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