QJorneU UniuetBttij Sithrary Jltljara, SJetu fork The...Autho.r.. Cornell University Library HX536 .G76 Socialism and Christianit olin 3 1924 030 340 313 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924030340313 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY Socialism and Christianity BY PERCY STICKNEY GRANT 1910 Brentano's New York Copyright, 1910, by Percy Stickney Grant Arranged and printed at The CHELTENHAM Press New York THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED WITH AFFECTIONATE REGARD TO MR. JOHN E. BERWIND A Word to the Reader THE articles in this volume, with one exception, have appeared in various magazines, which accounts for their form and for some of their titles, selected by editorial preference. Several of the sub- jects, too, were suggested by the periodicals that were good enough to ask me to write. Without unity, but dealing with present-day problems, these papers are put together, that, reinforced by at least congenial com- panionship, they may seek audiences be- yond those of the friendly magazines. A clergyman occupies a position favorable for sociological observation. He has lived among the poor and has listened to their problems; he has lived among the rich and understands their point of view. He knows the poor better than the rich do, and the rich better than the poor do. His position should make him a mediator, an interpreter. He has, moreover, dedicated himself to a profession that precludes the prizes of vn VIH A WORD TO THE READER wealth or of political influence. His knowl- edge of classes, then, is broad and deep; while his attitude is unprejudiced. More clergymen are interested in the workingman's problems than can be found in any other intellectual group. This is truer now than it was twenty years ago when Prof. Ely of Wisconsin University made the statement. The reason for this attentive bearing of clergymen toward workingmen is not hostility to the rich or prejudice in favor of the poor; it is merely that individual, human valuation which Christianity inculcates; it is the democratic spirit which Christianity in its origin, in its primitive exhibition, and in its more direct influence, at any time, displays. This is a good book for readers who like to begin at the end of a volume; for the last article could be treated as an introduc- tion to the first and second : it discloses one of the grounds — and that a fertile one — of my interest in these subjects. P. S. Grant. Contents PAGE A Word to the Reader . . . vii-viii Socialism and Christianity . . 1-28 What the Working-Men Want 29-58 Physical Deterioration among the Poor in America and one way of checking it ... . 59-92 Divorce and the Family . . . 93-122 How to Help the Negro . . . 123-150 Are the Rich Responsible for New York's Vice and Crime ? 151-175 Children's Street Games . .177-191 Working- Men and t he Church— ERRATUM Page 114 The report of a recent change in the Canon law of the Protestant Episcopal Church proves to be in- correct. P. S. Grant. vm A WORD TO THE READER wealth or of political influence. His knowl- edge of classes, then, is broad and deep; while his attitude is unprejudiced. More clergymen are interested in the workingman's problems than can be found in any other intellectual group. This is truer now than it was twenty years ago when Prof. Ely of Wisconsin University made the statement. The reason for this attentive bearing of clergymen toward workingmen is not hostility to the rich or prejudice in favor of the poor; it is merely that individual, human valuation which Christianity inculcates; it is the democratic spirit which Christianity in its origin, in its primitive exhibition, and in its more direct influence, at any time, displays. This is a good book for readers who like to begin at the end of a volume; for the last article could be treated as an introduc- Contents PAGE A Word to the Reader . . . vii-vni Socialism and Christianity . . 1-28 What the Working-Men Want 29-58 Physical Deterioration among the Poor in America and one way of checking it ... . 59-92 Divorce and the Family . . . 93-122 How to Help the Negro . . . 123-150 Are the Rich Responsible for New York's Vice and Crime? 151-175 Children's Street Games . . 177-191 Working-Men and the Church— An Experiment 193-203 IX SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY Socialism and Christianity* THE church, some recent critics have pointed out, is trying to get back to the people. This undertaking is unmasked as if it were a plot — a sly attempt at material rehabilitation, with an eye to an increase of ecclesiastical power. As a mat- ter of fact, the democratizing of the church is a healthy instinct and an evidence of leadership. All our institutions might well follow its example. None needs to get back to the people more than our government it- self; more democracy is its only salvation. Lowell, a quarter of a century ago, called American democracy an experiment. To- day it is still more of an experiment, be- cause farther from the ideals of its found- ers. The democratizing of the church is not an ecclesiastical program; but the wise attempt of an originally popular organ- ization to set its own house in order and to oppose the undemocratic tendencies — the *North American Review, August, igog. 2 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY plutocratic and oligarchical tendencies of our times. What is socialism? What is Christian- ity? Socialism is an economic theory that proposes to make the state supreme over the individual, the means to this end being, primarily, the public ownership of capital. Christianity, in the terms of the Baptismal Service in the Book of Common Prayer, is, "To follow the example of our Saviour Christ and to be made like unto Him." Socialism has so many descriptions that its foes feel they have triumphed when they ask, "What is socialism?" Christianity likewise has so many interpretations that its opponents often choose the worst, or, at any rate, the most characteristic — the individualistic definition — viz., the salvation of the soul through belief in Christ. Some socialists can see no relation, no point of comparison, between socialism — an economic theory dealing with the pro- duction and distribution of wealth, and Christianity — a religion bent upon the sal- vation of souls. Nevertheless, socialism, as its most valuable characteristic, presents SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 3 a religious motive; it is stirring thousands to new ideals and to self-sacrifice in a purely religious fashion, and is even taking on the methods and habits of religion. On the other hand, Christianity, it must not be forgotten, is a doctrine of a King- dom of Heaven, which is not only an inner, but an outer condition. Besides, Christianity is the child of Judaism, a re- ligion which had more to say about the duties of the rich to the poor than any religion in the world. What is more, so- cialism, in its economic position, is changing from a purely mechanical to a more eth- ical ideal, at the same time that Christian- ity, in its religious attitude, is changing from a purely spiritual to a more economic outlook. SOCIALISM IS HOSTILE TO CHRISTIANITY The following quotations appeared in a recent letter to the "New York Times." I have not verified them, but I use them because they illustrate the feeling of masses of uneducated socialists I have listened to and represent the older but prevailing attitude. 4 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY Marx said: "Religion is a fantastic degradation of human nature." Liebknecht, the grand old man of socialism, said: " Socialism must conquer the stupidity of the masses in so far as this stupidity reveals itself in religious forms and dogmas." And Bebel, the present great world leader of social- ism, says: "We wish in politics the republic, in economy socialism, and in religion atheism." Socialism inherited atheism from Marx and Lassalle. These pioneers did not de- rive it from their economic position, but from Feuerbach and his Hegelianism. Their followers, however, have accepted their philosophical as well as their economic views. The practical effect of socialistic; atheism is to deny immortality, to con- centrate attention upon this life and to intensify confidence in material well-being. In our Sunday-night meetings, after an eloquent individualist had held forth about the soul, a socialist would stand up and say: "I know nothing about the soul. Where is it? I only know that I have a stomach and that it is empty." Socialism denies to religion any economic "*■ influences. The Pope, for instance, has SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 5 nothing to fear, theoretically, from social- ists who will not for a moment admit that Catholicism has retarded the development of any country in Europe; not because they have studied the facts, but because they claim, as a general principle, that history is interpreted economically, that moral and religious forces have had nothing to do with the growth or decline of states. Behind this denial of influence to religion is the denial of important constructive power to ideas. Socialism has not wished to work by means of the slow influence of ideas, but by means of various com- pulsions — military, legislative, etc., the prize of proletarian power. Nevertheless, their propaganda is an appeal to reason and con- science. Socialism asserts that morality is the offspring of society. The good individual is the product of a good society; a good society is not the product of good individ- uals. Moreover, that moral codes are the handiwork of the dominant class, which codifies and gives authority to what will preserve its order. 6 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY Socialism maintains that the church is hypocritical, because it received the com- mand, "Love your neighbor as yourself," but supports, nevertheless, an industrial sys- tem under which it is impossible to love your neighbor as yourself ; whose maxim, in fact, is the old pagan caveat emptor — let the buyer take heed. Socialism considers the doctrine of the forgiveness of sin to be the source of much industrial and private injustice, because it frees the wrong-doer from the sense of responsibility. Until the priestly power of absolution is destroyed, tyranny will flourish. Socialism calls pietism and passivity (two traits of Christianity) injurious to civiliza- tion, because progress has been attained not by meekness, but by struggle. Socialism hates the religious way of dealing with poverty — that is, by charity and philanthropy — because these are reme- dial and based upon a voluntary spirit. Socialism would legislate poverty out of existence and would have what are now sporadic acts of kindness made compulsory usages. In short, socialism considers re- SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 7 ligion a rubbish-heap of arbitrary laws and gross superstitions used as a prop to social injustice. SOME ETHICAL MISTAKES OF SOCIALISM These attitudes of unfriendliness to reli- gion are scientifically mistaken or are eth- ically weak. Socialism regards religion in an old-fashioned way as an artifice of priests and powerful castes, and not in the new-fashioned way as a biological product — created and perpetuated because it is of use, changing and reshaping itself in response to criticism and increased knowledge. It was a mistake for socialism to take on atheism, which has no logical connec- tion with its economic position, simply because Marx and Lassalle were atheists. Socialists declaim against mixing up religion with economics. Why, then, mix up irre- ligion with economics ? Socialism is a new form of pity — the self-pity of "the proletariat" and the world- pity of the fortunate. Now world-pity is a Promethean and magnanimous trait, but 8 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY self-pity is a pigmy and rather contemptible exhibition. Socialists in America will not win the respect of the older blood of the country until they stop calling themselves "the proletariat" and "children of the abyss." There is a beggar whine in these epithets thoroughly un-American. A people which has subdued a continent is not quick to sympathize with a cult that accuses circumstances and upbraids for- tune. In this respect Americans are Stoics. "The worst state of man," said Epictetus, "is to accuse external things; better than that is to accuse a man's self, and best to accuse neither." Furthermore, it is an ethical mistake to suppose that all the torments of the soul are to vanish before personal pros- perity. There is no such thing as a noble peace and rest in terms of considerate circumstance, which graciously supplies what we desire; but there is peace in terms of a spiritual attitude which can look on all things with serenity. Nor can the socialist state make its members happy in spite of themselves. . SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 9 The virtue required for carrying on a co- operative commonwealth will not be gen- erated by the mere running of the ma- chinery. Honesty, temperance, unselfish- ness cannot be born, willy-nilly, out of a new industrial system. Nor will an assured and sufficient liveli- hood obliterate selfish ambition and greed. No improvement in material conditions is going to make saints out of sinners. Boost socialists to opulence and they would merely repeat the experiences of the well- to-do of to-day; they would meet temptation and often succumb; they would have chil- dren and- hand down to some of them evil traits. In spite of our confidence in the revolution wrought by education, in the modifications molded by environment, and in the conversions affected by the will, we not only have to admit that all natures are not equally changed by these influences but that bad birth dooms many to impervious- ness. Human progress is made by steps, not by leaps and bounds. This law will not be changed by merely rearranging the handicaps. 10 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY A great believer in democracy, James Russell Lowell, could say: Men prate Of all heads to an equal grade cashiered, On level with the dullest, and expect (Sick of no worse distemper than themselves) A wondrous cure-all in equality; They reason that To-morrow must be wise Because To-day was not, nor Yesterday, As if good days were shapen of themselves, Not of the very life blood of men's souls. Considering the methods of socialism, its confidence in brute force, and in legisla- tion, Nietzsche was not far wrong when he wrote: "Socialism is not a problem of right, but of power — no violent redistribu- tion, but a slow, gradual reformation and regeneration of the mind are needed; the sense of justice must be increased every- where, whilst that of violence must be weakened." Socialism has no place for sorrow or suffering. It expects general well-being to do away with suffering. This is too naive. Have we nothing but bodies? And are our bodies to be painproof under socialism ? Is there no pleasure of the heart to be SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 11 hoped for or regretted ? Is there no aspira- tion of the spirit to be fostered or mourned ? Socialism in its teaching exalts love. But does it know of some new kind of love that is exempt from suffering ? Neither is it romantic love alone, the love of a Werther, that suffers or suffers most deeply; the love of humanity, the Christ-love of a Mazzini, suffers most profoundly of all. In fact, the more the socialist's brotherly love is developed the greater will be his capacity for suffering. This elimination of suffering as a practical and as a moral factor in a well-fed world contradicts the experience of the body and the soul. "Be the world great or small," says Anatole France, "what matter is that to mankind? It is always great enough, provided it gives us a stage for suffering or for love. To suffer and to love — these are the twin sources of inexhaustible beauty. Suffering and pain; how divine it is, how misunderstood. To it we owe all the good in us, all that makes life worth living; to it we owe pity and courage and all the virtues. The earth is but a grain of sand 12 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY in a barren infinity of worlds. Yet, if it is only on earth creation suffers, it is greater than all the rest of the universe put together." The most serious question put to social- ists is a moral question. They must exert themselves in a co-operative commonwealth as much as they do in a competitive state or more, but spontaneously and with good- will, as from either love or duty. This is the highest ethical ideal of conduct. A co-operative commonwealth, if all are to have an abundance, must be asked to produce as much per capita as now. The present waste in strikes, in lockouts and in various forms of industrial conflict, besides the waste of vanity, dissipation and luxury, would then be required for those who now are below the margin of consumption — a very appreciable percent- age of the population. But the co-operative state can never do this until its citizens have a high sense of moral responsibility and altruism. Some men work to-day as hard for humanity, science or art as they could possibly work SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 13 for purely selfish ends. This kind of enthusiasm for work would have to extend to all industrial branches. Such moral ardor is 9, spiritual as well as an economic necessity by which, through labor, men can develop the possibilities of their souls. Is socialism equal to it? THE MISTAKES OF CHRISTIANITY Christianity is now so largely supported and interpreted by the propertied classes that it fears a doctrine that criticises pri- vate property or seems to threaten it. The heterodoxy most dangerous, at pres- ent, to a clergyman's status in the Church is not doctrinal, but industrial. There is a good deal of truth in what Karl Marx said in the preface of the first edition of "Capital." The English Established Church will more readily pardon an attack on thirty-eight of its thirty-nine Articles than on one-thirty-ninth of its income. Nowadays athe- ism is culpa levis, as compared with criticism of existing property relations. Christianity takes hold of the opposite end of the stick from socialism; it would 14 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY renovate society by first renovating the individual. Christianity considers the eter- nal welfare of the soul above the present well-being of the body. Christianity regards the hardships of life as providentially sent to school the soul. Christianity fails to perceive that ethical laws have not been produced out of the needs of the individual as an individual, but out of social relationships. "Morals and conscience," says Lydston, in his "Diseases of Society," "have devel- oped from the social necessities of the human race and are not natural attributes." Christianity, therefore, is indebted to the very social environment it has tended (in its extreme care for the individual) to neglect. Christianity makes a mistake in being still so other-worldly; in clinging to dog- matic belief as the path to spiritual safety; in encouraging intense individualism without a sufficient social balance ; in allowing it- self to be so largely tied to the stability of the comfortable classes; in not admitting the fundamental importance of the bread- SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 15 and-butter problem and in not acknowledg- ing that heredity and environment (outer, not inner conditions) have spiritual influ- ence. Socialism criticises Christianity for not promoting the general welfare; for not se- curing to the working-man a larger share of the world's wealth. Christianity retorts that property is not its field and echoes Jesus's words, "Who made me a judge or a divider over you?" Socialists assert that there is food and clothing enough in the world for all, that none ought to suffer want, and that until the problem of waste and want is settled all other problems are insignificant. Christianity replies that the socialist thinks only of the body and of this world, and that he neglects the soul and the world to come. It quotes the Master: "A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." Both the socialist and Christian hold ex- treme positions. The socialist cannot ask that all other effort ceases until everybody has enough to eat. Life is not such a 16 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY single-track road as that. Christianity is equally obtuse when it will not admit that the bread-and-butter problem is at the basis of civilization. Christianity is too individualistic; it leaves the personal for- tunes of men and women too much to the strength of their inner nature; it does not utilize, in their behalf, the boundless spiritual power of social co-operation. SOCIALISM NEEDS CHRISTIANITY Socialism is a new religious movement, a new expression of justice, of fraternity and real democracy. Its methods are political, its ends economic; but its spirit (which is its greatest gift to our time) ought to live in spite of its methods and beyond its goal. Its most advanced advocates are no longer basing their arguments upon Marxian propositions, but upon the plea of justice, brotherhood and of better oppor- tunities for higher human development. Its political programme, so far as it aims at material advantages, might easily be captured any day by either of our politi- cal parties, but its spirit of co-operation SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 17 and of higher justice is needed and must persist. Socialism uses religious propaganda; its Sunday-schools are increasing in Europe and America. In the British Sunday-schools the following are some of the texts taught : The New World, its Foundations to be Justice; Love to be the Spirit of its inhabitants. All things pass away, but Love abideth forever. He who owns the things men must have, owns the men who have them. That which is not in the interest of the whole swarm is not in the interest of a single bee. There is nothing to be alarmed at in this; it is as old as Aristotle and St. Paul. "The end of the state and the individual," said Aristotle, "are the same." "Now abideth faith, hope and love," said St. Paul, "but the greatest of these is love." Socialism demands practically a trans- formation of human nature, for it must depend upon honest and self-controlled men when its civilization is in the hands of government employees. Consequently, it demands clean politics, which cannot be secured merely by better political machin- ery, but by better men. These improved 18 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY human agents Christianity, if true to its spirit, can produce. Socialism must correct not only the greed of overpaid rich, but the materialism of underpaid poor; both are unlovely. For after material well-being is secured the moral and spiritual problems of human nature still remain unsolved. Many socialists ignorantly call them- selves such when they only demand reform. The most popular subjects discussed before our Sunday night and Tuesday night groups were: The Teaching of Market- Gardening and Farming to School Children; The Means of Stopping the Spread of Tuber- culosis. The enthusiasm of working-men over these subjects disclosed to me the fact that these audiences were unfamiliar with definite lines of attempted social im- provement, but could appreciate the advan- tage of reforms, as contrasted with revolu- tionary legislation, when such reforms were pointed out and explained. Socialism is not a new idea, but a rate of speed; consequently, what is wanted is intelligence to hasten progress rather than SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 19 revolution to destroy present gains. High- roads, city water, public schools, courts, etc., are all socialistic, and the present will surely enlarge the list of state-controlled institutions. Socialists have a tendency toward a new Puritanism. They are largely vegetarians and total abstainers from alcohol. Socialism needs religion's pursuit of moral ideals by which alone happiness can be secured; otherwise socialism, in despair at the emptiness of its attainment, is in danger of committing suicide in its hour of victory. The words of the celebrated psychologist, Dr. Paul Dubois, may well be a warning: . . . Let us beware of placing all our happiness on cards liable to be shuffled at any moment by others' hands or blown away by the least wind. It is this point of view that gives me only a very moderate confidence in the benefits of civilization, so long as it only brings us material advantage, greater comfort in our homes, better food and more cheerfulness of spirit, however noble they may be. Happiness is not there; it dwells in the deepest part of us, in our inmost ego; it can only have its exist- ence in the most complete of our ideal aspirations, in the worship of the True, the Beautiful and the Good. Socialism needs patience and charity. Two hours were required in one of our 20 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY Sunday-night meetings for the Commis- sioner of Charities to convince the socialists present of the good faith of a bill, intro- duced in the Legislature of New York, which proposed to create a labor colony for vagrants. In the end it turned out that the bill had been drafted by leading socialists. CHRISTIANITY NEEDS SOCIALISM The objection the socialist makes to the individual's religious isolation is well taken: "Religion is a relationship to God; a cleanly and high ordering of the soul," says the individualist. "Yes," says the socialist, "but the relationship to God must include relationship to men; and how can your relationship to them be profound if you will not actively help them? Your own Bible should reprove you: 'Whoso hath this world's goods, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him ?' 'If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?' " SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY ^ The poor man cannot understand a reli- gion that is an assent to propositions and is satisfied to hold itself aloof from life — a religion that is a mental state or an emotion and pays no attention to the clamor of empty stomachs. We shall always have, perforce, vicis- situdes enough to whet our spiritual appe- tites for moral combat. We need not manufacture hardships, as ascetics have done, nor maintain them as modern mystics are inclined to do. Indeed, when we are willing to allow hardships to remain in the world, particularly the hardships of others, we are about as good Christians as Artemus Ward was a patriot during the Civil War, who said that he was willing to sacrifice all his wife's relations upon the altar of his country. THE SOLUTION Neither individualism nor socialism, as a solitary principle, governs progress, but rather a combination of the two. Until a man has made something of himself — is a healthy, sane and energetic individual — he 22 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY is a burden to society; until society is organic and protects the individual it is not discharging its function. The point at issue between individualists and socialists is capable of solution — a solution that does not demand the sur- render of either side. The future is not to see a purely individualistic or a purely socialistic order, but one in which both principles are realized. In biology the individual life and indi- vidual efficiency appear first, then a collec- tivism for the sake of a higher individuality. The individual, as an individual, must be good for something before he can be good enough for collective use; but by his col- lective relationships becomes of still further importance. In psychology we discover that there are other influences affecting personality be- sides that which originates in the mind and is self -directed; there are exterior in- fluences — viz., heredity and environment. The Christian individualist holds that the will is the great instrument of regeneration; the atheistic Socialist holds that environ- SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 23 ment is the agent of improvement. But will, according to its most modern definition (cf. Professor James), is a form of sugges- tion; it is a holding of an ideal before the mind until action follows. Environment also is a form of suggestion. The depths of human consciousness are the product of heredity, environment, educa- tion, will — not of one, but of all. If, then, nature works with all these agents, have we a right to demand that our fellows work with only one ? Man will always continue to be the child of many parents. Cromwell did not know how much his iron will borrowed from his inheritance, environ- ment and education. Socialism is continually declaiming against the superior individual, against genius and its masteries, but in the same breath begs the genius to arise and emancipate the "wage-slave." If socialism ever wins it will be by the aid of what it despises — genius and religion. The first it needs to perfect the organ- ization of industry; the second it needs to change the human heart and equip 24 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY mankind with the virtues required by its new organization. CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS The Christian Socialist is laughed at and repudiated as being neither a Christian nor a socialist. He is too socialistic for capital- istic churchmen and too individualistic for "the proletariat." The Christian Socialist is the man "in the middle of the road" in spiritual and industrial progress. He is a Christian who is not purely an individual- ist; he is a socialist who believes in moral idealism. This is a perfectly clear and valuable distinction. On^ the Continent, Christian Socialism is a movement largely organized and di- rected by the Roman Catholic Church to counteract the effect of Marxian Socialism. Continental Christian Socialism is also, I believe, anti-Semitic. Both these considera- tions render it repugnant to the American socialists, who, being so often of non-British races, do not know much about Charles Kingsley and Maurice, and the manly advocacy of working-men's projects that SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 25 characterized the founders of English Chris- tian Socialism. THE CHURCH AND THE CLASS STRUGGLE The test of modern civilization will be its willingness to face the problem of co- operation and to attempt a purer democracy. What does Whittier's "Barefoot Boy" know about classes ? Let the million-dollared ride ! Barefoot, trudging at his side, Thou hast more than he can buy, In the reach of ear and eye, — Outward sunshine, inward joy; Blessings on thee, barefoot boy! But if the farmer's boy, when a successful man of business, separates himself from the rank and file; if he forms alliance by marriage with European aristocracy; if he favors the social system and pleasures of the leisure class of Europe, he is playing into the hands of socialism. He is creating classes in a democracy, and so is furnishing the factors for that "class struggle" which Karl Marx pronounces the evolutionary road to socialism. The separation of heads of great corpora- tions from their workmen, by the necessity 26 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY that keeps one in a financial center and the other in an industrial center, suited to their special product; the separation in sympathy between capital and labor, as labor has become more and more foreign — all these causes have produced in America to-day what we denied existed a quarter of a century ago, namely, classes. Success, too, separates the fortunate from the unfortunate. Not only is there a social change in the status of the man who has arrived, but there is little sympathy felt by him for the man who is left behind. Success and humility rarely go together. "Qu'il est difficile, messieurs, d'etre victorieux et d'etre humble tout ensemble ! " cried the French orator, Fiddlier, in his eulogy on Marshal Turenne. Our victorious captains of indus- try are not often enough Turennes — at once successful and humble. Under the circumstances of an increasing class separation in the United States, any- thing that can counterbalance undemo- cratic influences should be looked upon with favor. The church to-day can help stem this undemocratic tide and can be SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 27 of great social, industrial, and political use- fulness. The permanent utility of the institution known as the church consists not only in its personal idealism but also in its power to effect association, to bring classes to- gether. No other institution, except the state, gives one so large and permanent a tie with his fellows. The family is small and shifts. School and college meet the needs of only a part of our lives. Organ- izations for special objects, even great ends, are naturally one-sided and change complexion with success or failure, as can be seen in labor unions and political parties. The church represents a permanent in- terest from the cradle to the grave — a universal interest; an organization of ideals which all men can share and aspire to; an association of all classes in a common hope. The best thing about the Sunday-night meetings at the Church of the Ascension — upon which the views expressed in this article are based — is that they have done just the thing the church can and should 28 SOCIALISM AND CHRISTIANITY do; they have brought extremes together — the rich and poor, the educated and un- educated. When thrown together the good in each is mutually appreciated. The sin- cerity of the capitalist and the honesty of the radical working-man have been made apparent. While no attempt to make proselytes was for a moment contemplated or permitted, yet, to my surprise, a large number of persons, who supposed them- selves hostile to religion, experienced in the course of these meetings almost an emo- tional conversion to a more peaceful and spiritual view. The power of popular government is an ethical power. The masses cannot reason as well as a selected, trained aristocracy; but they reduce political problems to ethical terms and solve them by the use of a healthy conscience. The church to-day, like the prophet of old, should be the voice of conscience and should keep a democracy true to its moral ideals. What the Working Men Want* IN the United States the lines are be- coming more closely drawn between individualism and socialism ; the fears of capital are more evident; the con- victions of socialists more confident. Sev- eral moneyed organizations, as well as weighty personalities, are now entering the field openly or secretly against socialism. Eminent ecclesiastics have just organized a militant anti-socialistic union. IS A FIGHT IN AMERICA AGAINST SOCIALISM WISE? Is not this marshaling of forces hasty and injudicious ? Does a lining up of capitalists against socialists show a suffi- cient understanding of socialism and of democracy? Millionaires who band to- gether to fight socialism certainly do not appear to appreciate their own power. * North Amiriian Review, August, iqio. 29 30 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT Whatever socialism is, socialists are, for the most part, unsuccessful folk or they are dreamers and philanthropists — people with a lot of imagination, pity, liking for man- kind. Wealth is so powerful that, if it consulted its own dignity, it would neglect such critics. Through the control of the institutional side of life, it can silence their voices when it will, and so can afford to listen long to discover if they speak truth or falsehood. » The eagle suffers little birds to sing, And is not careful what they mean thereby; Knowing that with the shadow of his wing He can at pleasure stint their melody. An appeal of our times — not drawn from the field of ethics, but from the hunting field, or wherever chance and danger may be faced for the sheer sake of audacious combat — is, "Be a Sport!" What a large opportunity lies open to the sportsman in social controversy! Sympathetic attention paid the poor man's yiew of life by rich men, would be the "sportiest" of proposi- tions. Their generosity towards the weak, their confidence in reason and justice, their WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 31 support of free discussion, their wager of power and wealth upon the result — in short, their courage would excite our ad- miration. College athletics and expensive sports, on sea and land, seem fruitless, if the sportsman when confronted by human problems is panic-stricken and denies his opponent a chance; but silences him, starves him, sandbags him. Socialism, however erroneous, is a serious and enthusiastic attempt to solve pressing economic problems. ' Sydney Brooks calls the "Labor Question" one of "insoluble conundrums." Let us Yankees try to "guess" them. Our attack, therefore, had better be made upon the problem itself or upon those who are indifferent to it. Mr. Taft is wrong. Socialism is not our great- est problem. The economic conditions that excite socialists and many anti-socialists are our greatest problem — namely: the anom- aly of a democratic state and an absolutist industrial system living together. Conspicuous opposition to socialism con- tributes to the very method by which so- cialism claims it will triumph. Extreme 32 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT socialists exult at every fresh demarcation between them and their adversaries. By making more clean-cut their differences, and by forcing into opposing ranks so- cialists and non-socialists, the "class strug- gle" is accentuated and promoted, which the followers of Marx prophesy will produce the disruption of society — "the social revolution" — and clear the way for a socialistic state. Socialists whom I hear do not itch to lay hands upon other people's property or to reduce everybody to a dead level of pay. They want what most men want — working and living conditions favorable to good health, opportunities for their children, room for culture, leisure for the enjoyment of nature, music, and art. Our problem, then, is not how to fight an "ism" — "socialism" — but how to arrange matters so as to give poor men and women more of what we all hunger for — the joy of life. The socialists whom I know are mild in their demands. They wish to be sure of work, and they hope for such an organiza- tion of industry in the future that their WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 33 children may be sure of work. They do not ask to be supported by anybody's labor except their own, or to have their children supported by anybody's labor ex- cept their own. The new order of things, if it come, will not be directly produced by socialists, but by their foes. "Class struggle," "surplus values," "the economic interpretation of history" — Marxian formulas that express half-truths — are not the open sesame to a lovelier industrial future. So, in fighting socialism, the conservative classes are fac- ing in the wrong direction. Their enemies are of their own household. Current legis- lation indicates the lines of future advances — what might be called the liquidation of privilege. Public Service Commissions, Rates Commissions, Corporation Tax LaWs, and not socialistic platforms, will, for a long time to come, be responsible for our eco- nomic reforms. Socialists when they deal with political programs ask, in their simplicity, for such revolutionary changes that they frighten the average citizen, whether capitalist or 34 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT wage-earner, and for this reason they can- not soon secure an overwhelming follow- ing. They are firing at a target so far away that they cannot hit it. But while socialists are absorbed in this harm- less game of long distance and ineffective firing, our statesmen of practical sa- gacity and popular instinct will, by close range and effective shots, weaken monopoly and privilege. For instance, the limitation and even the public ownership of capital is not likely to be effected by socialism, but by the steps of monopoly and public regulation. When under competition the highest profits are at last secured by trusts and pools, which practically destroy competition; then the next move by the consumer is to control by law the rates and prices of such com- binations of capital. But publicly controlled capital will have a tendency to become pub- licly owned, because investors, afraid of an increased public control of property, with a consequent reduction of profits, will not buy the securities. This tendency is already seen in some public utilities. WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 35 Again, the fight is not between socialism and individualism, as recent prospectuses announce. Socialism is a new form of in- dividualism, which offers what Jefferson- ianism supposed it gave when most Americans were farmers — an equal chance to individuals. Socialists wish to make the government an umpire who will see that everyone has a fair chance; only, to prevent the umpire from being biased by evil influences, socialists propose to make the umpire more powerful than the influences. The one point to which the socialistic criticism of the present industrial regime continually returns is that of the wage- earner's industrial helplessness — now that he must secure the consent of the owner of machinery and of tools before he can have work or wages. The wage-earner is called "a proletarian," "a child of the abyss," "a wage-slave." The socialistic outcry is largely the human insistence upon individual importance and individual value in the face of this modern industrial helplessness. 36 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT Many religious persons call themselves socialists because they believe there are gross misery, ignorance, and injustice that can readily be remedied. These persons are not theoretical socialists, not Marxians, but keen well-wishers of humanity, who are convinced that life needs to be rationalized and who are warmed by the intensity, com- radeship, and hopefulness of the socialist propaganda. If there were a thorough-going fight made against socialism, these persons would be liable to join the socialist party. Many writers and professional men con- fess to each other that they are socialists at heart. Would it be wise to drive them to the necessity of absolute definition ? Many clerks, even business men who have made their money in slow and con- servative fashion, are more sympathetic with the complaints and cures of socialism than trust magnates and high financiers imagine. Ought they, by a still greater sympathy with the "under dog," to be turned over bodily to the socialist party ? Then there are the thousands of intel- lectual young men, college graduates, ob- WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 37 servant, traveled, kept out of pulpits by distrusted creeds, whom we ought not to throw into further revolt. They contem- plate our social wilderness with as much confident strength as a pioneer contem- plated the forests that were to yield a place for his home and fields of corn. These young men can live on little; they despise social ambition; they cannot be frightened, and they ransack the world for sociological facts. You meet them at the settlement-houses, upon philanthropic com- mittees, in the Capitol at Albany opposing bills injurious to dwellers in tenement houses, in meetings where speakers say what they think, often in missions and parish -houses where there is practical work being done for the poor. These youths seem always to be singing Whitman's hymn: Have the elder races halted? Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas ? We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson Pioneers! O Pioneers! Again, why fight socialism, when we dis- cover, wherever radicalism comes into 38 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT power, no alarming transformation, but conservative and generally approved re- sults. John Burns, in England, Briand in France, and the Mayor of Milwaukee, all point this moral. Of Emil Seidel, the So- cialist Mayor of Milwaukee, the "New York Evening Post" of July 11th, 1910, says: "Scarcely a day passes that he does not do some sensible thing in a simple way that no one had thought of before." DISLOYALTY AND INGRATITUDE ARE TO- DAY THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WORKING-CLASSES AS EXPERIENCED BY THEIR EMPLOYERS The newspaper-reading public and con- servative business men, when confronted by the labor problem, are often confused by the behavior of working-men toward em- ployers famous for their kindness. During the Pullman strike it was hard for the pub- lic to understand how the employees of the Pullman Company could be so hostile and could commit acts of violence. Had not Mr. Pullman given them an ideal town to live in, all at his own expense ? WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 39 A like wonderment beheld the strike of the National Cash Register employees, at Dayton, Ohio, where John H. Patterson and his associates had done everything they could think of to make the inside and the outside of their factories attractive, and to brighten and enrich the lives of their employees; where the employers were as proud of their services to their em- ployees and to the community as they were proud of their business success — employers who almost broke their hearts over the ingratitude of their work-people. Similar cases are so numerous that a recent writer, J. Thayer Lincoln, a dis- tinguished graduate of Harvard, a sym- pathizer with working-men, whom he knows, both as a manufacturer and as a philanthropist, makes this deliberate state- ment, — "In my personal experience, the man who is most thoroughly hated by his employees is the man who has the physical, mental, and spiritual welfare of his work- ingmen most at heart." * The working-man is certainly ungrateful, * The City of the Dinner Pail, p. 78. 40 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT and ingratitude is that fault in the poor which philanthropists can least endure. Among religious and philanthropic workers there is a constant secession, due to a lack of gratitude among their needy beneficiaries. Gratitude is not a test of beneficence and ought not to be expected. It puts the giver upon a pedestal and the recipient upon his knees. Even great natures do not easily discover gratitude among their virtues. Goethe found gratitude so difficult that, when he was a young man, he cultivated it by special exercise. Seated in his room, he recalled to mind the friends and relatives who had given him the objects his eyes beheld, and thereupon he men- tally thanked them. Dr. Samuel Johnson and Sir Joshua Reynolds became friends over the discovery of their mutual an- tipathy to gratitude. In a house where they were both calling and met for the first time, a lady of the company con- tinually bemoaned the death of a friend. "At any rate, madam," broke in Sir Joshua, "you have been relieved of a burden of gratitude." It was this astute reading of WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 41 human nature by the painter that won Dr. Johnson. They walked away from the house together. Ingratitude is as frequent among the needy as among working-men. A common explanation fits both cases: More than two thousand years ago Aristotle read the philanthropist's riddle when he pointed out that gratitude is less keen than benevolence, because it is more agreeable to give than to receive. The benefactor enjoys himself more than the beneficiary.* But a more economic and personal ex- planation of the working-man's ingratitude can be found. The working-man's great complaint to-day is his helplessness, and it is perfectly clear that whatever increases this sense of helplessness will really in- crease his outcry. Working-men don't like to have things done for them. The more that is done for them, the more they feel in the power of the person who is respon- sible even for their benefits. Paradoxically enough, whatever the man of power, the capitalist, the employer, does * Ethics, Bk. IX, Ch. VII. 42 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT out of a good heart or philanthropic intent or even from shrewd business perception, to alleviate, as he supposes, the hardships of his working-people — by good tenements, by kindergartens, by factory lunch-rooms, by lectures, garden villages, etc., etc., etc. — he is, as a matter of fact, making his working-men feel their dependence, with the result that some of the most serious explosions of indignation have taken place amid the fairest environment that can sur- round the conditions of toil. There is another reason for the working- man's ingratitude to his employer. Work- ing-men say that if corporations can afford these extras, these adornments and ad- ditions to the comfort of their people, then they can afford to give better wages. Of the two methods of distributing a sur- plus, the working-man prefers the latter. He would rather take his chances in an ordinary factory with higher pay and use the addition to his income as he pleases. In other words, the working-man re- alizes, or, at any rate, asserts, that he him- WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 43 self is paying for the improved tenements, for the parks, for the libraries, for the comforts and conveniences of the superior factories, for kindergartens, for lessons in cooking, for lectures, for flower-gardens, for flower-boxes outside the windows, for baths, etc. While he is meeting the cost of these advantages, he finds the world at large praising his employer as a notable philanthropist, and in his heart he regards this as a sham. At all events, he would rather be his own philanthropist. The industrial system that depends, in the last resort, upon gratitude, is a psycho- logical mistake. Something more depend- able than gratitude should prevent strikes and preserve intact industrial organization. The bond in economic life that holds employer and employee cannot be a weak and winged virtue; it must be something reliable and strong. Gratitude cannot be the cement between classes in a democracy. Men are not, cannot, and ought not to be held to their work and employer by gratitude, but by the broadest justice. 44 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT THE WOKKING-MAN, WHETHER HE HAS REASONS FOR GRATITUDE OR NOT, IS CERTAINLY NOT LOYAL TO HIS EMPLOYERS "Take any of our great and successful establishments," says the "American Fouri- dryman," "and get into touch with the management, and you will find the uni- versal complaint of the disloyalty of the men. See the men, on the other hand, and you will find the irritation due to the arbitrary and unjust treatment, the ex- istence of conditions repugnant to an independent spirit, etc. One need not then wonder why oftentimes the percentage of changes in the shop organization amounts to over one hundred per cent, annually. How much greater would have been the success of the business pecuniarily, as well as the prosperity of the community, had more attention been given to the feelings of the actual wage-earner." * Loyalty is an old, clan spirit, and at- tached a man to a man of his own blood * Transactions of the American Foundryman's Association, p. 197. WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 45 who was his chieftain; it attached the subject to a king as to a God-given leader and protector. Industrial conditions do not reproduce this relationship. The employer and employee do not acknowledge identity of interest. They treat each other, on the whole, as enemies. Labor is a "com- modity" to be purchased by capital. How can you expect loyalty from a commodity ? If one listens for any length of time to working-men discussing these matters he discovers that the way out of the difficulty is not an "insoluble conundrum," but a simple and logical step. It is nothing less than an application of self-government to industry, — the utilization of the spirit of independence. Democracy, in its principle, accords with the modern conception of divine activity, which is a working from within, not from without. The old idea of God as sovereign, sitting outside of creation and ruling it, furnished a prototype for the divine au- thority of kings; in fact, for all arbitrary power. The idea of a god inside the universe, ruling through the laws of nature, 46 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT the modern position, is the prototype for self-government. This centrifugal force is the method of democracy — it issues from within the ranks of people and not from a privileged position outside. When an industrial magnate claims to run his enterprises by "divine right," — as conspicuously happened not long ago, — he is logical, for our industrialism is still under absolutism and has not passed into the democratic or self-governing stage. In re- ligion and in politics we have largely turned to a theory, and to some extent to a prac- tice, where sovereignty operates from within rather than from without. Can it be more than a matter of time when this philosophy and practise govern industry ? Our best educators have given up the effort to secure discipline by the exercise of authority from above, and are attempting to produce a maturer attitude toward con- duct on the part of their pupils, by leaving discipline more in the hands of the students themselves. They have met with most en- couraging results, and student committees manage the morals of universities. WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 47 Twenty-five years ago the participation by "Harvard men" in the Republican Presi- dential Torch-light Procession through the streets of Boston was something of an orgy, ending in a good deal of a fight. I saw the Taft procession. It was like an Anniver- sary Day parade of the Brooklyn Sunday Schools. I was so astonished that I inquired the reason. The whole matter, it seems, had been taken up by the class presidents, — stu- dents, — who put the men on their honor, with the sober and well-behaved results I beheld. If self-government among young, hot-blooded students can do that, it can do anything. The George Junior Republic, and similar schemes, undertake to train young hood- lums in citizenship, by giving them in a mimic state the responsibilities of citizens. Self-government, we are having to ac- knowledge, is being more and more re- garded not as a begrudged concession, but as a moral necessity. The extension of self-government to in- dustry is logical when we remember that the relation of a workman to his work is a 48 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN -WANT moral question and depends upon his hon- esty, honor, and self-respect. A workman who makes bad product, or injures product, or who turns out less than he is capable of, cannot have self-respect. A system that corrects his disloyalty will add to his man- hood as well as to the profits of the business. The working-man has secured a meas- ure of industrial self-government through trades-unionism, which lifts him from the position of abject dependence upon the will of his employer and makes collec- tive bargains on a higher level of considera- tion and mutual contract than he could make alone. By being a member of a trades-union a working-man has some- thing to say about the business with which he is connected. In fact, he has a great deal to say about the way in which the business must treat him. And this partici- pation helps to satisfy a workman's native independence, as well as his love of having a say in that which orders his life. But trades-unionism cannot solve the Labor Question; for if it were to go to the limit of complete organization we should have WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 49 this picture: On one hand, organized capital; on the other hand, organized labor, the two related to each other by trade agreements or contracts. Can an indus- trial system be final in a democracy which separates citizens, who are supposed to be equal before the law and at the polls, into two opposing industrial camps ? The enlightened effort of the United States Steel Company to have its employees buy its stock, and so share in its fortunes, is notable and points in the right direction. Mr. Carnegie, as well as Mr. Ingalls, of the "Big Four," preaches profit-sharing as the next industrial step. Profit-sharing as an industrial cement would seem to be stronger than gratitude. THERE ARE INDICATIONS OF FURTHER PARTICIPATION BY THE WORKING-PEOPLE IN THE MANAGEMENT OF INDUSTRIES IN WHICH THEY ARE EMPLOYED. "In my reorganizing work in factories," says the successful industrial engineer, H. F. S. Potter, "I have found that where there is a tendency to centralize power in 50 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT a one-man regime the growth of the enter- prise is narrowed to just the scope of that one's capabilities. Whereas, if every indi- vidual in the organization is given the opportunity and the privilege to express his views and his reasons for them in matters regarding which they may be of value; if whatever there is good in that presented is accepted for what it is worth, then at once the management is reinforced by the potential knowledge possessed by the brains of the whole." The advantages of democracy are not to be looked for only in those ends that it, in common with all government, expects, such as safety and justice; or even in those results in which democracy may be richer, such as freedom, self-respect, and oppor- tunity. The advantages of democracy are to be found in its method of operation, whereby the citizen, having to assist in the process of government, develops qualities of statesmanship — judgment, foresight, pa- tience, honesty, sympathy — and must, con- sequently, become a more highly organized and experienced personality, with a more WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 51 profound social consciousness than the average subject of a king. A citizen in a republic not only receives a training by the exercise of his fran- chise that adds to his value and fits him to be of more account in an industrial organization, but the further development of the traits he has educated at the bal- lot, awaits his industrial independence, and, consequently, this independence is some- thing he will, in self-defense, more and more demand. Lyman Abbott claims, with good reason, "that when the world learned it could have a state without a king and a church with- out a bishop, it had taken a long step to- wards learning that there could be a shop without a boss." I know of factories where a democratic co-operation is secured by forming a shop conference committee made up of the su- perintendent and overseers, who constitute an Upper House, and of representatives from each department, who constitute a Lower House. Another plan that works well and gives a sense of justice is to pay employees 52 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT for suggestions that are found useful and not to "fire" them for troublesome com- plaints. "Towering over President and State Governors," says James Bryce, in his "American Commonwealth," "over Con- gress and State Legislatures, over conven- tions and the vast machinery of party, public opinion stands out in the United States as the source of power." Public opinion has been an important factor in settling strikes and lockouts, where a passive and suffering public gave a verdict for one side or the other which had weight with the disputants. But what a range there is for public opinion within the body of workers! How dominating an influence under a democratic organization of industry! Suppose there were stand- ards of conduct, workmanship and busi- ness dealings, of a broader nature than trades-union rules, which working-men held each other up to. This field — that of public opinion applied to industrial life from the inside — remains yet to be capital- ized. WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 53 INDUSTRIAL HELPLESSNESS CONFRONTS POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE The feeling of industrial helplessness, which is the incubus upon the spirit of the working-man, is contemporaneous with the teachings of independence which proceed from democratic institutions and from mod- ern science with its weakening of traditional authority. Others besides the workers see their help- lessness. The Hon. John Bigelow, whose great age, adorned with public services, has spanned most of our national existence, wrote, in 1908, to Governor Hughes: "With food enough in the United States to nourish twice its population, the average wage-earner can lay up nothing, can pro- vide few privileges, and practically no recreation." How different were the hopes of our young Republic from what has come to pass! The expectations of the visionaries of the first half-century were well set forth by William Ellery Channing, in his lecture on "Self-Culture," delivered in Boston in 1838. "The grand distinction of the times 54 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT is the emerging of the people from brutal degradation, the gradual recognition of their rights, the gradual diffusion among them of the means of improvement and happiness, the creation of a new power in the state — the power of the people." What do we now hear from a voice raised in the same neighborhood seventy- two years later ? Mr. Roosevelt, addressing the Alumni of Harvard College, at Cam- bridge, in June, 1910, confessed that our democracy had not met the expectation of its well-wishers. "I found everywhere (in Europe) a certain disheartened sense that we had not come up to our ideals as there was ground for believing that we ought to have come; that we had not achieved them as we ought to have achieved them; and every instance of corruption, of demagogy, of the unjust abuse of wealth, the unjust use of wealth to the detriment of the public, or the improper acceptance by the public that mere wealth in and of itself constituted a claim to regard in the community, every instance of brutal materialism on our part, every time that it was made evident that WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 55 the attitude of this country was such as ought not to be the attitude of a democracy founded on the principles upon which ours was founded — every such instance served to dim the ideal that the name America conjured up in the minds of those in foreign lands." A great deal of what we call socialism is only democracy getting its second wind. Disappointment at the results of political democracy was inevitable. The modern experiment of popular government, it must be remembered, has been contemporaneous with revolutionary discoveries and inven- tions, associated with steam and electricity, which, by making it possible for a single engine to run thousands of machines, have encouraged concentration of capital. The kit of tools of the old-fashioned workman is now a curiosity; our skilled workmen are dependent upon access to machinery owned capitalistically. Political independence and industrial dependence cannot live per- manently together. The same man cannot represent both without complaint and con- fusion. The same country cannot contain both without disrupting ebullitions. 56 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT Wonderful things are happening in our times. The belief is gaining ground that destitution can be abolished, and that this Utopia awaits only a richer justice; that if men will be more brotherly the old earth will be nearer heaven. A new religion has taken possession of millions, some of whom call themselves atheists. The working- people of many lands have reached an un- derstanding among themselves and have banded together in an optimism of outlook, a joyousness of spirit and a self-sacrificing compact, such as in the past have only il- luminated periods of religious exaltation. The lowly man no longer feels lonely. The doubter no longer is worried by dogma. Within life itself have been found fertile grounds of faith, unfamiliar but far- reaching fellowship. The world was never so friendly an abode for the human spirit as it is to-day. The Hebrew on the eve of the Messianic coming; the Southern slave on the threshold of emancipation; the crusader in sight of the Holy Sepulchre — must have had the exultant expectations, the "thrills," as we say, that a glimpse of WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT 57 industrial brotherhood is giving millions of wage-earners to-day. "Released from monastic and oppressive regulation, from the hurt of body and im- prisonment of mind, the people of the Renaissance," says Professor Rudolf Eucken, " burst forth into freedom of classical speculation and gained cheer, en- thusiasm, power." Why have our masses not the joy and enthusiasms of the people of the Renais- sance? Modern life has come into new freedom and self-confidence — the libera- tion of science and wealth — but only par- tially distributed. The freedom and the exhilaration that the working-people of the Renaissance enjoyed, helped by the guilds and a more homogeneous economic sys- tem, our working-people have missed through industrial helplessness. This is a serious loss, not only because a great epoch has dawned upon a divided civiliza- tion — one practically engaged in civil war — but because the majority of the people, by reason of their industrial helplessness, are not in a position to join the privileged 58 WHAT THE WORKING-MEN WANT few in using the modern enlightenment for the good of all, in greater discoveries, arts, letters, and relationships. We are all losers if we permit any class to lack free- dom and self-confidence. We are only completely gainers, by the special enfran- chisements of our time, when all classes work together for discovery, for increase of wealth, for the spread of material benefits, and for the highest individual and social development. Physical Deterioration among the Poor in America and one way of checking it* AT the Naval War College, Newport, my host mentioned to me, when I left him for the night, that it would be worth my while next morning to be on hand before breakfast for the marching past, at a little distance from the college, of the naval apprentices. The definiteness and originality of Admiral Chadwick's ob- servations are too well known to be dis- regarded. Indeed, I was splendidly repaid for my descent into the freshness of the bright summer morning. To the west, the blue channel was active with passing craft. To the south, the harbor was white with the sails of anchored yachts. Near our shore lay the white bulk of war- vessels. On the training-ship, which was anchored * North American Review, January, iqoy. 59 60 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR against a wharf, fluttering lines of washed sailor togs were bleaching. Along the carriage-drive, from a neighboring green, advanced, in column by fours, a white- canvased army of apprentices. Their faces and necks, between their white hats and white blouses, were bronze. Besides color there was contour — large strong curves. The boys were of football build, broad and large-limbed. The carved simi- larity of feature reminded me of the big wooden faces of the Finnish sailors in the Russian navy, enough alike to be of one family. The column tramped by and lost itself in the barracks. I had received a strong impression. I inquired about the lads, from what class of Americans such a stocky set was recruited. "Oh," said an officer, "we pick them up in the cities. They do not look like that when they come to us — not a likely set — many of them narrow-shouldered and knock-kneed. Once here, however, they have a routine — plenty of sleep, fresh air, and salt-water swimming; plenty to eat, beginning with a cup of cocoa in the morning, when they IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 61 turn out for the exercise they have just now finished ; and on top of all this, the best oversight we can give them." "But how long does the transformation take from a spindling boy of the tenements to one of these roly-poly athletes ?" "We have had those you have seen for two or three months," said the officer. I had received another strong impression. For if such remarkable physical improve- ment could be produced in so short a time in such unlikely stock, ought not our municipal- ities, at their own expense, to maintain during the summer training-camps where the chil- dren of the slums could be set out to blossom as the rose ? PHYSICAL DETERIORATION PRONOUNCED AMONG OUR CITY POOR Nothing has surprised me more, in twenty years of parish work in a manu- facturing town and in a metropolis, than to discover the wretched physique of the poor. In most European countries, height and weight are slightly decreasing. In England, Tommy Atkins is getting smaller 62 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR and smaller; recruits even five feet two inches tall, with a chest measure of thirty- three and one-half inches, are hard to find. Our own National Guard, a selected body of men, does not prove at a crisis to possess the physical condition necessary for modern warfare. Many militiamen, at the outbreak of the Spanish War, could not meet the physical requirements of the United States Army. The War Depart- ment informs me that although there are no accurate figures, such failures to qualify from the National Guard amounted at least to 25 per cent. At the time the enlistment was going on, the newspapers stated that, in some regiments of the National Guard, 50 per cent, were unable to pass the army doctors. The school children of New York are given physical examinations and super- vision by the Department of Health. This expert inspection and treatment have done much good and cannot be too highly praised; but it is found that 66 1-3 percent, of the children examined need a physician's care, and that 95 per cent, of the backward IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 63 and truant children are defective.* Of our young men between 16 and 18 years old, of the educated classes, 70 per cent, have lat- eral spinal curvature. Doctor Osier esti- mates the annual financial loss due to in- complete medical supervision of the school children of New York at $1,666,666. This means money spent without results owing to physical defects in pupils. f THE CAUSES OF IMPAIRED PHYSIQUE AMONG OUR CITY POOR The causes of physical deterioration among the poor of the cities are not far to seek. One is overcrowding, another is underfeeding. In 1803 only 3 per cent, of the popu- lation of the United States was urban; now * The larger the number of 'children examined the higher the percentage of defects. In 1909, 323,344 children were ex- amined and 74 per cent, disclosed ailments : 56,620 pupils were suffering from trachoma.— Eleventh Annual Report City Super- intendent of Schools, of City of New York, p. 131. "Professor Irving Fisher, of Yale University, president of a Committee of One Hundred on National Health, which has paid especial attention to school hygiene, is authority for the statement that there must be in our schools about 12,000,000 children who are in immediate need of medical and surgical attention." — Hampton's Magazine, July, 1910, p. 104. f Bulletin 30, of the Committee of One Hundred on National Health, pp. 73-75. 64 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR nearly 40 per cent, reside in cities; while in such a State as New York the percentage is a great deal higher. The growth of cities is not a peculiarity of a new country; in Europe the capitals have carried away surrounding suburbs in the push of crowded populations. In fact, a general condition has operated to the same end in Europe and America. A farm laborer in the United States to-day can produce- five times as much as in 1850. "The introduction of machinery has increased the productive power of each laborer in agriculture, so that fewer per- sons produce more product; and the conse- quence has been that a large portion of the population has changed from agriculture to various kinds of manufacture and transpor- tation." * The vastness of this change can be illustrated by the State of Virginia, 80 per cent, of whose population is still em- ployed on the soil. In this respect it is on a level with India, but India is a congeries of nations not yet emerged from an agri- cultural and handicraft civilization. Less * United States Census, 1900. IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 65 than 40 per cent, of the population of the United States is agricultural. The city has come to stay. We cannot correct city congestion by spreading its population in the unsettled lands of the South and West, upon our nearer and abandoned farms, or in our suburbs. The city is an economic and spiritual necessity. Men must be in closest association to pro- duce wealth with the least possible waste, and also for that personal contact which, patiently and kindly met, develops, as nothing else can, mind, heart, and will. They must labor together for economic advantage and live together for spiritual elaboration. The increased density of population in- creases the death-rate. Dr. Newsholme declares : * The higher death-rates which are usually associated with increased density of population are not the direct results of the latter. The crowding of people together doubtless leads to the rest, to fouling the air and water and soil, and to the increased propagation of infectious diseases, and thus affects the mortality. But more im- portant than these are the indirect consequences of dense * "Vital Statistics," pp. 157, 159. 66 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR aggregation of population, such as increase of poverty, filth, crime, drunkenness, and other vices, and, perhaps more than all, the less healthy character of urban indus- tries. Of the direct influences connected with the aggre- gation of population, filthy conditions of air and water and soil are the most important. Poverty of the inhab- itants of densely populated districts, implying, as it does, inadequate food and deficient clothes and shelter, has a great effect on swelling their mortality. Where there is a high death-rate there will be deterioration of physique. Many are attacked by disease who do not suc- cumb, but whose vitality is diminished and who not only carry through life physical weaknesses or blemishes produced by the disease, but impart impaired vitality to their offspring. CLASS AND RACE ACCLIMATIZATION ARE POTENT FACTORS IN CITY PHYSICAL DETERIORATION With the growth of industrialism, cities must expand. In the country farms are deserted; in the city mushroom apartment- houses spring up. The man whose father followed the plough must spend his days on a bookkeeper's stool and breathe close, IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 67 city air. A majority of the men and women of the United States will soon live in tenement-houses. The cradle of the future American citizen will be the tenement. Our cities are not only filled from our abandoned farms with people who for generations have been used to the vigor of country labor; our cities are filled with aliens. We are crowding the tenements with foreigners. The American farmer's boy, removed to devitalized city air, is try- ing to breathe and the European peasant in America, is trying to keep his health. Class and race acclimatization are going on at once. The farmer is bent upon becoming a factory or mercantile unit; the foreigner hastens to become an American. This is serious business. If you know any mill town full of foreigners, you have mourned over the deterioration of physique in the second generation. American food, hot summers, cold winters, stuffy tenements play the mischief with ruddy, beefy English- men or Irishmen or whom you will. I have been repeatedly shocked to find girls of six- 68 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR teen among cotton operatives with full sets of false teeth. Our own ancestors had to fight the climate. The children of the colonists made hard work of survival. Cotton Mather (and he was of the intelligent, comfortable class three generations from Plymouth Rock) had some fifteen children, of whom only four survived him. After three hundred years we ought to know how to assist acclimatization and largely escape its losses. UNDERFEEDING IS A FACTOR IN PHYSICAL DETERIORATION In England, according to Sir John Gorst, 30 per cent, of the population live below the margin of proper nourishment. In Edin- burgh 75 per cent, of the school children have disorders due to underfeeding. In New York seventy thousand school chil- dren, Robert Hunter tells us, go to school without sufficient breakfast. Whatever the exact number may be, there are too many ill-nourished school children, as teachers can testify, who find that empty stomachs IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF C HECKING IT 69 make drowsy and dull brains.* It is a fallacy due to political exigencies to sup- pose the American working-man fares sumptuously. From observation in the homes of working-men I believe that their food is meagre in nutritive value, if not in amount. "Perverse or defective nutrition tends to retard growth and to delay the characteristic growth periods and also final size attained is thus reduced." f CHILD LABOR IS A CAUSE OF PHYSICAL DETERIORATION Mrs. Florence Kelley, Secretary of the National Consumers' League, says: Child labor exists in the United States on a large scale, in spite of the trade-unions and of recently formed phil- anthropic committees to restrict it and to mitigate the evils which attend it. There are 1,752,187 children, between the ages of ten and fifteen years, working for wages in the United States, more than half the number in non-agricultural pursuits.^ * In 1909 Dr. Maxwell reported 11,749 were found to be suffering from malnutrition, either caused by lack of food or by the use of inferior food. He appealed to the Board of Educa- tion to provide wholesome food at cost in the schools. t Adolescence, Stanley Hall, II, p. 32. J Bulletin of the American Institute of Social Science. 70 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR In a single factory in New York, 300 chil- dren under school age were found. The employment of children in factories of the United States from 1890 to 1900 increased forty per cent. Wendell Phillips, in describing Boston's reception to Lafayette upon his return to America in 1824, said that "the city gave him the best it could afford, a sight of its school children." What children they were from whose ranks looked out those piercing eyes, that later did not quail at mobs or obloquy, the eagle glance of Phillips! Does New York consider its school children its most interesting and distinguished posses- sion ? Should we collect a procession from the swarming tenements to grace a great foreigner's visit? Poor children, poor guest! While we are shocked at what crowding and poverty can do to destroy physique, we are having looming illustra- tions of what air and exercise can do to improve it. Nature is struggling always to improve her children. The children of mixed racial marriages in America tend to the physique of the larger parent. IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 71 " The anthropometric committee's study in England found that boys from the better classes at ten were 3.31 inches taller and 10.64 pounds heavier than industrial- school boys, and at fourteen were 6.65 inches taller and 21.85 pounds heavier." * At Harvard College the aver- age student is 1.2 inches taller and 8.8 pounds heavier than the stipend scholarship men (poor boys who receive help from the College funds) . f The average student of to-day at Harvard, according to Prof. Sargent's measurements, is an inch taller and from 4 to 8 pounds heavier than the average student in 1880. Dr. F. J. Born, medical examiner at Yale University gymnasium, finds an increase in the size of students of to-day over those of the 60's, in weight, 16.2 pounds; in chest, 1.2 inches .J Professor Phillips, of Amherst, declares that "the young man to-day at every age is taller and heavier than the man previous to 1894, the difference, as a rule, amounting to an inch in height and three pouuds in weight." The increase of height and weight of Princeton students has been such * Adolescence, I, p. 34. t Prof. D. A. Sargent, Popular Science Monthly, September, 1908. t Yale Reprints No. 11, p. 4. 72 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR in thirty years that, if it continues until 1950, the average student will be six feet tall and weigh 160 pounds. The part that out-of-door exercise plays in this gen- eral improvement can be guessed by the fact that, in one summer camp I know, the boys usually gain in weight from six to twenty pounds. Physical betterment, which is the effort of nature and the result of increasing knowledge, is retreating to-day, among the poor of great cities, before unusual condi- tions. A change from a lower to a higher civilization, from an agricultural and handi- craft to an industrial manner of life, for the time being, is injurious to the individual. Evidently there should be improvement in health accompanied by increase in strength and longevity, due to the recent enormous enlightenment from science, especially in those departments that teach sanitation and the cure of disease. But with the coming of a better hygiene has cropped out a new enemy to health, the overcrowding and underfeeding of the poor in great cities. This deterioration, that should be tern- IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 73 porary and merely a matter of readjust- ment, as great populations pass from an agricultural to an industrial manner of life, can be counteracted by a systematic plan of physical betterment. A free summer camp for public-school BOYS One remedy for deterioration of tene- ment physique is evident. Give at public expense to the poor the physical oppor- tunities and some of the food the rich secure for themselves. A summer camp for boys is no novelty. Camps for the sons of the rich are in high favor. Started about twenty years ago, they have offered such rough out-of-door living, as well as training in physical independence to hothouse chil- dren, that they are now innumerable. Why cannot the summer camp be grafted upon our public-school system ? It could be ap- proached from two directions: either from the philanthropic fresh-air work which sends thousands of children every summer into the country for a week or so; or from the side of educational tendencies. 74 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR The following headlines from a recent New York Tribune are evidence that the public are well informed of the value of the free holidays for mothers, babies, and children taken out of the tenements: MAKING FLESH AND BLOOD 270 Fresh Air Children Gained 5244 Pounds in Two Weeks GIRLS MAKE BEST SHOWING Youngsters Come of Families Averaging Seven, and of All Nationalities Why could not the city give summer out- ings of a more extensive sort to school- boys at free, country training camps ? Schools 'are now used after regular ses- sions for play. A few contain gymnasiums and some new buildings are to contain baths; they have, besides, elaborate evening classes running over into myriad courses of popular lectures. In England and France experiments have been tried in feeding as well as teaching school children, with IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 75 approved results. Extension of agencies, of seasons, of objects aimed at, marks public education. Why not undertake a further school extension to practically unused sea- sons — the summer; toward that which un- derlies mental power — the firm muscle, the obedient nerve, the agreeable bodily condition ? All this, of course, means compulsory physical training. And why not ? What a number of anxieties our modern life would be in a way to get rid of, if the War College human exhibit could be multiplied by the cities and towns of the United States. INEFFECTIVE PHYSICAL TRAINING IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS No public-school system of physical train- ing, that I am acquainted with, is thorough. In the New York elementary schools, gym- nastics are given eighteen minutes daily the first year; fifteen minutes the remain- ing seven years. This little more than corrects the spinal deformities of "the school-desk attitude." In the high school there seem to be two forty-minute periods 76 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR weekly. But infrequent exercise only makes muscles sore and disinclines the sufferer to their use, while the general lack of baths neutralizes the advantage of any exercise that opens the pores. Very little of our public-school physical culture takes hold. The New York Public School Ath- letic Association is an admirable attempt .to meet public-school deficiencies; but its very existence argues the need of extending physical instruction in the public schools.* What the Turners, or the class system in the Young Men's Christian Association, or the setting-up exercises in the United States Army, or Swedish gymnastics accomplish, ought to be done for the youth of America. Every human body has undeveloped phys- ical possibilities. I knew a young fellow, "a tough," who served a term of four years in a State prison for manslaughter. Al- though he was twenty-two years of age * In 1909 the N. Y. P. S. A. A. had in some sort of training 100,000 boys and 16,000 girls. This work deserves the warmest praise. But can the 600,000 public school children in New York be reached by a system of physical culture that is un- official and voluntary ? The fresh air and the play spirit of this form of exercise for school children is especially commendable. IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OP CHECKING IT 77 when he entered, such were the improved conditions of his life while in prison that, when he was discharged at the age of twenty-six, he had gained an inch and a half in stature and thirty pounds in weight. Even great physical development is gen- erally possible. "I firmly believe that the now so wonderful performances of most of our strong men are well within reach of the majority of men, if such performances were seriously enough part of their ambition." * In addition, if necessary, I would pro- vide nourishing food at least once a day for these boys in training. "Poor children, brought into a better nutritive environment, grow more rapidly than those who remain in unchanged conditions." f COMPULSORY PHYSICAL TRAINING IN EUROPE A general system of physical education in America would produce many of the ad- vantages derived in Europe from com- pulsory military service and its attendant * H. G. Beyer, Adolescence, I, p. 197. f The same, I, p. 32. 78 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR compulsory physical training. In France, Germany, and Austria a compulsory sys- tem of physical training is in' force in all educational institutions, both civil and mili- tary, and has had an influence upon the national physical development. The sol- dier, after his enrollment, continues a course of physical training with which as a boy and youth he has become familiar, and the main features of which still remain the essentials of his military education. Among the schools of England, as in our own, no special gymnastic training is officially re- quired. The taking of proper exercise is left largely to the individual, much to his physical disadvantage when compared with the corresponding classes in the countries just named, and 'to the detriment of the military service of which he may ultimately become a part. In 1873 the French Government made physical training compulsory in all schools, and since that time immense improvement has been made in the development of the French. As in the other Continental armies, swimming is taught at all stations IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OP CHECKING IT 79 where the facilities exist. Some of the gym- nastic exercises are accompanied by music. In Austria the highest importance is at- tached to the physical education of both soldiers and civilians, it being compulsory. In Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Switzerland physical culture is looked upon as necessary as,' and also as being an aid to, the mental and military education of the individual. AN AMERICAN PRECEDENT FOR COMPULSORY PHYSICAL TRAINING If we resent or fear to follow foreign exam- ple, our impulse need not come from abroad : In 1790, President Washington transmitted to the First Senate of the United States an elaborate scheme prepared by General Henry Knox, then Secretary of War, for the military training of all men over- eighteen and under sixty. The youth of eighteen, nineteen, and twenty years were to receive their military education in annual camps of discipline to be formed in each State, and a military prerequisition was proposed as a right to vote. This plan failed of adoption, as did also the following recommendation, that was urged in the national House of Representatives in 1817 and 1819, "that a corps of military instructors should be formed to attend to the gymnastic and elementary part of instruction in every school in the United States." * * United States Education Report, 1897-98, p. 553. 80 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR Noah Webster seems to have been the first American of note to propose the insti- tution of a college course of physical train- ing. In 1820 he declared that it should be "the 'buzziness' of young persons to assist nature and strengthen the growing frame by athletic exercise." * The Round Hill School at Northampton, Massachusetts, under George Bancroft, in 1823, was "the first in the new continent to connect gymnastics with a purely literary establishment." f The Boston gymnasium, opened in the Washington Gardens, October 3, 1826, with Dr. Follen as its principal instructor, seems to have been the first public gymnasium of any note in America. Gymnastic grounds were established at Yale in 1826, and at Williams, Amherst, and Brown in 1827. Between 1830 and 1860 no general re- vival of interest in school or college ath- letics occurred. * United States Education Report, 1897-98, p. 552. t The same, p. 554. IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 81 The study of physiology and an enthu- siasm for its benefits which appeared in the first half of the nineteenth century, is largely responsible for the renewal of in- terest in gymnastics just before the war. Modern athletics in America were not pro- duced by the Civil War, and are not the fruit of militarism. It may, however, re- quire military defeat to spur us to com- pulsory physical training, as was the case with Germany, Austria, and France. The gymnastic revival in America has taken place in our own times. "Tom Brown's School-Days" and "Tom Brown at Oxford" stimulated it in the later 60's. Dio Lewis and Dr. Winship gave it elo- quent publicity and system. Although in Boston there is a normal training-school for physical training where the Swedish system is taught, although calisthenics are used in most schools to ease the physical strain of sitting for hours on school seats and to correct harmful positions, there is in America no serious consideration of physical training as a part of the educational system. 82 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR THE ECONOMIC ADVANTAGE OF BETTER PHYSICAL TRAINING When a national system of compulsory physical education is advocated, the friends of such a plan will be asked to prove that it has economic value. This is easily shown. An increase of five per cent, in the economic value of working-men in Germany under fifty years of age would pay for the standing army. In England many men who have had army training are paid twenty-five per cent, more than current wages in their trades. Physical betterment is already recognized as a financial asset. If we may reckon the wage-earners as a third of our population, and suppose them to earn a dollar and a half a day for three hundred days, the value to the country of extending their working careers by only one year would be $12,000,000,000. The actual fig- ures are probably much higher. Besides this possible increase of wealth due to better health, there is the further possible annual savings in doctors' bills, medicine, etc., of $460,000,000, a very tidy sum. Counting the loss of wages for sickness at $500,000,000, IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 83 the total annual bill for sickness is $960,- 000,000. Let us put some of our 3,000,000 sick people permanently on their feet! The economic effect of physical educa- tion should be to endow every person with wealth-producing ability. In the United States, in 1890, each member of the popu- lation was credited with the production of new wealth values to the amount of fifty- one and a half cents a day. How can these figures be raised still higher? While inven- tion and machinery enter largely into the answer of this question, the effectiveness of every worker is a great factor. His mental efficiency, moreover, furthers invention and the use of machinery. Whatever contrib- utes, then, to strength of mind and body increases the production of wealth. Phys- ical health and strength, directly and indirect- ly, are prime factors in national economics. Physical culture for military service, al- though undertaken in maturity, is of so large advantage that it reacts beneficially upon the productive energies of society. In the training of recruits it is found that "the greatest of all changes was the change 84 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR in bodily activity, dexterity, presence of mind, an endurance of fatigue; a change a hundredfold more impressive than any other." A man's economic value to-day depends with fresh illustration upon his physical powers. Some railway corporations will not tolerate cigarette-smoking, and some New York banks forbid the use of alcohol among their employees, on or off duty. The tests of eyesight for color-blindness have become in our generation a require- ment of great services. Corporations, too, are getting rid of old men and try to em- ploy no one over forty years of age. One reason for child labor is the early de- crepitude of parents among laboring popu- lations. Physical betterment would pre- serve the vigor of the average working-man beyond early middle life; would free him from need of stimulants; would extend the period during which he could support him- self and educate his family; would increase the ability of wage-earners to provide for old age; and would enlarge the wealth- producing population. IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 85 The enormous increase of late in auto- matic machinery will throw thousands of mechanics into the ranks of unskilled labor, there being no longer demand for' their skill. The only hope for these men is to lift themselves and their children by educa- tion and physical force to the class of brain workers and superintendents. MORAL ADVANTAGES OF BETTER PHYSICAL TRAINING A great deal of work that we, in our debilitated and nervous generation, throw upon the moral nature of man ought to be left to the physical nature. We have over- burdened the moral and have asked alto- gether too many tasks of it; we not only expect it to stand the stress of great crises and to develop higher spiritual traits, but also to be constantly on duty to drag the erring individual away from casual lapses. A normal body should do this. Physical exercise, it is well known, di- minishes sexuality. Talcott Williams, of Philadelphia, investigated the morality of students of the University of Pennsylvania. 86 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR Upon the testimony of the physicians at the University, he discovered student . mo- rality to be incredibly higher than it was twenty years ago. The reason assigned was the attention almost universally given by students to athletics. The same con- nection between morality and athletics is recognized in the leading American uni- versities. At Elmira Reformatory the introduction of athletic exercise among the prisoners produced astonishing results, not only in the physique, but the behavior and moral attitude of the men.* To judge from photographs of incoming prisoners (naked), much of their moral delinquency might have been due to their physical plight. Health is the best mentor; a sick, de- vitalized man is restlessly driven to all sorts of substitutes for strength, to drink, to pleasure, to passion — in fact, to any excitement that momentarily stimulates his energies. Health has no need of narcotics and will hold a man to a proper and rea- * New York State Reformatory at Elmira. Seventeenth Year-Book, pages P' and following. IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 87 sonable manner of life. To ask the will to keep a neurotic out of mischief is to post- pone physical improvement and hasten a final catastrophe. We have no business to be asking for the commanding officer when his orderly can answer our questions. The problem of crime is simplified by compulsory physical training. "Lack of exercise," said Miss Agnes M. Hayes, of Public School No. 35, "is the chief cause of thieving. If the boys had more play- ground, more air and sunshine, they would not gamble, and it is gambling that leads to stealing. They would rather play foot- ball than get down in a cramped position to play craps." Summer is the season of crime. Law- breaking, like a noxious plant, flourishes with the sun; even among school children, unruliness increases with the temperature. There are twice as many bad boys as usual when the temperature ranges between 80 and 90, and three times as many when the thermometer soars still higher. Crime, im- morality, and suicide hold high carnival in June, July, and August. If the children 88 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR who swarm the tenement-houses could live during the summer in the country, under a splendid physical regimen, not only would much actual law-breaking be pre- vented, but incipient tendencies toward crime averted. The thought of sunny, quiet, fertile fields has delivered sick minds from despondency and has even dissuaded them from des- perate acts. What would the actual enjoy- ment of the country do ? MENTAL ADVANTAGES OF IMPROVED PHYSIQUE To-day we can trace physical advantage very far. Professor Mosso, of Turin Uni- versity, says: * We attain in training a maximum of intensity, and we keep ourselves, not for an instant only, at the cul- minant point of physical force, but even when the muscles have returned to their natural size after long rest, even for months the beneficent effect of exercise remains. This benefit is largely in the storage of nervous strength. Charles Mercier, the English alienist, points out that, as states * The Theory and Practise of Military Hygiene, by E, L. Munson, p. 400. IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 89 of mind are but the obverse side, the shadows, of nervous processes, whatever has effect upon the nervous processes has effect on the mental states. Memory, for instance, is on the bodily side the re- viviscence of a physical process that has previously been active. The physical basis of memory is only too apparent to most of us, who can remember better in the morning than in the evening, better before eating than after, better after exer- cise than before. Physical exercise is used to-day by alienists as a means of mental development. A few muscular movements, tried over and over again, may constitute the first steps of a progressive education and the starting-point of mental improve- ment. Mental and physical power are normally found together. "The children who make the best progress in their studies are on the average larger in girth of chest and width of head than children whose progress is less satisfactory." * * See also Prof. Dudley A. Sargent's The Physique of Scholars, Athletes, and the Average Student. 90 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR PHYSICAL TRAINING AS A HYGIENIC PRECAUTION Besides economic and moral advantage from improved national physique, there would also be the blessings individual to any one who has added to his health and to his intelligence. Physical buoyancy, the feeling of worth and serviceableness, goes far to transform life from a treadmill into a delightful op- portunity. The brain is directly benefited by muscular exercise and cleared of hu- mors and freakiness. Length of days, that Biblical blessing, more likely now to be enjoyed than ever before, is directly fostered by physical culture. The habit of breathing properly is a great factor in longevity, and a roomy thorax and strong heart are no mean allies in resisting invasion by disease. When the latter has actually gained a foothold a few additional cubic inches of respiratory capacity or a small reserve of disciplined cardiac power may suffice to turn the scales in pneumonia or typhoid fever. * America can show twice as many physi- cians to population as Great Britain, and * The Theory and Practise of Military Hygiene, by E. L. Munson, p. 38. IN AMERICA AND ONE WAY OF CHECKING IT 91 four times as many as Germany.* We have seventy times as many doctors in proportion to the genera] population as physical directors. We permit this disparity on the theory, perhaps, that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Prevention needs more numerical representation. If twelve million school children in the United States are physically defective, and nearly two million children (between ages of ten and fifteen) are at work, and 70 per cent, of our boys between 16 and 18 years of age, of the educated classes, have lateral cur- vature of the spine, the extent of physical deterioration is sufficiently alarming to arouse attention and stir us to means of improve- ment. Would not the following program help ? 1. An effective system of physical educa- tion to be a recognized part of our public- school system. By "effective" I mean one that does for a boy, as far as his physique is susceptible, what the United States Army setting-up exercises do for a recruit. The precise system to be established by experts. * Adolescence, I, p. 197. 92 PHYSICAL DETERIORATION AMONG THE POOR 2. Athletic exercises in schools, using gymnasiums, baths, etc. 3. Open-air exercises and sports under official supervision. 4. Summer camps, free of cost and com- pulsory in attendance, for boys of school age- 5. A noon-day meal for poor children in elementary and high schools. Divorce and the Family* A HUMAN institution is too sacred a thing to trifle with. It is a product not only of thought but of mighty human effort. Brains have wearied, nerves have suffered, hearts have bled, lives have been laid down to bring into existence the social, political, and religious forms under which we live. Any critic, therefore, of a fundamental institution must walk softly lest he unwit- tingly and ignorantly help to destroy what martyrs have died to produce. THE FAMILY, NOT THE INDIVIDUAL, IS THE SOCIAL UNIT Of all human institutions the family is the most sacred. That group revolving around the two equal foci, man and wife, represents in the social organism what the cell represents in animal and * Alnslii's Magaxint, April, 1902. 98 94 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY vegetable tissue. It is the unit of social construction and wellbeing. The very fix- ity of the family in a way proves its pre- ciousness. All other institutions disclose some point at which it seems likely they will blossom into a higher development. The family discloses no such node out of which a higher development is to be looked for. It is easier to believe that republics will develop into socialistic states than it is to believe that the family has some new description. The family is the unit of social life, and there are reasons to think that it always has been. The tribe never usurped the position of the family toward the birth and education of children. "Communal marriage," while it has oc- curred, does not seem to have been the normal direction of human development, or to have been a state of evolution through which all mankind has passed. The family is therefore the source of social development. More than that, the higher spiritual traits of human nature are produced by the intenser experiences, the DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY 9.5 self-sacrificing labors and the deeper knowl- edge of the soul that have come to men and women in family relations. When we say that the family is the center of social de- velopment and of spiritual growth, we have practically said that it is the center of individual happiness. THE CHURCH THE DEFENDER OF THE FAMILY The Christian Church, therefore, has been a defender of the permanence of mar- riage relation. By a curious logic, celibacy was exalted to the highest place; but mar- riage once entered upon, was thought to merit praise as it was enduring. Before the Christian era, among the Greeks — es- pecially the Athenians — and among the Teutons, divorce often occurred. In the Rome of Christ's time it had become a fashionable usage; but as soon as the re- ligion of Jesus controlled the empire, the right of a husband to divorce his wife was limited by law. Marriage was exalted into a sacrament. Finally the Council of Trent destroyed the legal possibilities of divorce. 96 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY In Spain, Portugal, and Italy, while the husband can demand judicial separation, he cannot secure a divorce. In France, however, divorce was re-established in 1884. In all Protestant countries divorce, of course, is allowed. AMERICAN VIEW OF MARRIAGE HAS CHANGED A London schoolboy, in an examination paper on Greek history, wrote: "As to mar- riage among the Greeks, it was the custom for one man to marry one wife, and that is what is called monotony." Many of our contemporaries seem to be making this boy's mistake in confusing monogamy and mo- notony. The number of divorces in Amer- ica has become so large, and the method of securing them in many cases so frivolous, that there is a general alarm. Legislatures are petitioned to pass stricter laws. Pope Leo XIII publicly deplored American lax- ity, and offered up prayer that Italy might not be poisoned with the virus of this Amer- ican immorality. Great Protestant churches in their conventions and councils have held DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY 97 warm debates, to the end that more strin- gent regulation might be imposed upon their clergy, so as to prohibit the marriage of divorced persons. There is no doubt that the American view of marriage has undergone a change. The great decrease in the birth rate in native families shows this. A condition that has been considered peculiar to France and a subject of condemnation is now dis- covered to be a tendency in Puritan Massa- chusetts. Yes, in the United States there has been a great change in family stability. Washington, writing to the Marquis de Chastellux in 1788, could say: "Now you are well served for coming to fight in favor of the American rebels, all the way across the Atlantic ocean, by catching that terrible contagion, domestic felicity, which, like the small pox or the plague, a man can have only once in his life, because it commonly lasts him (at least, with us in America; I know not how you manage these things in France) for his whole lifetime." Would the Father of his Country have written such a gay and confident little note of congratu- 98 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY lation had he foreseen the million failures of "domestic felicity" in his country a hun- dred years later ? * Not the question of divorce alone, but the whole conception of marriage, has changed in America. For instance, clergymen are constantly asked by brides not to use the word "obey" in the vow they make. Their husbands-to-be laugh and say, "Of course not — leave out that 'obey.' If we cannot get along without the exercise of authority we cannot get along at all." Many thoughtful men who regard the family as the most sacred of human insti- tutions see that the day of authority as the anchor of family life has passed. But they do not know what next. If we study the facts we shall come to a view consistent with human progress, and we can leave to the power that created the facts the re- sponsibility for the future. The present paper wishes to be a small contribution to this study of facts. It does not prophesy nor advise. It notes tendencies, and is * Between 1887 and 1906 there were in the United States 945.625 divorces. DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY especially interested in the deeper causes of divorce, those that may be called economic, social, psychological, and spiritual. DIVORCE IS MORE COMMON AMONG THE RICH THAN THE POOR The increase of divorce, we have been told, keeps pace with the increase of wealth. Divorce is a noxious growth accompanying the social decay that riches induce. To en- force this argument, it has been pointed out that during the decline of the Roman Em- pire divorce was easy and much resorted to. Divorce, it is true, is rare among the working classes. The reasons, however, are economic rather than moral. The poor man shuns the divorce court not because he is better than the rich man, but because he is poor and of the working class. He lacks money and does not know the ropes. Japan furnishes us another illustration of the little relation that exists between wealth and divorce. In that land, where a man can divorce his wife for disobedience or jealousy, or talking too much, it is the poor oftener than the rich who seek divorce. 100 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY Here again the reason is not moral, but economic. The rich man can endure his wife by adding a concubine to his house- hold. The poor man cannot afford such extra expense. Marriage is a natural and simple re- lationship among working people. The "Bachelor Maid" is a nondescript, not yet produced among the poor. Marriage to them is a human fact like birth and death, and is almost as inevitable; it is not to be discussed or analyzed, but is to be ac- cepted. Among the poor, just as among many lower races, to be unmarried is a reproach. The humorous allusions to the bachelor and to the spinster are survivals from savage times still found in small com- munities, among the poor and among the uneducated. The poor do not expect of marriage so much as the rich expect. The simpler sat- isfactions of family life are sufficient for them. They obey the human instinct, and give each other help, comfort, and compan- ionship. But the deeper bonds of mental sympathy, of spiritual relation, of wide DIVORCE AND THE FAMIIA 101 social serviceableness, they rarely crave or develop. Husband and wife are of greater mu- tual help among working people than among the rich. The wife keeps house — she is cook, chambermaid, nurserymaid — and, in addition, often earns a substantial part of the family income. The poor man needs his wife, and the poor woman needs her husband, in a sense little understood among the rich. The mansion of Dives runs very well when his wife is away from home, as he has frequent opportunity of learning. Lazarus, if he has a home, might as well lock it up unless his wife is with him. Except when she goes to the hos- pital, she is under his roof. A rich woman cannot have the sense of dependence upon her husband's daily labor that the poor woman has, in whose hands, as treasurer of the family, her husband deposits his " pay envelope." We must remember also that there is no large social circle for the poor to enjoy. The women see something of each other, but nothing of men. They might almost 102 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY be members of a harem, so far as their knowledge of mankind is derived from other men than their husbands. The men have no female society except their wives. Husband and wife, therefore, are abso- lutely everything to each other. A rich man has dozens of friends among women whom he may call upon and associate with. His wife in like manner has scores of friends among men. The case of David and Uriah the Hittite, the one with everything he could desire, the other with only a ewe lamb, still represents the vast difference be- tween the rich and the poor in the marriage relation. The working classes are more used to patient endurance than are the rich. The very fact of poverty is often a proof of passivity, as wealth is often a proof of domineering energy, which is unwilling to accept an unpleasant condition as a fixed condition. A judge of my acquaintance found that poor women, who, black and blue with bruises, to save their lives had their hus- bands arrested, were almost always un- DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY 103 willing, when the case came to trial, to appear against the man who had nearly killed them. It was my friend's practise to give such brutes three months in jail, whether their wives testified against them or not. What woman in the upper classes would endure such treatment ? At any rate, working people are more submissive than the rich. Consequently, when diffi- culties arise between a poor man and his wife, they do not think of breaking their relationship, but of bearing the new bur- den. The institution holds them together, for is it not a part of the mysterious but strong system under which they live ? Children are desired by the poor not only to satisfy natural affection and to complete the family circle, but because they are a source of income, and can eventually provide for their parents' old age. It is no uncommon thing in cotton-spinning dis- tricts to see middle-aged men throw up their jobs and spend their days in idleness, supported by the wages of their children, which they receive quite as naturally as a business man who has retired on a com- 104 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY petence would receive his interest and dividends. I have been shocked many times at the funeral of a child in a tene- ment house to hear the sobbing mother with her apron at her eyes say, "Yes, what bad luck! how hard it is on us! Tom is taken away just as he was beginning to earn something for us." Such a glimpse into the sordid heart of human sorrow shows us tragically that spiritual develop- ment among the very poor must depend upon economic reform. Desertion, not divorce, is the recourse of the poor. Bigamy is the crime of the working classes more than of the rich. I have never personally known a divorced person in the working classes. I have, however, known countless cases of bigamy. There is another side to this recourse of the poor to bigamy as a release from mari- tal unhappiness. The inconspicuous lives of the poor protect them. Flight from Europe to America, or from our Eastern states to the West, is sufficient to change a working man's world. He cannot often be followed — his family has no money for long DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY 105 journeys. He is not important enough to become the subject of newspaper notices. He really lives in a world out of sight, be- low the world of free travel, or interna- tional acquaintances and of the world's daily news. The fact I have just mentioned is in- structive. For it shows that there is not a superior morality among the poor, but that the rules of the game are not understood or observed. They will not go through the forms of legal release when they cannot endure legal ties. They take matters into their own hands and break the rules like children. All this is interesting to the evolutionist. It is quite as he would ex- pect. The method of the working people in regard to marriage and divorce, instead of exhibiting a higher type of morality, actually exhibits a lower type — it is a survival. DIVORCE AMONG THE RICH It is among the rich — or, at any rate, in classes above the so-called working classes - — that divorce most frequently takes place. 106 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY Opponents of divorce laws not infre- quently urge in support of their position the many marriages and divorces of certain popular actresses. The matrimonial habits of actors and actresses, however, should not be permitted to complicate the modern problem of divorce. The kaleidoscopic al- liances of Miss Blank give the ordinary sober citizen moral vertigo. He usually knows little about her husbands whose very names the footlight lady disdains. The whole transaction has an appearance of unreality and vulgarity that disgusts even average sensibility. Children are guardians of the home. Where there are few or no children in the family, there are many lurking dangers. These dangers are more frequent among the rich than the poor. A church in New York attended by many people of wealth, undertook to have a Sunday-school for the children of these persons because there was some objection made to the regular Sunday- school on the ground that it was filled with poor children from the tenements who were liable to spread contagious diseases. But it DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY 107 was discovered that there were in the whole parish, from homes of wealth, only twenty- nine children of Sunday-school age, and five of these were in one family. Family life suffers incalculably from limitation of its numbers. The maternal instinct, even in a wife who believes she lacks it, is a restless force that leads to many dangerous quests and is often responsible for conjugal alienation. But not only is the natural hunger of a woman's nature satisfied by children. In taking care of them, if she will be truly a mother, she has a soothing and engrossing occupation. Moreover, when a strain comes between her husband and herself, she is strong in the strength of her children. Their companionship and their inspiration help her to stand firm and to be patient and, without authority or love, to do what she considers her duty. The limitation of the family is a ques- tion too serious for more than passing reference. There is, however, one cause of it among women of fashion that is de- plorable. Vanity often prevents a woman 108 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY from wanting children. She cannot go about freely if she is to become a mother, nor can she for a couple of years at a time wear her most shapely clothes. Another infelicity of married life that leads to divorce is inequality of age. This is a more subtle and powerful dissolvent than is usually believed. Shakespeare's seven ages of man have always been taken figuratively. But are they not stern realities, almost as distinct as geological periods ? There are physical, mental, moral, and gen- eral temperamental differences that build Chinese walls around childhood, youth, middle life, and old age. A sympathy suffi- cient for marriage is rare with great differ- ence in age. Crabbed age and youth cannot live together. Women of the upper classes have too much leisure, and often their husbands have too much business. In New York a date is sometimes assigned to new social phases favorable to divorce. There was a time a score of years ago when new fortunes had freed the sons of their possessors from the need of going into business and left DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY 109 gilded youth uptown all day, with time and money on their hands, looking for amuse- ment. The idle young man naturally found diversion with the equally idle young woman whose husband had to go to his office. The influence of music upon women of the upper classes I have sometimes thought to be a very positive quantity in describing their family relation. The great art of to- day is music. There is no city in the world where more music can be heard than in New York. Concerts, private musicales, the opera, numberless daily opportunities are given women of listening to this in- tensest language of emotion. Afternoon after afternoon audiences of women sit listening to popular singers. Love songs are mostly what they hear. They are con- tinually under the influence of a sentiment which, if it be true, is a characteristic of youth, of passion, of exceptional circum- stances, or of unattained longing. This sentiment, sung ad nauseam, is not that feeling which gives strength or permanence to marriage, or honor and reverence to old 110 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY age. Yet, these audiences are filled with a theory of love which they are apt to exact from the busy men, their husbands whom they find waiting for them on their return home. Plato said, "When the modes of music change morals change," and I am sure that the appeal and influence of much of the music women listen to in New York is unhealthy, unreal, and disturbing. Mr. Howells once said to me, "The appeal of some music is infamous." SOME OTHER CAUSES OF DIVORCE There is to-day too widespread a desire for mere sensation. This mood snatches at physical pleasure carelessly and ruthlessly. It has no faith in spiritual pleasures, or it does not know what spirit- uality is. Men and women rush from pleasure to pleasure more for distraction than for enjoyment. This mood reverences no sanctities and can even laugh at decencies. The worst of a card-playing craze, for instance, is that it prevents its votaries from thinking. But this is precisely why many of them play. DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY 111 The freer habits of life permitted to men before marriage are a very fertile cause of family disunion. A pleasure-wearied man and a fresh girl are not in the same spiritual class. Her ideals and his own, even their senses are so different, as often to lead to disaster. The manager of a house of mercy told me that the unfortunate young women under his care declare that their class is largely sustained by married men. In New York there are 100,000 such women. A spiritual defilement, destructive of mar- riage, is found in these facts, for which men are almost entirely responsible. Besides these causes there are many others too personal in their nature to be broached even in as frank discussion of facts as this paper has undertaken. An honest man, a church member, the secre- tary of a legislative committee in a state where divorce proceedings were entrusted to the legislature, told me that he had heard a thousand divorce cases. In almost every case, as he heard it fully and freely set before his committee, there seemed to be 112 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY a just ground for divorce. He said, how- ever, that many of the true causes of di- vorce were never published in newspapers. The newspaper-reading public consequently often estimated the grounds of divorce to be more frivolous than they really were. Many women (and two-thirds of the di- vorces in the United States are granted to women) petition for divorce on less offen- sive grounds than they might in law set forth. They do this to protect their name and their children, and to create as little publicity as possible. woman's suffrage and divorce The woman's movement, so called, is on the side of liberal divorce. This move- ment, generally interpreted as a struggle for female suffrage, is in reality an effort for industrial independence. The ballot is only a weapon. Women wish to control their own lives by being able to earn their own living on equal terms. But with eco- nomic freedom woman obtains an inde- pendence of masculine support that makes her demand more liberal marriage laws. DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY 113 THE MEDIAEVAL AND MODEEN BASIS OF DIVORCE The Roman Church dealt with divorce on an individualistic basis. If a divorced person remarried he committed mortal sin, and by so doing imperilled the salvation of his soul. His soul's danger was the final argument against divorce. In England after the Reformation this Roman view continued somewhat in force. But grad- ually the Protestant position more generally prevailed. The Protestant view of divorce was also based on individualism, but of a different sort. The right of private judg- ment and the greater freedom of indi- vidual action was the source of Protestant doctrine. Not until the last thirty years has the family been discovered to be the social unit and the institution whose health and preservation must be aimed at in all marriage laws. From this historical angle we can see that had the Protestant Epis- copal Church succeeded in changing its Canon, as was attempted, so as to prevent the remarriage by its clergy of any divorced person, it would have returned to the Latin 114 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY and. mediaeval position. It would, more- over, have placed itself on record in a way the English Church has never done. Its final revision was a compromise which per- mitted the re-marriage of the " innocent party" in a suit on scriptural grounds, but forbade it to all other divorced persons.* This ruling works serious injustice, es- pecially to many women and to some men who, to protect dear names, do not put for- ward the most heinous charges at their command. Nevertheless, the purport of the revision was in a properly conservative direction and was the Church's reproof of re-marriages which were arranged before the divorce was sought, or hastily rushed into after the decree was granted. There is still another spiritual attitude the Church * While this volume was in press the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church again revised its Canon law, which will henceforth prohibit the marriage by the clergy of that church of any divorced person. Such ecclesiastical legislation is a slap at the civil law; is most reactionary and is antagonistic to all liberal movements. There is another side to this matter, not often considered. The minister receives his right to perform a legal marriage serv- ice from the state. For this purpose he is clothed with magis- terial powers. If he refuses to use these, except under con- ditions of his church's choosing, is he not putting himself in a position where, logically, the state might withdraw the privilege it has conferred ? DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY 115 might take, following the suggestion a lady made to me who was brought up in the Roman Communion, " Divorce should be a sacrament," she said, "for it gives a woman back to herself." The well-known Roman Catholic attitude of opposition toward divorce is a good deal mitigated by the very large number of causes that are valid grounds in the eyes of this Church for annulling a marriage. CHILDREN AND DIVORCE If we try to solve the question of divorce by the light of its effect upon the family we immediately discover a number of im- portant truths. The most powerful argu- ment against divorce is its effect upon the children of the families involved. Their distress of mind and their confusion of ideas are so extreme and injurious, as to be almost too high a price for any advantage that parents would receive by the dissolu- tion of their marriage bonds. It must be remembered that the family is not helped, but hurt, by relationships of antagonism among its members such as 116 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY divorce is the public expression of. Chil- dren, it is possible, may be more injured by living in an atmosphere of alienation and ill-will that finds constant expression in humiliating outbursts of temper, than they could be by living with either parent alone. Do we not attach too much importance to the example set young people by di- vorces among persons of fashion ? A girl who would marry hastily because she thought that, if disappointed, she could easily be divorced is a poor creature, too far below the average of American womanhood to be representative. DIVORCE AND REMARRIAGE Why should not separation be sufficient ? If divorce must take place, why remarry ? Because such post-nuptial monasticism is as unlikely to be successful as its ecclesias- tical prototype. In these matters no one knows what a day may bring forth. The calm decision of a time of disenchantment, might become an absurd impossibility when the enchanting personality appears. I have heard very excellent women maintain that DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY 117 all marriages ought to be second marriages. Apparently they believe that their sex can greatly profit by experience and are not likely to make the same mistake twice. If this is true, such chastened homes ought to be good homes. There is a proverb that should be remem- bered in any discussion of the question of divorce and remarriage. "Nature loves children." We can go further and say that nature loves the best children that possibly can be born. Progress is to be sought quite as much in perfecting hu- manity as in perfecting human institutions. In fact, a finer race would necessarily pro- duce better institutions than at present exist. For men and women who are not truly one in spirit to become parents, or to be kept together, is certainly repugnant to the best interests of humanity. I am not pleading in favor of lax individualism, but in favor of social and national well being. Countless men and women open to clergy- men the difficulties of their lives, which can be seen were created before they were born by the ill-assorted and loveless marriages of 118 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY their parents. Melancholy, pessimism, rest- lessness, unsocial antipathy, moral flabbi- ness, are built into some men and women prenatally. Religion finds itself almost hopeless before temperaments and mental attitudes that are inheritances, not from diseased or vicious parents, but from par- ents whose whole attitude toward each other was wrong. When we perceive these bad birth gifts that distort life, and that often cause as great domestic unhappiness as immoralities and misfortunes, can we doubt that what we rather vaguely call in- compatibility is in the sight of God an ap- proved ground for divorce? PRAYER BOOK AND DIVORCE It is often asked how the marriage serv- ice of the Protestant Episcopal Church can be consistent with divorce when it con- tains the sentence, "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder." It should be noticed, however, that this phrase is not a public declaration to the congregation and witnesses of the wed- ding, but is a statement to the bridegroom. DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY 119 A Hebrew, by his own decree, could di- vorce his wife. In the marriage service just before "Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder," comes the prayer which cites the ideal Hebrew marriage between Isaac and Rebecca "who lived faithfully together" — a monogamic ex- ample rare in the Old Testament. The bridegroom is then addressed with an eye to the ancient Hebrew custom of divorce, and reminded that a union of lives which meets God's approval and which God has con- summated, must not be broken by his pri- vate action. The man must not arbitrarily put away his wife. Even if the word man in this sentence were a general term and were interpreted to mean the civil courts, it is altogether contrary to Protestant interpretation to suppose any antagonism between the civil law and the church. In fact, even the pro- posed legislation on marriage and divorce, Canon 14, Section 1, reads, "It is the duty of the ministers of this church to conform to the law of the civil authority relating to marriage." That is to say, even the ex- 120 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY treme party assert the supremacy of civil law for the church and its clergy. If, there- fore, "whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder" refers to a civil court, it could not mean that the church denied the right of the court to grant divorce or that in so doing the law of man and the law of God were at cross purposes. This was the interpretation of the mar- riage service in the Book of Common Prayer given me by the late Rev. Dr. William R. Huntington, the leading liturgical student of his church in his time. The future, I fancy, will demand less archaic and de- batable expressions in solemn ceremonies. WHAT DOES OUR STUDY OF THE FACTS OF DIVORCE TEACH US ? The facts we have noted prove that di- vorce is an incident in a much larger question — what is true marriage ? We have run through the facts, and admit their reality. But they are a poor lot of facts. They do not seem to be necessary con- stituents of marriage. Improvement in human character could remove most of DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY 121 them. Better men and women could make a success of marriage with no change in the institution. They would not limit their families, they would not make mercenary or convenient alliances, they would not wed out of their age class, they would keep themselves pure before marriage, they would cultivate manners and traits of char- acter calculated to hold love which once had been given. In short, the facts of human relationship which lead to divorce do not discredit the institution of marriage, but they impeach our present achievements in character. Marriage as an institution would be all right, "Were but men nobler than they are." Better than any legislation for the fam- ily, is a higher personal ideal of the family and of marriage. But a knowledge of the facts ought to contribute a higher percep- tion of the ideal. Does not any earnest consideration of di- vorce and the family naturally suggest di- rections in which we must expect to see a change of public sentiment and of public action ? Shall we not hold, in the future, 122 DIVORCE AND THE FAMILY higher and more spiritual ideals of " the holy estate of matrimony " ? Shall we not find parents and others, who are in charge of the young, less silent than in the past on the physiology of marriage ? Will not the char- acter of boys and girls be trained definitely with reference to the difficult demands of family life ? And ought we not to expect uniform but liberal divorce laws framed for the entire nation, accompanied by more care- ful procedure in the courts which have jurisdiction over divorce cases. How to Help the Negro* EDMUND BURKE, in his speech on "Conciliation with America," called the matter before Parliament "an awful subject — or there is none so on this side of the grave." The disputants were of the same race and of the same degree of civilization; the renown of the mother was the pride of the child; similar mental habits and traditions made it easy for each to understand the other's views. The colonists numbered only two millions and a half. Yet, finally, the question was settled by war. In America to-day there is a more awful situation. For war, however lamentable, is a method looking to a solution. But, in the United States we have the brutality in- cident to war, as a constant and corrupt force in a peaceful state. Lynchings, burn- ings at the stake, mob violence, and race * Cooper Union y before the Peoples'* Institute, Sunday evening, April ig^igos. 123 124 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO riots, within a republic in a time, of peace, have a dreadful aspect; moreover, these tu- mults point to no solution, only to worse disorders. The contending parties, in this irregular conflict, are in every respect unequal. They are not of the same race; one represents the greatest human ad- vancement, the other a lower stage. They are not of the same civilization; long free- dom has made the mood of one people arrogant; long slavery has bred in the other the weaknesses which accompany servitude. There are five times as many negroes now in America as there were colonists in 1775. They constitute one eighth of our entire population. More threatening con- ditions surround a larger and more com- plicated problem than that which Edmund Burke failed to solve by the methods of peace, yet it is one that every circumstance compels us to solve by the remedies of reason. I shall speak about the negro with a per- sonal liking for him — a liking less usual in the North than in the South. A boy of six- HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 125 teen, in Boston, I became a teacher in a Colored Mission Sunday School. Soon after, a schoolfellow and myself found our- selves in full charge. At an early age I saw beneath the skin and learned to like the race. Neither can I forget that it was Frederick Douglas who, in my college days, first made me say to myself: "This is a great man"; although I had seen and heard and talked with some of those great New Englanders who helped his people to freedom. I knew and admired Booker T. Washington before he became the friend of princes and endowed by philanthropists. I cannot forget verses writted by Paul Dun- bar, or pictures painted by Tanner; the military discipline and the music of Major Moulton, at Hampton; the wise teachings of Professor Carver, at Tuskegee, or the pathetic pleadings and psychologically rich studies of the accomplished Professor Du- bois. I am not likely, therefore, to indulge lightly in generalization at the expense of the black race. The majestic mind that considered a growing estrangement be- tween England and her American colonies 126 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO "awful" also said: "I do not know the method of drawing an indictment against an whole people. I cannot insult and ridicule the feelings of millions of my fel- low creatures." In the second century after this humane and statesmanlike sen- timent was uttered, it would be impossible for a writer to make sweeping assertions about the negroes. If in this paper is found an estimate less flattering than that formerly entertained by their friends, it will at any rate proceed from a well-meant and unprejudiced examination of facts. The whole country seems to be in a stupor of uncertainty as to what ought to be done about the negro. While Southern States pass "grandfather laws," which practically disfranchise him, and Northern States pass more stringent laws for the punishment of sheriffs and other officers derelict in their duties in times of race riots, lynchings, etc., the United States government takes no action, nor is there any concerted or marked public opinion which denotes intelligent and aggressive interest — except in educational reform, pro- HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 127 moted by private incentive and private funds. The country is marking time. Some- thing has stopped advance, but nobody seems to know what. This condition of indecision and inaction can perhaps be helped by a review of underlying ideas. The political theory and the educational theory which, after the war, were applied to the colored people have both failed. Full citizenship and a purely intellectual train- ing have proved beyond their ability. Our laissez faire policy, based on our demo- cratic theory of each man's self-sufficiency, has collapsed. In its recent dealings with the negro, the country has been driven — for the North's acquiescence includes it in the South's reaction — to new political expedients, which have resulted in wide disfranchisement. We need a new philosophy to explain our experience and to justify our expedients. The old philosophy which inspired the most conspicuous event in the history of our negro population, namely, enfranchise- ment, is no longer adequate. 128 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO The friend of the negro, since the foun- dation of our government, has been an idealist, and the theory of an ideal equality which expected a negro to be as valuable a citizen as a white man, to receive as full an education and to mingle as freely in any society, is aghast at present changes of temper and of political status. If we persist in the philosophy which sus- tained the men who, up to the present, have been champions of the colored people, there are only two things for us to do — we must either deny the facts, insist that we have made no mistakes, and then force the South to give back to the negro the suffrage unconditionally, or we must abandon our- selves to discouragement. If we are sus- tained by no better theory of our govern- ment than our fathers had, their glorious deeds will drive us to political oppression, or their splendid faith will in us dwindle to bitterness. The logic of that political phi- losophy which enfranchised the negro leads us to a force-bill or pessimism. But we cannot consider seriously either of these- fatal alternatives. For the benefit of the HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 129 negro himself, for the sake of our institu- tions, and for the encouragement of faith in the possibilities of human nature, we ought to look around for a new philosophy. Nor is it the least advantage of such an inquiry, that only a new point of view can produce for the emancipated race a new crop of effective friends— new Garrisons, Phillipses, Sumners. We may well ask: How came the men who drafted us the XIII, XIV, and XV Amendments, and bestowed freedom, civil rights, and citizenship upon the negro, to be influenced by an inadequate philosophy ? Great subjects suffer sometimes from the virtues of their advocates. Minds that can- not tolerate injustice, and that would make great sacrifices for the meanest of God's creatures, have often a reverence for ideals which they have not for facts. So it has been with champions of the negro. Ideals, however, have a birthplace, and their im- portance, even when they have exercised vast influence, may be modified in our eyes when we discover their origin. If we can learn the source of the ideas of the 130 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO framers of the great Amendments, we may discover the reason of the failure of these ideas to explain recent facts — perhaps, too, we may discover our needed new philosophy. Two streams of influence are seen in the political institutions of the United States: one flows from the Declaration of Independence, the other from the Consti- tution. Most Americans think these two streams identical — the upper and lower course of the same current; but they are mistaken. The Declaration was a philo- sophic defense of liberty; the Constitution a description of liberties actually acquired, not alone by the fortunes of war, but by the political evolution of the English peo- ple through a thousand years. One was based on "natural rights"; the other on rights already secured: one on the "in- herent prerogatives of human nature," the other upon hard-won and practical priv- ileges. In short, one was abstract, the other concrete. The immediate source of the philosophic ideas spread by Jefferson upon the Declara- HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 131 tion of Independence is uncertain. He protested that during the eighteen days he was composing it he had no books. This may have been the case. The style of the Declaration, and some of the phrases, are those of a set of resolutions he previously wrote for the Virginia State Convention and afterward published in a pamphlet entitled "A Summary View of the Rights of British America." Richard Henry Lee, his colleague, from Virginia, charged him with copying from Locke's Treatise on Civil Government. The sentiments expressed in the Declara- tion were at the time in the air, and were, no doubt, "the commonplace of congres- sional rhetoric." They were an importa- tion, it is most likely, from the French, who for at least a quarter of a century had manufactured revolutionary ideas for the world. These ideas, curiously enough, were not native to France, but had come in with the study of English philosophy intro- duced by Montesquieu. John Locke, who had become, in this way, the chief philo- sophic influence in France, maintained that 132 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO what appeared in mind appeared first in sense. This point of view founded modern materialism and should have led to a purely experimental politics. The Parisian purveyors of ideas during the middle of the eighteenth century, how- ever, were less concerned with Locke's philosophic conceptions than with his al- most communistic economic beliefs. For Locke contended that morality was an exact science, subject to rational study. "Where there is no property," said Locke, "there is no injustice." His views of property became an important factor in the theorizing of the encyclopedists. The Abbe" Moully, in his Code de la Nature, developed from Locke's theories a pure communism. Helvetius modified this com- munistic idea by advocating, not the abo- lition of property, but the rendering of it possible for everyone to secure property. He also decried the exploitation of labor and urged a seven or eight-hour working day. Diderot asserted that the poor should be a chief concern of the State. Rousseau, catching an idea from a talk with Diderot, HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 133 wrote an essay on the relation of civilization to morals: "Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts," and soon was in the full swing of a "return to nature" which had little re- course to Locke, or to facts, to reason, or to nature; but which exercised a wider in- fluence than his friend Diderot's soberer and less sentimental philosophy. This little review of the history of phi- losophy in France two centuries ago con- cerns us because Rousseau's "return to nature," with all its leveling of titles, priv- ileges, and native differences, was the philosophy of our Declaration of Inde- pendence, as well as of the French Revolu- tion. His equality was a level equality. Voltaire said: "La liberie consiste a ne dependre que des lois." Not an absolute equality, but only an equality before the law, was considered possible by the Patriarch of Ferney. But Jefferson, following Rous- seau's view of absolute equality, declared: "If it be possible to be certainly conscious of anything, I am conscious of no dif- ference in writing to the highest and lowest being on earth." 134 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO What Locke did for the mind, Rousseau undertook to do for society and for na- tions. One treated the mind, the other the State, as blank paper; one rejected mental intuitions, the other divine ordi- nances. Rousseau consequently discarded the established views which upheld royalty and privilege. He banished the current political and social principles that, sup- ported the existing order — the "eternal verities" to which conservatism points for authority. Such a theory, for instance, as the divine right of kings, was to Rousseau as false as "innate ideas" were to Locke. Upon the mind's tabula rasa, its clean slate, the English philosopher saw all our thoughts and faculties, built by experience. Upon the clear field of a "return to nature" the French writer saw society reconstructed by certain admirable sentiments. Locke's philosophy, in the hands of Rousseau, did not lead to the study of facts, but to the spinning of new theories, and, consequently, in its social applica- tion, missed the goal. It eliminated the grande dame and grand seigneur as not HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 135 according to nature, but substituted even more advanced products of civilization as being the very badge and sign of "nature." It proclaimed "liberty, equality, and fra- ternity" as though these high privileges and spiritual relationships were found in a state of nature and were not the hard-won prizes of human progress away from na- ture. In fact, Rousseau's state of nature was as near the truth as Watteau's aristo- cratic shepherdesses and the princely play at farming by the Court of Versailles. Rousseau saw the golden age in the dim past, where we see the age of tooth and talon; consequently his political idealism took little account of history, for history in his opinion revealed not nature, but man's gloss; not truth, but laws and religions of man's selfish, deceitful devising. You will begin to say that John Locke and Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau, and Jefferson are a far cry from our negro question. But, I am trying to make it plain that our mistakes in dealing with the negro were prepared for us a century or so before we made them, and that they 136 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO were the result of a bad philosophy. For it was the abstraction and sentiment of the Declaration that won an emancipated race their citizenship. They were not in the schooled position of the colonists of 1789, who in the Constitution only defined rights that already existed among Englishmen. Luckily, our national existence was not founded upon the Declaration of Inde- pendence; not upon any theory of rights, but upon the fact of rights which the Anglo-Saxon race had secured in all sorts of ways, in a millennium of development. These rights had come slowly in a process which has not yet ended. The religious, political, and class struggles of old England had contributed to produce the English- man's rights and to train him to enjoy them. The Constitution of the United States was founded, not upon a philosophy of government, but upon the facts of rights already in force among Anglo-Saxon peo- ple. It did not, like the Declaration, "consult our invention and reject our experience." The whites in the United States derive their rights through the Eng- HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 137 lish stream of political experience; the blacks were accorded theirs by statesmen who were carried away by the French stream of philosophic theory. When, in 1866, we came to deal with a race which had no such traditions or po- litical ancestors as the American colonists — to a race sadly near an unpoetic state of nature — "natural rights" were granted, "equality" was affirmed and "fraternity" demanded. Fortunately for us the re- action from so untenable a position is in the hands of an educated democracy. While the armies of the North and South were fighting over secession and slavery, the theologians and scientists were fighting over a new book. Darwin's "Ori- gin of Species," which appeared in 1859, was not immediately a convincing argu- ment even to men of similar studies to its author. Nearly two decades passed before the Darwinian theory was taught in Amer- ican colleges and began to affect the public mind. We are now (in the generation after the war) confronted by our failures, but are also, luckily, at the same time attended 138 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO by a new philosophy that explains our failures and bids us not to be discouraged. The theory of evolution takes for granted human inequality and consequently knows nothing of natural and universal rights. In place of jumps it discloses steps; in place of catastrophies and sudden trans- formation, slow processes. Everything is born out of conditions only a little differ- ent; so improvement is gradual. Evolu- tion, as a standard of time and labor (since it has taken a hundred million years of terrestrial vicissitude to produce us), en- hances the honor in which all institutions that frame man's best efforts should be held. Evolution therefore makes much of history, because history is the record of human progress and its study can prevent waste of time in twice-repeated experiments. Evolution shows us higher organisms and lower organisms; higher institutions and lower institutions; higher races and lower races. It shows the rigidity of racial char- acteristics and that they are the result of stubborn causes — inheritance, environ- ment, religion, laws, etc. The theory of HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 139 evolution consequently discloses to us the racial distances between whites and blacks. When I say that the white race is superior to the black race I do not mean to imply that there is nothing beyond the present attainment of the white race. In numerous respects our race is barbaric. It is bar- baric in its theory of wealth and of labor (of authority and submission). It is bar- baric in its pleasures so largely sensual; in its thin and limited culture. The white race is a laughably inferior race compared with standards that are not excessively high. But the black race, compared with the white, is biologically inferior. The chief points in which the negro differs from the white races are as fol- lows: (1) Abnormal length of arm; exceeds average Caucasian by about two inches. (2) Protrusion of jaw (index number of facial angle 70, as compared with Cau- casian 82) . (3) Weight of brain as indicated by cranial capacity 35 ounces (highest go- rilla 20 ounces, Europe 45). (4) Thick skull, weak lower limbs and protruding heels. (5) Cranial sutures close much 140 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO earlier in negroes than in white races. (6) All social institutions are of a low level. Religion a pure fetishism. The form of government among negroes has never passed beyond the tribal. The theory of evolution does not con- demn the negro race for their physical, mental, social traits; it merely explains them, and in so doing explains, at the same time, white men's prejudices. When Southerners swear they will not be governed by negroes, are they not obeying this true racial instinct of historical superiority ? Evolution reveals nature herself behind the unwillingness of the white race to mix its blood, and so to waste an advantage gained by centuries of painful development. The fear of intermarriages, which we find so fiercely expressed in the South to-day, gave birth in India to "caste," at the time when the light skin Aryans came over the Himalayas and conquered the dark skin races then inhabiting Hindoostan. Caste was a law against intermarriage, like the laws in the South to-day, to prevent the deterioration of white blood. Caste was HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 141 fixed by religious regulation in order that a most holy and awful authority might forbid the bans of matrimony between Aryan and Dravidian. When the Southerner denies social equal- ity to the negro, he does not do it because he is a snob or a hater of the black man. He denies social equality because it would be a step toward marriage and race amal- gamation. So the South gives the colored man no chance in that direction and is even angry with a popular President when he invites the leader of the black race to his table. Englishmen who in their own country, where there are few black men, laugh scornfully at our theory of political equal- ity coupled with a practise of social in- equality, when confronted, as in India, by millions of dark skins, develop some of the anxieties and customs which previously they condemned. But, after all, is not race self-preservation a legitimate reason why a more highly developed organism, in an evolutionary scale, should refuse to throw away its advantages ? 142 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO Nature itself seems to put a bar between the permanent union through marriage of the white and black races by weakening the fecundity of such unions. An attempt at a settlement of racial problems between Caucasian and negro by marriage would result in "race suicide." Here again, is not the instinct in both races against the mixture of blood a normal instinct of self- preservation ? On the wall of my library hangs a trophy of Filipino weapons. There is the bolo, looking like a great cleaver; the kris, with which, in the geographies of our childhood, the Malay ran amuck; the ornamented be- heading sword; the quiver of poisoned ar- rows; the bow with bamboo thongs; the spear. Yet benevolent persons in America have proposed the bearer of those weapons for American citizenship, and for self- government. What, then, is the relation of the higher race to the lower, if it is not an equality that finds expression in social and political privilege ? Has the theory of evolution any moral force? Yes, Professor Royce to the HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 143 contrary, it has the highest. It reveals law, and so says, "Obey or die!" It points to heights of human attainment where fur- ther development is possible only along spiritual lines, by the exercise of altruism and brotherhood, and so says, "Be patient and helpful." The theory of equality left men to shift for themselves; the theory of inequality implies responsibilities and duties. The heights to achieve held in view, the hand held down to help; such is the moral teach- ing of evolution and it is illustrated in the relation of teacher and scholar. If evolu- tion's provoking cry is, "Go up higher!" and if the ascent of our race is conditioned by lower races, then the missionary and pedagogical spirit, in spite of the odium in which it is held, is demanded of an evolu- tionist. A change of political and social relation- ship between whites and blacks, such as can be witnessed in the United States, does not denote a return to virtual negro slav- ery. A reaction from extreme democracy is taking place, but it is not back to abso- 144 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO lutism. Now is not a time for the Czar to laugh. Although he may be less fright- ened, things are not going permanently his way. Our reaction is not from self- government back to force, but from ig- norance back to the schoolroom. Plenty of young men, for instance, when they go to work discover they have not a sufficient education to advance rapidly; they go to school again — to a night school perhaps. This is not stopping the wheels of progress, but oiling them. Our reaction from democracy differs from ordinary reaction in having a more or less conscious explanation borrowed from the findings of evolution, which not only exhibits inequalities everywhere, but shows how inequalities are related to progress. Advance in civilization is not an absolute, but a comparative process. Like the marching of an army, some ranks are con- tinually treading the places that other ranks are leaving. Progress is not linear, but columnar. The present reaction of de- mocracy is nothing more than the percep- tion that you cannot make the rear rank HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 145 the front rank by calling it so; that a savage and an heir of all the ages are not standing in the same patch of civilization, and ac- cordingly that "the rights of man" and the ballot may be unworkable at the tail of the procession. Perhaps the last word of comment and encouragement is uttered when we call to each other what the police growl to loiterers, "Move on!" Reaction, even for purposes of neglected preparation, is subject to dangerous appli- cation. Every Bourbon, every Ultramon- tane, every believer in the supremacy of force will say: "Ha! ha! We told you so! Authority and force are the only reliable rulers." • But no, for in the face of demo- cratic retreat, evolution holds up a com- forting word — "Education"— the step-by- step development of human powers. Men- tal, manual, social, moral education must be looked to, to fit for self-government and to relieve authority and force of their self- assumed and self-confident role. Even the force required for compulsory education is different from military force. One guides by training the faculties for 146 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO self-government, the other is afraid to trust self-government. One leads, the other drives. One is parental, the other tyran- nical. A democracy of inequality and of education is more humane than a democ- racy of equality and laissez-faire. In our temporary reaction we are not reverting to monarchy, but we are evolving a higher democracy. In 1866 the Federal Government dis- tinctly refused to undertake negro educa- tion, although it knew that the Southern States had empty treasuries and that phi- lanthropy could not reach one freedman in a hundred. Colored men had been given freedom and citizenship — thus, according to our quaint conceit, they possessed the American outfit for success. What more could they want ? Education in the United States, outside of a few favored localities, was a rough-and-ready affair anyhow, and many of the greatest Americans had re- ceived little help to their success from public aid to the "three R's." So the negro started in to get what education he could. He aimed first at the professional HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 147 careers, but the higher education was found not to be the salvation of his race. Then a general book education was made the goal, but that was not an unqualified suc- cess. At last the education of the negro was begun with industrial and agricultural training, followed by a modicum of books and mental work. As for negro education, the problem is solved. Multiply Hamptons and Tuske- gees; cover the counties and towns with schools, such as Robert C. Ogden and his confreres, North and South, organized, and the mental and manual education of the colored race is assured. Only this ought to have been done under national, state, and local direction, instead of being left to the leadership and purses of philanthropists. But there are educational needs for the colored man which are still ignored— social and moral needs. The negro has been called lazy, improvident, and weak. These are not vices, but phases of de- velopment. Why, then, should not gov- ernment teach him to hustle and to be prudent, and to have self-respect? Such 148 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO essential lessons ought not to be left to the chances of modern business competition. England has met a similar condition in South Africa by means of laws which promised immunity from taxation to those Kaffirs who could show they had worked in the previous year a certain number of months, and by levying taxes which the natives could not pay unless they worked. For us to let the negroes in the South struggle with their little farms, unaided, is well-nigh criminal. Crops are mortgaged and the family have eaten up their value in drafts on the merchant before the har- vest. There is danger that the Southern negro may suffer what the Russian peasant has suffered from the financial aid of money-lenders. Not only may he lose his crop for a loan, but by-and-by his land for the mortgage, and be forced himself more and more into cities or into the ranks of farm laborers. In India and in South Africa the English have overcome this sort of danger by gov- ernment intervention. The native is re- strained from selling or mortgaging his HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO 149 land. "It is universally recognized," says a writer on South Africa, "that the native character, as a rule, is not capable of sus- taining the responsibilities of free owner- ship of land — powers of mortgage and sale must for his sake be restricted." We must teach the negro self-respect, for we cannot believe that any race was created for permanent humiliation. Each race, when intimately known, is found to possess a personal dignity, a charm, a power, and value of its own; but it must seek, and be assisted in seeking, those con- ditions under which its admirable native traits can best be disclosed. The most potent instrumentality dis- covered in modern times for uplifting population is nationality. Pride of coun- try is often efficient when the religious motive is lacking, or has been lost, or has been misunderstood. This instrumental- ity we have denied the negro. The Liberian experiment partook in the minds of the negro people more of exile than of nationality. On the other hand, pride in the gift of American citizenship was lost 150 HOW TO HELP THE NEGRO in its question, its debasement, its ine- quality, its constant challenge and fraudu- lent nullification. If we cannot cultivate national pride, let us cultivate race pride. We ought not to argue that this is impossible, by pointing to ignorant self-assertion, or insolent ef- frontery, or cheek, or flashy dress. The negro race in its native habitat has, I am told, great pride of race, and many native virtues. Some African tribes are models in sexual restraint, a moral plane of which we have supposed the race incapable. We are being tempted to act toward the black man like the traveller toward a poor "no account darkey" in the South, of whom Booker Washington tells. The negro, at a ferry which crossed a stream, asked a traveller for ten cents to pay his fare to the further side. "No," said the traveller, "if you're not worth ten cents, it can't make any difference to you which side of the river you are on." The white race, on the contrary, must help the poorest black man across, seeing in his desire to advance the best evidence of his worth. Are the Rich Responsible for New York's Vice and Crime?* CITIES have been called ulcers. They swell and fester on the surface of human population, which is only healthy in its sparser distribution. They are full of filth, poverty, and vice. They breed criminals. They graduate thieves, murderers, and panderers as naturally as universities graduate scholars. This is not the worst. Cities not only produce vice and crime, they also con- sume virtue. More horrible than a disease, they appear like diabolical personalities which subsist upon the strength, health, virtue, and noble aspiration produced in the country. A city is a Moloch, the fagots of its fires are human bodies and souls. * Everybody's Magaxlne, November, iqoi. 151 152 ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? Cities are, therefore, considered abnormal, especially by minds keen to beauty, and by hearts easily wrung at the sight of suffering. The truth is, however, that a city is the school of the spirit. Spirituality grows in cities by means of the variety and complex- ity of human relationships. Our dealing with the problems of New York will really be governed by our view of the ends cities subserve. If they are ulcers, surgeons are required; but if they are schools of the highest spiritual develop- ment, then they need schoolmasters. In one case reform must be the cry, in the other case illumination and progress. Mr. H. G. Wells predicts a future population of forty millions for the city of New York. Does this mean despair of human nature, or the soul's best chance of service and knowledge ? If the city is a school of the spirit, why have the great cities of the past been the seats of a depravity that can never be disassociated from them ? Because they have neither seen nor have they fulfilled their higher intention. Cities have been ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? 153 misunderstood and abused. They have been treated as a rich field of plunder for the few, rather than of spiritual rela- tionships for the many. The shortcomings of New York cannot be laid at the door of any one class. The trouble is a moral one, and all classes are affected. We try to use people, rather than to serve them. We try to get some- thing out of them, rather than to give them something. The rich, it is true, have greater power than the poor to use men, therefore in bulk of offence they may be the more conspicuous ill-doers. But Fifth Avenue has no monopoly of this spirit, and if Avenue A were to change places with Fifth Avenue, I can see in its new owners no higher attitude towards life that would make Fifth Avenue in consequence of its changed inhabitants a greater spiritual force. Vice is not a local peculiarity, like over- crowded tenements: it is a personal im- morality. Vice, then, depends upon indi- vidual character, and is not confined to a class or to a section of a city. There exist, however, certain restrictive agencies 154 ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? intended to control and, if possible, diminish not only the public flaunting of vice, but vice itself. These agencies for suppressing vice are the police, social example, and philanthropies. It is a fair question to ask what the relation is of the rich to these agencies calculated to restrict vice. VICE FLOURISHES WHILE RICHES INCREASE The rich are almost wholly responsible for the corruption of our police force, and consequently for its break-down as an instrument for restraining vice. Since both political parties in New York are financially supported by individ- uals or corporations that expect favors or fear harm from office-holders or from legislation, it is the rich men of New York, and not the ignorant voters, who are respon- sible for our bad government. We have not "as good a government as we deserve," but we have as good a government as money can buy. Now the more you pay in bribery the worse the government is. The higher the bribe the worse the service. ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? 155 A national government manipulated by pri- vate corporations is doomed. It must reduce itself to a battle between giants, who shelter themselves behind the patriotic de- vices of great parties while the people perish. The competition of business and of professional life is so fierce, and the prizes for success in New York so fix the attention of the hardest workers and most competent men, that these have no time for politics. The unskilled and less equipped men enter the neglected and deserted field and culti- vate it. The politician makes money by cultivating the opportunity of office, just as the business man makes money by neglecting it. Both think of money and not of the city. The business man indeed is, in a way, more culpable. If he is so intent upon gain that he will enjoy the privilege of institutions favorable for his purposes, but will lift no honest finger to protect them, he is morally lower than the man who at least keeps these institutions running — even if he charges a heavy salvage for thus rescuing the abandoned ship of state. 156 ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? There can be no doubt, too, that the hot pursuit of wealth in New York, is a baneful example. We see it politically and socially. The politician is approached for a favor which has a money value for the recipient. Why should he be making other men's fortunes ? He therefore asks the question which is the motto of all corruption, "What is there in it for me?" If a rich man may lie about his taxable property, why may not a police captain lie if it is worth his while? At any rate, some of the methods of the rich in secur- ing and protecting their property are openly used as excuses for these corrupt methods which protect vice in New York. Fifth Avenue takes small interest in the unemployed workingman. Successful business men believe that if a man cannot earn his own living, it is his own fault, and he deserves to suffer. But vagrancy and crime are, to a surprising extent, due to lack of employment. Commitments to Blackwell's Island for disorderly conduct, intoxication, and vagrancy were twice as numerous in January, 1896, during the ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? 157 "hard times," as in January, 1900. The city magistrates almost unanimously concur in believing that vagrants are generally able and willing to work if they could get work, and that many sober and respectable men are committed as vagrants. In 1896 the New York Free Employment Bureau had eight thousand applications from men. It found work for only 444. Instead of more strenuous efforts to meet the needs, the bureau (so far as it attempted to help men) was given up. What a magnificent field for philanthropic gift and organizing ability a great inter-state free employment bureau would be! But nobody, except the Salva- tion Army, is interested in this cure of crime.* The ability and integrity of a metrop- olis are continually being drawn upon for the management of great enterprises. The reformer or the interested citizen finds it difficult to consider the vested interests in- trusted to him and at the same time con- sider the city's welfare. He soon forgets * The National Employment Exchange, founded upon a phil- anthropic basis in 1909, is a free employment bureau for the en- tire country; it has two offices, both in New York. 158 ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? his independence and becomes dumb to the entreaties of friends who implore his assistance in purifying the government. Sup- pose he does take part in such movements. The clique he attacks immediately attacks bis corporation. Recently a City Govern- ment refused a request from the head of a corporation because he had annoyed Tammany. It cost the corporation a sum, the interest on which at four per cent, would have paid the high salary of its president forever. Naturally directors look with disapproval upon outside interests which will cost them so dear. Consequently "the parting of the ways" comes to a patriotic citizen when, under the present usage of politics, he is put at the head of great capital. So vice flourishes while riches increase. SOME UNREDEEMED PLEDGES OF WEALTH The rich are responsible for much vice in New York which results from the example and influence of their manner of life. The careless use of money breeds vice and crime. In connection with a hotel ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? 159 robbery in New York a year or two ago, the manager of the hotel said that it was very difficult to find honest hotel servants, especially waiters. They saw so much money squandered on dress, food, and drink that they came to regard the rich as fair prey. They feel towards the rich as a thief feels towards a drunkard asleep in a doorway. "Any property I do not take will be wasted or lost, or will be the spoil of another." This is a frightful impression for the luxurious classes to produce upon their servants. New York is the city to which, as to a Mecca, the rich from all over the country come. They have put money in their purse, and they are in New York for a good time. Their banners read "Money is no object." "The best is none too good." In addition, moreover, to this large transient population of rich pleasure-seekers, there are the many successful rich from other cities who come here to live. Why do they come here? They do not come as missionaries. They come because New York is a pleas- anter place than San Francisco, Butte, 160 ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? Chicago, or Pittsburg. They come for pleasure. But pleasure for the rich is only to be got through wide social connection. The expenditure of these great fortunes that come to New York, with some splen- did exceptions, is in the direction of social impression. Not long ago the shorter purses were crying out at the advance in prices made by the appearance of Pittsburg for- tunes, and the higher figures these new millions were willing to pay for clothes, horses, houses, servants, etc. Remember, too, that few New York- ers live within sight of their shops, stores, mills, or mines. The human toil associated with the production of wealth, and the pa- thetic disparity between the lives of his working people and his own luxury, ordi- narily restrain a man's extravagance at the mint of his fortunes. This restraint is re- moved when, as in New York, the sources of wealth are distant, as is the case espe- cially with those who have migrated from the scenes of their successful struggles. Extravagance in New York has not the conscientious check of the memory of toil. ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? 161 The greasy operative, the grimy miner, the sweaty iron worker, the bloody "packer," the panting stoker, can all be forgotten in the evening sheen of Fifth Avenue asphalt, "at the Waldorf," and in the social re- moteness of fashionable quarters. Another thing is to be observed. Since social advantages and pleasures are largely the aim of these migrant fortunes, the city and its affairs are no more thought of than if the owner were in Paris or in Rome. The negative example of neglect of civic responsibility, added to the positive ex- ample of vice-breeding waste, seriously ac- cuses the rich of a certain class in New York. The single point, social life, at which these ambitious fortunes often touch the metropolis has another disadvantage. Their possessors undoubtedly are asked for large gifts at the place where their business is still going on. Whatever may be their re- sponse to these appeals, which naturally should be close to their sympathy, they are likely to use these demands as an excuse for inaction toward the general charities of 162 ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? New York. With some splendid excep- tions, as I have already said, the immigrant fortunes in New York do not contribute to its higher development, but generally are a source of inferior moral example. There are one or two other ways, channels of real and harmful influence, by which the rich in New York, in a degree that cannot be said of other cities in Amer- ica, affect the poor. There is no city in the world where all classes of men and women are so well dressed. Such an out- ward appearance of comfort and even of elegance is not a disadvantage. I recall as almost the most salient and agreeable im- pression of the first great Sound Money Parade, my grasping this fact that 115,000 men were marching up Fifth Avenue, un- uniformed, but all well dressed. Such a manifestation of material prosperity, how- ever imperfect its significance, is unheard of in other lands. When, however, we note, as we are forced to in New York, the extremes of feminine fashion, and its ex- pense; when further we perceive shop-girls emulating their customers, we discover the ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? 163 perilous range of vicious temptation for the poor girls who love to display mock finery. Another and more direct source of the downfall of working girls is their low wages. Are not the rich, as the great customers of the shops, a good deal re- sponsible for vice that originates in insuffi- cient wages ? Cheap goods and "bargains" have a very clear connection with cheap womanhood. An earnest, self-supporting woman of my acquaintance has published a pamphlet, in which she maintains that these low wages paid to shop-girls, and their dependence for situations upon un- principled "bosses" or managers, are a chief cause of vicious supply in New York. There is another influence not free from its contribution of misunderstanding between classes in New York. This is the effect produced by those who figure as well- to-do in the eyes of the world, but whose relation to servants and tradespeople is marked by closest economy. There are apartments on Fifth Avenue in which the servants' quarters offer bunks in tiers, like berths on a steamer, as beds for servants. 164 ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? Other apartments nearby expect servants to sleep under the sidewalk (a violation of law, I believe). Besides this phase there is another, that of neglected bills. Expensive tailors admit that in their exorbitant charges they have to consider and include the loss from slow accounts, and from those who love to wear the best without paying. This effect of the apparently rich upon the poor is decidedly unfavorable. The poor lose money and respect at the same time. I do not believe that great, strong, healthy America waits for its cue until Newport has spoken, but I can see vicious conditions in New York that are traceable to such habits of the rich as I have just mentioned. THE ETHICS OF PHILANTHROPY The rich are also responsible for the philanthropic environment of the poor, and the effect of religious and benevolent insti- tutions upon vice. The great gifts that millionaires make are generally to colleges, schools, and ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? 165 hospitals. The sum total of gifts over a thou- sand dollars each contributed in America in 1900 amounted to $62,461,304. This is an enormous sum.* There are many who think it is much more than the rich in any way should be expected to contribute to charities and philanthropies. The rich men of America who made these gifts no doubt deserve the highest praise. But we should notice that very little of this money finds its way to the slums of great cities, to fight vice in any hand-to-hand fashion. We have seen that vice thrives on low wages, on lack of employment, in crowded tene- ments, and in the service of luxury and ex- travagance. The millions given to colleges, schools, and hospitals do not counteract or cure these diseased conditions which, being economic and moral, can be improved in any city which perceives that citizenship means service and not merely use, that it means obligation and not merely opportu- nity. These conditions do not await a purely mechanical progress for their bet- * In 1906 these gifts amounted to $106,000,000; in 1909 to $186,000,000. 166 ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? terment, but they await the moral awaken- ing and the unselfish cooperation and serv- ice of the well-to-do and rich members of the community. "The philanthropic resources" of New York are mainly active through some fourteen hundred public charities, relief agencies, "homes," reformatories, etc., and through about eight hundred religious orders, churches, congregations, etc. As the State of New York expends through its institutions of the first class, between twenty- five and thirty millions of dollars annually, it can be seen how immense the gift of the rich to the poor is in this city. A directory company has a list of six thou- sand people in New York who are appealed to, and generally with success, by deserving charities. While this number represents but one per cent of the adult population of Manhattan, it is, in my opinion, large for a well-disposed body of known philan- thropic persons. We may add to this number of known givers the large list of anonymous givers represented in every church collection. The eight largest Prot- ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? 167 estant Episcopal churches in New York alone expend annually one million dollars, chiefly in ministration to the poor through hundreds of parochial agencies. Now the churches — these eight hundred churches in Manhattan have a great deal to show for their expenditure in the direction of moral and social construction. A church in New York has somewhat the effect of sapolio. You can see the dirt and the shadows of vice and crime disappear in its neighborhood. In congested and difficult districts the results of work done by the Pro-Cathedral, Grace Chapel, St. George's, Calvary, St. Bartholomew's, and St. James's (at Holy Trinity in East Eighty- eighth Street) are conspicuous. The same is true in the districts occupied by the Judson Memorial, the Metropolitan Tem- ple, etc. The "Settlements," which are for the most part supported by the church- going classes, add to this mighty cleansing and constructive work. The Young Men's Christian Association and similar societies add their most potent aid. All these agencies are constructive. Education, en- 168 ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? lightenment, personal encouragement are principles of this work. Children are taught cooking, sewing, housekeeping, and are provided with games, reading, recrea- tion rooms, gymnasiums, and baths. All kinds of evening classes are held; first those that try to supply immediate and natural needs like dress-making, millinery, embroi- dery, etc., but all branches of substantial knowledge are taught at convenient times and places, from typewriting and mechani- cal drawing to arithmetic and spelling, his- tory and rhetoric. Day-nurseries and kin- dergartens are parts of these establishments. Mothers' meetings and men's clubs offer suggestions and entertainment to parents, while excursions, summer vacations, visits to factories, picture galleries, museums, etc., offer to poor children in these days ' delightful and enlarging privileges which a generation or so ago the children of the rich themselves did not enjoy. Parish- houses, settlements, Christian associations, and summer homes are paid for by a "ribbon of respectability" which may well enough re- ceive the general designation of Fifth Avenue. ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? 169 In addition to the philanthropists I have already named, those known because their names are in constant public use, and the unknown who give in every church col- lection, there are those of another most serviceable class — the five per cent, order. These, too, are constructive: they wish to serve the city by supplying a humanitarian need which shall be endowed by the device of self-support. The Mills Hotels, which are for lodgers who can pay only thirty cents for a bed, are far superior to any- thing in London which is offered to the same class, and London set the model. The City and Suburban Homes Company have supplied moderate-priced tenements in the city, and represent the best that American financiers, architects, builders, and philanthropic investment can devise. TENANTS AND THE TENEMENT The philanthropist meets with difficul- ties in the direction of "housing the poor" which are to some extent insoluble — at least at present. 170 ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? So far as vice is connected with crowded tenements, there are conditions unfavorable for a radical change, quite out- side the province of the rich. As land values increase, which they must do in a growing country, and especially in a metropolis surrounded by water, the rental value of the land must increase. Our sys- tem of land-ownership and our growth are responsible for the increase of values; it is not due to the heedlessness or baseness of the rich. As land values mount up, the buildings which cover land grow larger. The tenement-homes grow smaller, and children are crowded into the street. That mediaeval death by torture — the room which came together and narrowed itself in every dimension upon its victim — is a reality to- day in New York. The mechanical pressure is rent. The tenements are largely owned by the rich and could be bettered. But here, too, business considerations prevail. It is claimed the land down town will be needed so soon for commercial purposes, that it would be throwing money away to build, ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? 171 meanwhile, improved tenements. The city grows by such great strides that these fore- casts are plausible, though often mistaken or misapplied. At any rate the reasoning has more justification in New York than in any other city in the world. There is another difficulty. Small in- vestors as well as large capitalists are greedy of the amount of their plot to be covered by buildings, and the city depart- ment is supposed to favor an extension rather than a close definition of the maxi- mum area the law allows. Builders also fight against any restriction as to size and construction that is likely to curtail their sale of material or their profits. Light and air, safety and decency, are sacrificed. This can hardly be charged to the rich alone. There is still another side of the tene- ment problem as it is connected with vice — the tenant. I have seen slatternly women and dirty bedding hanging out of windows in brown-stone front tenement houses far from the slums. There are thousands of careless, ignorant poor who would convert 172 ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? a palace into a sty. A philanthropic friend told me that bath-tubs in his model mill- cottages were turned into corn-beef vats and coal receptacles. Christopher Sly was put to bed in a palace, but he did not wake up a prince. Here we see clearly the side on which religious, social, and moral up- building can be largely effective. The London Spectator recently remarked that a millionaire "can by a mere exercise of his will redeem a municipality." No; a millionaire cannot redeem a municipality. He can "redeem a slum," convert it into parks, play-grounds, and good homes; but he cannot redeem the inhabitants. The millionaire can assist to provide schools, libraries, gymnasiums; but deeper forces than environment must be invoked to change the denizens of our congested tracts, just as superficial advantages cannot cor- rect the faults of the rich. Empty heads, empty lives, frivolous ambitions, physical ideal of pleasure, drunkenness, immorality, injustice, rowdyism, and greed are not dis- pelled by any golden wand that can call into being material betterment. Our poor ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? 173 people are not struggling for something bet- ter than the rich have — they merely strug- gle to be rich. "But that is enough," you say. How can it be enough if you complain of the rich, of their ideals, expenditures, ex- hibitions of unhappiness ? No, New York needs a new and higher spirit, not a local and superficial reform. It needs not so much to banish vice as to banish the "What is there in it for me?" spirit, of which commission-taking, bribe-taking, and black- mail are hardly the most vulgar exhibitions. NEW YORK IS THE BATTLE-GROUND OF ALL THE SOCIAL PROBLEMS OF THE EARTH Now the surprising thing about New York is, after all, not its vice, but its vir- tue: the elements of its good government, and not the wide-open evidence of its bad government. New York to-day could not tolerate what is seen in Cairo, Naples, Paris, or London. Although all are under strong centralized governments, there is no comparison between New York and these cities. We need to "move on" and to "step lively" in the way of municipal 174 ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? sweetness, but we have higher ideals and fairer accomplishments than any other great city. The fact is amazing in the light of our population. For it must never be forgotten in considering the municipal prob- lem of New York, that on Manhattan Is- land are being solved the peculiar problems of every nation under heaven, as well as our own. One of the singular chattels the immigrant brings to our shores, is his especial conception of government and his especial cure. The Russian sells his samo- var, but he clings to his conception of the state as an autocratic force and to some explosive "ism," as the remedy — and so on through the list of race grievances and panaceas. New York is trying to bring all these citizens to a true knowledge of democracy; trying to protect the public schools, trying to give opportunity for wealth, and yet to encourage patriotic citi- zens who prefer good government to graft. Its task is herculean. That it is as quiet, as clean, as pure (as it is by comparison) is a matter worthy of astonishment. The reason is evident. There is an enormous ARE THE RICH RESPONSIBLE? 175 preponderance of good intention, industry, and kindliness here. A down-town res- taurant keeper allows his patrons to help themselves under no surveillance, and to pay quickly, wholly on their own statement, as they go out. I sent him a message. He replied: "My business is a success because there are more honest than dishonest peo- ple in the world." This is optimism of a legitimate origin and order. It is the op- timism of a democracy in its greatest city. Children's Street Games* SEVERAL years ago, when I was a member of a New England school committee, I had occasion to notice the street games of children. With the sports of the boys I was, of course, familiar, and could dimly recall a remote past when I had been pressed into service for "Lon- don Bridge" and "Sally Waters." But when, as "a school committeeman," I ob- served the ring games of children, I was dismayed at their doggerel, their inanity, their vulgarity. These characteristics, I thought, might be local. Accordingly, I collected the games that the school chil- dren liked best to play from two or three cities. Afterward I discovered W. W. Newell's Games and Songs of American Children, which contained many more plays than I had collected, accompanied by an historical account. Their lineage, in some * The Survey^ November^ igog. 177 178 CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES cases, confirmed and explained my dislike. The games quoted in this article, however, came under my personal observation. My findings in the matter I have put together, hoping to prove to parents, teach- ers, and school boards that some of the popular street games seriously undermine the influence of the schoolroom. This could be stopped if children up to the age of thirteen or fourteen had instruction in proper games, and also had supervision when at their play. "One may best judge of men," said Cole- ridge, "by their pleasures— man's pleasures - — children, books, friends, nature, the muses — Oh! these deceive not." The same may be said of children's pleasures, which not only disclose their tastes and prefer- ences, but have besides a formative in- fluence on mind and character. The va- grant street games give too much coun- tenance to the inferior side of a child's nature. Although the educational value of play is a commonplace, let us glance at the substantial authority that underlies the CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES 179 theory. Philosophers from the time of Plato have thought that a child could best be taught when study had the form of play. The Latin word for school and sport was the same — ludus. Froebel's kin- dergarten originated with the idea that the spontaneous education of childhood was derived from its games, and conse- quently, in order to develop a perfect educational system, that childish sports must be systematized and developed. The correctness of this theory has been demonstrated by the success of the kin- dergarten system and kindred methods of teaching. Stanley Hall says: Play exercises many atavistic and rudimentary func- tions, a number of which will abort before maturity, but which live themselves out in play like the tadpole's tail that must be both developed and used as a stimulus to the growth of legs which will otherwise never mature. . . . The best index and guide to the stated activities of adults in past ages is found in the instinctive, untaught, and non-imitative plays of children which are the most spon- taneous and exact expressions of their motor needs. In play every form and movement is instinct with heredity — this is why the heart of youth goes out into play as into nothing else, as if in it men remembered a lost para- dise. This is why, unlike gymnastics, play has as much soul as body, and also why it so makes for unity of body 180 CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES and soul that the proverb, "Man is whole only when he plays," suggests that the purest days are those that enlist both alike. . . . Thus understood, play is the ideal type of exercise for the young, most favorable for growth, and most self-regulating in both kind and amount.* If a young man were asked to name the leading influence of his early life, he would be more likely to recall the mold- ing power of sports than of books and teachers. The training of the eye and hand, the compulsion of self-restraint and of honesty, the sense of fellowship which proceeds from such boys' sports as mar- bles, tops, prisoners' base, not to speak of baseball and football, have a greater effect upon character than the first studies of childhood. What games do children play? Their games are partly imitations of what they see around them, but are largely tradi- tional, handed down from generation to generation. Children play school by the hour and some I have known to play church — one holding forth as preacher to his companions, seated about as congrega- tion. Walter Pater, when a boy, liked to * Stanley Hall, Adolescence, vol. I, pp. 202, 203. CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES 181 play at being bishop. Italian children make pretty processions like those they watch in church functions on holy days. St. Theresa, when a child, played at being a nun. Spanish boys of to-day play at bull- fighting. American boys can be seen, in city slums and in village streets, playing at "drunken-man," reeling to and fro, falling helplessly upon the sidewalk and being car- ried off by companions who assume the role of policemen. Nietzsche, as a school boy at Naumberg, loved to play at tourna- ment and the game of chivalry, and at military games. A friend of mine once visited a famous yacht builder in Narragansett Bay. As he approached the house, he discovered to his horror that the small children of the family were on the roof of the house play- ing at a game which he learned afterward they called "launching the ship." It con- sisted in letting down the baby in a basket from a skylight to the eaves of the house and pulling it back again. This was the version, rendered by adventurous children, of a sight very familiar and dear to them, 182 CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES the launching of yachts from their father's shipyard. The following paragraph was cut from the New York Tribune: Lockport, New York, July 2, 1906. — Lewis Jordey, seven years old, was hanged to death by several play- mates last night at Barkers, nine miles north of this city. The children, who were -playing hangman* placed a rope around the neck of Jordey who stood on a box, and then tied the rope to the limb of a tree. The box was kicked out from under the boy. His struggles frightened his playmates and they ran away. An adult happened on the scene and cut the rope. He was unconscious and before medical attention could be summoned was dead. Many children, however, neither have inventiveness or imitativeness, nor do they receive games handed down by tradition. Miss Octavia Hill found among the Lon- don poor that the children did not play games, because they knew none to play. A recent writer about the social life of Jerusalem mentioned the absence of games among the young girls of that city. Un- doubtedly the same thing is true of many parts of the world. The games played by children not yet in their teens divide themselves easily into CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES 183 those for girls and those for boys. While girls and boys, under some circumstances, have plays in common, yet in general boys play tops or marbles or baseball, and the girls play ring games accompanied by verses which they sing. This difference between boys and girls appears to be in favor of a greater individualism on the part of the boy, and a collectivism on the part of the girl. His games are competitive, boy against boy, or side against side. Her games are mostly in unison — impossible without a group where all take an equal interest and uncompetitive share. While the games of boys are fewer than they need to be, and could be very much enlarged by a little inventiveness and a little borrowing by one nation from another, they are, on the whole, valuable and manly. The games for girls, however, are for the most part miserable and ought to be changed. Many of the games of young girls are not only bad in themselves, but they em- ploy the truest method of study, viz., repe- tition and review, more enthusiastically in the street sport than in the school study. 184 CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES Memory in childhood is ready to receive and tenacious to hold. The endless repetition of doggerel, which accompanies the play- ing of games morning, noon, and night, grafts vulgarities into plastic minds with greater force than teachers can inculcate culture. The amatory chorus is a charac- teristic of these games, many of which are love games, pure and simple. Games that permit children to show affection for each other have, no doubt, a commendable side, but the character of the sentiment is so often silly that on the whole the mind of the child receives false ideas about human relationships, or it is directed at too early an age to thoughts and feelings which it should know nothing about. Take, for instance, this perverse medley: Water, water, wild flowers, Growing up so high. We are all young ladies, And we are sure to die, Excepting {naming child) She is so fond of flowers, Fie! fie! fie! for shame! Turn your back and tell your beau's name. CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES 185 Vulgarity marks these games. The opening lines of one are as follows: Come all you young men in your evil ways, And sow your wild oats in your youthful days. This version is from Virginia, but the New York and New England variation is hardly superior : Come all you old maids in your sinful ways. What would the woman suffragists say of this street lesson? When I was a young lady, 'twas this way and that way. {The words accompanied by a coquettish arm motion.) When I was a woman, 'twas this way and that way. {The words accompanied by scrubbing gestures.) When I was an old lady, 'twas this way and that way. {All make as if to take snuff.) Marriage is treated most cavalierly. In the games described above, the gestures imagined to be appropriate for these words : When I was married, it was this way and that way, were those of contempt, rudeness, and violence. Longfellow, Bryant, and Tennyson in the school sessions are replaced by nameless rhymesters out of school. Listen to these 186 CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES choruses which sound like echoes from a sailors' boarding house. {Ring with girl in center.) Jack-a-needle, Jack-a-needle, I sew.with my needle, And when I get married This sample I'll show. I'll go into the "garding," And stay there till morning, And whistle to Katie, Dear Katie, come near. Last night when we parted I felt broken hearted. Take an arm, my dear, Take an arm, my dear, Take an arm, my dear, Farewell! Here stand up two fine ladies, lads, Who they are I do not know. If they wish to wed or marry, Let them answer yes or no. Now they're joined in love and friendship, Love and serve them while you're here, Hug and kiss and say you love them, As long as they remain your dears. The needle's eye it doth comply; It carries the tape so true. It has caught many a smiling lass, And now it has caught you. Oh! she dresses so neat, And kisses so sweet; We do intend before we part, To see this couple meet. CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES 187 One objection to most imitative games is that they do not give a picture of life to-day, but are inherited from other times, when they were representative and had spontaneous existence. The life of other days described in some of the games was undoubtedly less refined in outward expression, if not essentially coarser, than that of to-day. "That relic of pagan days, Hallowe'en," says Roos, "from the serious concerns of men, has become the glee of prankish children, and in 'Eeny- meeny-miny-mo,' of the playground, lives on some incantation that once made spirits obey and men tremble." * The forms of things endure as ceremonies and dramatic presentments of life long after their ideas are dead. So it is with games, the spirit and meaning of some old-time pomp, ceremony, or high amuse- ment has died and the thin forms — like ghosts — still haunt the world and get a sort of second life at the hands of the young and ignorant. Moreover, a large number of games * Social Psychology, page 143. 188 CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES played now by little children were in- vented for, and originally played by, young people in their teens or much older. Tag was a favorite game with the maids of honor in Queen Elizabeth's time; while young men and maidens of Old England reveled in the round and kissing games that now are relegated to the nursery. Think of children from four to twelve years of age playing games devised origi- nally for the sportive cavaliers, who sat on the stage of Shakespeare's theater, or who spoke their minds in the coarse conversa- tion of the plays of the seventeenth century. Dr. Stanley Hall's panegyric of the in- stinctive plays of children is somewhat theoretical. I do not know what an "in- stinctive, untaught, and non-imitative play" is. Children love self -created theatricals and cast themselves for all sorts of imagin- ary roles. But the plays that we see in our streets are taught, for the most part, or are imitated. The absence of games in some countries shows that "the instinct" is not universal. At any rate, why leave children to inferior atavistic tendencies when better CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES 189 tendencies can be induced; or why should these tendencies, when healthfully shown, be expressed in wornout forms from coarser times ? "Play is the ideal exercise for the young." Yes, but let us discriminate in the ethical influence of different forms of play. "All games which reflect civilized life and sentiment are to be encouraged to the neg- lect of the lower type of games." * The games of children should be taught and supervised just as their studies are. Try to calculate the gain in mind, morals, man- ners, and happiness, too, if the children in our streets could be led in their play as they are in their studies. The games of different nations should be explored in order to discover the best, and new games should be invented. By putting all the games of children on an educational basis, and by giving them official oversight, we could prevent the destructive effects that out-of-school play now has upon the carefully applied and psycholog- ical methods of the school session. * H. M. Stanley, Educational Review, June, 1896. 190 CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES Much has been accomplished, since my original interest in the street games of chil- dren, by the Play Ground Associations, which have sprung up in some of our great cities, and have contributed healthful pas- times and fascinating native dances to the poverty-stricken lists of plays, especially for young girls. But the children benefited by these admirable undertakings are com- paratively few and I cannot believe that voluntary associations should be left to deal with questions of such magnitude which so naturally and easily relate themselves to public school needs and organization. This relationship can be clearly seen when official oversight of games is thought of. Not only would the school buildings, properly constructed, with roof -gardens and spacious yards, be suitable centres for play, but there would have to be more small parks with play-grounds — another public function. The Hebrews had a proverb that the state was secure as long as the hum of school children could be heard in the streets. But the streets of a commercial city of the CHILDREN'S STREET GAMES 191 twentieth century are no place for children; and a state which believes in public edu- cation, if keen to moral results flowing from play time, will insist on the supervision of children's games, in specially provided and attractive places. Working -Men and the Church — An Experiment* THE Church of the Ascension (Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street) , in addition to the morning and afternoon serv- ices, has held, since December, 1893, Sun- day evening services, which for the last three years have been addressed more particularly to working-men. As the Sunday night serv- ice was a "third service," the rector, by the law of the Protestant Episcopal Church, could arrange it as he pleased. The morn- ing service at eleven o'clock is attended by a conservative congregation, upon which the support of the church depends. At four o'clock there is a choral service for those particularly to whom art and music have spiritual messages. The evening serv- ice found a still different audience — work- ing people. The preacher, Mr. Alexander Irvine, whose experience of life ranges from an *The Independent, July 21, 1910. 198 194 WORKING-MEN AND THE CHURCH Irish hovel to an English man-of-war; from a Scotch coal-mine to an Egyptian cam- paign against the Mahdi; from a New York milk wagon to an East Side mission; from a Socialist orator's soap-box to Ascension pulpit, is made up of the milk of human kindness, Irish wit and thrilling oratory. In short, he is a brilliant writer and speaker and has run the gamut of working-men's economic interests — being a member of trade unions as well as a member of the Socialist Party. Mr. Irvine, although at one time a Congregational minister, was baptized and confirmed in the English Church; he was given a lay reader's license for Ascension Parish by the Bishop of New York. As a representative of the Young Men's Christian Association he had previously, for a year or two, been holding "shop meetings," where working-men gave him a part of their precious noon rest and listened with interest and respect to his preaching. I shall never forget a meeting of this sort that I attended in the 148th Street re- pair shops of the Interborough Railroad. WORKING-MEN AND THE CHURCH 195 The men employed there had, if I remember rightly, half an hour at noon and they used a third of it at the meeting. Three young men, furnished by the Y. M. C. A., made music upon a portable organ, a cornet and a violin. I don't remember whether there was a hymn, but only the picture and the speaking. Among large pieces of silent machinery nearly two hundred men stood in greasy jumpers and overalls with their caps on. The overhead windows shed almost a studied light upon the group, — upon the grave, pale countenances of the mechanics scattered among the silent, co- lossal, iron forms and upon Mr. Irvine's bare head, reddish hair, and vehement face. You could have heard a pin drop while he set forth his idea of what working-men could do to make New York a city of God. Every word had to be like a blow on a red hot rivet, quick and strong, for, in a few minutes, the slumbering machinery would wake up and noisily call these serious lis- teners to attend it. I could see no reason why the Church of the Ascension, at its evening service, 196 WORKING-MEN AND THE CHURCH should not be a People's Church, where men who were so respectful to the appeal of religion as to give part of their noon rest, could come in fresh clothes and sit at their ease in a beautiful church, and could offer more time to those influences which they apparently enjoyed. Working-men to-day, however, are sus- picious of churches and too often rate them as nothing but the conventional reli- gious agencies of the capitalistic class. To appeal to working-men religion must show its ability to benefit the body and to improve social conditions, as well as to effect spiritual transformations; or, at any rate, religion must prove its interest in these questions and also its sympathy. The anomaly of finding religious persons, who on the indus- trial side of their lives are unjust and cruel taskmasters, alienates the working-man from the church and presents contradictions that destroy his respect for religion. In short, the working-man wants the church to talk about things that interest him. His kingdom of heaven is more than a sweet mood, or a future state; it is a better WORKING-MEN AND THE CHURCH 197 organization of the present world; it is this life with more justice and bigger opportunity. Why should not churches which profess to be admirers of the Old Testament prophets (those most outspoken voices in behalf of the poor) give opportunity to-day to friendly lips to plead for the abject or the unprivileged, and to utter their dumb miseries ? By such hospitality working-men could be led out of the pure materialism, into which they are inclined to fall, into spiritual places which to some extent could correct the misfortunes of their lot, or in times of good fortune could give finer significance to their richer opportunities, and, at any rate, could increase their happiness. So the evening services at the Church of the Ascension have been people's services, in which the note was not evan- gelistic, but social, sympathetic, human, historical, prophetic. These services attracted persons of such, divers religious attitudes that it seemed discourteous to use forms of church service which would grate upon their racial or 198 WORKING-MEN AND THE CHURCH religious peculiarities. For instance, a great many who came were Jews; some Catholics; some who called themselves Atheists. Believing that the religious instinct is universal and that our church differences are built upon artificial and unnecessary distinctions, I welcomed the opportunity to attempt a form of service that would appeal to a common religious experience, and that would omit such things as on account of denominational views have only a limited reception. Each month during 1909-1910 a new form of evening service was arranged. The hymns were not always from the Church Hymnal, but were poems by Kipling, T. W. Higginson, Ebenezer Elliot, Charles Kings- ley, Henry van Dyke, Felix Adler and others of lyrical vision, set to music selected by Mr. Richard Henry Warren or a music committee. The "salutation," which in January was from Charles Rann Kennedy's "The Servant in the House," in February was from Cardinal Newman, in March from the Epistle of James and in April from Bryant's WORKING-MEN AND THE CHURCH 199 "Thanatopsis." The prayers were largely extempore. At the conclusion of the service in the church there was an after-meeting in the neighboring Parish House, where outspoken addresses on some sociological topic were delivered by experts, followed by questions and an open discussion. This continued from nine until eleven. The after-meeting can be considered a part of the evening service — the part that gives the congrega- tion a voice. It was, however, an after- thought and grew up rather naturally from a little reception where Mr. Irvine and the rector of. the Church met the members of the Sunday evening congregation in order to become better acquainted with them. The impression got abroad — largely by newspaper ridicule and misrepresentation — that these meetings were an avowed alli- ance of the Church of the Ascension and Socialism.* Nothing could be further from the fact. Many of those who attended * The result of this public misapprehension was the failure of the vestry of the Church of the Ascension to invite Mr. Irving to be evening preacher fpr a fourth year. 200 WORKING-MEN AND THE CHURCH were socialists, perhaps, because among working people they are the most inquiring minds, the most industrious readers and most combative disputants. But all kinds of social interests were represented, as a list of speakers and topics from the last Parish Year Book will prove: Dr. Thomas Darlington, "Caring for the Health of the City." Mr. James Eads How, "The Seriousness of the Un- employed Question." Mrs. Catherine Kennedy, "Socialism and the Modern Spirit." Mr. Wilbur Phillips, "New York's Milk Supply and the Infant Death Rate." Prof. Perrin, "The Fallacy of Socialism." Mr. Charles Ferguson, "Democracy." Mrs. Rheta Childe Dorr, "Child Labor." Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Social Con- science." Mr. Arthur Bullard, "Russia." Mr. Ben Greet, "The Drama." Dr. E. R. L. Gould, "Model Tenements." Mr. Charles E. Lamb, "The City Beautiful." Mr. Charles James, "Prison Reform." Mr. Henry Muskovitz, "The Psychology of the Jew." Mr. R. Fulton Cutting, "Popular Opinion and the Wage Question." Mr. Bolton Hall, "The Tramp as a Social Factor." Dr. Thomas C. Hall, "The Education for Tomorrow." Commissioner Hebberd, "The Vagrancy Bill." Prof. Dickinson S. Miller, "The Emmanuel Move- ment." WORKING-MEN AND THE CHURCH 201 Mr. John Matthews, "The Conservation of Water Power." Prof. Edwin R. A. Seligman, "The Economic Inter- pretation of History." Prof. Henry E. Crampton, "The Relation Between Biology and Sociology." Mr. Edwin Markham, "What is Poetry ?" The pulpit cannot be engaged in social criticism to the exclusion of its main duty — the effort to put souls into high posses- sion of themselves; but when the silence of the pulpit toward social injustice with- holds its spiritual help from thousands of the poor, and gives false spiritual security to the rich, then social criticism becomes a normal exercise of the ministry. The outspokenness of the church clears away impediments for the spiritual approach of the poor, and points the rich to a deeper Christian experience. The Sunday night services, at the Church of the Ascension, have stood for the spiritual healthfulness of social criticism voiced by the pulpit. The after-meetings were not merely a forum, though an open forum has advan- tages. The man who expresses himself gains something with the saying of his 202 WORKING-MEN AND THE CHURCH thoughts. He is happier because he has eased his mind and in the process he may have found a new idea. For I have never known opponents to talk a matter out hon- estly without being brought nearer together. Our gatherings were not merely secular dis- cussions. Religion and sociology were united, because the social can only have its highest impulse and method in religion — in the belief that brotherhood is a law of the universe, a divine command. The services were a meeting-ground for the rich and the poor and interpreted classes to each other. Such a mutual understanding is fundamental to the peaceful settlement of class disputes, to the permanence of democratic institu- tions and to the blending of classes in some higher unity. Some cure must be found for social and economic conflicts within peaceful states, unless those states are to be disrupted by revolutions. Much of the present violence of speech and action between classes is the result of ignorance and misunderstanding. Rational, peaceful, sympathetic correctives must be sought and used. "Our grievances WORKING-MEN AND THE CHURCH 203 and the great majority of our strikes and lockouts," says Mr. Timothy Healy, presi- dent of the International Brotherhood of Stationary Firemen, "have occurred be- cause the employer and the employee were too far apart, and if they can be brought nearer together we shall not have the great labor wars that we have had in the past and both capital and labor will be a great deal better off." Who will say that the Christian Church is not an institution naturally adapted to bring about a better understanding between the high and the low, the rich and the poor, if true to its Founder, the great preacher of brotherhood, — of peace and of good will ?