Part 21 (2/2)
Undoubtedly the time will come when it will be seen clearly that the interests of society demand the segregation of those who cannot take care of themselves and are an injury to others. Hospitals and places of detention for mental and moral defectives, and the victims of chronic vice and intemperance, as well as criminals of every sort, will seem natural and necessary. Larger questions of immigration, industrial management, and munic.i.p.al administration will be studied and gradually solved by the united wisdom of city, state, and nation.
311. =Agencies of Progress and Gains Achieved.=--An examination of what has been achieved in this direction by almost any one of the larger cities in the United States shows encouraging progress. Smaller cities and even villages have made use of electricity for lighting, transportation, and telephone service. The water and sewerage systems of larger centres are far in advance of what they were a few years ago. Bathrooms with open plumbing and greater attention to the preservation of health have supplemented more thorough efforts to the spread of communicable diseases. Increasing agitation for more practical education has led to the creation of various kinds of vocational schools, including a large variety of correspondence schools for those who wish specific training. There are still thousands of boys and girls who enter industrial occupations in the most haphazard way, and yield to irrational impulse in choosing or giving up a particular job or a place to live in; similar impulse induces them to mate in the same haphazard way, and as lightly to separate if they tire of each other; but the very fact that enlightened public opinion does not countenance these practices, that there are social agencies contending against them, and that they are contrary to the laws of happiness, of efficiency, and even of survival, makes it unlikely that such irrational conduct can persist.
As for the social ills that have seemed unavoidable, like s.e.xual vice, current investigation and agitation, followed by increasing legislation and segregation of the unfit, promises to work a change, however gradual the process may be. Numerous organizations are at work in the fields of poverty, immigration, the industrial problem, reform of government, penology, business, education, and religion, and thousands of social workers are devoting their lives to the betterment of society.
312. =Conference and Co-operation.=--Improvement will be more rapid when the various agencies of reform have learned to pull together more efficiently. It is frequently charged that the friction between different temperance organizations has delayed progress in solving the problem of intemperance. It is often said that there would be less poverty if the various charitable agencies would everywhere organize and work in a.s.sociation. The independent temper of Americans makes it difficult to work together, but co-operation is a sound sociological principle, and experience proves that such principles must be obeyed.
If the principle of combination that has been applied to business should be carried further and applied to the problems of society, there can be no question that results would speedily justify the action. Perhaps the greatest need in the city to-day is a union of resources. If an honest taxation would furnish funds, if the best people would plan intelligently and unselfishly for the city's future development, if boards and committees that are at odds would get together, there is every reason to think that astonis.h.i.+ng changes for the better would soon be seen.
Suppose that in every city of our land representatives of the chamber of commerce, of the city government, of the a.s.sociated charities, of the school-teachers, of the ministers of the city, of the women's clubs, of the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation and the Young Women's Christian a.s.sociation, of the labor-unions, and of the agencies that cater to amus.e.m.e.nt should sit together once in two weeks in conference upon the interests of all the people of the city, and should honestly and frankly discuss the practical questions that are always at the fore in public discussion, and then should report back for further conference in their own groups, there can be no doubt that the various groups would have a far better understanding and appreciation of one another, and in time would find ways and means to adopt such a programme as might come out of all the discussion.
313. =The Crucial Test of Democracy.=--World events have shown clearly since the outbreak of the European war that intelligent planning and persistent enforcement of a political programme can long contend successfully against great odds, when there is autocratic power behind it all. Democracy must show itself just as capable of planning and execution, if it is to hold its own against the control of a few, whether plutocrats, political bosses, or a centralized state, but its power to make good depends on the enlistment of all the abilities of city or nation in co-operative effort. There is no more crucial test of the ability of democracy to solve the social problems of this age than the present-day city. The social problem is not a question of politics, but of the social sciences. It is a question of living together peaceably and profitably. It involves economics, ethics, and sociological principles. It is yet to be proved that society is ready to be civilized or even to survive on a democratic basis. The time must come when it will, for a.s.sociated activity under the self-control of the whole group is the logical and ethical outcome of sound sociological principle, but that time may not be near at hand. If democracy in the cities is to come promptly to its own, social education will soon change its emphasis from the material gain of the individual to co-operation for the social good, and under the inspiration of this idea the various agencies will unite for effective social service.
READING REFERENCES
HOWE: _The Modern City and Its Problems_, pages 367-376.
GOODNOW: _City Government in the United States_, pages 302-308.
ELDRIDGE: _Problems of Community Life_, pages 3-7.
ELY: _The Coming City._
_Boston Directory of Charities_, 1914.
PART V--SOCIAL LIFE IN THE NATION
CHAPTER XL
THE BUILDING OF A NATION
314. =Questions of the Larger Group.=--In any study of social life we have to find a place for larger groups than the family and the neighborhood or even the city. There are national units and even a certain amount of international unity in the world. How have they come to exist? What are the interests that hold them together? What are the forms of a.s.sociation that are practicable on such a large scale? Is there a tendency to stress the control of the group over its individual members, even its aristocracy 01 birth or wealth? These are questions that require some sort of an answer. Beyond them are other questions concerning the relations between these larger groups. Are there common interests or compelling forces that have merged hitherto sovereign states into federal or imperial union? Is it conceivable that such mutually jealous nations as the European powers may surrender willingly their individual interests of minor importance for the sake of the larger good of the whole? Can political independence ever become subordinate to social welfare? Are there any spiritual bonds that can hold more strongly than national ambitions and national pride? Such questions as these carry the student of society into a wider range of corporate life than the average man enters, but a range of life in which the welfare of every individual is involved.
315. =The Significance of National Life.=--The nation is a group of persons, families, and communities united for mutual protection and the promotion of the general welfare, and recognizing a sovereign power that controls them all. Some nations have been organized from above in obedience to the will of a successful warrior or peaceful group; others have been organized peacefully from below by the voluntary act of the people themselves. The nation in its capacity as a governing power is a state, but a nation exercises other functions than that of control; it exists to promote the common interests of mankind over a wider area than that of the local community. The historic tendency of nations has been to grow in size, as the transmission of ideas has become easy, and the extension of control has been made widely possible. The significance of national life is the social recognition at present given to community of interest by millions of individuals who believe that it is profitable for them to live under the same economic regulations, social legislation, and educational system, even though of mingled races and with various ideals.
316. =How the Nation Developed.=--The nation in embryo can be found in the primitive horde which was made up of families related by ties of kin, or by common language and customs. The control was held by the elderly men of experience, and exercised according to unwritten law.
The horde was only loosely organized; it did not own land, but ranged over the hunting-grounds within its reach, and often small units separated permanently from the larger group. When hunting gave place to the domestication of animals, the horde became more definitely organized into the tribe, strong leaders.h.i.+p developed in the defense of the tribe's property, and the military chieftain bent others in submission to his will. As long as land was of value for pasturage mainly, it was owned by the whole tribe in common. When agriculture was subst.i.tuted for the pastoral stage of civilization, the tribe broke up by clans into villages, each under its chief and advisory council of heads of families. So far the mode of making a living had determined custom and organization.
Village communities may remain almost unchanged for centuries, as in China, or here and there one of them may become a centre of trade, as in mediaeval Germany. In the latter case it draws to itself all cla.s.ses of people, develops wealth and culture, and presently dominates its neighbors. Small city states grew up in ancient time along the Nile in Egypt, and by and by federated under a particularly able leader, or were conquered by the band of an ambitious chieftain, who took the t.i.tle of king. In such fas.h.i.+on were organized the great kingdoms and empires of antiquity.
Social disintegration and foreign conquest broke up the great empires, and for centuries in the Middle Ages society existed in local groups; but common economic and racial interests, together with the political ambition of princes and n.o.bles, drew together semi-independent princ.i.p.alities and communes, until they became welded into real nations. At first the state was monarchical, because a few kings and lords were able to dominate the ma.s.s, and because strength and authority were more needed than privileges of citizens.h.i.+p; then the economic interest became paramount, and merchants and manufacturers demanded a share in government for the protection of their interests.
Education improved the general level of intelligence, and invention and growing commerce improved the condition of the people until eventually all cla.s.ses claimed a right to champion their own interests. The most progressive nations racially, politically, and economically, outstripped the others in world rivalry until the great modern nations, each with its own peculiar qualities of efficiency, overtopped their predecessors of all time.
317. =The Story of the United States.=--The story of national life in the United States is especially noteworthy. Within a century and a half the people of this country have pa.s.sed through the economic stages, from clearing the forests to building sky-sc.r.a.pers; in government they have grown from a few jealous seaboard colonies along the Atlantic to a solidly welded federal nation that stretches from ocean to ocean; in education and skill they have developed from provincial hand-workers to expert managers of corporate enterprises that exploit the resources of the world; and in population they have grown from four million native Americans to a hundred million people, gathered and shaken together from the four corners of the earth. In that century and a half they have developed a new and powerful national consciousness. When the British colonies a.s.serted their independence, they were held together by their common ambition and their common danger, but when they attempted to organize a government, the incipient States were unwilling to grant to the new nation the powers of sovereignty. The Confederation was a failure. The sense of common interest was not strong enough to compel a surrender of local rights. But presently it appeared that local jealousies and divisions were imperilling the interests of all, and that even the independence of the group was impossible without an effective national government.
Then in national convention the States, through their representatives, sacrificed one after another their sovereign rights, until a respectable nation was erected to stand beside the powers of Europe.
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