liiiriilerns of 
 
 ;\;N:^:i:E-M.:-MA€LEA:N ■; 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 DDD17H7E30b 
 
Class 
 
 Book 
 
 GopyiiglitN?. 
 
 CLQEaRIGHT DEPOSm 
 
The National Social Science Series 
 
 Edited by Frank L. McVey, Ph.D., LL.D., 
 President of the University of Kentucky 
 
 IVow Ready; Each, One Dollar 
 
 AMERICAN CITY, THE. Henry C. Wright, First 
 Deputy Commissioner, Department of Public Charities, 
 New York City. 
 
 BANKING. William A. Scott, Professor of Political 
 Economy, The University of Wisconsin. 
 
 COST OF LIVING, THE. W. E. Clark, Professor of 
 Political Science, The College of the City of New York. 
 
 CAUSE AND CURE OF CRIME, THE. Charles R. 
 Henderson, late Professor of Sociology, The University 
 of Chicago. 
 
 FAMILY AND SOCIETY, THE. John M. Gillette, 
 Professor of Sociology, The University of North Dakota. 
 
 GOVERNMENT FINANCEIN THEUNITED STATES. 
 Carl C. Plehn, Professor of Finance, The University of 
 California. 
 
 HOUSING AND THE HOUSING PROBLEM. Carol 
 Aronovici, Lecturer on Social Problems, The University 
 of Minnesota. 
 
 MONEY. William A. Scott. 
 
 MONROE DOCTRINE AND THE GREAT WAR, THE. 
 Arnold Bennett Hall, Associate Professor of Political 
 Science, The University of Wisconsin. 
 
 NATIONAL EVOLUTION. George R. Davies, Assistant 
 Professor in the Department of Economics, Princeton 
 University. 
 
PROPERTY AND SOCIETY. A. A. Bruce, Associate 
 Justice Supreme Court, North Dakota. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY OF CITIZENSHIP, THE. Arland D. 
 Weeks, Professor of Education, North Dakota Agricul- 
 tural College. 
 
 RURAL PROBLEMS IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 James E. Boyle, Extension Professor of Rural Economy, 
 College of Agriculture, Cornell University. 
 
 SOCIAL ANTAGONISMS. Arland D. Weeks. 
 
 SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT. George R. Davies. 
 
 SOCIAL INSURANCE IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 Gurdon Ransom Miller, Professor of Sociology and 
 Economics, Colorado State Teachers' College. 
 
 SOCIOLOGY. John M. Gillette. 
 
 SOME PROBLEMS OF RECONSTRUCTION. Annie 
 Marion MacLean, Extension Assistant Professor of 
 Sociology, The University of Chicago. 
 
 STATE AND GOVERNMENT, THE. J. S. Young, Pro- 
 fessor of Political Science, The University of Minnesota. 
 
 STATISTICS. William B. Bailey, Professor of Practical 
 Philanthropy, Yale University, and John Cummings, Ex- 
 pert Special Agent, Bureau of the Census. 
 
 SYMPATHY AND SYSTEM IN GIVING. Elwood 
 Street, Director of Welfare League, Louisville, and Sec- 
 retary, American Association for Community Organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 TAXATION. C. B. Fillebrown, late President Massa- 
 chusetts Single Tax League. 
 
 TRUSTS AND COMPETITION. John F. Crowell, 
 Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. 
 
 WOMEN WORKERS AND SOCIETY. Annie Marion 
 MacLean. 
 
Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 By 
 
 Annie Marion MacLean, Ph.D. 
 
 Author of "Wage-Earning Women," 
 "Women Workers and So- 
 ciety," "Cheero," Etc. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 A. C. McCLURG & CO. 
 1921 
 

 Copyright 
 
 A. C McClurg & Co. 
 
 1921 
 
 Published December, 1921 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 DEC 3171 
 
 g)C!.A653363 
 
\4 
 
 To My Sister 
 
 MILDRED Maclean 
 
 Whose clear vision has helped to focus my at- 
 tention on the need for a reconstructed world 
 
EDITOR'S PREFACE 
 
 RECONSTRUCTION during the later years of 
 the World War was referred to everywhere 
 as the essential step if society was to get on. The 
 problems that were apparent in the previous 
 decade were emphasized by war conditions and 
 publicists urged the need of reforms and changes 
 to meet the conditions produced by the world 
 conflict. The close of the war, however, left all 
 the nations, including our own, discouraged or 
 lethargic, and slow to undertake the steps neces- 
 sary to a larger social program. 
 
 A book on reconstruction at this time, despite 
 the number already published, seems desirable. 
 Most of the books published on the subject have 
 been rather extended and technical for the aver- 
 age reader. Miss MacLean's book is, in a meas- 
 ure, a review of the problems of reconstruction 
 stated in an attractive way. The book ought to 
 be of real value in introducing to the reader the 
 problems of reconstruction, and as such, it is 
 given a place in the National Social Science Series 
 with the feeling on the part of the editor that the 
 public will find it of great assistance in opening 
 the way for the study of the problems of recon- 
 struction. 
 
 F. L. M. 
 
AUTHOR'S PREFACE 
 
 THIS brief study is offered in the hope that it 
 may help to stimulate interest in some of the 
 vital problems that we, in common with other 
 peoples, are facing at the present time. More- 
 over, it is presented in the belief that there are no 
 more absorbing questions upon which to focus 
 attention than those which have to do with a 
 reconstructed world. Unless more favorable con- 
 ditions for all men emerge, the devastating war 
 through which we have passed will be ** a mere 
 meaningless blot on the pages of history." 
 
 In the preparation of this book, many have 
 helped me by spoken and written words. To all 
 of these I extend my thanks. 
 
 Annie Marion MacLean. 
 evanston, illinois. 
 October 7, 1921. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Introduction 1 
 
 II Preservation of the Democratic 
 
 Ideal 13 
 
 III Industrial Unrest 26 
 
 IV Woman's Labor 44 
 
 V Americanization 64 
 
 VI The Negro 83 
 
 VII Housing 98 
 
 VIII Education 116 
 
 IX Radicalism 132 
 
SOME PROBLEMS OF 
 RECONSTRUCTION 
 
THE NATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE SERIES 
 
 The purpose of this series is to furnish for busy 
 
 men and women a brief but essentially 
 
 sane and sound discussion of present-day 
 
 questions. The authors have been 
 
 chosen with care from men who 
 
 are in first-hand contact with 
 
 the materials, and who 
 
 will bring to the 
 
 reader the newest 
 
 phases of the 
 
 subject. 
 
Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 A WORLD at war presents problems of vast 
 proportions, but they are solved as they 
 appear because the nations involved are acting 
 under the tremendous spur of necessity and 
 patriotism. In war time, love of country be- 
 comes a fetish ; everything else is, and must be, 
 of secondary importance. Fighting for a com- 
 mon cause seems to ennoble men. No sacrifice 
 is too great to make when existence may be at 
 stake. The national blood is at fever heat. But 
 with the coming of peace, even a victorious peace, 
 there is a relaxation, a loosening of the tension, 
 that of itself makes the new problems difficult. 
 War weariness has seized the world, and men 
 moan at the thought of further effort, yet they 
 must be prodded on if we are to reap the bene- 
 fit of the struggle. 
 
 The new era is upon us, the new world for 
 which millions of men suffered and died ; and 
 new problems have come with it. Things can 
 never be as they were. Human thoughts have 
 undergone change ; democracy has taken on new 
 meaning; old solutions are valueless; reconstnic- 
 
2 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 tion is the watchword ; more than that, it is the 
 task. After years of tearing down, rebuilding 
 brings new hope to the nations of the earth. Old 
 material must be employed, but it will find new 
 uses. 
 
 It is this making-over process, the readjust- 
 ment of things to meet new needs, that forms 
 the subject-matter of this book. The term ** re- 
 construction " is adopted because it is the word 
 in common use to denote this task, and every- 
 one understands its content. Reconstruction, then, 
 is the problem of the world, since most of the 
 world was at war, but it is a problem that, for 
 purposes of discussion, must be broken up into 
 many sections. 
 
 The various European countries had to face 
 reconstruction first, and had their plans of re- 
 organization well under way before the United 
 States joined the belligerents. This was par- 
 ticularly true of the plans for the rehabilitation 
 of disabled soldiers. It was of the greatest im- 
 portance that men should be salvaged for further 
 fighting, when fighting men were at a premium. 
 And it seems as if human ingenuity could go no 
 further than it has gone in this rehabilitation work. 
 Bodies seemingly useless have been restored to 
 a maximum of usefulness. Limbs that went for 
 democracy's sake have been replaced by me- 
 chanical devices, and the owner is a wage-earner 
 again. Wits to destroy have been checkmated by 
 wits to restore. This is undoubtedly one of the 
 notable contributions of medical science to the 
 
Introduction 
 
 world during the past few years. Belgium was the 
 first country to undertake this particular kind of 
 work. A Belgian nobleman having a large estate 
 in France took into his home wounded soldiers 
 from his own country, and to make them happy, 
 sought to furnish them with congenial tasks. This 
 work grew till it was finally taken over by the 
 Belgian government. Other countries soon saw 
 the need for similar action, and developed methods 
 adapted to their own needs. The reconstruction 
 of devastated areas is a simple task compared with 
 the rehabilitation of mentally or physically 
 broken men. The latter calls for an entirely 
 new kind of engineer. In taking up this par- 
 ticular activity, the United States^ had the bene- 
 fit of the experience of other countries, and 
 modeled her plans very closely upon those of 
 Canada, whose problems were almost identical 
 with ours. Canada even lent one of her experts 
 to inaugurate the work here. 
 
 But this, after all, is a problem by itself, and 
 the work is of quite limited usefulness inasmuch 
 as it applies to only one set of men, that is 
 wounded soldiers. When they shall have been 
 rendered as fit as possible, the end of it has 
 come. 
 
 The one great gain to society that can accrue 
 from such a work of human rehabilitation is its 
 extension to those who are disabled in industry 
 
 * Harris, Redemption of the Disabled; a Study of Pro- 
 grammes of Rehabilitation for the Disabled of War and of 
 Industry. 
 
4 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 in all lands. The annual human wreckage in 
 industry in the United States alone is greater than 
 the total number of our soldiers disabled by the 
 war. If a new value, through redemptive work 
 for war victims is given to human life, which has 
 always been held cheap in our industrial pro- 
 cesses, the war will not have been fought in vain, 
 and soldiers will not have suffered to no pur- 
 pose. A man broken by industry can be made 
 as useful to society as a soldier broken by war. 
 While making the world safe for those who 
 fought for democracy, we might make it safe 
 for machine tenders who are an indispensable 
 body of men. 
 
 But aside from special tasks like the one just 
 discussed, there are so many others of a more 
 general nature demanding attention that men 
 everywhere have had to recognize them, and 
 make provision to meet them. The end of a 
 great war leaves very unstable social and 
 economic conditions, which must be considered 
 with seriousness if we are to emerge without 
 unsightly scars. An understanding of this fact 
 has led practically all the European countries, 
 and some others, to establish commissions^ to 
 deal with the problems naturally arising. 
 
 France was the first to lay plans for general 
 after-the-war work, and this, of course, was be- 
 
 ^The following have established commissions: France, 
 Germany, Great Britain, Canada, Italy, Japan, Russia, 
 Belgium, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, Chile, 
 Brazil, and Colombia. 
 
Introduction 5 
 
 cause of her devastated lands. As early as May 
 18, 1916, an interministerial committee was cre- 
 ated to make plans for restoring the invaded 
 areas. This committee, reorganized several times, 
 has sought to give necessary aid by means of 
 securing legislation and appropriations and mak- 
 ing wise suggestions. In her endeavors, France 
 has had financial aid from many persons and 
 agencies, chiefly American, because the pathos 
 of the situation makes a strong appeal to wealthy 
 people of generous impulses. The reconstruc- 
 tion problems of France are, of course, more 
 serious than those of any country except Bel- 
 gium, since battle fields must be redeemed in 
 addition to the revivifying of economic activity, 
 and the remolding of industrial and social life. 
 
 In neutral countries, like Scandinavia, recon- 
 struction work resolves itself into the formation 
 of feasible plans for the resumption of trade inter- 
 rupted by the years of strife. A serious enough 
 problem, it is true, since foreign trade is the 
 lifeblood of the nations. While neutral coun- 
 tries suflFered seriously on the economic side, 
 they lacked the moral stimulus of fighting for 
 a cause. With them reconstruction becomes in- 
 evitably more mechanical than with the warring 
 nations. Owing to the exigencies of war, some 
 hard trade restrictions were placed upon them, 
 and much suffering had to be endured. The 
 tragedy of war is that the innocent suffer with 
 the guilty. 
 
 On account of her vast resources, splendid war 
 
6 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 organization, and lateness in entering the strug- 
 gle, the United States suffered, in most respects, 
 less than the neutrals, yet she had to undergo the 
 transition from a war to a peace basis which is 
 no simple task, and it has raised questions of 
 tremendous import particularly along industrial 
 lines. 
 
 In order to illustrate the magnitude of the 
 work under discussion. Great Britain, whose 
 problems and ideals are in many respects similar 
 to ours, may be taken as an example. On August 
 21, 191 7, the Ministry of Reconstruction was 
 established " to promote organization and de- 
 velopment after the termination of the war." 
 The Ministry consists of eighty-seven com- 
 mittees and commissions classified into fifteen 
 groups^ as follows: (i) Trade Development, 
 (2) Finance, (3) Raw Materials, (4) Coal and 
 Power, (5) Intelligence, (6) Scientific and In- 
 dustrial Research, (7) Demobilization and Dis- 
 posal of Stores, (8) Labor and Employment, 
 (9) Agriculture and Forestry, (10) Public 
 Administration, (11) Housing, (12) Education, 
 (13) Aliens, (14) Legal (pre-war contracts, 
 and "period of the war"), (15) Miscellaneous 
 (munitions, land settlement, and civil serial 
 transport). 
 
 Even a cursory glance at the foregoing is suf- 
 ficient to show that practically all the relations 
 of life have been affected by the mighty strug- 
 
 * Friedman, Labor and Reconstruction in Europe, pp. 4-5. 
 
Introduction 
 
 gle through which Great Britain has passed. 
 And this probably means that never again will 
 men be satisfied in the old grooves. New ones 
 must be made, however much some loved the 
 past. Men seem to settle down in the old places 
 after cataclysms in nature, but not after great 
 moral and spiritual upheavals. Italian peasants 
 settle again and again on the sides of Vesuvius 
 and peacefully raise grapes when the monster 
 within has ceased its destructive eruptions, but 
 when a moral issue like the " divine right of 
 kings " has been overturned, men look about for 
 new spiritual moorings. And when the fight for 
 democracy has been won, old autocratic notions 
 will not be tolerated. This is what makes revo- 
 lutions stimulating to alert thinkers ; this is what 
 makes times of intellectual turmoil a joyous op- 
 portunity for enthusiasts ; and this is what makes 
 reconstruction programs of absorbing interest to 
 the man on the street. All want to know how and 
 when their particular estate will be improved, 
 and a laudable enough desire it is. For what 
 possible justification can there be, they think, 
 for a world war to abolish privilege, unless the 
 world becomes a better place for all sorts and 
 conditions of people to live in, and there is none 
 that civilization can give. The slogan, " Busi- 
 ness as usual " did not satisfy ; it could not. Life 
 cannot go on the same when other life is being 
 poured out for an ideal, and it should not. No 
 colossal struggle can be successfully treated as 
 an incident in a nation's life. 
 
8 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 In the first years of the World War, England 
 tried to ignore post-war problems. They were 
 not to be discussed, but that policy proved a 
 failure, and she commenced to talk about the 
 future and to build for it. This same attitude 
 was observed in Italy, Japan, and other coun- 
 tries, but they all learned that mere denial of a 
 situation does not make it non-existant. The 
 adoption of such a policy in England at the be- 
 ginning of the war was designed to keep up the 
 morale, and to inspire confidence, but problems 
 were accumulating whether they were recog- 
 nized or not, and they were problems that would 
 take the best brains of the nation to solve. 
 
 It is equally true in this country that mere 
 denial that there are things in need of correction 
 will not cause the disappearance of the undesir- 
 able conditions. It is no simple task to shift 
 from war control of industry to normal, even 
 though congressional legislation provided that 
 this should be done expeditiously after the ter- 
 mination of the war. 
 
 Reconstruction problems in this country may 
 be divided into two general classes. First, those 
 having to do with war control, whether of food, 
 fuel, or railroads, and export and import trade, 
 or the demobilization of the army and its re- 
 entry into civil life; and second, those larger 
 questions of industrial and social life which have 
 been accentuated by the war. 
 
 To the first group belong those problems 
 which are settled by experts with or without 
 
Introduction 
 
 much cooperation on the part of the public. 
 Demobilization, for example, was accomplished 
 swiftly in accordance with well-laid plans, and, 
 little by little, war control has given way. To the 
 second group, on the other hand, belong those 
 problems in which the public is intimately in- 
 terested, and upon the solution of which rests 
 the new and better era to which all are looking 
 forward. These relate to the extension of op- 
 portunity to the common man, and are the sub- 
 jects to be discussed in this volume. They relate 
 to the new position that ordinary men and 
 women are determined to take as a result of 
 the fight for democracy, and they are as old as 
 modern industry itself. Many are looking for 
 a new heaven and a new earth, or rather a new 
 heaven on a new earth.' They want a new society 
 not built on class interests, but reasonably in- 
 telligent people know that social changes come 
 gradually, and are willing to grapple with re- 
 construction problems to that end. As an English 
 writer has said : 
 
 The nation's moral awakening has come, now comes the 
 need for the moral life. Yet let us not look for miracles. 
 Whatever the new England becomes, will be the result of 
 long and painful efifort, of sacrifice, and renunciation of all 
 kinds, made by men and women of good will ; and we 
 shall succeed in proportion as we keep before our eyes ideals 
 that are not so high that they lose themselves in the sky, 
 
 A consummation seemingly remote at the present time. 
 
lO Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 aiming at the best practicable for the present, and from that 
 slowly working on to the best conceivable/ 
 
 We in this country need ask for no greater 
 wisdom than this. It is not a working plan that 
 will please radicals, but it must appeal to all 
 serious-minded persons who know anything at 
 all about human psychology, and who are eager 
 for a better world. There is the greatest neces- 
 sity for a careful study of all the phases of re- 
 construction, since it is only by scientific study 
 that correct conclusions can be drawn. Men 
 are prone to settle social questions on emotional 
 grounds, when they would never dream of trying 
 to settle astronomical or historical questions in 
 like fashion. 
 
 The problems to be studied here are so inter- 
 woven with industry, that they might all be 
 regarded as phases of the industrial problem, 
 since it is through industry that men, even those 
 who know nothing of personal toil, live and 
 move and have their being. This is the reason 
 that the labor question looms so large in the re- 
 construction plans of all countries. And this is 
 the reason that the most careful study should 
 be given to it. Professor Lippincott voices this 
 need when he says : 
 
 What is demanded in our reconstruction program is 
 machinery not only for the study of particular industries, 
 and of particular activities, but also of the relations of 
 industries to industries, and social activities of important 
 
 *The Earl of Cromer and Others, After-War Problems, 
 p. 14. 
 
Introduction n 
 
 kinds to other important social activities Our 
 
 goal is the development of the national industrial and social 
 interest.* 
 
 There are few so blind that they do not see 
 portentous changes ahead, and the thinking 
 man must inform himself as to their meaning. 
 The whole social structure of our country was 
 changed when we entered into the great strug- 
 gle to make men free. The scholar in his study, 
 the workman at his machine, the woman in the 
 home, and our representatives in high places 
 are thinking upon the revaluation of man, and 
 it will take the united efforts of all these to re- 
 construct our social life. 
 
 It is in the hope of helping a little to clarify 
 our thinking along these lines that this brief 
 study is offered. The maintenance of democracy, 
 industrial unrest, the labor of women, the treat- 
 ment of the Negro, Americanization, housing, 
 education, and the dealing with radicalism are 
 problems which touch the life of the nation, and 
 which concern us all. IMany of these problems 
 should have been solved long ago in a free land, 
 but it took a world war to focus national atten- 
 tion on them. We can only hope that from 
 destruction which well-nigh overwhelmed the 
 nations, a better life will arise for the many. 
 
 And this must be the outcome, if the w^ar is 
 to be more than *' a mere meaningless blot on 
 
 ^Lippincott, Problems of Reconstruction, p. 303. 
 
12 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 the pages of history." Or in the words of an 
 English writer: 
 
 If it (the war) is to mean anything at all for future 
 generations, it must be because of what comes out of it, 
 and that depends not upon the soldier, but the statesman.* 
 
 That is upon the successful carrying out of 
 reconstruction plans rests the value of the great 
 struggle. The world not only must be safe for 
 democracy, but democracy must be saved. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 BOOKS 
 
 Cromer, The Earl of, and Others, After-War Problems, 
 The Macmillan Company, 1917. 
 
 Friedman, Elisha M., Labor and Reconstruction in Eu- 
 rope, E. P. Button & Company, 19 19. 
 
 Harris, Garrard, Redemption of the Disabled; a Study of 
 Programmes of Rehabilitation for the Disabled of War and 
 of Industry, D. Appleton and Company, 1919. 
 
 Lippincott, Isaac, Problems of Reconstruction, The Mac- 
 millan Company, 191 9. 
 
 Russell, Bertrand, Principles of Social Reconstruction, 
 The Century Co., 1917. 
 
 Villiers, Brougham, Britain After the Peace; Revolution 
 or Reconstruction, E. P. Button & Company, 1918. 
 
 * Villiers, Britain After the Peace: Revolution or Recon- 
 struction, p. 249. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 PRESERVATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL 
 
 TT seems platitudinous to say that the 
 "■- democracy for which we fought and came 
 off victorious must be maintained, yet insist- 
 ence on this point is of vast importance. The 
 child grows only by being nurtured, and when he 
 reaches manhood, he must still be nourished if 
 he is to live. So it is with our social institutions. 
 They must be zealously, even jealously guarded 
 if they are to abide. 
 
 It is generally recognized that ideals crystal- 
 ized into institutions are more readily preserved 
 than those that have not been generally accepted 
 as forms of human conduct. Democracy is as 
 yet hardly more than a catchword with the 
 many. While it is true that for nearly a cen- 
 tury and a half, we have had at least a partial 
 political democracy with our republic — partial 
 because of suffrage restrictions upon a large and 
 important class^ — it is equally true that we 
 have hardly experienced as yet either social or 
 industrial democracy. Yet the ideal is with us 
 and must be preserved. " Where there is no 
 vision, the people perish." We are a long distance 
 
 'Suffrage was granted to women in May, 1920. 
 13 
 
14 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 ahead of the medieval autocracy that ground the 
 common man with iron heel, but we are also a 
 long distance behind the ideal state where every 
 "man is man and master of his fate." Theoreti- 
 cally at least, we scout the idea that nine-tenths 
 of the people come into the world with bridles 
 in their mouths and with saddles on their backs 
 while the other tenth come in booted and spurred 
 to ride them.^ In actual practice in some quar- 
 ters, however, it would seem that such a belief 
 still holds. On this account, we see the wisdom 
 of insisting upon the preservation of our ideals. 
 A representative form of government is not 
 enough to insure a happy life to all if industrial 
 relations are left unregulated. A man theoreti- 
 cally free may be enslaved by the conditions 
 under which he lives and works. Men are not 
 pawns to be moved over the board by powerful 
 hands. Each man should claim the right to 
 work out his destiny. Men stood together to 
 save the world from rapacious greed and brutal- 
 ized power, and they stood shoulder to shoulder. 
 Artificial distinctions had no place in a twentieth- 
 century army mobilized in a democracy, and they 
 should have no place in civil life. There always 
 will be distinctions among men. It is only a 
 visionary who can see with pleasure a state made 
 up of men run in a mold. Differences in type 
 lend a zest to society that otherwise would be 
 deadly monotonous. Men are not alike physi- 
 
 ^ Thayer, Democracy: Discipline: Peace, p. 7. 
 
Preservation of the Democratic Ideal 15 
 
 cally or mentally ; we do not want them to be. 
 They are not born equal now, nor is it likely 
 they ever will be. The function of democracy 
 is not to try to eradicate such fundamental dif- 
 ferences ; it is rather to abolish resulting handi- 
 caps, and to extend equal opportunity to all. 
 That is the task. Each man born into the world 
 should have a chance to develop himself, and 
 enjoy a happy life, so long as his conception of 
 happiness does not work hardship to others or 
 conflict with the generally accepted standards 
 of the community. The degenerate finds happi- 
 ness in drunkenness, but, since, in this state, he 
 may be a social menace, he must be checked. 
 Such divergence of standards of what constitutes 
 a happy life complicates the problem. 
 
 " The world must be made safe for democracy " 
 has been ringing in our ears, and one often won- 
 ders how much it means to the many who say 
 it and the many who hear it, because of our 
 varying interpretations of the word *' democ- 
 racy." To some it means no " Jim Crow " cars 
 for anyone ; to others a Packard for everybody ; 
 to some free lunches; to others an invitation to 
 the President's receptions ; to some it means a 
 loafer's paradise ; to others a chance to work in 
 contentment. There seems to be no unanimity 
 of opinion in regard to the elements constituting 
 that happy state known as '* democracy ; " yet 
 there is general agreement that such a state, 
 whatever it means, is desirable, and it was worth 
 fighting for. 
 
1 6 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 Since, therefore, the word is nothing without 
 its content, it becomes our task to read into the 
 word a meaning that will find general accept- 
 ance, and then urge upon all the preservation of 
 the ideal as a sacred trust. 
 
 It requires no special penetration to see that 
 unrest is about us on all sides. Dissatisfaction 
 is rampant. No one feels settled. Everyone 
 was looking for a better world to live in, and the 
 expected change has not come. Unless it does 
 come, we are likely to settle down into what 
 Kingsley called " dull discontent too stale for 
 words." 
 
 With much emphasis on the freedom of op- 
 pressed peoples, and the establishment of liberty 
 in the world, as a justification of the war, it was 
 inevitable that there should be much heart- 
 searching among men in regard to their own 
 status. If freedom and self-determination are a 
 desideratum for men who have suffered under op- 
 pressive forms of government, why is not a fuller 
 participation in all that liberty implies good for 
 all men? A people theoretically free may be 
 virtually enslaved, as millions of Americans are 
 discovering for the first time, and the discovery 
 is making them restless. Work alone, even with 
 high wages, does not satisfy the men and women 
 who are questioning. They want to share more 
 largely in something — they hardly know what 
 — that gives an added significance to life. 
 
 Those who are in control must heed even the 
 halting expression of discontent, if revolution in 
 
Preservation of the Democratic Ideal 17 
 
 the future is to be averted. It is not sufficient to 
 answer that we have the greatest democracy on 
 earth, and it is an ingrate w^ho is not satisfied. 
 Empty forms can never satisfy people who have 
 once begun to think. And the statement that the 
 average American has commenced to think about 
 his station in Hfe is not open to question. No 
 more will he accept the doctrine that the Giver 
 of All Good elected the majority to be hewers 
 of w^ood and drawers of water throughout time 
 for the benefit of heaven's pets. And the demo- 
 cratic ideal furnishes the background for his 
 heresy. 
 
 The machinery for helping men to happiness 
 is at hand, and the nation would be stupid indeed 
 not to use it. It is idle to say that discontent 
 with the expression of democracy we have is due 
 wholly to the war. It is not. The war, how- 
 ever, has served to emphasize anew^ our limita- 
 tions, and to point out the necessity for building 
 to meet the needs of the new era which is upon 
 us. Even before the war was thought possible, 
 Woodrow Wilson said : 
 
 We are facing the necessity of fitting a new social organ- 
 ization, as we did once fit the old organization, to the happi- 
 ness and prosperity of the great body of citizens; for we 
 are conscious that the new order of society has not been 
 made to fit and provide the convenience and prosperity of 
 the average man.* 
 
 The average man, the common man, the man 
 on the street has made himself heard at last, 
 
 * Wilson, The New Freedom, p. 4. 
 
1 8 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 and he it is who will save democracy to the na- 
 tion by making it fulfil its function. 
 
 Social unrest is not new in the world, but 
 it is more widespread than ever before. The 
 hitherto unheeded millions are asserting their 
 right to greater participation in this good thing 
 called democracy, which, though unformulated, 
 means to them something more than power 
 to cast a vote. Special privilege can thrive with 
 universal suffrage. Men are seeking an entrance 
 into that larger democracy which is industrial 
 and social as well as political. It is, therefore, 
 of the gravest importance that the democracy in 
 which they trust shall not fail them. There can 
 be no more important phase of reconstructive 
 effort than that which seeks to preserve a national 
 ideal. 
 
 It becomes our first task then to put into 
 words a general conception of what is implied 
 in the institution known as democracy, and which 
 we insist must be maintained if all other recon- 
 structive effort is to be of any avail. 
 
 As a starting-point in our quest for true democ- 
 racy, we may well adopt Professor Tufts' defini- 
 tion that, 
 
 The finest and largest meaning of democracy is that all 
 people should share as largely as possible in the best life.* 
 
 Of course the standard of the best life will vary 
 somewhat from generation to generation, but the 
 ideal that all the people should share it would 
 
 ^ Tufts, Our Democracy, p. 268. 
 
Preservation of the Democratic Ideal 19 
 
 remain the same. Professor Tufts points out that 
 society for a long period of time acted on the 
 assumption that only a favored few were entitled 
 to the good things of life, and that this aristo- 
 cratic view gives way slowly to the democratic 
 belief that all should share in them. Much of the 
 unrest of the present is due to the persistence of 
 the aristocratic view. Those who enjoy special 
 privileges relinquish them slowly. The doctrine 
 of the divine right to hold what we have, and to 
 have what we hold, dies hard. An upper class 
 can easily justify to itself its elevation, and believe 
 It to be meritorious. Those who are discriminated 
 against have another perspective, and when 
 aroused, resent the idea of an inherent inequality. 
 History furnishes many illustrations of this 
 throughout the centuries that have gone. 
 Peasants' revolts, a French revolution, Chartists' 
 riots, are merely names for past popular upheav- 
 als, which show the reaching out after liberty in 
 different ages, and the slow groping after the 
 democratic ideal. 
 
 In modern times, the industrial revolution has 
 been instrumental in accentuating distinctions 
 between classes. The necessity for capital to 
 purchase machines led to the growth of an em- 
 ploying class of machine owners, and a non- 
 owning working class of machine tenders. But 
 at the same time, this very condition, by empha- 
 sizing class differences, led to much sane reflection 
 upon the inherent rights of men, and tended to 
 the development of the democratic principle 
 
20 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 which we are seeking to understand and to 
 maintain. 
 
 One of the most brilliant and satisfying of the 
 recent attempts to find the content of the term 
 " democracy " is that of Dr. Albion W. Small of 
 the University of Chicago, in an article on " Some 
 Structural Material for the Idea, Democracy."^ 
 He sees in the " self-realization of persons 
 . . . . the measure of value for all human 
 programs." This clearly should be the under- 
 lying purpose in all reconstruction work. Again, 
 he holds that, 
 
 . . . . there is no social guaranty worth trusting in a 
 society which is not convinced that the measure of meanness 
 or of merit in men's actions is what they import for human 
 beings." 
 
 Still further he makes explicit his understand- 
 ing of the purpose of life when he insists that, 
 
 The first task of civilization is to secure food enough to 
 sustain life. The next task is to make life worthy enough 
 to be wortli sustaining.^ 
 
 The second is pre-eminently the task of recon- 
 struction, and in this our democracy will not fail. 
 
 Since we accept participation in the best life, 
 or the insuring of a worthy life to all as the prime 
 desideratum in a democracy, it only remains for 
 us to establish some standard of what constitutes 
 
 ^ Small, The American Journal of Sociology, November, 
 1919, and January, 1920. 
 ''Ibid., November, 1919, pp. 270-271. 
 ^Ibid., November, 1919, p. 270. 
 
Preservation of the Democratic Ideal 21 
 
 the best life. Then we shall have certain definite 
 things to insist upon and to perpetuate. And here 
 we can do no better than still to follow the lead 
 of Dr. Small who many years ago formulated a 
 standard^ of a normal life to be secured by the 
 gratification of certain desires growing out of the 
 wants of the average man. This is a sixfold classi- 
 fication of human desires, and it seems to be 
 sufficiently comprehensive to include everything 
 that is necessary to the establishment of the best 
 life. It Is the gratification of these desires in 
 reasonable degree, that will give us men capable 
 of functioning in a real democracy. The classi- 
 fication is as follows : 
 
 /. The gratification of desires connected with 
 health. — Every normal human being desires to be 
 physically fit, and he must have a measure of 
 health if he is to do his share of the world's work 
 with comfort and satisfaction. A physically 
 broken man cannot be an efficient producer, and 
 he is on this account a loss to society. Social 
 obstacles to health should therefore be removed. 
 Unwholesome living conditions prevail even in 
 our most enlightened states. Many children are 
 doomed before birth to disease that should not 
 be permitted to exist, and many young people 
 have to grow up under conditions which sap 
 their strength. There is no unreason in asking 
 that these conditions be changed. The desire for 
 
 ^ Small and Vincent, An Introduction to tlic Study of So- 
 ciety, p. 175. Small, General Sociology, chap, xxxii. 
 
2 2 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 a good body is a perfectly normal one and should 
 be gratified. Good health makes for the best life. 
 
 2. The gratification of desires connected zvith 
 economic needs or the accumulation of ivealth. — 
 Every human being needs a chance to make a 
 decent living. This does not mean that society 
 owes him a fortune ; it does mean that a man 
 is only half a man who has no money to buy 
 bread. To eat from a pauper's table, or to jog 
 along from door to door in quest of food and 
 clothes, is spiritually shriveling and should not 
 be the lot of any citizen in a democracy. An 
 opportunity to be economically able to satisfy the 
 elemental needs of life is surely a right among 
 free people. There are likely to be differences 
 of opinion in regard to the best methods of secur- 
 ing this freedom, but there should be unanimity 
 in regard to its desirability. 
 
 J. The gratification of desires connected zvith 
 the social instincts. — Normal men want the stim- 
 ulus of association with their kind, and it is 
 necessary to their development. Without oppor- 
 tunity for legitimate exercise this desire may 
 readily become anti-social. The hermit is an 
 abnormality, fortunately rare. Less rare, but 
 equally to be deplored, is the one whose only 
 social pleasure is found in bestial haunts with 
 others like himself. Between these two extremes, 
 we find a rational craving for the spiritual joys 
 of friendship, and that society is doomed to decay 
 Avhich does not recognize the legitimacy of this, 
 and make wise provision for its satisfaction. 
 
Preservation of the Democratic Ideal 23 
 
 4. The gratification of wants, emanating from 
 the desire to know, which exists in the breast of 
 every normal man. — It is true that this is found 
 in varying degrees of strength in different people, 
 and manifests itself in varying forms. A man 
 must know if he would do. The knowledge desire 
 is a much larger thing than schools alone can 
 satisfy, yet formal education is a means to that 
 end. Knowledge truly is power, and man must 
 have opportunity to acquire the phase of it that 
 will unfold the world for him, if he is to enter 
 into the satisfactions of democracy. 
 
 5. The gratification of wants connected with 
 the desire for the aesthetic. — Normal people crave 
 the beautiful in their lives. The fact that many 
 conceptions of beauty are crude and barbaric, 
 does not negate their existence. Music, art, liter- 
 ature, make their appeal in varying ways, and 
 their leavening influence is needed if man is to 
 rise to his full height in a democracy. The desire 
 for beauty in life is omnipresent, as pitiful 
 attempts at personal adornment, and pathetic 
 efforts to participate in the arts, testify. Taste is 
 a matter of cultivation ; love of the beautiful is 
 innate. 
 
 6. The gratification of wants cotinected with 
 the desire for rightness. — The normal man recog- 
 nizes obligation and has a sense of duty. He 
 desires to get in touch with forces outside of self, 
 and he seeks a guiding principle in his life. This 
 is quite apart from adherence to religious dogma. 
 It is a desire found in the savage and in the saint; 
 
24 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 and society must recognize its normality. Like 
 all the other wants of man, this varies with the 
 individual, but it is found in everyone. 
 
 If we would preserve our democracy then, we 
 must see to it that life is made worth while for 
 all the people instead of the favored few. This is 
 the only kind of democracy that is worth pre- 
 serving, the only kind that should triumph in the 
 world. The extension of opportunity to all the 
 people to enjoy the satisfactions enumerated 
 above is possible in any society, and should cer- 
 tainly be attainable in a land where freedom is 
 the watchword. Democracy with all its failures 
 is the ideal of the twentieth century, and the 
 preservation of all its forms — political, social, 
 industrial — should be the first charge upon 
 reconstruction. Complete democratization would 
 render unnecessary all other reconstructive work. 
 The preservation of the democratic ideal will do 
 much toward rendering such work effective. The 
 torch held on high will light the dark way. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 BOOKS 
 
 Cromer, The Earl of, and Others, After-War Problems, 
 The Macmillan Company, 19 17. 
 
 Schafer, Joseph, and Cleveland, Frederick A., (Editors), 
 Democracy in Reconstruction, Houghton Mifflin Company, 
 1919. 
 
 Small, Albion W., and Vincent, George E., An Introduc- 
 tion to the Study of Society, American Book Company, 1894. 
 
 Small, Albion W., General Sociology, The University of 
 Chicago Press, 1905. 
 
Preservation of the Democratic Ideal 25 
 
 Thayer, William Roscoe, Democracy: Discipline: Peace, 
 Houghton Mifflin Company, 19 19. 
 
 Tufts James H., Our Democracy, Henry Holt and Com- 
 pany, 1917. 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow, The New Freedom, Doubleday, Page 
 & Company, 1913. 
 
 MAGAZINE ARTICLE 
 
 Small, Albion W., "Some Structural Material for the 
 Idea, Democracy," The American Journal of Sociology, 
 November, 1919, and January, 1920. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 INDUSTRIAL UNREST 
 
 WITHOUT doubt, the most difficult problem 
 awaiting solution in the world today is the 
 adjustment of the differences existing between 
 capital and labor. That differences do exist is 
 apparent to everyone. On all sides one hears 
 mutterings of a discontent that has assumed 
 world proportions. It is no local or temporary 
 condition ; all the nations are facing it. This 
 indeed is the problem of reconstruction par excel- 
 lence, and is recognized as such by all the coun- 
 tries which are trying to restore normal life to 
 their populations. The industrial army which 
 performed such valiant service behind the lines 
 in war time is determined to share in the better 
 life that peace promised. The adjustment of the 
 fighting armies to the demands of civil life is 
 simple when compared with the effort to bring 
 about industrial peace. Industrial difficulties are 
 old ; they are merely accentuated now. They have 
 been accumulating with the years, and have only 
 recently assumed serious proportions. A con- 
 dition may justly be called serious when millions 
 of men laboring with set faces are ready to fight 
 for what they consider their rights. It is only 
 
 26 
 
Industrial Unrest 27 
 
 hopeless, however, when unreason prevails, and 
 this is quite as likely to be on the side of capital 
 as of labor. Neither side has a monopoly on 
 reason. In the struggle, labor is heavily handi- 
 capped by poverty and ignorance as well as by 
 indifferent leadership. It is thus a poor match 
 for the wealth, intelligence, and expert leaders of 
 the employing class.^ This fact creates additional 
 bitterness among employees, because it is a situa- 
 tion that does not spell equality of opportunity. 
 It should be borne in mind that the returned 
 soldiers are not directly responsible for the labor 
 situation at the present time, although their sud- 
 den return to industry must be considered. In 
 this country alone 4,000,000 young men were 
 taken out of industry to form an army, and their 
 places had to be filled by men who were left 
 behind, and by women. A labor demand in excess 
 of the supply was thereby created, and owing to 
 the necessity of speeding up in the production of 
 war supplies, unusually high wages were offered 
 in the war industries. This in turn attracted 
 workers from other fields, such as household and 
 farm labor, where the shortage, particularly in 
 the former, is still keenly felt. Even demobiliza- 
 tion did not restore the balance. 
 
 What is true in this respect in the United 
 States is doubly true in Europe where many more 
 
 ^A notable example of this is to be seen in the unsuccess- 
 ful steel strike of the autumn of 19 19. 
 
2 8 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 men for a much longer period of time were with- 
 drawn from industry. 
 
 With the passing of the old personal relations 
 between workers and their employers which 
 existed before the days of great machines, came 
 the beginning of that class hostility which is so 
 marked today. The production of material things 
 has gone on so rapidly that employers have ap- 
 parently not had time to consider the human 
 element in this production. They have been 
 interested only in output. But this, we now 
 know, is a shortsighted policy, since the highest 
 point in output cannot be maintained without 
 the cooperation of the workers. They may be 
 driven to the machines by fear of starvation, but 
 no managerial mandate can compel the maximum 
 of exertion. 
 
 As the working people rise in the scale of 
 intelligence, they become more insistent on a 
 share in the determination of the conditions under 
 which they work. This is the price of enlighten- 
 ment, but believers in democracy should find no 
 price too high to pay for raising the general level 
 of intelligence. Before there was a world war, 
 free labor was thinking its own thoughts. That 
 millions of men in any country should be forever 
 willing to fetch and carry at the behest of others 
 indicates a state of mental stagnation that must 
 surely make for national decay sooner or later. 
 If a voice in the control of government is worth 
 fighting for, why not a voice in the control of 
 work, which touches the average man much more 
 
Industrial Unrest 29 
 
 closely? Such thoughts were agitating the 
 laborers in Europe before the summer of 1914. 
 but like other loyal men they put them aside for 
 the period of the war and devoted themselves 
 exclusively to the pursuit of victory. 
 
 In America a similar state of afifairs existed. 
 The remarkable industrial development since the 
 Civil War was made possible by an abundance 
 of raw materials, an oversupply of cheap labor 
 from Europe, and a genius for business enter- 
 prise in the native blood. Some of the world's 
 greatest fortunes were amassed here during this 
 period, and serious-minded workingmen have 
 tried to discover any good reason why the men 
 who furnished the capital should get so much, 
 while the men who performed the la1)or got so 
 little. 
 
 They had not found a reason satisfactory to 
 themselves when the war broke out, and they 
 were called to the colors for either military or 
 industrial service. Their vigorous response not 
 only added greatly to the dignity of their labor, 
 but it also roused many thinking people, includ- 
 ing some employers, to a belief in the justice of 
 at least some of their contentions. One does not 
 need to be a propagandist for any ** ism " to admit 
 that the hardships of industry have fallen with 
 undue severity upon those who are least able to 
 make their own terms with the world, that is, 
 upon the ignorant, the young, and the weak. It 
 took a world war to make these classes articu- 
 late — and articulate because the ever-present 
 
30 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 fear of losing a job had vanished in a day with the 
 surplus of unemployed. It was formerly thought 
 that our modern system of industry would not be 
 workable without a margin of unemployed. 
 
 A sense of security in one's position makes for 
 independence in some, while in others it makes 
 for tyranny. In any case, the cringing attitude 
 of the whipped cur is no longer observable in 
 labor. This is disconcerting to masterful spirits 
 who in the past have enjoyed much distinction 
 from their power over their fellow-men, due to 
 the ease with which they could replace dis- 
 charged workmen. Now the laborer is taking a 
 turn at dictating terms, and he is not showing 
 any better spirit than the former dictator. Being 
 in the saddle gives a man great assurance, but 
 it does not enable him to win the race over a 
 powerful automobile, although he can win over 
 those on foot. It is on this account that the 
 small employer is at a disadvantage in dealing 
 with labor when compared with the great cor- 
 poration. Thus is added another element to the 
 general unrest. It seems as if the whole world 
 had slipped from its moorings, but if it gets 
 better dockage at new ports, the universe will be 
 the gainer. And to secure better dockage is the 
 business of reconstruction. 
 
 The labor situation in England^ throws much 
 light on the problem in general, and English 
 
 ^Bloomfield, Management and Men. (Contains valuable 
 information on English undertakings.) 
 
Industrial Unrest 31 
 
 experience should be of great value to us in 
 reconstruction plans. 
 
 Everyone knows about the famous " three 
 years' truce " which organized labor made with 
 the government, permitting the waiving of cer- 
 tain Trade Union regulations for that period in 
 order to aid in the prosecution of the war. The 
 unions which have had great power in England 
 for years, agreed to the *' dilution of labor " or the 
 use of a certain percentage of unskilled labor 
 under the direction of skilled. They also agreed 
 not to limit output, which had been the curse of 
 English industry for a generation. When em- 
 ployers were thus freed from former tyrannous 
 restrictions, and permitted to operate their plants 
 twenty-four hours a day, the country entered 
 upon an era of unprecedented production, while 
 the workers received higher wages than ever 
 before. Everyone worked at top speed, and 
 labor leaders were high in the councils of the 
 nation. Patriotism was the lubricant that made 
 the wheels go round. But when the war ended, 
 and the question of the restoration of pre-war 
 Trade Union restrictions on industry came up, 
 dissatisfaction was felt on all sides. Everyone 
 knew this would be so. An astute observer and 
 friend of labor like Mr. Sidney Webb^ never 
 believed that it would be possible to return to 
 the old ways in spite of government promises. 
 It seemed extremely doubtful that employers. 
 
 *Webb, The Restoration of Trade Union Conditions. 
 
32 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 having reached a state of industrial efficiency 
 hitherto undreamed of, would consider for one 
 moment a return to the old methods ; nor would 
 the rank and file of unskilled labor be willing to 
 relinquish its grip on high wages. A compromise 
 then seemed to be the only solution ; but to arrive 
 at this compromise is quite another question. 
 Plans by the hundred have been proposed, for 
 the idealist is always ready to build a Utopia. 
 
 The English Minister of Reconstruction out- 
 lined four necessary changes^ if the results of the 
 war were to be overcome. These are: (i) better 
 cooperation between capital and labor, (2) better 
 conditions of life, (3) better training, and (4) 
 better industrial methods. Obviously, reforms as 
 far-reaching as these cannot be effected in a day, 
 nor by the genius of any one man. It is there- 
 fore to be expected that many different groups 
 should be ready with proposals along economic, 
 political, or sociological lines, and varying from 
 conservative to extremely radical. But there 
 seems to be a general feeling, regardless of the 
 shade of belief, that industrial unrest can be 
 eliminated only by some extension of control to 
 the industrial workers. The best known of these 
 plans are found in the Whitley Reports^ in which 
 is advocated the establishment of joint, standing 
 
 * Friedman, Labor and Reconstruction in Europe, p. 23. 
 
 'Reprints of the Reports of the Whitley Committee may 
 be obtained from the Bureau of Industrial Research, 289 
 Fourth Ave., New York. 
 
Industrial Unrest 33 
 
 industrial councils and shop committees for all 
 industries. Mr. J. H. Whitley is chairman of the 
 Reconstruction Ministry's subcommittee on the 
 relation between employer and employed. 
 
 What the Magna Carta signifies in the history of political 
 democracy, the Whitley Reports may come to mean in the 
 future industrial democracy.* 
 
 Industrial councils are designed to standardize 
 the relations between employers and employed, 
 and to give workmen a dignity in industry such 
 as they have never before enjoyed. Neither 
 the right to strike nor to lockout is interfered 
 with, but the machinery to prevent such waste- 
 ful stoppage of work is provided. 
 
 England realizes as never before the necessity 
 for utilizing the knowledge and experience of her 
 workingmen, and for this end to establish some 
 form of real partnership in production. Her 
 experience should be of great value to the United 
 States where unrest is quite as disturbing, 
 although conditions of production are not so 
 chaotic, and limitation of output by union regu- 
 lation not such a bugbear to capital. 
 
 The war taught England the national impor- 
 tance of the laboring classes. Without the whole- 
 hearted cooperation of labor, the war would not 
 have been won. Labor knows this, but is hardly 
 strong enough to make its demands felt even 
 with such an advantage. 
 
 In discussing the labor situation, it is well to 
 
 ^Friedman, Labor and Reconstruction in Europe, p. 141. 
 
34 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 bear in mind that unrest is a symptom, not a 
 disease, and the causes of the trouble should be 
 sought. These are somewhat vague in the minds 
 of most people, but it seems clear that they have 
 to do chiefly with some voice in control or owner- 
 ship of the means of production. And we may as 
 well recognize the fact that general industrial 
 unrest will not disappear until the causes are 
 removed. Men ask for higher wages and shorter 
 hours, and when these demands are granted, 
 peacefully or after a fight, they are still discon- 
 tented, and ask for still further wage increases 
 and still shorter hours, when what they really 
 want is not specific dollars or hours but power to 
 determine fair conditions for themselves, and, 
 moreover, they are going to have this power 
 sooner or later. A reconstructed America will 
 have to give it to them. It is not thinkable that 
 millions of dissatisfied men, yearly increasing in 
 intelligence, will much longer continue to accept 
 scraps from the master's table. 
 
 The present strike-and-win or the strike-and- 
 lose method throws the burden of increased 
 wages on the public instead of on the profits 
 of business where it belongs. It is only by 
 increased production that capital, without eating 
 its own head off, can take care of wage demands. 
 Without this, employers have recourse to price- 
 raising which affects all consumers including the 
 workmen who started the ball rolling. And so 
 the vicious circle of high prices is completed. 
 But this needs no exposition, since it is familiar 
 
Industrial Unrest ^S 
 
 to every thinking person in the country who sees 
 his dollar shrinking almost daily. 
 
 It is possible of course to write down the con- 
 spicuous grievances of labor, and indicate the 
 weapons it uses in its effort to correct abuses. 
 Then it is our task to see wherein the public 
 can help. We have in this country, no recon- 
 struction ministry, but efforts of various kinds 
 are being made to solve the problems. 
 
 Many say that the interests of capital and 
 labor are fundamentally the same, but it is doubt- 
 ful if this is true. They may even be diametri- 
 cally opposed, yet they may be made to approach 
 each other, by the exercise of wisdom on both 
 sides. The laborer wants to get as much as he 
 can for the least expenditure of effort, while the 
 capitalist wants to get the most labor for the 
 least expenditure of wages commensurate with 
 profitable service. Of course when there is a 
 scarcity of labor it is an economic folly to wear 
 out a man, but when there is a surplus, this need 
 not concern the employer as an employer, though 
 it should concern him greatly as a man. A sur- 
 plus of 5,000 waiting at the Stockyards gates 
 in Chicago made the workers lose their strike 
 of 1904.^ 
 
 Through Trade Unions, the workmen have 
 been trying for more than a generation to equal- 
 ize their disabilities, and some of the bitterest 
 
 ^Parker, "The Labor Policy of the American Trusts," 
 The Atlantic Monthly, February, 1920, p. 225. 
 
36 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 fights between labor and capital have been occa- 
 sioned by their insistence on recognition of the 
 union. Most employers are at heart more or less 
 hostile to Trade Unions ; probably all would be 
 glad to be free from them ; yet some have ac- 
 cepted them graciously enough, and work har- 
 moniously with them. Employers object not so 
 much to the workmen's right to organize as to 
 the methods they have adopted. But labor has 
 only taken a leaf from the books of Big Business. 
 No just person should question labor's right to 
 organize for self-protection and self-determina- 
 tion while capital has that privilege. Yet every- 
 one must deplore the lust for power that is 
 evidenced on both sides. The great corporations 
 are able to checkmate the unions, and, as has 
 been said before in this chapter, this is a cause 
 of widespread unrest. It is an important cause 
 of recent bitter struggles in certain basic indus- 
 tries of the country in which the workmen have 
 failed. 
 
 The Trade Union may not be the highest form 
 of labor organization, but it has thus far been 
 the most effective. It has been able to secure 
 greatly improved conditions for its members, and 
 incidentally, for all labor. Shorter hours, higher 
 wages, and better sanitation have followed union 
 agitation. Collective bargaining has put the 
 worker on a more independent footing. The 
 individual cannot make very good terms for him- 
 self even when there is a scarcity of labor. He 
 has no effective argument. The union has the 
 
Industrial Unrest 37 
 
 strike with which to enforce its demands. It is 
 most unfortunate that the strike has to be resorted 
 to, since misery and disaster frequently follow 
 in its trail ; yet, as is the case with nations, war 
 seems at times to be inevitable. By this method, 
 organized labor has secured for itself quite gen- 
 erally an eight-hour day either in fact or as a 
 basic day upon which to reckon payment for 
 overtime. But now that the eight-hour day has 
 been achieved in well-unionized trades, we hear 
 echoes of a call for six hours, and the more daring 
 spirits whisper four. At least one successful 
 British manufacturer. Lord Leverhulme, has 
 established a six-hour day, and believes that, 
 
 . . . . it is already applicable without loss to all those 
 industries in which the cost of production in overhead 
 charges is equal in amount to the cost of wages. But in 
 most workshops and factories, the cost of production in the 
 form of overhead charges is double or more the cost of 
 wages. In all these latter, the six-hour day can be applied 
 forthwith with enormous gains in cost, of production, pro- 
 vided the supply of raw material and of labor is available, 
 and the demand for products exists.^ 
 
 This plan, it may be said, presupposes at least 
 two shifts of workers per day. That is, machinery 
 works longer hours and human beings fewer. 
 
 The desire for more leisure is quite general 
 among the workers. Only recently our own 
 miners asked for a thirty-hour week. If, by means 
 of a shorter day, production can be increased, 
 
 * Leverhulme, The Six-Hour Day and Other Industrial 
 Questions, p. 19. 
 
38 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 or at least the present rate maintained, then the 
 shorter day should be welcomed as an economic 
 good. If, in addition to this, it gives us a 
 healthier and happier body of workers, it should 
 be hailed as an inestimable social gain. Lord 
 Leverhulme's enthusiasm for the six-hour day, 
 however, has not yet proved contagious. And 
 it may well be questioned if a shorter day, even 
 when coupled with high wages, would prove a 
 solvent for the present industrial unrest. The 
 past does not furnish proof that it ever has done 
 so. In the passing of a century, the work day 
 has shrunken from sixteen to fourteen, to twelve, 
 to ten, to eight hours^ with a steadily accumulat- 
 ing discontent; but this cannot be considered 
 entirely deplorable. A stupid content would give 
 us no progress. A wholesome dissatisfaction with 
 unfavorable conditions of life has brought the 
 world to its present state of development. 
 
 The problem of reconstruction, then, is not 
 so much to attempt to eliminate unrest directly 
 as to endeavor to make the best things in life 
 more possible of attainment by the wage-earners 
 who are first of all men with the instincts^ of 
 men. As machine operatives, they have lost the 
 pleasure of accomplishment without which work 
 becomes drudgery. An industrial system which 
 
 *In government positions, in many business houses, in 
 strongly organized trades, and, at present, in much casual 
 work. 
 
 ^Tead, Instincts in Industry. 
 
Industrial Unrest 39 
 
 requires nine men to make a needle, and eighty 
 men to make a pair of shoes, gives meager oppor- 
 tunity for individual skill to assert itself. Shorter 
 hours and higher wages alone cannot recompense 
 the worker who has, consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, sacrificed his creative impulses in order 
 to live.^ The more intelligent will still crave self- 
 expression. And it is just here that a reconstruc- 
 tion program may be turned to practical value 
 by proposing a feasible plan whereby the workers 
 themselves shall have some voice in determining 
 the conditions under which they shall work. 
 Representation of some kind must be accorded 
 them if the revolutionary aspects of unrest are 
 to be eliminated. 
 
 Many plans have already been evolved for 
 democratic control. One illustration may be 
 given here as an indication of the possibilities 
 open to employers. An old and honored firm in 
 Cincinnati, after thirty years' experience with 
 profit-sharing, and two with shop committees, 
 has received into its directorate three factory 
 employees, elected by their fellow-workers. The 
 total number of directors is twelve. Democratic 
 representation- will doubtless do much to create 
 contentment among workmen, when added to all 
 the other desirable conditions for which they 
 have been striving^. 
 
 ^Marot, The Creative Impulse in Industry. (Contains an 
 excellent discussion of this subject.) 
 
 'Bloomfield, Shop Management. (Contains detailed dis- 
 cussion of numerous experiments.) 
 
40 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 The restoration of personal relations between 
 employer and employee to take the place of 
 mechanical contact would do much to stem the 
 tide of unrest. Industrial workers, skilled or un- 
 skilled, permanent or casual, are human beings 
 with the same hopes and ambitions as those in 
 more favored social circles. They want to be 
 treated as responsible men, and, according to 
 some, industrial partnerships will gratify this 
 desire, while others have more elaborate pro- 
 posals. 
 
 So many elements enter into the solution of 
 the industrial problem that it is instructive to get 
 the viewpoint^ of a manual laborer who is also 
 a man of education. He says : '* There is first 
 of all, a very pressing need for more honesty, 
 charity, and reverence in the world today than 
 ever before," and, "There can be no social life 
 worthy the name without mutual trust, and no 
 mutual trust without mutual honesty." Again 
 he says : " In reality, all labor, whether of head 
 or hand, is simply a service, and it is a dishonest 
 service if you exact more than you give, whether 
 in service returned or money paid." He sums up 
 his beliefs with : " Teach all men to serve rightly 
 real art, real literature, real science, real labor, and 
 share all these with them, and you need not fear 
 they will tear your tapestries, loot your libraries. 
 
 * Booker, "Industrial Partnership," Yale Review, January, 
 1920. 
 'Wight, "The Human Factor," The Atlantic Monthly, 
 January, 1920, p. 26. 
 
Industrial Unrest 41 
 
 or fling sand into the wheels of your machinery, 
 industrial or social, much less, crush human life." 
 Each country is seeking its own solution of its 
 labor problem. In England, the Labor Party in 
 Parliament seems to offer the best method of 
 removing the causes of unrest; in Russia, the 
 Soviet is regarded as the ideal scheme ; while in 
 the United States we must look to a satisfactory 
 plan yet to be devised whether in accordance 
 with the suggestions of ex-President Wilson's 
 Industrial Conference,^ or some others, remains 
 to be seen. The final oflfering of the ex-Presi- 
 dent's Conference is twofold according to Mr. 
 William L. Chenery. 
 
 In the first place, a singularly ingenious system of col- 
 lective bargaining and of voluntary arbitration is suggested. 
 In the second place, a helpful statement of industrial prin- 
 ciples is made." 
 
 The effort to solve the industrial problem is 
 one that merits the cooperation of all classes of 
 people — the workers themselves, the capitalists, 
 and the public. Reconstruction has no greater 
 task. If discussion can awaken interest that will 
 lead to action, it is not in vain. The New World 
 has the opportunity to lead in industrial reform. 
 If it does not achieve leadership, it can at least 
 follow the best that other countries have to offer. 
 
 *A full report of the Conference which convened January 
 12, 1920, may be found in a supplement to the Survey of 
 March 27, 1920, p. 819. 
 
 'Chenery, "A Constitution for Industry: The President's 
 Conference Reports," The Survey, March 27, 1920, p. 805. 
 
42 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 But while urging action, we must heed the wis- 
 dom of a life-long student of labor problems when 
 he says : 
 
 The solution lies not in abolishing discontent, but in direct- 
 ing it into a hopeful channel, and above all, and chief of all, 
 in recognizing that the solution is to be found not so much 
 in conditions outside of ourselves as in a stirring of quali- 
 ties of mind and character within ourselves.^ 
 
 REFERENCES 
 BOOKS 
 
 Bloomfield, Daniel, Shop Management, The H. W. Wil- 
 son Company, 1919. 
 
 Bloomfield, Meyer, Management and Men, The Century 
 Co., 1919- 
 
 Commons, John R., Industrial Goodwill, McGraw-Hill 
 Book Company, 19 19. 
 
 Friedman, Elisha M., Labor and Reconstruction in Eu- 
 rope, E. P. Button & Company, 191 9. 
 
 Gompers, Samuel, Labor and the Common Welfare, E. P. 
 Button & Company, 1919. 
 
 Hoxie, Robert Franklin, Trade Unionism in the United 
 States, B. Appleton and Company, 1917. 
 
 Kellogg, Paul U., and Gleason, Arthur H., British Labor 
 and the War, Boni and Liveright, 1919. 
 
 King, W. L. MacKenzie, Industry and Humanity, Hough- 
 ton Mifflin Company, 1918, 
 
 Leverhulme, Lord, The Six-Hour Day and Other Indus- 
 trial Questions, Henry Holt and Company, 19 19. 
 
 Lippincott, Isaac, Problems of Reconstruction, The Mac- 
 millan Company, 1919. 
 
 ^Laughlin, "The Solution of the Labor Problem," Scrib- 
 ner's Magazine, March, 1920, p. 312. 
 
Industrial Unrest 43 
 
 Maclver, R. M., Labor in the Changing World, E. P. 
 Button & Company, 1919. 
 
 Marot, Helen, The Creative Impulse in Industry, E. P. 
 Button & Company, 1918. 
 
 Schafer, Joseph, and Cleveland, Frederick A., (Editors), 
 Democracy in Reconstruction, Houghton Mifflin Company, 
 1919. 
 
 Tead, Ordvvay, Instincts in Industry, Houghton Mifflin 
 Company, 1918. 
 
 Webb, Sidney, The Restoration of Trade Union Condi- 
 tions, W. B. Huebsch, 1917. 
 
 MAGAZINE ARTICLES 
 
 Booker, John Manning, "Industrial Partnership," Yale 
 Revieiv, January, 1920. 
 
 Chenery, William L., "A Constitution for Industry: The 
 President's Conference Reports," The Survey, March 27, 
 1920. 
 
 Crovvther, Samuel, "The Fetish of Industrial Bemocracy," 
 World's Work, November, 1919. 
 
 Frankfurter, Felix, " Law and Order," Yale Revieiv, Jan- 
 uary, 1920. 
 
 Gleason, Arthur, "One Year of Reconstruction: A Sum- 
 ming Up of British Industrial Bevelopments Since the Re- 
 turn of the Coalition to Power," The Survey, February 7, 
 1920. 
 
 Hodges, Frank, "Workers' Control: The Case for Self- 
 Government Put Forth by the British Miners," The Sur- 
 vey, January 3, 1920. 
 
 Laughlin, J. Laurence, " The Solution of the Labor Prob- 
 lem," Scribner's Magazine, March 1920. 
 
 Parker, Carleton H., "The Labor Policy of the American 
 Trusts," The Atlantic Monthly, February, 1920. 
 
 Report of the Industrial Conference, (called by the Presi- 
 dent). Supplement to The Survey, March 27, 1920. 
 
 Seager, Henry R., "Needs of Industry versus Bemands 
 of Organized Labor," The Survey, January 3, 1920. 
 
 Wight, Carol, "The Human Factor," The Atlantic Month- 
 ly, January, 1920. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 WOMAN'S LABOR 
 
 IT MIGHT seem at first glance that the ques- 
 tion of woman's labor could well be discussed 
 under the more general heading of industrial 
 unrest, and that the difficulties and needs of wage- 
 earners, wherever found, would be the same irre- 
 spective of sex. In a way this is true; yet in 
 other ways, the problem of woman's labor, both 
 here and in other English-speaking countries, is 
 quite distinct, and merits separate treatment. The 
 reasons for this latter view are not hard to dis- 
 cover. In the first place, although women as a 
 class have for generations been wage-earners, 
 women as individuals are transients in industry, 
 and give to their employment a lack of per- 
 manence that discourages the inclusion of their 
 needs in the general labor programs of men, 
 except in a more or less philanthropic sense. 
 This, at least, was the pre-war situation. An 
 overwhelming majority of the girls who enter 
 industry at fourteen or sixteen years of age 
 or thereabouts, leave it in about five years 
 to marry. That is, the apprenticeship that 
 might be expected to give proficiency is prac- 
 tically wasted, since the work is regarded as 
 
 44 
 
Woman's Labor 45 
 
 a temporary makeshift anyway, while the real 
 occupation of life comes with marriage. The 
 fact that great numbers of married women re- 
 enter industry is lost sight of by young girls 
 looking forward to the supposed leisure of 
 domestic life. Yet the census of 1910 showed that 
 one in every four of our wage-earning women 
 was married. Such a mental attitude as this 
 situation seems to indicate, does not make for 
 the class consciousness that develops efficiency 
 and brings improved conditions. 
 
 I have said that the foregoing is true in the 
 English-speaking countries, because a somewhat 
 different order prevails in the continental coun- 
 tries, although their need for consideration is 
 equally great. There the factory system has not 
 developed in just the same way that it has in 
 England and America since the great inventions 
 of the eighteenth century. 
 
 In the second place, we consider woman's labor 
 as a question apart because an overwhelming 
 majority of women workers are young, and the 
 preservation of their health becomes a matter of 
 national importance second to no other. No na- 
 tion can afford to jeopardize its future mothers 
 and home-makers, although every nation has 
 indulged more or less in this form of extrava- 
 gance at one time or another. Such reasons alone 
 are sufficient to warrant separate discussion of 
 woman's labor in any plans for reconstruction. 
 
 We may add to these reasons the present gen- 
 eral interest attaching to the subject of woman's 
 
46 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 labor, owing to the distress caused by a shortage 
 of women workers in many quarters, such as 
 kitchens ; and also the very recent enfranchise- 
 ment of women in many lands. It is estimated 
 that there are at present 100,000,000 women 
 voters in the world. Women have thus, as never 
 before, a voice in determining their own social 
 and industrial status, and reconstructionists must 
 take cognizance of this. Women workers with 
 voting power need no longer be wards of kind- 
 hearted statesmen, though kind-hearted states- 
 men will still have a function to perform in 
 sponsoring legislative reforms demanded by 
 women voters, until there are enough women 
 legislators to sponsor their own reforms. 
 
 This chapter is not presented as an erudite 
 study of the perplexing problem of woman's 
 labor with its ramifications into the home and 
 into society at large. It is rather a statement of 
 some salient facts concerning woman's work 
 which should be recognized in any plans for re- 
 construction that may be made by the govern- 
 ment or private organizations. A wide knowl- 
 edge of the conditions of life is essential to social 
 solidarity, without which there can be no strong 
 and effective democracy. 
 
 Before the outbreak of the war, there were in 
 the United States nearly 72,000,000 people gain- 
 fully employed. Of these more than 8,000,000 
 were women and girls, and this does not include 
 the great host working as housekeepers for their 
 husbands and children, but receiving no definite 
 
Woman s Labor 47 
 
 wages. These numbers have been greatly aug- 
 mented of late. Since the beginning of the war, 
 the employed woman has been with us on every 
 side. She has formed a very important element 
 in the " man power " of the United States. While 
 the war was in progress, women of the so-called 
 leisure class in all lands responded heroically to 
 the call of country, and went out into what- 
 ever fields needed their services. Much of this 
 labor was unpaid, or practically unpaid, since it 
 had to do with various undertakings of mush- 
 room growth carrying on activities induced by 
 the war. This labor, like knitting, was ephemeral, 
 and, also like knitting, of great subjective value, 
 since it gave to the non-workers some apprecia- 
 tion of what it means to leave home early and 
 stay away all day, and, in the main, perform tasks 
 that someone else had planned. The lash of 
 economic necessity was never upon these women ; 
 they do not know what it means to work for their 
 daily bread ; but they would be dull indeed if 
 the experience did not help them to interpret to 
 themselves and others the needs of self-support- 
 ing women. 
 
 Life furnishes ample illustration that common 
 experiences lead to community of interest. How 
 eagerly housekeepers, behind closed doors, de- 
 nounce their maid-servants, and with what avid- 
 ity maid-servants denounce their mistresses when 
 opportunity arises ! To enter into the lives and 
 tasks of others, even temporarily, should, and usu- 
 
48 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 ally does, widen the outlook of the participant. 
 If the volunteer work of women has no more 
 permanent result than this, it will not have been 
 in vain. Aside from this, of course, it was a val- 
 uable contribution to the country's need. 
 
 The women who went out for hire to fill the 
 breach in labor were not less patriotic than their 
 sisters to whom money mattered not, and it is 
 their problems that are most significant, and it 
 is their interests that must be safeguarded in 
 these days of readjustment. Many women who 
 became wage-earners for the first time during 
 the war, are remaining in industry either from 
 necessity or because economic independence is 
 pleasant to them. The present high rate of wages 
 leads numbers of married women to work all or 
 part time, for, even though the husband is well 
 paid, living expenses are so heavy that any addi- 
 tion to the family income is welcome. Among 
 those struggling for a bare existence, the wife 
 must work. Many are questioning the social re- 
 sults of the general employment of women, and 
 view with some alarm its effects on marriage and 
 on family life. The questioning and the alarm, of 
 course, are futile, since women are not going to 
 be talked back into their homes. A reasonable 
 view of the situation is taken by Professor Arthur 
 J. Todd, who says : 
 
 Does the pressure for better income mean the permanent 
 retention of women in industry? And how will women's 
 entrance into industry affect family life? Will it "penalize 
 
JV Oman's Labor 49 
 
 marriage ? " It will certainly penalize marriage as a trade, 
 but it need not destroy marriage and family life in their 
 best sense/ 
 
 Adjustment in the trades in which women were 
 employed during the war was much more of a 
 problem in England than in this country owing 
 to the vastly greater number, about a million and 
 a half, called to take men's places, and the neces- 
 sity of formulating plans in accordance with the 
 restoration of Trade Union conditions as agreed 
 upon by parliament in the famous truce with 
 labor. To get women in proved simpler than to 
 get them out. Patriotism coupled with necessity 
 swept them into new occupations ; self-interest 
 keeps them there. It is of the greatest impor- 
 tance to society that women who entered the 
 skilled trades, when the men formerly employed 
 were serving the colors, should not keep their 
 places by means of unfair wage competition with 
 men, and that organized men should not close 
 the door to women's appeal. 
 
 Mr. Friedman 2 cites the case of reconstruction 
 plans for women in the engineering trades as 
 typical. There the recommendation is that, 
 
 . . . . men unionists cooperate with women rather 
 than compete with them, that unionists should not attempt 
 to oust women from the trade, but rather aid in organizing 
 them, so as to take out of the employers' hands a whip over 
 organized labor. 
 
 Where men had won for themselves, before the 
 
 ^Schafer and Cleveland (Editors), Democracy in Recon- 
 struction, chap. V, p. 104. 
 'Friedman, Labor and Reconstruction in Europe, p. 116. 
 
50 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 war, advantages of hours and wages, it was only- 
 natural that they should resent the loss of these 
 through the advent of women. It was wisdom, 
 therefore, to seek to bring women into the fold 
 of unionism on the same plane with themselves. 
 In England the plan known as the '* dilution 
 of labor " permitted the use of women in trades 
 hitherto closed to them by strong unions of men. 
 Women thus had an opportunity to become 
 skilled workers, and when the " three years* 
 truce " was over, they naturally enough did not 
 wish to give up their work. Some plan of adjust- 
 ment had to be evolved, and there was a ministry 
 of reconstruction to evolve it. It is estimated 
 that over 1,750,000 English women worked in 
 munitions, a term covering all government manu- 
 facture of things essential to the carrying on of 
 war, and it is said that 300,000 of these came from 
 domestic pursuits, and from small shops. In 
 France 450,000 women who had never before 
 been in the factories went into the making of 
 deadly shells. They were mostly housewives or 
 workers on delicate fabrics. Figures are not 
 available for the number of munition workers in 
 this country, but we know it was several hundred 
 thousand, and that the work caused the first great 
 exodus from domestic service. In all three coun- 
 tries it was women's first opportunity to harvest 
 high wages, and they made the most of it. In 
 England and France, grim sorrow pushed them 
 on to tremendous output, and the money return 
 was staggering to them. 
 
Woman's Labor 51 
 
 In the United States, the first entrance of 
 women into munition plants was before our par- 
 ticipation in the war, and had only commercial 
 aspects. Girls rushed to Bridgeport, Connecti- 
 cut,^ for example, with a zeal that well-nigh over- 
 whelmed the town. Domestics and clerks and 
 girls from the country districts left everything in 
 a frantic rush to get employment where wages 
 were high, although no adequate preparation had 
 been made to receive them. The resulting hous- 
 ing situation was deplorable. New-found liberty 
 sought to express itself, and in ways not always 
 beneficial to the community. The story of Bridge- 
 port's response to the new social burdens thus 
 thrust upon her is a long one, but the town finally 
 measured up to the standards of good citizenship 
 in this respect. 
 
 Women had worked in munitions prior to 1914, 
 but their labor was inconspicuous. It was not until 
 a new market was opened up by the European 
 contestants that there was great demand for their 
 services. After the United States entered the war, 
 and young men were called to the army, a press- 
 ing patriotism, as well as financial inducements, 
 drew more and more women into munitions and 
 other government employment, thus creating 
 a shortage in some of the old-time occupations of 
 women. Household service still suffers from this 
 scarcity of labor and the era of reconstruction is 
 not yet at hand. It is true that probably not more 
 
 *Hewes and Walter, Munition Makers. 
 
52 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 than 20 per cent of the families in this country 
 employ domestic helpers, but this important fifth 
 had become so dependent on the manner of 
 living to which it was habituated that acute dis- 
 tress is felt from the necessity for readjustment. 
 In England, too, cooks and housemaids walked 
 out at the country's call to the number of 100,000,^ 
 but now that peace has come they have not 
 walked back. Unquestionablv unfavorable condi- 
 tions in the households in the past have had much 
 to do with this situation both here and abroad. 
 People are now paying the penalty of extrava- 
 gantly high wages and indifferent service. It is 
 becoming more and more difficult to maintain 
 homes, and families are crowding into hotels. 
 Distracted housewives offer hitherto undreamed- 
 of inducements, but even these frequently fail 
 to secure desired help. Wages have doubled in 
 three years ; hours have been shortened ; tasks 
 have been lightened ; living quarters have been 
 made pleasanter; yet there are no girls in sight. 
 In the whole field of reconstructive effort, 
 there is no more fertile soil than this. Age-old 
 customs of home-making have disappeared, and 
 people are astonishingly receptive to the new. 
 The complexities of modern life make it impos- 
 sible for the well-to-do woman to do all her own 
 housework, and it is questionable if the best inter- 
 ests of society would be served by her attempting 
 
 ^Bloomfield, Management and Men, p. 26. 
 
Woman's Labor 53 
 
 it. Relief lies along the way of cooperation and 
 the abandonment of foolish display. 
 
 Community kitchens delivering hot dinners in 
 thermos containers have already demonstrated 
 their usefulness and practicability in many places. 
 Evanston, Illinois, a beautiful suburb of Chicago, 
 has a very successful one started several years 
 ago under the auspices of the Woman's Club. It 
 sends out about 150 dinners each night at $1.10 a 
 plate and $1.25 for Sundays and holidays. A 
 delivery charge is added to these prices. This 
 service is designed for families unable to obtain 
 help ; the price makes it prohibitive to the poorer 
 people. Yet the plan might well be adapted to 
 the needs of wage-earners' families. The idea 
 was developed in England^ under the Ministry 
 of Food for workers during the war, and was 
 quickly expanded to meet the needs of other 
 classes. The wholesale desertion of an occupa- 
 tion may eventually lead to standardized home 
 service, and a simpler form of family life. Flunky- 
 ism is out of place in a democracy. Every citi- 
 zen in a free land should graciously perform 
 personal services for himself, and allow others 
 to go unchallenged into productive forms of 
 labor. Real reconstruction will bring this to 
 pass. 
 
 The scarcity of workers in domestic service 
 has served to bring the question of woman's labor 
 
 * Moulder, Life and Labor, "Why National Kitchens Have 
 Come to Stay," December, 1919, p. 316. 
 
54 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 conspicuously to the front in some quarters, but 
 in this field it has not interfered with the business 
 of the country, only with comfort. As opposed to 
 this, it is instructive to note an occupation where 
 scarcity of women has actually wrought hardship 
 to the business interests of the nation. The 
 telephone industry presents another illustration 
 of the shortage of women workers. This industry 
 has always utilized the services of girls because 
 their labor was cheap, and they were supposed 
 to have a certain deftness in the work, and there 
 seemed to be a limitless supply. The companies 
 on the whole have provided good conditions of 
 labor, but the actual work from its very nature 
 has always been a heavy nervous strain. While 
 lines of girls were waiting outside for vacancies, 
 the companies did not concern themselves par- 
 ticularly with the effect of the occupation on the 
 worker ; instead they developed a system of regu- 
 lations advantageous to the business, but which 
 are now apparently reacting in the opposite 
 direction, for girls are seeking easier fields of 
 activity. This has demoralized the industry. It 
 is a known fact that an operator does not reach 
 maximum efficiency until she has been working 
 at least two years. In New York State alone, 
 not half of the operators have been employed 
 that long. Added to this preponderance of inex- 
 perienced help, there is an actual shortage of 
 from 700 to 1,000 workers. This combination 
 of circumstances produces an acute situation. In 
 Chicago the problem is similar. 
 
fVoman's Labor 55 
 
 Poor telephone service jeopardizes business 
 interests, and is a serious inconvenience to the 
 general public. The probable solution of this 
 problem is the installation of automatic instru- 
 ments. Under this system every man would be 
 his own " central," and could lodge his com- 
 plaints in a mirror, while the companies would 
 go on side-stepping as before. 
 
 Owing to the situation which has been sug- 
 gested, the governor of New York ordered an 
 investigation into the working conditions of tele- 
 phone operators, by the Bureau of Women in 
 Industry of the New York State Industrial Com- 
 mission. This report has been made public and is 
 ably commented on in the Survey'^ for June 12, 
 1920. Telephone work, it seems, has always been 
 somewhat poorly paid, and the working hours 
 long, due to much overtime requirement, although 
 the basic day is eight hours for day and night 
 workers and seven for evening and split-trick 
 operators. The wages,- including recent in- 
 creases, range from a minimum of ten to fifteen 
 dollars a week to a maximum of from seventeen 
 to twenty-three, according to the size of the 
 borough, or town, in which the operator is lo- 
 cated. The maximum is given only after six 
 years of service. There is also a system of annual 
 gifts after two years' employment. 
 
 Working environment is practically always 
 
 ^ Shellabarger, "Hurry, Girls, Hurry!" The Survey, June 
 12, 1920. 
 ^Ibid., June 12, 1920, p. 367. 
 
^6 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 good in telephone exchanges, and the companies 
 are kindly in their dealings with girls, but the 
 work itself is a great drain on the nervous sys- 
 tem. An operator goes through fourteen pro- 
 cesses to make an ordinary connection, and she 
 must be swift and sure to give good service. The 
 supervisor's '' Hurry, girls, hurry ! " doubtless 
 spurs the girls to renewed effort, but it also adds 
 greatly to the nervous strain, particularly when 
 reinforced by abuse from subscribers. 
 
 It is not possible within the limits of this chap- 
 ter to discuss other industries where a shortage 
 of woman's labor is felt, or new and alluring 
 openings for women, but it may be pointed out 
 that there is a demand ^ for girls everywhere. This 
 is inevitable as there was practically no immigra- 
 tion for five years, and now many foreign women 
 are returning to their European homes. Depart- 
 ment stores start inexperienced girls in basement 
 salesrooms on fifteen dollars a week plus a com- 
 mission on sales in some cities, while other busi- 
 ness concerns are continually advertising for 
 girls at fifteen to twenty dollars a week plus 
 attractions of one kind or another, and experience 
 unnecessary, while any woman who dons a white 
 dress can go out to nurse the sick at twenty-five 
 dollars a week. The ease with which work can 
 be obtained, particularly at certain seasons of the 
 
 * Since these words were written, a change has come about 
 in industry and there are now (October, 1921) many unem- 
 ployed. 
 
Woman's Labor 57 
 
 year, has produced a sporting attitude towards 
 labor among young casual workers. A case came 
 to my notice recently of a country girl of twenty, 
 who in thirteen months had been assistant cook 
 in a lumberjacks' boarding-house, a cherry 
 picker, a waitress, a nurse for children and for 
 the sick, a teacher in a dance-hall, a soap demon- 
 strator in a department store, ironer in a laundry, 
 and cashier in a restaurant. Her experience in 
 the dance-hall was not pleasant. ** But," she 
 said, "you can't be too particular when you are 
 earning money." 
 
 Another woman, in five months, has been cook 
 in a family, laundress in a private home, day 
 worker, cook in a cafeteria, child's nurse, invalid's 
 nurse, worker in a laundry, and janitress in a 
 school. She could have remained longer in each 
 place had she desired to do so, but she preferred 
 a vain quest for the ideal job, high wages, and 
 nothing to do. And these are not isolated in- 
 stances. It is these new conditions connected 
 with the labor of women that cry aloud for con- 
 sideration in the nation's reconstruction plans. 
 Education, organization, standardization should 
 be copiously injected. 
 
 The women who took men's places in industry 
 during the war, on the whole did their work satis- 
 factorily. In this country practically every occu- 
 pation had its quota of women before the 
 exigencies of war called them out to take their 
 brothers' places. The only difference to be noted 
 later was increased numbers in unusual places. 
 
58 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 Women were blacksmiths and bricklayers, and 
 furnace ** men " and glass-blowers, and worked 
 in quarries and mines and fertilizer factories be- 
 fore 1917, but they were few and far between. 
 Ninety glass-blowers and thirty-one blacksmiths, 
 for example, did not show up very conspicuously 
 among the millions of people working for wages. 
 Later we became familiar with the sight of women 
 performing heavy tasks. 
 
 The replacement of men by women during the 
 war was much more extensive in England than 
 in the United States. Mr. Friedman^ gives a 
 list of thirty-eight occupations in which women 
 were substituted for men. In three years, nearly 
 1,500,000 women took up work ordinarily per- 
 formed by men. 
 
 The student of social welfare is, of course, pri- 
 marily concerned with the moral and physical 
 effect of such unusual types of labor upon the 
 workers themselves rather than in their economic 
 aspects, and it is upon these that reconstruction 
 plans must be focused. 
 
 No discussion of the work of women today 
 which omits mention of their so-called foolish 
 expenditures is complete. We hear of it on all 
 sides. Girls who, in the past had only a nickel 
 for peanuts, now have dollars for silk stockings, 
 and it is very disturbing. The divine right of 
 kings has been banished from the earth, but the 
 divine right to wear silk stockings is still a 
 
 ^Friedman, Labor and Reconstruction in Europe, pp. 98-99. 
 
fVoman's Labor 59 
 
 cherished doctrine in some privileged circles. It 
 is therefore not surprising that there should be 
 much criticism of the wage-earner who puts her 
 newly acquired riches into such luxuries. In 
 speaking of these matters a man of much wealth 
 and wisdom said to me : 
 
 Why, in London last year, a woman trunk handler in trim 
 uniform bent over to get the boxes on her truck, and she 
 showed six inches of as handsome silk stockings as my wife 
 ever wore. I could hardly refrain from remonstrating with 
 her. 
 
 Another man in Chicago cited the case of his 
 arrogant stenographer who has furs as good as 
 his wife's. These gentlemen were questioning 
 the rights, not the taste, of their employees. 
 
 In this connection. Miss Mary McDowell in 
 an interesting article entitled, '* Extravagance or 
 Standards?"^ quotes Mr. Seebohm Rountree, an 
 English authority on labor, as saying that the 
 present apparent extravagance is only a rising 
 standard of living. He told the following story : 
 A lady, after addressing munition women on 
 ** War Thrift " asked if anyone had anything to 
 say. One girl arose and said : " Yes, I have 
 something to say. Savin's all right and very 
 good, but I want to tell yees that my mother 
 never in her life saw a whole roast chicken till 
 I brought it home the first Sunda' after my first 
 pay, and I want to tell yees that my mother's 
 going to have a whole roast chicken every Sunda' 
 as long as I can buy it." She then added : *' I 
 
 ^The Outlook, December 10, 1919, p. 472. 
 
6o Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 always had to buy the cheapest blouses made, 
 and at last I bought a silk blouse, and my young 
 man came home on a furlough. He looked at me 
 and said, * Why, Maggie, what have ye done to 
 yerself? I never saw you look like that/" Then 
 with a challenge in her voice, she added : '* I want 
 to say that, savin's or no savin's, as long as he 
 talks like that, I'm goin' to buy silk blouses ! " 
 We all know that it is extremely difficult to 
 spend money wisely. Men of large wealth sud- 
 denly acquired, often make the silliest use of it. 
 It requires imagination and much more to get 
 beyond food and personal adornment in the mat- 
 ter of expenditure. The twenty-dollar-a-week 
 clerk who buys twenty-one dollar shoes sees no 
 incongruity in her act. Her sister who puts five 
 weeks' wages in a coat feels that she can at last 
 hold her head high among the mighty. Old- 
 fashioned people have ideas about the suitability 
 of clothes to time and station. The modern girl, 
 fortified by her new high wages, flouts both, and 
 goes forth to work dressed as for a festival. She 
 is still intoxicated by money, and the seeming 
 magnanimity of the installment-plan merchant. 
 The laundress who, out of her four dollars a day, 
 pays seventy cents a pound for turkey, while her 
 employer gives thanks over chicken at thirty- 
 eight, thinks that she is getting the best out of 
 life. And the scrub woman who now scorns our 
 old clothes, bidding us wear them ourselves, 
 (which we do), is sure that she is not going "to 
 waste her money by saving it." 
 
fF Oman's Labor 6i 
 
 But, by no means, are all of our newly enriched 
 women reckless in their expenditures. They are 
 all dressing better, and living better, and many 
 of them are trying to lay by something for the 
 inevitable rainy day. Standards of living are ris- 
 ing, and it is desirable that they should. A truly 
 democratic society will suffer no wide divergence 
 of comfort and decency. 
 
 Out of all this that is new so far as women 
 workers are concerned, emerge new obligations 
 for society at large. Perhaps instead of new 
 obligations we might say a new emphasis on the 
 old. Girls are still working long hours at monot- 
 onous tasks in factories and shops, and wreck- 
 ing their youth in the effort. Nor have they all 
 entered into the millennium of high wages. Speak- 
 ing of monotonous processes, Carleton Parker^ 
 tells of a woman employed in the Stockyards in 
 Chicago who made one precise stroke each sec- 
 ond, or 3,600 every hour of every day she worked. 
 People who think dish-washing is dull, have no 
 conception of the absolute stupidity of many of 
 the mechanical industrial processes, nor appre- 
 ciation of the crying need for recreational stim- 
 ulus in such cases, if the worker's mentality is 
 not to become atrophied. 
 
 In the reconstruction of social and industrial 
 life which is slowly, but surely, taking place, the 
 status of women workers must be given consid- 
 
 ^ Parker, "The Technique of American Industry," The 
 Atlantic Monthly, January, 1920. 
 
62 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 eration. Women will profit by all the improve- 
 ments that are introduced into the industrial life 
 of men, and should be given the benefit of them. 
 Their lives would be enriched by participation in 
 the control of their own working conditions, and 
 their interest would be stimulated thereby. An 
 apparent wage prosperity is not enough to make 
 useful citizens in a democracy out of wage- 
 earning women. They need besides the guaran- 
 tees and safeguards of legislation, education, and 
 organization. A minimum wage, an eight-hour 
 day, and other standards endorsed by such organ- 
 izations as the National Women's Trade Union 
 League of America, the Young Women's Chris- 
 tian Associations, not to mention other bodies, 
 are not too much to ask of a reconstructed nation. 
 Minimum wage legislation is in force in every 
 English-speaking country outside the United 
 States, and in some states of the Union, but the 
 most populous industrial states lag behind in this 
 matter. 
 
 Women have attained full citizenship as the 
 first step toward reconstruction, but since a large 
 proportion of the workers are too young to avail 
 themselves of the ballot, it remains for others to 
 fight their battles for them at the polls and in 
 legislative halls. 
 
 A democracy that does not give enlarged op- 
 portunity to its women workers is only an 
 autocracy below the surface, and merits oblivion. 
 The new and reconstructed world can sanction 
 only genuine democracy. 
 
fVoman*s Labor 63 
 
 REFERENCES 
 BOOKS 
 
 Bloomfield, Meyer, Management and Men, The Century 
 Co., 1919. 
 
 Friedman, Elisha M., Labor and Reconstruction in Eu- 
 rope, The Macmillan Company, 1919. 
 
 Hewes, Amy, and Walter, Henriette R., Munition Makers, 
 The Russell Sage Foundation, 1917. 
 
 Industrial Notebook, published in sections by the National 
 Board of Y. W. C. A. 
 
 King, W. L. MacKenzie, Industry and Humanity, Hough- 
 ton Mifflin Company, 1918. 
 
 Lattimore, Eleanor L., and Trent, Ray S., Legal Recog- 
 nition of Industrial Women, National Board of Y. M. C. A., 
 1919. 
 
 Schafer, Joseph, and Cleveland, Frederick A., (Editors), 
 Democracy in Reconstruction, Houghton Mifflin Company, 
 1919. 
 
 Women in Industry, Report of War Cabinet Committee. 
 (London.) 
 
 MAGAZINE ARTICLES 
 
 McDowell, Mary E., "Extravagance or Standards?" The 
 Outlook, December 10, 1919. 
 
 Moulder, Priscilla, "Why National Kitchens Have Come 
 to Stay," Life and Labor, December, 1919. 
 
 Peel, Mrs. C. S., "Domestic Life in England To-day," The 
 North American Review, February, 1920. 
 
 Parker, Carleton H., "The Technique of American Indus- 
 try," The Atlantic Monthly, January, 1920. 
 
 Shellabarger, Eloise, "Hurry, Girls, Hurry!" The Survey, 
 July 12, 1920. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 AMERICANIZATION 
 
 AMERICANIZATION as a term is new, 
 practically coincident with war activities, 
 while Americanization as a process is old, dating 
 back to the efforts of the Jamestown settlers and 
 the Pilgrim Fathers to adapt themselves to their 
 new surroundings. In those early days, it was 
 not an organized movement that bore the conno- 
 tation "Americanization;" it was rather a pre- 
 cious, though nameless, individual experience. 
 Those early settlers came to the New World 
 imbued with a spirit that was to stamp itself 
 indelibly on the new home, and later to bear fruit 
 in national traits. And it is those very traits, 
 modified by the experience of generations, that 
 call aloud for recognition today. 
 
 The nation went on for generations trustfully 
 assuming that simple unaided participation in 
 the social, political, and economic life, was the 
 only thing necessary to make good citizens out 
 of those who sought our shores. People were 
 supposed to be imbued with the spirit of free 
 institutions before setting sail for this haven, and 
 could therefore be depended upon to make their 
 own adjustments after their arrival. This as- 
 
 64 
 
Americanization 6^ 
 
 sumption tallied with the facts in the case of the 
 earlier groups that came over after the begin- 
 nings of our independent national life. It was 
 not until a later period that men came in great 
 numbers, knowing nothing of the principles of 
 liberty upon which the Republic stood, and who 
 were too illiterate to enter into the life that 
 awaited them. And the New World forgot them. 
 Indeed it was not until after the opening of the 
 World War, in 1914, that the nation realized the 
 extent and influence of alien groups in our 
 midst. Then, for the first time, it dawned upon 
 the country at large that the United States con- 
 tained millions of Europeans, alien in speech 
 and aspirations ; millions of men and women who 
 were part and parcel of our industrial life, but 
 whose interests were bound up in autocracies 
 across the seas, and some of whom were ready 
 to sacrifice the nation, if possible, to further the 
 cause of despotism. 
 
 This knowledge w^as a shock to all but a few 
 students of the immigration problem who had for 
 years viewed with dismay the great unassimilated 
 mass in our midst, and felt that a time might 
 come when its presence would mean danger. 
 Most people, of course, knew nothing of the lack 
 of assimilation. They knew only vaguely of the 
 foreign groups in the great cities, and thought of 
 them, if at all, only as a by-product of our indus- 
 trial development, and a somewhat picturesque 
 by-product at that. We have taken our popula- 
 tion problems lightly as a nation, glad that we 
 
66 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 were growing big, and quite sure that we were 
 growing strong. City slums became disturbing 
 at times when epidemics raged, but these epi- 
 sodes were soon forgotten, and no one dreamed 
 of the more insidious poisons that might be 
 injected into our national life by the hordes that 
 were with us, but not always of us. Poliomyelitis 
 is not more menacing than kultur. 
 
 To understand clearly the conditions confront- 
 ing the nation, it is necessary to review briefly 
 the immigration movement into this country dur- 
 ing the last hundred years. The first official 
 records are for 1820. A full and interesting 
 discussion of immigration is given by Dr. 
 Emory S. Bogardus in his book on American- 
 ization.^ Here, it is possible only to sketch 
 the movement. Prior to 1820, the settlers had 
 been mainly of British stock, together with some 
 Dutch, Germans, and Scandinavians. Probably 
 not more than 250,000 people arrived between 
 1776 and the date just mentioned. In 1820 over 
 8,000 arrived, two-thirds of whom came from the 
 British Isles. Banner years after that were 1842, 
 with over 100,000, and 1854, with almost 428,000. 
 A potato famine in Ireland and political revolu- 
 tions in the German provinces were the leading 
 causes for the greatly increased numbers who 
 emigrated at this time. In 185 1, 272,000 Irish 
 came, and 215,000 Germans in 1854. 
 
 * Bogardus, Essentials of Americanisation, chaps, xi to xvi 
 inclusive. 
 
Americanization 67 
 
 The Civil War checked immigration for a time, 
 but the opening up of the West, by the building 
 of railroads, and the return of general prosperity, 
 caused Europeans to seek our shores again, and 
 the year 1873 showed a total of 460,000. A finan- 
 cial panic in that year, put another check on 
 immigration, but in 1882 the figures were high 
 again, 789,000 being reported. Many Jews came 
 that year owing to renewed persecutions in Rus- 
 sia. At this time, the character of our immigra- 
 tion began to change. The more illiterate races 
 of southeastern Europe were drawn to America 
 for divers reasons, and they brought lower living 
 standards and different social and political ideas. 
 And 1882 was the year in which the Chinese 
 Exclusion Act was passed. The Chinese had 
 come over in such numbers, while transconti- 
 nental railroads were being built, that their 
 presence came to be deeply resented in those 
 western states where they had settled, and could 
 always underbid a white man in competition for 
 a job. Their standard of living was on a totally 
 different plane. Our first general immigration 
 law also belongs to this year, but its terms were 
 not stringent. 
 
 After this, numbers rose and fell like the ebb 
 and flow of the tide as American prosperity or 
 depression and European oppression dominated. 
 In 1886, there were 335,000; in 1898, 230,000, and 
 in 1905, over 1,000,000. In 1907, over 1,250,000 
 arrived, and about the same number in 1910, 
 1913, and 1914. Then came the World War. 
 
68 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 Only 340,000 immigrants were reported in 191 5> 
 and 110,000 in 1918, while the year closing June 
 30, 1920, shows 800,000. It must be remembered 
 that larger numbers than ever are returning to 
 their European homes, although even normal 
 times have shown a considerable homeward 
 movement. 
 
 Thus in the passing of a century over 30,000,000 
 immigrants have cast in their lot for better or 
 for worse with the United States of America, 
 and upon them depends in large measure the 
 strength and permanence of this country. Each 
 group that has come has brought some contribu- 
 tion to the country of its adoption. And it is said 
 that nations made up of diverse elements present 
 the most virile civilization. Dr. Charles A. Ell- 
 wood states that, " Sociologists are generally 
 agreed that the intermingling of peoples in the 
 past has been a great stimulus to progress."^ 
 
 The United States, then, should rank high in 
 progress, and it will rank higher than ever before 
 when all the foreign elements are incorporated 
 as an integral part into the social whole. Com- 
 mon language is not the only force making for 
 solidarity, although the lack of it brought to light 
 the pressing need for Americanization, and made 
 it a basic problem of reconstruction. 
 
 When the American Army was formed, and 
 it was found that it contained 500,000 young men 
 of draft age who could neither speak nor write 
 
 ^Ellwood, Sociology and Modern Social Problems, p. 199. 
 
Americanization 69 
 
 English, the country was aroused. The changed 
 character of our immigration since about 1885 
 was responsible for this anomalous situation. 
 The earlier immigrants had come from countries 
 in northwestern Europe where a high degree 
 of literacy prevailed ; while the later arrivals 
 included many from countries, like Serbia, for 
 example, where the rate of illiteracy is 79 per 
 cent. In 1910, there were 3,000,000 foreign-born 
 whites, ten years of age and over, in the United 
 States who were unable to speak, read, or write 
 English, and 1,500,000 who could not read or 
 write any language. While immigration prac- 
 tically stopped during the period of the war, there 
 is evidence that it has begun again in full force, 
 and it is therefore necessary that some definite 
 policy in regard to it should be adopted. For a 
 hundred years, the dominating principle has 
 been to admit everyone who sought admission, 
 although, from time to time, certain barriers 
 have been erected. It was found that the open- 
 door policy was flooding the country with many 
 types of undesirables. While the theory of keep- 
 ing the way clear for all who wish to come is 
 democratically sound, its practical application 
 may be open to question. 
 
 The latest immigration law was enacted Feb- 
 ruary 5, 191 7, after acrimonious discussion over 
 the literacy test. The most important of the 
 thirty-eight provisions of this law, which went 
 into effect May i, 1917, are as follows: 
 
yo Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 1. (Section 2.) A head tax of $8.00 for each immigrant 
 
 to be paid to the Collector of Customs. 
 
 2. (Section 3.) The excluded classes are: idiots, the 
 
 feeble-minded, epileptics, the insane, chronic alcoholics, 
 criminals, vagrants, the physically and mentally inca- 
 pacitated, polygamists, anarchists, contract laborers, 
 Chinese, except certain professional classes, and those 
 unable to read some language. 
 
 3. (Section 4.) The deportation of prostitutes or other 
 immoral persons. 
 
 4. (Section 18.) The immediate deportation of aliens 
 brought in violation of law. 
 
 5. (Sections 19 and 20.) The deportation of any alien, 
 advocating or teaching anarchy or destruction, within 
 five years after arrival. 
 
 It is not felt that this law meets the needs of 
 the country, therefore the following amendments 
 have been proposed and are pending at the 
 present time : ^ 
 
 1. The regulation of immigration on the percentage prin- 
 ciple, with the application of this principle to each 
 people or mother-tongue group separately, but im- 
 partially. 
 
 2. The annual admission of from 3 to 10 per cent of 
 those of each people already naturalized, including the 
 American-born children of that people as recorded in 
 the census of 1920. 
 
 3. The creation of an Immigration Commission to de- 
 termine annually the rate .... with power to 
 admit or exclude labor under exceptional circumstances, 
 to formulate plans for distribution of immigrants, to 
 
 ^The law of June, 1921, went into effect since the above 
 was written. This limits the number that may come from 
 any country to 3 per cent of the number born in that coun- 
 try and resident in the United States in 1910. This is 
 applicable for one year. 
 
Americanization 71 
 
 deal with special cases of importance, including the 
 formulation of educational standards for naturaliza- 
 tion. 
 
 4. The raising of the standards of qualification for citi- 
 zenship, and the extension of the privileges of natural- 
 ization to everyone who qualifies. 
 
 5. The separation of the citizenship of a wife from that 
 of her husband. 
 
 6. The repeal of all laws dealing specifically and diflfer- 
 entially with the Chinese. 
 
 The wisdom of some of these provisions will 
 be seen at a glance. Citizenship, for example, 
 should clearly not be granted because of mar- 
 riage, regardless of necessary qualifications. The 
 reckless absurdity of granting citizenship to 
 women simply because their husbands were citi- 
 zens was shown in New York State after the 
 recent enfranchisement of women. It was then 
 found that 200,000 of the new citizens could 
 neither read, write, nor speak English. A degree 
 of literacy in the language of the country should 
 unquestionably be made a conditon of citizenship. 
 
 Many feel that the present is a time for more 
 than ordinary caution in handling the question 
 of immigration. The magnitude of the political 
 and social disturbances abroad bids us beware of 
 introducing more elements of unrest here, and 
 such elements are likely to come in with an 
 influx of foreign laborers who are coming now^ 
 in greatly increased numbers. In fact they are 
 coming at the old rate of about 5,000 a day, 
 
 ^September, 1920. 
 
72 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 800,000 having landed during the year ending 
 June 30. 
 
 Speaking of this situation, the Chicago Tribune^ 
 says editorially: 
 
 Disorders in Poland and elsewhere in central Europe are 
 stimulating emigration to the United States. These new- 
 comers will get a physical examination at our ports to see 
 that they do not bring in contagious diseases, and they will 
 be otherwise examined, but not to discover what their state 
 of mind is. 
 
 They are coming from lands of unrest and of revolution- 
 ary action, and we should like to know in what spirit they 
 are coming, whether to make use of opportunities in a free 
 land, with respect for its institutions, or whether they are 
 bringing their hatred and prejudices, their revolutionary 
 spirit, their class consciousness and their contempt for 
 democratic institutions. We do not want European additions 
 to the elements of unreasoning discontent in this country. 
 
 The problem at hand is difficult enough with- 
 out injecting into it new trouble. It is not only 
 difficult ; it is colossal. As Professor Ross^ points 
 out, no nation has ever faced the task of trying to 
 assimilate as many and as varied elements as 
 the United States has in her midst. He also 
 points out the fact that a third of our population 
 is of foreign parentage, while between sixteen and 
 seventeen millions^ are of foreign birth. Such 
 arresting facts as these, together with the heavy 
 percentage of illiteracy mentioned before, fur- 
 nished the basis for the country's campaign of 
 
 ^Editorial, Chicago Tribune, September 5, 1920. 
 ^Ross, The Principles of Sociology, pp. 12-13, note. 
 ^In war time. 
 
Americanization 73 
 
 education known as "Americanization." The 
 following summary^ presents the detailed 
 reasons why the nation embarked upon this 
 campaign while the war was in progress : 
 
 1. There are 13,000,000 persons of foreign 
 birth, and 33,000,000 of foreign origin^ 
 living in the United States. 
 
 2. Over 100 different foreign languages and 
 dialects are spoken in the United States. 
 
 3. Over 1300 foreign-language newspapers 
 are published in the United States, having 
 a circulation estimated at 10,000,000. 
 
 4. Of the persons in the United States, 
 5,000,000 are unable to speak English. 
 
 5. Of these persons, 2,000,000 are illiterate. 
 
 6. Of the unnaturalized persons, 3,000,000 
 are of military age. 
 
 7. In 1910, 34 per cent of alien males of draft 
 age were unable to speak English ; that 
 is, about half a million of the registered 
 alien males between twenty-one and thirty- 
 one years of age were unable to under- 
 stand military orders given in English. 
 
 8. War industries are largely dependent on 
 alien labor; 57 per cent of the employees 
 in the iron and steel industries east of the 
 Mississippi; 61 per cent of the miners of 
 
 ^Hill, "The Americanization Movement," The American 
 Journal of Sociology, May, 1919, p. 612. 
 
 ^Persons having one or both parents of foreign birth. 
 Census for 1910. 
 
74 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 soft coal; y2 per cent of workers in the 
 four largest clothing manufacturing cen- 
 ters ; and 68f per cent of construction 
 and maintenance workers on the railroads 
 are foreign born. 
 9. Only about 1.3 per cent of adult non- 
 English-speaking aliens are reached by 
 the schools. 
 10. Many large schools in American cities 
 have been spending more for teaching 
 German to American children than for 
 teaching English and civics to aliens; 
 
 No comment is necessary to impress upon the 
 reader the immediate necessity of having the 
 country enter upon large-scale Americanization 
 work, and of carrying it on without cessation till 
 these unfortunate conditions have vanished. The 
 war needs of the country disclosed the necessity 
 for the education of foreigners ; peace needs 
 should serve to promote the work. 
 
 Teaching English and citizenship to adult 
 foreigners is not new. For years it has been done 
 through the not very successful medium of the 
 night school in cities. The Y. M. C. A. also took 
 up this work in industrial centers.^ Dr. Peter 
 Roberts of the International Committee was a 
 pioneer in this field, and his lessons are still used 
 widely. But when millions are to be educated, 
 concerted action is necessary, and under some 
 central directing agency. The investigation 
 
 ^Roberts, The Neiv Immigration. 
 
Americanization 75 
 
 undertaken by Mr. Hill ^ revealed the fact that 
 there were in the field a number of private bodies 
 that might w^ell undertake such w^ork if they 
 would, and he mentions among these the organi- 
 zations of foreigners themselves. It appears that 
 the thirty-three important racial groups studied 
 have at least two national organizations each, 
 and these fall into three general classes : 
 
 1. Those which exist "for the purpose of 
 maintaining or securing the political unity 
 and independence and perpetuation of their 
 native land." The Polish Central Relief 
 Committee of America embracing about 
 4,000,000 Poles is of this kind. Such an 
 organization is not interested in promoting 
 America's welfare. 
 
 2. The kind that " has for its main purpose 
 the solidarity of the race in America." The 
 Pan-Hellenic Union is an example. It 
 ** fosters the language and traditions and 
 customs of the home country here and 
 urges its foreign born to stay together." 
 Naturally such a group cares nothing at 
 all about becoming Americanized. 
 
 3. The type that exists "primarily to work 
 for America and only secondarily for its 
 native land." Organizations of this kind 
 are neither numerous nor strong. The 
 Croatian League of the United States is an 
 example. 
 
 *Hill, "The Americanization Movement," The American 
 Journal of Sociology, May, 1919, p. 614. 
 
76 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 It is deplorable that so many millions of for- 
 eigners should have been left to drift into the 
 formation of groups alien in spirit to the land 
 which shelters them. It is largely due to a policy 
 of neglect which must be changed in this period 
 of reconstruction if Americanization is to be more 
 than a catchword. 
 
 This is a New World problem which America 
 must work out alone. Other nations have noth- 
 ing to offer in the way of experience. Canada, 
 Australia, and the Argentine Republic, however, 
 should watch with interest the attempts at solv- 
 ing the assimilation problem here, for they, too, 
 may find an undigested mass in their midst in 
 the years to come. Before the war, these coun- 
 tries were receiving a considerable stream of 
 migration from the Old World, although the 
 numbers were not in any way comparable with 
 those coming into the United States. 
 
 Large-scale Americanization work has been 
 carried on in the United States since the forma- 
 tion of the National Americanization Committee 
 in May, 191 5, whose object was " to bring Ameri- 
 can citizens, foreign born and native born alike, 
 together on our National Independence Day to 
 celebrate the common privileges, and define the 
 common duties of all Americans wherever born.'* 
 The various states have entered upon the task 
 with spirit, the work in Massachusetts being 
 especially commendable on account of its suc- 
 cessful correlation of all groups representing 
 race, labor, capital, and social welfare. 
 
Americanization 77 
 
 Among cities, Cleveland is entitled to high 
 rank. In 1914, the city had 80,000 foreigners, 
 ten years of age and over, unable to speak Eng- 
 lish, and only something more than 11,000 in the 
 schools. By means of generous financial appro- 
 priations, educational centers were opened all 
 over the city, and special attention was given to 
 women. The number reached was small in pro- 
 portion to the need, but the campaign showed 
 good methods of attacking the problem. It is 
 difficult to keep weary adults interested in night 
 school. This is the reason that the regular city 
 night schools have not been more successful than 
 they have in attracting large numbers of for- 
 eigners. The more alert and skilled will seek 
 and find instruction in the English language, but 
 the great body of dull and unskilled must be 
 followed to their lairs. 
 
 Many large industrial plants carry on exten- 
 sive Americanization work along more than 
 mere linguistic lines. The D. E. Sicher Company^ 
 of New York, is a notable pioneer. Its work is 
 done in cooperation with the city Board of Edu- 
 cation. The Ford Motor Company of Detroit has 
 an extensive school and it is needed, since there 
 are at work in the plant fifty-three nationalities 
 speaking over a hundred languages and dialects. 
 This is a part of Mr. Ford's welfare work, the 
 high wages and profit-sharing features of which 
 startled the country some years ago. The 
 
 ^Manufacturers of muslin goods. 
 
78 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 Pennsylvania Railroad System, with its 33,000 
 foreign-born employees, has carried on instruc- 
 tion in English for some time. Many other com- 
 panies are equally deserving of mention for their 
 Americanization work, carried on either by them- 
 selves or in cooperation with the Y. M. C. A. 
 and the Y. W. C. A., but it is not possible to 
 enumerate them here. If for no nobler reason 
 than self-interest, all industrial plants employing 
 the foreign born should help them to become 
 citizens in the best sense of the word. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss methods of 
 instruction since that is a pedagogical question, 
 but we can at least insist that the human side 
 of the problem should not be overlooked. The 
 hand of fellowship is needed as well as the 
 primer; the good neighbor as well as the good 
 teacher. 
 
 While insisting upon the necessity for aggres- 
 sive Americanization work, one word must be 
 said about the attitude of the native born toward 
 the foreigner. It is too often one of contempt, 
 a feeling which is reflected even in children, and 
 it has generated a deep and abiding resentment 
 in the hearts of those lately come among us. 
 The immigrants usually come from a low eco- 
 nomic plane, but they are not devoid of feeling. 
 They are exploited by the unscrupulous; jeered 
 at by the thoughtless ; and neglected by those 
 who should protect them, and it is small wonder 
 that they sometimes grow suspicious and think 
 that the land of promise has become a land 
 
Americanization 79 
 
 of swindle. Dr. Carol Aronovici,^ himself a 
 foreigner, sees this tendency and pleads for a 
 recognition of ''the fundamental human values 
 in the immigrant," and the removal of ''all dis- 
 crimination in discussion and treatment of for- 
 eigners." These foreigners are our brothers, and 
 when the real test of war came, an overwhelm- 
 ing majority stood shoulder to shoulder with the 
 native born, and proclaimed their brotherhood 
 to the world. Professor Dallas Lore Sharps 
 pointed out that in a list of casualties printed 
 one day in the Boston Transcript, six out of eight 
 were names almost unpronounceable to the 
 native-born American. These young men had 
 given their lives for the country of their adop- 
 tion ; no native son could do more. 
 
 On the whole the foreign-speaking people 
 have shown a remarkable degree of adaptability 
 and exceptional eagerness to attain to the 
 American standards. It takes time to acquire 
 a language, two years at best, and more than 
 that length of time to absorb the ideas of a new 
 land. And when strangers arrive at the rate of 
 a million a year, as they did for a few years pre- 
 ceding the war, it is not surprising that they 
 should at first seek refuge in their own racial 
 groups, to screen themselves from the strange- 
 ness of it all. Discouragement, too, often causes 
 them to retire even farther from the haunts of 
 
 ^Aronovici, Americanisation, p. 47. 
 
 'Sharp, "Patrons of Democracy," The Atlantic Monthly, 
 November, 1919, p. 649. 
 
8o Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 the native born. The New World is not such 
 a paradise as it was painted. Hunger and want 
 stare them in the face here also. Money does 
 not rain down on them as their hopes had pic- 
 tured. Illustrative of this point is the story told 
 to me by a young Swedish woman who came to 
 this country at the age of eighteen. She said if 
 someone had told her when she was leaving 
 Stockholm that dollar bills were to be picked up 
 on the streets of London, she would not have 
 stopped there, for she was sure that two dollar 
 bills were waiting to be picked up in New York. 
 After thirteen years, she was ready to proclaim 
 that they could only be dug out by hard labor. 
 
 The country has embarked on a great enter- 
 prise, and its accomplishment will require 
 courage and persistence. Assimilating millions 
 of foreign born is difficult, but some of the native 
 born need Americanizing too, and the belated 
 ones within our borders must not be forgotten. 
 The 11,000,000 Negroes, the 2,000,000 Appa- 
 lachian mountaineers and our 300,000 Indians 
 need a stronger helping hand than the nation has 
 yet given them if they are to attain to their 
 highest spiritual stature. 
 
 The all-inclusiveness of the term "Americani- 
 zation'' is clearly seen by Dr. Aronovici when 
 he says : 
 
 Understanding, tolerance, service, are the chief needs of 
 the immigrant in process of Americanization. Beyond these 
 efforts the Americanization movement applies to all the peo- 
 
Americanization 8i 
 
 pie of America and comprises all education, all effort toward 
 social justice, all striving toward national unity and national 
 development.^ 
 
 Americanization is a great undertaking and it 
 will bring forth great results if it goes forward 
 "with malice towards none, with charity for all, 
 with firmness in the right, as God gives us to 
 see the right." 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 BOOKS 
 
 Abbott, Grace, The Immigrant and the Community, The 
 Century Co., 1917. 
 
 Antin, Mary, The Promised Land, Houghton Mifflin Com- 
 pany, 1912. 
 
 Aronovici, Carol, Americanization, Keller Publishing Com- 
 pany, 19 19. 
 
 Bogardus, Emory S., Essentials of Americanization, The 
 University of Southern California Press, 1919. 
 
 Commons, John R., Races and Immigrants in America, 
 The Macmillan Company, 1907. 
 
 Ellwood, Charles A., Sociology and Modern Social Prob- 
 lems, American Book Company, 1913. 
 
 Roberts, Peter, English for Coming Americans, Associ- 
 ation Press, 1 9 12. 
 
 Roberts, Peter, The Nezv Immigration, The Macmillan 
 Company, 1912. 
 
 Ross, Edward A., The Old World in the Nezv, The Cen- 
 tury Co., 1914. 
 
 Ross, Edward A., The Principles of Sociology, The Cen- 
 tury Co., 1920. 
 
 Steiner, Edward A., On the Trail of the Immigrant, Flem- 
 ing H. Revell Company, 1914. 
 
 ^Aronovici, Americanization, p. 47. 
 
82 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 Warne, Frank J., The Tide of Immigration, D. Appleton 
 and Company, 1916. 
 
 MAGAZINE ARTICLES 
 
 Hill, Howard C, " The Americanization Movement/' The 
 American Journal of Sociology, May, 1919. 
 
 Sharp, Dallas Lore, "Patrons of Democracy," The Atlati' 
 tic Monthly, November, 1919. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 THE NEGRO 
 
 A PROBLEM allied to that of Americaniza- 
 tion and in many ways a part of it, yet in 
 others quite remote, is that of the American 
 Negro. He is a more serious problem now than 
 he was at the close of the Civil War. The Negro 
 is not alien in language and he dwells in the 
 land of his fathers, but he is nevertheless of 
 another race as surely as the Chinese or Japanese 
 is of different racial stock. Yet unlike other 
 races, he is here by no act of his own. Hence 
 it seems reasonable to discuss him separately. 
 
 Although Americanization in its wide sense 
 applies to all races of foreign origin within our 
 borders, its more limited application is to those 
 of foreign tongue who have come here from the 
 Old World to better their condition. 
 
 At the time of emancipation there were 
 4,000,000 Negroes in the United States ; today 
 there are 11,000,000. This is less than a tenth 
 of the entire population of the country, but since 
 they are largely confined to the South, they 
 form a large percentage of the people of that 
 region as is shown by the following table: 
 
 83 
 
84 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 PER CENT OF NEGROES TO POPULATION 
 
 Alabama 42.5 
 
 Arkansas 28.1 
 
 Florida 41.0 
 
 Georgia 45.1 
 
 Louisiana 43.1 
 
 Mississippi 56.2 
 
 North Carolina 31.6 
 
 South Carolina 55.2 
 
 Tennessee 21.7 
 
 Texas 17.7 
 
 Virginia 32.6 
 
 Certain localities show a much greater pre- 
 ponderance of Negroes than this. In one county 
 in Mississippi, for example, there are six times as 
 many Negroes as whites, while in another, there 
 are ten times as many. In Jacksonville, Charles- 
 ton, and Savannah more than half the people are 
 black, but in spite of this, the Negro is not an 
 urban dweller in the South. When he migrates 
 to the North, he usually settles in cities for 
 economic reasons, but in this respect, he does 
 not differ from the migratory white man. 
 
 The Negro has been moving north for more 
 than a hundred years, but the first movement of 
 considerable extent was to the West. Between 
 1865 and 1868, about 140,000 Negroes left 
 Georgia for western states.^ They went in the 
 hope of entering into the exercise of full political 
 rights which emancipation did not bring to them 
 in their home state. Another movement reached 
 
 ^Negro Year Book, 1918-19, p. 8. 
 
The Negro 85 
 
 a head in the spring of 1879, when upwards of 
 60,000 moved to Kansas and neighboring states. 
 The first migrants were from the river counties 
 of Mississippi and Louisiana. The white planters 
 in the deserted areas fearing a labor shortage, 
 started a campaign to bring back those Negroes 
 who had gone, and to induce others to remain at 
 home. It was not very successful, however, and 
 the United States Senate finally authorized an 
 inquiry into the causes of the exodus.^ There 
 was much heated controversy by all parties ; the 
 two most prominent Negro leaders in the 
 country, Frederick Douglass and Richard T. 
 Greener, taking opposite sides. The former held, 
 among other things, that the South was the 
 natural market for the Negro's labor, and that 
 the principles of liberty would be best worked 
 out for him in that region ; the latter believed 
 the best chance of the black man for political 
 preferment and economic advancement was in 
 the northern and western states. Mr. Greener, 
 moreover, foresaw the inrush of immigrants 
 from Europe and urged his own race to get the 
 ])est western land before it was pre-empted by 
 foreigners. - 
 
 But regardless of controversy, the Negroes 
 rushed to the West in such numbers that suffer- 
 ing among them became acute, and relief 
 societies had to be established. It is estimated 
 
 ^Congressional Record, 46th Congress, 2nd session, p. 104. 
 "Woodson, A Century of Negro Migration, p. 140. 
 
86 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 that 40,000 of the entire 60,000 arrived in Kansas 
 destitute. The Kansans naturally were not par- 
 ticularly pleased by this invasion. Only about 
 5,000 of the total number went to other western 
 states, and of these, according to Dr. Woodson^ 
 a goodly number found their way into Indian 
 Territory, and were assimilated by the Indians 
 who had always, even in slavery days, treated 
 the Negroes as equals. But when the Territory 
 was thrown open for settlement in 1889, bitter 
 race prejudice on the part of the white settlers 
 practically excluded the Negro. Other migra- 
 tions took place before the World War, particu- 
 larly into the Appalachian mining regions just 
 before and after 1890, but the western movement 
 outlined was the most extensive. 
 
 In addition to these migrations due to con- 
 certed action, there has always been an indi- 
 vidual movement to the North on the part of 
 educated and other ambitious Negroes. By 
 1910, the cities of New York, Philadelphia, 
 Chicago, and St. Louis had large colored popula- 
 tions, while Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Indian- 
 apolis, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Boston each 
 had a goodly number of black men. The total 
 Negro population in the northern states in 1910 
 was over 1,000,000, 42 per cent of whom had 
 been born in the South. Their geographical 
 distribution was as follows : 
 
 * Woodson, A Century of Negro Migration, pp. 142-144. 
 
The Negro 87 
 
 New England States 76,000 
 
 Middle Atlantic States 414,000 
 
 East North Central States 401,000 
 
 West North Central States 242,000 
 
 Mountain States 21,000 
 
 Pacific Coast States 31,000 
 
 But all this is prefatory to mention of the 
 startling exodus from the South during the 
 years 1916-17. Although this movement started 
 in 1915, and did not end till 1918, it reached its 
 highest point in the years first cited. Unlike 
 other migrations, this is said to have been leader- 
 less. " The name of no individual, nationally or 
 even locally, stands out anywhere as a leader 
 in this movement. In the Southland, there was 
 not a single meeting held in the interest of the 
 movement."^ Individuals and families appar- 
 ently started simultaneously for the land of 
 greater economic opportunity. And they went 
 to the industrial centers. Estimates vary as to 
 the number of migrants all the way from half 
 a million to a million. It is probable that three 
 quarters of a million is more nearly correct, a 
 number sufficiently large to leave a great breach 
 in the labor ranks of the South, particularly in 
 certain agricultural districts. 
 
 It has been claimed that underground forces 
 were at work to bring the Negro north ; one, 
 the desire on the part of certain captains of 
 industry to break the Trade Union ; another, 
 an effort on the part of politicians to make 
 
 ^Negro Year Book, 1918-19, p. 9. 
 
88 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 certain doubtful states safe for the Republican 
 party. These are only surmises, and can have 
 no great weight. The fact is that the Negroes 
 came in train loads and they were not very 
 welcome. It is one of the tragedies of the race 
 that no white man wants a black man for a 
 neighbor. 
 
 The editor of the Negro Year Book thinks that 
 the causes of the migration were both economic 
 and social, and enumerates them under the follow- 
 ing heads :^ 
 
 ECONOMIC 
 
 1. Labor depression in the South in 1914-15, and demoral- 
 ization in cotton prices owing to the war. 
 
 2. Ravages of the cotton boll weavil in 1915-16. This 
 unsettled farming conditions. 
 
 3. Unusual floods over sections of the South. 
 
 4. The generally low wages which had always prevailed 
 in the South. 
 
 5. Increase in the cost of living. 
 
 6. Shortage of labor in the North. 
 
 SOCIAL 
 
 1. Failure of the law to give protection against lynching. 
 
 2. Treatment accorded to Negroes in the courts. 
 
 3. Mistreatment of Negroes by officers of the law. 
 
 4. Lack of protection to Negro women and lack of legal 
 redress for crimes committed against them by white 
 men. 
 
 5. The "Jim Crow" car. 
 
 6. Disfranchisement laws. 
 
 7. The general neglect by the authorities of Negro sec- 
 tions in towns. 
 
 8. Lack of adequate school facilities. 
 
 9. Treatment accorded Negroes in many stores. 
 
 ''Negro Year Book, 1918-19, p. 12. 
 
The Negro 89 
 
 It is more than likely that all of these economic 
 and social causes had more or less to do with 
 the movement. Theoretically at least, the 
 northern people are willing to give the colored 
 man a chance, and extend to him equality under 
 the law, but when it comes to sharing with him 
 jobs and residential sections, riots frequently 
 ensue. Racial feeling, of course, is strong all 
 over the world, and a feeling of racial superiority 
 is quickly developed in conquerors or early 
 arrivals. The Negro is not the only one to 
 suffer. We hear contemptuously spoken the 
 words "dago," *' sheeny," and "greaser" as well 
 as " nigger." This, to say the least, is exceedingly 
 bad manners which Americanization should 
 correct. The fortunes of races change as the 
 centuries pass, and it is egregious folly for the 
 Brobdingnags of today to plant their feet on 
 the necks of the Lilliputians. 
 
 The Negro's labor is a valuable asset to the 
 South, and he feels more at home in that part 
 of the country, but he is discriminated against 
 socially, politically, and in law, as has been said. 
 This is galling to the educated and to the ambi- 
 tious : but even these do not always find the 
 North the paradise their imaginations painted. 
 Many of the migrants of 1916-17 have already 
 trekked back to the cotton fields, discouraged by 
 the pace in northern mills, and the hostility of 
 organized labor ; and they are finding a welcome. 
 
 These children of the African wilds have a 
 place in American life, and it should be secured 
 
90 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 to them by a nation busy with plans for recon- 
 struction. Of the 46,000,000 Negroes in the 
 world, 11,000,000 are in our midst, and their 
 future must be worked out here. Plans for 
 transporting them to Africa or any other place 
 are chimerical. The effort to establish them 
 in Liberia is grim testimony to the futility of 
 such a scheme. Nations at war can transplant 
 millions of men, but the commerce of the world 
 is paralyzed by the undertaking. 
 
 The problem facing the country, then, is the 
 educational development of the Negro so as to 
 make him a more valuable element in American 
 life, and this is not a problem for any one section 
 of the country. It must be worked out by the 
 North and the South together, and in coopera- 
 tion with the progressive element in the Negro 
 race. 
 
 The use of black troops in the war served to 
 fix attention once more on the status of the 
 Negro. At the time of the armistice, France 
 had in her armies 150,000 combat black troops.^ 
 They came from Senegal, the Soudan, Somali- 
 land, and Madagascar, and were used on the 
 French front and in Saloniki, and won distinc- 
 tion. Great Britain also used many thousands 
 of colored men in France, back of the lines, and 
 in England, to free white men from labor in 
 order that they might fight. The labor unions 
 offered objections to this, on the ground that 
 
 ^Negro Year Book, 1918-19, p. 128. 
 
The Negro 91 
 
 it might be a step toward the exploitation of 
 labor after the war. 
 
 While no definite figures are available as to 
 the number of Negroes who participated in the 
 World War, it is probable that there were over 
 2,000,000, counting all those used as combat 
 troops and labor battalions in France, at Saloniki, 
 at the Dardanelles, in Palestine, in Eg>'pt, in the 
 Kameruns, in Togoland, in German Southwest 
 Africa, and in German East Africa.^ And if all 
 these gave as good an account of themselves as 
 did the colored troops fighting under the United 
 States banner, it can truly be said that they 
 helped greatly in winning the war. 
 
 The Negro who went to Europe to fight for 
 democracy would be dull indeed if the experience 
 did not lead him to question the quality of democ- 
 racy at home in its application to himself. The 
 Negro who asks for equality under the law has 
 a right to be heard, and his protest against 
 lynching is entitled to consideration by the 
 nation. 
 
 Of lynching there is nothing extenuating to 
 say. It is with the keenest regret that we admit 
 an average of about a hundred lynchings a year 
 within the United States.^ Ninety per cent of the 
 lynchings are in the South. Rape is the alleged 
 cause in a fourth of the cases, but flimsy excuses 
 suffice when racial and evil passions are aroused. 
 This is a crime that disgraces us in the eyes of 
 
 ^Negro Year Book, 1918-19, p. 129. 
 'Brawley, Your Negro Neighbor, p. 41. 
 
92 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 the world, and was used as anti-American propa- 
 ganda during the war. The best spirit of the 
 South as well as of the North condemns this. 
 A year ago, the Executive Board of the Georgia 
 Federation of Women's Clubs drew up resolu- 
 tions condemning lynching as a means of pun- 
 ishing crime "of any name or character." 
 
 The men who were brothers in the trenches 
 should be recognized as brothers on the fields 
 of peace. But, unfortunately, the jewel of con- 
 sistency is not always a national adornment. 
 
 Housing conditions for Negroes in northern 
 cities are extremely bad and present another 
 problem. They have seldom been good. Now, 
 owing to the shortage of houses for everyone, 
 they are worse than ever. Colored sections are 
 full to overflowing, and when well-to-do colored 
 people have found homes in white districts, riots 
 have ensued in Chicago and other places. Dr. 
 Woodson^ of the Association for the Study of 
 Negro Life and History, portrays vividly the 
 unspeakable living conditions of many colored 
 people. He says of the recent migrants : 
 
 A large percentage of these Negroes are located in room- 
 ing-houses or tenements for several families. The majority 
 of them cannot find individual rooms. Many are crowded 
 into the same room, therefore, and too many into the same 
 bed. Sometimes as many as four and five sleep in one 
 bed, and that may be placed in the basement, dining-room, 
 or kitchen where there is neither adequate light nor air. 
 
 Such crowded conditions breed vice, crime, 
 
 ^Woodson, A Century of Negro Migration, p. i86. 
 
The Negro 93 
 
 and disease, and are a menace to any community. 
 No body of people can thrive with such infected 
 spots in their midst. Adequate housing is one 
 of the conspicuous needs of the Negro in the 
 North today ; it has been a need for many years, 
 and plans for reconstruction should heed this. 
 The colored man is handicapped not only by 
 poverty in getting a home ; no amount of money 
 enables him to live in a select neighborhood 
 without protest from the white people. Since it 
 is the mental temper of those in power that 
 segregation must be practised, it becomes the 
 duty of the state to insist that decent homes be 
 provided for the colored in specified districts. 
 
 Another grave need of the Negro is greater 
 educational opportunity along all lines. Higher 
 education should undoubtedly be provided for 
 those who can profit by it, but the greater 
 number will profit most by learning how to work 
 efficiently and how to live healthfully and 
 morally. Booker T. Washington was the most 
 notable advocate of the need for industrial and 
 agricultural training for his people, and Tuskegee 
 Institute is a noble monument to his memory. 
 His ideas had great weight among white people 
 in the South, and have influenced their attitude 
 toward the education of the black man. 
 
 In 1907 the Southern Educational Association 
 adopted the following resolutions^ in regard to 
 Negro education : 
 
 ^Weatherford, Negro Life in the South, pp. 111-12, 
 
94 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 1. We endorse the accepted policy of the states of the 
 South in providing educational facilities for the youth of 
 the Negro race 
 
 2. We believe that the education of the Negro in the 
 elementary branches of education should be made thorough, 
 and should include specific instruction in hygiene and home 
 sanitation, for the better protection of both races. 
 
 3. We believe that in the secondary education of Negro 
 youth, emphasis should be placed upon agriculture and the 
 industrial occupations, including nurse training, and home 
 economics. 
 
 4. We believe that for practical, economical, and psycho- 
 logical reasons Negro teachers should be provided for 
 Negro schools. 
 
 5. We advise instruction in normal schools by white 
 teachers whenever possible. 
 
 6. We recommend that in urban and rural Negro schools 
 there should be closer and more thorough supervision 
 
 7. We urge upon school authorities everywhere the im- 
 portance of adequate buildings, comfortable seating, and 
 sanitary accommodations for Negro youth. 
 
 8. We deplore the isolation of many Negro schools, 
 established through motives of philanthropy, from the life 
 and the sympathies of the communities in which they are 
 located. 
 
 9. We insist upon such equitable distribution of the 
 school funds that all the youth of the Negro race shall have 
 at least an opportunity to receive the elementary education 
 provided by the state 
 
 The Negro has made great progress since 
 emancipation when only a bare 10 per cent could 
 read and write. Now 60 per cent are literate ; a 
 notable achievement in half a century, it must 
 be admitted. 
 
 Christian philanthropy has built many insti- 
 tutions for Negroes in the South. The work at 
 
The Negro 95 
 
 Hampton and Tuskegee is known everywhere. 
 But more and better common schools are needed 
 so that all may participate. Vice and crime 
 thrive on illiteracy with Negroes as with other 
 races. The educated Negro is not filling the 
 criminal classes. He is giving a good account 
 of himself in industry and in his community, 
 and the nation owes him a square deal. 
 
 The Negro has his faults, but vindictiveness 
 is not one of them. He is usually willing to 
 forgive past discrimination against himself, and 
 accept a helping hand when it is offered. While 
 races of alien tongues are being assisted on the 
 road to the best our democracy has to offer, the 
 Negro, too, should be remembered. 
 
 Dr. Bogardus^ suggests that a reasonable pro- 
 gram for Negro advancement should include 
 wholesale education along all lines, the keeping 
 open of the ballot to all who are ready to exer- 
 cise its prerogatives, and the undermining of race 
 prejudice. This is not asking too much for 
 11,000,000 Americans who in actual practice are 
 generally denied the right of self-determination. 
 
 Another solution of the problem of race rela- 
 tions which may well be presented here is that 
 adopted at the annual conference of the National 
 Urban League held in Detroit in 1919. This 
 appears in the Survey, November 29, 1919, in 
 an article by Mr. Hill.^ This league which has 
 
 ^Bogardus, Essentials of Americanization, pp. 1 12-14. 
 'Hill, "Why Southern Negroes Don't Go South," The 
 Survey, November 29, 1919. 
 
g6 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 thirty local branches, " endeavors to improve the 
 conditions in cities where whites and Negroes 
 live." It represents both races, and urges upon 
 the country the guaranteeing of the following: 
 
 1. That working and living conditions of Negroes will 
 be fair and decent. 
 
 2. That transportation accommodations for Negroes will 
 be equal to those provided for white people. 
 
 3. That adequate educational facilities will be provided 
 for Negroes. 
 
 4. That the Negro will be given fair treatment and will 
 be protected in buying and selling. 
 
 5. That the life and property of every Negro will be pro- 
 tected against all lawless assaults. 
 
 6. That the Negro will be assured of equal justice in the 
 courts. 
 
 No fair-minded American can withhold justice 
 from anyone, and least of all, can he withhold 
 it from fellow-Americans. The war gave the 
 American Negro his opportunity. The migration 
 to the North focused attention upon his indus- 
 trial value, and gave him more confidence in 
 himself. A shortage of workers pushed him up 
 into new branches of skilled labor hitherto prac- 
 tically closed to him. And he has demonstrated 
 his worth. 
 
 A reconstructed America, which seems a long 
 time coming, will insist upon an affirmative 
 answer to the question : "Am I my brother's 
 keeper?" And the color of the skin shall not 
 be the determining element in brotherhood. 
 
The Negro 97 
 
 REFERENCES 
 BOOKS 
 
 Baker, Ray S., Following the Color Line, Doubleday, 
 Page & Company, 1908. 
 
 Bogardus, Emory S., Essentials of Americanization, The 
 University of Southern California Press, 1919. 
 
 Brawley, Benjamin G., Your Negro Neighbor, The Mac- 
 millan Company, 1918. 
 
 Du Bois, W. E. Burghardt, Darkwater, Harcourt, Brace 
 and Howe, 1920. 
 
 Ellwood, Charles A., Sociology and Modern Social Prob- 
 lems, American Book Company, 19 13. 
 
 Negro Year Book, (An Annual Encyclopedia of the Ne- 
 gro), Negro Year Book Pub. Co., Tuskegee, Ala. 
 
 Weatherford, Willis D., Negro Life in the South, Asso- 
 ciation Press, 191 1. 
 
 Woodson, Carter Goodwin, A Century of Negro Migra- 
 tion, The Association for the Study of Negro Life and 
 History, 19 18. 
 
 MAGAZINE ARTICLES 
 
 Bowen, Louise De Koven, " The Colored People of Chi- 
 cago," The Survey, November i, 19 13. 
 
 Hill, T. Arnold, " Why Southern Negroes Don't Go 
 South," The Survey, November 29, 1919. 
 
 Howard, George Elliott, " The Social Cost of Southern 
 Race Prejudice," The American J ournal of Sociology, March, 
 1917, pp. 577-93. 
 
 The Congressional Record, 46th Congress, 2d Session, 
 p. 104. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 HOUSING 
 
 IF Mr. Percy Alden's ^ statement that " a very 
 fair test of a civilization is the housing of 
 the people" is true, most countries today may 
 well feel ashamed of the type of civilization they 
 represent. Mr. Alden, who is a noted English 
 settlement worker, knows well the ill effects of 
 inadequate housing, both upon the immediate 
 victims of miserable homes, and upon the health 
 of the next generation, and his standard may 
 safely be accepted. Democracy cannot thrive 
 under the blighting influence of improper homes. 
 Yet one-third of the people in the United States 
 are living in dwellings that fall below a reason- 
 able minimum standard, while "one-tenth are 
 living under conditions which are an acute 
 menace to health, morals, and family life."^ This 
 in itself is enough to warrant the inclusion of 
 housing among the vital problems of the age. 
 
 But the United States is not alone in enduring 
 the discomforts of a shortage of homes for its 
 population. All countries directly affected by 
 the war are in like straits. A million homes are 
 
 ^Alden, "The Difficulties of the Housing Problem," The 
 Contemporary Review, December, 1919, p. 644. 
 'Wood, The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner, p. 7. 
 98 
 
Housing 99 
 
 needed in England, according to some estimates, 
 while a lower figure is given by the more con- 
 servative. Everywhere is heard the same story 
 of crowding and high rents, and a determined 
 effort to seek relief. Slum dwellers have long 
 endured crowding, and a little more huddling 
 together is accepted by them without protest. 
 But the situation is changed when the articulate 
 element of the population finds itself jostling its 
 neighbor in dark rooms at exorbitant rentals, or 
 facing the possibility of no rooms at all. To get 
 a place to live in at any price is a problem in 
 some cities today. A homeless world is a sorry 
 spot for democracy to thrive in, but it is an 
 excellent breeding place for sedition. Therefore 
 cold logic, without the aid of sentiment, should 
 be able to rouse the states and municipalities to 
 action. Lack of construction during the war, 
 and the enormous increase in the cost of build- 
 ing material and labor, have conspired to place 
 city homeseekers in a miserable plight; and this 
 should make housing a first charge upon recon- 
 struction plans. 
 
 Housing is no new problem, but the war 
 focused attention upon it anew in this country, 
 when it was found that manufacture of war 
 essentials was checked because the workers, 
 summoned from all parts of the country to indus- 
 trial centers, had no place to live. No man who 
 has not a decent home can do good work, and 
 no country can prosecute a war successfully 
 without having its industrial workers at maxi- 
 
100 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 mum efficiency. Most private industrial enter- 
 prises had overlooked, or ignored, the important 
 fact of the relation between decent living and : 
 output ; but the nation in time of stress could not 
 afford to overlook anything that retarded pro- 
 duction. 
 
 To meet a war emergency, therefore, the 
 United States Housing Corporation attempted 
 to provide housing for workers in essential indus- 
 tries.^ The undertaking was halted by the signing 
 of the armistice, but about six thousand houses, 
 and sixty-four dormitories had already been built 
 in twenty-five places all the way from Vallejo, 
 California, to Bath, Maine, and remain as an 
 example of what can be done by federal initiative. 
 The actual cost to the Housing Corporation of 
 a six-room wooden dwelling in 1913 was $2,972. 
 In 1919, the same dwelling cost $5,002. A 
 brick house cost $3,586 in 1913, and in 1919, 
 $6,110. These figures carry the secret of the 
 housing shortage today. Low-priced buildings 
 for the working population cannot be erected 
 profitably enough to attract private capital. 
 Wage-earners cannot pay fancy rents ; their only 
 alternative is to crowd a little closer. It is a 
 generally accepted principle that working people 
 cannot pay more than one week's wages for one 
 month's rent without scrimping their families 
 on other necessities. If private builders, who in 
 the past have looked after the housing needs of 
 
 ^The Survey, September 15, 1920, p. 701. 
 
Housing loi 
 
 the people in a hit-or-miss way, can no longer 
 meet the situation adequately, then we must, in 
 the words of the Neiv Republic} "make up our 
 minds that urban housing is essentially a public 
 function," and proceed accordingly. To quote 
 further from the same editorial : 
 
 Either we shall have cities in which work can be done 
 efficiently and economically, and life can be lived health- 
 fully and hopefully, or we shall have cities that are hives 
 of exploitation and disease and disorder, a plague upon our 
 American civilization. 
 
 The housing problem has invaded all kinds of 
 communities. Not only the great cities find many 
 of their people homeless ; the smaller industrial 
 centers are also casting about for dwellings for 
 their workers. And in this connection, the expe- 
 rience of Wilmington,^ Delaware, is worthy of 
 emulation. This industrial city has increased 19 
 per cent in population since 1914, owing to ship- 
 building and other war activities. To help meet 
 the need for homes, the federal government 
 erected 500 houses in 1918, After the signing of 
 the armistice, private enterprise did not take up 
 the work of building as was expected. Conse- 
 quently, a Joint Committee on Housing was 
 formed, which reported a need of homes for 7,800 
 people, or the construction of 1,500 dwellings in 
 the immediate future. 
 
 *"The Common Sense of Housing," (Editorial), The 
 New Republic, September 8, 1920, p, 34, 
 
 *Gulick, "Attacking the Housing Problem," The Survey, 
 March 20, 1920, pp. 763-65, 
 
102 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 The report states : 
 
 This lack of homes is a vital problem. It has already 
 been felt in dangerous overcrowding, in excessively high 
 death and infant mortality rates, in rent profiteering, in 
 decreased industrial efficiency, in increased labor turnover, 
 and has actually resulted in driving workers and business 
 to other cities where homes can be found Wil- 
 mington cannot expect to grow without first meeting its 
 housing problem; it cannot get new business without an 
 adequate supply of efficient labor; it cannot man the indus- 
 tries without housing the man. Whole families cannot live 
 in one room and rear strong, healthy children. The wage- 
 earner cannot pay half his earnings for rent and still sup- 
 port his family. The foreigner cannot be Americanized when 
 forced to live in un-American surroundings. 
 
 The startling truths contained in this state- 
 ment led to the adoption of a constructive hous- 
 ing program, which provided for the erection of 
 homes for selling and rental purposes, on favor- 
 able terms by a housing corporation composed 
 of business men, and the establishment of a 
 million-dollar, limited, dividend-bearing fund. 
 Increased costs make the private builder timid 
 about erecting houses which are almost sure to 
 prove a loss in a few years, when rented or sold 
 at figures which the unskilled laborer can afford 
 to pay. Wilmington's plan would bear imitation 
 in other cities now groaning under overcrowding. 
 Concerted action is the only method of meeting 
 a situation that has become alarming all over the 
 country. 
 
 The housing situation in New York is desper- 
 ately acute. Conditions are worse there than in 
 
Housing 103 
 
 any other American city because there is now, 
 as always, greater rushing of people into that 
 metropolis than elsewhere. During the period 
 of the war the thousands who went away were 
 offset by the thousands who came in to carry on 
 various war activities. Foreigners returning to 
 their own countries, and the cessation of immi- 
 gration failed to cause a falling off in population. 
 Indeed, during the three years and a half begin- 
 ning in 1917, there has been a normal increase.^ 
 But there has been far from a normal increase in 
 the number of houses erected. There is a short- 
 age of at least 50,000 homes in New York City 
 today. 
 
 Fantastic proposals for remedying the housing 
 situation in New York have not been lacking. 
 One reformer advocated the immediate building 
 of an additional story on the top of all existing 
 apartment houses. The well-nigh insurmount- 
 able difficulties connected with such extensive 
 building operations in densely crowded buildings 
 had evidently not occurred to him. Another pro- 
 posal, reported by the newspapers, is to use 
 unoccupied homes for those who cannot find 
 abiding places. It appears that an investigation 
 carried on in New York City reveals about 250 
 closed mansions with numerous and spacious 
 rooms. These, it is asserted, could be made to 
 accommodate 10,000 people, and should be com- 
 
 * Stein, "The Housing Crisis in New York," The Survey, 
 September i, 1920, p. 659. 
 
104 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 mandeered by the city to meet an urgent housing 
 need. 
 
 While the solemn grandeur of vacant palaces 
 must always be an irritating spectacle to the 
 homeless, the conversion of those palaces into 
 tenements does not appear to be a satisfactory 
 solution of the housing problem. 
 
 A much more logical proposal^ comes from the 
 Reconstruction Commission of the State of New- 
 York. This includes three recommendations : 
 
 1. That a law be enacted requiring the appointment of 
 local housing boards in communities having a population of 
 over 10,000 and the appointment of a central state housing 
 agency for coordinating local effort. 
 
 2. That a constitutional amendment be enacted permitting 
 extension of state credit on a large scale and at low rates 
 to aid in the construction of moderate-priced homes. 
 
 3. That an enabling act be passed permitting cities to 
 acquire, and hold, or let, adjoining vacant lands if necessary 
 to carry on housing. These proposals are submitted in the 
 hope of relieving a situation that has become well-nigh intol- 
 erable. The immediate future must find a way out, and the 
 extension of state aid in some form seems to offer hope now. 
 
 The whole question of the location of indus- 
 trial plants is inextricably bound up with projects 
 for housing the people. City transportation in 
 the rush hour has become a horror. Too many 
 people must move in the same direction at the 
 same time under our present arrangements. Any 
 housing reconstruction plans that overlook this 
 fact are inadequate. The great majority of 
 
 ^ Stein, "The Housing Crisis in New York," The Survey, 
 September i, 1920, p. 661. 
 
Housing 105 
 
 people must live reasonably near their work 
 places. They can afford neither time nor money 
 for long morning and evening journeys. The 
 sane solution of the difficulty, therefore, seems to 
 be to scatter the v^ork places. Great industries 
 should not be located in great cities, but outside 
 where the employees could live in villages 
 near-by, or in garden cities such as have been 
 developed in England, where all the people can 
 walk to their work and have some ground to till 
 if they wish it. Planning for the future has not 
 become a habit with American municipalities, 
 although city planning is not now considered 
 chimerical. Haphazard growth has demonstrated 
 its own futility. 
 
 The contented middle class little thought, ten, 
 or even five years ago, when it was endorsing 
 schemes for housing the poor, that it would 
 have a housing problem of its own today. Yet 
 it has one. Accommodations are difficult to 
 secure and rents are exorbitant. People are 
 driven into hotels that are overcrowded and 
 expensive. And on all sides one hears complaints. 
 In some places, quarters cannot be found for 
 teachers. In a certain university town, last year 
 an instructor paid $80 a month for two basement 
 rooms. A woman advertised a three-room fur- 
 nished apartment in the same town recently, 
 and had 164 responses in the first mail thereafter. 
 Another tiny apartment that was rented fur- 
 nished last winter^ for $65 is now bringing $110. 
 
 ^ 1920. 
 
io6 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 Owners have doubled rents in many cases, and 
 this is working serious hardship among people 
 whose salaries have not increased proportion- 
 ately, and upon those whose incomes are sta- 
 tionary. Home owners alone are untouched by 
 the turmoil, save in so far as lack of labor and 
 rising costs affect them. 
 
 A European monarch thirsting for world 
 dominion has brought America to such a pass. 
 We need to be prepared at home against the 
 devastating effects of any future international 
 cataclysm. We need a housing program far- 
 reaching enough to render a recurrence of the 
 present situation impossible. 
 
 Housing reform in this country is a century 
 old. In New York, immigrants coming in after 
 the War of 1812, created an overcrowded con- 
 dition that caused the health department to utter 
 a note of warning. During the next few decades, 
 we find desultory efforts to improve matters. 
 The first official investigation, however, did not 
 come until 1857, when the state legislature 
 appointed a committee of five to examine tenant 
 conditions in New York and Brooklyn. The 
 lengthy report of this committee reveals deplor- 
 able conditions. 
 
 Tenements developed from mansions aban- 
 doned by their owners, because of the encroach- 
 ments of business. These were let to several 
 families on a floor by enterprising real estate 
 agents, and they made desirable enough homes 
 at first, but pressure of population led to the 
 
Housing 107 
 
 cutting up of large rooms into many small ones 
 regardless of light and air. Stables in the rear 
 were also converted into dwellings for many 
 people. Finally some ingenious person saw the 
 prospect of greater profits from erecting barracks 
 all over the spacious lots, and thus the old-time 
 tenements came into being. Sweatshops and 
 disease flourished together in fire traps not fit 
 for human beings to dwell in, till the somnolent 
 public conscience was again aroused in 1900, 
 and a new tenement house law enacted the fol- 
 lowing year. Much improvement resulted from 
 this, but the ground gained has been lost, and 
 conditions are as bad as ever, perhaps worse, 
 since every abandoned rookery is now occupied 
 by a population crying out for homes. The 
 experience of the nation's greatest city is, in a 
 measure, the experience of all. Buildings go up 
 for business and recreation, but not for habita- 
 tion. Films must be screened though Rome has 
 no place to lay her head. 
 
 Now what is the purport of all this? Descrip- 
 tion can be added to description, and yet it all 
 beggars description. Sufficient is known of the 
 situation to warrant a few sane proposals for its 
 relief. As social reform grows out of tyranny, 
 so better housing grows out of bad. Worms do 
 sometimes turn. 
 
 A few facts stand out prominently as a result 
 of our brief survey of the situation, and they are 
 as follows : 
 
io8 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 1. Human beings drawn together for business 
 or industrial purposes must be housed at rates 
 they can afford to pay. 
 
 2. Good housing is a fundamental need. 
 
 3. Unregulated greed is a dangerous landlord. 
 
 4. Cataclysms do occur in nations as in nature, 
 and the rational thing is to be prepared for them. 
 
 5. The world offers ample experience in im- 
 proved housing enterprises to form the basis of 
 a reconstruction program here. 
 
 In regard to the first four, enough has been 
 said. We may, therefore, proceed to a brief 
 outline of meritorious undertakings and regula- 
 tions in this and other countries, particularly in 
 regard to the housing of wage-earners. 
 
 The term "model tenement" has a familiar 
 sound, because it has been cried in our ears for 
 some years, and it simply means a building "of 
 standards higher than those prevailing."^ 
 
 As early as 1845, ^^e find the birth of the 
 Metropolitan Association for Improving the 
 Dwellings of the Industrial Classes in England. 
 At the present time this association provides 
 homes for over 5,000 people. Nine years later a 
 similar, but less successful, organization was 
 launched in New York. Boston came next with 
 model homes in 1871, and Brooklyn followed with 
 the well-known Alfred T. White model tene- 
 ments, built between 1878 and 1890. These set 
 
 *Wood, The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner, 
 America's Next Problem, p. 91. 
 
Housing 109 
 
 a new standard at that time, but are not quite up 
 to our present bath requirements. Then 200 
 families luxuriated in six baths located in the 
 basement. 
 
 Within the last generation various British 
 cities, such as Glasgow, Birmingham, and Lon- 
 don have experimented on a large scale with 
 municipal, as well as private, housing enterprises. 
 
 About thirty model tenement properties, in 
 addition to those operated by the City and 
 Suburban Homes Company, are all that Amer- 
 ica's greatest city has to show the investigator, 
 and these, of course, belong to the pre-war period. 
 Philanthropy and 4 per cent apparently do not 
 make a strong appeal to those who have capital 
 to invest in building. The City and Suburban 
 Homes Company of New York is the largest 
 owner and operator of model tenements in this 
 country, taking care of about 11,000 people. It 
 is said that, all told, not more than 20,000 people 
 are housed in model tenements in New York City. 
 This is a small number compared with those 
 who should be living under better conditions 
 than they are at present. And it is a small 
 number compared with the 125,000 people 
 similarly housed in London. 
 
 It may be a matter of surprise to many that 
 the only American who ever gave a great sum to 
 build homes for working people, gave it to the 
 city of London in 1862.^ This was Mr. George 
 
 *Wood, The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner, 
 America's Next Problem, p. 92. 
 
no Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 Peabody, whose gift amounted to $2,500,000. 
 This Peabody Donation Fund houses about 
 20,000 people. There are two other housing 
 trusts in London, the Guiness and the Sutton, 
 the latter having available funds worth $10,- 
 000,000. These trusts have no stockholders and 
 no dividends. Any surplus of the rent that 
 remains after expenses are paid goes back into 
 the fund. Such housing undertakings are purely 
 philanthropic. The only undertakings in this 
 country at all comparable to the London trusts 
 in spirit, though not in vastness of funds, are the 
 Charlesbank Homes in Boston, founded by Mr. 
 Edwin Ginn in 191 1, and the Mullanphy Apart- 
 ments in St. Louis, the former having about one 
 hundred apartments, and the latter over thirty. 
 This indicates, according to Mrs. Wood^ that 
 ''pure philanthropy cannot be described as the 
 American method of solving the housing 
 problem." 
 
 But the whole story of housing the industrial 
 classes does not end with model tenements. 
 Model villages existed in America before the 
 United States Housing Corporation undertook 
 to provide them for war workers. A generation 
 ago, Pullman, Illinois, was built by the Pullman 
 Palace Car Company for its employees. Sanitary 
 conditions were excellent, and there was an 
 attempt to introduce the element of beauty into 
 
 ^Wood, The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner, 
 America's Next Problem, p. 93. 
 
Housing III 
 
 the flat, unlovely prairie ; but the men were not 
 allowed to buy the houses in which they lived, 
 therefore good schools and all else went for 
 naught. There seemed to be an impression, too, 
 that men who lived outside the town in order to 
 get cheaper rents, or to own their homes, were 
 discriminated against in the plant. The enter- 
 prise was finally abandoned by the company, 
 and the property sold. Pullman is now a part of 
 the city of Chicago, and has entirely lost its early 
 character. Pullman's failure was due to an ex- 
 cessive paternalism, which workmen in this 
 country deeply resent. But this experience did 
 not deter other companies from similar under- 
 takings. There are in the United States, at the 
 present time, over two hundred industrial towns 
 built by employers, and they are of three varieties 
 — good, bad, and indifferent. Some of the best 
 known are Leclaire, Illinois, built by the N. O. 
 Nelson Manufacturing Company, where an excel- 
 lent spirit prevails ; Goodyear Heights, near 
 Akron, Ohio, built by the Goodyear Tire and 
 Rubber Company ; and Hopedale, Massachusetts, 
 where the Draper Company houses its unskilled 
 workers. 
 
 While some of the housing enterprises in this 
 country are commendable in their effort to com- 
 bine beauty and utility for low rents, it is the 
 English undertakings that give us the industrial 
 garden city at its best. Lord Leverhulme, whose 
 
112 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 recent experiments with the six-hour day^ in 
 the manufacture of Sunlight soap, has a model 
 town, at Port Sunlight, near Liverpool, for his 
 employees. It is a lovely village, where, judging 
 from appearances, the workers dwell healthfully 
 and happily. Bournville, near Birmingham, is 
 another very attractive garden city, built by the 
 Cadbury Cocoa concern. This is one of the older 
 examples, dating back to 1879, although it was 
 not till nearly twenty years later that building 
 on a large scale was undertaken. Anyone 
 acquainted with the charm of such English vil- 
 lages must ardently wish that American em- 
 ployers would build for beauty as well as for 
 shelter. 
 
 Continental countries, too, have their quota of 
 housing enterprises, but it is not necessary here 
 to go into details concerning them. It is suffi- 
 cient to indicate that there is evidence of an 
 enlightened movement in most civilized lands 
 to house the workers adequately. It is a move- 
 ment that should be endorsed more generally by 
 employers here. Enterprises free from the taint 
 of paternalism, which is so galling to workmen 
 in the United States, are sure of success. The 
 employer has no safer investment open to him 
 than that which lies in the health and happiness 
 of his employees. No nobler work in AmiCricani- 
 zation can be performed than providing the 
 working people with homes up to the best 
 
 ^Leverhulme, The Six-Hour Day and Other Industrial 
 Questions, chap, in, p. 34. 
 
Housing 113 
 
 American standard. Thirteen of our states^ have 
 housing laws applying to some, or all, of the 
 cities within their boundaries. Provision for the 
 large cities is ordinarily made first, since the evils 
 of bad housing are more apparent in large cen- 
 ters. But lawmakers should not assume that 
 smaller places do not need regulating. 
 
 Great Britain is nearer solving her housing 
 problem than any other country. According to 
 the New York Times: 
 
 The providing of homes for all classes has been accepted 
 by the nation as a public responsibility. In consequence the 
 British people are perhaps nearer a solution of the dilemma 
 than any other nation.^ 
 
 Parliament has ceased haggling over ways and 
 means, and has accepted the principle that ade- 
 quate housing is an offset to revolution, and is 
 offering bonuses to builders. The stimulating 
 effect of this measure is now being felt. A 
 permanent policy can be adopted after immediate 
 needs have been satisfied. People cannot wait 
 for shelter while lawmakers discuss policies. 
 
 Canada,^ too, is moving in the direction of 
 building homes for her people. The Dominion 
 Government recently made a loan of $25,000,000 
 for national housing. The amount was dis- 
 tributed among the nine provinces, according to 
 
 * Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Wis- 
 consin, Indiana, California, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Mich- 
 igan, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. 
 
 ^The New York Times, January 2, 1921. 
 
 ^Buckley, "Government Housing in Canada," National 
 Municipal Review, August, 1920, p. 481. 
 
114 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 population, at 5 per cent interest. The provinces 
 will administer the fund. About 35,000 houses 
 have already been erected in accordance with the 
 act. Town-planning principles have been adopted 
 for the purpose of giving dwellers in even the 
 humblest houses the benefits of space and beauty. 
 
 Even before the World War, practically all 
 civilized countries recognized the necessity of 
 housing regulations and had placed laws on their 
 statute books. In this connection, it is interest- 
 ing to note that Belgium^ had one of the earliest 
 constructive housing laws. It is also one of the 
 best. But nearly a generation before the enact- 
 ment of this law of 1889, societies for the con- 
 struction of workmen's houses were organized, 
 and actively at work. Prior to 1889, these 
 societies had expended over 8,000,000 francs in 
 the erection of houses. 
 
 Sweden, Spain, Rumania, Luxemburg, Chile, 
 Brazil, and Cuba, as well as the larger nations, 
 had enacted housing laws before the days of a 
 house famine, which only serves to show that 
 housing is an issue of paramount importance at 
 all times. During ordinary years, when there 
 has been no world upheaval to disturb the gen- 
 eral trend of building, the higher economic groups 
 can usually look after their own needs, but this 
 is not the case with the unskilled, and they must, 
 therefore, be taken care of by the nation, the 
 state, or the municipality. This does not mean 
 
 ^Wood, The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner, 
 America's Next Problem, p. 164. 
 
Housing 115 
 
 that they need charity — by no means — but they 
 must be provided with homes which they can 
 rent or buy at figures commensurate with their 
 earnings. The nation's work, neither in peace nor 
 in war, can be carried on properly without ade- 
 quate homes for workers, and the war-purged 
 nations must recognize this. Reconstruction of 
 our social and economic systems is futile, unless 
 the foundation stone of good housing is placed 
 beneath the structure which we hope to see arise 
 from the chaos of the past few years. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 BOOKS 
 
 Thompson, W., Housing Up-To-Date, The National Hous- 
 ing Reform Council, 1917. (London.) 
 
 Wood, Edith Elmer, The Housing of the Unskilled Wage 
 Earner, America's Next Problem, The Macmillan Company, 
 1919. 
 
 MAGAZINE ARTICLES 
 
 Alden, Percy, "The Difficulties of the Housing Problem," 
 The Contemporary Review, December, 1919. 
 
 Buckley, Alfred, "Government Housing in Canada," 
 National Municipal Reznew, August, 1920, 
 
 Gulick, Luther H., "Attacking the Housing Problem," The 
 Survey, March 20, 1920. 
 
 Stein, Clarence S., "The Housing Crisis in New York," 
 The Survey, September i, 1920. 
 
 "The Common Sense of Housing," (Editorial), The 
 New Republic, September 8, 1920, 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 EDUCATION 
 
 THE democratic ideal must include an educa- 
 tional program that would fill with surprise 
 adherents of an aristocratic culture. Learning 
 in a democracy may not hold itself aloof from the 
 life of the common people. Many believers in 
 culture for culture's sake have feared that the 
 democratization of learning would mean its com- 
 mercialization, and would fain withhold intellec- 
 tual advancement from those who might, by force 
 of circumstances, turn it to commercial uses. But 
 the idea of the sanctity of learning is giving way 
 to a more rational utilitarianism which seeks to 
 use the best products of life, of which education 
 surely is one, for the general advancement of all 
 the people because they are the keepers of the 
 world. No more do we trust to the few to pre- 
 serve society, since in a moment of lust they 
 may destroy it. We now place our faith in the 
 many, and they must have at least a modicum 
 of education if reasoned actions are to prevail. 
 Again, educational opportunities must be ex- 
 tended if human groups are to progress. History 
 shows that substantial social progress is impos- 
 sible without education. Successful democracy 
 rests upon literacy. It is not necessary, however, 
 
 ii6 
 
Education 117 
 
 in these twentieth-century days in the land of 
 freedom, to enlarge upon this phase of the sub- 
 ject. Everyone admits the necessity for edu- 
 cation of classes and masses alike, the only 
 question being one of method. Free instruction 
 from kindergarten to university is the ideal in 
 many states, and mere formal learning is giving 
 way all along the line to work of a practical 
 character. 
 
 Our chief interest here is in education in a 
 program of reconstruction, and our aim is to 
 discover ideas and movements that commend 
 themselves to believers in the social value of an 
 educated proletariat. People of means can pro- 
 vide desirable instruction for themselves, if not 
 in one place, then in another, but wage-earners 
 and their children must have schools near their 
 door if they are to be of value to them. Such 
 schools, therefore become a community matter 
 and all the people profit by them. 
 
 With the growth of the democratic ideal has 
 grown up the somewhat new belief that educa- 
 tion is a social rather than an individual matter, 
 and that its aim should be the development of 
 useful citizens to function in a better world. 
 Says Professor Ellwood : 
 
 Education exists to adapt individuals to their social life. 
 . . . . The social function of education is to guide and 
 control the formation of habit and character, on the part 
 of the individual as well as to develop his capacity and powers 
 so that he shall become an efficient member of society.* 
 
 * Ellwood, Sociology and Modern Social Problems, p, 359. 
 
Ii8 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 The good citizen can be developed only by the 
 most painstaking effort. The small child must 
 be made to realize that he does not live for him- 
 self alone. If he learns this lesson well, he will 
 not as a man be a social menace. " We are all 
 members one of another " is something that must 
 be learned. It is the laissez-faire idea that seems 
 innate. Wars and their accompanying horrors 
 have come from the latter principle. If we are 
 to arrive at a higher social order it will be by 
 systematic training of each individual, not only 
 in the elementary branches, important as they are, 
 but in the more difficult field of human relation- 
 ships. 
 
 Socialized education is the demand of an era 
 of reconstruction. 
 
 The ultimate reliance in all social reform or social recon- 
 struction must be upon the education of the individual. 
 . . . . Only by raising the intelligence and character of 
 the individual members of society can a higher type of social 
 life permanently result.^ 
 
 Much emphasis is now being placed on the 
 socialization of men. Mere gregariousness is not 
 socialization. The mere teaching of people in 
 groups does not make those groups social. It 
 may make them shrewd and efficient, but it may 
 leave them very poor citizens. And a democ- 
 racy must have good citizens. An individualized, 
 commercialized education may produce a race of 
 cultured rogues who are a menace to the social 
 
 ^Ellwood, Sociology and Modern Social Problems, p. 354. 
 
Education 119 
 
 order. Professor Ellwood^ points out that the lat- 
 ter years of the nineteenth century were saddled 
 with this type of education, and, in consequence, 
 frequently failed to produce good citizens. It is 
 not sufficient, therefore, that youth be herded 
 in schools. That were a simple task. The soul 
 of youth must be saturated with the idea of the 
 oneness of men. So long as men use their educa- 
 tion to get the best of their brothers, there will 
 be revolutionary unrest, and an unstable state 
 of society. To prevent this all grades of educa- 
 tion must be given a social slant. The elemen- 
 tary, as well as the higher schools of the future, 
 will know how to convert embryo bandits into 
 law-abiding citizens, and good citizenship will 
 go hand in hand with literacy. Then individual 
 success will not be incompatible with social 
 service. As has been said : 
 
 Our higher education should have the ideal not of indi- 
 vidual power and success, but of social service; and this 
 means that in addition to the technical or professional edu- 
 cation which the more highly educated are giving, there 
 must be a sufficient knowledge of social conditions and the 
 laws and principles of social progress given them to enable 
 them to serve society rightly. Intelligent social service 
 cannot exist without social knowledge.^ 
 
 The best instrument yet devised to foster 
 democracy and to promote the ideal of socialized 
 knowledge is the public school. While we are 
 ready to admit that it often falls far short of its 
 
 ^Ellwood, Sociology and Modern Social Problems, p. 362. 
 ^Ihid, p. 304. 
 
I20 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 possibilities in these two directions, in practice, 
 the theory underlying it is sound. For the masses 
 of the people this is the only feasible means of 
 securing an education, and no effort is too great 
 to expend in making it the best possible kind of 
 institution. 
 
 We may posit then the free public school as 
 the basic stone in a democratic system of educa- 
 tion. Children from the various economic strata 
 find there a common meeting place where friend- 
 ships can flourish regardless of the parents' 
 financial rating. Professor Dallas Lore Sharp 
 paid a beautiful tribute to the public school as 
 the fundamental institution of democracy in an 
 article in the Atlantic Monthly, June, 1920, when 
 he spoke of the youth with unpronouncable for- 
 eign names, who went from the schools hand in 
 hand with boys of American birth, to fight for the 
 maintenance of the democratic principle, and laid 
 down their lives for it. Boys who are friendly 
 as children will understand each other through 
 life. 
 
 But the public school as an institution needs 
 no defense. It needs only protection from politics. 
 Education is too sacred a matter to be at the 
 mercy of political partisans. The management 
 of schools should be undisturbed by local or 
 national issues. The best methods for training 
 children to be good citizens are the issues to be 
 considered, and they are paramount. 
 
 For many years our schools proceeded on the 
 assumption that education and life were but dis- 
 
Education 121 
 
 tantly related, an assumption that gave us many 
 educational absurdities, for example, high-school 
 courses, college preparatory in nature, when an 
 almost negligible proportion of the students went 
 to college. 
 
 The natural conservatism of people makes it 
 difficult to efifect changes in public institutions, 
 and when we remember that education for the 
 many is of comparatively recent origin, it is not 
 surprising that our schools slowly give way to 
 the idea that education is only for the leisure 
 classes, and has nothing at all to do with those 
 who labor, since they were long considered en- 
 tirely beyond the pale. Professor Ross says that, 
 
 . . . . in every society the propertied classes instinc- 
 tively cherish and propagate the idea that work is con- 
 temptible. They are bound to do this lest their social position 
 be ruined by the spread of the rival idea that work 
 is worthy, whereas habitual idleness is contemptible.* 
 
 In such an atmosphere the school has evolved. 
 It is small wonder, then, that the introduction of 
 courses designed to help the worker earn a liveli- 
 hood should meet with opposition. There has 
 grown up the idea that learning which has no 
 practical value confers a measure of elegance 
 upon the possessor, and on this account it is 
 cherished by pedants and snobs today. Even the 
 lowly are more or less affected by it, and have 
 not always been friendly toward the teaching of 
 manual arts when such instruction was mani- 
 festly to their own advantage. Commenting upon 
 
 *Ross, The Principles of Sociology, p. 600. 
 
122 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 this paradoxical attitude, Professor Ross says: 
 "The wives of butchers and bakers and farmers 
 feel the lack of gentility in tools, and are bleakly 
 inhospitable to the industrial features of the 
 school."^ 
 
 But in spite of an aristocratic stamp, education 
 is coming into its own in this country with the 
 growth of the idea that the general intelligence 
 must be raised if democracy is to be preserved. 
 
 The old hit-or-miss methods of instruction 
 were not entirely successful. The " little red 
 schoolhouse" did not always turn out adepts 
 in even the three Rs. The child with an avid 
 appetite for facts would glean them from books 
 with little or no assistance from his teacher, and 
 the dreamer could dream his dreams alone, but 
 the dullard slipped along with an occasional 
 prodding from a ferrule and emerged from school 
 unburdened by knowledge if not as ignorant as 
 when he entered. School days were often a time 
 of trial to all concerned. No one dreamed of 
 adapting the school to the child or of trying to 
 discover his strong points. His weak points 
 were in evidence. 
 
 But the light finally broke through the dark- 
 ness, and modern methods were introduced into 
 the public schools, and experimentation still goes 
 on, leaving much to be desired, particularly in 
 rural schools. It is not the purpose here to take 
 up the pedagogical question of content of courses 
 
 ^Ross, The Principles of Sociology, p. 600. 
 
Education 123 
 
 and methods of instruction, but rather to point 
 out the advance that has been made along the 
 line of socializing the school and otherwise mak- 
 ing it the handmaid of democracy. We must 
 therefore note the introduction of manual train- 
 ing, domestic science, the industrial arts in gen- 
 eral, in short all that is implied in the term, 
 " vocational training " as a move in the right 
 direction. When children can learn by doing, 
 school becomes an interesting place to them, and 
 when they learn to govern themselves while 
 doing, they are far on the road to good citizen- 
 ship. Learning and living then become one. 
 Since the majority of children in the schools, or 
 three out of five, are destined to earn their living 
 by the sweat of their brows, it seems only fitting 
 that the school should be closely linked with life 
 and work. 
 
 The continuation school too, deserves commen- 
 dation. What is more necessary in a democracy 
 than that children who leave school to enter 
 industry as soon as their state law permits, should 
 be given a chance to continue their education 
 under proper guidance, and at hours which 
 will not interfere with the working day. In our 
 cities which have a large immigrant population, 
 such schools are essential to thorough Ameri- 
 canization. 
 
 It goes without saying that good teachers are 
 necessary if the schools are to be good. There- 
 fore every effort to raise the standards of the 
 teaching force should be encouraged. There is 
 
124 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 great variation among different states in regard 
 to teachers' training. " In one state four-fifths 
 of the teachers have only an elementary educa- 
 tion, while in others all are at least normal- 
 school or high-school graduates."^ In some states 
 the pay offered is much higher than in others, 
 and higher salaries naturally attract a better- 
 trained class of teachers. The teacher of the 
 future must understand human relationships 
 better than he has in the past, if children are to 
 grow up with a more wholesome respect for the 
 obligations growing out of such relationships. 
 Good citizenship implies a recognition of these 
 obligations. In a successful democracy, each 
 man is his brother's keeper, and he must be im- 
 bued with the fraternal spirit in childhood, if 
 he is to exercise it properly in manhood. 
 
 Europe is also responding to the cry of youth 
 for an education that fits for life. Many laudable 
 undertakings were checked by the war, and others 
 that had persisted for years were discarded 
 because they failed to meet the demands of a 
 new world. At a public-school conference held 
 in Berlin in July, 1920, Germany laid the foun- 
 dations for a new educational system. France 
 recognizes, as never before, that a new social 
 order can arise only on the foundation of proper 
 instruction of the children. Anatole France in 
 addressing French teachers said : 
 
 *Ross, The Principles of Sociology, p. 602. 
 
Education 125 
 
 In developing the child you will determine the future. 
 What a task at this hour, when the world is crumbling, when 
 the old order of society sinks under the weight of its sins; 
 . . . . It is for you to create a new humanity, it is for 
 you to awake a new intelligence, if you do not wish Europe 
 to fall into madness and barbarism/ 
 
 Czecho-Slovakia, too, has started a campaign 
 to lessen the illiteracy of her people by schools 
 modeled on the American plan. Bohemia has 
 long been known for her emphasis on education, 
 but other districts of the new republic show an 
 illiteracy rate as high as 75 per cent. If the 
 present vigorous measures are carried out, the 
 record for the next generation will be a vast 
 improvement on this. 
 
 But there is need in a democracy for higher 
 education as well as for the elementary kind. 
 There is need of training for business and the 
 professions as well as for the factory and farm ; 
 and there is also need for that cultural training 
 which enriches the spirit of man. Colleges and 
 universities filled to overflowing offer testimony 
 that the youth of the United States appreciate 
 opportunities for higher education. In a society 
 that is dominantly industrial, a movement away 
 from classical learning is inevitable. The 
 emphasis will be rather upon the sciences, phys- 
 ical and social, and their basic and subsidiary 
 studies. The monastic idea of education pro- 
 jected itself even into the twentieth century, but 
 it is vanishing fast before the onrush of a new 
 
 ^The Survey, November 13, 1920, p. 255. 
 
126 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 day. The tendency of such a reaction is to mini- 
 mize the inestimable contribution of the learning 
 of past ages to modern civilization. Higher 
 education might be made so practical that cul- 
 ture, as we now understand the term, would be 
 shoved off the shores of democracy. That would 
 be deplorable. An opportunity for each to enjoy 
 the " best life " which was accepted in an earlier 
 chapter as the criterion of democracy should be 
 held to include participation in the richest 
 scholarship, if that is desired. The extension of 
 so-called practical education should not be inter- 
 preted to mean dwarfing the intellectually great, 
 for democracy has need of these. 
 
 Another significant phase of education is that 
 of the adult workers. The spirit of this has been 
 well stated by Philip Snowden : 
 
 I would rather have better education given to the masses 
 of the working classes than the best for a few. "O God, 
 make no more giants; elevate the race."* 
 
 Deprived of schooling in childhood and early 
 youth, laboring men and women are now trying 
 to secure for themselves the advantages of learn- 
 ing. They believe that knowledge is power, and 
 they are going to have it. This movement has a 
 social value out of all proporition to its numerical 
 importance. Working people are in the majority 
 in this country, as well as in others, and when 
 their representative organizations put the seal of 
 
 * Quoted by Arthur Gleason, Workers' Education, p. 39. 
 
Education 127 
 
 their approval on education for their members, 
 the problem of securing a more intelligent citi- 
 zenry is half solved. 
 
 There is nothing particularly new about classes 
 for v^orkers. These have been provided by social 
 settlements, and other welfare organizations for 
 a generation. As early as 1854, there was a 
 Working Men's College in London. It was 
 started by the efforts of John Ruskin and Charles 
 Kingsley who viewed with concern the widening 
 breach between workers and non-workers caused 
 by the growth of industrialism and the expen- 
 siveness of education. This was well received. 
 Years later University Extension carried the 
 leaven of learning into the hinterland, and the 
 labors of Arnold Toynbee and others in this field 
 foreshadowed the social settlement movement in 
 England and America. Thus, step by step, have 
 the workers been led along the bypaths of educa- 
 tion by men and women who have made the 
 cause of labor their own. The significant feature 
 of the more recent developments in adult workers' 
 education is that the initiative has been shifted, 
 and today it is Trade Unions, cooperative 
 societies, and the like that are doing the organ- 
 izing. It has been said that workingmen seeking 
 an education are interested first of all in a new 
 social order, and they are therefore keenly alive 
 to such studies as will acquaint them with the 
 best methods of bringing about a changed society. 
 To this end they ask for courses in industrial 
 history, economics, and other social sciences, 
 
128 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 socialism, the labor movement, and public speak- 
 ing in order that they may be able to pass on 
 what they have learned to other groups. There 
 is also some demand, especially from women, 
 for literature and recreational arts. In some 
 instances a wider variety of courses is desired. 
 
 The Trade Union College is now an accepted 
 fact in many American cities. The teachers are 
 forward-looking men and women drawn mainly 
 from local institutions of learning. Discussion 
 is an important feature of the class, while the 
 examination is practically non-existant. Formal 
 tests are not necessary for the serious students, 
 and they are useless for those seeking only enter- 
 tainment. The United States has now in good 
 running order about twenty-five experiments in 
 this new type of education for the adult worker. 
 The Boston Trade Union College, under the 
 auspices of the Boston Central Labor Union 
 "was organized shortly after the end of the 
 World War to help prepare the workers of New 
 England for the role of increasing importance 
 which labor is to play in the new social order."^ 
 This was the first college to be started by the 
 central labor body of a city, and it has been 
 watched with considerable interest. Full infor- 
 mation concerning American and foreign experi- 
 ments of this character are set forth in Mr. Arthur 
 
 *Gleason, Workers' Education; American and Foreign 
 Experiments, p. 2y. 
 
Education 129 
 
 Gleason's pamphlet on Workers^ Education?- It 
 is not necessary to go into further detail here in 
 regard to American efforts, nor to insist on their 
 value. That is self-evident, and adult education 
 is now the watchword of many who are looking 
 forward to a new era. 
 
 England furnishes one of the most interesting 
 experiments in this line that the world has seen. 
 This is the Workers' Education Association. It 
 has realized the education of the masses in a 
 sense hitherto unknown. Started in 1903, it 
 has extended its work all through the British 
 Isles, in rural as well as in industrial regions, 
 with branches in Canada and Australia. An out- 
 growth of this, the World Association for Adult 
 Education, founded in 1918, has branches in 
 twenty-six countries. The work is carried on 
 by the united effort of Trade Unions, cooperative 
 societies, and universities, all three groups con- 
 tributing to the support of the movement. 
 Democracy thrives on such undertakings. 
 
 The continent of Europe, too, furnishes illus- 
 tration that the educational needs of labor are 
 being carefully considered. The Peoples' High 
 Schools in Denmark are a case in point. It is said 
 that Belgium, through the Central Board for 
 Workers' Education has 
 
 . . . . the most comprehensive undertaking for the 
 education of the workers by the workers, and for the pur- 
 
 * Published by the Bureau of Industrial Research, New 
 York, 1 92 1. 
 
130 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 poses of the labor movement itself, that has been made in 
 any country in Europe.^ 
 
 The schools are of three degrees : the element- 
 ary local schools, the district schools, and the 
 higher national schools. There is also an elab- 
 orate plan to provide higher education for the 
 workers, and even now a National Labor School 
 has been established, and special traveling 
 scholarships good for three months have been 
 provided for the best pupils, so that they may 
 taste the advantages of study in another country. 
 Workers in Belgium, as elsewhere, are primarily 
 interested in economic problems, the history of 
 the labor movement, the principles of socialism, 
 and allied subjects, and these naturally appear in 
 the syllabi. The work in the classroom is 
 informal, but it calls for teaching of a high order. 
 Adult workers at school would never tolerate the 
 mediocre teaching so often imposed on college 
 youth. It is a chastening experience to teach 
 adult working people, as anyone who has tried 
 it knows. The scrutinizing mind of the worker 
 flays academic platitudes, and the teacher is 
 forced into giving his best thought to his task. 
 If he does not do this, he is despised and rejected. 
 
 Even a hasty glance over the field of educa- 
 tional endeavor shows at least a tendency to 
 introduce democratic features everywhere. This 
 should encourage those who are working on 
 
 *De Man, "How Belgian Labor is Educating Itself," The 
 Survey, September i, 1920, p. 667. 
 
Education 131 
 
 reconstruction programs, but it should not satisfy 
 them. Education must be socialized if democracy- 
 is to be saved. That is the great educational task 
 confronting the nation today. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 BOOKS 
 
 Dewey, Evelyn, New Schools for Old, E. P. Button & 
 Company, 19 19. 
 
 Dewey, John, Democracy and Education, The Macmillan 
 Company, 19 16. 
 
 Dewey, John, The School and Society, The University of 
 Chicago Press, 1916. 
 
 Elwood, Charles A., Sociology and Modern Social Prob- 
 lems, American Book Company, 1913. 
 
 Fox, Genevieve M., When Labor Goes to School, (Pam- 
 phlet) The Woman's Press, 1920. 
 
 Gillette, John Morris, Vocational Education, American 
 Book Company, 19 10. 
 
 Gleason, Arthur H., Workers' Education: American and 
 Foreign Experiments, (Pamphlet) Bureau of Industrial 
 Research, 1921, New York. 
 
 Mansbridge, Albert, An Adventure in Working-Class Edu- 
 cation, Longmans, Green & Co., 1920. 
 
 Ross, Edward A., The Principles of Sociology, The Cen- 
 tury Co, 1920. 
 
 MAGAZINE ARTICLES 
 
 Cady, Mary, "Eventual Education," Association Monthly, 
 January, 1921. 
 
 De Man, Henry, "How Belgian Labor Is Educating It- 
 self," The Survey, September i, 1920. 
 
 Fichandler, Alexander, "Labor Education," The Survey, 
 January 8, 1921. 
 
 Gleason, Arthur, "Workers' Education in Britain," The 
 Survey, November 13, 1921. 
 
 Sharp, Dallas Lore, "Education for Individuality," The 
 Atlantic Monthly, June, 1920. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 RADICALISM 
 
 THE number of persons opposed to the exist- 
 ing order of society varies inversely with the 
 liberty enjoyed by individuals in that society. 
 Where tyranny is grinding, opposition is fierce 
 although it may be voiceless. Oppression breeds 
 rancor, and the oppressed seek a way out. Those 
 who propose a way out are the radicals of the 
 time. And the radicals of today may be the 
 conservatives of tomorrow. Dissatisfaction is 
 bound to occur in any human society. Even 
 among the angels jealousy is said to have arisen 
 and paradise was lost to some because of it. 
 Petty grievances appear in any group, and they 
 fret the souls of men for a time. But there are 
 also wrongs that should be righted, and these 
 have led to the great reform movements of the 
 ages ; they have led to revolution and deadly 
 war. The leaders were radicals, but they justi- 
 fied their radicalism. 
 
 The kind of radicalism current in a democracy 
 is, however, different in degree if not in character, 
 and manifests itself mainly in oral or written 
 protest. This protest may assume the propor- 
 tions of a political party, or it may be only a 
 voice crying in the wilderness. Ordinarily the 
 
 132 
 
Radicalism 133 
 
 rank and file of the people pay little heed to the 
 toy pistols of the discontented, while the govern- 
 ment is sublimely unconscious of any commotion. 
 But when nations are at war, the condition is 
 changed, and even whispered protests may be 
 menacing. The United States, as well as the 
 European countries, is just emerging from such 
 a sensitive period, and it therefore seems per- 
 tinent to inquire at this time, what constitutes 
 radicalism and what treatment should be 
 accorded to it in a democracy. Destructive criti- 
 cism of the government in war time should doubt- 
 less be silenced when it might lend aid and 
 comfort to the enemy. The nation has an indis- 
 putable right to say that those who are not for 
 her are against her. 
 
 We have seen in the foregoing chapters that 
 conditions in the land of freedom are not all that 
 they should be. The forces of reconstruction are 
 needed to work out more desirable situations, 
 but the forces set in motion by governing bodies 
 are frequently slow in accomplishment, and those 
 who are eager for improvement often grow, first 
 impatient at delays, and then distrustful of 
 promises. This leads to discontent which, as it 
 increases in volume, results in organizations 
 quite out of sympathy with the powers that be. 
 In other words the radicals go to the root of the 
 matter at once and are unsparing in their criti- 
 cism. Since no group has a monopoly of wisdom, 
 conflicts of opinion are bound to occur. 
 
134 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 As a criticism of adverse social conditions, 
 radicalism in its varied forms should act as a 
 wholesome stimulant to democratic enterprises. 
 The sincere radical reconstructionist is entitled 
 to a respectful hearing ; but the demagogue with 
 an open throttle is a menace to any society, no 
 matter what shade of political or social belief 
 he represents. And the demagogues are not all 
 found sitting in the seats of the scornful. Democ- 
 racy has some vulnerable points, and one of them 
 is the ease with which demagogery flourishes. 
 The rights of free speech and free assemblage 
 give to the false prophet his opportunity. It is 
 easy to play the game of follow the leader. The 
 average human individual detests the laborious 
 mental processes involved in thinking, therefore, 
 he is quite ready to accept the ready-made 
 thought of someone else without questioning its 
 validity. Fads in religion and politics and social 
 life thus gain great headway if presented in an 
 attractive manner. 
 
 It takes no special discernment to see that such 
 a situation opens the way freely to the promotion 
 of all kinds of doctrines from indigenous Re- 
 publicanism to exotic Bolshevism. Democracies 
 are not exempt from the consequences of human 
 nature. Radicalism will have its adherents as 
 well as conservatism. And when injustice pre- 
 vails, the former will become vocal. Radicalism 
 is after all only advanced thought proposing new 
 remedies for old ills. There is nothing in this to 
 cause fright; there is much to call for respectful 
 
Radicalism 135 
 
 attention. It is only the extremists on both sides 
 who create ferment. 
 
 It is not the purpose here to go into details in 
 regard to the varied forms in which radicalism 
 manifests itself in this country, but rather to 
 outline the general situation. 
 
 Since the ignorant and weak are the ones most 
 readily exploited by the educated and powerful, 
 it is not surprising that these should flock to the 
 standard of radicalism when it offers a way out. 
 
 The toad beneath the harrow knows 
 Exactly where each tooth-point goes; 
 The butterfly upon the road 
 Preaches contentment to that toad. 
 
 And because most of the ills of the ignorant 
 and unskilled are due to unfortunate industrial 
 conditions, it is quite understandable that a good 
 deal of their venom should be directed against 
 the institution of private capital, which they feel 
 perpetuates the evils. In this they are aided by 
 many persons who, though they have not them- 
 selves experienced industrial hardships, are, from 
 the highest motives, ready to take up the cause 
 of the oppressed. Then there are those who are 
 temperamentally in favor of every kind of 
 rebellion against authority. They are like the 
 Irishman who, upon seeing a street fight, rushed 
 up inquiring, " Is this a private fight or can any- 
 one get in?" It is the people of this class who 
 are the most difficult to deal with, and who are 
 most likely to cause trouble in a democracy as 
 
136 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 well as in countries with less liberal forms of 
 government. Their conduct is rarely reasoned, 
 and suggestion plays a great part in determining 
 their lines of activity. As a noted psychiatrist 
 says: 
 
 You can more easily convince some people by a hunger 
 strike than you can with a lecture on mental contagion. 
 They will not, or cannot, see that a man who substitutes his 
 stomach for his reason as the umpire of his cause, and 
 stakes the morality of his case on his ability to withstand 
 starvation, is dangerously near to lunacy. His fight is no 
 better than the old ordeal by fire or water, or the old wager 
 of battle, and it is not nearly so picturesque.* 
 
 Such people are the greatest enemies of any 
 cause. They are transients in thought who are 
 bent upon one reform today and another tomor- 
 row. They go zestfully on their way, often wel- 
 coming martyrdom if it be conspicuous. They 
 are the notoriety seekers who ally themselves 
 with any cause and frequently bring odium upon 
 it. An entirely worthy cause is often injured by 
 unbalanced adherents, but no good purpose is 
 gained by persecuting them. They are annoying 
 like mosquitoes. At any time they may act as 
 malaria carriers in a country at war. These must 
 not be confused with honest radicals who protest 
 because they must. The freedom enjoyed in a 
 democratic country simplifies the machinery of 
 protesting groups. There is no need for under- 
 ground passages. It is not necessary to maintain 
 
 * Lloyd, "Mental Contagion and Popular Crazes," Scrib- 
 ner's Magazine, February, 1921, p. 203. 
 
Radicalism 137 
 
 secrecy when objectors to the present order are 
 within the laws of the land. This facilitates 
 organization. 
 
 Undoubtedly the strongest voice of protest in 
 this country is that of the socialists. Socialism 
 in its more moderate forms has exercised a benef- 
 icent influence on American society by focusing 
 attention on social maladjustments ; for wrongs 
 never are righted until someone talks about them. 
 Many undertakings formerly considered social- 
 istic are now carried on in various municipalities 
 by old-time political parties, and no one feels that 
 the ship of state has grounded on the shoals of 
 radicalism. 
 
 The extremist offshoots of socialism attack 
 present society with a ferocity that exhibits sur- 
 prising vigor. They look forward to a catastro- 
 phic revolution to usher in a new age, and are 
 willing to go to any lengths to bring this about. 
 A monkey wrench thrown into the machinery, a 
 bullet fired into a human head, a bomb planted 
 under a house — all these are methods of ex- 
 treme radicalism with which we have become 
 only too familiar during the last few years. Noth- 
 ing worse could be perpetuated under Czarism. 
 But the United States is not the only country 
 that has to deal with fanatical groups bent on 
 destruction. This is heartening perhaps, but not 
 explanatory. Any country that has large bodies 
 of people living close to a bare subsistence level 
 is a target for such practices, regardless of its 
 form of government. A democracy with a hetero- 
 
138 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 geneous working population can become a center 
 of unrest, as well as an absolute monarchy. A 
 liberal form of government alone will not allay 
 discontent over unfavorable industrial conditions. 
 Universal suffrage apparently does not provide 
 work and homes and comforts and pleasures for 
 all. There are many here who have no permanent 
 work, only hovels for homes, and none of the 
 joys of life. Such people respond readily to 
 revolutionary doctrine. Bertrand Russell's idea 
 that the aim of politics should be to make men 
 happy really belongs in the democratic scheme, 
 but in actual practice the aim of politics seems to 
 be to make the politicians happy. A vote is an 
 empty honor to a hungry man ; it will not make 
 him loyal to his government. He asks for some- 
 thing more tangible and nourishing. The fam- 
 ished lives of the poor are a blot on the scutcheon 
 of democracy, and one must needs be a reac- 
 tionary indeed not to lend a sympathetic ear to 
 their miseries. Vachel Lindsay voices our feel- 
 ing when he says : 
 
 Not that they starve, but starve so dreamlessly, 
 Not thai they sow, but that they seldom reap, 
 
 Not that they serve, but have no gods to serve, 
 Not that they die, but that they die like sheep. 
 
 A society that fosters grave inequalities among 
 men through its industrial system must not be 
 surprised at ominous sounds of revolt. The 
 sounds are a symptom, and stifling will not cure 
 
Radicalism 139 
 
 the disease. The whole question of free speech 
 thus becomes an issue that cannot be dodged 
 in a democracy by the assertion that free speech 
 is guaranteed by the constitution. The guarantee 
 must be more than a '' scrap of paper " if free 
 men and women are to be satisfied. Talking 
 about troubles is a comfort to a social group 
 as well as to an individual, and should not be 
 interfered with even though it be a petty annoy- 
 ance to the listener. The open forum is a safety 
 valve in times of discontent. The soap-box 
 orator is a safer person than the one with flam- 
 ing thoughts and muzzled mouth. 
 
 Anyone who has followed the crowd on a Sun- 
 day afternoon in Hyde Park, London, where for 
 many years everyone with a grievance has been 
 free to air it, and has heard all kinds of social, 
 political, and religious heresies expressed, feels 
 the strength of the nation that does not fear free 
 discussion. A man here may be fiercely demand- 
 ing the abolition of the House of Lords, while 
 one there is inviting everyone to secure a home 
 in "a house not made with hands, eternal in the 
 heavens." He who can get an audience may im- 
 part his views. The fact that many views are 
 not worth imparting would be small justification 
 for taking away the privilege. 
 
 In our own country there is an amazing sensi- 
 tiveness in some quarters to any restrictions 
 whatsoever upon the utterance of one's beliefs 
 wholly regardless of their character. Hostility 
 
140 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 to the war-time Espionage Acts furnishes a case 
 in point. People sometimes forget that the 
 greatest good of the greatest number must be 
 the determining factor in the policy of a democ- 
 racy whether in war or peace. He who wants 
 to vent his venom against things as they are is 
 not always a savior in embryo. By all means let 
 there be freedom to speak in a democracy, but 
 there must also be protection for those who may 
 be injured by vituperation. Because Emerson 
 bade us "beware when the Great God lets loose 
 a thinker on the planet " is no reason for believ- 
 ing that everyone who breaks loose from sober 
 opinion is a thinker, and must be heard with 
 reverence. 
 
 After looking over in a general way, the sub- 
 ject of the place of radicalism in a democracy, 
 one thought emerges, and it is that a democracy 
 which aims to be something more than a mere 
 gesture of liberalism should make every effort to 
 root out the evils that render men miserable and 
 breed strife. Child labor should be abolished 
 and compulsory education substituted. A whole- 
 some, happy childhood should be the lot of every 
 child. Health-destroying processes should be 
 eliminated from industry by the aid of scientific 
 discoveries ; and men and women should not be 
 kept at work to the breaking point. Miss 
 Josephine Goldmark's remarkable studies^ in the 
 
 ^Josephine Goldmark, Fatigue and Efficiency, Charities 
 Publication Committee, New York, 19 12. 
 
Radicalism 141 
 
 effects of fatigue prove conclusively that the 
 overworking of laborers is bad business as v^ell 
 as bad morals. The terrors of unemployment 
 should be eliminated in order that workers 
 would not be haunted by the fear of starvation. 
 Careful planning and cooperation could dove- 
 tail seasonal trades. The ingenuity of one man 
 practically removed the seasonal features of the 
 shoe industry, which had always been a serious 
 drawback to the workers in that trade. Similar 
 foresight in the management of other industries 
 could help to remove a potent factor in discon- 
 tent. The boll weavil is no more of a menace 
 to the United States than unemployment, yet 
 the former has received much more considera- 
 tion from the government. The saving of the 
 cotton crop is surely of no greater importance 
 in a democracy than the cultivation of a healthy, 
 happy, and useful body of wage-earners. Recon- 
 struction plans must consider this, and recon- 
 structionists must proceed to remove certain 
 obvious causes of class hatred. There still will 
 be a residue of ills which will continue to disturb 
 mankind in an imperfect society, but the most 
 fertile causes of rancorous radicalism will have 
 been eliminated. 
 
 Democracy's first task, therefore, is to render 
 herself blameless of charges of criminal neglect 
 of even the least of her children brought against 
 her by the dissatisfied ; and after all that is done, 
 to lend a respectful ear to the voice of sane pro- 
 
142 Some Problems of Reconstruction 
 
 test. Then perhaps all will be ready to recognize 
 the mutual interdependence of men and say with 
 Edwin Markham : 
 
 There is a destiny that makes us brothers; 
 
 None goes his way alone; 
 All that we send into the lives of others 
 
 Comes back into our own. 
 
 I care not what his temples or his creeds, 
 
 One thing holds firm and fast — 
 That into his fateful heap of days and deeds 
 
 The soul of man is cast. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 BOOKS 
 
 Chafee, Zechariah, Jr., Freedom of Speech, Harcourt, 
 Brace and Howe, 1920. 
 
 Goldmark, Josephine, Fatigue and Efficiency, Charities 
 Publication Committee, New York, 1912. 
 
 Russell, Bertrand, Proposed Roads to Freedom, Henry 
 Holt and Company, 1919. 
 
 Spargo, John, Americanism and Social Democracy, Har- 
 per & Brothers, 1918. 
 
 Spargo, John, Social Democracy Explained, Harper & 
 Brothers, 1918. 
 
 MAGAZINE ARTICLES 
 Lloyd, James Hendrie, (M. D.), "Mental Contagion and 
 Popular Crazes," Scribner's Magazine, February, 1921. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aesthetic, gratification of wants connected with the de- 
 sire for the, 23 
 Alden, Percy, quoted on housing, 98 
 Aliens, and the World War, 65 
 America, capital's cooperation with labor in, 34 
 American Army, and illiteracy of drafted men, 68 
 American schools, and German language, 74 
 Americanization, 64; and Appalachian mountaineers, 80; 
 and housing, 102; and Indians, 80; and language, 68; 
 and schools, 123; and the Negro, 80, 83; and Y. M. C. 
 A., 74, 78; and Y. W. C. A., 78; Aronovici, quoted on, 
 80; of workers in industrial plants, Tj; Roberts, methods 
 
 of, 74 
 Army, American, ignorance of English among drafted 
 
 men in, 68 
 Aronovici, Carol, and Americanization, 80; and treatment 
 
 of foreigners, 79 
 Appalachian mountaineers and Americanization, 80 
 Appalachian mining regions, Negro migration to, 86 
 Assimilation, of aliens, lack of, 65 
 Autocracy, medieval and American ideal, 14 
 
 Baths, in tenements, 109 
 
 Belgium, and education of adults, 129; and housing laws, 
 
 114; first country to undertake rehabilitation of 
 
 soldiers, 3 
 Berlin, Germany, public-school conference held in, 124 
 Bogardus, Emory S., cited on Negro education, 95; on 
 
 immigration, 66 
 Bohemia, and education, 125 
 Boll weevil, 141 
 
 Boston Trade Union College, the, 128 
 Bournville, England, attractive garden city, 112 
 
 Canada, housing provisions in, 113; lent expert on re- 
 habilitation to the U. S., 3; problems identical to those 
 oftheU. S., 3 
 
 Capital, and increased production, 34; and labor, 26; and 
 wage demands, 34 
 
 143 
 
144 Index 
 
 Charlesbank Homes in Boston, no 
 
 Chartists' riots, 19 
 
 Chenery, William L., and President Wilson's Industrial 
 
 Conference, 41 
 Chicago Stockyards strike, 35 
 Child labor, 140 
 
 Children, and pre-natal disease, 21 
 Chinese, and railroad building, 67; Exclusion Act, 67; 
 
 living standards of immigrant, 67 
 Citizenship, and literacy, 119; and marriage, 71 
 Civil War, and immigration, 67; great fortunes amassed 
 
 during, 29; industrial development after, 29 
 Commissions, established in European countries after the 
 
 World War, 4 
 Committee, interministerial, created for restoring invaded 
 
 areas in World War, 5 
 Community kitchens, 53 
 Crime, and the Negro, 92, 95 
 Croatian League, 75 
 Czecho-Slovakia, and campaign for education, 125 
 
 Demobilization, 9; and the labor situation, 27 
 
 Democracy, 13; fight for, 7; ideal of the twentieth cen- 
 tury, 24; industrial, social, political, 18, 24; interpreta- 
 tions of, 15; "world made safe for," 15 
 
 Democratization, 24 
 
 Denmark, Peoples' High Schools of, 129 
 
 Discontent, 16; among women laborers, 57; Kingsley 
 cited on, 16; solution of, 42 
 
 Disease, and the Negro, 93 
 
 Distinctions, artificial, among classes, 14 
 
 Doctrine of divine right, 19; of kings, 7 
 
 Domestic help, shortage of during World War, 52; 
 service, 53 
 
 Douglass, Frederick, cited on the Negro exodus, 85 
 
 Draft, the, and illiteracy of aliens, 68 
 
 Education, 116; adult workers, 126, 129; and the individ- 
 ual, 118; and the Negro, 93; higher, 119, 125; monastic 
 idea, 125; the gratification of wants connected with, 23 
 
 Ellwood, Charles A., cited, 68, 117, 119 
 
 Emancipation, 83; and political rights of Negro in 
 Georgia, 84; and progress of the Negro, 94 
 
 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, cited, 140 
 
Index 145 
 
 England, and women's labor after the World War, 49; 
 
 cooperation of labor in, 33; garden cities in, 105, iii; 
 
 labor situation in, 30; moral awakening, 9; and Labor 
 
 Party in Parliament, 41 
 English garden cities, 105, 11 1 
 Enfranchisement of women, 46, 71 
 Epidemics, and city slums, 66 
 Espionage Acts, 140 
 Executive Board of the Georgia Federation of Women's 
 
 Clubs, and lynching, 92 
 Extravagance, and women, 59 
 European countries, commissions established in, 4 
 
 Factory system in England and America, 45 
 
 Famine, potato, in Ireland, 66 
 
 Ford Motor Company, profit-sharing scheme, 77 
 
 France, Anatole, cited, 124 
 
 France, and after-the-war work, 4; and education of chil- 
 dren, 124; financial aid received, 5; reconstruction prob- 
 lem in, 5; used colored troops in World War, 90 
 
 French Revolution, 19 
 
 Friedman, Elisha M., on replacement of men by women, 
 58; and reconstruction plans for women in the trades, 49 
 
 Garden cities in England, 105, in 
 
 German language, in American schools, 74 
 
 Germany, political revolution in, 66; laid foundation for 
 
 new educational system, 124 
 Ginn, Edwin, and Charlesbank Homes, Boston, no 
 Gleason, Arthur, cited, 129 
 Goldmark, Josephine, cited, 140 
 Government, and "three years truce," 31 
 Great Britain, and reconstruction, 6; used Negroes in 
 
 World War, 90 
 Greener, Richard T., and Negro migration, 85 
 
 Health, gratification of desires connected with, 21 
 
 Hill, Howard C, cited on race relations, 95; on foreign 
 
 organizations, 75 
 Housing and location of industrial plants, 104; conditions 
 in northern cities and the Negro, 92; conditions during 
 the World War, 51, 99; conditions in New York, 103; 
 enterprises, municipal, 109; in New York after War of 
 1812, 106; in the U. S., 98; laws previous to World War, 
 
146 Index 
 
 114; of the middle classes, 105; problem, in England, 
 99; undertakings, philanthropic, no 
 
 Illiteracy test and immigration law, 69, 70; and Serbia, 
 
 69; and the draft, 68 
 Immigrants, Chinese, living standards of, 67; early, 69; 
 
 from southeastern Europe, 67 
 Immigration, after the World War, 69; and Civil War, 
 67; and railroad building, 67; due to revolution in Po- 
 land, 72\ law, 67; law and literacy test, 69, 70; problem, 
 65, 66, 71 
 Indians, and Americanization, 80; and the Negro, 86 
 Industrial Conference, President Wilson's, 41 
 Industrial, difficulties, 26; plants, and Americanization 
 work, yy; location of, and housing, 104; revolution, and 
 distinctions between classes, 19 
 Industry, 9, 10; effect of returned soldiers on, 27 
 Interministerial committee created during World War, 5 
 Ireland, potato famine in, 66 
 
 Jamestown settlers, 64 
 
 Jews, 67 
 
 "Jim Crow" cars, 15, 88 
 
 Kingsley, Charles, cited, 16, 127 
 Kultur, 66 
 
 Labor, as a dictator, 30; its desire for a voice in control 
 of work, 28, 34, 39; question, 9; situation and returned 
 soldiers, 27; woman's, 44 
 
 Labor Party in Parliament in England, and unrest, 41 
 
 Laborers, foreign, and unrest, 71 
 
 Language, and Americanization, 68; German, in Ameri- 
 can schools, 74 
 
 Languages, spoken in the U. S., 7Z 
 
 Law, immigration, 67; immigration and literacy test, 69, 
 70 
 
 Laws, housing, in thirteen states, 113 
 
 Legislation, minimum wage, 62 
 
 Leverhulme, Lord, and model village, iii, 112; and six- 
 hour day, Z7 
 
 Liberia, efforts to establish Negro in, 90 
 
 Lindsay, Vachel, quoted, 138 
 
 Lippincott, Isaac, on industry, 10 
 
Index 147 
 
 Literacy, and citizenship of alien women, 71 
 
 Living, standards of, (general), 61; Chinese immigrants, 
 
 Lynching, Negro protest against, 91 
 
 Machines, their effect on employer and employee, 28 
 
 Magna Carta, 33 
 
 Markham, Edwin, quoted, 142 
 
 Marriage, and citizenship of alien women, 71; and 
 
 women's labor, 45 
 Married women, and high wages, 48 
 McDowell, Mary, views on extravagance, 59 
 Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of 
 
 the Industrial Classes in England, 108 
 Migration, Negro, causes of, 84, 88; in 1916-17, 87; North, 
 
 86; to Appalachian mining districts, 86; West, 85 
 Ministry of Reconstruction in England, 6 
 Model tenements, 108; villages, no 
 Mountaineers, Appalachian, and Americanization, 80 
 Mullanphy Apartments, St. Louis, no 
 
 Nation, problems confronting the, 11 
 
 National Americanization Committee, 76 
 
 National Independence Day, 76 
 
 National Labor School, 130 
 
 National Urban League, 95 
 
 National Women's Trade Union League of America, 62 
 
 New York, housing conditions in, after War of 1812, 106; 
 after World War, 103 
 
 Negro, the, and Americanization, 80, 83; and crime, 92, 
 95; and disease, 93; and education, 93; and housing con- 
 ditions, 92; and the World War, 90; exodus and Doug- 
 lass, 85; exodus and Greener, 85; in British Army, 90; 
 labor in South, 89; lynching of, 91; migration, causes 
 of, 88; migration in 1916-17, 87; migrations North, 84, 
 86; migration West, 85; plans to transport, 90; progress 
 of, since emancipation, 94; number of in the World 
 War, 91; segregation of, 93 
 
 Night schools, 74, 77 
 
 North, Negro migration to, 84, 86 
 
 Open-door policy, 69 
 
 Open forum, 139 
 
 Opportunity, extension of, to all peoples, 24 
 
148 Index 
 
 Organizations, foreign, in the U. S., 75 
 
 Pan-Hellenic Union, 75 
 
 Panic, financial, and immigration, 67 
 
 Parker, Carleton, cited, 61 
 
 Peabody, George, and worklngmen's homes, 109, no 
 
 Peasants, Italian, 7; revolts, 19 
 
 Pilgrim Fathers, 64 
 
 Poland, disorders in, and immigration, 72 
 
 Poliomyelitis, 66 
 
 Polish Central Relief Committee of America, 75 
 
 Population, of U. S., number of foreign birth in the, 72, 
 
 7y, Negro, per cent of, 84 
 Port Sunlight, England, model town, 112 
 Post-war problems, of England, 8; of Italy, 8; of Japan, 8 
 Power, of laborers to determine working conditions, 28 
 Profit-sharing, results of, 39; Ford Motor Company, 
 
 scheme of, 77 
 Progress, U. S. rank in, 68 
 
 Public-school conference in Berlin, Germany, 124 
 Pullman, Illinois, experiment as model village, in 
 
 Railroads, building of, and Chinese, 67; and immigra- 
 tion, 67 
 
 Reconstruction, 20; world's problem, 2; in industry, 26; 
 in Scandinavia, 5 
 
 Reconstruction Commission of the State of New York, 
 recommendations of, 104 
 
 Rehabilitation, of soldiers, 2 
 
 Rents, and the wage-earner, 100; doubled, 106; high, 105 
 
 Revolution, political in Germany, 66; stimulating, 7; in- 
 dustrial, 19 
 
 Rightness, the desire for, 23 
 
 Roberts, Peter, and methods of Americanization, 74 
 
 Ross, Edward A., quoted, 121, 122; on assimilation of 
 foreigners, 72 
 
 Rountree, Seebohm, quoted on extravagance, 59 
 
 Ruskin, John, cited, 127 
 
 Russell, Bertrand, cited, 138 
 
 Russia, and Soviet, 41 
 
 Scandinavia, and reconstruction, 5 
 
 Schools, American, and German language, 74; and Amer- 
 icanization, 123; and the wage-earner, 117; night, 74, 
 77\ public, 119 
 
Index 149 
 
 Segregation, of Negro, 93 
 
 Self-expression, and the wage-earner, 39 
 
 Serbia, and illiteracy, 69 
 
 Sharp, Dallas Lore, cited on patriotism of foreigners, 79; 
 
 on the public schools. 120 
 Slums, city, and housing. 99; and epidemics, 66 
 Small, Albion W., and democracy, 20, 21 
 Snowden, Philip, quoted on education, 126 
 Social instincts, gratification of desires connected with, 22 
 Socialism, 137 
 
 South, and Negro labor, 85, 89; Negro population in, 84 
 Southern Educational Association, resolutions of, 93, 94 
 Soviet, in Russia, 41 
 
 Speech, free, and Espionage Acts, 140; liberty of, 139 
 Standards, American, and adaptability of foreigners, 79; 
 
 of teachers, 123 
 Stockyards, strike in 1904, 35; women's labor in, 61 
 Strike, of the Chicago Stockyards, 35; (general) and the 
 
 after-effects, 2)7 
 Suffrage, women's, 13; universal, 18, 138 
 Sweatshops, 107 
 
 Teachers, raising standards of, 123; salaries of, 124 
 
 Telephone industry, and women, 54 
 
 Tenement house law, 107 
 
 Tenements, 106; model, 108 
 
 "Three years' truce," 31; and women, 50 
 
 Todd, Arthur J., quoted on women in industry, 48 
 
 Towns, industrial, in 
 
 Toynbee, Arnold, cited, 127 
 
 Trade, after-the-war, in neutral countries, 5; foreign, 5 
 
 Trade Union College, the, 128 
 
 Trade Union, restrictions, 31 
 
 Trade Unions, 127; and high wages, 36; methods of, 36 
 
 Treatment of foreigners in the U. S., Aronovici cited, 79 
 
 Truce, "three years'," 31; and women, 50 
 
 Tufts, James H., definition of democracy, 18; cited, 19 
 
 Tuskegee Institute, 93 
 
 United States, and foreign organizations, 75; and human 
 rehabilitation, 3; annual number of disabled in, 4; lan- 
 guages spoken in. 73; rank in progress, 68 
 
 United States Housing Corporation, the, 100, no 
 
150 Index 
 
 United States Senate and the Negro question, 85 
 
 Universal suffrage, 18, 138 
 
 University Extension, work of, 127 
 
 Unrest, and foreign laborers, 71; and the English Labor 
 Party in Parliament, 41; and relations between em- 
 ployer and employee, 40; due to aristocratic view, 19; 
 industrial, 26; social, 18 
 
 Wage-earner, the, and rents, 100; and self-expression, 39 
 Wages, high in war industries, 27; women's 48, 61 
 Washington, Booker T., 93; and Tuskegee Institute, 93 
 Wealth, gratification of desires connected with, 22 
 Webb, Sidney, views on industrial situation, 31 
 Welfare work, and Mr. Ford, 77 
 West, Negro migration to the, 84; opening of railroads 
 
 in, 67 
 White, Alfred T., on model tenements, 108 
 Whitley, J. H., quoted, zz 
 Whitley Reports, 32, 33 
 
 Wilson, Woodrow, and new social organization, 17 
 Woman's labor, and marriage, 45; pre-war situation of, 44 
 Women's suffrage, 13 
 
 Women, and enfranchisement, 46, 71; and extravagance, 
 59; and the telephone industry, 54; and the "three 
 years' truce," 50; and the World War, 47; married, and 
 citizenship, 71; married, and high wages, 48; munition 
 workers in England, 50; in France, 50; in the U. S., 
 50, 51; employment of, effects on life, 48; instability of, 
 in labor, 57; workers, status of, 61 
 Woodson, Carter G., and housing of the Negro migrants, 
 
 92; and Negro migration, 86 
 Workers' Education Association, 129 
 Working Men's College, London, 127 
 World Association for Adult Education, 129 
 World War, the, and aliens, 65; and British post-war 
 problems, 8; effect on immigration, 67, 68; French 
 Negroes in, 90; interministerial committee created dur- 
 ing, 5; Negroes used in, 90; number of Negroes in, 91 
 
 Y. M. C. A., and Americanization, 74, 78 
 Y. W. C. A., and Americanization, 78; efforts for women 
 wage-earners, 62 
 
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