus the institution designed for
charity and justice becomes an insult to honest workmen
and a discouragement to the sensitive, without furnishing
the quick insight which most unerringly discovers real
criminals, (b) The work-test, in many forms, is only one
useful method which works well under good direction,
since crime is as parasitic as pauperism, and the mark of
the parasite is that he wishes to live at the expense of
others, (c) The employment bureau, with a reliable rec-
ord and a sharp watch-care, is another means of marking
the industrious man and discovering the cheat, (d) In

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL POLICY TOWARDS

285

cities, and often in towns, a certain amount of personal
guardianship, a kind of probation work, is necessary to
hold a moral weakling back from sliding down the easy
incline toward criminality. All this information which is
necessary for a wise treatment must be collected instantly,
by means of messengers and telephone and telegraph, and
from every available source. For the moment when a man
can be helped and turned away from beggary or crime is
the moment when he is under treatment and within the
grasp of the official. The German Ver pile gun gsstationen,
with their simple inns and their system of certificates and
records, have much to teach us.

But whatever the tests employed, in some way the mem-
bers of the criminal group must be distinguished, known,
and isolated from the dependent group. Charity, public
or private, has no machinery of compulsion, and ought not
to have. The steamboat is not made to sail on land; the
school-house is not constructed to hold burglars in con-
finement ; and a charity bureau is not fitted for the task of
managing deserting husbands, petty thieves, and confirmed
inebriates. Society must erect specially adapted machinery
for dealing with this class of men, and it must have agents
trained for each particular branch of its service.

(3) Part of our social policy must be a better under-
standing between the public and private agencies of relief.
So far as principles of administrative methods are con-
cerned there are no radical differences, both must aim at
the real good of the recipients and of the community. It
is also true that the division of labor need not be the same
in every state and every county or municipality.

But the necessity of agreement and cooperation is easily
illustrated and demonstrated from examples taken from
practice. Thus private charity sometimes supports a feeble
alien who has been rejected by the agent of public outdoor

Digitized by Google

286 THE DEPENDENT GROUP

relief until he has gained the rights of settlement and be-
comes henceforth a public charge ; and this happens even in
states where it is a punishable offense to import a pauper
from one county into another. This understanding should
go far enough, in cities where there is legal outdoor relief,
to secure for the salaried agents the assistance of volun-
tary, unpaid, friendly visitors. Our public relief in Ameri-
can cities sins against the fundamental principle of indi-
vidual treatment, because it refuses thus far to learn from
the German cities, which employ unpaid visitors and give
to them, within certain regulated limits, the responsibility
for the distribution of public funds.

The essential principles of division of labor seem to be:
(1) the relief which is required by law is only that which
is necessary to life and industrial efficiency, while private
relief can deal with exceptional cases and provide a measure
of comfort; (2) public relief is more suitable where there
can be common, general regulations ; private relief is more
adaptable and can act in exceptional ways; (3) public re-
lief may properly provide for permanent and universal de-
mands; private relief, being optional and voluntary, may
rise to meet changing situations, and hence can more read-
ily try experiments for which the voting public is not ready
to expend money or erect administrative machinery.

But division of labor is only one aspect of social co-
operation, and it really implies and demands a conscious
and concerted effort to work for the common welfare.
This division of labor and this cooperation require organs
and agents to make them effective. In German cities the
initiative is naturally taken by the municipality; in Ameri-
can cities it must at first be taken by the Charity Organ-
ization Society or some kindred association.

(4) A social policy relating to the dependent group must
include an extension of experiments with positive social

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL POLICY TOWARDS 287

selection. Each year competent thinkers come nearer to
agreement on this principle, although it is not so clear that
we have yet hit upon the most effective devices in its ap-
plication. It is more than formerly assumed that persons
who cannot improve, or at least will not degrade, the
physical and psychical average of the race, should be pre-
vented, so far as possible, from propagating their kind.
Accidental and sporadic deflections downward from the
average would still occur; but one of the principal causes
of race-deterioration would cease at the source.

The device of extermination by painless death has not
been seriously discussed among the competent.

The device of sterilisation has been frequently suggested,
and, in a few instances, chiefly on the ground of advantage
to the individual, it has been employed. There is nothing
absurd, cruel, or impracticable in this proposition, although
it would be helpful only within a limited area at best, and
would not make segregation unnecessary, since even a ster-
ilized degenerate can do injury by example and actions.
It could be useful only upon the recommendation of a
medical administrator and in the case of persons isolated
from social contacts.

A beginning has been made with the device of the cus-
todial colony for segregation, already in quite general use
with the insane, the feeble-minded, the epileptic. The idea
is not absolutely new, but the scientific grounds and economic
methods have not yet been worked out in a way to frame a
cogent argument and appeal to electors and legislators. We
must still interpret the partial and tentative experiments al-
ready made so as to throw light on extended applications of
the principle. Until the entire community, or at least the
governing majority, has accepted this policy with open eyes
and united will, we must expect to pay the heavy costs of
neglect.

Digitized by Google

288

THE DEPENDENT GROUP

Conviction of the importance of a rational and humane
policy of social selection has been diluted, and aggressive
effort has been delayed, by certain widely accepted errors.
Thus we have a large number of citizens who cling to the
belief that "natural selection" is adequate and preferable.
They speak of the "evanescence of evil ;" they cite the high
rate of mortality of starved and sick infants, the sterility
of prostitutes, the frequent celibacy of vicious and criminal
men, the disappearance of degenerate families, the ravages
of alcoholism and disease among the neurotic and ineffi-
cient. Doubtless, as was long ago abundantly illustrated
by Malthus, misery, pain, weakness, vice, do tend to ex-
tinction without any conscious, concerted, and rational ef-
fort of the community through law. Why not leave the
weeding-out process to these destructive agents and forces ?

False modesty has been an important factor in hinder-
ing the calm and responsible discussion of the selective pro-
cess. Ignorance' of biological science has contributed to
the obstacles in the way of progress. We need to consider
what the waiting, laissez-faire policy involves in order to
understand why a humane society will not always stand by
without a positive effort to modify the process and reduce
its cost. It would mean, first of all, that hundreds of
thousands of our fellow men who fail in competition would
starve or freeze before our eyes in our streets. Among
these would be innumerable innocent little children and
helpless old men and women, unfortunate and crippled vet-
erans of the army of labor. We do not need to depend on
imagination for a knowledge of the effect of such conduct.
It is what Bill Sykes did, what miserly stepfathers and
heartless tyrants have done. The king who heard that his
subjects had nothing to eat, and sent word that they were
welcome to eat grass, was inviting a revolution — and it
came. Hunger breeds despair, and those who are left on

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL POLICY TOWARDS 289

the verge of starvation have nothing to risk when they
steal and rob, or set the torch to palaces, and rob public
stores and granaries in the glare of conflagrations.

The instinct of sympathy is too deep and general to per-
mit neglect. The moral obligation of charity is now with
us organic, institutional, and fortified by ethical philosophy.
While we cannot "prove" it, as we can a physical cause of
disease, we can show to all who are capable of appreciating
the argument that charity is an essential factor in a rational
view of life and the universe. In spite of the powerful
and influential protest of Mr. Herber Spencer, the civilized
nations have gone on their way of extending the positive
agencies of benevolence. The let-alone policy is imprac-
ticable. Evidence is accumulating to prove that charitable
support, without a positive general policy of segregation
and custody, is, in the case of those who are seriously de-
fective, the certain cause of actually increasing misery by
insuring the propagation of the miserable. We cannot go
backward to mere natural selection, the process which was
suitable with vegetable and animal life, and inevitable in
the stages of early human culture. Nor can we rest with
merely mitigating methods of relief. We are compelled
to consider devices for direct elimination of the heredity
of pauperism and grave defect.

Fortunately we have already discovered that an effective
colony method is technically and economically possible,
humane, and financially advisable. For example, it is not
difficult to estimate the average cost per year for the sup-
port of a feeble-minded woman of child-bearing age in a
farm colony where all the inhabitants work, learn, play,
but none breed. If she were free to roam, the county or
state would have during these same years to support the
woman and her defective illegitimate children. The fu-
ture generations of "the Jukes family" are in sight, and

290 THE DEPENDENT GROUP

the burdens they will bring. We know the effects of these
two policies; they "spring to the eyes." The method of
segregation, as a device of negative social selection, is al-
ready at work and its results are before us. Gradually,
tentatively, carefully, the method will be employed with
others, as they are found to be manifestly unfit for the
function of propagation and education of offspring; from
the insane and feeble-minded society will proceed to place
in permanent custody the incurable inebriate, the profes-
sional criminal, the hopelessly depraved. The marriage of
consumptives and of others with feeble constitutions will
be increasingly diminished under pressure of enlightened
public opinion.

But the policy of segregation is applicable only within
rigid limitations. Only those members can be cut off from
family life and social freedom who are manifestly unfit for
parenthood and for contact with fellow citizens in com-
petitive industry. Many of the children of criminals may
be so nourished and taught in a new domestic environment
as to become valuable citizens. But society cannot afford
to play the nurse and teacher for a very large horde of
incapables and criminals. The cost would be too great
and the sacrifice would fall on the wrong parties. It is in
the improvements and reforms which promise the eleva-
tion of the group not yet either pauper or criminal that we
may most reasonably hope to secure the best returns for
our efforts. Something may be done to compel parents
now negligent to perform their duties as parents and make
better use of their wasted resources. The extension of
probation work to parents, already begun in some of our
juvenile courts, is a hint of what may be done.

(5) Not even a brief outline of a social policy relating
to the dependent group can omit reference to the agencies
of "preventive and constructive" philanthropy. Omitting

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL POLICY TOWARDS 291

details, yet bearing in mind the impressive array of inven-
tions in this line, let us seek to define the essential regu-
lative principles which at once inspire and direct these
methods.

Pauperism is, in great part, the effect of known and re-
movable causes. These causes are not obscure, concealed,
or beyond our grasp. They are consequences of human
choices which may be reversed. The reception of alms
even in cases of innocent misfortune, is a social injury; it
lowers self-respect, weakens energy, produces humiliation
and mental suffering, diminishes productive efficiency,
tends to the increase of pauperism. Hence those who
know most of relief are most desirous of reducing the
necessity for it to the lowest possible terms.

The National Consumers' League and the recently or-
ganized National Child Labor Committee represent a policy
of prevention which is full of promise. It is perfectly
clear to all competent observers, who are not blinded by
some false conceptions of personal financial interest, that
the vitality, industrial efficiency, fitness for parenthood, and
intelligent social cooperation of the rising generation are
profoundly affected by neglect of the children of the poor.
In order to prevent juvenile pauperism and youthful vice
and crime, the entire nation must work steadily to intro-
duce and make operative something like the following pro-
gramme of legislation and administration: 1

All children must complete the first eight years of the
common school curriculum and attain a certain standard of
education before they are permitted to engage in bread-
winning occupations, and none under sixteen years should
be wage-workers unless this standard has been reached.

All children, when they begin work, should be examined

1 Suggested by the paper of Mrs. Florence Kelley, published In the American
Journal of Sociology.

292

THE DEPENDENT GROUP

by a public physician, and held back from intense labor if
in weight, stature, and development of muscles and nerves
they are dwarfed. Physicians and nurses should be
charged with the duty of seeing that school-children are
kept in good health.

All defective, deaf, and subnormal children, as well as
the crippled, should have proper separate and special in-
struction.

Boards of education should provide playgrounds and
vacation schools, under careful supervision, in order to pre-
vent the evils of idleness, misdirected energy, and vicious
associations.

Public libraries should extend their branch work, not
only to different districts of the city, but, by means of
home library agencies, into the very homes of the poor;
and the easy and pleasant use of the English language
should thus be promoted.

The street occupations of boys should be carefully regu-
lated and supervised, and the employment of girls in public
ways should be prohibited.

Boys under the age of sixteen years should not be per-
mitted to labor in mines or with dangerous machinery.

If parents and other adults are in any way responsible
for the delinquency of children, they should be held penally
responsible.

At the same time, the curriculum of the schools should
be so planned as to lead by a natural transition from the
play and study of childhood to the specialized industries
of maturity, by means of evening schools, technical instruc-
tion for apprentices, regulation of hours and shifts, so that
youth may lay a broad foundation for the specialization of
the factory and mill.

Among the methods of preventive philanthropy is that
of new applications of the principle of averaging risks or

Digitized by Google

SOCIAL POLICY TOWARDS 293

"insurance." The only nation which has thus far devel-
oped a system as comprehensive as social need and as our
present social science justify is Germany, and any discus-
sion which ignores that splendid system must be regarded
as tardy and provincial. No doubt each country must con-
struct its own system, but any legislature which neglects
German experience and success falls short of the best wis-
dom.

Sickness being one of the chief causes of dependence, all
recent improvements in hygiene and sanitary science, with
their practical applications in municipalities, must be
counted among the direct means of preventing pauperism.
The contest with tuberculosis is a familiar and happy illus-
tration of labors in this field.

(6) Philanthropy would still have a large and even
higher mission if the commonwealth could by a stroke
abolish pauperism in all its present forms. Philanthropy
will never become obselete, but will merely move up to
higher levels. There will always be superior and inferior;
stronger men in advance, feebler men in the rear; but all
will be members of the same community, knit by economic,
political, and moral ties into one organization. Already
the condition of social dependents is far higher than it was
a century ago. When actual misery and depravity have

t been abolished, if that time ever comes, there will still be
work for the most successful on behalf of those less gifted.

1 Much of our charitable work is already on this level. In
rural communities the desperate and tragical struggle with
shameless pauperism is often absent; there are no "poor,"
none dependent on public or private relief; yet in many
villages the higher charity has a very earnest mission.
There are still spiritual and intellectual dwarfs to be stimu-
lated; gossip dissipates; low vice lurks in unsuspected
places ; and those who lag in the rear hinder the march of
the most advanced.

Digitized by Google

THE DEPENDENT GROUP

The philanthropic measures which have been developed
in presence of pathological phenomena have reacted upon
normal activities. Thus, for example, the methods of
studying" and training the feeble-minded and the juvenile
offenders, and the vacation schools for summer vagrants
among children, have made substantial and appreciated
contributions to the science of education.

Crises in commerce and industry are felt to be pathologi-
cal; but a scientific study of crises reveals the principles
which should regulate ordinary business in such a way as to
avoid widespread financial ruin, as rules and laws control-
ling the issue of currency, the straining of credit, and the
fluctuations in the production of commodities.

The labors of the philanthropist awaken and sustain
those social habits of thought and sympathy which elevate
and ennoble family life, refine customs, and inform legis-
lation with a universal moral aim. Medieval charity was
full of blunders, but its failures are our warnings, and its
spirit of devotion inspires us through the literary monu-
ments of its typical heroes. In a similar way the institu-
tions and laws which public and private charity are now
constructing will shine over the waste of years a veritable
pharos for the centuries to come.

Digitized by Google

THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY

BY EMIL MUNSTERBERG

[Emil MU^sterbeho, Member of the County Council, and President,
City Charities, Berlin, Germany, since 1898. b. Dantzig, Ger-
many, July 13, 1855. Dr. Jur. Judge in Menden, Westfalen, 1887-
90; Mayor in Iserlohn, 1890-92; Director of Public Charities,
Hamburg, 1893-96. Author of numerous books and papers treat-
ing subjects of charity and social welfare.]

Poverty means a condition where there is lack of the
necessaries of life. The preservation of the life of the body
is a necessity, and the man who does not possess the means
necessary to such preservation is poor. Whether it be
directly through starvation, or indirectly through sickness
brought on by insufficient nourishment, poverty must neces-
sarily lead to the extinction of the physical life. The in-
dividual's instinctive love of life will not allow him to sub-
mit to this result without resistance, and so in one way or
another, according to the circumstances in which he lives,
he struggles against it. He will either beg the means of
subsistence from his fellows, or, if this fails, he will resort
to fraud or force in his efforts to obtain it. This means
that he will strive to escape want by secret or forcible ap-
propriation of the necessary means of subsistence. But so
far as begging and force fail, whether it be because his
fellow men are also poor, or because they take sufficient
precautions to protect themselves against fraud and force,
so far the condition of poverty continues to exist, and that
consequence of physical degeneration makes its appearance
which penetrates the whole being through disease, through
moral neglect, and through embitterment of soul. Where
wider circles of population fall into this condition we
speak of collective poverty, in contrast to individual poverty.

296 PROBLEMS OF POVERTY

There is this great difference between poverty and all
other human conditions, that the man who suffers from it
has at his disposal no means of resistance out of his own
power; that here there is no service rendered which fur-
nishes a claim for a counter-service, as is the case in all
other human relations. Hence, when help is rendered to .
the poor, be it by the individual or by society in its various
forms, the question is always of a service without return.
For this reason, therefore, such service cannot, without fur-
ther ceremony, be left to the general principles governing
economics and equity which otherwise regulate the rela-
tion between service and counter-service. There are many
other points of view on which the necessity of helping the
poor is based. They may be briefly classified as "philan-
thropic" and "police." The spectacle of a human being
suffering from want is so affecting that it calls out the feel-
ing of sympathy which impels his fellow men to help.
From the standpoint of the police, however, the impulse
evoked is almost the direct opposite — that of self-protec-
tion.

When an indigent, through need of the necessary means
of subsistence, resorts to fraud or force, he can do this
only through a breach of the law. Society, which imposes
a penalty on such a breach of its laws, must guard against
allowing such law-breaking, committed through the force -
of a natural instinct, to have the appearance of being justi-
fiable. Means must be taken to anticipate such an instinc-
tive action by voluntarily supplying the poor man with the
means of satisfying his natural wants. The history of
poverty furnishes numerous proofs of the fact that the in-
stinct of self-preservation is under all circumstances
stronger than the fear of penalty. The whole of the meas-
ures by means of which it is sought to alleviate the many
and varied conditions of poverty, we designate "poor-re-

Digitized by Google

RELIEF MEASURES 297

lief." No civilized state is without such measures, al-
though in various countries they have undergone a very
different development. Their foundation is laid by a feel-
ing of fellowship, which at first centres in the church parish
and is directly shown by the members of the parish toward
one another. Hence the custom passes over, as a religious
exercise, to the church itself, which comes to recognize a
definite religious duty toward the poor. It also grows up
out of that feeling of fellowship which neighbors have,
manifests itself in the mutual help of those bound together
by a common occupation or calling into orders of knight-
hood, religious orders, merchant and trade guilds, unions,
brotherhoods, and associations, and finds its final compre-
hensive expression in the recognition of the duty of poor-
relief through political organizations, church, province,
state. Yet its actual development assumes very different
forms. In the Latin countries the exercise of poor-relief
and charity continues to centre really in the church. In
the Teutonic countries, on the other hand, it develops from
an ecclesiastical to an ecclesiastico-civil, and then gradually
to a completely civil, poor-relief. In keeping with this de-
velopment, the ecclesiastical poor-relief in the Teutonic
countries remains still in a mere modest, supplementary
position, closely confined within the limits of those bound
together by a common creed. The opposite is the case in
the Latin countries. Here charity, which is administered
through churches, monasteries, religious orders, and char-
itable endowments, is supplemented by state and parish
measures. The traces of this historical development are
to be found in numerous halfway forms. For example,
even in the England of to-day the public poor-relief is ad-
ministered by unions which correspond to the several
church parishes. In the French bureaux de bienfaisance
and in the Italian congregasione di caritd the interest of

Digitized by Google

298 PROBLEMS OF POVERTY

the community at large finds expression in the fact that the
mayor is the chairman of these associations.

To these public and semi-public forms of poor-relief
there is added an immense number of private charities,
which either pursue precisely the same object as the former,
or else supplement them in some way or other. Their pro-
moters are either single individuals or societies and asso-
ciations. Above all things, the standpoint of humanity is
predominant among them, although this takes different
forms of expression at different periods. The simple com-
mand to love one's neighbor, which makes it a duty to help
one's suffering fellow beings, expresses itself in almsgiving
and penitential offerings in the medieval church, where the
spiritual welfare of the giver is the idea in the foreground,
rather than the need of the receiver. The charitable foun-
dations of the cities that grew up after the Reformation
are the expression of a powerful sense of citizenship, which
feels itself able to do more for its impoverished members
than afford them mere sustenance. The period of ration-
alism which set in about the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury transformed the Christian idea of love of one's neigh-
bor into that of pure humanity. And still to-day impulses
to relieve suffering are produced by motives of the most
various kinds. The means to this end are pouring in to-
day as they have never done before. The applied methods
of relief, especially where sickness and infirmity are con-
cerned, have reached a degree of excellence all out of com-
parison with that of any previous period. How much also
poor-relief has extended its scope, increased its means, and
improved its methods! The method of poor-relief in it-
self, however, can boast of no progress. It was and con-
tinues to be an indispensable, but always crude, means of
contending against poverty. So far as we can speak here
of progress at all, it is not to be found within, but rather

Digitized by Google

RELIEF MEASURES

299

without the proper compass of poor-relief. It begins at
the moment when poverty is no longer reckoned with as a
condition established by the will of God, or as a necessary
fact of human existence; and the question is thus raised
whether poor-relief itself cannot be absolutely banished
from the world by the absolute abolition of poverty itself,
and, without prejudice to the physical and mental inequal-
ities in natural gifts which divide men, by the removal of
that monstrous inequality which exists in the things of this
life. From this point of view the problem of poverty is
a problem of economics and sociology which investigates
the whole relationship of man to man and to nature about
him, and whose final aim must be to render to all an equit-
able share in the treasures that are to be wrung from na-
ture through work, and also, by the creation of universal
prosperity, to banish poverty from the world as the very
contradiction of such prosperity.

With an insight into this connection of the matter there
begins a new conception of social and economic events.
We hear at the close of the eighteenth century of the great
doctrine of individual freedom. All legal obstacles which
set bounds to this movement must fall. It is taught that,
as soon as every one has liberty to unfold his own powers,
the greatest possible guaranty of universal prosperity is
attained. But the new economic development which, under
the banner of steam and electricity, leads the way to a new
era of discovery and invention, in reality created colossal
riches on the one hand, and appalling poverty on the other.
Poverty is not removed, but increased, and in its opposition
to riches appears still sharper and more pressing. Man's
ability to work has become an article of sale, which, ac-
cording to the law of supply and demand, displays a ten-
dency toward continuous depreciation as population in-
creases. So economic freedom becomes the freedom of

Digitized by Google

300

PROBLEMS OF POVERTY

"sweating," which receives only the slightest check from
the good will of philanthropists. The immense pressure
from above calls forth the counter-pressure from below.
As their feeling of self-consciousness develops, the labor-
ing classes seek to realize themselves as a unity, and in their
wishes, needs, and point of view to oppose themselves to
the employing class. One can speak of this movement
among the laboring classes as something quite new in the
history of sociology and of the world. This does not mean
that there ever was a time when the struggle of the im-
poverished classes to improve their social and economic con-
dition had no existence. But no movement has seized hold
of such great masses of people. First of all, the modern
means of communication and the press, together with a
universal political freedom which has, in spite of every ob-
stacle, made great advances, have been the powers which
have given that solidarity to modern labor which is its
peculiar characteristic. This movement of labor to realize
itself as a great unity gives rise to the modern social prob-
lem of which the problem of poverty forms a part. As a
part of the social problem it assumes a new aspect. The
conception of poor-relief, in the old sense of the term, is
entirely foreign to the labor programme, the first principle
of which is self-help; not pity, but justice; not a prayer,
but a claim.

This social conception of the problem increases the diffi-
culty of treating it, because the attention is now directed
away from the outer appearance of poverty to its deep-
lying cause, and the trouble now is to find those measures
through which the cause of poverty may be counteracted.
We are accustomed to classify the causes of poverty as
"general" and "particular." The former comprise events
over which the individual has no influence, such as the
whole organization of state and society, business crises,

Digitized by Google

RELIEF MEASURES 301

wars, discoveries, and inventions which revolutionize a
whole branch of industry, such as especially the replacing
of hand labor by machine labor ; further, destructive events
of nature, such as earthquakes, conflagration, inundations,
epidemics, etc. Through all these causes numberless indi-
viduals are simultaneously rendered penniless and countless
families deprived of their bread-winners. The particular
causes of poverty are disease, infirmity, old age, etc., which
are again to be distinguished as those for which the indi-
vidual is responsible and those for which he is not respon-
sible. For idleness, prodigality, drink-mania, and unchas-
tity he is responsible; for youth, old age, sickness, and in-
firmity, and death of the bread-winner he is not responsible.
Yet a sharp line of distinction is not to be drawn here. A
bad course of life, for which a vicious bringing-up is to
blame, is something for which, in a higher sense, the indi-
vidual is not responsible. Moreover, a similar considera-
tion will show us how the individual case broadens into
the general. Take, for example, the problem of criminal-
ity among the young, a problem which has lately been the
subject of especially earnest consideration and which is
bound up with domestic conditions. In like manner, the
sickness of the individual assumes a general importance
when the condition of dwellings, the general diet, etc., de-
teriorate the health of the population. And if the state of
dwellings and food have such a result, there forces itself to
the front the question of wage and labor conditions which
do not allow a sufficient expenditure for food and dwelling.
And from this wage and labor question we are immediately
led back to the question of economic and social conditions.
In short, we have an immense variety of circumstances pro-
duced through causes the ultimate source of which is hid-
den in almost impenetrable obscurity. Personal, physical,
intellectual, and mental qualities exercise a contributive but

Digitized by Google

302 PROBLEMS OK POVERTY

not decisive influence, where the determining circumstances
are more powerful than the will of the individual.

However difficult it may be in particular cases to press
back to the ultimate cause, yet the knowledge of the con-
nection between the individual case and circumstances in
general affords us points of view for the measures that are
to be taken to counteract poverty. Indeed, it is this in-
sight into the indissoluble connection of the single case with
the general which gives its decisive character to the efforts
of to-day to solve the problem of poverty. The well-worn
comparison between poverty and disease here obtrudes it-
self. It is not a piece of court-plaster fastened over a
wound which heals a disease whose causes lie within, but
only the treatment of the whole bodily condition, the im-
provement of the vital forces, the restoration of regular
circulation of the blood, the stimulation of the activity of
the heart. Thus poor-relief, as a means of protecting the
• poor from direct want, is only the court-plaster which
serves as a temporary relief, but does not produce a real
cure. The farther the measures taken to counteract pov-
erty are removed from this most external measure of poor-
relief, the more effective are they. In the first rank stand
all those measures which are fitted to elevate the general
condition of prosperity. Here belong all those measures
which concern public and economic life, commerce, the labor
market, the administration of justice, etc., and also the
question of protection and free trade, the conclusion of com-
mercial treaties, the extension of the means of communica-
tion by land and water. In a similar position stand those
measures for the elevation of the public weal through regu-
lations promoting health and education, such as the funda-
mental demand of universal free elementary schools and of
night schools, the equipment of technical, business, and
higher educational institutions, the procuring of a good

Digitized by Google

RELIEF MEASURES 303

water-supply, the removal of garbage, the supervision of
slaughter-houses, a good milk-supply, the promotion of
physical training in the schools and homes, the furtherance
of the building of sanitary dwellings ; in short, those meas-
ures which are fitted to improve the mental and physical
conditions of all the various classes of population.

The second division is formed by those regulations which
have to do with single occupations and classes, especially
the agricultural, artisan, and industrial wage-earning
classes. Of first importance here is the regulation of the
labor conditions, the legal protection of labor, labor coali-
tion, and labor employment bureaus. Side by side with
legal regulations, the claim to the highest importance lies
with the activity of the independent organizations, of the
artisan associations and trade-unions, of producers' and
consumers' leagues, of building-societies; in short, of all
those associations of laborers in a common field which are
built upon self-help as their basal principle, and whose ob-
ject is the regulation of the conditions of labor and mutual
encouragement and support.

The third division has so far to do with the causes of
individual poverty as certain circumstances can be foreseen
which render the individual, either for a time or perma-
nently, incapable of earning his bread. Such especially
are disease, accident, disability, age, widowhood, and or-
phanage. The most important measures in this division
are those comprised under the different forms of labor in-
surance, divided into sick, disability, old-age, accident, out-
of-work, and survivors' insurance. Such insurance may
rest chiefly on the basis of legal compulsion, as in Germany
and Austria, or on the basis of friendly societies as in Eng-
land and America, which, however, are to be found in the
first-mentioned countries also. Labor insurance stands in its
effects next to poor-relief, in that in single cases it removes

304 PROBLEMS OF POVERTY

or mitigates the consequences of penury. It has this dif-
ference, however, from poor-relief, that here the claim is
based on the ground of an acquired right. On a similar
basis rest the claims on the state, church, and corporations
for pensions, retiring allowances, or maintenance of widows
and orphans.

Sharply divided from these measures for the advance
- of general prosperity, of self-help, and of social prophy-
laxis, there exist, in the last place, the measures against
poverty which constitute poor-relief proper. The man
whom these general measures for the public good have not
been able to prevent from falling into poverty, who, in the
case of lost capacity to earn his living, or want of work,
cannot fall back on the help of those upon whom he has
some special claim, nor has the right to claim help from
insurance, — such a man has no other resource than to ac-
cept outside help, which is offered by poor-relief and char-
ity, a help which has this peculiarity that it stands outside
the compass of that reciprocal service which determines
and sets definite bounds to all other economic relations.
The results of this peculiar relationship are plainly recog-
nizable on the side of both giver and receiver. The giver
is inclined to limit his gifts to what is only absolutely neces-
sary, because he gives without return; the receiver is hu-
miliated by the gift, because he can do nothing in return.
Hardness on the one side, bitterness on the other, are con-
sequently in great measure bound up with the exercise of
poor-relief. And where poor-relief is not administered in
this hard way, or where it reaches a lavish or actually
prodigal extent, it escapes indeed arousing the feeling of
bitterness, but produces in its stead other and no less dan-
gerous evils, above all the evil of accustoming the receiver
to free gifts, of making him covetous, of blessing his efforts
to maintain himself out of his own endeavors. Where

Digitized by Google

RELIEF MEASURES

305

poor-relief so degenerates it becomes mere almsgiving,
which has as its inevitable consequence the unlimited in-
crease of the number of those seeking help. The lamenta-
ble fact that heads of families desert their wives and chil-
dren is really fostered by the feeling, encouraged through
the administration of adequate poor-relief, that sufficient
provision will be made, without the presence and work of
the head of the family, for the maintenance of those de-
pendent upon him. Nay more : where greater riches afford
the means of a lavish distribution of charity, the begging
of charitable assistance becomes a business which supplies
itself with specific expedients in order to secure its share
of the superfluous wealth without any effort. The appear-
ance of poverty is feigned. Hypocrisy, lying, and cunning
in written and personal representation form the stock in
trade of this beggar business, which, estimated by its moral
quality, rivals the trade of the card-sharper, receiver of
stolen goods, and defrauder.

Thus the conduct of society toward poverty continues to
oscillate between two evils — the evil of insufficient care for
the indigent, with the resulting appearance of an ever-in-
creasing impoverishment which acts as an incentive to beg-
ging and crime ; and the evil of a reckless poor-relief, with
the resulting appearance of far-reaching abuses, the lessen-
ing of the spirit of independence, and the patronage of
begging and vagrancy. The history of poverty is for the
most part a history of these constantly observed evils and
of the efforts to remove them, or at least to reduce their
dimensions. No age has succeeded in solving this problem.
In the early Christian Church the duty of poor-relief was
based upon the love of one's neighbor, and the members of
this community looked upon each other as brothers and
sisters whose duty it was to render help to one another.
Thus it was possible for a limited circle and for a limited

Digitized by Google

306 PROBLEMS OF POVERTY

time in some measure to avoid both these evils. But in the
Middle Ages the church, now become a public power, en-
couraged and increased poverty to an appalling extent,
without being able in a corresponding degree to meet the
problem of helping the indigent. The state authorities
during the latter part of the Middle Ages, and especially
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in spite of their
stringent laws against begging, remained powerless to con-
tend with beggary and vagrancy. The other course which,
with overflowing love and compassion, sought to mitigate
the lot of the poor, which finds expression in the Gilbert's
Act of England with its system of allowances, or the
French law of 1811 concerning the anonymous reception
of children, plainly showed, in the appalling increase of
the number of able-bodied persons demanding support and
of deserted children, where a too charitable conception of
the administration of poor-relief must lead. To-day we
stand face to face with the same problem. Public poor-
relief and private charity wage the thousand-year-old bat-
tle over the successful administration of poor-relief and the
prevention of its abuses, and reap to-day precisely the same
experience as was reaped in times past, — that human na-
ture, in spite of all economic and technical advance, in this
respect has undergone no change. Hence also arises the
very noteworthy fact that the most modern poor-relief di-
rects its attention more than ever to the simple adminis-
tration of poor-relief in the early Christian Church, and
that the much-talked-about "Elberfeld system" is nothing
else at bottom than an attempt to revive that old form of
administration on systematic lines. Thus there stands in
the foreground of all discussion concerning the proper form
of poor-relief the question of organization. If poor-relief
is to help the needy according to his need, and have a
reason for rejecting the undeserving, it must have for this

Digitized by Google

RELIEF MEASURES

307

purpose a thorough knowledge of the circumstances of
those who apply for help. This knowledge can be obtained
only through direct examination in the home of the in-
digent, through observing his mode of life, his household
management, the conduct of his family, etc. ; and must be
supplemented by inquiry in other directions, of the em-
ployer, neighbors, fellow-tenants, etc. This makes neces-
sary a special equipment for examination which shall stand
in fitting relation to the number of those seeking help. In
this regard, the greatest success is displayed by the com-
munities which are able to raise a sufficient number of vol-
unteer helpers who enter into intercourse with the indigent
in the spirit of brotherly lo 'e. Herein lie the roots and
the power of the Elberfeld system, already referred to.
The paid helper is perhaps better trained, but he lacks that
vital element of love which distinguishes the voluntary
helper. It is true that the voluntary-assistance office must
have rooted itself in law and custom, as has been predomi-
nantly the case in German communities. This custom
hardly exists in England and America. Hence the pre-
dominance of indoor over outdoor poor-relief in both these
countries. In its place, however, America and England
can point to a very great development in the sphere of pri-
vate charity, which centres in the charitable organizations
and societies, and offer here wider opportunities not only
to volunteer helpers but also to paid workers who are
trained by various plans and now by highly developed
schools of philanthropy. The most valuable assistance
rendered by woman makes itself conspicuous in the sphere
of private charity, and leads to the demand, now advanced
alike in all civilized states, that in public poor-relief woman
shall have equal rights and duties with man.

The method of rendering assistance is closely bound up
with the question of the organization of poor-relief. The

308

PROBLEMS OF POVERTY

German preference for outdoor relief is, without doubt, a
result of the old custom of employing the help of volun-
teer assistants. In England the great reform of 1834 es-
tablished as the very test of indigency the readiness of the
applicant for help to enter an institution in which he had
to forego his freedom of movement and many of his accus-
tomed enjoyments of life. Whether this demand is ex-
pedient or not is to-day a matter of much dispute. The
transactions of the National Conference of Charities, and
the reports of state boards and of the English Central Poor
Board, contain numerous discussions of the matter. That
the number of those receiving assistance is lessened by a
stringent application of the principle is without doubt.
But, on the other hand, it remains doubtful whether in this
way adequate relief is in all cases afforded, and whether
it is not much more true that the rendering of money as-
sistance to the indigent restores him more quickly to a con-
dition of independence, and that the poorhouse tends to
make him a permanent subject of poor-relief. Moreover,
it has often been observed that a strict application of the
principle of indoor relief leads to an increase of those two
evils already mentioned — the want of those who are in real
need, but whose pride is too great to allow them to enter
the poorhouse ; and the resort of the others to begging and
vagrancy, which they find more comfortable and profitable.
More than this, neither England nor America would be in
a position consistently to carry out its system of indoor
relief, were it not richly supplemented by private charity
which mitigates the severities of the system. Moreover,
an increasing insight into the connection between poverty
on the one hand, and disease and immorality on the other,
in all civilized countries, and not least in America and Eng-
land, has had the result of so narrowing the sphere of in-
door relief that all those classes of indigents are refused

Digitized by Google

RELIEF MEASURES

309

admittance which need special medical attendance, and for
whose moral welfare dangers are to be feared from a stay
in the workhouse. Above all is this true of the sick and
the young. In its relation to the children especially is the
development of the system of family relief, and the separa-
tion of children from adults, noteworthy. In sick-relief
it is a matter of the first importance to render the relief at
the right moment to insure the cure of the patient and,
where possible, to seize the disease at a stage in which
restoration of the power of earning his own living may be
successfully accomplished. In this respect the movement
for combating the evil of tuberculosis is especially of far-
reaching importance.

The question of good organization, as well as the ques-
tion of adequate relief, is handled by general efforts of the
most various kinds, in which public poor-relief and private
charity take part in different ways. This very diversity,
however, conceals two serious dangers — lack of unity on
the one side, and overlapping on the other. To counter-
act these dangers it is necessary that the directors of public
poor-relief and the different representatives of private
charity should associate with one another for the purpose
of devising a systematic and mutually complementary re-
lief. Information about the indigent, as it is sought in
the "charity organization societies," in the offices centraux
dcs ativrcs dc bicnfaisancc, in the Vcreinen gegcn Vcrar-
mung, and in the information bureaus, directs the indigent
to the place where he can best find help, and leads to the
discovery of those persons who misuse poor-relief and
charity. Information about charitable institutions, as
given in the digests and directories of great cities, show
what measures are available, and how they can properly be
made use of.

Beyond this activity, exercised almost exclusively by pri-

Digitized by Google

310

PROBLEMS OF POVERTY

vate parties, the need, at any rate, makes itself felt for a
definite determination of the proper management and ap-
plication of the means of poor-relief and charity. And
here very different possibilities are open. The whole pub-
lic poor-relief may be placed under one central board of
control which is authorized permanently to supervise all
the institutions and establishments that stand under it, to i
vote the estimates, to censure abuses, and to compel their
redress by the authority of the law. The most stringent
form of supervision is exercised by the Local Government
Board in England, with the assistance of general inspect-
ors, local inspectors, and auditors. All boards of poor-re-
lief are required to furnish regular returns, which render
possible general poverty statistics at once of scientific and
practical utility. In France, so far as one can speak of a
public system of poor-relief — that is, as far as care for
children, aliens, and the diseased is concerned — the super-
vision lies with a special department of the minister of the
interior — the directeur de I'assistance publique. He has,
as an advisory, the conscil supericur de I'assistance publique,
which undertakes an exhaustive examination of all ques-
tions relating to poverty and charity, and expresses its
judgment upon them. In Belgium a proposed law pro-
vides for a similar institution. In Italy, in accordance
with a law which went into force a few weeks ago, a central
government board, the consiglio supcriore di assistensa c
bcncficcnza pubblica, and besides for each separate province
a provincial board of commissioners, commissione di as-
sistenza c bi bcncficcnza pubblica, are created. The latter
is authorized to exercise direct supervision over the local
boards of management, and to interfere in their action;
while the intention is that the functions of the central board
should be more of an advisory nature. In the new laws
of certain Swiss cantons and of the Austrian crown lands

Digitized by Google

RELIEF MEASURES

311

the institution of inspectors of poverty has been recently
introduced. In Germany there is no such central author-
ity in charge of poverty. The supervision of poverty here
forms a part of the general government supervision whose
duty it is to guard against all pernicious measures, what-
soever they may be.

In the United States, of late years, public opinion has
taken a very lively interest in this question, from the point
of view as to whether such supervision is desirable and per-
missible. One must place over against this the institutions
of the Old World, where the old absolutism exercised a
strong influence on self-government, from which in modern
times it seeks to free itself. The exact opposite is the case
in the United States, where from first to last constitution
and government are based on democratic principles. The
result is that an encroachment here on the part of central
government authorties would be viewed beforehand, from
the standpoint of political freedom, with much greater dis-
trust. At the same time, it is universally agreed that the
government authorities have the right to remedy public evils
and abuses from the standpoint of state protection, and to
exercise supervision over state institutions proper. The
problem becomes more difficult when the question is raised
concerning the supervision of the remaining public institu-
tions, and those which receive aid from public funds; and
still more difficult when purely private charity comes to be
considered. The question has been answered in the United
States, both theoretically and practically, in very different
ways. First of all, a "State Board of Charities" was
founded in Massachusetts in 1863. New York and Ohio
followed in 1867. They bear very different names. Thus
the above-mentioned State Board of Charities is in Wash-
ington and Wisconsin designated as the "State Board of
Control;" in Iowa, "Board of Control of State Institu-

Digitized by Google

312 PROBLEMS OF POVERTY

tions;" in Maryland, "Board of State Aid and Charities;"
and so on. Already in the names which they bear the es-
sential difference makes itself felt, for which the Ohio and
Iowa systems form the respective types. In the one case
it assumes the form of a control, accompanied by the power
of compelling, by government authority, the adoption of
measures of improvement. In the other case there is sim-
ply a supervision, with the authority of exercising advisory
powers solely. In some states the authority is intrusted to
several boards. Thus there exists in Massachusetts a State
Board of Charities; in Maryland and New York, be-
sides this, a special Commission in Lunacy. In regard to
the question of the supervision of private charities, the fact
must be taken into consideration that here voluntary con-
tributions are in question, and that as a rule every one
must be allowed to spend his means in his own way. Yet
it is only right to remember that, just as the state inter-
feres in the management of insurance, banking, and manu-
facturing, from the standpoint of the welfare of society,
so also the welfare of society is concerned with certain
spheres of private charity. This is especially the case in
the care of children and the housing of sick, old, and help-
less people in institutions. The movement toward such a
conception of the matter, however, has received a severe
check through the decision of the supreme court of New
York, which denied that the State Board of Charities in
New York had the right of supervising the measures of
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. As
an actual fact, in consequence of this decision, more than
half of the charitable societies have been withdrawn from
the supervision of the board.

In the countries of the Old World this question receives
very different answers. While in Germany again the
supervision of private charity is only a part of state super-

Digitized by Google

RELIEF MEASURES

313

vision in general, in England charitable endowments in
particular are assigned to charity commissioners, whose in-
fluence, however, is rather limited. In France the very
vigorous fight over this question keeps pace with the fight
over the bounds between church and state. In Italy, on
the contrary, the powers of supervision of the state authori-
ties have been greatly widened by the law of 1890, and by
the institution of the new central boards of control already
mentioned. All these measures point to where the highest
importance lies. This is not simply in a supervision which
shall secure the remedy of whatever abuses exist, and the
inauguration of a well-organized administration; but in
furnishing the instrument of this administration with the
most successful modes of management; in studying and
making known new methods, especially in the sphere of
insanity and of disease, as well as of the protection of chil-
dren; and in general in elevating poor-relief and charity
to a higher stage. And as the bounds between public re-
lief and private charity have never been completely defined,
there enters, side by side with the activity of the govern-
ment, a very active private propaganda waged by the great
charitable societies, and also by societies confined to the
several departments of charitable effort. Here belong the
English Poor Law Conferences, an annual assembly of those
who administer public relief, to take council on all questions
to which poor-relief gives rise; and also the Congrte nat-
ional d 'assistance publique et de bienfaisance privte in
France, and the Congresso di bcncficcnza in Italy. In Ger-
many it is the German Association for Poor-Relief and
Charity which, during its twenty-five years of existence, has,
in the most thorough manner, discussed all questions that
appertain here, and has exercised an extraordinary influence
on state legislation, on the control of poor-relief in the
cities, and on the development of private charity. In the

314 PROBLEMS OF POVERTY

United States, the National Conference of Charities and
Correction and the State Conferences possess an equal im-
portance. Very real service is also rendered by the Charity
Organization Societies and the State Charities Aid Asso-
ciation. International congresses for poor-relief and
charity have been repeatedly held, for the most part in con-
nection with the world's expositions, such as in 1856 in
Brussels, in 1857 in Frankfort on the Main, in 1862 in Lon-
don, in 1889 and 1900 in Paris, etc. At the international
congress held in Paris in 1900 it was decided, through the
appointment of a standing committee, that an international
congress should be convoked at intervals of five years.

In this connection there is still one point that deserves
attention. The distinction between public and private poor-
relief rests on the fact that the one is regulated by law, and
the expense, coming out of the means of the rate-payer, may
be contested ; while private relief is voluntary, and is admin-
istered out of voluntary contributions. Nevertheless, the
difference between public and voluntary relief is not so
prominent in practical administration as theoretical consid-
erations would lead one to think. Moreover, in countries
of which voluntary poor-relief is characteristic, the civic
authorities place very considerable public means at the dis-
posal of those who manage this voluntary relief; while, on
the other hand, in the poorer communities of Germany or
England the public relief falls far short of the demands
made upon it. Moreover, the prevalence of voluntary re-
lief does not exclude the state or the community from ap-
propriating means for single objects. Thus in France the
care for children and the insane devolves upon the depart-
ments, and the care for the sick, on the local communities,
to which, however, the state grants considerable assistance.
On the whole, the participation of the state and its greater
associations in the burden of poor-relief forms a promi-

Digitized by Google

RELIEF MEASURES

315

nent feature of the modern development of public relief.
The whole body of modern legislation on poor-relief in
Germany, Switzerland, and Austria provides for consider-
able state and provincial aid for poor-relief, and lays on the
state or the province direct responsibility for the care of cer-
tain classes of poor, for example, especially the insane, the
infirm, and idiots. Moreover, a marked tendency to intro-
duce, or at least to extend the sphere of public relief makes
itself evident in the Latin countries, as in the French law of
1895 concerning the care of the sick, in the Italian law of
1890 on public charity, and in the proposed legislation in
Belgium and the Netherlands which has not yet been dis-
carded.

These efforts to increase the sphere of public relief are at
first surprising, and appear to stand in contradiction to the
distinctive characteristics of the age in which we live — to
counteract poverty rather by methods of prevention and by
measures calculated to increase prosperity in general. Yet
here there is no contradiction, but, on the contrary, a proof
of the fact that poor-relief on its side has imbued itself with
a knowledge of the importance of all such measures of pre-
vention, and is directing its efforts to become what we
to-day are accustomed to call "social relief." The legisla-
tion on the education of abandoned children, the oldest of
which dates back scarcely twenty years, rests on the prin-
ciple of this knowledge. It administers poor-relief to the
children with the aim of preventing the young who grow
up under the direction of this law from falling in future
years into a condition of poverty. A like tendency is dis-
played by the societies for the prevention of cruelty to chil-
dren, the juvenile courts, the promotion of immigration to
Canada, the equipment of school-ships, etc. The care for
disease has a far wider aim than the mere care of the
patient It searches out the lurking-places of disease in

316 PROBLEMS OF POVERTY

order to tear it out by the roots. It is no wonder that new
problems have everywhere sprung up, where the light of
new sanitary and social knowledge has lit up the corners
and holes of poverty, and where the young science of socio-
logy has taught us to understand economic and social
phenomena. One need here only call to mind the very
recent movement for attacking tuberculosis and the abuse
of alcohol. At the same time, this movement against tuber-
culosis beyond all others makes very manifest how far we
are still removed from a healthy condition of affairs, and
how to-day, in spite of every effort, millions of our fellow
beings still live in such unfavorable conditions in respect to
lodging, food, and education, that they fall victims in
frightful numbers to this disease. No one who knows the
circumstances can help seeing that all these measures, such
as dispensaries, sanatoriums for consumptives, and admin-
istration of poor-relief, have no importance in comparison
with the possession of permanent and remunerative employ-
ment, which renders possible the procuring of sanitary
dwellings and sufficient nourishment, and strengthens the
power of resistance against that frightful disease. But just
this knowledge points us the way, not indeed of solving the
problem of poverty, but of bringing ourselves in some de-
gree nearer its solution, in that we see in this knowledge,
which has grown up out of the social subsoil of our time,
the most important sign of progress, and in that we place
the furthering of general prosperity and the elevation of the
working classes before even the very best measures of poor-
relief and charity.

And here we must not be led astray by the fact that to-
day these measures still demand an immense expenditure of
public and private means, and that in the immediate future
the question will be rather of an increase than of a diminu-
tion of this expenditure. And so far as we strive to en-

Digitized by Google

RELIEF MEASURES

317

lighten the public mind in this sphere, and to effect improve-
ment, we must always bear in mind that poor-relief and
charity must always be content with the most humble po-
sition among those measures which are directed against
poverty. He who helps the needy to help himself does bet-
ter than he who supports the poor. The most earnest effort
of every true friend of the poor must always be directed
toward making poor-relief itself superfluous.

WORKS OF REFERENCE FOR THE DEPART-
MENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCE

(Prepared by the courtesy of Mr. Walter L. Sheldon, Bt. Louis, Mo.)

Addams, Jane, Philanthropy and Social Progress.

Buss, Encyclopedia of Social Reforms.

Brooks, John G., Social Unrest

Buckub, Henry T., History of Civilization, 3 vols.

Comte, Augusts, Cours de Philo&ophie Positive, vols, rv-vi. (Trans-
lated by Harriet Martlneau under the title of The Positive
Philosophy of Auguste Comte.)

Conrad, Handwdrterbuch der Staatswlssenschaften.

Duphat, G. L., La Morale: fitude Psycho-soclologlque.

Fairbanks, Arthur, Introduction to Sociology.

Fouillee, A., La Science Soclale Contemporaine.

Giddinos, F. H., Principles of Sociology.

Huxley, T. H., Evolution and Ethics and other Essays.

Jiierino, R. von, Der Zweck lm Recht, 2 vols.

Kidd, Benjamin, Social Evolution.

Lecky, William E. H., Democracy and Liberty.

Leplay, E. F., La Constitution l'Essentlelle de lHumanltfi.

LeTourneau, La Sociologie.

Lilienfeld, Paul de, La Pathologle Soclale.

Mackenzie, J. S., An Introduction to Social Philosophy, 2d ed.

RoBERTY, E. de, L'fcthique; i, Le Blen et le Mai; ii, Le Psychlsme
Social; in, Les Fondements de l'fithlque.

Ruskin, John, Munera Fulveris.
Unto This Last
Time and Tide.
Crown of Wild Olive.

Schaeffle, A., Bau und Leben des Socialen Kdrpers, 2d ed., 2 vols.

Small, Albion W., and Q. E. Vincent, An Introduction to the Study
of Sociology.

Spencer, Herbert, Principles of Sociology, 3 vols.

Stephen, Leslie, Social Rights and Duties, 2 vols.

Stuckenburq, J. H. W., Sociology, the Science of Human Society.

Ward, Lester F., Dynamic Sociology, 2 vols.

Wright, Carroll D., Outlines of Practical Sociology.

Wuakin, Une Vue d 'ensemble de la question soclale.

See also the Important collection of volumes. The Social Sci-
ence Series, published by Swan Sonnenscheln £ Co.

318

Digitized by Google

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 319

The following works In Ethics have Important bearings on the
Regulative Department of Sociology

Hoettoing, Harald, Ethlk, a translation from the Danish Into Ger-
man.

Paulsen, Fbiedrich, System der Ethlk.
Spencer, Herbert, Principles of Ethics, 2 vols.
Stephen, Leslie, The Science of Ethics.

WUNDT, WlLHELM, Ethlk.

The following novels deal with the social problem:

Bellamy, Edward, Looking Backward.
Eliot, Geobce, Felix Holt.
Howells, W. D., A Traveler from Altruria.
Kinoslet, Charles, Alton Locke.
Morris, William, News from Nowhere.
Zola, £mile, Travail.

The following list of periodicals has been furnished at the re-
quest of the Chairman through the Department of Sociology of the
University of Chicago:

American Journal of Sociology, University of Chicago; Annales
de l'lnstitute des Sciences Sociales, BrusselB, Belgium; Annals of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Philadelphia,
Pa.; Archiv fur Kaufmannische Socialpolltik, Hamburg, Germany;
Archiv fur Socialwissenschaft und Socialpolltik, Tubingen, Ger-
many; Archiv fur Sociale Gesetzgebund und Statistlk, Berlin, Ger-
many; Association catholique. Revue des questions sociales et
ouvrleres, Paris, France; Charities, Charity Organization Society,
New York City; Crltlca Sociale, Milan, Italy; Columbia University
Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, New York City;
Culture Sociale, Rome, Italy; Humanite nouvelle, Paris, France;
Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Sci-
ence, Baltimore, Md.; Iowa State University Studies in Sociology,
Economics, Politics, and History. Iowa City, Iowa; Journal of Social
Science, American Social Science Association, New York City; Jahr-
buch fur Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswlrtschaft im Deut-
schen Reich, Leipzig, Germany; Justice, London, England; Monats-
schrift fur christliche Social Reform, Basel, Switzerland; Musee
social, Annales, Musee social, Memoires et Documents, Paris,
France; Reiorme Sociale, Paris, France; Revue des ques-
tions sociales et ouvrleres, Paris, France; Revue du Chrls-
tianlsme social, Roubaiz, France; Revue Internationale de socio-
logy, Paris, France; Revue Phllanthroplque, Paris, France; Revue

Digitized by Google

320

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Bociale catholique, Louvain, Belgium; Riforma Social*, Turin,
Italy; Revista, Internationale dl sclenze Bociall e discipline
ausiliarle, Rome, Italy; Revista itallana de Sociologia, Rome, Italy;
Schwelzerische Blaetter fttr Wlrtschafts- und Sozialpolltik, Bern,
Switzerland; La Science soclale, sulvante la methode d' observation,
Paris, France; Social Tldskrift, Stockholm, Sweden; Social Service,
Institute for Social Service, New York City; Sociale Rundschau,
herausg. vom K. arbeitsstatistischen Amte im Handelsministerium,
Vienna, Austria; Zeltschrift fttr Soclalwlasenschaft, Breslau, Ger-
many; Soziale Revue, Essen, Germany; Sozlale Praxis, Berlin, Ger-
many; Zeltschrift fur die gesammte Staatswlssenschaft, Tttblngen,
Germany; Zeltschrift far Volkswirtschaft, Social Polltik und Ver-
waltung, Vienna, Austria.

WORKS OF REFERENCE RELATING TO THE
SECTION OF THE FAMILY

(Prepared through th£jcourtesy of Professor George Elliott Howard)

Adlek, Felix, "Ethics of Divorce," in Ethical Record, n, m, 1889-
1890.

Bebel, August, Die Frau und der Sozlalismus, 81st ed., 1900.

Bebttllon, J., fitude Demographlque du Divorce, 1883.

Bbtob, James, "Marriage and Divorce under Roman and English

Law," in his Studies in History and Jurisprudence, I, 1901.
Cairo, Mona, The Morality of Marriage, 1897.
Commons, John R., "The Family," in American Journal of Sociology,

vol. v, 1900.

Congress on Uniform Divorce Laws, Proceedings, 1906.
Cokvebs, D., Marriage and Divorce in the United States, 1889.
Cook, F. G., "The Marriage Celebration," four articles In Atlantic

Monthly, vol. lxi, 1888.
Dike, S. W., Reports of the National Divorce Reform League and
Its successor, the National League for the Protection of the
Family, 1886-1905.
"Statistics of Marriage and Divorce," In Political Science

Quarterly, vol. rv, 1889.
"Problems of the Family," In Century Magazine, vol. xxxix,
1890.

Theory of the Marriage Tie, 1893.
Edson, Cybub. "The Evils of Early Marriages," In North American

Review, vol. cxvin, 1894.
Heinzen, K., The Rights of Women and the Sexual Relations, 1898.

• ^ -. ■ *
<> ■

Digitized by Google

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 321

How abo, George B., A History of Matrimonial Institutions, 3 vols.
1904.

"Marriage and Divorce," in Encyclopedia Americana, vol.
x, 1904.

"The Problem of Uniform Divorce Laws in the United
States," In The American Lawyer, xiv, 1906.

• Divorce," in (Bliss, W. D. P., editor) Encyclopedia of So-
cial Reform, 1906.
Mayo-Smith, Statistics and Sociology, 1895.

Muirhead, J. H, "Is the Family Declining?" In International Jour-
nal of Ethics, vol. vii, 1896. (An answer to C. H. Pearson, "De-
cline of the Family," in his National Life and Character, 1893.)

Oettincen, Alexander von. Die Moralstatistik, 2d ed., 1874.

Potter, H. C, "The Message of Christ to the Family," in his Message
of Christ to Manhood, 1899.

Peabody, F. O., "The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Family," in
his Jesus Christ and the Social Question, 1900.

Pearson, Charles H., "Decline of the Family," in his National Life
and Character, 1893.

Ross, E. A, Social Control, 1901.

ScHREiNXB, Olive, "The Woman Question," in the Cosmopolitan, vol.
xzviii, 1899.

Shinn, Miixicent W., "The Marriage Rate of College Women," in
Century Magazine, vol. l, 1895.

Smith, Mary Roberts, "Statistics of College and Non-College Wo-
men," in American Statistical Association Publications, vol. vii,
1901.

Snider, D. J., The Family, 1901.

Snyder, W. L., The Geography of Marriage, 1889.

Stetson, Charlotte P., Women and Economics, 3d ed., 1900.

Strahan, S> A K., Marriage and Disease, 1892.

Thwino, C. F., and C. F. B., The Family, 1887.

Ward, Lester F., Dynamic Sociology, 2 vols., 1883.

Pure Sociology, 1903.
Wnxcox, Walter F., "The Divorce Problem," in Columbia College
Studies, 2d ed., 1897.
"A Study in Vital Statistics," in Political Science Quarter-
ly, vol. vra, 1893.
"The Marriage Rate in Michigan," in American Statistical
Association's Publications, vol. rv, 1896.
Whitney, H. C, Marriage and Divorce, 1894.

Wood, Thomas D., Some Controlling Ideals of the Family Life in

the Future, 1902.
Woolsey, T. D., Divorce and Divorce Legislation, 2d ed., 1882.

322

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Wbioht, Carroll D., "Marriage and Divorce." in Christian Register,
vol. lxx, 1891.
Report on Marriage and Divorce, 1889.

SPECIAL WORKS OF REFERENCE RELATING TO
THE SECTION OF THE INDUSTRIAL GROUP

(Prepared through the courtesy of Professor Richard T. Ely.)

Brooks, J. G., The Social Unrest.
Devine, Edward T., Principles of Relief.
Ellis, Havelock, The Criminal.

Henderson, Charles R., The Dependent, Defective, and Delinquent
Classes.

Howard, George E., History of Matrimonial Institutions.
Lombroso, Criminal Man.

Roscher, Wilh., Nationaldkonomie dee Ackerbaues und der ver-
wandten Urproduction (System der Volkewirtschaft, 2 Band).

So m bart, Werner, Socialism and the Social Movement in the Nine-
teenth Century.

Warner, Amos G., American Charities.

Weber, Adna F., The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century.

Wilcox, Delos F., The American City.

Woods, Robert A. (Editor), The City Wilderness.

Zueblin, Charles, American Municipal Progress.

WORKS OF REFERENCE RELATING TO THE
SECTION OF THE DEPENDENT GROUP

(Prepared through courtesy of Dr. Emit MQnsterberg.)

Chalmers, The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns, Glas-
gow, W. Collins, 1821-26.

Chance, The Better Administration of the Poor-Law, London, J. Son-
nenscheln, 1895.

Dekouin, Gory, Worms, Traite Theorlque et Pratique d* Assistance

Publ i que, Paris, Libralrie Larose, 1900.
Dkvine, Edward T., The Principles of Relief, New York, The Mac-

millan Company, 1904.
Gerando, De la Bienfaisance Publique, 4 vols., Bruzelles, 1839.
Lallemand, Histoire de la Charite, Paris, A. Picard & Fils, 1902.

Digitized by Google

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SCIENCE 323

Monnier, Histolre de l'Assistance Publique dans les Temps Anciens
et Modernes, Paris, Guillaumin ft Cle, 1886.

MOkstebbebg, Emil, Die Deutsche Armengesetzgebung und das Ma-
terial zu ihrer Reform, Leipzig, Duncker ft Humblot, 1887.

Nichoixs, A History of the English Poor-Law, in Connection with the
State of the Country and the Condition of the People, 3 vols.,
London, King ft Son, 1898.

Wabneb, American Charities, A Study In Philantropy and Econo-
mics, New York, J. Crowell, 1894.

Wobms, Le Droit des Pauvres, Revue Philanthropique, vols, v, vi.

Die Armenpflege, Einfuhrung in die Praktlsche Pflegetatigkelt, Ber-
lin, O. Liebmann. 1897.

Bibliographic des Armenwesens (Bibliographic Charitable), Berlin,
Carl Heymann's Verlag, 1900. Dazu I. Nachtrag, 1902. II. Nach-
trag, 1906.

Schrlften des DeutBchen Vereins fur Armenpflege und Wohltatigkeit,
Heft 1-71, 1904, Leipzig, Verlag von Dunker ft Humblot

Annual Reports of the Local Government Board, London.

Proceedings of the Central and District Poor-Law Conferences, with
the papers read and discussion thereon, London, P. S. King ft
Son.

Proceedings of the Annual National Conference of Charities and Cor-
rections, United States.

Conseil Superleur de l'Assistance Publique, PariB. Fascicules.

Congres National d'Assistance Publique et de Bienfaisance Privee,
in, Congress, Bordeaux, 1903.

ADDITIONAL WORKS OF REFERENCE FOR THE
SECTION OF THE DEPENDENT GROUP

(Prepared through courtesy of Professor Charles R. Henderson.)

Amebic an Library Association, Catalogue, 1904.
Devine, Edward T., Principles of Relief.

Henderson, Charles R„ Introduction to the Study of the Dependent,
Defective, and Delinquent Classes, ed. 1903.
Modern Methods of Charity, 1904.
Warner, A. O., American Charities.

These books contain references and bibliographies.

Digitized by Google

y GoogU

•r

^ S^W«^%^r^M? VD 072 1 9

by Google

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "International university lectures, delivered by the most distinguished representatives of the greatest universities of the world, at the Congress of arts and science, Universal exposition, St. Louis .."

See other formats