MASTER N. GA TIVE NO . 91 -80442 MICROFILMED 1 992 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK Ok* J J as part of the Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" IN ; Funded by the lONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code — concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material... Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to I copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would mvolve violation of the copyright law. \m^ \^ \mtf f^^J V if- AUTHOR: THE CENTURY COMPANY JL M. A £.^.£2^ m PLAIN WORDS ON IMPORTANT TOPICS PLACE: NEW YORK DA ft 1910 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Master Negative # BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record NYCG91-Bi00815 1 of i - SAVE record CP:nyu PC:r MMD: 040 110 2 245 10 260 300 LOG QD ST- CSC GPC REP FRN MOD BIO CPI DM RR: MS: EL SNR: ATC 7 FIC:? CON 7 • FSI:? ILC COL: EML Acq Maintenance NYCG-NEH AD:12-06-91 00:12-11-91 799 • • • r < I ( MET:? GEN: II BSE I3KS/SAVE Books FUL/BIB FIN ID NYCG91-B100815 - Record ID:NYCG91-B100815 RTYP:a CC:9668 BLT:afn DCF:? L:eng INT:? PD:1991/1910 OR: POL: NNC{:cNNC The Century company. Plain words on important topicstrhfmicrof orm ] . JrbRecent articles in the Century magazine on strike violence, general lawlessness, yellow journal ism and bad manners. New York,|bThe Century Co.,{:cl910. 31 p. , vC24 cm. OCLC 12-06-91 Restrictions on Use: TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA FILM SIZE:„^t?_:^ REDUCTION RATIO: JJj^ IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA (£©. IB IIB DATE FILMED: _____z,//j/9l INITIALS__A^ FILMED BY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODBRIDGE. CT n Association for information and image iManagement 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 III iiiiIiiii^i|ii|iIii iiIiiiiIiiiiIiim|j||||in^ T Inches T IT 1 lillLll ITT MT LO LI 25 m 9 10 n illlllllilll Ib III 2-8 |5£ I 'I 3.2 3.6 4.0 1.4 TTT 2.5 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.6 12 13 14 lllllllll 15 mm lLU MRNUrnCTURED TO fillM STRNDfiRDS BY fiPPLIED IMRGE, INC. Plain Words on Important Topics Recent Editorial Articles m The Century Magazine on Strike Violence General Lawlessness Yellow Journalism and Bad Manners [December, 1910] THE CENTURY CO. NEW YORK TRUE AND FALSE SYMPATHY IN STRIKES 5 x;«^ ^ npHERE have been extraordinary strikes out of sym- •*- pathy, but for outside sympathy with a strike we have seen nothing quite like the demonstrations and efforts in connection with the girl shirtwaist- makers in New York. Social extremes embraced each other. Great ladies con- sorted and conferred with working-women. The em- ployers had to face daily protests from a sex in arms. The whole was a remarkable manifestation of what Mrs. Ward has called the peculiarly modern sense of ^'social compunc- tion." By this is meant the intense feeling of the more fortunate classes that they owe much to the others, and should be swift to aid them in emergencies, and labor to improve their lot, even if not certain what methods ought to be chosen, or what the actual results will be. For call- ing out such a flood of this kind of sympathy, which broke through class-lines, though it ran up and down the line of common womanhood, the shirtwaist strike set a new mark. It is, however, precisely when such an emotional element is imparted into labor troubles that it is most a duty, though confessedly most difficult, for earnest but sober- minded men and women to make sure that their sympathy flows to the right persons and causes, and to look before and after in the whole matter of intervention. One should be fully informed in the rights and wrongs of the case, and sure that in endeavoring to help some we are not hurting others. If our struggles for social amelioriation are not to be blind and unavailing, if we hope to make civilization advance solidly and in good order, we must question not motives, but acts ; must trace rights to their foundation and effects to their causes. The crux of the shirtwaist-makers' strike was that old one— "recognition of the union." Virtually every substan- tial demand except that the employers were early ready to concede. Wages, hours, sanitary conditions— all these could speedily have been fixed to the mind of the deter- mined young women ; but with a resolution which was heroic, even if mistaken, they held out for the closed shop. Of course they did not call it the closed shop. What they thrust to the Iront was the need of collective bargaining. And they made out a good argument for its application in their own work. As their pay is fixed by the piece, and as continually changing fashion makes the definition of a 'Apiece"— say, a cuff or sleeve -as inconstant as the moon, there was a peculiar reason, they urged, lor a representa- tive body to agree with the foremen upon the basis of wages. Otherwise, these might fluctuate intolerably. It would be hard for the most inveterate critic of labor-unions to deny that here at least was a case where an organization among the workers might be a good thing both for them and for the manufacturers. Instead of having to deal with 15,000 individuals separately, it would be possible to settle everything for all with an authorized committee. Very good; but, unhappily, the matter did not stop there. The strikers and their influential friends and helpers passed on speedily to the position that the work should be done by nobody else; that they had a vested right to the employment. Others seeking it were to be kept from getting it, first, by persuasion ; second, by denunciation as *' scabs " and enemies to their class; finally, by methods trenching on intimidation and violence. So it happened that this unprecedented strike by working-girls, unprecedentedly supported as it was by some ol the wealthiest women of New York, soon took on much ot the spirit which has made many labor wars really synonymous with attacks on the liberty of the individual and on the right to work as the worker may freely contract. From the facts of this unusual and most noteworthy strike a clear direction emerges to those in doubt where their sympathies should fall in any large industrial disturb- ance. We need never stint our admiration of honest work- ers striving to better themselves. To seek to make labor valuable, or to demand as high a price for it as can be got, is both lawful and commendable. Moreover, when they make sacrifices for one another, or in behalf of their whole group, they deserve praise and encouragement ; if they are clearly fighting against injustice or oppression, they may rightfully appeal for aid as well as applause. But they must not in the act create other classes more in need oi sympathy than themselves. They must not go about to rob even their employers of freedom and self-respect. They cannot without a protest be permitted to dictate terms of employment so onerous to capital that it will take to itself wings and leave even less work to be divided among willing and empty hands. Nor must they, in forbidding others to labor, turn oppressors and monopolists themselves. When a strike goes such lengths as to be a bl(^w at industrial freedom and the rights of human nature itself, sympathy with it is as much misplaced as it would be with any other form of social mischief or personal cruelty. With every aspiration of organized labor we are bound to sympathize except its aspiration to become a tyrant. Sym- pathy that shuts its eyes to clear distinctions of law and morals may argue a kind heart, but is utterly inconsistent with either straight thinking or a firm and convinced sense of public duty. It must not be forgotten that the line of defense against anarchy is the right to work for wages upon which employer and workman are agreed, and that the moment our sympathy crosses this line it becomes the insidious teacher of lawlessness and injustice. Procedure based on any other principle is merely plaving with fire. A BLOW TO THE BOYCOTT IT was inevitable in a country like ours, where the tradi- tion "live and let live" is still vital, that the boycott by violence should ultimately break of its own weight and that its legal abolition should follow; but it would have been a rash prophet who should have predicted that this would be promoted by the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. Yet it is this statute, rather than the remedies of common law, which has been invoked to abolish an intolerable state of commercial anarchy. This act provided that forcible interference with interstate traffic in any article of commerce shall be subject to damages against those so interfering to an amount equal to three times the loss incurred. The illegality of boycot- ting had been declared by many decisions in England and America, but now the principle has been applied through an additional and most effective remedy. The verdict of large damages against the individual members of the union which carried on the boycott of the Danbury hat-makers in 1902-3, carries with it a new defense not only of every employer engaged in interstate commerce, but also of the laborer himself— and not only the laborer willing to work when others are not, but, in the long run, of the very man who has been most determined in the use of the boycott. For '* a good principle works well in all directions," and in every advance along the path of justice there is a victory of the vanquished. The legitimate aspirations of trade-unions are entitled to sympathy and respect. Their right to combine peaceably for the improvement of the conditions of laborers or for the advance of their wages is no longer denied, and where they have stimulated the self-respect and dignity of the working- man, making him scorn to be regarded as an object of pity or charity, and where they have exposed shameful selfish- ness in grinding employers, they are to be heartily com- mended. There is already among their members marked restiveness under certain unfortunate leadership which has failed to discountenance violence and has not hesitated to defy the courts, thus alienating a body of philanthropic public opinion which has sympathized with all movements to improve the condition of the laboring man. Some of the unions, such as the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi- neers, have been well and wisely led, and the time would seem to be ripe for a national leader of courage and ability who shall turn the forces of organized labor into more con- servative channels, and, particularly, shall preach the long- forgotten and much-needed gospel of good work. LAWLESSNESS THE NATIONAL VICE TH ESE are days of rude awakening for those Americans who have been reared on the old Fourth-of-July theory that ** freedom " and " education ** keep a people in the way of moral, social, and political advancement, — in other words, that an enlightened and vigorous people, with free play given to its better instincts, is sure to develop a society that steadily intrenches itself in law and order. A nation which has reached the ninety-million mark in population without a uniform standard of public sentiment in regard to the enforcement of law is surely at the mercy of its selfish passions, rather than under the control of its reason and its statutory wisdom. In the last twelve months every variety of lawlessness known to man, — private and official, labor and corporate, family and social, —has been on view, in a degree of extreme development. And although these many crying instances were not evenly distributed over the country, similar events, differently placed in other years, remind us that no particular region has a monoply of lawlessness, or is wholly immune. Even when it is startled into an expression of abhorrence, the public is seldom aroused to united and persistent action ; yet everybody realizes that all these various fioutings of the law are not merely special outbreaks; they are also symptoms of national influences which impel hundreds of men of intelligence and force, as well as thousands less favored by endowment and circumstance, to use lawless means for the attainment of selfish ends. The cure for all these kinds of abuse of law and for the general indifference to the enforcement of law, must be found in the causes which produce them. A large part ol the public is content to leave the work of correction to the newspaper press, which in the large, and especially in its local responsibility, vigorously and manfully upholds the law ; but it cannot be said that the reading of newspapers is a substitute for good citizenship. On the other hand, many of the widely popular newspapers, in their zeal to make business while they are unmaking reputations, serve up the news of labor disturbances, college brawls, and social delinqencies, with picturesque flippancy and racy heartless- ness; while the out-and-out sensational press, which gets nearest to the pockets and predjudices of the masses, openly cultivates class unrest, mob remedies, and, on occasion, per- sonal violence. Not content with an unhealthy spread of the vices and crimes of the day, they fill their ** entertainment '* columns with thrilling or engaging accounts of distinguished prize-fighters, murderers, thieves, and social and political delinquents of other days. As this variety of newspaper makes the strongest appeal to the largest number, it must be questioned whether the influence of the rest of the press on the side of observance of the law equals the power of this fraction to cultivate indifference, or to teach lawlessness and crime by suggestion. This influence in the nation is profound, and unrestrained save by the varying whims of the sensation-mongers who exploit the press for personal profit and ambition. It is an influence still rather new to human experience, and the helplessness of individuals and society in opposition to it should be regarded as the most discouraging sign of a wide-spread indifference to lawlessness. Many observers refer the turbulent phases of American lawlessness mainly to the enormous influx of foreigners during the last twenty- five years. Coming largely from countries where the restive masses are awed into quietude by military force, these beginners in the school of '' freedom" are prone to interpret the public inertia in regard to minor lawlessness as a general license to fall in with current 8 methods of redressing any grievance ; and then, on encoun- tering police interference more arbitrary than is usual in Europe, where the military is an overawing reserve force, they develop a distaste for republican restraint which impels to extreme violence. But the acts of foreign-born strikers, and even of the " black hand " conspirators who prey on their own countrymen, are of no lasting significance except as these classes may raise up children especially inclined by nature and training to swell the ranks of indifference. In the last analysis, the responsibility for the lax public sentiment with regard to violations of business, social and political laws, must be placed on American training and character. Since the Civil War, at least, the youth of the nation has been allowed a latitude of conduct and self- indulgence invited by political security and expanding prosperity. Himself confident and resourceful, the average American father has been pleased to accord to his son a large freedom for the development of individual quality; and when he has had misgivings as to the tendencies of his children, he has usually been too busy with the material cares of our strenuous style of living to do more than admonish, or to delegate the duties of parenthood. Striking exceptions only emphasize the common neglect, and if any one doubts the truth of this sweeping generalization, let him inquire of the masters of the private schools of the country. They will tell him, without qualification, that the lack of training in obedience and self-restraint in American homes is the bane of the preparatory schools, and the direct cause of the prevalent mediocre levels of discipline and scholarship. Without doubt the children of the public schools receive a discipline which more nearly compensates for the lack of proper home training, but there, as everywhere else in America, only those who have an inherent longing for improvement get any real help in the molding of character. The attitude of a great number of the boys of the working- classes toward public order and the rights of others is revealed in the disorders so frequently witnessed in public conveyances, when they are abroad for games ; and in any large city a daily incident of the streets is gangs of little rowdies, each with stick in hand, roving for the amusement of petty pillage and damage to property. As they operate at a distance from their tenement homes, and are skilled in flight, they suffer no real hindrance. In a sense the pranks of children and the unthinking and sportive excesses of youth should not be taken too seriously; but when they are associated with blindness and indifference among adults they acquire a sinister significance. No wonder the country is suffering from lawlessness when both the poor and the rich neglect to train and discipline their boys ; but the ills of the present are as nothing to the disorders that are threat- ened, when these new and manifold crops of hoodlums grow to man's estate and conjoin with the inevitable pinch of distress and the opportunity to resent some public meas- ure displeasing to popular prejudice. On a weak foundation of home training our supposed educational bulwark against lawlessness rises to a doubtful capstone in the indifference of college men. Among under- graduates the mob spirit frequently holds sway, and is often treated with leniency, on the sentimental principle that a college ruffian differs from other varieties of wilful disturb- ers of the peace. As a ruffian " for fun " he is the least excusable type of lawless youth, and offers an'example of far-reaching influence on public morals. College authori- ties of late have really curbed the hazing pastimes of under- graduates, which often include disgraceful or inhuman treatment of their fellows; but the cultivation and mainte- nance of a standard of personal conduct proper to young men giving their time to the higher objects of civilization, is either neglected or is largely a failure. Here, as in every other American line of moral deficiency, business reasons may be found at the base of the motive for neglect of discipline. The fact is that a considerable part of the 10 students at college, in these times, have no reason for being there beyond ability to pay the bills, and a fashion for the social prestige of contact with gentlemen engrossed with intellectual pursuits. These are the students who seek leadership in diversions which are discreditable to college life, and lower the average of scholarship to an unsatisfac- tory degree. And where does the alumnus stand in the ranks of law and order ? In large part among the inert mass of comfort- able, easy-going citizens, including many who live by pro- fessional activity and prudently keep silence on questions which involve the shortest cut to wealth and influence. This indifference of mature college men to the dangerous tendencies of our national hfe has often been commented upon by leading educators; it has recently been demon- strated by an appeal of the Extension Committee of the Oberlin Association of Illinois for expressions of opinion on the subject. The responses were half-hearted, explanatory, and in confirmation of a pervading indifference. From Harvard came an opinion much to the point of the whole question, and which the committee summarized in three pregnant sentences : The false political philosophy which pervades and per- meates American society is the reason that college men do not get into action against lawlessness. We must come back to the disagreeable fact that government rests on force. We shall continue to live in a fool's paradise so long; as we shut our eyes to this disagreeable fact. And yet our hope of conservative action is largely in college men. Wherever they are met together, whether as undergraduates or alumni, they will do well to consider their power and their responsibility in the matter of public order and the observance of law. II LAWLESSNESS IN THE ASCENDANT IN the June " Topics," the never-agreeable subject of lawlessness was discussed in its aspect as " the national vice." A disregard of social and legal restraint was traced in the activities of all classes, in all parts of the country; and particular stress was laid on the laxity of discipline with regard to children, which helps to develop wide- spread rowdyism and turbulence, more noticeable, because less excusable, among students at the higher institutions of learning. And the saddest aspect of the matter was as- cribed to the flippancy of the sensational press in dealing with nearly all phases of the subject (if, in fact, it does not actually promote them), coupled with the indifference of the educated classes to the numerous causes and the obvious and gravely disquieting effects. All reviews of human conduct are made in a frame of mind liable to be captious; a variety of instances, when grouped, carries a force which often appears to exaggerate ; and conclusions drawn from a wide assemblage of acts and motives may easily be challenged as too sweeping. Wc have, however, seen no criticism of our statements, and since the editorial was published, at the end of May, occur- rences, on every side, have by contrast reduced some of its extreme instances to commonplace. A line of discussion intended to be guarded was never more thoroughly justified by the fresh testimony of current events. Setting aside as of perennial occurrence the startling activities oi degenerates and criminals, it is to be noted that the outing season and commencement month furnish the press with an unparalleled array of youthful excesses and college outrages. In one instance a college president was said to have been ejected from chapel. Another case concerned the desecration of a graveyard. Several of the riotings led to rebukes of the newspapers by faculty members for describing the events in the usual style of pleasurable exaggeration. Reporters will ever see the picturesque side of lawlessness as carried 12 forward by persons whose bringing-up and occupation lend to their excursions into criminality the humor of contrast and hyperbole. But if half that has been chronicled is true, the teaching faculties of the country might better drop the arts and sciences until such time as the old-fashioned stand- ards of conduct and morals are at least understood and treated with outward respect. The feeling is growing that "respectable" lawlessness is chargeable more to the negli- gence of parents and teachers than to the wilfulness and exuberance of youth, which always has and always will ex- periment with its environment of restraint. Professor Ferrero, with the limited view of an outside observer, finds, as one of the causes of American social disorder '♦ the chil- dren too independent of parents." A great many fair-minded men are impatient with any argument based on the excesses of youth. They look to see merry Prince Hal evolve naturally into sturdy King Henry. The simile does a great deal of harm in the usual application. While it is a hopeful example in the case of a handful of dissolute princes, it becomes an excuse for neg- lect when applied to half a million commoners being edu- cated for fathers and mentors of the next generation. No nation can continue to grow strong and great unless its youth is reared in persevering discipline and subordination. But youthtul misdemeanors aside, what shall we say of the summer's examples of social disorder, and mob vio- lence? One case of the latter, at the North be it said, was stupefying for the matter-of-course way in which the law was defied, though the attitude and subsequent action of the Governor were all that could be desired. And the pitiful prize-fight, though held in a corner of the last rem- nant of our old-time wilderness, had the power, neverthe- less, to overshadow for the whole country the significance of Independence Day ! It furnished an object-lesson of the effect of interest in ''personal prowess " as a stimulus to violence. 13 Much will be heard of the general subject in the near future, because the country is awakening to the fact that cultivation of respect for law, and the will to enforce order, should be the first principle in the new conservation policy. As a response to our appeal, numerous letters have been received from churchmen, both Protestant and Catholic, and the gravity of the evil is being urged from platform and pulpit in all quarters of the country. Governor Hughes, who never addresses any meeting of his fellow-citizens without touching on some vital question and promoting some public interest, in his recent Harvard address referred to certain tendencies of the lawless spirit among the edu- cated classes as needing to be eradicated in the work of safeguarding democracy ''against the perils of its success." BREAD AND BUTTER AND LAWLESSNESS EVERY month of the passing year has brought new testimony to the spreading inclination to lawlessness in various parts of the United States. The most serious phase is lawlessness actuated by the bread and-butter motive, which is the most insidious of motives on account of its ready appeal to popular sympathy. The feeling has been prevalent among wage-earners that the source of a man's bread and butter is "sacred." If, in a concerted effort to force an increase of wages, or a decrease of hours, they cast aside their jobs, other men who may happen to be looking for a chance to earn their bread and butter may not take up the abandoned work without being regarded as violators of a peculiar private right, which, in practice, subjects them to capital punishment by "mob justice." Extreme examples of the application of this popular theory have been prevalent during the past summer. As an individual case, the mayor of New York was shot by a city watchman who had been discharged by the head of a department for proved incompetency. The loss of that 14 source of his bread and butter became a justification for revenge by murder. While no sympathy has been out- wardly bestowed on the assassin (and while it is obvious that an individual act from such a motive might easily be due to mental weakness), so far as his asserted motive goes, the would-be slayer of Mayor Gaynor was as much in the right as those strikers, or their sympathizers, who took human life by derailing a Delaware and Hudson Railway train as a warning to engineers and firemen that they must not help others to pick up the bread and butter which the strikers had cast aside. Again, the mayor's assassin was as reasonable as the street-car strikers at Columbus, Ohio, who appear to have had much local and some official sympathy in their attempt to enforce a similar claim on their discarded jobs. The latter case has presented all the disquieting features of a false local sentiment fostered by weak local authority. As we write, social chaos is being averted only by the action of a courageous Governor using State troops. At no time in the existence of this government has lawlessness asserted itself with a more insidious motive, with more unbridled intent, or accompanied by more official indecision and public apathy. / In both these instances of riot the silence of the promi- nent labor leaders has been of startling import. The way of recovery from such a state of affairs is always long and strewn with hardship, but it leads sooner or later back to the assertion of the law, as being the only "sacred" element in the problem of human society, since it is the fundamental source of everybody's bread and butter, as well as every- body's physical safety. THE PINCH OF EXTRAVAGANCE ONLY when the shoe pinches does the average man rea- son efTectively on the importance of proper foot- wear. And on account of the same perverse trait, precept and example have little influence on prudent expenditure until 15 the pocket-book is empty. When the latter is vacant of all else that is useful, it is still full of the magic of reflection. For the majority of mankind the basic principle of ex- penditure must always be sought in the simple truth that "he alone has who saves," coupled with the equally simple rule *'not to spend what you do not have." As a people un- usually favored by circumstances, Americans have been prone to overlook the principle, and to neglect the rule. For two hundred years they have filled their plates from the fatness of a new soil, and dipped their cups in the seemingly inexhaustible springs of nature. On every side have mul- tiplied the unmistakable evidences of wealth ; but under the operation of a law of economy as inexorable as the law of gravitation, that wealth has more and more passed into the hands of the few who have mastered the science of accumu- lation. This is no sign of unfairness ; it is rather proof of the existence of wide spread and general extravagance. In no other country, probably, is w^ealth so widely distributed; but that fact indicates a condition favorable to the concen- tration of wealth when the saving or holding- back principle is not commonly practiced. When the forests are stripped from the mountains, the sponge like roots and undergrowth lose their power to hold back the natural rainfall, which rushes at once to the large reservoirs below, dragging along with it the little accumulations at the sources, and also denuding much of the fertile soil on the way. In precise analogy, such are the eflfects of general extravagance on the w^ages and incomes of a people. The big receptacles of wealth cannot help filling. Thereafter they serve a useful purpose in supplying power to the myriad \vheelsand inner wheels of commerce and manufacture. But if only a prudent part of the little incomes was also reserved at the top, the lower reservoirs would not hold so much waste, and little and big incomes would prosper together. In recent years, signs have multiplied to indicate that the American era of natural abundance is over. Some of the notable signs are the enormous growth of population, i6 swelled by the steadily increasing immigration ; the stupen- dous output of the mines ; the semi-exhaustion of a large part of the once fertile fields; and, more than all else, the fortu- nate, though belated, call to national conservation. We are now entering on the second era of a nation planted in illu- sive abundance, an era in which there can be no real and lasting progress unless Economy is taken into lull partner- ship with the present firm of Intelligence and Industry, ^ As never before, the country is now concerning itself with the cost of living. For the first time it is perceived to be relatively *'high," when, in fact, as judged by the stan- dards of all European countries, it has always been extrav- agant. In accounting for the cause of the suddenly recog- nized dearness of the necessaries of life, much is being made of economic changes, such as the increase of the world's supply of gold, and very little is said of the relatively diminished supply of labor— diminished because doubled in value for the amount of service rendered. Labor is the great commodity at the base of human society. In general the price of everything else must go up or down as labor rises or falls in cost and efficiency. In no other country are the rewards and indulgence of labor so great as in America. The causes liave been partly economic and largely political, and these causes, it is safe to say, will not change their relative force in the near future. One proof that labor is at the present time pecul- iarly a favored class may be found in the prosperity of the farmers, for agriculture represents labor at its best, as the recipient of the fruits of its own energy. Other elements enter into the equation of success, but labor in farming profits as never before. This is a fortunate thing and will help to attract labor to the soil. The prosperity of labor, let it be said with joy and emphasis, is the particular tower of strength to a nation. But to continue long as a favored class it must give full measure of service, and adapt itself to a frugal scale of living, so as to be able to put by something in all but times 17 of great stringency. Under present influences, labor is saving little or nothing, and its leaders cultivate that fact as an argument for more favors. The vulgarity of Ameri- can extravagance may be more conspicuous among the newly made rich, but it pervades all classes, and in truth begins at the bottom and expands upward. In pleasures and amusements, including travel and automobiles, our people spend money, as though to be diverted from the contemplation of one's own mental resources were a boon worth the expenditure of the last dollar — and, now that we have moving pictures, of the last cent. There are thou- sands whose only economy is in the cost of their reading- matter. Years of over expenditure, with increasing costs due to imprudent demands, have at last produced a pinch which is felt by nearly every class of workers. Let no one imag- ine that this strictly American pinch is the pinch of necessity. It is only the pinch of extravagance, due to habits of luxury and expenditure which no prosperity ever yet devised by human ingenuity and industry has been able to sustain. MR. ROOSEVELT ON STRIKES TT would be a captious critic of Mr. Roosevelt who could -■- find an}^ fault with his downright utterances at Colum- bus, Ohio, in denunciation of the violence which attended the strike of street-car employees in that city. This speech was a great, a timely, and a lasting public service. Ad- dressing all classes of citizens, he told the strikers and their sympathizers that their use or toleration of lawlessness could not be endured, and showed them, moreover, that it was against their own best interests. He denounced the policemen who refused to obey the orders of the mayor in defense of life and property as lower than professional law- breakers. He pointed out the folly of employers who discriminated against members of a labor-union as such, i8 and gave counsel of order, moderation and justice to all concerned. It was a large-minded, far-sighted view which may well be kept before every working-man and employer as a reminder of their rights and mutual duties. It is easy to say that these are commonplaces of social order. The significance of the speech lies in the fact that Mr. Roosevelt has placed these principles correctly before the people as no other public man has dared or cared to since Grover Cleveland. In this respect he has felt the grave responsibility imposed upon him by his position and influence. The labor problem is m its present sorry con- dition because the leaders of public opinion in office and in the press, overawed by the working-man's boast of numbers, either have shrunk from the consideration of the labor question, or have treated it in so weak a manner as to con- fuse the public mind between alleged wrongs of working- men in a given contest and their tacitly asserted right to find a remedy for these wrongs in violence. But the chief responsibility is upon the leaders of the labor-unions, who, if at all, have not suf^ficiently discountenanced lawlessness among strikers. Men of intelligence like John Mitchell and Samuel Gompers ought to see that the interest of the working-men demands that they and 'their associates in leadership should systematically be preaching to their followers exactly what Mr. Roosevelt has so plainly preached in Ohio. If at the breaking out of every great strike they would visit the scene and throw their influence publicly on the side of law and order, they would obtain for their legitimate aspirations the support of thousands. The welfare of the working-men is the interest of the whole country and they have and will have all the sym- pathy to which they show themselves entitled. 19 MAYOR GAYNOR'S APPEAL AGAINST THE YELLOW PRESS IN his remarkable letter to his sister concerning: the attempt upon his life, Mayor Gaynor added to his dis- tinguished public services in non-partizan activity another of supreme value, which it is to be hoped has set men and women thinking as never before on the subject of sensa- tional journalism. There are prominent and well-meaning citizens who pooh-pooh the assertion that the '^yellow" newspapers are both a direct and an insidious incitement to disorder. With an optimism that is half-cowardice and half-indolence, they go on supporting these organs of law- lessness, if not by advertising with them, at least by buying them and apologizing for them. Through their vulgar pages these fathers of families both perceptibly and imper- ceptibly infect their sons and daughters with false notions and wrong standards, which, till one gather figs of thistles, cannot fail to work the destruction of most that is whole- some and beautiful in life. If these tainted journalists undertake any public work of value, it is only donning the livery of heaven to serve the devil in. Hypocrites and egotists as they are, they turn everything to their own gain and glorification. As a mere matter of editorial routine they foment class hatred, defame character, invent lies, distort the truth, spy at keyholes, and play fast-and-loose with ordinary decencies. They demoralize the men and women of their staflfs by imposing these policies upon their self-respect, and, prating of liberty and honesty, poison the mental food that bears their hideous label. The American people, in one respect, seem to be like children : we learn chiefly by shock. It is only when some cataclysm of violence rouses our dormant imagination that we consider whither we are being driven by the license of the press. The weak-minded assassins of Garfield and McKinley were impelled to their deeds by what they read in sensational papers ; and the purpose of the assailant 20 of Mr. Gaynor was probably accelerated by the violent and brutal attacks upon the mayor by a yellow journal. How many more of the people's representatives in high places must be sacrificed to false ideas of the liberty of the press ! Mayor Gaynor's service goes further than mere denun- ciation of this state of affairs. He believes that something practical can be done to abolish it. He says: Such journalism is, of course, in absolute defiance of the criminal law, and it did enter my mind to publicly call on the grand juries and the district attorney to protect me from it, but I was weak and feared people would say I was thin- skinned. But the time is at hand when these journalistic scoundrels have got to stop or get out, and I am ready now to do my share to that end. They are absolutely without souls. If decent people would refuse to look at such news- papers the thing would right itself at once. The journalism of New York City has been dragged to the lowest depth of degradation. The grossest raileries and libels, instead of honest statements and fair discussion, have gone on un- checked. One cannot help sympathizing with the decent newspapers. It is devoutly to be hoped that a remedy at law may yet be found for this crying evil and national disgrace, a way of reaching the ** accessories before the fact." If not, the appeal to decent people may be made more effective, if respectable editors, who have at heart the honor and wel- fare of their profession, would see their duty in disavowing and disfellowing the editors who have dragged it in the mire. If something is not soon accomplished, we are likely to have a League for Curbing the License of the Press. Meantime, here is a field for the quiet activity of the intel- ligent and modest women of the country. The evil is not confined to New York ; it is found in other cities from Boston to San Francisco. Its cleverness blinds many an editor to its infamy. It is a disease of the time and touches all classes, and all are interested in its cure. It is of long and insidious growth, and it will take a 21 longtime to overcome it. The mayor says, "I am ready now to do my share." Are we ? LAWLESSNESS AND LABOR LEADERSHIP LABOR riots with loss of life and destruction of prop- erty in the capital of imperial, army-ruled Germany, and state-wide strikes with the usual accompaniment of out- rages and dynamite throughout republican France, are the most recent signs that wholesale lawlessness in connection with the coercive methods of organized labor are not due to national peculiarities or political forms. They are some- how interwoven with common human passions and motives, and for this reason, if we are ever to have disputes between employers and organized labor without lawlessness, it will be due to the unremitting efforts of labor-leaders toward peaceful methods. Until their followers have been educated to believe that labor-union success with lawless- ness can never be permanent, and until labor-union men are raised to a state of discipline which yields obedience to such wise leadership, all seeming improvement will be illu- sory. Labor-union success after violence is only a truce which lays another burden of fear and cost upon the future. The Los Angeles outrage, of diabolical cruelty and frightful menace for the future, preceded the foreign events referred to by only a few days. Resistance to the demands of organized labor grew into a contest by means of boycott, and by organized counter-efforts to exist with non-union labor. The leading support of the latter party was General Harrison Gray Otis and his newspaper, and, wherever the immediate responsibility may be found to lie, it is indisputable that it was this action on his part that caused the miscreants to blow up with dynamite the offices and employees of his newspaper. A score of dead men, and the ruins of valuable property lend emphasis to argu- ment, but are not conclusive. We sympathize with General Otis and the maimed and 22 the families of the slain because in a civilized community they have been cruelly despoiled by barbarous methods. And also we sympathize with the labor-union leaders of California because some of them will be held morally responsible, when it is inconceivable that they could have instigated or encouraged acts so dastardly and so detri- mental to the cause of organized labor. Some of them have offered large rewards for the apprehension of the criminals, and others have denounced the outrage in terms not to be excelled. Both methods of showing abhorrence are laudable, but they do not reach the source of all the trouble, which is the state of mind, or sentiment, cultivated by the attitude of organized labor toward laboring men not of their way of thinking, and toward employers who successfully resist their demands. It is that state of mmd which incites fanatics and sympathizers to do the acts which injure the cause of labor, because they seem to be done to further objects sought by labor-unions. The folly and irresponsibility of these acts cultivate a growing conviction on the part of the general public that strikes and lawlessness are inseparable. Only the leaders ot labor have the influence to produce a peace- ful attitude in times of trial, and if they are evading their duty as impracticable or as beyond their power, then a crisis is impending which will try the strength of the nation ; for every day's budget of events confirms the truth that law- lessness of all kinds is on the increase, from the frivolous excesses of those who are amused by unruliness, to the atrocities of those who look for class advantage by methods which destroy and kill. In 1858, Abraham Lincoln said, ** A house divided asrainst itself cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free." Events proved that he was right. Now, after the lapse of half a century, another labor crisis is brewing, and the immediate question is not whether our civilization can endure with labor half union and half non-union, but 23 whether union labor will permit it to endure on that basis. The alternative is something very much like war, now in the guerilla stage, that inevitably will advance to the usual conclusion of blood and ashes. The choice lies with the leaders of labor. Their greatest obstacles in the exer- cise of sound judgment will prove to be the cowardice of politicians and the indecision of the officers of the law. LAWLESSNESS AND THE TRAINING OF THE YOUNG APROPOS OF THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA WHILE lawlessness, joined with the periodical strike, pursues its brisk career, nurtured by thoughtless sympathy and delicate regard for '' the sacred rights of man,"— as belonging to the few, while they are engaged in violating the rights of the many,— it will help to an under- standing of the human error in these outbreaks to reflect that nine-tenths of such lawlessness is committed by persons between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. Youth is always eager for excitement and careless of the source; in its vigor and daring it is always willing to serve older and more cautious heads who have purposes that need reckless hands to realize them. And what pur- pose could be more ingratiating to youth than the promise of more wages in return for unquestioning, and, if neces- sary, turbulent loyalty to a special cause? Veiled in phrases of association and betterment, such a purpose appears to be peaceful and unselfish ; but when that purpose meets an obstacle in somebody else's purpose, when the cherished purpose can be immediately furthered only by violence, the necessary physical force is usually applied with youth's heedless disregard of the remoter consequences. For youth does not readily perceive that the larger opportunity offered by law and order, and the larger freedom derived from devotion to country, are both weakened by any measure of private success gained by 24 lawless methods. But fine distinctions and remote benefits count for nothing. In these matters the germ of reason and the habit of subordination must be implanted by early training. And, happily, youth is even more susceptible to the agreeable good suggestion than to the insinuating evil one, if only the good suggestion is ofTered before habits of insubordination have been acquired ; before a ''team " or a " gang " or an '* association of drivers and helpers " is able to say to youth : "You are one of us. Our jleasure or interest requires that we should disturb the public peace, or that we should show our physical prowess, or that the heads of 'scabs' should be broken. It is disloyal to desert your associates when the home-going fun is furious, or when the gang contest is dangerous, or when the cause of wages is imperiled by interlopers, hungry for the jobs of others ; and anyhow, if you are disloyal to us now, j'our head will be the next that is broken." According to an unwritten rule of all fraternities which on occasion find it opportune to employ some sort of force not sanctioned by law, ''disloyalty" to them is a crime, while disloyalty to law and order is only, at the worst, a misdemeanor justified by necessity. Youth is more responsive to the id^a of loyalty than to any other human sentiment, because youth is social and susceptible ; but the things it will be loyal to are a matter of training. If youth is not taught that family and country are the highest objects of loyalty, it will be in danger of devoting loyalty to objects inimical to family and country. Lack of proper training in this elemental principle is a crying fault of the time, and it is a lack which accounts largely for the widespread growth of sportive, wilful, and associative lawlessness. It is only necessary to affirm that old-fashioned standards of youthful subordination to parental authority have mostly disappeared from American life ; the facts leave no room for argument. If it were possible to repair the shaken 25 family authority (for such training must proceed from firm and orderly minded parents) it could be done only after long, persistent and general effort. A higher average of intention to guide is probably maintained in the families of artisans than among the very well-to-do, because such parents know from environment that disorderly steps verge on ruin. But what shall be said of the poor who have not enough of anything but children, and are too busy with the bread-and-butter problem to give much attention to training ! In the great cities the little boys of the crowded districts are impelled to association and action by the primal needs of human development, and in their case the absence of direction and training is a peril both to them and to the nation. But a means has been found to repair in part the lack of home-training for youth in '' The Boy Scouts of America." This is a movement which is applicable to boys of all classes, which appeals to every natural youthful impulse, which brings every faculty into healthful action, and which, at^the same time, enforces the principle that subordination is a real happiness in human association. It teaches also that loyalty belongs first to country, and that country is only a general name for law and order. This, the most promising association of our time, is an outgrowth of the '' Woodcraft Indians" which Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton, in a happy hour, set on foot to interest and instruct the youth of America. General Baden-Powell had the fine idea to extend the purpose of such a youthful association in giving to ''The Boy Scouts" of England a broader training with a patriotic motive ; whereupon Mr. Seton, with a practicability as ideal as it is brilliant, has grafted the English extension to the parent stem, and evolved a growth agreeable to every youthful taste and status, capable of the widest expansion, and destined to bear fruit of enormous benefit to the nation. 26 MANNERS AND THE IMMIGRANT I^^E have recently written in these columns of the regret- ▼ ▼ tably passive attitude toward the subject of manners on the part of many well-bred Americans, resulting, as it does, in agreat impairment of the function which good breed- ing should have in civilization. A weak indifference to the invasion of the peace and happiness of society by the vul- gar, selfish, or untrained is not a small or negligible matter. There is, however, another point of view from which the daily intercourse of the world becomes of even larger mo- ment : the effect that our attitude toward such behavior may have upon immigrants in their relation to our political standards. At the Gate of the New World what is the first lesson the immigrants learn ? Is it the fundamental one of respect for the larger rights of others, of which we boast? Is it not rather one of disrespect for the minor rights of courtesy and politeness? Do not false notions of equality very soon rob their respectful demeanor and speech of its bloom? This being the case, how can we expect them to discrimi- nate in the scope of their indifference between minor and major rights? The societies that are bravely antt devotedly at work among the immigrant class, in their endeavor to bring it into consonance with the best American standards, may well consider the value to their work of beginning with the teach- ing, or the conserving, of simple good manners. An Italian from the Basilicata may know little— and may be qualified to learn little more— of the American system of government, but he knows instinctively the part that manners play in life, and usually on arriving affords a better example of re- spect for others than his American neighbor. To establish respectful intercourse among all— respect toward the humble as well as from the humble— is to take the first im- portant step toward making the immigrant a valuable American citizen. 27 ARE WE ASHAMED OF GOOD MANNERS? IN his ** sermon" in the Salt Lake Tabernacle in Septem- ber last, President Taft touched upon a subject of current and growing importance in these suggestive words : We Anglo-Saxons are, we admit, a great race. We have accomplished wonders in hammering out, against odds that seemed insurmountable, the principles of civil liberty and popular government, and making them practical and showing to the world their benefits. But in so doing and in the course of our life, it seems to me we have ignored some things that our fellowsof southern climes have studied and made much of, and that is the forms of speech and the methods of ever-day treatment between themselves and others. At first that seems superficial to us, who prefer *' no" and "yes" and abrupt methods and communication in the shortest and curtest sentences, but we have much to learn from people of that kind of courtesy and politeness. All this is true, and yet there is probably no kinder people in the world than ours. That the lack of the graces of courtesy is consistent with entire good-will is instanced by the (doubtless unusual) experience of an American who lately made a considerable journey in this country, and after his return declared that on his railway travels he had not met with an unkind or impolite action, or, on the other hand, with a single distinguished courtesy. The rest of the country must speak for itself, but here in this rushing city of New York the deterioration ot what may be called public manners has become so marked as no longer to excite attention ; and while 'u\ certain circles there is vigorous insistence upon the finesse of good breeding, is there not also noticeable, in general, a less careful attention to manners within doors? ll we are to trust the report of returning travellers, the Zeitgeist, if in less degree, is simi- larly affecting some countries of Europe. In trying to arrive at the causes of this, a social phil- osopher might find much food lor reflection. The '* manners of the road " are but a small part of that " conduct" which 28 Matthew Arnold regarded as " three-fourths of life." The social elevation of uncultivated persons who have ** broken into society " by the aid of sudden accumulations of wealth has done much to confirm the saying that it takes three generations to make a gentleman,— as no doubt, it takes three generations to unmake one. Another contributing cause is found in the phenomenal increase in immigration; but it is to be doubted whether in this contact Americans or foreigners suffer the more. Standing as we do in New York at the gateway of the New World, it is inter- esting to see how quickly the gentle and respectful manners of certain foreigners are abandoned before the dictum, ** I am as good as you are," in the narrow interpre- tation of that fatuous doctrine. " Friendship requires leis- ure," says Emerson, and certainly manners are not less exacting in that respect, and in the face of the necessities of haste, the amenities give way. That such general deterioration is noticeable is not affected by the agreeable exceptions which one encounters in shops, in restaurants or in the course of city transportation. Whatever may be the causes, a more important point of inquiry relates to the effect upon the civilized classes them- selves— those who have in their keeping the traditions of American manners which we inherit, and which at their best are not excelled elsewhere. Wlrat is the attitude, for instance, not of those who serve, but of those who are served, in the point of self-respect? There can be no manners without a standard of tacit agreement in society concerning them, and this standard amounts to a dead letter unless it is enforced and insisted upon to a greater degree than is now done. The treatment from private and public servants and from children to which gentlemen and ladies submit without protest indicates that as an active principle of fsociety manners have lost force. The fact seems to be that a good many Americans who have good manners act as though they were heartily ashamed of it and hope that their children will not find it out. 29 The President touched lightly but accurately upon one defect of our intercourse : its bluntness. No inflection of courtesy can supply to the bald ''no" and "yes'' the possibilities of respect which attend the use of "sir" and " madam ;" and when the conversation is with an employer, a lady, an elderly person, or a dignitary, the occasional mention of the name gives a proper deference and a dignity which, without sacrifice or servility, establish a basis of mutual respect. By indifference to the impoliteness of servants, employ- ers make life more difficult for themselves and for society- just as mothers do who fail to exact prompt and implicit obedience from their children. Recently in a certain club a call-boy, sent to find a member, rushed into the smoking- room with a repeated and strident summons of "Jones!" whereupon a gent'eman drew him aside and softly prompted him with ''Mr. Jones, if you please." This action was a service not only to the boy, but to every member of the club. But how many " house committees " consider these or a score of such delinquencies worth dis- cipline? And where is the multitude of servants to learn their trade, if no one exacts of them respect? In the true sense of the word there can be no society without deference, and the quality of the society is indi- cated by the proper direction and gradation of this defer- ence, which, it must be observed, is the principle not only of society— and as becoming in the rich, accomplished and prominent as in any others— but is also the fundamental principle of political liberty and, indeed, of Christianity itself. As the President suggests, in the struggle for equality we have given up much that is valuable in that well-poised ceremony and formality without which life becomes a sickening struggle for the front row or the best place, to the exclusion of the elements of intellectuality and repose. Many others besides Mr. Henry James have remarked upon the absurd position held in American society by 30 young women. The ruinous indulgence of children ought at least to be confined to the home circle, and not be carried into a world where age, intelligence and experience should have precedence and should form the standards. The reversal of values, so as to make the debutante the point of interest in a social season instead of the accom- plished matron, is as though society should have foresworn its functions. This would be true even were the manners of the debutante all that they should be in deference, suavity and tact. The experience of Washington, where society is fairly representative, goes to show that much is still to be desired in these respects in the general education of American girls. The women's clubs might well take up the considera- tion of this subject. The attitude of boys and girls toward their elders and toward each other is largely in the hands of mothers, though, to be sure, extraneous influences may thwart the best ideals of home breeding. The general inculcation of mutual respect by means of simple cere- monies of deference would lay the foundation of a better social order, and go far to reduce the familiarities incident to the otherwise admirable freedom of the sexes in sports and common education. The high-bred American girl has her own distinction among the women of the world, and the mothers of the present day ought^aot to be satisfied in the matter of social discipline with anything less than the best. 31