Christianity and Industry: Six AMERICA ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS BY SHERWOOD EDDY » NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY Ten Cents Net. COPTBIGHT, 1922, GEOKGE H. DOEAN COMPANY PEINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMEBICA [ CONTENTS Page National Ideals 5 National Resources . 6 The Political Problem 6 The Problem of Industrial Strife 7 The Unjust Distribution of Wealth and Income . . 8 The Open Shop Drive 10 The Twelve-Hour Day and Seven-Day Week . . 12 The Labor Spy System 13 Propaganda and the Press 15 The Race Problem . . 18 The International Problem and War 21 Conclusion 24 Appendix 26 CHRISTIANITY AND INDUSTRY A SERIES OF PAMPHLETS 70,000 copies printed to date An attempt to shed light on such questions as: What are the outstanding problems and perils in America today? Where are the points of friction? What are the social consequences of current business policies? Are the proceeds of industry equitably dis- tributed ? What solutions of industrial problems are now being proposed? What should be our attitude toward trade unions? To what extent is modern industry unchris- tian? What shall we do about war ? GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY New York No. 6. America: Its Problems and Perils By SHERWOOD EDDY A summary of the major problems and perils in America, including poverty, low wages, long hours, concentration of wealth, the open shop drive, raunici- pay corruption, yellow journalism, denial of freedom of speech, lynching, racial discrimination, and war. 32 pages — lo Cents Net No. 7. Incentives in Modem Life By KIRBY PAGE The William Penn Lecture of 1922, Discusses such questions as: At what point does the desire for greater possessions become unchristian? What are the social effects of luxuries? Are the motives of Jesus practicable in modern business and professional life? 32 pages — 10 Cents Net No. 5. The United States Steel Corpora- tion. By KIRBY PAGE Reprinted from the Atlantic Monthly, May, IQ22. Written after an interview with Judge Gary and President Farrell of the Steel Corporation. Discusses the social consequences of modern business policies. 32 pages— 10 Cents Net No. 1. Industrial Facts. By KIRBY PAGE Concrete data concerning industrial problems and proposed solutions. 32 pages — 10 Cents Net No. 2. Collective Barg^uning By KIRBY PAGE An ethical evaluation of some phases of trade unionism and the open shop movement. 32 pages — lo Cents Net No. 3. Fellowship. By BASIL MATHEWS and HARRY BISSEKER With an Introduction by Sheriaood Eddy. A consideration of fellowship as a means of build- ing a Christian social order; emphasizes the impor- tance of group discussion in seeking light upon indus- trial problems. 33 pages — 10 Cents Net No. 4. The Sword or the Cross By KIRBY PAGE With an Introduction by Prof. H. F. Ward. An examination of war in the light of Jesus' Way of Life. 64 pages — 1$ Cents Net (Regular Edition, $1.20) STIMULATE YOUR FRIENDS Send Copies of these Pamphlets to: Business Men Members of Boards Professors Ministers Students Sunday School Teachers Association Officers Social Workers Cabinet Members Libraries Quantities of these pamphlets may 1)0 seonreA from Klihy Fagre, 311 Division Avenue, HashronoK HeliThts, New Jersey, at the rate of 70 cents for ten copies, or $6.00 per hundred, postpaid, for all except No. 4, which can he secured In lots of five at 10 cents each. Christianity and Economic Problems Facts, Principles, Programs A DISCUSSION GROUP TEXT-BOOK Prepared by Kirby Page, Chairman Leslie Blanchard Sherwood Eddy Harrison S. Elliott F. Ernest Johnson David R. Porter Florence Simms Olive Van Horn For the Educational Committee OF THE Commission on the Church and Social Service OP THE Federal Council of the Churches of Christ IN America. TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1. A Divided World. 2. Poverty — Misfortune or Blessing? 3. Is Poverty a Serious Problem? 4. Do Great Fortunes Help or Hinder Social Pro- gress? 5. Are Luxuries Antagonistic to Public Welfare? 6. Does Modern Industry Help or Hinder the Full Development of Human Beings? 7. Why Is There Not Enough to Go Around? 8. Hovp Can Industry Be Made to Produce More Goods and Better People? 9. What Changes in Control Would Most Benefit Industry ? 10. What Degree of Public Control of Industry Will Best Promote the General Welfare? 11. How Rapidly Can a Christian Economic Order Be Achieved? INVALUABLE FOR PERSONAL STUDY DISCUSSION GROUPS AND OPEN FORUMS 50 Cents per Copy ASSOCIATION PRESS: NEW YORK CITY or any Bookseller. AUTHOR'S NOTE The purpose of this pamphlet is to summarize the outstanding problems and perils in America today. It is, of course, impossible to treat each problem adequately in a small pamphlet, as only bare outlines can here be given. No effort is made in this short discussion to deal with the solution of these problems, as this would require several volumes. It may help us to reahze the magnitude of the task before us, however, if -we seek to mass the evidence on some of the major issues of the hour. The writer reahzes that this is not a complete statement of the present situation in America. Volumes might be written upon favorable aspects of our national, life which we have not attempted to describe for lack of space. In this pamphlet we have confined ourselves to our "problems and perils," and endeavored to concentrate upon these. The views expressed or positions taken are in no sense official but purely personal and do not represent those of any organization or denomination. The writer holds no brief for either employers or workers. He believes in the common humanity of both. Some of the finest men he has known are among the great hearted employers who are trying earnestly to work out a solution of the in- dustrial problem. He makes no defence for the short sighted and misguided pohoy of the leaders of some labor unions. Neither does he advocate any easy panacea for the solution of the industrial problem, for he befieves that none exists. Rather he looks for gradual, evolu- tionary progress as we work together in co-operation by the patient application of Christian principles for the solution of all our problems. AMERICA: ITS PROBLfeMS AND PERILS NATIONAL IDEALS If we read the great documents that lie at the foundation of our national life, such as the Mayflower Compact, the Bill of Rights of Virginia, the articles of the New England Confederation, the Declara- tion of Independence, the Constitution, the state papers of Washing- ton, Jefferson and the founders of the nation, three great ideals stand out unmistakably as the very foundation of America's life — Liberty, Justice and Democracy. The nation was "conceived in Liberty" and many of the original settlers left the old world to escape the oppression of church or state. The nation was founded in Justice with the ideal of equal laws for all, instead of "divine right" for the few. It gradually evolved in the growing conception of Democracy, seeking a government of all the people, by all the people and for all the people. And with these three principles went a high idealism of faith in God and man. The Mayflower Compact of the Pilgrim Fathers begins: "In the name of God, Amen. We . . . having undertaken, for the glory of God and advancement of the Christian faith ... a voyage to plant the first colony . . . solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic ... to enact . . . just and equal laws ... for the general good." In the New England Confederation, 1643, the colo- nists state: "We all came into these parts of America with one and the same end, and aim, to advance the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ and to enjoy the liberties of the Gospel in purity with peace." Was ever a nation more nobly conceived in Liberty, Justice, De- mocracy and Faith? Let us think again of the challenge of our vast natural resources and accumulated wealth. The area of the country which is almost as great as the entire continent of Europe, has multiplied five-fold since colonial days, and the population thirty-fold. In the time of Washington we possessed but six cities of 8,000 population, while New York City had but 40,000. Our wealth has increased thirty-five fold since 1850, and is now estimated at approximately two hundred and fifty biUion dol- 5 6 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS NATIONAL RESOURCES lars, or one-third of the world's wealth of seven hundred billions. Judge Gary at the annual meeting of the American Iron and Steel Institute in 1920 showed that while the United States had only six per cent of the world's population and seven per cent of the world's land, yet we were producing 20 per cent of the world's gold, 25 per cent of the world's wheat crop, 40 per cent of the iron, steel, -lead and silver of the world, 50 per cent of the zinc, more than 50 per cent of the world's total output of coal, 60 per cent of the copper and aluminum, 60 per cent of the world's cotton crop, 66 per cent of the oil, 75 per cent of the corn, and 85 per cent of the world's production of automobiles. That is, we are producing from one-fifth to four-fifths of most of the world's great essential products. The United States now stands first and leads the world in agriculture, in the production of wheat, oats, corn, tobacco and cotton; first in cattle, hogs and live stock; first in railways, telegraphs and telephones; first in manufactures, and first in inventions and progress, with some 40,000 new patents a year. ^ I But what is the significance of this vast wealth? The crucial question is what are we doing with it. R. J. Campbell, the well- known Enghsh preacher, upon his return to London this year said: "America holds the moral leadership of the world — if she will take it." Let us turn now to this question of moral leadership and face the chal- lenge of the problems and perils which have arisen in large measure from the very rapidity of our economic development, THE POLITICAL PROBLEM American cities are noted for their corrupt governments. The notorious Tweed ring of Tammany politicians robbed the city of New York of many millions. The police graft of the city in its most corrupt days of alliance with vice and crime was worth some three hundred thousand dollars a month. The "shame of the cities" and the corrupt political rings and bosses, with consequent bribery, vice and crime, was passed on to Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Min- neapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, San Francisco, and other cities. Not only was there municipal corruption, but in some states, offices were bought and sold. In Colorado, as described by Judge * For an excellent picture of our country see E. A. Ross, 'What is America?', 1919, 159 pages. An interesting statement of America in terms of horsepower has been made by Dr. Thomas T. Reed, of the United States Bureau of Mines. The real basis of a nation's power is its energy resources. The energy output of an average worlcman is about a tenth of one horsepower. The energy expended by a miner in an eight-hour day thus amounts to about that available from two pounds of coal. There are 41,000,000 wage earners in the United States and their energy output is a little more than 4,000,000 horse- power, _ Taking the estimates of the probable and available power sources of the United States in terms of millions of 'horsepower years,' they are approximately as follows: Coal 600,000, petroleum 400, waterpower 37. No other country has l/50th part of the total energy resources of the United States. — Baltimore Sun, Mar. 29, 1922. AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 7 Lindsey in "The Beast," the corporations controlled the courts, gover- nors and legislatures. To some extent also corruption and the domina- tion of the money power has crept into our national, politics. In the 1920 elections thirteen and a half miUions were spent on national and state candidates. The expenditure of several hundred thousand dollars on behalf of Senator Newberry was publicly condemned by the Senate which seated him. In the recent municipal elections across the country the party of "good government" was defeated in most of the cities. A leading social worker in New York said recently: "I would rather vote for Tammany Hall with its known vice and crime, bribery and corruption than for your so-called party of good government which is often con- trolled by the selfish profiteering of the money power that would sell out the franchises and exploit the people quite as readily and far more successfully than Tammany Hall." Do not these two dangers constitute the menace of our political problem today — selfish bribery and corruption on the one hand and selfish profiteering on the other? How shall we mobilize the men, true to our American ideals, who cannot be bought or sold, or tempted by profiteering, who will find the solution of our political problem in America? THE PROBLEM OF INDUSTRL^^L STRIFE There is a new spirit of industrial unrest abroad in the world since the war. America ha,s been averaging over 3,000 strikes a year for the last five years, some five times as many as Great Britain, and more than any other country in the world. A recent writer refers to the "discontent which, driven by an expanding world commercial- ism, is rising the world over, as naturally, relentlessly and uncontroll- ably as the tide under the pull of the moon." What is the cause of this world-wide discontent of labor? According to G. D. H. Cole, of Oxford, there are three fundamental causes of industrial unrest in Great Britain. Insecurity of employment, growing discontent to work for the private profit and luxury of the few rather than for the service and need of the many, and labor's resentment at the auto- cratic control of industry. The employee is too often treated as a commodity, receiving orders from an employer who controls him, but gives him no voice in determining the condition of his working life. Justice Brandeis traces the one fundamental cause of industrial strife to "the contrast between our political liberty and industrial abso- lutism." In the Final Report of the Federal Commission on Industrial Rela- tions, the four fundamental causes of unrest in America are stated as follows: "The sources from which this unrest springs group them- 8 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS selves almost without exception under four main sources which include all the others : 1. Unjust distribution of wealth and income. 2. Unemployment and denial of an opportunity to earn a living. 3. Denial of justice in the creation, in the adjudication and in the administration of law. 4. Denial of the right and opportunity to form effective organiza- tions." 1 Let us examine some of these alleged causes of our industrial strife. THE UNJUST DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH AND INCOME In England it is estimated by Sir Leo Chiozza Money that one-tenth of the people possess nine-tenths of the wealth, the remaining nine- tenths of the people having but one-tenth of the wealth. That would be approximately true in America also. According to Professor W. I. King of the University of Wisconsin, 2% of our people possess some 60% of the wealth; that is, two million persons own twenty per cent more wealth than all the other one hundred million and more people together, while two-thirds of our people have no home of their own, no land, or tools, no secure means of livelihood, no capital except the clothes on their backs and a httle furniture and personal belongings. ^ Mr. Henry H. Klein, Deputy Commissioner of Accounts of New York, in his new book "Dynastic America," gives the names of the hundred families that own or control most of the wealth, the railways and the fourteen great basic industries of America. He names the twelve families that control the oil industry, eleven the steel, five the beef and packing industry and so on through coal, copper, railways, gas, telegraph and telephone, tobacco, rubber, sugar, gun-powder and shipping.^ For illustration, here is a German butcher boy who lands in America and buys a farm. Seven million people move in on this and the sur- rounding farms on which New York City is built. ' Today this one favored family possesses, according to Mr. Klein, a fortune of $500,- 000,000. They have the share of wealth of over a million of the poor who have an average of some 1400 each in personal possessions. This is not necessarily the fault of the individuals who succeed. We are glad for their success. We are not now finding fault with the individual players under the present rules of the game, but with the rules of the game itself. Let us look for a moment at the condition of the million who are poor. Here in New York are some 270,000 darkened tenement rooms that never see the light of God's sun; one person in twelve is 1 Reprint from Senate Document 415, p. 30. 2 "Wealth and Income," W. I. King, pp. 80, 82. 3 "Dynastic America," H. H. Klein, pp. 11, 12. AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 9 buried penniless in the "Potters. Field"; one in fourteen evicted, be- cause they cannot pay their rent; from twelve to twenty per cent of the children are under-nourished; thousands are living in stifling slums, in wretched- tenements, ill-fed, with high infant mortality, under conditions that crush out the life of body, mind and spirit. Is this God's -mil for his children, is it humanity, is it justice? Think of the responsibility of growing rich in a poor world, of growing fat while others starve! The inequality of income in the United States is shown in "Income in the United States" by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Twenty-one million families dividing the available income of the country would average $2,330 each. But in actual fact 152 persons have an income of over $1,000,000; 369 persons an income of from $500,000 to $1,000,000; 1976 from $200,000 to $500,000; 4,945 from $100,000 to $200,000; and a total of 254;000 of -the rich with incomes of $10,000 to over $1,000,000, who receive nearly seven biUion dollars of the national income. Only 842,000, or 3 per cent, receive over $5,000 a year; five millions, or 14 per cent, receive over $2,000; twenty- seven millions, or 72 per cent, receive less than $1,500, and fourteen million persons, or 38 per cent, receive less than $1,000 a year. Out of these ranks of poverty comes a large proportion of our vice and crime. The system is doubly vicious since those who inherit vast, unearned wealth also furnish an undue proportion of the divorce crime and evil living in our national life. The results of poverty in human life are obvious — crowded tenements, unsanitary surroundings, congested or demoralized family hfe, sickness, child labor, mothers driven out into industry, ignorance and low mentality, without even an awakened desire for education, ignorant and unskilled workers, untrained and undesirable citizenship, growing class hatred of masses sodden with misery and despair. As Oliver Cromwell says : "He who makes many poor to make a few rich — that suits not a common- wealth." We are witnessing in America today perhaps the most vast and dangerous concentration of wealth in the hands of the few that history has ever recorded. In summing up the three volumes of the Pujo Commission of Congress on the money trust, Justice Brandeis pointed out the danger of one financial group in New York which was appoint- ing 341 directors of 112 corporations and thus controlling the railways and the great basic industries of America. They held the concen- trated control of twenty-two billions of wealth, which is more than twice the value of all the property of the thirteen Southern States combined, or more than that of the twenty-two States west of the Mississippi taken together.' 1 Quoted by L. D. Edie, "Current Social and Industrial Forces," p. 125. 10 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS At the other end of the scale, according to the Final Report of the Industrial Relations Commission, 37% of the mothers in industry are forced to work. Two-thirds of the women in the factories up to the outbreak of the war were receiving $8.00 a week or less and one-half of them 16.00 a week or less. Over 20,000 persons are killed in industry each year. Of the 700,000 accidents yearly at least half are prevent- able. In the great basic industries over 2,000,000 are unemployed. Wage earners lose more than one-fifth of their time in unemployment.' Ten million live in poverty in normal times in America. ^ Ten million now living will die prematurely of preventable diseases at the present death rate in this country. The poor are dying at three times the death rate of the well-to-do, and from tuberculosis, at seven times their death rate. From 12 per cent to 20 per cent of the children in the great cities are underfed.' These conditions inevitably produce the crushed or distorted bodies and minds from which the army of crime is recruited. A Chinese proverb well says: "Crime begins in poverty." THE OPEN SHOP DRIVE •Another cause of industrial strife as stated in the report of the Commission on Industrial Relations is "the denial of the right and opportunity to form effective organizations." The right of collective bargaining must be viewed as part of a long evolutionary development of humanity. Broadly speaking, both man's political and industrial progress has been won by the assertion of the right of collective bar- gaining. It has not been handed down gratuitously by the privileged class from above, but won by collective organization from below. Our Anglo-Saxon liberties in the Magna Carta were wrested from selfish privilege by collective action. The freedom of the American colonies, and the French Revolution were won by the same method. In like manner practically all industrial advance has been gained. In primitive society and indeed in America up to 1861, the worker was often owned in slavery as the property of the employer. Under serfdom the worker was bought and sold with the land. Until the Reform Bill in 1831 in England, labor's position was pitiable. Its right to organize to improve its miserable condition was often out- lawed until 1825, but steadily, from thenceforward, wages, hours and conditions were improved by collective bargaining. This right is now freely recognized by the leading religious bodies. 1 See Final Report of Commission on Industrial Relations in Part II of this pamphlet for these facts. ^ See the estimates of Robert Hunter, Prof. Parmelee and J. S. Penman. According to Professor Simms a hundred and eighty men own a quarter of the wealth of the United States. Two hundred men have most of the privately owned timber of America, while three companies control a large part of this. C. R. Vanllise, "Concentration and Control," p. 156. Newell L. Simms, "Ultimate Democracy," p. 52. ^ Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations, pp. 24-37. AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 11 The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, The National Catholic War Council, and the Social Justice Program adopted by the Central Conference of America Rabbis all recognize the right of labor to organize and to bargain collectively through representatives of its own choosing. Ex-President Taft recognizes labor's right of collective bargaining as "indispensable to its weKare." It is defended by Mr. Herbert Hoover, Secretary Charles E. Hughes, President Roosevelt, and a long list of the best authorities.^ In spite of this fundamental ar,.d elemental human right, we find that some employers in America have been conducting, under the guise of an "open shop" drive, an effort to break the unions. We are glad that this action is deplored by the Merchants Association of New York, and other far sighted groups of employers. Ex-President Taft recently pointed out that: "It is the custom of Bourbon employers engaged in fighting labor unionism to the death to call a closed non- union shop an open shop and to call the movement to kill unionism an open-shop movement. This is a deceitful misuse of the term.''^" The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America has issued a statement in which it is declared that : "The relations between employers and workers throughout the United States are seriously affected at this moment by a campaign which is being conducted for the open shop policy — ^the so-called American Plan of Employment. These terms are now being frequently used to designate establish- ments that are definitely anti-union. Obviously, a shop of this kind is not an open shop but a closed shop — closed against members of labor unions." The National Catholic Welfare Council says in this connection: "The 'open shop' drive masks under such names as 'the American Plan' and hides behind the pretense of American freedom. Yet its real purpose is to destroy all effective labor unions, and thus . subject the working people to the complete domination of the em- ployers."' We would gladly recognize the earnest efforts of many employers to find a just solution of the labor problem. The New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce, in a report made pubhc January 31, 1922, advises employers to keep clear of the various "open shop" move- ments. The report shows that there are three roads open to employ- ers; the road of constructive achievement within the shop, that of constructive co-operation between organizations of employers and of workers and that of the "open shop." This last, the committee says, is "undermining the confidence of labor in employers, and ruining the foundation of co-operation between them," It is pointed out that. 1 A full discussion of the subject will be found in the pamphlet, Collective Bargaining, by Kirby Page. 2 The Baltimore News, Feb. 5, 1921. 3 Quoted in "The Open Shop Drive," p. 45. 12 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS similar campaigns in former periods of depression have only resulted in the redoubled growth of unionism and adoption of extreme measures in the periods of prosperity which followed. This "open shop" drive must be recognized as one of our serious American problems. In countries more advanced in industrial justice such as England and on the continent of Europe the right of collective bargaining and labor's right to choose its own representatives where it will, is fully and finally recognized. A considerable number of em- ployers and pubhoists in the United States also fully recognize the necessity for collective action on the part of the workers, and many firms and corporations are experimenting with various types of col- lective bargaining. The denial of this right may not only perpetuate growing industrial unrest, but cause those acute and violent outbreaks of labor which have been witnessed in other countries that have fol- lowed the discredited methods of reaction and repression, THE TWELVE-HOUR DAY AND SEVEN-DAY WEEK Countries with a more enlightened labor policy have long ago adopted the practice of a maximum eight-hour day. The forty-four or forty-eight hour week is almost universal in Great Britain. Accord- ing to Horace B. Drury in the Bulletin of the Taylor Society, ' there are still seven different industries in the United States where from 15,000 to 150,000 men in each are working a twelve-hour day and in many cases a seven-day week. Thus in the steel industry, Mr. Drury esti- mates 150,000 men who still have no alternative to the twelve-hour day. Including their families this involves the welfare of half a mil- lion people. If, as in England and other countries, the work were placed on three shifts of eight hours each, Mr. Drury estimates that at most it would increase the cost of the steel but 3%, or the price per ton from $40.00 to only 141.20. Yet in many instances he shows > that an eight-hour shift has actually increased the relative output by as much as 20%. The Interchurch Steel Report shows that approximately half the employees in the steel plants of the United States Steel Corporation were working the twelve-hour day, or the eleven to fourteen-hour shift, and that less than one-quarter were working under sixty hours a week. They were averaging twenty hours a week more than the work- ers in the steel industry of Great Britain. Modern science has recog- nized the imperative need of exercising the neglected faculties after > Taylor Society Bulletin, Feb. 1921. As we go to press, the news comes of President Harding's banquet on May IStli, 1922 with forty-one steel executives at which the President "insisted that the industry meet if possible what seemed to be a strong public sentiment" and abolish the twelve-hour day. For more than a decade public opinion has been demandr ing such a change and it now seems likely that the steel companies will have to yield to the demand. This gives us hope that public opinion may bring about the removal of other evils mentioned in this pamphlet. AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 13 the grinding monotony of toil to offset tfie tyranny of industry over human life. The very worst conditions are found in the cities that produce the most wealth. The writer spoke to one worker who had come out of the twelve-hour day and the seven-day week, which Herbert Hoover calls "sheer inhumanity." He told of the three fears hanging over the workers. First, there was the dread of unemployment. He said that they would work a twelve-hour day and work until they dropped rather than run the risk of losing their jobs in this dreaded time of unemployment. Second, there was the fear of accident from the giant machines. One worker described to the writer how first the machine crushed his hand, later broke his nose and still later his arm until he was discharged after the third accident. But greatest of all was the fear of the breaking up of the home. The man who works twelve hours a day, who has but two hours a day to himself and goes home to eat and sleep like an animal, cannot protect his wife and children. His life centers in the shop, not the home ; and his daughters are on the streets and in the dance halls. Immorality stalks into these homes and exploits the daughters of the poor. ■ How long is this blot of a twelve-hour day and a seven-day week to continue in our Ameri- can life? THE LABOR SPY SYSTEM Judge Anderson in giving his decision in the recent Colyer case said: "Spies are necessarily drawn from the unwholesome and untrust- worthy classes. A right minded man refuses such a job. The spy system destroys confidence and propagates hate."' Wilham J. Burns himself complains of detectives that "as a class they are the biggest lot of blackmailing thieves that ever went un- whipped of justice."' The second volume of the Interchurch Report, "Public Opinion and the Steel Strike," speaks of the "widespread systems of espionage as an integral part of the anti-union policy of great industrial corpora- tions." In one company investigated, "the file, the repository of this concern's labor intelligence and the basis of its labor policy, freely offered into the investigator's hands, turned out to contain soijie 600 reports by under-oover men (spies) together with black-lists, letters to and from other strilie-bound steel companies in Monessen and to the Federal government, and contracts witli labor detective agencies." . . . "War, periodically overt, generally chronic, was what the Com- mission found in the steel industry." ^ In speaking of the labor spy system now so widespread in American 1 "The Labor Spy" by Sidney Howard. Introduction by R. C. Cabot, p. 56. s "Public Opinion and the Steel Strike," pp. 1, 2, 3. 14 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS industry, Dr. Richard C. Cabot of Harvard, says: "It promotes wide- spread and perpetual suspicion. A workman cannot tell whom to trust. He cannot by law-abiding behaviour rid himself of the torment and degradation inherent in endless distrust of his fellows. The labor spy is led into a treachery more chronic and more deeply re- sented than that of any other spy, because his work is more continuous and because his victims have committed no crime and are planning none. . . . "There is no knowing where to find him or how to get rid of him. Because of him all men are suspected, and intense bitterness is aroused against employers, the innocent and the guilty alike. . . . The whole matter seems to me not one of persons or classes but of a very widespread human tendency to go back to barbaric methods of deception and -treachery and to break down the distinction between war, which we know is hell, and peace, which we have supposed to be something different. . . . Hired to cheat the employee, the spy finds it profitable to cheat his employer too, by fomenting strikes so that he may be hired to break them. . . . Violence and the work of the agent provocateur seem the logical outcome of any spy system pursued for profit only. The remedy as I see it is, light. I do not believe that the labor spy system can stand the scrutiny of the public. When the nation realizes what is going on it will turn to other and less barbaric methods of dealing with industrial unrest." ^ This survey of industrial espionage gives evidence of the working of the various labor spy agencies. The Sherman Service, Inc., paid an income tax of $258,000 in a year out of its profits for this pernicious spy system. One of its avowed purposes was to "stir up as much bad feeling as possible between the Italians and the Serbs," and to "call up racial hatred between the two." The Baldwin-Felts Com- pany seems to be ready to furnish gunmen, fighters and machine guns whenever necessary to break a strike in Colorado, West Vir- ginia or other industrially backward states. If we read this amazing account of a spy system which has spread its slimy octopus tentacles through much of American industry, one " wonders whether one is in Czarist Russia instead of free America. The fact is that such methods and a spy system obtain only in times of war. It means industrial and class war if such a method is con- tinued. The spy system was long ago outgrown and abandoned in favor of more enlightened methods in Great Britain. Thus we read, just one hundred years ago, between 1800 and 1820 in England "the use of spies was common in all times of upper class panic."^ What is to be our attitude toward such a spy system in American industry and what solution can we find for it? A director of the firm 1 "The Labor Spy". Introduction by R. C. Cabot, pp. 3, 4, 5. ' Hammond, "The Town Laborer," p. 258. AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 15 of Kuppenheimer Brothers, clothing manufacturers of Chicago, has shown the utter failure and futility of the spy system in the days when his firm practiced it, stating that he had never known a spy's report to contain any information of value. How much better for the firms in the clothing industry to have advanced to a stable constitutionaUsm in industry, with a written constitution, the frank recognition of the unions, and the successful operation of the agreement with the Amal- gamated, instead of the old system of war and spies. Is not the solution of the spy system the growth of constitutionalism in industry and the recognition of the right of employer and employee alike to organize for their mutual welfare and to bargain collectively? PROPAGANDA AND THE PRESS The press in America constitutes another great problem. Mr. Walter Lippman in "Liberty and the News" shows that the first issue of the first newspaper printed in the United States was written "toward curing that spirit of lying that prevails amongst us." It was immediately suppressed. But never was there greater need of the spirit of truth than in America today. The very life of demiocracy depends upon pubhoity and the press is one of the major channels of publicity.! Mr. Franlc I. Cobb, the editor of the New York World shows the evil effect of the war upon the press: "For five years there has been no true play of public opinion in the world. Multitudes have been willing to die for their country but not to think for it." Out of all the troubled areas of the world streams of propaganda are converging upon us. The world war has long victimized both sides by a distorted propaganda. The rac» riots in Omaha, Washington and elsewhere were stirred up by the propaganda of the press. General Wood upon his arrival in Omaha showed that one of the first steps to law and order was the suppression of a "rotten press" which had been fomenting race hatred for weeks. One living in the foul atmosphere of a stifling room soon ceases to be aware of the poison which is benumbing his senses. Probably many of us have never recognized the menace of our public press. A student recently won an oratorical contest on the press as a "Maker of Wars." He might have added "Maker of Crime." Barring certain shining exceptions, how many cities in the United States can be found today where the press is giving adequately the world's news and only "the news that's fit to print" without the vulgar, criminal 1 John Macy, in "Civilization in the United States," says of the press; "No other institu- tion approaches the newspaper in universality, persistence, continuity of influence. Com- pared with the journalist, the teacher, the preacher, the artist, the politician, the man of science, are restricted, interrupted, indirect in reaching the minds of their fellowraen.'' 16 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS or sensational. If you take Chicago and all the cities of the middle west dependent upon it, you have a newspaper claiming to be the greatest on earth which is throughout typified by its motto "Right or wrong, my country" not of course that right matters particularly! The only alternative to this morning paper is one of the Hearst papers, in that stream of poisoned yellow journalism that now stretches throughout America from, coast to coast; that would drag us on the one hand into war with England, on the other into war with Japan, and on the south into war with Mexico. These are the alternatives of reading matter presented in the morning papers to the people of that great crime-infested city of Chicago. How far is such a press responsible for these disgraceful conditions of hold-ups, automobile bandits, widespread divorce and crime? We admit that the taste and demands of the public must share with the newspapers the responsibility for our press today. Never- theless take up any city newspaper and make an analysis of it. To make a test the writer took at random a copy of what he believes is considered the best paper in Pittsburgh — The Gazette Times. He found in the paper a few meagre scraps of utterly inadequate world news and one really good syndicated article by Frank Simonds, but these were the eighteen points that he noticed in the paper before he reached the first railway junction: 1. A suicide, first column. 2. Fatty Arbuckle; his own statement of his hog party. 3. An account of the French Landru who had murdered ten .women and seduced 283. 4. Murder of a woman by a negro Thomas. 5. Liquor evasions and thefts. 6. Paulist Father Kennedy warns America of 110,000 cases of divorce in the United States in a year, leaving 300,000 chil- dren uncared for; America now leading the world in divorce. 7. Murder of a miner near Pittsburgh. 8. Philadelphia hquor frauds of $1,500,000. 9. The disreputable Stilhnan divorce case resumes "its last American phase." 10. A bank hold-up. 11. Woman murders a man and gives her testimony in court. 12. Death in the chair of a Philadelphia man for murdering the. illegitimate child of his wife. 13. Mary Pickford's divorce from Moore. 14. Another divorce scandal. 15. Judge arrested in the South for complicity in 250 cases of whiskey stolen. 16. Assault and murder of a girl of fourteen. AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 17 17. Protest against the deliberately false statement of a reporter regarding the French lady tennis champion. 18. Question of professionalism in athletics in one of our leading colleges. 1 As the writer had just come from three colleges within a week where the honor system had broken down and had been given up because there was not enough honor left to carry it, and from several colleges where there was an alarming growth of professionalism in athletics the last article seemed significant. Now let us take this newspaper, not as the worst, but what claims to be the best in a great city like Pittsburgh. Would such a paper tend to be an educator of the pubhc, a maker of morals and of high standards, or would it tend to be a maker of crime and of vulgar hfe? When Mr. Seebohm Rowntree was touring in this country, he was asked by a leading newspaper man what he thought of the American press. He tried, out of courtesy, to avoid a reply, but when forced to give a frank answer he stated his opinion of the press in America today as "damnably rotten." Did he speak the truth, or have we been breathing this poisoned atmosphere so long that we have ceased to realize it? The Associated Press and other news services are not independent organizations feeding news to their clients, but simply interrelated newspapers exchanging materials. The Denver newspapers control all the news that is read in the country about the Colorado coal mines. The Boston newspapers control all the news that is read in San Francisco about the New England textile mills. Everett Dean Martin, in his "Behavior of Crowds," says: "I know of nothing which today so menaces the values of civilization, as the growing habit of behaving as crowds. Our society is becoming a veritable babel of gibbering crowds. Not only are mob outbreaks arid riots increasing in number, but every interest, patriotic, religious, ethical, political, economic, easily degenerates ' into a confusion of propagandist tongues, into extravagant partisanship, and intemperance. "The leader in crowd -thinking par excellence is the daily newspaper. With few exceptions our journals emit hardly anything but crowd ideas. Newspaper-democracy demands that everything more exalted than the level of the lowest cranial attitude be left out. The average result is a deluge of sensational scandal, class prejudice, and special pleading clumsily disguised with a saccharine smear of the cheapest moral platitude." The Interchurch Report on Public Opinion and the Steel Strike stated: "A feature of the strike was the fact that no newspaper in Pittsburgh took a stand for freedom of speech and a just enforcement » Gazette Times, Pittsburgh, Nov. 29, 1921. 18 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS of the law." . . . "By adding the newspaper estimates and predic- tions of the 'men who had returned to work' a statistically-minded union official of Youngstown, O., at one time proved that the news- papers of the Pittsburgh district had informed the pubhc that 2,400,000 men had 'gone back to work' in the steel industry, in which 50,000 are normally employed." The report concludes, "It is inconceivable that the public which relied on the Pittsburgh newspapers could, by any human method of reading newspapers and allowing both for exaggera- tion due to bias and inaccuracy due to haste, have understood either the causes of the steel strike or the significance of its incidents." The Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations warns us of the danger of the growing social unrest, owing to the police suppression of free speech in America. ^ We have not time to trace the long fight for freedom of speech pain- fully won through the centuries. The great philosophers from Socrates to Spinoza and Locke have fought for it. The great English writers from Milton to Macaulay and John Stewart Mill, and in America from Emerson and James Russell Lowell to the present have staunchly defended free speech. Our political leaders from Jefferson, Adams and the Continental Congress of 1774, and from Webster and Lincoln to the present day have held to this right. Are we now to sell our birthright of the heritage of free speech for the mess of pottage of propaganda and the modern press? THE RACE PROBLEM Mr. H. G. Wells asserts: "I am convinced myself that there is no more evil thing in this present world than race prejudice; none at all! I write deliberately — it is the worst single thing in life now. It justifies and holds together more baseness, cruelty and abomination than any other sort of error in the world." Roughly, one third of the world's population, or 550,000,000, is white, about a third is yellow, and a third black and brown. 'That is, two-thirds of mankind are colored. Does not this imply that a belief in humanity involves a belief in colored people? Let us pause to ask whether we believe in humanity as such, or whether we believe merely in our favored class or clique or group or nation or race, as, "Germany over all," "America first," "My country right or wrong," "White supremacy," etc. Or do we believe that, "Above all nations is humanity." To appreciate the significance of the race problem and our respon- sibility to the Negroes, we must remember that they were dragged here in slavery by ourselves. For nearly four centuries the continent 1 Final Report, Commission on Industrial Relations, p. 98. AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 19 of Africa was ravaged by slave traders from "Christian" nations. Villages were burned, thousands were killed; those surviving were driven down to the slave pens on the coast. Sir John Hawkins, knighted by Queen Elizabeth, opened up the lucrative slave trade for Great Britain in his good ship "The Jesus"! Chained below decks, wallowing in inconceivable filth, the average slaver lost a large number of its human cargo on the voyage. New York City alone was import- ing slaves at the rate of many thousands a year, and the North was particularly guilty in the matter of the slave trade. After holding them in slavery for over two centuries, we flung them free in economic poverty, in illiteracy, with terrific economic handicaps. Let us face the seriousness of our record of lawlessness in America. Ex-President Taft, speaking before the New York Civic Forum in 1908, declared that there had been since 1885 2,286 legal executions, yet during the same period 131,951 cases of murder and homi- cide. Since 1885 we have put to death over 4,096 by lynching and mob violence, or an average of two a week or over 100 every year. This is not a sectional matter, as all but five states in the union have been implicated. Has any nation in the world such a record? During the writer's life in Asia, in twenty -five years he never knew of a ease of l3Tiching in Japan, China, India, or the lands where he worked. He has not met with lynching in Europe. It is not practiced in South America. In the British Empire, where the whites are out- m^mbered more than five to one, or in the West Indies where they are outnumbered twenty to one, the writer has never known of a single case of lynching. Even since the Dyer BiU was introduced into Congress to end this national disgrace, more than fifty new cases of lynching have already occurred.^ America is held up to ridicule in the press both of Europe and Asia as the one country that continues this barbarous, inhuman and unchristian practice. Rabindranath Tagore in answer to a question regarding Christian missions said that so long as lynching continued to take place in America he did not think that the American people had enough brotherhood to warrant their trying to export it. Lynching at home is a serious hindrance to Christian missions abroad. Governor Dorsey, at a Conference of Citizens in Atlanta, April 22, 1921, courageously spoke of the four wrongs to which he considered the Negro was subjected in the State of Georgia, as typical of other states. His pubhshed statement includes: 1. "The Negro lynched. 2. The Negro held in peonage. 3. The Negro driven out by organized lawless- ness. 4. The Negro subjected to individual acts of cruelty." It is often maintained that lynching is necessary to prevent the ' There is imperative necessity for remedial legislation to insure speedy trials and avoid useless delay in tlie administration of justice. 20 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS unmentionable crime, but as a matter of fact, in less than one-fifth of the cases was this alleged or even suspected. A noble statement was made by the leading women in the churches of Georgia, assembled to form a woman's section of the State Inter-Racial Committee. It is in part as follows: "We have a deep sense of appreciation for the chivalry of men who would give their lives for the purity and safety of the women of their own race, yet . . . we find in our hearts no extenuation for crime, be it violation of womanhood, mob-violence, or the illegal taking of human life. We are convinced that if there is any crime more dangerous than another, it is that crime which strikes at the root of and undermines constituted authority, breaks all laws and restraints of civilization, substitutes mob-violence and masked irresponsibility for established justice, and deprives society of a sense of protection against barbarism. Therefore, we beheve that no falser appeal can be made to southern manhood than that mob- violence is necessary for the protection of womanhood, or that the brutal practice of lynching and burning of human beings is an ex- pression of chivalry. We believe that these methods are no protection to anything or anybody, but that they jeopardize every right and every security that we possess." This action of the women of Georgia has been followed by a similar pronouncement from the women of Alabama and Tennessee who have also organized a woman's section of the Inter-Racial Committee. The fanning to flame of race prejudice by propaganda and the press has been one cause leading to race war and riots. Lawless mobs and shooting have occurred in cities like Washington, Chicago, East St. Louis, Omaha, Tulsa, Atlanta, Springfield, Chester and near riots in a number of other places that might be added. In East St. Louis 6000 Negroes were driven from their homes and 700 shot, burned or beaten in the race war there. Are these to continue periodically? If not what is the solution? Let us take a typical case. Here is a little Negro boy Booker Washington. What shall we do with this boy? We can do one of two things. One is to "keep him in his place." What place? The place we usually assign Negroes; consisting of poverty, illiteracy, unsanitary surroundings? That breeds disease, death and crime; and we suffer the consequences. As Emerson said : "If I put a chain on a slave I fix the other end around my own neck." Suppose we give the Negro boy a place such as the teaching of Jesus implies. Let us give him a fair chance by a practical, technical or liberal education. Out from Tuskegee and Hampton Institutes, from Fisk, Howard, Lincoln, Atlanta and other colleges have come over 7000 Negro college grad- uates, a small army of useful citizens, trained in agriculture, industry, science and domestic skill, who have led their race in a remarkable AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 21 record in the span of a single short generation after slavery. Dr. Anson Phelps Stokes in his Hampton Institute Founders' Day Address in 1922 stated: "That the Negro in just over half a century should have increased his homes owned from 12,000 to 650,000, farms operated from 20,000 to 1,000,000, businesses conducted from 2000 to 165,000, literacy from 10 percent to 80 percent, teachers from 600 to 43,000, voluntary contributions to education from 180,000 to $2,700,000, churches from 700 to 45,000, Sunday school pupils from 50,000 to 2,250,000, church- property from 11,500,000 to 190,000,000— this is an extraordinary record full of reassurance to those who like to believe in hunian improvability*. During this difficult period of readjustment the Negro has maintained his religious faith, increased his thrift, improved his capacity as a skilled workman and developed self- respecting Christian homes." President Harding, in his speech in Birmingham, asked for the Negro, that he should have an equal vote, that he should have the privilege of education, and that he should receive economic justice. We have traveled a long distance since Chief Justice Taney could- say that "the negro has no rights which the white man is bound to respect." Fortunately, we are standing at the dawn of a new day, of a slowly awakening conscience on race relations. Inter-Racial Committees have already been organized in more than six hundred of the seven hundred and fifty-nine counties where Negroes are found in large numbers. This movement for co-operation is one of the most en- couraging of our time. Solutions worked out in America will make a contribution to the race problem throughout the world. What principles can we apply to solve our difficult and delicate race problem? Do we believe in democracy? For whom? We believe apparently in a single system of taxation and conscription and in a double standard of morals, of citizenship and of society. How far do we really believe in the application of Christian brotherhood? With what race does it terminate? ^ THE INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM AND WAR In addition to her internal problems the nation must face the issue of international relationships and the question of war. A generation ago we faced the question of slavery and ended it. Today we must ^ For further information upon the problem of race relations see "Present Forces in Negro Progress," Weatherford; "The Negro Faces America," J. Seligman; "The Souls of Black Folk," Dr. W. E. B. DuBoi^; "A Short History of the American Negro," Benjamin G. Brawlej;; "A Social History of the American Negro," Benjamin G. Brawley; "The Negro in L,iterature and Art," Benjamin G. Bra\vley; "The Trend of the Races," George E. Haynes, Missionary Education Movement, 1922; "Up From Slavery," Booker T, Washington: "Finding a Way Out," Major R. R. Moton; "A History of the Negro Church," Carter G. Woodson; "The Basis of Ascendency," E. G. Murphy; "Black and White," I. H Hammond; The Journal of Negro History, a quarterly, 121S tJ Street, Washington, D.C. 22 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS face the greater evil of war. What is to be our attitude upon this moral problem? In the light of the present world situation and the results of the war, I believe that modern warfare, as a means of settling international differences, is wrong, for the following reasons : 1. Because of the inevitable wholesale destruction of human life. Ten millions of the flower of the world's youth lie buried on the battle- fields of Europe. The writer passed from Ypres to Verdun where upwards of half a million graves mark the dead on each of these battle- fields. These men were killed in such a way as often to cause horrible suffering and to brutalize some of those^wlio did the killing. 2. Because of the inevitable wholesale destruction of non-combatants and the havoc wrought upon whole populations. The limitations and restrictions of war are soon swept away. It is not professional soldiers but whole populations who are now in conflict. Thirty millions of non-combatants have already been killed by those five camp-fol- lowers of modern war — ^further wars, revolution, hunger, famine and disease. This "war that was to end war" left a score of small wars in its train. The habit of killing and reliance upon force leads also to revolution. The great revolution in Russia, the smaller revolutions in other countries, the Red and White Terror that have followed alternately in Finland, Hungary and other lands, must add their death toll to the list. Hunger, under-nourishment, and wide-spread infant mortality have carried away large numbers of the population. A hundred thousand students and professors were left in want in Europe. According to Herbert Hoover, a hundred millions, or one- quarter of the population of Europe, were left with no adequate means of support. Famine also follows in the wake of war. The Russian famine, aggravated by the breakdown of the transport and the lack of supplies owing to the war, caused the death of millions. Disease stalks behind famine and war. Typhus swept away two hundred and fifty thousand in Poland alone. Tuberculosis has multiplied. Pneumonia, influenza, and other war scourges have swept around the world. 3. Because of the enormous material loss, the waste and destruction of wealth, and the burden of debt, left upon the nations. The direct cost of the Great War is estimated to have been 186 billions of dollars, or seven times that of all wars combined from the French Revolution to the present. The late war has impoverished the world. The national debts of the world, given in dollars, have increased as follows: that of France has increased eightfold, mortgaging half her wealth; the debt of Germany increased fifteenfold, representing far more than half her wealth; that of England increased twelvefold; while the AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 23 United States increased its debt nearly twenty-fivefold. The total debts of the nations of the world were multiplied about tenfold. 4. Because war inevitably engenders hatred, cruelty, reprisals, atrocities and counter-atrocities. After we have called forth the demon of hate, we cannot exorcise and expel it. A campaign to create fear, appealing to race and national pride, calls out the worst traits of human nature. This hatred, suspicion and division does not cease with war. It has led to the economic breakdown of Europe and much of the world. In one part of the world men were starving for want of corn, while in another part, it was being burned. The war shattered many of the co-operative processes upon which modern civilization depends. Added to all this, is the evident fact that war is well-nigh futile as a means of solving problems. At best it sows dragons' teeth, raising new problems for every one that it settles. It is becoming ever more destructive and barbarous. Take the last American inventions at the close of the war. While the "Big Bertha" as a mere "stunt" dropped a tiny shell at a distance of seventy miles, the new American aerial torpedo drops an enormous bomb, of high explosive or poison gas, hitting a mark at a distance of a hundred miles. They could blow up London from Paris or blot out Paris from London. Combine this with the new deadly Lewisite gas — invisible, odorless, causing instant death if breathed, and "with a spread fifty- five times greater than any previous known gas. A few hundred bombs well placed in a single night, with a favoring wind, would annihilate practically the entire population of any capital in Europe. Add to this the possibilities of war with disease gei-ms. 6. Because the propaganda of modern warfare inevitably victimizes the people on both sides, obscures the truth and leads to the demoraliza- tion of both victor and vanquished, alike. In order to arouse whole masses of the people to the fury of going out and killing millions of their fellowmcn, every generous trait or favorable fact about the foe must be suppressed. We must be told an unbroken stream of enemy atrocities; every unfavorable fact about ourselves and our allies must be silenced. If we are told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, the common people will never go out to murder each other. We lashed ourselves to fury by telling each other that "the Huns are baby-killers." Of course we would never do that. Our bombs dropped on civil populations would never kill babies. Our gas would never harm women and children. Our hunger blockade would ne^er touch a child. Yet what were the facts? Our successful Allied hunger blockade was killing a hundred thousand women and children and old men a year in Germany alone. A whole rising generation among the poor has been weakened by rickets, tuberculosis, under- nourishent, and post-war diseases. 24 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 6. Because modern warfare, as conducted in the last war, is in- human and unchristian. Jesus Christ introduced a new dynamic into life. He showed that life in its essence was not material but spiritual, that love is "Creation's final law," that it is more powerful than dynamite. He found the better way. Is humanity to descend to the brute, to the discredited half truth of Prussian militarism, in the sordid struggle for existence, or is it to rise by co-operation, by mutual aid, by self-sacrifice, to a higher plane of life? CONCLUSION Let us review now the problems that we have discussed. Think of the challenge of America's great past and of the ideals of Liberty, Justice, Democracy and Faith in God and man that lie at the founda- tion of our national .life. Are we to forfeit these or strive for them still in the spirit of our forefathers? Think again of the challenge of our vast resources and of our potential moral leadership. Then review the present problems and perils that confront our nation: The political problem of selfish graft on the one hand and equally selfish profiteering on the other hand; serious industrial strife, with America leading the world in the number of strikes; the injustice of vast wealth for the few and poverty for the many; the problem of the open shop drive and "the denial of the right and opportunity to form effective organi- zations" on the part of labor; the twelve-hour day and seven-day week that still linger as a blot in several industries in America; the labor spy system; propaganda and the press; and the race problem still unsolved. Let us place these problems in the light of our own great past and of our high ideals. Washington, in his farewell address, pleads for liberty and union and warns against the factions and divisions that threatened to rend and divide our sunple commonwealth. Jefferson stands staunchly for "equal right for all and special privileges for none." Madison shows that "the most common source of factions has been the unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society . . . The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation." Lincoln pleads for a new birth of freedom for this nation "conceived in liberty and dedi- cated to the proposition that all men are created equal." In his debates with Douglas he pleads for humanity "against the divine right of special privilege." Mr. Roosevelt said in 1906: "I feel that we shall ultimately have to consider the adoption of some such scheme as that of a progressive tax on fortunes beyond a certain amount, either given in life or devised or bequeathed after death." Woodrow Wilson in The New Freedom says, "The masters of the government AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 25 of the United States are the combined capitalists and manufacturers, an invisible empire set up above democracy." . Finally let us face these problems in the light of the great principles taught by Jesus Christ. 1. The infinite and therefore equal worth of every man as my brother before God as Father, whether employer or employee, Ameri- can or foreigner, white, black, yellow or brown. 2. The brotherhood of all men in the light of God's Fatherhood. 3. The law of love, or the full sharing of life, fulfilled, not in the selfish pursuit of private profit, but in a life of service for the commoii weal. Wherever men are really following Jesus' way of life and these prin- ciples are being really applied, they are pointing the way out of our difficulties, and the number who are applying them is on the increase. Let us apply these three principles to each problem in turn and see if they furnish a solution — the only solution. In support of the facts stated in the preceding pages concerning the probleifis and perils in America, we let the following report speak for itself. Appendix EXCERPTS FROM THE PINAL REPORT OF THE COMMISSION ON INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS (Reprinted from Senate Document 415, 64th Congress) The plan of submitting none but undisputed facts in the final report of the commission has been faitlifuUy adhered to. LABOR CONDITIONS IN THE PRINCIPAL INDUSTRIES The crux of the question is : Have the workers received a fair share of the enormous increase in wealth which has taken place in this country, during the period, as a result largely of their labors? The answer is emphatically. No! ... p. 21 A large part of our industrial population are, as a result of the com- bination of low wages and unemployment, living in a condition of actual poverty. How large this proportion is can not be exactly determined, but it is certain that at least one-third and possibly one- half of the families of wage earners employed in manufacturing and mining earn in the course of the year less than enough to support them in anything like a comfortable and decent condition. The Immi- gration Commission, which reported to Congress in 1909, secured detailed information regarding the daily or weekly earnings of 619,595 employees of all classes in our basic manufacturing industries, p. 22. It was found that the incomes of almost two-thirds of these families (64 per cent.) were less than 1750 per year and of almost one-third (31 per cent.) were less than $500, the average for all being 1721. The. average size of these families was 5.6 members ... p. 22. The terrible effects of such poverty may be outlined in a few para- graphs, but their far-reaching consequences could not be adequately shown in a volume. Children are the basis of the State . . . How do the children of American workers fare? Through a study made in Johnstown, Pa., by the Federal Children's Bureau, it was shown that the babies of the poor died at three times the rate of those who were in fairly well-to-do families , . . One- 26 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 27 third of all the adult workmen reported by the Immigration Commis sion earned less than $10 per week, even exclusive of time lost. On the showing of Johnstown these workmen may expect one out of four of their babies to die during the first year of life . . . The last of the family to go hungry are the children, yet statistics show that in six of our largest cities from 12 to 20 per cent, of the children are noticeably underfed and ill nourished . . . Only one-third of the children in our pubhc schools complete the grammar school course, and less than 10 per cent, finish high school . . . In the famihes of the workers 37 per cent, of the mothers are at work. Insanitary housing and working conditions, unemployment, wages inadequate to maintain a human standard of living, inevitably produce the crushed or distorted bodies and minds from which the army of crime is recruited. . . . p. 24. CAUSE OF INDUSTRIAL UNREST It is believed that Congress intended the inquiry to be directed to that unrest and dissatisfaction which grows out of the existence of intolerable industrial conditions and which, if unrelieved, will in the natural course of events rise into active revolt or, if forcibly suppressed, sink into sullen hatred. The sources from which this unrest springs, group themselves almost without exception under four main sources which include all the others. 1. Unjust distribution of wealth and income. 2. Unemployment and denial of an opportunity to earn a living. 3. Denial of Justice in the creation, in the adjudication, and in the administration of law. 4. Denial of the right and opportunity to form effective organiza- tions, pp. 29 and 30. 1. UNJUST DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH AND INCOME Between one-fourth and one-third of the male workers 18 years of age and over, in factories and mines, earn less than 110 per week; from two-thirds to three-fourths earn less than S15, and only about one-tenth earn more thaii $20 a week ... p. 31. (1915). From two-thirds to three-fourths of the women workers in fac- tories, stores and laundries, and in industrial occupations generally, work at wages of less than $8 a week. Approximately one-fifth earn less than $4 and nearly one-half earn less than 16 a week. Six dollars a week — what does it mean to many? p. 31. Massed in millions, at the other end of the social scale, are fortunes 28 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS of a size never before dreamed of, whose very owners do not know the extent nor, without the aid of an intelligent clerk, even the sources of their incomes. Incapable of being spent in any legitimate manner these fortunes are burdens, which can only be squandered, hoarded, put into so-called "benefactions" which, for the most part, constitute a menace to the State, or put back into the industrial machine to pile up ever-increasing mountains of gold. p. 32. The ownership of wealth in the United States has become concen- trated to a degree which is difficult to grasp. The "rich," 2 per cent, of the people, own 60 per cent, of the wealth. The "middle class," 33 per cent, of the people, own 35 per cent, of the wealth. The "poor," 65 per cent, of the people, own 5 per cent, of the wealth. This means in brief that a little less than 2,000,000 people, who would make up a city smaller than Chicago, own 20 per cent, more of the Nation's wealth than all the other 90,000,000 . . . p. 33. The largest private fortune in the United States, estimated at II,- 000,000,000, is equivalent to the aggregate wealth of 2,500,000 of those who are classed as "poor," who are shown in the studies cited to own on the average about $400 each. They are frequently styled by our newspapers "monarchs of industry," and indeed occupy within our Republic a position almost exactly analogous to that of feudal lords. These heirs, owners only by virtue of the accident of birth, control the livehhood and have the power to dictate the happiness of more human beings than populated England in the Middle Ages, pp. 33 and 34. 2. UNEMPLOYMENT AND DENIAL OF OPPORTUNITY TO EARN A LIVING As a prime cause of a burning resentment and a rising feeling of unrest among the workers, unemployment and the denial of an oppor- tunity to earn a living is on a parity with the unjust distribution of wealth ... In our great basic industries the workers are unemployed for an average of at least one-fifth of the year . . . pp. 35, 36. This unemployment seems to rise from two great causes, although many others are contributory. First, the inequality of the distribu- tion of income which leaves the great masses of the population, unable to purchase the products of industry which they create. The second principal cause lies in the denial of access to land and natural resources even when they are unused and unproductive, p. 36. The unemployed have aptly been called "the shifting sands beneath the State." . . . Surely there is no condition which more immediately demands the attention of Congress than that of unemployment, which AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS 29 is annually driving hundreds of thousands of otherwise productive citizens into poverty and bitter despair, sapping the very basis of our national efficiency, and germinating the seeds of revolution, p. 38. 3. DENLAL OF JUSTICE There exists among the workers an almost universal conviction that they, both as individuals and as a class, are denied justice in the enact- ment, adjudication, and administration of law, that the very instru- ments of democracy are often used to oppress them and to place obstacles in the way of their movement toward economic, industrial, and political freedom and justice. If it be true that these statements represent the opinions of the mass of American workers, there is reason for grave concern, for there are 25,000,000 of them. pp. 38, 39. First, with regard to the enactment of laws, it is charged that the workers have been unable to secure legislation to protect them against grievous wrongs, except after exhausting struggles against over-whelm- ing odds and against insidious influences, p. 39. The history of child-labor legislation shows that although agitation for the protection and education of children began during the early part of the nineteenth century, no adequate legislation was obtained until nearly the end of the century. Even the attempt to reduce the hours of children below 12 per day was bitterly contested, pp. 39, 40. The railroads fought the laws providing for safety appliances, p. 40. According to the best estimates, approximately 35,000 persons were killed last year in American industry, and at least one-half of these deaths were preventable, p. 43. That the courts, including even the highest tribunal of the Nation, do allow their economic bias to influence them in holding laws uncon- stitutional is nowhere more clearly expressed than in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Holmes in the case of Lochner v. New York. Ex-President William H. Taft has said: "We must make it so that the poor man will have as nearly as possible an equal opportunity in litigating as the rich man; and under present conditions, ashamed as we may be of it, this is not the fact." p. 47. In Colorado martial law has been in effect ten times since 1894. Thousands have been held for long periods in "bull pens," hundreds have been forcibly deported from the State, p. 58. 4. DENIAL OF THE RIGHT OF ORGANIZATION It has been pointed out with great force and logic that the struggle of labor for organization is not merely an attempt to secure an increased measure of the material comforts of life, but is a part of the age-long 30 AMERICA: ITS PROBLEMS AND PERILS struggle for liberty; that this struggle is sharpened by the pinch of hunger and the exhaustion of body and mind by long hours and im- proper working conditions; but that even if men were well fed they would still struggle to be free. p. 62. Looking back over the industrial history of the last quarter century, the industrial disputes which have attracted the attention of the country and which have been accompanied by bloodshed and violence have been revolutions against industrial oppression, and not mere strikes for the improvement of working conditions, p. 67. Thousands and tens of thousands of our people feel that they are deprived, under existing conditions in industry, of an opportunity to secure for themselves and their families a standard of living commen- surate with the best ideals of manhood, womanhood, and childhood. They resent the fact that the existing system of the distribution of wealth creates at one end of our industrial scale a few multi-million- aires and at the other end thousands and tens of thousands of men, women, and children who are at all times in a situation where they are uncertain as to where their next meal will come from. Hungry, poorly clothed, and without the opportunities that a fully rounded life requires, they become filled with a sullen resentment that bodes no good for the future of our Republic, p. 163, CHRISTIANITY AND ECONOMIC PROBLEMS FACTS, PRINCIPLES, PROGRAMS A Discussion Group Text-Book Prepared by Kirby Page, Chairman F. Ernest Johnson Leslie Blanchard David R. Porter Sherwood Eddy Florence Simms Harrison S. EUiott OKve Van Horn FOR THE EDUCATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMISSION ON THE CHURCH AND SOCIAL SERVICE OF THE FEDERAL COUNCIL OF THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST IN AMERICA Table of Contents CHAP. 1. A Divided World 2. Poverty — Misfortune or Blessing? 3. Is Poverty a Serious Problem? 4. Do Great Fortunes Help or Hinder Social Progress? 5. Are Luxuries Antagonistic to Public Welfare? 6. Why Is There Not Enough to Go Around? 7. Does Modern Industry Help or Hinder the Full Develop- ment of Human Beings? 8. How Can Industry Be Made to Produce More Goods and Better People? 9. 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