The Theory of Social Revolutions | Page 2

social gravity. In plain English, I infer that he
has concluded that industrialism has induced conditions which can no
longer be controlled by the old capitalistic methods, and that the
country must be brought to a level of administrative efficiency
competent to deal with the strains and stresses of the twentieth century,
just as, a hundred and twenty-five years ago, the country was brought
to an administrative level competent for that age, by the adoption of the
Constitution. Acting on these premises, as I conjecture, whether
consciously worked out or not, Mr. Roosevelt's next step was to begin
the readjustment; but, I infer, that on attempting any correlated
measures of reform, Mr. Roosevelt found progress impossible, because
of the obstruction of the courts. Hence his instinct led him to try to
overleap that obstruction, and he suggested, without, I suspect,
examining the problem very deeply, that the people should assume the
right of "recalling" judicial decisions made in causes which involved
the nullifying of legislation. What would have happened had Mr.
Roosevelt been given the opportunity to thoroughly formulate his ideas,
even in the midst of an election, can never be known, for it chanced

that he was forced to deal with subjects as vast and complex as ever
vexed a statesman or a jurist, under difficulties at least equal to the
difficulties of the task itself. If the modern mind has developed one
characteristic more markedly than another, it is an impatience with
prolonged demands on its attention, especially if the subject be tedious.
No one could imagine that the New York press of to-day would print
the disquisitions which Hamilton wrote in 1788 in support of the
Constitution, or that, if it did, any one would read them, least of all the
lawyers; and yet Mr. Roosevelt's audience was emotional and
discursive even for a modern American audience. Hence, if he
attempted to lead at all, he had little choice but to adopt, or at least
discuss, every nostrum for reaching an immediate millennium which
happened to be uppermost; although, at the same time, he had to defend
himself against an attack compared with which any criticism to which
Hamilton may have been subjected resembled a caress. The result has
been that the Progressive movement, bearing Mr. Roosevelt with it, has
degenerated into a disintegrating rather than a constructive energy,
which is, I suspect, likely to become a danger to every one interested in
the maintenance of order, not to say in the stability of property. Mr.
Roosevelt is admittedly a strong and determined man whose instinct is
arbitrary, and yet, if my analysis be sound, we see him, at the supreme
moment of his life, diverted from his chosen path toward centralization
of power, and projected into an environment of, apparently, for the
most part, philanthropists and women, who could hardly conceivably
form a party fit to aid him in establishing a vigorous, consolidated,
administrative system. He must have found the pressure toward
disintegration resistless, and if we consider this most significant
phenomenon, in connection with an abundance of similar phenomena,
in other countries, which indicate social incoherence, we can hardly
resist a growing apprehension touching the future. Nor is that
apprehension allayed if, to reassure ourselves, we turn to history, for
there we find on every side long series of precedents more ominous
still.
Were all other evidence lacking, the inference that radical changes are
at hand might be deduced from the past. In the experience of the
English-speaking race, about once in every three generations a social

convulsion has occurred; and probably such catastrophes must continue
to occur in order that laws and institutions may be adapted to physical
growth. Human society is a living organism, working mechanically,
like any other organism. It has members, a circulation, a nervous
system, and a sort of skin or envelope, consisting of its laws and
institutions. This skin, or envelope, however, does not expand
automatically, as it would had Providence intended humanity to be
peaceful, but is only fitted to new conditions by those painful and
conscious efforts which we call revolutions. Usually these revolutions
are warlike, but sometimes they are benign, as was the revolution over
which General Washington, our first great "Progressive," presided,
when the rotting Confederation, under his guidance, was converted into
a relatively excellent administrative system by the adoption of the
Constitution.
Taken for all in all, I conceive General Washington to have been the
greatest man of the eighteenth century, but to me his greatness chiefly
consists in that balance of mind which enabled him to recognize when
an old order had passed away, and to perceive how a new order could
be best introduced. Joseph Story was ten years old in 1789 when the
Constitution was adopted; his earliest impressions, therefore, were of
the