Essay On American Contribution and the Democratic Idea | Page 8

in the face of
opposition from trustees. Successful business men, as a rule, have had
neither the time nor the inclination to read books which they regard as
visionary, as subversive to an order by which they have profited. And
that some Americans are fools, and have been dazzled in Europe by the
glamour of a privilege not attainable at home, is a deplorable yet
indubitable fact. These have little sympathy with democracy; they have
even been heard to declare that we have no right to dictate to another
nation, even an enemy nation, what form of government it shall assume.
We have no right to demand, when peace comes, that the negotiations
must be with the representatives of the German people. These are they
who deplore the absence among us of a tradition of monarchy, since the
American people "should have something to look up to." But this state
of mind, which needs no comment, is comparatively rare, and
represents an extreme. We are not lacking, however, in the type of
conservative who, innocent of a knowledge of psychology, insists that

"human nature cannot be changed," and that the "survival of the fittest"
is the law of life, yet these would deny Darwin if he were a
contemporary. They reject the idea that society can be organized by
intelligence, and war ended by eliminating its causes from the social
order. On the contrary they cling to the orthodox contention that war is
a necessary and salutary thing, and proclaim that the American fibre
was growing weak and flabby from luxury and peace, curiously
ignoring the fact that their own economic class, the small percentage of
our population owning sixty per cent. of the wealth of the country, and
which therefore should be most debilitated by luxury, was most eager
for war, and since war has been declared has most amply proved its
courage and fighting quality. This, however, and other evidences of the
patriotic sacrifices of those of our countrymen who possess wealth,
prove that they are still Americans, and encourages the hope and belief
that as Americans they ultimately will do their share toward a
democratic solution of the problem of society. Many of them are
capable of vision, and are beginning to see the light today.
In America we succeeded in eliminating hereditary power, in obtaining
a large measure of political liberty, only to see the rise of an economic
power, and the consequent loss of economic liberty. The industrial
development of the United States was of course a necessary and
desirable thing, but the economic doctrine which formed the basis of
American institutions proved to be unsuited to industrialism, and
introduced unforeseen evils that were a serious menace to the Republic.
An individualistic economic philosophy worked admirably while there
was ample land for the pioneer, equality of opportunity to satisfy the
individual initiative of the enterprising. But what is known as
industrialism brought in its train fear and favour, privilege and poverty,
slums, disease, and municipal vice, fostered a too rapid immigration,
established in America a tenant system alien to our traditions. The
conditions which existed before the advent of industrialism are
admirably pictured, for instance, in the autobiography of Mr. Charles
Francis Adams, when he describes his native town of Quincy in the
first half of the Nineteenth Century. In those early communities,
poverty was negligible, there was no great contrast between rich and
poor; the artisan, the farmer, the well-to-do merchant met on terms of
mutual self-respect, as man to man; economic class consciousness was

non- existent; education was so widespread that European travellers
wonderingly commented on the fact that we had no "peasantry"; and
with few exceptions every citizen owned a piece of land and a home.
Property, a refuge a man may call his own, and on which he may
express his individuality, is essential to happiness and self-respect.
Today, less than two thirds of our farmers own their land, while vast
numbers of our working men and women possess nothing but the
labour of their hands. The designation of labour as "property" by our
courts only served to tighten the bonds, by obstructing for a time the
movement to decrease the tedious and debilitating hours of contact of
the human organism with the machine,--a menace to the future of the
race, especially in the case of women and children. If labour is
"property," wretches driven by economic necessity have indeed only
the choice of a change of masters. In addition to the manual workers, an
army of clerical workers of both sexes likewise became tenants, and
dependents who knew not the satisfaction of a real home.
Such conditions gradually brought about a profound discontent, a
grouping of classes. Among the comparatively prosperous there was set
up a social competition in luxury that was