[10] It is startling to think how destructive in a civilization like ours
would be such fierce conflicts as fill the history of the past. The wars
of highly civilized countries, since the opening of the era of steam and
machinery, have been duels of armies rather than conflicts of peoples or
classes. Our only glimpse of what might happen, wore passion fully aroused,
was in the struggle of the Paris Commune. And, since 1870, to the knowledge
of petroleum has been added that of even more destructive agents. The explosion
of a little nitro-glycerin under a few water-mains would make a great city
uninhabitable; the blowing up of a few railroad bridges and tunnels would
bring famine quicker than the wall of circumvallation that Titus drew around
Jerusalem; the pumping of atmospheric air into the gas-mains, and the application
of a match, would tear up every street and level every house. The Thirty
Years' War set back civilization in Germany; so fierce a war now would all
but destroy it. Not merely have destructive powers vastly increased, but
the whole social organization has become vastly more delicate.
[11] In a simpler state master and man, neighbor and neighbor, know each
other, and there is that touch of the elbow which, in times of danger, enables
society to rally. But present tendencies are to the loss of this. In London,
dwellers in one house do not know those in the next; the tenants of adjoining
rooms are utter strangers to each other. Let civil conflict break or paralyze
the authority that preserves order and the vast population would become a
terror-stricken mob, without point of rally or principle of cohesion, and
your London would be sacked and burned by an army of thieves. London is only
the greatest of great cities. What is true of London is true of New York,
and in the same measure true of the many cities whose hundreds of thousands
are steadily growing toward millions. These vast aggregations of humanity,
where he who seeks isolation may find it more truly than in the desert; where
wealth and poverty touch and jostle; where one revels and another starves
within a few feet of each other, yet separated by as great a gulf as that
fixed between Dives in Hell and Lazarus in Abraham's bosom — they are
centers and types of our civilization. Let jar or shock dislocate the complex
and delicate organization, let the policeman's club be thrown down or wrested
from him, and the fountains of the great deep are opened, and quicker than
ever before chaos comes again. Strong as it may seem, our civilization is
evolving destructive forces. Not desert and forest, but city slums and country
roadsides are nursing the barbarians who may be to the new what Hun and Vandal
were to the old.
[14] And that the rapid changes now going on are bringing up problems that
demand most earnest attention may be seen on every hand. Symptoms of danger,
premonitions of violence, are appearing all over the civilized world. Creeds
are dying, beliefs are changing; the old forces of conservatism are melting
away. Political institutions are failing, as clearly in democratic America
as in monarchical Europe. There is growing unrest and bitterness among the
masses, whatever be the form of government, a blind groping for escape from
conditions becoming intolerable. To attribute all this to the teachings of
demagogues is like attributing the fever to the quickened pulse. It is the
new wine beginning to ferment in old bottles. To put into a sailing-ship
the powerful engines of a first-class ocean steamer would be to tear her
to pieces with their play. So the new powers rapidly changing all the relations
of society must shatter social and political organizations not adapted to
meet their strain.
[15] To adjust our institutions to growing needs and changing conditions
is the task which devolves upon us. Prudence, patriotism, human sympathy,
and religious sentiment, alike call upon us to undertake it. There is danger
in reckless change; but greater danger in blind conservatism. The problems
beginning to confront us are grave — so grave that there is fear they
may not be solved in time to prevent great catastrophes. But their gravity
comes from indisposition to recognize frankly and grapple boldly with them.
[16] These dangers, which menace not one country alone, but modern civilization
itself, do but show that a higher civilization is struggling to be born — that
the needs and the aspirations of men have outgrown conditions and institutions
that before sufficed.
[17] A civilization which tends to concentrate wealth and power in the hands
of a fortunate few, and to make of others mere human machines, must inevitably
evolve anarchy and bring destruction. But a civilization is possible in which
the poorest could have all the comforts and conveniences now enjoyed by the
rich; in which prisons and almshouses would be needless, and charitable societies
unthought of. Such a civilization waits only for the social intelligence
that will adapt means to ends. Powers that might give plenty to all are already
in our hands. Though there is poverty and want, there is, yet, seeming embarrassment
from the very excess of wealth-producing forces. "Give us but a market," say
manufacturers, "and we will supply goods without end!" "Give
us but work!" cry idle men.
[18] The evils that begin to appear spring from the fact that the application
of intelligence to social affairs has not kept pace with the application
of intelligence to individual needs and material ends. Natural science strides
forward, but political science lags. With all our progress in the arts which
produce wealth, we have made no progress in securing its equitable distribution.
Knowledge has vastly increased; industry and commerce have been revolutionized;
but whether free trade or protection is best for a nation we are not yet
agreed. We have brought machinery to a pitch of perfection that, fifty years
ago, could not have been imagined; but, in the presence of political corruption,
we seem as helpless as idiots. The East River bridge is a crowning triumph
of mechanical skill; but to get it built a leading citizen of Brooklyn had
to carry to New York sixty thousand dollars in a carpet bag to bribe New
York aldermen. The human soul that thought out the great bridge is prisoned
in a crazed and broken body that lies bedfast, and could watch it grow only
by peering through a telescope. Nevertheless, the weight of the immense mass
is estimated and adjusted for every inch. But the skill of the engineer could
not prevent condemned wire being smuggled into the cable.
[19] The progress of civilization requires that more and more intelligence
be devoted to social affairs, and this not the intelligence of the few, but
that of the many. We cannot safely leave politics to politicians, or political
economy to college professors. The people themselves must think, because
the people alone can act.
[21] The intelligence required for the solving of social problems is not
a thing of the mere intellect. It must be animated with the religious sentiment
and warm with sympathy for human suffering. It must stretch out beyond self-interest,
whether it be the self-interest of the few or of the many. It must seek justice.
For at the bottom of every social problem we will find a social wrong. ...
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