NEW YORK
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320
October 4
THE DIAL
There is really no hope of improving the breed of
man, apparently, for the dolt never will "get on," as
the author informs us. And in a series of questions
ending wfth "Is not the perpetual challenge of the
breadline good for a man?" we learn that " To find
a social response to that situation is simply a question
of adroitness." For all issues the author claims that
the solution lies in the realm of morals. But the
relationship of changing moral standards to modern
living conditions is nowhere touched upon. To him,
morals are fixed and standardized virtues, not the
mores of developing peoples. The last two chapters
of the book do not offend; they are trite and harm-
less. Nevertheless, if a high-school boy, seeking in-
formation on current world topics, were to stumble
upon The Tragedy of Labor, one more child
would be thrown prematurely into the industrial
cauldron. None but a sinner, hardened by the crime
of reading, could finish the tragedy and care to read
again.
Religion and Culture. A Critical Survey of
Methods of Approach to Religious Phenomena.
By Frederick Schleiter. 206 pages. Columbia
University Press.
This book is hopelessly mistitled. To be sure it
touches the outskirts of its announced subject, but
only the outskirts. Actually it is an examination of
the concepts and modes of thought which have
achieved vogue in the study of the ceremonies and
beliefs of primitive peoples—fetishism, animism,
totemism, taboo, and so forth—which for some non-
consequential reason have been bundled together
under the caption Religion, Primitive in the
anthropological mind. Within this limited field
Dr. Schleiter performs a service, calling attention
to the need for critical restatement and indicating
what are certainly more cautious, and hence sounder,
modes of generalization than are most of those which
have the vogue. The book ought to be read by all
interested in the study of the paganism of savage-
dom, that is, by professed anthropologists and com-
parative religionists. It must be added that it ought
not to be read fastidiously, for it is styleless—or
Tather, it carries to absurdity the styleless style of
the Spencerians (lacking, of course, Spencer's mag-
niloquent boom) and it is grotesquely ornamented
with terms drawn from a certain barbarous modern
tongue. For example, the author wishes to say that
many drugs still in use were known simply as
medicines to primitive men; he says:
A considerable part of our pharmacopoeia has developed
from administrations utilized by primitive man, without
antecedent adventitious genuflections or ideas regarding
spiritual beings.
Tylor and Frazer and Lang at least know the
use of the English language, and until their critics
attain their facility the older school will continue
to dominate the field.
Self-Government In The Philippines. By
Maxime M. Kalaw. 210 pages. Century.
Under the Jones Law, which wag passed by Con-
gress in 1916, the United States is pledged to grant
independence to the Filipinos as soon as they have
proved their capacity to maintain a " stable " govern-
ment. Professor Kalaw presents abundant evidence
to show that the Filipinos have fulfilled their part
of the bargain; and gently but firmly urges the
United States to redeem its pledge. Under the
administration of Governor-General Francis Burton
Harrison, the Philippines have enjoyed practical
autonomy; and Professor Kalaw shows how the
economic prosperity of the islands has increased with
the development of popular government. He des-
cribes the successful administrative work of the
Filipino officials, the rapid decrease in the public
debt since the inauguration of responsible govern-
ment and a budget system, the large appropriations
for education, the amelioration of conditions among
the Moros and other uncivilized tribes. He scouts
the bogey of possible Japanese aggression which is
so often raised by the American imperialist. He
points out that Korea and Manchuria (he might
have added Shantung) are natural fields for the
expansion of Japan's surplus population and that
the Japanese effort to colonize Formosa, which is
located in a colder belt than the Philippines, has
ended in a dismal fiasco. Professor Kalaw further
reinforces his arguments with some unconsciously
ironical references to the high democratic ideals of
the late war and with an almost pathetically naive
appeaL to President Wilson's repeated expressions of
sympathy with the aspirations of the Filipinos for
independence.
Musings' and Memories of a Musician.
By Sir George Henschel. 398 pages. Mac-
millan.
Perhaps the preservation of the world's opinion
of Sir George Henschel, first conductor of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra and a European com-
poser and singer of real merit, has value; but one
would hardly have expected the record to have been
compiled by Henschel himself. Such an autobiog-
raphy the present volume primarily is, and it is
difficult indeed for the reader to be generous-minded
toward a writer when once the latter stands revealed
as one who thrives on adulation and who has care-
fully preserved in his mind or on paper a vast
amount of material in praise of himself. Many
important personages pass across these pages. The
pride Sir George felt in being acquainted with them
is omnipresent. But one searches in vain for evi-
dences of that pleasing personality which must have
been his in order to have retained such friends.
What he might have written of Joachim, Rubin-
stein, Tausig, Von Bulow, Liszt, Leschetitsky, Clara
Schumann, Tschaikovsky, Cui, Verdi, Paderewsky.


1919
321
THE DIAL
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322
October 4
THE DIAL
Foote, Elgar, Patti—not to mention those
noted friends of his who were important in
fields other than music—would have been a
significant contribution. Pleasing anecdotes
in regard to these persons are, of course, sup-
plied; but little is added to our conception of
their personalities. Brahms,^ by exception, is
treated with sympathetic appreciation ; but Sir
George had already given his vivid impres-
sions of this artist to the world in the Personal
Recollections of Johannes Brahms (Badger;
Boston, 1907). A life passed with such friends
must have left recollections of great value con-
cerning questions of musical principles and
esthetics and tendencies; but one finds little
in this volume which will reward penetrative
study.
There are interesting pages concerning the
beginnings of the Boston Orchestra and in ap-
preciation of Mr. Higginson. An informative
picture of the life of an eminently successful
musician in the late Nineteenth Century in
Germany and England is given. Sir George
was born a Prussian. This should occasion
no alarm, however, as the book, written previ-
ous to the war, has since been made entirely
unobnoxious by changing the word St.
Petersburg" to "Petrograd"! The volume is
written with careful lucidity and with an ab-
sence of technical terms. It makes pleasant,
light reading for all, and fascinating reading
for some. The disappointment lies in what it
might have been.
French Ways »and Their Meaning. By
Edith Wharton. 149 pages. Appleton.
Not alone the welcomed-home doughboy
and the repatriated Tommy, but nearly every-
body Hse ,in the Anglo-Saxon world fails today
as always to understand France. If curiosity
were only as general as bafflement, Mrs.
Wharton's new volume would perhaps be as-
sured of the wide reading it deserves. Not
that all the questions that puzzle Anglo-Sax-
ondom find here a definitive answer; even if
other conditions were altogether favorable, the
pressure of war emotions would preclude final-
ity. But the volume does transcend its self-
confessed limitations; it offers more than one
expects from "a desultory book, the result of
intermittent observation, and often, no doubt,
of rash assumption"; it does in fact discover
the direction which any study of France
should take, and goes some little distance
along the road to understanding.
First and fundamentally, the society of
France is "grown-up"—of all societies "the
most completely detached from the lingering
6pell of the ancient shadowy world in which
trees and animals talked to each other, and
began the education of the fumbling beast
♦hat was to deviate into man." The outstand-
-j qualities of this adult and worldly-wise
iety are taste, reverence, continuity, and in-
lectual honestv. Taste—the expression of
symmetry, harmony, and order"—is 'the na-
tural inheritance of the heirs of a classical tra-
dition refined again by centuries of living
under conditions that made order and accom-
modation the prerequisites of existence. With
the word "reverence" one is inclined to find
fault—mainly because this word has an emo-
tional quality that is foreign to the French
mind, and would necessarily set limits to in-
tellectual honesty. "Historical prudence" is
perhaps a more accurate denominator for the
quality the author has in mind; certainly it is
more exactly descriptive of the type of intel-
lect that raises no obstacles to investigation,
but at the same'time refuses to break the
household gods until reason proves them false.
It is these adult qualities of proportion,
poise, and intellectual fearlessness, rather than
any over-emotionality, that make the French
doubtful of excesses in vice and virtue, but
nevertheless permit them to sample all that is
new before the)- abandon anything time-tested
of their fathers.
The Dickens Circle. By J. W. T. Ley.
352 pages. Dutton.
We are so much accustomed to a manner of
delicious mockery directed towards any scene
plucked from mid-Victoria that J. W. T. Ley's
The Dickens Circle appears with all the shock
of a novelty. For the author, disclaiming at
once the role of a critic, assumes.an attitude
of gracious cordiality, and in the manner of a
quiet host, with the least possible intrusion
of his own personality, introduces us to all of
those figures, little and big, unassuming and
pretentious, who went to make up the wide
circle of the Dickens acquaintanceship. And
there emerges from a mass of detail a nine-
teenth century that we were wont to believe
in before the days of Mr. Strachey and other
trumpeters who shattered so effectually the
walls of Victorian respectability. The great
Charles appears, graphically if not delicately
sketched, as essentially democratic, sociable,
unintrospective—embodying qualities that en-
deared him to all manners and conditions of
men. His contemporaries are the agreeable
geniuses of men of talent that we have • met
before through the pages of kindly histories
of literature. In short, here is the warm and
tender, the sentimental and self-sufficient Eng-
land of the last century. Mr. Ley should not
be criticized for failure to have penetrated
deeper beneath the surface. Dickens lover
that he is, he has seen through rosy glasses
all of those who came to join a varied and ever
widening circle. To have presupposed a
murky situation in a setting of tinsel and then
cast upon it the clear white light of truth
would have been beyond his role as the cheer-
ful host and modest interpreter. The material
for this work, we are told in the preface, was
overwhelming and the difficulty lay in decid-
ing what to omit. The difficulty was not en-
tirely nvi>rrnmi> and exists as a. hlemish in the


1919
323
THE DIAL
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324
October 4
THE DIAL
Books of the Fortnight
The Chronicles of America: The Red Man's Conti-
nent, by Ellsworth Hungtington; the Quaker Col-
onies, by Sydney G. Fisher; Colonial Folkways,
by Charles M. Andrews; John Marshall and the
Constitution, by Edward S. Corwin; Pioneers of
the Old Southwest, by Constance Lindsay Skin-
ner; The Reign of Andrew Jackson, by Fred-
erick Austin Ogg; The Sequel of Appomattox,
by Walter Lynw«od Fleming; The Cleveland
Era, by Henry Jones Ford; The Path of Empire,
by Carl Russell Fish; The Hispanic Nations of
the New World, by William R. Shepherd (Yale
University Press). These issues make available
thirty of the complete fifty volumes of the
Chronicles of America, of which a number have
previously been reviewed in The Dial and
two are reviewed by Hamlin Garland on page •
285. Discussions of these and the remaining
twenty volumes will appear in The Dial from
time to time.
The Emancipation of Massachusetts: The Dream
and the Reality, by Brooks Adams (534 pages;
Houghton Mifflin), first appeared more than
thirty years ago. A new edition gives the au-
thor the opportunity to embody in a preface of
168 pages his conspectus of universal history—
a trenchant criticism in the same vein as Mr.
Adams' later Theory of Social Revolutions.
A Brief History of Europe: From 1789 to 1815, by
Lucius Hudson Holt and Alexander Wheeler
Chilton (358 pages; Macmillan), limits itself to
the purely political and military aspects of the
period. Review later.
The Spirit of Russia, by Thomas Garrigue Masaryk
(2 vols., 1065 pages; Macmillan), marshals an
imposing collection of studies in history, litera-
ture, and philosophy. This book promises to
take an important place in the literature on
Russia. Review later.
The Russian Diary of Englishman, (228 pages;
McBride), contains some tolerably interesting
passages dealing with the overthrow of the Czar
and the Kerensky revolution. Its historical
value is vitiated by the fact that the identity of
the author is not revealed.
England and Ireland, In the Past and at Present,
by Edward Raymond Turner (504 pages; Cen-
tury), ineffectually endeavors to throw the neu-
tral light of scholarly investigation upon a
darkly controversial subject. Review later.
The Holocaust, by A. A. Pons, translated by P. R.
Lloyd (329 pages; MdBride), is a description of
the Risorgimento movement in Italy, the move-
ment that created a national state out of a
"geographic expressiort." Lord Bryce's introduc-
tion reminds us that the leaders of the Risorgi-
mento were "thinking not of territorial exten-
sions . . . but of the rule of justice in a
world set free for peace in which nationalism
was to be subordinated to the common welfare
of humanity."
Bulgaria: Problems and Politics, by George Clen-
ton Logio (285 pages; Doran), has the merit of
, discussing a propagandist subject in a not too
obviously propagandist way. The author is a
lecturer in Bulgarian at the University of Lon-
don, and by nationality a Greek.
Fields of Victory, by Mrs. Humphry Ward (274
pages; Scribner), is a concise resume of the last
year of the Great War, completing the record
begun in England's Effort and in Towards the
Goal. It has perspective and clear vision. Re-
view later.
Documents and Statements Relating to Peace Pro-
posals and War Aims: December 1916—No-
vember 1918 (259 pages; Macmillan), is a valu-
able sourcebook to which Lowes Dickinson'?
introduction, written in April 1919, when the
hope for applying impartially the Wilsonian
formulae still nickered feebly, is an invaluable
contribution.
The Soul of the "C. R. B." by Madame Sainte-Rene
Taillandier (233 pages; Scribner), deals with
food relief in the days when its object was the
preservation of human life in Belgium and
northern France—not the restoration of reac-
tionary government in Hungary and Russia.
My "Little Bit,"by Marie Corelli (218 pages; Dor-
an), must be a reprint of almost everything the
novelist thought and said about the war, and of
some things which she merely said. Review later.
The Command Is Forward, by Sergeant Alexander
Woollcott (304 pages; Century), collects a series
of dispatches and drawings which appeared
originally in The Stars and Stripes, the official
newspaper of the A. E. F. The chattiness oi
the news stories and the cheerfulness of most of
the drawings illustrate the commonplace that
armies smile at death.
The Mud Larks, by Crosbie Garstin (213 pages;
Doran). One reads on the cover that these
British battling sketches—or some of them—
have appeared in Punch. One samples the
sketches, and wonders why.
Peace and Business, by Isaac F. Marcosson (292
pages; Lane), is the report of the war-time in-
vestigations of a man whose mind is entirely at
peace with business. Bankers return from
Europe with a new vision of society but their
acolytes bring back only the promise of busi-
ness as usual.
The Story of Our Merchant Marine, by Willis J.
Abbot (373 pages; Dodd, Mead), is a historical
account of the development of American ship-
ping, popular in its diction and near-juvenile in
its illustrations.
J. William White, M.D., by Agnes Repplier (283
pages; Houghton Mifflin), is the biography of a
distinguished Philadelphia surgeon who is
known to the younger generation as one of the
more expressive exponents of the Anglo-French
cause prior to our entering the war, as well as
a humane organizer of neutral hospital services
in France. Enough to say of Dr. White's per-
sonality that his portrait has been drawn for us
by Thomas Eakins, John Sargent, and Agnes
Repplier.
Theodore Roosevelt's Letters to His Children, edited
by Joseph Bucklin Bishop (240 pages; Scribner).
is worth a dozen adulatory biographies in its
revelation of the author's character. The father,
the human being, throws an interesting sidelight
upon the public man, the effigy, because in a
sense Father continued to remain an effigy even
in the midst of parental diversions. Review later.
A Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago, by
Anne Douglas Sedgwick (illustrated, 224 pages:
Century), is a charming mosaic of childhood
recollections of life in an out-of-the-way corner
of old France, rich in legends and tenacious of
its inherited customs and loyalties. Review later.


1919
325
THE DIAL
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326
October 4
THE DIAL
The Amazing City, by John F. Macdonald (304
pages; Lippincott), has for author the one time
Paris dramatic critic for the Fortnightly Re-
view. He was, too, "a student of human life"—
so the preface says. It is evident that he found
life in Paris most amiable, and that in ante-
diluvian days he discovered much that the war
itself has not revealed to the generality beyond
the Channel and the Sea. Review later.
California Desert Trails, by J. Smeaton Chase (il-
lustrated, 387 pages; Houghton Mifflin), has not
the full tone-range of its subject, but is never-
theless so well and unpretentiously done that
the reading of a chapter or two stirs a longing
for wide spaces.
Field, Forest and Farm, by Jean-Henri Fabre", (253
pages; Scribner), translated by Florence Con-
stable Bicknell, gives young American readers
the opportunity to follow the author of Our
Humble Helpers into haunts frequented by na-
ture-lovers, gardeners, and fruit-growers. A
familiarity with these rural fields will breed not
contempt but appreciation of Fabre's scientific
illuminations.
Fishing Tackle and Kits, by Dixie Carroll (334
pages; Stewart and Kidd, Cincinnati), has a
salutation, a dedication, a foreword, a preface,
an introduction, and some 130 topics—all relat-
ing to angling. Much of it is reprinted from
magazine and newspaper sources, with the chaff
remaining in it; but the book is comprehensive,
chatty, and convivial. Angling for readers, Mr.
Carroll baits his hook with slang.
The Justification of the Good: An Essay on Moral
Philosophy, by Vladimir Solovyof, translated by
Nathalie A. Duddington (475 pages; Macmillan),
is less a contribution to ethical knowledge than
to national understanding. The author goes
back to Vico in founding his moral-religious
system upon shame and fear, to Comte in his
consecration of the Eternal Feminine, and to
Augustine in his attempt to establish spiritually
* the Universal Church.
Philosophic Thought and Religion, by D. Ambrose
Jones (60 pages; Macmillan), surveys important
philosophic systems from Aristotle to Eucken
for the sake of proving that Christianity fills the
gap which they leave vacant. It is an effort to
make a guidebook take the place of an encyclo-
pedia.
Heartbreak House, Great Catherine, and Playlets
of the War, by Bernard Shaw (295 pages; Bren-
tano), consists of half a dozen one-acters and
prefaces. "Heartbreak House is not merely the
name of the play which follows" the first pre-
face "It is cultured, leisured Europe before
the war." Shaw's criticism of Heartbreak
House follows the lines of Misalliance and Get-
ting Married; the preface explains how during
the war the fools shouted the wise men down,
and the Dumb Capables proceeded irresistibly
to the conquest of Europe while the Noisy In-
capables were making the Empire sick. Review
later.
Poems, by William Ernest Henley (274 pages;
Scribner), gives a sense of the remoteness ot
the poet and his period from that nervous, war-
ring, introspective world we live in today. Now
that speed is a permanent fact of modern ex-
istence we can no longer appreciate its ecstatic
celebration in Henley's song.
Chaos, by "Altair" (56 pages; Douglas C. McMur-
trie, New York), is a vision of eternity in verse
and pictures. The index of this little essay be-
gins with Aeronauts and ends with X-rays, and
what lies between is the marriage of the Heaven
of William Blake to the Hell of H. G. Wells.
Captain Zillner, by Rudolf Jeremais Kreutz, trans-
lated by W. J. Alexander Worster (326 pages;
Doran), is an Austrian war novel done in the
flat realism of Tolstoy's Sebastopol. Review
later.
Deep Waters, by W. W. Jacobs, (illustrated, 290
pages; Scribner), collects more of his droll tales
of seafaring folk unsead. A characteristic vil-
lage story, Family Cares, marks high-water for
Mr. Jacobs' inimitable combination of delicate
extravaganza and authentic humanity.
Taking the Count, by Charles E. Van Loan (354
pages; Doran), adds another—unfortunately a
posthumous—collection of short stories to the
author's series of volumes dedicated to Amer-
ican sports. After the race-track, the links, and
the diamond it is once more the prize-ring thit
engages his close observation and catholic sym-
pathy. Honest stories about game men.
The Chronicle of an Old Town, by Albert Benja-
min Cunningham, (326 pages; Abingdon Press),
chronicles a backwater Ohio village through the
history of an elderly minister's family. Its un-
important love story, leisurely told, lets the min-
ister and "two other mellow philosophers talk
rustic wisdom that is richly flavored.
Mufti, by "Sapper"—Cyril McNeile—(303 pages:
Doran), is an example of English best-seller
fiction, with an ironic flair for dialogue conspic-
uously lacking in the American product, and
with an indifference to happy ending which the
cisatlantic practitioner does not share. It is an
adept piece of catering, well prepared.
Sisters, by Kathleen Norris (342 pages; Doubleday
Page), rests on the twin pillars of cheap pop-
ularity—the maudlin and the sensational. Its
author has the satisfaction of knowing that she
has done—and can do—infinitely better work.
Vive La France, by E. B. and A. A. Knipe (364
pages; Century), is set forth as a narrative
founded on a diary, at once a novel and an his-
torical record. It retraces the very familiar
ground of the invasion of 1914.
Rainbow Valley, by L. M Montgomery (341 pages.
Stokes), is a story in the gentle jog trot between
sprightly and pastoral; it carries on the tradition
of the same writer's Anne of Green Gables.
Contributors
Hamlin Garland, novelist and dramatist, was
born in West Salem, Wisconsin, at the begin-
ning of the Civil War. His latest book, A Son
of the Middle Border, was reviewed by C. K-
Trueblood in The Dial for February 28, 1918.
Liberalism in Japan is the first of a series of
three articles on Japan by John Dewey which
The Dial will publish in successive issues.
Bolshevism and the Vested Interests begins
a new series by Mr. Veblen. A collection ot
sociological and economic papers by Thorstein
Veblen, entitled The Place of Science m
Modern Civilization and Other Essays, is an-
nounced by Huebsch for autumn publication.


1919
32
THE DIAL
Special Book Offer
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BERNARD SHAW
latest work
Heartbreak House
Great Catherine and
Playets of the War
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328 THE DIAL October 4
THE AFTERMATH OF WAR
The Manchester Cuardian was founded in 1821, when men of
vision, looking beyond the devastation wrought by the Napoleonic
wars, determined to improve international relationships.
It became at once a bulwark against reaction. For nearly a century
it has been recognized as the exponent of that liberalism in Great
Britain that is greater than party.
The ocean narrows month by month. The real progressives of
America are drawn into closer touch with the advanced thinkers of
Europe.
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war make the publication of The Weekly owned by the man who has been editor of
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know the conditions abroad as they are. tional hatreds.
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THE DIAL
A FORTNIGHTLY
VOL. LXVII NEW YORK NO. 801 ,
OCTOBER 18, 1919
Miss Lowell Abides Our Question Conrad Aiken 331
Liberalism in Japan John Dewey 333
II. The Economic Factor
An Ancient Cynic Winthrop Parkhurst 337
Bolshevism and the Vested Interests Thorstein Veblen 339
II. On the Circumstances Which Make for a Change
Maiden and Poet. Verse Bayard Boyesen 346
The Old Order and the New 347
COMMUNICATIONS: The Belgian-Dutch Quarrel.—After Us the Deluge 349
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS: Deadham Hard.—The Old Madhouse.—A Childhood in Brittany 350
Eighty Years Ago.—The Heart's Doinain.—The New Book of Martyrs.—Compagnons.—John
Stuyvesant and Others.
Books of the Fortnight . 356
The Dial (founded in 1880 by Francis F. Browne) is published every other Saturday by the Dial Publishing Com-
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330
October 18
THE DIAL
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THE DIAL
A FORTNIGHTLY
Miss Lowell Abides Our Question
Nc
i O phrase IS COMMONER than that which asserts
that the poet is born net made, and certainly while
the assertion is not in all respects unimpeachable it
is at bottom sound enough. Used by the intelligent
the phrase is taken to mean that whatever the poet
writes is "inspired"; that he cannot possibly ob-
tain any control of the strange instrument which
has been given him; that he is himself, indeed,
nothing but that instrument, a kind of haunted
flute, to which from time to time, whether the flute
wishes it or not, a daemon curves his lip. It is
easy, too easy, to derive from that hypothesis the
conclusion that it is useless for the poet to pay
much heed to technique, that it is impudent of the
critic to demand of the poet—who, poor devil,
merely does desperately what his daemon flogs
him forward to do—that he should take into ac-
count either principle or taste, since that is equiva-
lent to asking his daemon to do so—"and what
does a daemon know of dactyl or homophone?"
But the intelligent poet and the intelligent critic,
though they grant that there must always be at bot-
tom this daemon of the subconscious, to set the
waters darkly in motion, will insist that the poet
should, and can, take his part in the affair. The
daemon cannot be created; but he can be sum-
moned, more or less at will, by the muttering of a
tactful enchantment; with patience, the poet can,
as it were, train him. And, generally speaking, if
may be said that a poet grows mere or less in pro-
portion to his achievement of this control.
But that is not to say that the education, of the
daemon is either safe or easy. It is first of all
necessary to perceive accurately his true nature,
and the extent of his abilities; what he is not in
the beginning fitted to perform he cannot be driven
to perform, either by cajolery or command. Nor
is it a simple matter for the poet to understand
himself in this regard. Few poets have done so.
Keats did, Heine did, Villon did; Dante also, and
Shakespeare, and, of a minor sort again, Mallarme
and Verlaine. But how many, like Wordsworth
and Tennyson and Coleridge, have less often un-
derstood than misunderstood themselves! It is,
after all, the commonest cause of a poet's failures.
And the commonest form which this sort of failure
takes is that in which, clearly enough, the poet has
mistaken not precisely the character of his daemon
—that is not always so likely an error—but rather
its strength, and has set for it a task, or. tasks,
which it cannot possibly, or at any rate adequately,
perform, tasks beneath which it is likely to become
deformed or even to die.
It may be said that every poet, at some point
or other in his career, encounters this disaster,
from which he may or may not recover. True, but
to know at what point in his career this occurs, and
for what reasons, and to what extent, is of great
importance it may do much to illuminate for us
the case of that poet. It is one among many pos-
sible approaches to any such esthetic problem. For
some cases it may prove inadequate; for others it
may supply the essential, key. The case of Miss
Amy Lowell is, I am inclined to think, of the latter
sort; and.it is for that reason that these prelim-
inary soundings have been taken.
For Miss Lowell has in this respect only too
freely put herself into our hands. As I have re-
marked of her before, she has always emphasized
the fact that a great deal of the success of a poet
depends on unremitting hard work; she has, in-
deed, carried this theory almost to the fetichistic
extreme to which Flaubert carried it, with his zeal
for the inevitable word, his patience with the file.
From the outset of her poetic career she has
been aware of the necessity of educating her dae-
mon. The question arises therefore wbether she
has properly understood her own abilities; and
whether, moreover, zeal for the inevitable word or
patience with the file are of any value save in
hands instinctively sure. Are Miss Lowell's hands
instinctively sure? But let us take up the other
questi«n first, to which the answer will perhaps be
the answer to both.
This answer must, I think, be negative. I shall
not try to press the point too hard, but I think it
is incontestable that the secret of Miss Lowell's


332
October 18
THE DIAL
career as a poet has been the fact that from begin-
ning to end she has misunderstood, overestimated,
and consistently misdirected her abilities. What
were, to begin with, her abilities? Not an easy
question to answer, certainly, even for Miss Lowell,
if she were resolute; but we must attempt a solu-
tion, and I think we shall be able to approach it
by selecting from her new volume, Pictures of the
Floating World (Macmillan), the poem entitled
Solitaire, which originally appeared, if I am not
mistaken, in the first of the Imagist Anthologies:
When night drifts along the streets of the city,
And sifts down between the uneven roofs,
My mind begins to peek and peer.
It plays at ball in old, blue Chinese gardens,
And shakes wrought dice-cups in Pagan temples
Amid the broken fiutings of white pillars.
It dances with purple and yellow crocuses in its hair,
And its feet shine as they flutter over drenched grasses.
How light and laughing my mind is.
When all the good folk have put out their bedroom candles,
And the city is still!
The tone of that is clear and unforced} it is a mood
genuine and delicate, and Miss Lowell has allowed
it to find expression through exactly the requisite
simplicity of phrase and rhythm. The mood was
not only well perceived, it was well felt. Here
was Miss Lowell's daemon speaking in its own per-
son, not speaking greatly or profoundly, it is true,
but speaking at all events with charm and grace,
on a minor note of magic. And this perhaps is
at bottom, or should have been, if wisely encour-
aged, Miss Lowell's true note. For in what other
work of Miss Lowell, except sporadically and
brokenly, does one find the same magic? In Pat-
terns it is now and then perceptible, in the City
of Falling Leaves, in Vernal Equinox, at the close
of The Hammers in the passage beginning "Marble
likeness of an emperor," intermittently in Appul-
durcombe Park, in Malnraison. Once in a while
among the many ambitious walls of Miss Lowell's
later edifices has fallen only for a moment this
clear soft light, but with how little encouragement
from Miss Lowell, how little perception, appar-
ently, of its real value! She is busy again in a
moment with the divers energies of her many
paraphernalia for building; walls, roofs, towers,
kingdoms even, must be erected; and in allthis
bewildering and intoxicating clamor she has little
time for a visitor so timid and fugitive. Magic
perches perhaps on the boom of a derrick for an
instant, but the noise is too much for her—she is
soon gone.
Miss Lowell has therefore, we may say, been too
ambitious: she has set her daemon a task out of
all proportion to its slender strength. This is not
to say that she has by any means been a failure—
far from it. No, Miss Lowell has both energy and
cleverness; and, her ambition to be a great poet
once having been fired, she set these to work with
results which one must confess are astonishing and
often delightful. Astonishing, yes, and very enter-
taining reading, but not great poetry, and in many
cases not poetry at all. For the point which must
here be made with severe precision is that the work
of a poet, if it is to have magic, or be poetry, must
originally be suggested by the daemon, must be
"inspired" (objectionable word!), must be gen-
uinely and obsessively felt, felt through the poet's
temperament, not merely discovered by the ambi-
tious explorations of the mind. The poet must be
the victim of the idea, not the idea the victim of
the poet. Miss Lowell seems to think otherwise.
She observes:
The cat and I
Together in the sultry night
Waited.
He greatly desired a ma use;
I, an idea.
There you have it! Miss Lowell's mind is restless
and energetic, and she is determined to write
poetry, come what may.
And what is the result? What indeed but that
Miss Lowell has set herself the most quixotic of
tasks, namely, the simulation of poetry. One is
prone to give Miss Lowell so much credit for in-
telligence that it is difficult to believe that she does
not perceive the impossibility of this; for while
it is not impossible to simulate the surfaces of
poetry, to imitate its technique, to go, as it were,
through the motions, it is impossible to simulate
its depths. The mood out of which genuine poetry
springs is both inevitable and individual, an un-
foreseeable reaction to an unforeseeable situation.
Reactions of this sort are reflex, purely instinctive,
can perhaps be induced, but cannot be compelled.
I do not mean to say that Miss Lowell never reacts
in this way. But I do mean to say that her reac-
tions are few and slight; and that for want of more
reactions, and reactions more acute, she has in-
creasingly had recourse to a kind of esthetic falsifi-
cation. When she is visited by a genuine mood,
she exaggerates it cold-bloodedly to the peint of
caricature; when the mood denies her its comfort,
she sets before herself something to which she thinks
at any rate she should react, painstakingly calling'
to her own attention this or that minute aspect of
it; with results that are very likely to be excruci-
ating.
Of this sort of thing Pictures of the Floating
World affords manifold evidence: if we except
her first venture it is the poorest of Miss Lowell's
books, a book in which she seems almost deliber-
ately to have paraded her mistakes. Solitaire there
is, to be sure, and Vernal Equinox, and Appuldur-


1919
333
THE DIAL
combe Park, and To a Certain Critic, and a few
others among the Lacquer Prints and Chinoiseries
—flute notes clear enough, with a sort of sharp
variable sweetness. But for the most part the book
is of that sort which'any sensitive judge must pro-
nounce clever but dull. These are not poems, but
the simulacra of poems. With what desperation
Miss Lowell, in her determination to be original,
flogs her poor vocabulary, rifles Roget for epithets,
chops her lines to a sort of poetic mincemeat, re-
sorts to effeminate expletives! And all to achieve
only a sterility somewhat oddly freaked and
brindled. It is not enough merely to observe
bizarre details; it is not enough to sprinkle a page
or poem with unfamiliar words. Details must be
introduced naturally or not at all; they must be
the details on which the mood seizes, not merely
details which are scientifically true. Words must
be used instinctively or not at all; they must be
the words on which the mood seizes, not merely
words which, to the calculating cold eye, seem clever.
Miss Lowell sins repeatedly in these matters. The
note is forced, histrionic; the approach is not
poetic so much as scientific; she seeks to overwhelm
by an accumulation of minutely accurate details,
a crepitating literality. At its best this method
produces merely such a freezing harmlessness as
the dahlias "meticulously quilled"; at its worst it
becomes an unendurable falsetto, as when the stars
are compared to languid pulses "squeezed through
a mist" This sort of thing is the plainest of char-
latanry, inexcusable even if Miss Lowell is herself
the dupe of it.
The fact therefore becomes clear, in this volume,
that Miss Lowell has attempted poetry on a scale for
which she is better suited by intellect than by tem-
perament, but for which neither is truly adequate.
Compelled to become a "conscious artist" by her
lack of a rich emotivity, compelled further, as a
"conscious artist," by the lack of a fine sensibility,
to fall back on sheer cleverness, Miss Lowell has
sought one theory after another like so many
nostrums—free verse, the unrelated method, poly-
phonic prose—all, in the end, to achieve a poetry
full no doubt of esthetic shock, but almost totally
lacking in the warmth or magic or beauty which
is the contribution of the subconscious. The touch
is coarse; the technique is clumsy: she descends
from a flash of insight to the fatuities of an after-
noon tea. She has her good moments, it is true.
Her grotesques are sometimes excellent But even
these are only too often overwrought to the point of
absurdity, end in bathos or on a note of flatness.
Perhaps, after all, Miss Lowell came nearest to
finding her true level in polyphonic prose: had
the polyphonic element in Can Grande's Castle
been subdued, or even eliminated, the four narra-
tives in that book might have been superb. For a
temperament in which energy is the dominant char-
acteristic—a temperament adapted to a rich en-
vironment, and thereby, through a sort of abrasion,
superficially refined, but not by nature finely per-
ceptive or exquisitely sensitive—it should, I think,
be clear that prose rather than poetry is the suit-
able instrument; for the prose writer can more
safely and more extensively than the poet set about
the self-cultivation which enriches the "conscious
artist" It is only the genius—among poets—who
knows how to grow.
Conrad Aiken.
Liberalism in Japan
II. The Economic Factor
I
N my previous article I discusssed the intel-
lectual change which is furthering the growth of
liberalized institutions in Japan. The word "meta-
physical" was ventured upon in describing the
change. I can imagine the scorn with which some
greet the idea that intellectual changes can lead
to political changes. People love to stand on their
heads intellectually, and so it is that the Marxians
who have given the world its best modern demon-
stration of the power of ideas and of intellectual
leadership, are the ones who most deny that these
things have any efficacy. Even the most hardened
upholder of the impotency of intellectual and moral
forces might however concede that without certain
changes of mental attitude and disposition, there
are certain alterations of society which cannot be
accomplished, that intellectual changes are at least
a negative condition, a sine qua non. And this con-
cession will be met not with an admission but an
assertion that it is fortunate for the prospects of
liberalism in Japan that the intellectual modifica-
tions already dealt with are accompanied and rein-
forced by active and aggressive economic changes.
The war tremendously hastened the industrial
transition in Japan. In 1918 alone the number of
factories in Tokyo doubled in spite of extraordi-
nary increases in prior years. The last five years
have practically transformed Japan from an agra-


334
October 18
THE DIAL
rian into an industrial state. For there is today ac-
tual shortage of farm labor in that country, although
the wages of farm hands have more than doubled.
The urban factories have been absorbing labor at
such a rate that for the time being at least the old
plea for territorial expansion to take up the growth
of populaton does not hold. In consequence of
this expedited development Japan has been plunged
into the labor problem—and plunged with exceed-
ingly little preparation.
The remote and speculative observer is given to
supposing that a new country which is undergoing
the industrial revolution at this late date will surely
learn from the experience of the other countries
that passed through it earlier. Why wait for all the
evils of child labor, woman's labor, long hours, un-
sanitary factores, congested housing, slums, and so
forth to show themselves, when experience has
demonstrated how surely they follow upon a lais-
sez-faire policy, and also how legislation and ad-
ministration may at least alleviate their worst evils?
Especially would it seem as if a paternalistic gov-
ernment like that of Japan would do something, if
only because of the general influence exercised by
her model, Germany. But practically no foresight
was manifested. Certain factory laws on the Western
pattern were indeed passed, but their execution was
postponed for a term of years—up to twelve—on
the plea of giving- capital a chance to adjust itself.
As a matter of fact, greed for immediate profits
irrespective of ultimate results has taken possession
of industrial Japan.
This individualistic force has been reinforced by
what seems to me the most harmful force at work
in Japan—impatient hurry to become a Great
Power at once. The Japanese know very well that
a modern Great Power requires developed industry
and wealth. Consequently they have "drawn the
great red-ink overdraft on the future." Its states-
men have believed that the interests of the nation
coincided with the get-rich-quick desires of indi-
viduals, and have not only not tried to regulate
them but have encouraged them. The most en-
lightening answer received to the question asked by
every foreign visitor as to the difference of political
parties in Japan was that the party in power was
the Mitsui party, while its rival was the Mitsubishi
party. Japan has its "big six"—corporations which
combine banking, shipping, mining, manufacturing,
and continental exploitation in their various activi-
ties. Of the six, the Mitsuis and Mitsubishis are
the richest and most powerful, the others being
grouped about them. By direct intermarriage as
well as in countless indirect ways, these big business
interests are woven into the administration of the
state. In fact, they on one side and the military
and naval clans on the other are the State. Perhaps
the greatest enlightenment I received as to practical
politics in Japan was upon being told that the big
business interests did not as such interfere in the
Parliamentary elections. They did not care par-
ticularly what individuals were elected, for they
did business direct with the political over-lords.
The story of the alliance of big business and poli-
tics in Japan would require a book—not a para-
graph. Hence there is not much use in citing
isolated illustrative facts. But certain items in their
system of taxation may be taken as typical. A pri-
vate individual pays a seven per cent income tax
when his income reaches seven hundred and fifty
dollars. A corporation pays only seven and a half
per cent, on an income of half a million. Chapters
could not say more as to where control lies in
Japan. The theory is that the private individual
can do little to make Japan a strong world-power.
Big concentrations of capital can really push Japan
ahead in building up trade and industry for world
competition. And newspapers which devote col-
umns to general denunciation of the government
rarely condescend to discuss the significance of
such facts as this.
During the discussions by the Japanese news-
papers of the League of Nations, they were wont
to say that Japan represented the cause of labor,
while the Western nations, especially Great Britain
and the United States, represented capitalism. Bat
there is no modern state in which capitalism has
such unresisted and almost unquestioned power as
in Japan today. The fear of the League of Nations
as an agency of capitalistic exploitations was in fact
a fear of one organization of capital by another—
especially with reference to the development of
Siberia and China.
It was a cynical Japanese—there aren't many—
who told me that Japan's factory legislation was
solely for the benefit of the Westerner. Being tired
of telling curious visiting foreigners that Japan had
no labor laws, they put some on the statute-book
and suspended their execution for the most part
The former fact is advertised—and the latter con-
cealed unless the visitor is unusually inquisitive.
But the effect of this absence of regulation in con-
junction with the rapid development of industry
and trade during the past five years has been what
every Westerner would have foretold. The labor
crisis has arrived and it is unmitigated, acute. The
allegedly more liberal Hara government at present
in power has not authorized the formation of trade
unions, but it has suspended the enforcement of the
ban they are under. They now exist in a dim twi-
light zone, neither forbidden nor legalized. How
numerous they are a visitor like myself has no way


1919
335
THE DIAL
of knowing. One young radical Japanese told me
that Japan was honeycombed with them, even while
they were illegal, that even farm hands were union-
izing, and that the police no longer reported them
because the police had themselves been infected
with "dangerous ideas"—a technical term in Japan
as well as in certain respectable circles in the
United States.
In intellectual circles there is animated discussion
of whether Japan must in its economic development
pass through the stage of antagonism of capital and
labor characteristic of Western development. There
is an influential section, representing the old Con-
f ucianist oligarchy, which holds that it is not neces-
sary. They conceive that the old feudal principle
of master and man, of protection and dependence,
can be carried over into the modern relation of
employer and employee. They do not content them-
selves with making appeals to the former to treat
their employees better, to assume paternalistic re-
sponsibilities. There are countless societies in
existence, under the control of employers, for health
insurance, sick funds, promoting the welfare of la-
borers, and so forth. This is known technically as
the principle of "kindness." The liberals who have
come most under the influence of Western ideas
contend that the principle is only a belated feudal
relic and is bound to fail. They hold that it is
morally as well as economically necessary for the
laborers to assert themselves; that they cannot de-
velop unless they organize and win their rights for
themselves, instead of accepting concessions from
benevolent patrons. This is known as the principle
of "rights." But the feudalists of the chosen,
unique-nation type counter by saying that it is only
the materialism of the West that has made the devel-
opment of industry take the form of struggle for
liberties and rights; that the superior moral stand-
ards of the Orient are capable of applying the prin-
ciple of kindness and sympathy to the growth of
industrial relations and thus escaping the class war
which has disgraced Western civilization. The Bol-
sheviks, of course, come in usefully here as well
as elsewhere.
But for the moment at least the case is going
against the upholders of the doctrine of "kindness."
The rice riots were the signal of the beginning of
labor and class-consciousness. The high cost of
living is even a more acute issue in Japan than
elsewhere. Japan has to import a considerable part
of its food supply, and rice is not, like wheat, a
world staple. It is conceivable that the future des-
tiny of Japan turns upon this fact, for rice costs
twelve times what it cost thirty years ago, and over
three times what it did at the beginning of the war.
Meantime there are all the usual consequences of
change from the relative isolation of rural life to
close contacts in cities and factories. On every
side there are stories of increasing and active fric-
tion in shops and factories between foremen and
laborers, and as I write there is a perfect epidemic
of strikes. The rise in wages has in no sense kept
pace with the increase in the cost of living; and the
evidences of millionaires new-made from war
profiteering abound on every hand. Japan is
plunged suddenly and with practically no prepara-
tion, administrative or intellectual, into the most
acute labor problem. Socialism is under the ban;
a socialistic party is legally a criminal conspiracy
and is treated as such. But according to all reports
the interest in socialism is growing with remarkable
rapidity.
In one of the private universities a teacher gave
his class in advanced political economy a chance to
vote as to whether they would not take up for study
Commercial Expansion, Labor Movements, or So-
cialism. The vote was a hundred for the last topic,
to three for the first. Considering the avidity of
the Japanese for practical topics and the zeal for
commercial expansion it is safe to say that before
the war the figures would have been reversed. The
younger generation of students is becoming infected
with radical ideas. The Imperial University is often
thought to be the home of intellectual conservatism.
A group of its students are publishing a journal
called Democracy. Some of its professors are the
most active members of a society called The Dawn,
which is openly carrying on propaganda by public
lectures for democratic ideas. Magazines with titles
like Reconstruction, The New Society, are born al-
most every month. During the time of the previous
cabinet, when police supervision was more rigid
than now, a judge was convicted of lese majeste,
because in attacking the bureaucratic militarists he
had said that by coming between the people and the
Emperor they tarnished the glory of the Emperor.
The suggestion that the Emperor could be tarnished
was enough to send him to jail, but his standing
and his influence were increased by the episode.
A number of like cases could be cited. There have
been of late many arrests for possession and circu-
lation of "revolutionary" literature. There are even
those who prophesy a political revolution on an
economic basis in Japan within the next five years.
But they seem to me too sanguine.
Serious as is the situation with labor, it is even
more serious with the middle class. So far the in-
dustrial revolution in Japan does not run true to'
form. It is not creating a bourgeoisie, but rather
undermining that which Japan used to possess. The


336
October 18
THE DIAL
Marxian division into the proletariat and the
millionaire is rapidly going on. The old hand
points out to you as significant that the numerous
autos seen on the streets of Tokyo are of the Rolls-
Royce and Pierce-Arrow type; Fords are conspicu-
ous by their absence. In the country districts, peas-
ant proprietorship is on the wane; large and absen-
tee landownership is on the increase. The average
land holding is about the three acres; this hardly
supports a family. Since it leaves no rice to sell,
the high price of rice does not help the small
farmer. Consequently concentration of land as well
as of other forms of capital is rapidly proceeding.
Japan has had for some time an educated prole-
tariat, which it has characteristically nicknamed the
"European-clothes poor." So far as minor offi-
cials, police, clerks, and primary school teachers are
concerned, this middle class has been the most
staunch supporter of bureaucracy and militarism.
But it recently tasted the bitterness of being a
salaried class when the cost of living was leaping.
Wages have increased; salaries hardly at all. The
police begin to agitate, and the Government did
something for them; their position was too strategic
to take chances. The primary school teachers called
meetings for discussion in Tokyo and Yokahama;
the police, acting under governmental instructions,
forbade and then broke up the meetings. A news-
paper commenting on the situation asked what
would be the effect upon pupils when teachers in
school taught conventional ethics, while out of
school the teachers went contrary to the ethics they
taught? In other words, the burden of what is
termed "ethics" in the primary schools is submis-
sion to authority, while out of school the teachers
were guilty of going contrary to authority in agi-
tating to force the authorities to give them a living
wage. The middle class does not of course possess
the weight in mass of the laboring class, but it is
quite likely that, with its greater education, its
weaning from the cause of autocracy to which it has
been devoted will have the earlier political results.
The observer can follow the progress of the cause
of democracy in Japan by certain outward signs.
The first and in many ways the most superficial will
be the extension of universal suffrage. The last
Parliament passed a bill about doubling the electo-
rate. It was a compromise measure that gave no satis-
faction to either the conservatives or the radicals.
Unless foreign relations monopolize attention, the
struggle will be renewed in the next Parliament.
The second sign, and a more significant one, will be
a conflict, occasioned either through the extension
of suffrage or some similar question, between the
lower house and the upper. For the House of Peers
was deliberately invented to give the old oligarchy
and the new plutocracy power to prevent extrava-
gances in the popular direction on the part of the
lower house. An even more serious sign will be the
determined effort to make the ministers of war and
navy real members of the Cabinet, instead of privi-
leged appointees of the Army and Navy with inde-
pendent and irresponsible jurisdiction. How far
their independence goes came out in a way which
would have been most embarrassing in any country
except Japan in the closing days of the last Par-
liament It was necessary to get the approval of
the budget of expenditures of the various govern-
mental departments. That of the War Department
called for extra wages to one hundred and fifty
thousand soldiers who had been on service in Si-
beria. Yet the Foreign Office had had a distinct un-
derstanding with other governments that only -from
seven to ten thousand men, a number proportionate
to the army of the other Allies, would be sent
There was a temporary excitement, the House went
into secret session, the money was voted, and a few
days later there appeared in the newspapers a semi-
official statement mat the number in Siberia had
not exceeded seventy thousand. No outsider, and
not many insiders, will ever know what the other
eighty thousand were paid for. But the meaning of
an independent minister of war in a government
that is said by propagandists in foreign countries to
be constitutional is measured by the fact that he
could act in such contravention to the direct pledge
of the minister of foreign affairs. Numerous such
cases appear, especially in connection with Chinese
affairs; and it is of course impossible to tell how
much is collusion with a chance to prove an alibi
on the part of supposedly liberal ministers, and how
much is due to the undoubted power of the Minister
of War (in effect the General Staff) to act without
the rest of the "Government's" knowing anything
about it Other convincing signs of the spread of
democratic ideas will be a movement for respon-
sibility of the ministry to the Parliament instead of
to the Emperor—which means in effect to the Clans-
men who constitute Elder Statesmen, and for real
legislative initiative on the part of the Parliament
For one has to be near the scene to learn that no
important bills ever even receive consideration in
the Parliament unless they have received a permit
from the Privy Council-»-a secret and irresponsible
body. The canceling of the power of the policy
without judicial action or review, to suppress news-
papers will be a most hopeful sign.
However, it is not likely that affairs will move in
such a logical sequence as has been outlined. It is
more likely that something will happen and a gen-


1919
337
THE DIAL
eral change in the political structure take place all
at once. Yet while in its effect, in its consequence,
this happening will be a revolution, it is hard to
imagine a happening in Japan such as we usually
associate with the word "Revolution." There is some
quality in the Japanese inscrutable to a foreigner
which makes them at once the most rigid and the
most pliable people on earth, the most self-satisfied
and the most eager to learn. It is wholly conceiv-
able that, with the development of democratic senti-
ment, a dramatic change may suddenly take place
comparable to the transfer in the sixties of power
from the old Tokugawa Shogunate to the Satsuma
and Choshu clansmen, and the consequent central-
ized unification of Japan and the surrender of the
policy of isolation. To the student of history it now
looks very much as if Japan in the seventies and
eighties had been very much in flux, and as if with
slight changes in the course of events Japan might
then have become a genuine and not a simulated
constitutional state. But unfortunately in the
eighties Europe generally entered upon the im-
perialistic path, and in the later eighties Japan de-
liberately adopted from Germany a militarized
state, a constitution which gave the form without
the substance of a representative government, and
a universal primary education calculated to produce
what a young Japanese student of English called
"obeyfulness," and a secondary and higher system
aiming at specialized efficiency in the service of the
state. The development of liberation was put in
abeyance for thirty years.
John Dewey.
An Ancient Cynic
X here is a popular parlor-game known in this
country as Gossip. It is a harmless little psycho-
logical diversion, and it is played approximately
as follows: One of the company, usually chosen
by lot, whispers a short sentence in his neighbor's
ear, such as "All men are liars," or "A rolling
stone gathers no moss." This sentence, or as much
of it as is audible, is repeated by the person re-
ceiving it to the person sitting next to him, who in
turn passes it on secretly tq his neighbor. After
going the whispered rounds of the assembled com-
pany, which is seated in a circle, the original re-
mark reaches the ears of the first whisperer. He
thereupon announces his own statement and its
surprising metamorphosis, which usually has taken
some such form as "A barking dog never bites" or
"A fool and his money are soon parted"; there is
a loud burst of laughter from everyone, a noisy
scraping of chairs, and a hasty dash for the lem-
onade.
In some such way, only on a more magnificent
scale, ancient history reaches our ears. We flatter
ourselves that we know the secrets which the past
has whispered to us, when as a matter of fact we
are ignorant of most of its most public matters.
When we realize, however, that in the parlor-game
Gossip the players not only speak the same lang-
uage but refrain from deliberately falsifying what
they hear, and when we realize furthermore that
their game usually occupies less than one hundred
seconds, we are not astonished so much as shocked
that another game, occupying two thousand years,
conducted in three different languages, and played
by a company of ecclesiastical demagogues, should
end with even more amazing and divergent results.
For playing detective in the back parlor of the
Church, Morris Jastrow, Jr., has won, or must
eventually win, the gratitude of every man who
has a weakness for the truth. In the foreword to
his book A Gentle Cynic (Lippincott, Philadel-
phia) he states his intention of doing unto the
Book of Job and the Song of Songs as he has
done unto the so-called Book of Ecclesiastes. If
he fulfills this intention he will not have many
friends left in the right wing of Christendom.
But the left wing, at any rate, will flutter for
him proudly. And all the heathen seekers after
historic fact will, it is certain, welcome him into
their fold and call him Brother. For Mr. Jastrow
has not merely acted as dragoman between the
ancient Hebrew and the modern Englishman; he
has not merely given us a literal, unadorned
translation of a work commonly—and wrongly—
attributed to King Solomon; he has exhibited the
whole twisted policy of Ecclesiastical buncombe
which runs like a muddy stream through the green
pastures of ancient literatures. He has given
us, probably for the first time in 2200 years,
die acid, unsweetened philosophy of Koholeth,
who styled himself King over Israel in Jerusalem.
Some of the blame for the sweetening process
which the sayings of this ancient cynic have un-
dergone he lays, by implication, at the doors and
the dictionaries of the Greek translators. At
least Mr. Jastrow points out, with a finger never
weary in well-doing, that the second book of the
Pentateuch was called, in the Hebrew, Shemoth,
meaning "Names," which the Greek pundits, in
a free flight of the imagination, passed down to
us as Exodus. Again, the book known to us as
Lamentations was called, in the original Hebrew,


338
October 18
THE DIAL
Echa, meaning "Alas!," which merely was the
first ward occurring in that book of tears. Still
again, the book which we now know as Ecclesiastes
was so baptized by these same pundits, with the
excuse that an Ecclesia is an assembly, and that
the root of the Hebrew name Koholeth is derived
from a verb meaning "to assemble." Now, though
Koholeth was undoubtedly a nom-de-plume, the
man who had adopted it did so for definite rea-
sons. The Book of Ecclesiastes is actually the
Book of Koholeth. To bungle that fact in trans-
lation is not only to play fast and loose with an
historical detail but also to throw doubt on the
scientific scrupulousness of the rest of the work in
a field of endeavor in which carelessness is as
inexcusable as it is in a dynamite plant.
Most of his censure, however, Mr. Jastrow levels
at the ancient Hebraic moralists themselves. In
the ante-Christian era authorship in Israel was
practically unheard of. Disciples and followers
took the place of typewriters and printing-presses.
Jesus Christ, as we know, never wrote down his
philosophy of gentleness; it was collated and
edited by his Apostles. Indeed, his forerunner
by only a hundred-odd years, Jesus Ben Sira, was
one of the first men to give the world a work te
which he definitely affixed his name. The inevitable
was the result—no man's creed was a stable thing.
It was mouthed, and in the mouthing often marred,
by the men who succeeded him. Even if he af-
fixed it to parchment his words were emendated
to meet the varying customs of the day.
This is what happened to Koholeth. His cyn-
icism was out of temper with his times. His doc-
trines were dangerous. He was a sans-culotte, and
Jacobins were as unpopular then as now. Yet his
writings had an undoubted vogue among the Zen-
diks of the age. He wielded an influence. People
liked the taste of his teachings. They repeated
after him, "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity"; and
the phrase lay pleasantly on their tongues. What
was to be done with this heretic who stirred up
the people and put dynamite under the temples of
their simple faiths? The answer will be found in
the additions which were shrewdly added to Koho-
leth's original text, and which are found today in
every Bible. In brief, the mysterious Koholeth
was toe powerful a personage to be suppressed
altogether—so he was merely emendated. One
sixth of the Book of Ecclesiastes is comprised
of these moral additions—ecclesiastical and po-
litical demulcents smeared over his work to soften
its sting.
Two or three examples of such methods of
ancient literary prophylaxis are all that may be
included here. Koholeth, for example, says: "I
set out to experience frivolity and foolishness,
though I knew that this, too, was chasing after
wind." Whereupon a pious commentator, horri-
fied at the idea that a man whom tradition had
connected with King Solomon should deliberately
set out to experience frivolity and foolishness,
modified this cynical teaching by adding the
clause "wisdom and knowledge"—and thus mor-
ally saved the day. Again, Koholeth remarks:
"There is nothing better for a man than that he
should eat and drink—a hedonistic idea which
occasioned the hurried inclusion of the subsequent-
ly-penned, moral maxim (I here follow the King
James version and not Mr. Jastrow's) "For God
giveth to a man that is good in His sight wis-
dom, and knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner
he giveth travail." There are dozens of these
instances, many even more startling in their phil-
osophic anachronism. Mr. Jastrow goes after
them all. He makes you sit up in your pew. He
makes you suddenly aware that all games of
gossip are not played in parlors, and that laughter
and lemonade are not always appropriate dishes
after the denouement.
But it is not as a judge so much as an honest
workman finishing a hitherto botched job that be
deserves unqualified praise. His explanation of
how Ecclesiastes came to be included among the
sacred writings of the East, his examination of
Koholeth's philosophy, his demonstration that Ko-
holeth's saying "Cast thy bread upon the face of
the waters for after many days thou shalt find
it" was less a maxim preaching generosity than
a shrewd business slogan urging men into broader
fields of trade, his tracing of the belief which
attributed Koholeth's writings to King Solomon,
his exposure of the fact that Koholeth believed
no more in a future existence than did the Psalm-
ist who declared that the dead can not praise God
in Sheol—these exegetical additions to his original
translations, with several dozens like them, make
Mr. Jastrow's work a book of unparalleled in-
terest in the realm of critico-historical literature.
It is Koholeths' text itself, however, that claims
our first attention—and our last. Stripped of
all ancient and modern meralizings, it gives us
for the first time the bare bones of the old cynic—
a man who once loved life and accused that love of
stupidity; a man to whom, in the end, everything
was vanity, and existence a foolish "chasing after
wind."
WlNTHROP PARKHURST.


1919
339
THE DIAL
Bolshevism and the Vested Interests in America
II. On the Circumstances Which Make for a Change
J. HE STATE of industry, in America and in the
other advanced industrial countries, will impose
certain exacting conditions on any movement that
aims to displace the Vested Interests. These condi-
tions lie in the nature of things; that is to say, in
the nature of the existing industrial system; and
until -they are met in some passable fashion, this
industrial system can not be taken over in any
effectual or enduring manner. And it is plain that
whatever is found to be true in these respects for
America will also hold true in much the same
degree for the other countries that are dominated
by the mechanical industry and the system of ab-
sentee ownership.
It may also confidently be set down at the outset
that such an impartial review of the evidence as
is here aimed at will make it appear that there
need be no present apprehension of the Vested
Interests' being unseated by any popular uprising
in America, even if the popular irritation should
rise very appreciably above its present pitch, and
even if certain advocates of "direct action," here
and there, should be so ill-advised as to make some
rash gesture of revolt. The only present danger is
that a boisterous campaign of repression and inqui-
sition on the part of the Guardians of the Vested
Interests may stir up some transient flutter of sedi-
tious disturbance.
To this end, then, it will be necessary to recall,
in a summary way, those main facts of the indus-
trial system and of the present businesslike control
of this system which come immediately into the
case. By way of general premise it is to be noted
that the established order of business rests on ab-
sentee ownership and is managed with an eye single
to the largest obtainable net return in terms of
price; that is to say, it is a system of businesslike
management on a commercial footing. The under-
lying population is dependent on the working of
this industrial system for its livelihood; and their
material interest therefore centers in the output
and distribution of consumable goods, not in an
increasing volume of earnings for the absentee
owners. Hence there is a division of interest be-
tween the business community, who do business for
the absentee owners, and the underlying popula-
tion, who work for a living; and in the nature of
the case this division of interest between the ab-
sentee owners and the underlying population is
growing wider and more evident from day to day;
which engenders a certain division of sentiment
and a degree of mutual distrust. With it all the
underlying population are still in a sufficiently de-
ferential frame of mind toward their absentee own-
ers and are quite conscientiously delicate about
any abatement of the free income which their
owners come in for, according to the rules of the
game as it is played.
The business concerns which so have the man-
agement of industry of this plan of absentee own-
ership are capitalized on their business capacity,
not on their industrial capacity; that is to say. they
are capitalized on their capacity to produce earn-
ings, not on their capacity to produce goods. Their
capitalization has, in effect, been calculated and
fixed on the highest ordinary rate of earnings pre-
viously obtained; and on pain of insolvency their
businesslike managers are now required to meet
fixed income-ch#rges on this capitalization. There-
fore, as a proposition of safe and sane business
management, prices have to be maintained or ad-
vanced.
From this businesslike requirement of meeting
these fixed overhead charges on the capitalization
there result certain customary lines of waste and
obstruction, which are unavoidable so long as in-
dustry is managed by businesslike methods and
for* businesslike ends. These ordinary lines of
waste and obstruction are necessarily (and blame-
lessly) included in the businesslike conduct of pro-
duction. They are many and various in detail, but
they may for convenience be classed under four
heads: (a) Unemployment of material resources,
equipment, and manpower, in whole or in part,
deliberately or through ignorance; (b) Salesman-
ship (includes, e. g., needless multiplication of
merchants and shops, wholesale and retail, news-
paper advertising and bill-boards, sales-exhibits,
sales-agents, fancy packages and labels, adultera-
tion, multiplication of brands and proprietary arti-
cles); (c) Production (and sales-cost) of superflui-
ties and spurious goods; (d) Systematic dislocation,
sabotage and duplication, due in part t« businesslike
strategy, in part to businesslike ignorance of indus-
trial requirements (includes, e.g., such things as
cross-freights, monopolization of resources, with-
holding of facilities and information from business
rivals whom it is thought wise to hinder or defeat).
There is, of course, no blame, and no sense of
.blame or shame attaching to all this everyday waste


340
October 18
THE DIAL
and confusion that goes to make up the workday -
total of businesslike management. All of it is a
legitimate and necessary part of the established
order of business enterprise, within the law and
within the ethics of the trade.
Salesmanship is the most conspicuous, and per-
haps the gravest, of these wasteful and industrially
futile practices that are involved in the business-
like conduct of industry; it bulks large both in its
immediate cost and in its meretricious conse-
quences. It also is altogether legitimate and in-
dispensable in any industrial business that deals
with customers, in buying or selling; which comes
near saying, in all business that has to do with the
production or distribution of goods or services.
Indeed, salesmanship is, in a way, the whole end
and substance of business enterprise; and except
so far as it is managed with a constant view to
profitable bargains, the production of goods is
not a business proposition; It is the elimination
of profitable transactions of purchase and sale that
is hoped for by any current movement looking to
an overturn, and it is the same elimination of pro-
fitable bargaining that is feared, with a nerve-
shattering fear, by the Guardians of.the established
order. Salesmanship is also the most indispensable
and most meritorious of those qualities that go to
make a safe and sane business man.
It is doubtless within the mark to say that, at
an average, one-half the price paid for goods and
services by consumers is to be set down to the ac-
count of salesmanship—that is, to sales-cost and
to the net gains of salesmanship. But in many
notable lines of merchandise the sales-cost will
ordinarily foot up to some ten or twenty times the
productien-cost proper, and to not less than one
hundred times the necessary cost of distribution.
All this is not a matter for shame or distaste. In
fact, just now more than ever, there is a clamorous
and visibly growing insistence on the paramount
merit and importance of salesmanship as the main
stay of commerce and industry, and a strenuous
demand for more extensive and more thorough
training in salesmanship of a larger number of
young men—at the public expense—to enable a
shrewdly limited output of good to be sold at more
profitable prices—at the public cost. So also
there is a visibly increasing expenditure on all
manner of advertising; and the spokesmen of this
enterprise in conspicuous waste are "pointing with
pride" to the fact that the American business com-
munity have already spent upward of $600,000,000
on bill-boards alone within the past year, not to
speak of much larger sums spent on newspapers
and other printed matter for the same purpose—
and the common man pays the cost.
At the same time advertising and manoeuvres of
salesmanlike spell-binding appear to be the onlj
resource to which the country's business men know
how to turn for relief from that tangle of difficul-
ties into which the outbreak of a businesslike peace
has precipitated the commercialized world. In-
creased sales-cost is to remedy the evils of under-
production. In this connection it may be worth
while to recall, without heat or faultfinding, that
all the costly publicity that goes into sales-costs
is in the nature of prevarication, when it is not
good broad mendacity; and quite unnecessarily so.
And all the while the proportion of sale6-costs to
production-costs goes on increasing, and the cost of
living grows continually greater for the underly-
ing population, and business necessities continue
to enlarge the necessary expenditure on ways and
means of salesmanship.
It is reasonable to believe that this state of
things, which has been coming on gradually for
some time past, will in time come to be understood
and appreciated by the underlying population, at
least in some degree. And it is likewise reason-
able to believe that so soon as the underlying pop-
ulation come to realize that all this wasteful traffic
of salesmanship is using up their productive forces,
with nothing better to show for it than an increased
cost of living, they will be driven to make some
move to abate the nuisance. And just so far as
this state of things is now beginning to be under-
stood, its logical outcome is a growing distrust of
the business men and all their works and words.
But the underlying population is still very credu:
lous about anything that is said or done in the
name of Business, and there need be no apprehen-
sion of a mutinous outbreak, just yet But at the
same time it is evident that any plan of manage-
ment which could contrive to dispense with all
this expenditure on salesmanship, or that could
materially reduce sales-costs, would have that
much of a free margin to go on, and therefore that
much of an added chance of success; and so also
it is evident that any other than a businesslike
management could so contrive, inasmuch as sales-
costs are incurred solely for purposes of business,
not for purposes of industry; they are incurred for
the sake of private gain, not for the sake of pro-
ductive work.
But there is in fact no present promise of a
breakdown of business, due to the continued in-
crease of sales-costs; although sales-costs are
bound to go on increasing so long as the country's
industry continues to be managed on anything like
the present plan. In fact, salesmanship is the chief
factor in that ever-increasing cost of living, which
is in its turn the chief ground of prosperity among


1919
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THE DIAL
the business community and the chief source of
perennial hardship and discontent among the un-
derlying population. Still it is worth noting that
the eventual elimination of salesmanship and sales-
cost would lighten the burden of workday produc-
tion for the underlying population by some fifty
per cent. There is that much of a visible induce-
ment to disallow that system of absentee ownership
on which modern business enterprise rests; and—
for what it may be worth—it is to be admitted that
there is therefore that much of a drift in the exist-
ing state of things toward a revolutionary overturn
looking to the unseating of the Vested Interests.
But at the same time the elimination of salesman-
ship and all its voluminous apparatus and traffic
would also cut down the capitalized income of the
business community by something like one-half;
and that contingency is not to be contemplated,
not to say with equanimity, by the Guardians; and
it is after all in the hands of these Guardians that
the fortunes of the community rest. Such a move
is a moral impossibility, just yet.
Closely related to the wasteful practices of sales-
manship as commonly understood, if it should not
rather be counted in as an extension of salesman-
ship, is that persistent unemployment of men,
equipment, and material resources, by which the
output of goods and services is kept down to the
"requirements of the market," with a view to main-
taining prices at a "reasonably profitable level."
Such unemployment, deliberate and habitual, is
one of the ordinary expedients employed in the
businesslike management of industry. There is
always more or less of it in ordinary times. "Rea-
sonable earnings" could not be assured without it;
because "what the traffic will bear" in the way of an
output of goods is by no means the same as the pro-
ductive capacity of the industrial system; still less
is it the same as the total consumptive needs of the
community; in fact, it does not visibly tend to
coincide with either. It is more particularly in
times of popular distress, such as the present year,
when the current output of goods is not nearly
sufficient to cover the consumptive needs of the
community, that considerations of business strategy
call for a wise unemployment of the country's
productive forces. At the same time, such business-
like unemployment of equipment and man power
b the most obvious cause of popular distress.
All this is well known to the Guardians of the
Vested Interests, and their knowledge of it is, quite
reasonably, a source of uneasiness to them. But
they see no help for it; and indeed there is no help
for it within the framework of "business as usual,"
since it is the essence of business as usual. So also,
the Guardians are aware that this businesslike
sabotage on productive industry is a fruitful source
of discontent and distrust among the underlying
population who suffer the inconvenience of it all;
and they are beset with the abiding fear that the
underlying population may shortly be provoked into
disallowing those Vested Interests for whose benefit
this deliberate and habitual sabotage on production
is carried on. It is felt that here again is a sufficient
reason why the businesslike management of indus-
try should be discontinued; which is the same as
saying that here again is a visibly sufficient reason
for such a revolutionary overturn as will close out
the Old Order of absentee ownership and capitalized
income. It is also evident that any plan which shall
contrive to dispense with this deliberate and habit-
ual unemployment of men and equipment will have
that much more of a margin to go on, both in re-
spect of practical efficiency and in respect of popu-
lar tolerance; and evidently, too, any other than a
businesslike management of industry can so con-
trive, as a matter of course; inasmuch as any such
unbusinesslike administration—as, e.g., the Soviet—
will be relieved of the businesslike manager's black-
est bug-bear, "a reasonably profitable level of
prices."
But for all that, those shudderingly sanguine per-
sons who are looking for a dissolution of the system
of absentee ownership within two years' time are not
counting on salesmanlike waste and businesslike sa-
botage to bring on the collapse, so much as they
count on the item listed under (d) above—the sysi-
tematic dislocation and all-round defeat of produc-
tive industry which is due in part to shrewd man-
oeuvres of businesslike strategy, in part to the habit-
ual ignorance of business men touching the sys-
tematic requirements of the industrial system as a
whole. The shrewd worldly wisdom of the business-
like managers, looking consistently to the main
chance, works in harmoniously with their trained
ignorance on matters of technology, to bring about
what amounts to effectual team-work for the defeat
of the country's industrial system as a going con-
cern. Yet doubtless this sinister hope of a collapse
within two years is too sanguine. Doubtless the
underlying population can be counted on solidly to
put up with what they are so well used to, just yet;
more particularly so long as they are not in the
habit of -thinking about these things at all. Nor
does it seem reasonable to believe that this all-per-
vading waste and confusion of industrial forces will
of itself bring the business organization to a col-
lapse within so short a time.
It is true, the industrial system is continually
growing, in volume and complication; and with


342
October 18
THE DIAL
every new extension of its scope and range, and with
every added increment of technological practice that
goes into effect, there comes a new and urgent op-
portunity for the business men in control to extend
and speed up their strategy of mutual obstruction
and defeat; it is all in the day's work. As the indus-
trial system grows larger and more closely inter-
woven it offers continually larger and more enticing
opportunities for such businesslike manoeuvres as
will effectually derange the system at the same time
that they bring the desired tactical defeat on some
business rival; whereby the successful business
strategist is enabled to get a little something for
nothing at a constantly increasing cost to the com-
munity at large. With every increment of growth
and maturity the country's industrial system be-
comes more delicately balanced, more intricately
bound in a web of industrial give and take, more
sensitive to far-reaching derangement by any local
dislocation, more widely and instantly responsive to
any failure of the due correlation at any point; and
by the same move the captains of industry, to whose
care the interests of absentee ownership are en-
trusted, are enabled, or rather they are driven by
the necessities of competitive business, to plan their
strategy of mutual defeat and derangement on larger
and more intricate lines, with an ever wider reach
and a more massive mobilization of forces. From
which follows an ever increasing insecurity of work
and output from day to day and an increased as-
surance of general loss and disability in the long
run; incidentally coupled with increased hardship
for the underlying population, which comes in all
along as a subsidiary matter of course, unfortunate
but unavoidable. It is this visibly growing failure
of the present businesslike management to come up
to the industrial necessities of the case; its unfitness
to take anything like reasonable care of the needed
correlation of industrial forces within the system;
its continual working at cross purposes in the allo-
cation of energy resources, materials, and man
power—it is this fact, that any businesslike manage-
ment of necessity runs at cross purposes with the
larger technical realities of the industrial system,
that chiefly g«es to persuade apprehensive persons
that the regime of business enterprise is fast ap-
proaching the limit of tolerance. So it is held by
many that this existing system of absentee owner-
ship must presently break down and precipitate the
abdication of the Vested Interests, under conviction
of total imbecility.
The theory on which these apprehensive persons
proceed appears to be substantially sound, so far as
it goes, but they reach an unguardedly desperate
conclusion because they overlook one of the main
facts of the case. There is no reasonable exception
to be taken to the statement that the country's indus-
trial system is forever growing more extensive and
more complex; that it is continually taking on more
of the character of a close-knit, interwoven, sys-
tematic whole; a delicately balanced moving equi-
librium of working parts, no one of which can do its
work by itself at all, and none of which can do its
share of the work well except in close correlation
with all the rest. At the same time it is also true
that, in the commercialized nature of things, the
businesslike management of industry is forever
playing fast and loose with this delicately balanced
moving equilibrium of forces, on which the liveli-
hood of the underlying population depends from
day to day; more particularly is this true for that
large-scale business enterprise that rests on absentee
ownership and makes up the country's greater
Vested Interests. But to all this it is to be added,
as a corrective and a main factor in the case, that
this system of mechanical industry is an extremely
efficient contrivance for the production of goods and
services, even when, as usual, the business men, for
business reasons, will allow it to work only under a
large handicap of unemployment and obstructive
tactics. Hitherto the margin for error, that is to say
for wasteful strategy and obstructive ignorance, has
been very wide; so wide that it has saved the life
of the Vested Interests; and it is accordingly by no
means confidently to be believed that all these amp-
ler opportunities for swift and wide-reaching de-
rangement will enable the strategy of business enter-
prise to bring on a disastrous collapse, just yet.
It is true, if the country's productive industry
were competently organized as a systematic whole,
and were then managed by competent technicians
with an eye single to maximum production of goods
and services; instead of, as now, being manhandled
by ignorant business men with an eye single to
maximum profits; the resulting output of goods and
services would doubtless exceed the current output
by several hundred per cent. But then, none of all
that is necessary to save the established order of
things. All that is required is a decent modicum of
efficiency, very far short of the theoretical maximum
production. In effect, the community is in the habit
of getting along contentedly on something appreci-
ably less than one-half the output which its indus-
trial equipment would turn out if it were working
uninterruptedly at full capacity; even when, as us-
ual, something like one-half of the actual output is
consumed in wasteful superfluities. The margin for
waste and error is very wide, fortunately; and, in
effect, a more patient and more inclusive survey of
the facts in the case would suffice to show that the


1919
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THE DIAL
tenure of the Vested Interests is reasonably secure
just yet; at least in so far as it turns on considera-
tions of this nature. .
There is, of course, the chance, and it is by no
means a remote chance, that the rapidly increasing
volume and complexity of the industrial system may
presently bring the country's industry into such a
ticklish state of unstable equilibrium that even a
reasonable modicum of willful derangement can no
longer be tolerated, even for the most urgent and
most legitimate reasons of businesslike strategy and
vested rights. In time, such an outcome is presum-
ably due to be looked for. There is, indeed, no lack
of evidence that the advanced industrial countries
are approaching such a state of things, America
among the rest. The margin for error and wasteful
strategy is, in effect, being continually narrowed by
the further advance of the industrial arts. With
every further advance in the way of specialization
and standardization, in point of kind, quantity, qual-
ity, and time, the tolerance of the system as a whole
under any strategic maladjustment grows continu-
ally narrower.
How soon the limit of tolerance for willful de-
rangement is due to be reached, would be a hazard-
ous topic of speculation. There is now a fair'
prospect that the coming winter may throw some
light on that dark question; but this is not saying
that the end is in sight. What is here insisted on is
that that sinister eventuality lies yet in the future,
although it may be in the calculable future. So also
it is well to keep in mind that even a fairly disas-
trous collapse of the existing system of businesslike
management need by no means prove fatal to the
Vested Interests, just yet; not so long as there is no
competent organization ready to take their place
and administer the country's industry on a more rea-
sonable plan. It is necessarily a question of al-
ternatives.
In all this argument that runs on perennial dis-
location and cross purposes, it is assumed that the
existing businesslike management of industry is of
a competitive nature and necessarily moves on lines
of competitive strategy. As a subsidiary premise it
is, of course, also assumed that the captains of in-
dustry who have the direction of this competitive
strategy are ordinarily sufficiently ill informed on
technological matters to go wrong, industrially
speaking, even with the most pacific and benevolent
intentions. They are laymen in all that concerns
the technical demands of industrial production.
This latter, and minor, assumption therefore need
not be argued; it is sufficiently notorious. On the
other hand, the first assumption spoken of above,
that current business enterprise is of a competitive
nature, is likely to be questioned by many who be-
lieve themselves to be familiar with the facts in the
case. It is argued, by one and another, that the
country's business concerns have entered into con-
solidations, coalitions, understandings and working
arrangements among themselves—syndicates, trusts,
pools, combinations, interlocking directorates, gen-
tlemen's agreements, employers' unions—to such an
extent as virtually to cover the field of that large-
scale business that sets the pace and governs the
movements of the rest; and that where combination
takes effect in this way, competition ceases. So also
it will be argued that where there has been no form-
al coalition of interests the business men in charge
will still commonly act in collusion, with much the
same result. The suggestion is also ready to hand
that in so far as business like sabotage of this com-
petitive order is still to be met with, it can all be
corrected by such a further consolidation of inter-
ests as will do away with all occasion for competi-
tive cross purposes within the industrial system.
It is not easy to see just how far that line of argu-
ment would lead; but to make it effective and to
cover the case it would plainly have to result in so
wide a coalition of interests and pooling of man-
agement as would, in effect, eliminate all occasion
for businesslike management within the system, and
leave the underlying population quite unreservedly
at the disposal of the resulting coalition of interests
—an outcome which is presumably not contem-
plated. And even so, the argument takes account of
only one strand in that three-ply rope that goes to
fashion the fatal noose. The remaining two are
stout enough, and they have not been touched. It is
true, economists and others who have canvassed this
matter of competition have commonly given their
attention to this one line of competition alone—
between rival commercial interests—because this
competition is conceived to be natural and normal
and to serve the common good. But there remains
(a) the competition between those business men
who buy cheap and sell dear and the underlying
population from and to whom they buy cheap and
sell dear, and (b) the competition between the cap-
tains of industry and those absentee owners in
whose name and with whose funds the captains do
business. In the typical case, modern business en-
terprise takes the corporate form, is organized on
credit, and therefore rests on absentee ownership;
from which it follows that in all large-scale busi-
ness the owners are not the same persons as the
managers, nor does the interest of the manager com-
monly coincide with that of his absentee owners,
particularly in the modern "big business."
So it follows that even a coalition of Vested


344
October 18
THE DIAL
Interests which should be virtually all-inclusive,
would still have to make up its account with "what
the traffic will bear," that is to say what will bring
the largest net income in terms of price; that is to
say, the coalition would still be under the competi-
tive necessity of buying cheap and selling dear, to
the best of its ability and with the use of all the
facilities which its dominant position in the market
would give. The coalition, therefore, would still be
under the necessity of shrewdly limiting the output
of goods and services to such a rate and volume as
will maintain or advance prices; and also to vary
its manipulation of prices and supply from place
to place and from time to time, to turn an honest
penny; which leaves the case very near the point
of beginning. But then, such a remedy for these
infelicities of the competitive system will probably
be admitted to be chimerical, without argument.
But what is more to the point is the fact, known
even when it is not avowed, that the consolidations
which have been effected hitherto have not elim-
inated competition, nor have they changed the char-
acter of the competitive strategy employed, al-
though they have altered its scale and methods.
What can be said is that the underlying corpora-
tions of the holding companies, e.g., are no longer
competitors among themselves on the ancient foot-
ing. But strategic dislocation and cross purposes
continue to be the order of the day in the business-
like management of industry; and the volume of
habitual unemployment, whether of equipment or
of man power, continues undiminished and un-
ashamed—which is after all a major count in the
case.
It is well to recognize what the business men
among themselves always recognize as a matter of
course, that business is in the last analysis always
carried on for the private advantage of the individ-
ual business men who carry it on. And these enter-
prising persons, being business men, will always be
competitors for gain among themselves, however
much and well they may combine for a common
purpose as against the rest of the community. The
end and aim of any gainful enterprise carried
through in common is always the division of the
joint gains, and in this division the joint partici-
pants always figure as competitors. The syndi-
cates, coalitions, corporations, consolidations of in-
terests, so entered into in the pursuit, of gain are,
ill effect, in the nature of conspiracies between busi-
ness men each seeking his own advantage at the
cost of any whom it may concern. There is no
ulterior solidarity of interests among the partici-
pants in such a joint enterprise.
By way of illustration, what is set forth in the
voluminous testimony taken in the Colton case, be-
fore the California courts, having to do with the
affairs of the Southern Pacific and its subsidiaries,
will show in what fashion the businesslike incen-
tives of associated individuals may be expected to
work out in the partition of benefits within a given
coalition. And not only is there no abiding solidar-
ity of interests between the several participants in
such a joint enterprise, so far as regards the final
division of the spoils, but it is also true that the
business interest of the manager in charge of such a
syndicate of absentee ownership will not coincide
with the collective interest of the coalition as a
going concern. As an illustrative instance may be
cited the testimony of the great president of the
two Great Northern railways, taken before a Con-
gressional commission, wherein it is explained
somewhat fully that for something like a quarter-
century the two great roads under his management
had never come in for reasonable earnings on their
invested capital. And it is a matter of common
notoriety, although it was charitably not brought
out in the hearings of the commission, that during
his incumbency as manager of the two great rail-
way systems this enterprising railway president had
by thrift and management increased his own pri-
vate possessions from $20 to something variously
estimated at 8150,000,000 to $200,000,000; while
his two chief associates in this adventure had re-
tired from the management on a similarly comfort-
able footing; so notably comfortable, indeed, as to
have merited a couple of very decent peerages un-
der the British crown.
In effect, there still is an open call for shrewd
personal strategy at the cost of any whom it may
concern; all the while that there is also a very»
appreciable measure of collision among the Vested
Interests, at the cost of any whom it may concern.
Business is still competitive business, competitive
pursuit of private gain; as how should it not be?
seeing that the incentive to all business is after all
private gain at the cost of any whom it may con-
cern.
By reason of doctrinal consistency and loyalty
to tradition, the certified economists have habitu-
ally described business enterprise as a rational ar-
rangement for administering the country's indus-
trial system and assuring a full and equitable dis-
tribution of consumable goods to the consumers.
There need be no quarrel with that view. But it is
only fair to enter the reservation that, considered
as an arrangement for administering the country's
industrial system, business enterprise based on ab-
sentee ownership has the defects of its qualities;
and these defects of this good old plan are now


1919
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THE DIAL
calling attention to themselves. Hitherto, and ever
since the mechanical industry first came into the
dominant place in this industrial system, the de-
fects of this businesslike management of industry
have continually been encroaching more and more
on its qualities. It took its rise as a system of man-
agement by the owners of the industrial equipment,
and it has in its riper years grown into a system of
absentee ownership managed by quasi-responsible
financial agents. Having begun as an industrial
community which centered about an open market,
it has matured into a community of Vested Interests
whose vested right it is to keep up prices by a
short supply in a closed market. There is no ex-
travagance in saying that, by and large, this ar-
rangement for controlling the production and dis-
tribution of goods and services through the agency
of absentee ownership has now come to be, in the
main, a blundering muddle of defects. For the
purpose in hand, that is to say with a view to the
probable chance of any revolutionary overturn, this
may serve as a fair characterization of the regime
of the Vested Interests; whdse continued rule is
now believed by their Guardians to be threatened
by a popular uprising in the nature of Bolshevism.
Now, as to the country's industrial system which
is manhandled on this businesslike plan; it is a
comprehensive and balanced scheme of technolog-
ical administration. Industry of this modern sort
—mechanical, specialized, standardized, running to
quantity production, drawn on a large scale—is
highly productive; provided always that the neces-
sary conditions of its working are met in some
passable. fashion. These necessary conditions of
productive industry are of a well-defined technical
character, and they are growing more and more ex-
acting with every farther advance in the industrial
arts. This mechanical industry draws always more
and more largely and urgently on the natural
sources of mechanical power, and it necessarily
makes use of an ever increasingly wide and varied
range of materials, drawn from all latitudes and
all geographical regions, in spite of obstructive
national frontiers and patriotic animosities; for the
mechanical technology is impersonal and dispas-
sionate, and its end is very simply to serve human
needs, without fear or favor or respect of persons,
prerogatives, or politics. It makes up an indus-
trial system of an unexampled character—a me-
chanically balanced and interlocking system of
work to be done, the prime requisite of whose work-
ing is a painstaking and intelligent co-ordination
of the processes at work, and an equally painstak-
ing allocation of mechanical power and materials.
The foundation and driving force of it all is a
massive body by technological knowledge, of a
highly impersonal and altogether unbusinesslike
nature, running in close contact with the material
exactingly specialized, endlessly detailed, reaching
out into all domains of empirical fact.
Such is the system of productive work which has
grown out of the Industrial Revolution, and on the
full and free run of which the material welfare of
all the civilized peoples now depends from day to
day. Any defect or hindrance in its technical ad-
ministration, any intrusion of non-technical consi-
derations, any failure or obstruction at any point,
unavoidably results in a disproportionate set-back
to the balanced whole and brings a disproportion-
ate burden of privation on all these peoples whose
sciences, on which it draws freely at every turn—
as a going concern. There is no third party quali-
fied to make a colorable bid, or able to make good
the system.
It follows that those gifted, trained, and exper-
ienced technicians who now are in possession of
the requisite technological information and exper-
ience are the first and instantly indispensable fac-
tor in the everyday work of carrying on the coun-
try's productive industry. They now constitute the
General Staff of the industrial system, in fact;
whatever law and custom may formally say in pro-
test. The "captains of industry" may still vain-
gloriously claim that distinction, and law and cus-
tom still countenances their claim; but the captains
have no technological value, in fact.
Therefore any question of a revolutionary over-
turn, in America or in any other of the advanced
industrial countries, resolves itself in practical fact
into a question of what the guild of technicians
will do. In effect it is a question whether the dis-
cretion and responsibility in the management of
technicians, who speak for the industrial system
productive industry has come within the sweep of
the country's industry shall pass from the finan-
ciers, who speak for the Vested Interests, to the
its pretensions if it should make a bid. So long as
the vested rights of absentee ownership remain in-
tact, the financial powers—that is to say the Vested
Interests—will continue to dispose of the country's
industrial forces for their own profit; and so soon,
or so far, as these vested rights give way, the con-
trol of the people's material welfare will pass into
the hands of the technicians. There is no third
party.
The chances of anything like a Soviet in Amer-
ica, therefore, are the chances of a Soviet of tech-
nicians. And, to the due comfort of the Guardians
of the Vested Interests and the good citizens who
make up their background, it can be shown that


346
October 18
THE DIAL
anything like a Soviet of Technicians is at the most
a remote contingency in America. It is true, so
long as no such change of base is made, what is
confidently to be looked for is a regime of contin-
ued and increasing shame and confusion, hardship
and dissension, unemployment and privation, waste
and insecurity of person and property—such as the
rule of the Vested Interests in business has already
made increasingly familiar to all the civilized peo-
ples. But the vested rights of absentee ownership
are still embedded in the sentiments of the under-
lying population, and still continue to be the Pal-
ladium of the Republic; and the assertion is still
quite safe that anything like a Soviet of Technicians
is not a present menace to the Vested Interests in
America.
By settled habit the technicians, the engineers and
industrial experts, are a harmless and docile sort,
well fed on the whole, and somewhat placidly con-
tent with the "full dinner-pail" which the lieu-
tenants of the Vested Interests habitually allow
them. It is true, they constitute the indispensable
General Staff of that industrial system which feeds
the Vested Interests; but, hitherto at least, they
have had nothing to say in the planning and direc-
tion of this industrial system, except as employees
in- the pay of the financiers. They have, hitherto
been quite unreflectingly content to work piece-
meal, without much of an understanding among
themselves, unreservedly doing job-work for the
Vested Interests; and they have without much re-
flection lent themselves and their technical powers
freely to the obstructive tactics of the captains of
industry; all the while that the training which
makes them technicians is but a specialized exten-
sion of that joint stock of technological knowledge
that has been carried forward out of the past by
the community at large.
But it remains true that they and their dear-
bought knowledge of ways and means—dear-
bought on the part of the underlying community—
are the pillars of that house of industry in which
the Vested Interests continue to live. Without their
continued and unremitting supervision and direc-
tion the industrial system would cease to be a
working system at all; whereas it is not easy to
see how the elimination of the existing business-
like control could bring anything but relief and
heightened efficiency to this working system. The
technicians are indispensable to productive indus-
try of this mechanical sort; the Vested Interests
and their absentee owners are not The technicians
are indispensable to the Vested Interests and their
absentee owners, as a working force without which
there would be no industrial output to control or
divide; whereas the Vested Interests and their ab-
sentee owners are of no material consequence to
the technicians and their work, except as an ex-
traneous interference and obstruction.
It follows that the material welfare of all the
advanced industrial peoples rests in the hands of
these technicians, if they will only see it that way,
take counsel together, constitute themselves the
self-directing General Staff of the country's indus-
try, and dispense with the interference of the lieu-
tenants of the absentee owners. Already they are
strategically in a position to take the lead and im-
pose their own terms of leadership, so soon as they.
or a decisive number of them, shall reach a com-
mon understanding to that effect and agree on a
plan of action.
But there is assuredly no present promise of the
technicians' turning their insight and common
sense to such a use. There need be no present ap-
prehension. The technicians are a "safe and sane"
lot, on the whole; and they are pretty well com-
mercialized, particularly the older generation, who
speak with authority and conviction, and to whom
the younger generation of engineers defer, on the
whole, with such a degree of filial piety as sheuld
go far to reassure all good citizens. And herein
lies the present security of the Vested Interests, as
well as the fatuity of any present alarm about Bol-
shevism and the like; for the whole-hearted co-
operation of the technicians would be as indispens-
able to any effectual movement of overturn as their
unwavering service in the employ of the Vested
Interests in indispensable to the maintenance of the
established order.
Thorstein Veblen.
Maiden and Poet
On a wharf, a girl with simple eyes construing a sea-gull
Wondering why he of the poignant realms, who stories the wind in his flight,
Should fly so caressingly here by the river's oily margins, in the factories' shaken smoke.
But never, oh never, in the trembling dream of her days,
Can she know why the bird of the poignant realms
Caresses alike her soul and the factories' soiling smoke.
Bayarb Boyesen


THE DIAL
A FORTNIGHTLY
The Old Order and the New
lo WHAT EXTENT THE PSYCHOLOGY OF AN EN-
vironment and to what extent Marxian working
class psychology determines a labor policy is
well illustrated in the recent activ.ty of the or-
ganized railroad workers of England and the
United States. In both cases the railroad men
are approximately one hundred per cent organized.
In England exists a well-developed working class
opinion which has become aggressive since the
war and which—in contrast to the United States
—is intensive, extensive, and conscious. On ac-
count of this opinion it was possible for the rail-
road workers to effect a complete tieup. And it
was because the opinion was so well developed
that the state capitulated. The government played
its part in two short acts; the first was a heroic
pretense of resistance, the second a boisterous
surrender in the person of the British premier.
The Brotherhoods will not call a national strike
in the United States because they know that
there is no organized opinion which would sup-
port them. Opinion in the United States is
basically middle class. When the socialists of
the country admit that fact they will know
that the plan of the Railroad Brotherhoods for
the adm.nistration of the roads is as revolutionary
—or more so—»n its significance as a national strike
in any or all industries. The fact that the Amer-
ican working man has persistently considered him-
self as good a6 anyone else, as belonging to no
class, is partly accountable for the emergence of
a revolutionary program under the auspices of
the most middle class labor group. This pro-
gram of the railroad workers is acceptable to
middle class American workingmen because it is
a recognition that the workers are as good as
anybody else, are fit for status and responsibility.
Instead of lining up with wage slaves in a strike
for wages they line up under the Brotherhood
propos tion with industrial management. By a
different road the British workers have been
more or less consciously approaching this posi-
tion. For many years the guild socialists of
England have been urging the new union plan;
in the past months it has made remarkable gains
and the principle back of the plan is understood
there as it is not yet understood among the mass
of workers here. The year of grace which the
government granted the British railroad men may
be all the t me British labor will need to trans-
form the theory of labor control of industry
into a policy of organization. It looks as though
a year of agitation of the Plumb Plan League
might also convert the organized workers of this
country. The common result in both countries
is precipitated by industrial necessity. The guild
socialists had the keeness to forecast the necessity
and have done more than any other group in
England to prepare the workers for a policy of
industrial control. The syndicalists and the In-
dustrial Workers of the World had also before
the war aroused a certain recognition the world
over of the principle of labor control. It was the
war, however, in discrediting bureaucratic manage-
ment that was the greater clarifier of industrial
issues and is now pressing on the conservative labor
forces a new vision and revolutionary drive.
JVOLCHAK, THEY SAY, HAS NOT BEEN RECOGNIZED.
Lenin, too, remains outside the pale. The ship-
ment of food to Soviet Russia would involve us
in something like a recognition of the Bolshevist
Government, and must therefore be prohibited.
The shipment of munitions to Kolchak proceeds,
however—with what diplomatic implications the
State Department may best testify. Recognition
or no recognition—what does it matter? Shortly
before Ambassador Morris' visit to Omsk, Paul
S. Reinsch, United States Minister to China,
transmitted to Washington certain American con-
sular reports which pronounced Kolchak a reac-
tionary and stated that he was much distrusted
by the Siberian population. With some show of
uncertainty the press reported that Ambassador
Morris' preliminary reports in a general way
substantiated those transmitted by Reinsch, and
were unfavorable to the recognition of the Si-
berian dictator. About this time the Allied diplo-
mats at Omsk were addressed to the following ef-
fect by Kolchak: i
In an hour of trial the Admiral took upon himself the
burden of supreme power. He did this with the approval
and advice of the Allies, who promised unlimited support
in the struggle against the Bolshevist Government. Un-
fortunately, the period which has elapsed since then has
demonstrated the assistance furnished by the Allies to have
been inadequate, to say the least, compared with the scale
required for the success of the struggle ... If this
lingering and hesitating attitude toward the Government
and its activity should continue, the Supreme Ruler will
hold that he has no right to bear the heavy responsibility
for the outcome and consequences of the struggle which is
to decide the fate of Russia, . . .
The effect of these words was marvelous, if we


348
October 18
THE DIAL
are to believe the journal already quoted, for:
The representatives of the United States and Japan, after
communicating with their Governments, deemed the decla-
rations of the Supreme Ruler to be quite right and meriting
full satisfaction. . . . The Allied powers expressed
their readiness immediately to increase the volume of all
necessary supplies for the army and for the rear to the ex-
tent indicated in the Government plan. . . .
Accurate or not, the story 'is interesting. Cer-
tainly Ambassador Morris reversed his original
position and recommended recognition and eco-
nomic aid for Kolchak. Certainly, too, the "ne-
cessary supplies" have been dispatched regularly
from Pacific ports to the reactionary forces that
have become our special charge. It has remained
for the direct actionists of the Pacific coast to make
the first effective effort to stop the murderous busi-
ness that has reduced our liberals to wet-eyed im-
potence. Two methods of breaking the blockade
suggest themselves. The United States Government
may buy the war material, handle it with military
labor, and float it in army transports; so far as is
known, this proceedure has not yet been attempted.
Or the munitions trade may- be left in private
hands, and military labor and military bottoms
may be used to move the goods. Secretary Baker
certainly recognizes the possibilities of this type
of indirect action, for it is reported that he has
recommended that a bill be introduced into Con-
gress authorizing the War Department to carry
commercial cargoes on army transports. But even
if the bill is passed it is possible that shipments
of munitions may be tied up by a refusal of the
railroad workers to move the material from the
factories to the ports. And the Administration
will hardly dare to propose the militarization of
the railways, even in Kolchak's cause.
It is no peculiarity of the steel strike that it
lends itself to description in terms of the battle-
field. What is alarming in the present situation
is the tendency of the government to single out
the strikers as the enemy. That tendency unfor-
tunately gives support to all the syndicalist doc-
trines which Mr. W. Z. Foster affected to repu-
diate before the Senate Committee. It is not
enough that milltown officials should preserve the
kind of law and order favorable to the steel cor-
porations' view of the strike, by prohibiting pub-
lic meetings and recklessly breaking into private
ones, and thus creating a spurious identity be-
tween public and private interests. Nor is it
enough that the Pennsylvania State Constabulary
should deliberately provoke bloodshed on the
strictly Prussic ground that peaceable public con-
sultations are given inherently to disorder. In
order to prove conclusively to the strikers the
impartiality of the Federal Government and the
lofty neutrality of the state, the Department of
Justice arrived on the scene at an early stage
and put into operation the machinery whereby
the commonplaces of sociology and politics, in
the mouth of a foreign leader, become punishable
as sedition and incitement to riot. On top of
the gratuitous Federal activity in the steel
centers, came the announcement from Washing-
ton of a new policy of employing the military
arm: a War Department order that places the com-
mandants of Federal army districts at the immedi-
ate call of state governors, without having the re-
quest countersigned at Washington. In connection
with race rioting such a move would seem sufficient-
ly innocent, although this new association of mili-
tary and civil authority in a strictly local situattion
is sufficiently a departure from the American tradi-
tion to tempt the historian to inquire whether every
Waterloo brings a Peterloo inevitably in its wake.
But the use of the Federal troops in the Gary dis-
trict under the same terms that permitted their em-
ployment in Omaha is an invidious reflection
against the working population. As indicative of
the animus of the Federal Government this would
be a grave enough indictment of the new method
of dealing with "disorder." But this is not alL
The direct action of Federal troops divorces the
power of the Federal Government from the re-
sponsibility of exercising that power prudently:
the reckless institution of martial law and military
infringements of constitutional guarantees now
rest solely in the discretion of local authorities
whose infirmity in keeping within constitutional
bounds is already notorious. Is there anything
to differentiate democratic twentieth century
America's way of dealing with industrial disputes
ftom that of oligarchic nineteenth century Eng-
land? Is Wood an improvement on Wellington?
Is public authority in America disinterested and
enlightened and humane and above all—neutral?
The worker who began the strike as a disciple of
Herbert Spencer in the belief that the state was
merely a nuisance might well, in the light of
these provocations, come out of it as a follower
of Sorel in the conviction that the state was an
active enemy. This is the deplorable upshot of
the steel strike. In comparison with it the in-
dustrial results are insignificant.
EDITORS
Martyn Johnson
Oswald W. Knauth
Robert Morss Lovett
Helen Marot
Thorstein Veblen
Associates
Clarence Britten
Lewis Mumford
Geroid Robinson
.


1919
349
THE DIAL
Communications
The Belgian-Dutch Quarrel
Sm: The publication of the fake dispatch
about a Belgian-Dutch rupture has given occasion
for all sorts of untrue and insulting comment on
the part Holland has played during the war and
since the armistice and especially in the course
of her present negotiations with Belgium. As a
matter of fact, I find upon my return in this coun-
try that no European neutral had received such
shabby and unfair treatment in the American press
as Holland. Every morning, one can find one or
two in just "digs at the Hague Government,
coupled with silly charges that the Dutch people
are "pro-German" and as some witty writer put
it the other day "in the pay of Potsdam." It is
difficult to discover why such indignities should
have been piled on the Dutch, while the other
neutrals of Europe, some of whom maintained
a most questionable attitude throughout the war,
are being treated with every kid-gloved courtesy.
The present negotiations which are being con-
ducted under the watchful regard of the Big (are
they really so big?) Five (are there really five?)
with the object of reshuffling the treaties of 1839
can be considered as a case in point. Little is
knewn outside Belgium and Holland of these
treaties of 1839, little is known in America re-
garding the Belgian claims and the Dutch attitude,
rnd yet everybody considers that Belgium must be
in the right, and Holland in the wrong, without
further ado. The matter, roughly, is one in which
both parties could reach a satisfactory solution,
were it not for the activities of a clique of im-
perialists, active both in Holland and Belgium,
who cannot be content, so they say, with arbitra-
tion and insist on wanting "the whole hog, or
none.""
What does Belgium watit of Holland? Simply
the control over the mouth of the Scheldt, and a
frontier rectification along the Meuse. I pur-
posely say "Belgium" and not the Belgian ex-
tremists, who hope not only that Belgium will
rule the waves of both rivers, but that she will an-
nex vast portions of Holland, where staunch and
patriotic Hollanders live in the hope of dying as
Hollanders too. It is quite true—and nobody even
in Holland denies it—that the treaties of 1839
should be remodelled, especially as they were
based on the understanding that Belgium should re-
main "perpetually neutral." The neutrality of Bel-
gium is dead. Therefore the treaties which found
their origin and their raison d'etre in this neutrality
must perforce be adapted to the present novel con-
ditions. Under the former treaties, Holland was
granted a sort of right of police over the lower
Scheldt; the Belgians now claim that Antwerp,
their only large harbor, was thereby placed under
a serious physical disadvantage. But is this quite
true? Had not Antwerp, even under that "seri-
ous physical disadvantage," become before the
war one of the most important harbors of Europe?
Had it not forestalled Rotterdam and Bremen
and Marseilles? How could that have been pos-
sible if the Dutch had really misused their rights
over the lower Scheldt with a selfish view of
harming Antwerp to help Rotterdam, their new
leading harbor? I lived many years in Belgium
before the war and never heard any com-
plaint regarding the manner in which the Dutch
exercised their sovereignty over the mouth of the
Scheldt. These complaints became loud only
after the armistice. Why? Simply because it
would be easy to persuade the Big Five to au-
thorize the annexation by Belgium of the portion
of Zeelandish Flanders comprised between the
Belgian-Dutch frontier and the lower Scheldt if
a case could be made out against the Dutch for
misusing their privileges over the mouth of that
great river and if it could be proven that Belgium
had suffered greatly at the hands of a greedy, self-
ish, and inconsiderate neighor.
Of course one of these charges against Holland
is a by-product of the war itself. Belgium ac-
cuses Holland of having kept the Scheldt closed
ever since the war began, thereby making it im-
possible for the Allies to relieve Antwerp. It is
quite true that Holland did that, and truer still
that she had to do it, and that this attitude was
incumbent upon her as a consequence of her neu-
trality. Had Holland's closing of the Scheldt
been contrary to the stipulations of existing treat-
ies or to international law nobody doubts that
the Allies would have found some means of forc-
ing her into another attitude. Holland, in acting
as she did, simply did her duty as a neutral
power. And the fulfilment of that duty, curiously
enough, may have handicaped the Belgians during
the siege of Antwerp (though every military ex-
pert will tell you that it would have been impos-
sible for the British fleet steaming up to Ant-
werp to prevent the capture of the city), but it
handicaped the Germans to a far greater degree,
for with the Scheldt closed by neutral Holland,
Antwerp could not be made a submarine base.
With regard to the Meuse, the situation is dif-
ferent. The configuration of the Belgian-Dutch
frontier through Limburg is ill-adapted to Bel-
gium's military defence. But the Meuse area in
dispute includes the city of Maastricht, which is
Dutch and wants to remain Dutch, and it also
includes Holland's only coal mines, without which
Holland cannot maintain an independent indus-
trial existence. It is very kind of the Belgians
to offer Holland in exchange of the Maastricht
enclave a slice of Germany, which Holland does
not want. The statesmen at The Hague contend
that if Europe is going to rebuild on the basis of
self-determination for all nationalities, the annexa-
tion of Zeelandish Flanders and of portions of


350
October 18
THE DIAL
Dutch Limburg by Belgium on the plea of com-
mercial and military necessity would be an act of
gross injustice and of unquestioned political im-
morality. Therefore, Holland has opposed a
absolute non possumus to any proposal for the
annexation of Dutch territory, with or without
''compensations."
Holland is only too anxious to "speak" with
Belgium in a cordial and open way, and there
should be many responsible statesmen in Belgium
who share Holland's moderate and fair views. But
it seems that for some time moderation, which
used to be a Belgian quality, had been Hndiscov-
erable in Brussels, as a consequence of Belgium's
share in a glorious victory. This is not sur-
prising, but it is regrettable. If moderation can
not induce some of the Belgian annexationists to
discuss the whole problem with the Dutch, the
rememberance of the exceptional kindness and
generosity shown to the Belgians who took refuge
in Holland during the war should certainly help
in that direction. Holland in that respect certainly
did wonders, in spite of the great and painful
hardships she herself suffered through the double
blockade by England and Germany. In spite of
that precarious position "between the hammer and
the anvil," Holland oudid all other neutrals in
helpfulness and warm-hearted generosity. It is
now up to the Belgians to deal with Holland with
the greatest fairness, to discuss with her the grave
European problems that confront both nations in
a spirit of wisdom, moderation, and honesty, if
not actually of thankfulness. Holland is ready for
that discussion, on condition that Belgium does
not demand her to cut her throat to please her
neighbors. Belgium has fought magnificently for
the highest principles that rule international rela-
tionship between civilized peoples. It is up to
her to live up to these principles, among which
self-determination is the first and foremost, and to
find (with the help and even, if need be, with
the cordial pressure of the great powers) a solu-
tion by which Belgium and Holland can live at
peace without the rights of one Dutch citizen hav-
ing been violated, and without one frontier mile-
stone having been removed.
Rene Feibelman.
New York City.
After Us the Deluge
Sir: Can you not forget the Peace Treaty,
Wilson, and other inconsequential matters for a
day and give a little attention to the more im-
portant matter of the weather. We had forty-three
rainy days last month and more than •thirty Mar-
blehead washerwomen committed suicide. If this
thing keeps on every woman will have to do her
own washing and the whole order of creation will
thereby be set at naught.
Walter C. Hunter.
Marblehead, Mass.
Notes on New Books
Deadham Hard. By Lucas Malet. 503 pages.
Dodd, Mead.
In this novel, mid-Victorian not only in period
but in characters and in handling of materials, the
reader follows Damaris Verity through three years
of her life. The milestones in her development
from an over imaginative child of eighteen to a
disillusioned woman of twenty-one are dwelt on
in detail and at length. The author educates Da-
maris by introducing her abruptly to her father's
Byronic past in the shape "of a half-brother, whom
she learns to love dearly; by bringing into her life,
for a social mentor, an old flame of her father's;
by the death of her father and finally by a love
affair with his old friend. Out of all this Damaris
emerges, still a mid-Victorian heroine and one not
likely to interest and convince readers much beyond
her own age. She has too little of the brave quality
demanded by the public of today. Indeed, in many
respects, there seems little difference between the
Damaris of eighteen who faints and develops a
high fever when Darcy Faircloth announces that he
is her brother and the Damaris of twenty-one who
gives way to fits of jealousy and anger and who
cannot face death. When her dying father sends
for her and says, "My affairs are in order," Damaris
shrinks piteously and expostulates, "Oh! But must
we, are we obliged to speak of those things? They
grate on me—they are ugly. They hurt." As in
Sir Richard Calmady there seems to be a straining
after unpleasant incident. In this connection, as
in many others, the author states her own philo-
sophy:
Most of us are so constituted that at a certain put
pleasure—of a sort—is to be derived from witnessing tilt
anguish of a fellow creature.
And when Damaris lies overcome by grief, the lines
of her gracious body outlined by the embroidered
linen quilt, her father, contemplating her grief,
"found indeed a strangely vital, if somewhat cruel
satisfaction in looking on at it"
The construction, too, has a tendency to lead
down blind alleys. Tom Verity, who enters the
second chapter with all the attendant circumstance
of a hero, holds the scene for fifty pages and then
drops out. Once thereafter a letter from him causes
Damaris to blush, and he is among those present
at a funeral in the last chapter, but that is alL
Darcy Faircloth, the brother, sails away to Japan.
Still there are vivid touches, the ghostly atmosphere
of the old house is well produced and a genuine
feeling for nature runs through the book. Much
care has gone to the portrayal of character, so that
the men and women run true to Victorian type and
form in their humorless blending of shocked pro-
priety with an easy acceptance of the sowing and
reaping of the wild-oat crop.


1919
351
THE DIAL
The Open Court Series of Mathematical Books
Lectures on the Philosophy of Mathematics.
By James Byrnie Shaw. 193 pages. Cloth $1.50
Mr. Shaw has surveyed the whole field of mathematics,
its imperishable truth, its utilitarian value, and its
success in stimulating the growth of the power of in*
vention.
Non-Euclidean Geometry.
A critical and historical study of its development by
Roberto Bonola. Authorized EnglUh translation with
additional appendices by H. S. Carslaw, professor at
the University of Sydney, N.S.W., and an introduction
by Federigo Enriques, professor in the University of
Bologna. 12.00.
The Works of William Oughtred.
'By Florian Cajori. Cloth, $1.00.
William Oughtred was a seventeenth-century divine who
followed mathematics as a pastime. He taught mathe-
matics to a seleot number of pupils, two of whom were
Christopher Wren and Isaac Newton; and he invented
a number of mathematical instruments, among them the
slide rule.
Contributions to the Founding of the Theory
of Transfinite Numbers.
By George Cantor. Translated and provided with an
introduction and notea by Philip E. B. Jourdain, H. A.
Cloth. $1.25.
The Geometrical Lectures of Isaac Barrow.
Translated from a first edition oopy by J. M. Childs,
B. A., Cloth, $1.00. The translator claims to have dis*
covered in these lectures an absolutely complete ele*
mentary treatise on the infinitesimal calculus.
Foundations of Mathematics.
By Dr. Paul Carus. Cloth, 75c.
The enormous significance of the formal sciences makes
it desirable that anyone who attempts to philosophize
should understand the nature of mathematics.
The Algebra of Logic.
By Louis Couturat. Cloth, $1.50.
The primary significance of a symbolic calculus seems
to lie in the economy of mental effort.
Essays on Numbers.
By Richard Dedekind. 75c
Two essays which attempt to supply a scientific founda-
tion for arithmetic. Translated by W. W. Beman.
On the Study and Difficulty of Mathematics.
By A. De Morgan. Cloth, $1.25.
This book treats the various points which involve dif-
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Elementary Illustrations of the Differential
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By A. Be Morgan. Cloth, $1.00.
The fundamental principles of the calculus and historical
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A Budget of Paradoxes.
By A. De Morgan. 2 vols. Cloth, $2.50 each.
As a piece of delicious satire upou the efforts of the
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The Science Absolute of Space.
By Janos Bolyai. Cloth,. $1.00.
Independent of the truth or falsity of Euclid's Axiom XI.
Translated from the Latin by George Bruce Halsted.
Archimedes' Method of Geometrical Solutions
Derived From Mechanics.
Recently discovered and translated from the Creek by
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The Problems of Science.
By Federigo Enriques. Authorised translation by Kath-
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A Brief History of Mathematics.
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A systematic attempt' to show the gTowth of arithmetic,
algebra, geometry and trigonometry. Translated by W. W.
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On the Foundation and Technic of Arithmetic,
By G. B. Halsted. Cloth, $1.00.
An enthusiastic and practical presentation of arithmetic
for the use of teachers.
The Foundations of Geometry.
By David Hilbert. Cloth, $1.00.
An attempt to choose for geometry a simpler and com-
plete set of independent axioms. Translated by E. J.
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Lectures of Elementary Mathematics.
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A reading book in mathematics by one of the greatest
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Space and Geometry.
By Ernst Mach. Cloth, $1.00.
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out concepts of space, from the points of view of
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Fundamental Conceptions of Modern Mathe-
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By Robert P. Richardson and Edward H. Landle. Cloth,
91.25. This .work doals not with the technicalities of
mathematics or with its application as an art, but with
the basis for its scientific development.
Geometrical Exercises in Paper-Folding.
By T. Sundara Row. Cloth, $1.00.
The book is simply a revelation in paper.folding. All
aorta of things ace dene with the paper square and a
large number of geometric figures are constructed and
explained in the simpl*»t way.
A History of Japanese Mathematics.
By David E. Smith and Yoshio Mikami. $2.00.
The book show, the nature of the mathematics in-
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The History and Root of the Principle of the
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By Ernst Mach. Translated by Philip E.
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Send for a complete catalog of the works of
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352
October 18
THE DIAL
The Old Madhouse. By William De Morgan.
565 pages. Holt.
This is the last addition which the confirmed De
Morganite can ever make to the row of fat blue-
and-gold. volumes on his shelves. This fact alone
would secure respectful treatment for The Old
Madhouse, even if it were inferior to its predeces-
sors. But it isn't. Except for the first flow of his
genius in Joseph Vance, De Morgan never did bet-
ter work than this. It reveals no new characteristics,
but the old ones are present in undiminished force.
It adds, in the person of Nancy Fraser, one more
to that group of young women—second in English
literature only to Jane Austen's—who are neither
brilliant prodigies like Meredith's, nor convention-
ignoring goddesses like Hewlett's, but ordinary, lov-
able human girls. Mrs. Carteret must rank with
Mrs. Nightingale as her author's most sympathetic
portrayal of a middle-aged mother; Lucy Snaith is
another Delilah like Judith Arkroyd, drawn with
remorseless insight.
The story, not quite complete when its author
died, was finished from his notes by Mrs. De Mor-
gan. Her postscript on her husband's method of
composition is worth noting:
When my husband started on one of his novels, he did
so without making any definite plot. He created his char-
acters and then waited for them to act and evolve their
own plot. In this way the puppets in the show became real
living personalities to him, and he waited, as he expressed
it, " to see what they would do next."
This suggests a doubt. Is there not a possibility
that some contemporary novelists, with their em-
phasis on structure, are going wrong—are tending
to produce something analogous to the "well-built"
plays of Eugene Scribe? The Old Madhouse, as a
a matter of fact, has a more closely knit plot than
most of De Morgan's novels, but "no one is going
to remember it, any more than one remembers the
plot—if there is any—of Vanity Fair. But when
we contrast the extraordinary vitality of the people
created by De Dorgan and the great Victorians with
the carefully-painted puppets who so neatly per-
form the actions required of them by the plot of
the well-built modern novel, we cannot escape at
least a momentary suspicion that De Morgan, in
placing character first, has chosen the better part.
A Childhood in Brittany Eighty Years Ago.
By Anne Douglas Sedwick. 224 pages. Cen-
tury.
In this "little sheaf of childish memories" the
author has set down the recollections of an old
French friend. There is none of the subtlety of
Tante or The Encounter here; only a charming
simplicity with the exquisite clearness of a silhou-
ette. Not the least of its charm is the personality
of the little girl of eighty years ago. One sees in
her both the beautiful, high-spirited mother and her
gay, imperturbable father. Sophie is sweet and
wilful, dainty and democratic. She enjoys the so-
ciety—and the black bread and butter—of old
Kersiflan, the lodge keeper, quite as much as 6he
likes being the pet of the great Marquis de L., who
plays his flute for her and teaches her to enter
a room gracefully. Her memories of the people
of her childhood are very vivid, and her character
drawing is delicate and sure. Just as present in
her mind are the high-heeled slippers of Tante
Rose, the border of golden oak leaves on Grand-
father de Rosval's cloak and the orange velvet in
which bonne maman looked like an old fairy. She
recalls with zest the delicious Breton crepes made
of malaga-flavored batter and the roasted sheep's
tails on silver spits . No doubt her memory of the
grass, which her cousin Jules insisted she learn to
eat to be ready in case of famine, is even more
vivid. The keen, restrained humor of the telling is
quite Gallic. It is not one story but many. It is
like an old brocade with the sun shining suddenly
and warmly upon it, bringing out the many-colored
silk threads and the intricate pattern woven into
an exquisite whole. Paul de Leslie's illustrations,
delicate of line and with few and salient details,
are in sympathy with the text.
The Heart's Domain. By Georges Duhamel.
Translated by Eleanor Stimson Brooke. 199
pages. Century.
The New Book of Martyrs. By Georges Du-
hamel. Translated by Florence Simmons. 221
pages. Doran.
Compagnons. By Georges Duhamel. 125
pages. Nouvelle Revue Francaise, Paris.
Readers of Bertrand Russell may cite Georges
Duhamel as a conspicuous example of the recovery
of the human soul in the face of a staggering uni-
verse. Living four years in a world of intensified
malignity, he returns, not with the sap of his soul
dried up, but with it flowing richer and freer than
ever. He has recoiled with a complete denial from
an industrial and scientific civilization to take refuge
in the interior life, in the cultivation of the soul.
In the midst of nauseating wounds he has pro-
claimed anew the will-to-happiness. "Happiness is
not only the aim, the reason of life: it is its prov-
ince, its expression, its essence. It is life itself.
Happiness, you are the aim and reason for my ex-
istence. I know that even in my tears." True riches,
he decided while his ears were still assaulted by
cannon-roars, are the quiet virtues of the soul. And
he develops at length the last sentence of his previ-
ous book, Civilization—that civilization must be
found in the heart of man. Mankind has heard this
message many times before, but the force, the fer-
vor, the contagious conviction with which Duhamel
utters it has not been exemplified for a long time.
The New Book of Martyrs, taken as a whole, is even
more convincing than the earlier books, but it
still falls somewhat short of the possibilities of
the subject. To do full justice to so tremendous a


1919
353
THE DIAL
The Story of the Effect of the War
on One Man's Mind and Spirit
LIGHT
by the author of
UNDER FIRE
Henri Barbusse
SI.90 net.
Over a year ago, Mr. Erneit Poole wrote: "By all odds
the moit significant book I have read in the la«t year is
UNDER FIRE. That seems to tower above all war stories
that have yet been written. And still I feel that the
greatest stories of the war will not be written in this
vein. . . . Though the author shows again and again
that if he cares to he can give the most terribly revealing
glimpses into the soul of a man, ... he seems to keep
showing us masses. ... I think that a greater novel
will be written by an author who will say "the most
significant thing of the war is the story of its effect on
one man's mind and spirit," and I shall be very greatly
surprised if some one of the Russian writers—perhaps
one we have never heard of yet—does not write this book
for which I am waiting."
Meanwhile M. Barbusse himself has written that greater novel
FICTION
Lad: A Dog
By ALBERT PAYSON TERHUNE. "How
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The Street of Adventure
By PHILIP GIBBS, based upon his own early
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the newspaper centre of the world.
New ed. $1.90
The Man With the Lamp
By JANET LAING. Involves interesting char-
acters, touched off with rich humor, in a
most ingenious and uncommon plot. $1.90
The Betrayers
By HAMILTON DRUMMOND. A brilliant
historical novel of the 13th century
struggle in which Pope Innocent IV.
laid the curse of the Church on Freder-
ick II., a scene finely described. $1.90
The Homestead
By ZEPHINE HUMPHREY. The restraint
which an inherited home may exert is
indicated with a delicacy and insight
that has real charm. $1.90
Little Houses
By GEORGE WODEN. "A splendid first
novel," says the New York Sun, com-
menting on its maturity of observation,
interest and admirable handling of inci-
dents. $1.90
Silver and Gold
By DANE COOLIDGE. Fairly dripping with
genuine Western local color and humor.
A capital story. $1.75
MISCELLANEOUS
Art and the Great War
By ALBERT EUGENE GALLATIN. An im-
portant record of the vital art of the
war years. Illustrated with 100 full-page
plates, three of them in color. $15.00
The War in Cartoons
Compiled and edited by GEORGE J. HECHT.
One hundred cartoons which present the
high lights of the war's progress and
are representative of America's most
prominent cartoonists $2.50
The Little Flowers of St. Francis
Translated by THOMAS OKEY, with 30 plates
in full color from the famous drawings
by EUGENE BURNAND. A work of
exquisite beauty. In press.
The France I Know
By WINIFRED STEPHENS. Contrasts of
yesterday and today are here so group-
ed as to suggest the France of tomor-
row. K00
A Dog Day: or The Angel in the House
By WALTER EMANUEL. Illustrated by
CECIL ALDIN. To be fully appreciated
only by the owners of an energetic pup
stuffed with curiosity. $1.00
The Labor Situation in Great Britain
and France
The report of the "Commission on Foreign
Inquiry," sent by the National Civic
Federation in 1919, to investigate the
labor situation abroad. $2.50
The Anatomy of Society
By GILBERT CANNAN. A series of brilliant
studies of modern society, its defects
and its conservative forces. $2.00
MARE NOSTRUM By vicente blasco ibanez
The critics say of.it—
The Mediterranean is every bit as fascinating a heroine as one can imagine in a novel.—Chicago Post.
Comparable to nothing we have ever read of the sea, and as a novel it is tremendous.—New York Tribune.
We like it immensely.—Chicago Daily News. »i°°
POSTAGE EXTRA
ALL PRICES NET
E. P. DUTT0N & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
NEW YORK
When writing to advertisers please mention The Dial.


354
October 18
THE DIAL
sacrifice is beyond the art of man, but M. Duhamel
fails to equal even the dubious adequacy of Andre
Fribourg's Croire. Still, there is a simple, poignant
realism in this collection of sketches of the pano-
rama of pain and fortitude witnessed by a French
military surgeon that goes far to compensate for
the irritating style in which it is written. M. Du-
hamel knows the tortured life he portrays, and only
those who have gazed upon the same suffering can
realize how terribly real it is, this "learning to
live in Death's company." He has trodden those
gloomy corridors carpeted with pain, between the
long rows of cots laden with despair; and the stories
he tells of the sufferers, these martyrs of a new age,
are not mere fictions: they are genuine, heartrend-
ing planges dc vie, of a life terrible to contemplate,
told with a rare simplicity and lighted by a splen-
did sympathy. They are a new Ave, Caesar, mori-
turi te salutant. Nietzsche says that suffering en-
nobles: and surely it is no common nobility to
which their martyrdom has raised these men. It is
a spiritual exaltation that fills their souls and tran-
scends the sordidity and the commonplaces of their
lives, and imparts to them a higher vision which
they feel within them even if they cannot under-
stand it. M. Duhamel has seen these things in the
dying eyes of his countrymen, and he passes them
on to us in The New Book of Martyrs.
In contrast to the constructive but gloomy irony
of Civilization and the rather patent pathos of
La Vie des Martyrs, the simplicity and sympathy
with which his little volume of poems, Compagnons,
is written are a delightful change. In it he is purely
the poet of the people, a sort of French Whitman,
free from all the barbarity of the American poet,
and imbued with the delicate touch of his late com-
rade in arms, Francois Coppee. For that very
reason, however, Duhamel is likely to be lost to
the American public. Inspired as he is with the
doctrines of Whitman, he lacks the latter's verbose
strength to hammer his way into recognition; his
national characteristic exhibits itself too profoundly
in a sort of maladive super-sympathy with his fel-
lowmen for his voice to be heard long above the
noise and clatter of American industry. Yet his
poetry is distinctly the poetry of the laboring man,
the poetry of human sympathy; in his own words
it is the poetry of "cordiality." It is not the form
nor the nuance that Duhamel seeks, it is the naked
truth, and that truth, itself, has no significance for
him unless it be universal. His book, Compagnons,
might be considered as the logical reaction against
the estrangement which has developed between
modern man and his fallows, as a direct protest
against the creation df a human automaton which
performs its social functions without any special
regard for the other members of its society. Du-
hamel attains his purpose through a medium purged
of all superfluity, a medium of verse reduced to the
fundamentals of grace and simplicity. In the poet-
ry of Compagnons suggestion and symbolism are
everything, the words themselves have little or no
direct connotation. Yet Duhamel is no doctrinaire,
he belongs to no fixed school of thought. He is
merely a poet of the awakened conscience, preach-
ing the doctrines of a regenerate Christianity.
John Stuyvesant and Others. By Alvin
Johnson. 252 pages. Harcourt, Brace and
Howe.
This is a group of short stories, shorter stories,
and sketches. The longest and most fully developed
is the first, John Stuyvesant Ancestor. In this, as
in the others, the emphasis is heaviest on character,
with a social problem lurking in the background.
John Stuyvesant is a most lovable baby, rather too
summarily dismissed when the plot no longer needs
him. The irritable, doggedly well-doing school
principal who resents any intrusion upon his work
finds his very foundations overturned at last when
his intelligent wife refuses to fit any longer into
his preconceived plan of things. Their "circle"
with its footless discussions conjures up rare pic-
tures—Miss Piatt, for instance, going through the
eugenics report "like a bandsaw ripping through
a log, knots and all."
The plot is slight. Indeed throughout the book,
plot is. a negligible factor. Some of the sketches
dispense with it altogether, substituting a point in-
stead, and driving it home with well-placed blows.
The woman question is the theme of a bit of keen
satire in Suh-Ho in Praise of Footbinding. The
same problem is touched upon sympathetically in
several sketches. Its eternal obstacles come in for a
good-natured buffeting in Phyllis the Feminist and
Ivan the Terrible. Carnegied and The Molting of
Alcibiades reveal another phase of natural law—the
impossibility of being original about growing old.
Alcibiades' revolt over having all his actions pre-
determined and labeled as the ones to be expected
in a man past his prime is pathetic.
Mr. Johnson has evidently been reading humanity
for a long time and at close range. He has, be-
sides, a trained intuition, the gift of swift, illuminat-
ing definition and description. There is no waste
diction, no straining after points. He introduces
us to a number of people, most of them at outs
with the world as they find it, and all of them
dealt with from the standpoint of the social re-
former, who pigeonholes people as so many social
problems. Thus we meet the feminist, the liberal,
the mob, the professor, the inventor, and even "the"
poor Indian. We are reminded of the Bab Ballad:
Come, step it, thirty-eight,
And thirty-eight steppad out.
Still the people of the stories are not merely stock
samples of the human race. They possess indi-
viduality in spite of their habit of falling readily
into classes. Like his Gustav, Kieselbacher, Mr.
Johnson "sees things double, science and life."


1919
355
THE DIAL

James Branch Cabell's
Newest Book
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356
October 18
THE DIAL
Books of the Fortnight
The Troth about China and Japan, by B. L. Putnam
Weale (248 pages; Dodd, Mead), throws pro-Chinese
reinforcements into the battle of words that rages
around Shantung. The diplomatic background of
today's discussion is described with some care, and
the account is supplemented with reprints of the
Lansing-Ishii notes and numerous Skio-Japanese state
papers of recent date. Review later.
The Awakening of Asia, by H. M. Hyndman (280
pages; Boni & Liveright), was written before the Brit-
ish post-war seizures in Asia and Africa marked a
new and monstrous development of imperialism. And
yet the author warns Europe against the coming of the
great revenge, when the tide that threatened for a
thousand years to sweep European civilization into
the Atlantic will set westward again. Review later.
The New Map of Asia, by Herbert Adams Gibbons (571
pages; Century), asks—and answers—the question:
Can a man believe in "the white man's burden"—
with all that this phrase implies—and at the same
time condemn what we fought Germany to destroy?
Review later.
Nationalities in Hungary, by Andre de Hevesy (247
pages; T. Fisher Unwin, London), draws a not alto-
gether sound analogy between the Entente's partition
of Hungary and the reconstruction of Poland by these
same powers. The author believes that the solution
of the Hungarian problem lies not in enforced integra-
tion or in wholesale partition, but in the formation
of a United States of the Danube. Textually and
mechanically the volume bears the marks of a propa-
gandist publication.
The Powers and Aims of Western Democracy, by
William Milligan Sloane (489 pages; Scribner), is a
survey of political facts and theories in which the
scholarship of Gibbon is used to justify prejudices of
Grubb Street. Review later.
Municipal Government, by Frank J. Goodnow and
Frank G. Bates (453 pages; Century), is the second
edition of a book that has held its own in its field
for a whole decade. In spite of revision in the chap-
ters dealing with finance, home rule, public utilities,
and so forth Municipal Government is not up to date
in political theory, and it now stands in need of a
more searching criticism than it was possible to give
the first edition. Review later.
The New Spirit in Industry, by F. Ernest Johnson (95
pages; Association Press), is indicative of the new
spirit in the churches. It is a breathless, rapid-fire
guide to labor and industrial problems—an abridged
Baedeker to the new world. In considering Professor
Albion Small's plea for a commission to study indus-
trial disputes the author takes for granted that the
commission would be composed of men "whose chief
qualification is not economic training or industrial ex-
pertness, but so to say, ethical expertness." A pro-
posal which seems to indicate that the Church is
innocent enough of scientific method to seek to blow
down the walls of capitalism with a trumpet and
build Jerusalem out of a prayer.
Bolshevism and Social Revolt, by Daniel Dorchester
(124 pages; Abingdon Press), supplies an ecclesiastic-
al diadem for the new Divine Right of Kings. "Priv-
ate property," says the author, "has a divine sanction
and is one of the oldest of human institutions."
Memoirs of the Russian Revolution, by George V.
Lomonossoff (87 pages; Rand School), collects note*
set down during the revolution of March 1917, when
the author, by reason of his connection with the Revo-
lutionary forces, had ample opportunity to observe
the earliest activities of the Provisional Government.
Treitschke's History of Germany in the Nineteenth
Century, Volume VI, translated by Eden and Cedar
Paul (670 pages; McBride), rovesi discursively over
the period of 1830 to 1845, dealing principally with
German home policy in its political aspects. Review
later.
The Crime, by the author of I Aceuse (Vols. HI and
IV, 713 pages; Doran). The first two volumes of this
work, previously published, dealt with Germany's war
responsibility. The new volume, on War Aims, cen-
cerns itself chiefly with the utterances of Chancellor
von Bethmann-Hollweg? and brings the discussion
down to the end of September 1917. Volume IV deals
with the German propagandist use of Belgian state
papers captured in Brussels.
What the War Teaches about Education, by Ernest
Carroll Moore (334 pages; Macmillan), makes the
discovery that only education can make democracy
safe for the world. One is surprised at the admission
that a victory for the Entente was not in itself suffi-
cient for the accomplishment of this high aim. But
this surprise vanishes when it is revealed that the
ideals set forth by the President in his message to
the members of the Students Army Training Corps are
to be those of America's after-the-war kultur. Review
later.
The Life and Letters of James Monroe Taylor: The
Biography of an Educator, by Elizabeth Hazelton
Haight (391 pages; Button), increases the documenta-
tion of the past generation by revealing the more obvi-
ous intimacies of one who was President of Vassar
College, 1886—1914.
From Midshipman to Rear-Admiral, by Rear-Admir-
al Bradley A. Fiske (693 pages; Century), recounts
the experiences of an official career covering the half-
century during which "navies have increased more than
a hundredfold ... in the amount of destructive
power they can exert." Admiral Fiske admits that
he contributed a great deal to this development—con-
tributed much more than Secretary Daniels, whose
inadequacies the Admiral discusses very frankly.
Theodore Roosevelt: An Intimate Biography, by 'Wil-
liam Roscoe Thayer (474 pages; Houghton Mifflin),
offers little to justify its sub-title but the bare fact
of acquaintance. It adds to that stream of Roosevel-
tiana which never overflows the conventional banks
of his personality. Review later.
Bill Sewall's Story of T. R., by William Wingate Sew-
all (116 pages; Harper), is an account of the Master,
shortly to be canonized by the Memorial Commission,
as related by one of the original apostles of his great-
ness, a Maine guide.
Artemus Ward: A Biography and a Bibliography, by
Don. C. Seitz (338 pages; Harper), is the first com-
plete biography of the man whose spelling is comically
familiar in every American household. There is no
evidence however that Charles Farrar Browne would
ever, in the event of a longer life, have approached
the depths plumbed by Mark Twain.


1919
357
THE DIAL
LEO TOLSTOY'S
The Pathway of Life
(In Two Volume*). Translated by Archibald J. Wolfe
"THE PATHWAY OF LIFE" la Tolstoy** posthumous mes-
sage to a war-torn Buffering world. It ia the Coapel of right
li-ving and right thinking and offera the great philosopher**
panacea againit world warn and misery, helping mankind to
eradicate all thoae false feelings, desire* and doctrine*, personal,
social, economic and religion*, which are reaponaible for the
prevent plight of humanity. Price 12.00 each volume.
International Book Publishing Co.
5 Beckman Street, New York
CHIMNEY-POT PAPERS
Essays by Charles S. Brooks
Author of "Journey* to Bagdad'* and "There's Pippin* anil
Cheese to Come."
12.00
Set of three volumes attractively boxed, 96.00
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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358
October 18
THE DIAL
The Heart's Domain, by Georges Duhamel, translated
by Eleanor Stimson Brooks (199 pages; Century),
is reviewed on page 352.
Books and Things, by Philip Littell (283 pages; Har-
court, Brace & Howe; New York), collects a mis-
cellany from the author's urbanely gossipy department
in The New Republic, a department the more de-
lightful for being rather less bookish than thingy. Re-
view later.
The Theatre Through its Stage Door,by David Belas-
co (246 pages; Harper), admits the reader to a
realm of business as usual, where self-made actors
and actresses win the rewards of ability, loyalty, and
industry; one is surprised to find that Mr. Belasco's
vocabulary is so largely that of Mr. Rockefeller and
Mr. Carnegie.
Plays: Second Series, by Jacinto Benavente, translated
by John Garrett Underbill (309 pages; Scribner),
adds to the already published first series four more
plays by the Spanish dramatist: No Smoking, The
Governor's Wife, Princess Bebe, and Autumnal Roses.
The translator's preface to this volume, which is de-
voted primarily to questions of technique, quotes a
generous number of the playwright's "maxims and
observations on the stage." The two volumes will be
reviewed by Williams Haynes in an early issue.
The Gibson Upright, by Booth Tarkington and Harry
Leon Wilson (117 pages; Doubleday, Page), a play
announced for Broadway production this season, was
reviewed on page 115 of The Dial for August 9, fol-
lowing its serial appearance in The Saturday Evening
Post.
Pictures of the Floating World, by Amy Lowell (257
pages; Macmillan), is reviewed by Conrad Aiken on
page 331.'
Haunts and By-Paths and Other Poems, by J. Thorne
Smith, Jr. (138 pages; Stokes), is too early in print.
There are a few pieces here—as notably Sea Song—
which will remain authentic of their maker's genuine,
if not strikingly novel, imagery and lilting cadence;
there are many passages in which he is fitfully pres-
ent; and there is a great deal that might have been
written by any not too clumsy apprentice to the poets.
At least, the author of Biltmore Oswald has proved
himself capable of something more enduring than war
humor.
A World of Windows, by Charles Hanson Towne (90
pages; Doran.) If, as the jacket informs us, Mr.
Towne "is a poet wherever he goes, and in whatever
, medium he writes," he has here given himself a great
deal of supererogatory pains in rhythm and rhyme.
Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice, by James Branch Cabell
(368 pages; McBride), another narrative extravaganza
by America's master ironist, is as blithely fantastic,
as shrewdly pointed, and is launched with as impudent
a flourish of spurious erudition as any of its pre-
decessors. These were discussed by Wilson Follett
in The Dial for April 25, 1918. Jurgen will be re-
viewed shortly.
The Four Roads, by Sheila Kaye-Smith (320 pages;
Doran), concerns itself with Sussex in war time, Half
a dozen country folk are shown in their relations to
the struggle; some of them are redeemed by it, some
engulfed and ruined. Miss Kaye-Smith is truthful
without being dogmatically pessimistic. Review later.
Deadham Hard, by "Lucas Malet"—Mary St. Leger
Harrison—(503 pages; Dodd, Mead), is reviewed on
page 356.
Iron City, by M. H. Hedges (318 pages; Boni & Liv-
eright), follows the parallel battle fronts between the
old and the new attitudes in industrial and academic
life. A first novel, its unusual merits in irony and
sound characterization are obscured by familiar faults
in direction and handling.
Yellowleaf, by "Sacha Gregory" (319 pages; Lippincott),
in an unusual handling of fascinating materials. Had
the author carried it through on the plane in which
he began, it would rank as an exceptional piece of
work; but as he nears the climax his grip relaxes and
the conclusion lacks conviction. Mr. Gregory's story
is told with imaginative skill and keen insight.
The Strongest, by Georges Clemenceau (317 pages;
Doubleday, Page), gives a weak impression of the
Tiger. Anatole France at his- worst, say in The Red
Lily, has limned a better picture of French society.
whilst Henri Bordeaux at his beet knows how to pro-
vide a swifter plot.
Oscar Montague—Paranoiac, by George Lincoln Wal-
ton, M. D. (303 pages; Lippincott), carries the hy-
phen of the title into the text; it is part novel and
part treatise. Dr. Walton is the author of helpful
books on Why Worry? and Those Nerves, which
doubtless explains why his plunge into fiction is some-
what clinical.
John Stuyvesant Ancestor and Other People, by Alvin
Johnson (252 pages; Harcourt, Brace, & Howe; New
York), is reviewed on page 354.
Our Casualty and Other Stories, by G. A. Birmingham
(280 pages; Doran), in which the author of General
John Regan groups some cheerful tales from the
outer edges of the war, includes half a dozen choice
specimens of Irish and Ulster psychology calculated
to show how unsettling to either party would be any
Irish settlement that settled anything.
The Exploits of Bilge and Ma, by Peter Clark Mac-
farlane (300 pages; Little, Brown), form a set of
tales in which exposition fences for an equal place
with narration. The volume is one of the less em-
balmed kind of memorials to the destroyer fleet, and
Admiral Sims' foreword is appropriate. Those who
know the navy from the inside will find greatest
amusement in the euphemisms whereby the author
seeks to give the content of navy speech without us-
ing the actual and unprintable form.
The Doings of Raffles Haw, by A. Conan Doyle (199
pages; Doran), appears to be the product of an idle
hour, done perhaps for its author's own amusement,
but rather too mechanical in its mystery to yield much
fascination.
Contributors
Winthrop Parkhurst studied the piano in New
York and London until 1916 and was organist and
choirmaster of the Madison Square Church, New
York, until 1918. He has contributed plays, stories
and criticism to numerous periodicals.
Through an unfortunate oversight Babette
Deutsch's essay, Two Solitudes, in The Dial for
October 4, reviewed The Solitary, by James Op-
penheim, and The Beloved Stranger, by Witter
Bynner, without naming their publishers. The
former is published by Huebsch and the latter by
Knopf.


1919
359
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TWO SECTIONS—SECTION 1
Coal
THE
A FORTNIGHTLY

VOL. LXVII NEW YORK NO. 802
NOVEMBER 1, 1919
The New Psychology and the Social Problem . . . Virgil Jordan 363
Liberalism in Japan John Dewey 369
ID. The Chief Foe
Mr. Masefield Chases a Fox Winthrop Parkhurst 371
A Procrustean Possibility . Arthur Wilson 372
Bolshevism and the Vested Interests in America . Thorstein Veblen 373
III. A Memorandum on a Practical Soviet of Technicians
The Old Order and the New 381
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS: The Happy End—A Servant of Reality.—The Secrets of Animal 383
Life.—The Book of a Naturalist.—Fields of Victory.—My "Little Bit."—Folklore in the
Old Testament.
Books of the Fortnight . 385
Industrial Section
The Labor Crisis
Coal: A Mismanaged Industry
I. Editorial Summary
II. Engineer's Report Walter N. PolakoV
The Coal Issue in Great Britain W. N. Ewer
The British Coal Nationalization Bill
The Dial (founded in 1880 by Francis F. Browne) is published every other Saturday by the Dial Publishing Com-
pany, Inc.—Martyn Johnson, President—Oswald W. Knauth, Secretary-Treasurer—at 152 West Thirteeenth Street,
New York, N. Y. Entered as Second Class matter at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., August 3, 1918, under the
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Issued by Sanction of the N. Y. Printing Trades Unions


362
November 1
THE DIAL

GOOD BOOKS
TT'S time to think about Christmas gifts. A book—especially a good book—is always
-■- appropriate and Abingdon books are sure to please. There are new titles and standard
favorites—books for old and young—described in THE ABINGDON PRESS catalog.
A copy will be sent you on request. The books are for sale near you.
GRANVILLE
Tales and Tall Spins from a Filer's Diary
The literature of the War will contain many records of
the achievements of our men over seas, but there will
be little told of the brave host of youth who, anxious
to sacrifice self to a great ideal, spent months in the
training camps of America, drilling, studying, instruct-
ing their fellow soldiers, and bending every effort
toward taking an active part in the fighting. This
unique book tells the story of the making of a soldier
in one branch of the service, and gives an uncolored,
intimate account of the experiences and thoughts of
one of the youth who helped to win the war over here.
It is edited from his diary and, in deference to the
wishes of the family, is published anonymously.
12mo. lllus. pp.176. Clalh. Net, $1.25 postpaid.
STAR DUST FROM THE DUGOUTS
A Reconstruction Book
By William L. Stidcer
The boy in the trenches heralds the boy at home! The
author, who on the battlefields of France won the title
of The Fighting Parson, has seen a vision; he is fol-
lowing the gleam, and turns its light into these pages.
A reconstruction book written with sympathy and au-
thority. Stidger's latest and best. A challenging
interpretation.
12mo. Frontispiece andheadpieces, pp. 240. Cloth.
Net, Si.50 postpaid.
GERMANY'S MORAL DOWNFALL
The Tragedy of Academic Materialism
By Alexander W. Crawford
The war is over. On with the war! Many of the
world's achievements have already been sacrificed to
the Moloch of Kultur and its perfidious offspring, and
the end is not yet. The military victory of the Allies
has ended one phase of the World War, but the com-
plete intellectual and moral victory is yet to be won.
The menace of materialism, and its denial of morality
and its worship of brute force, still hangs over the
world and threatens its higher life. The task of the
next generation is to uproot this cult of materialism
that has insinuated itself into so many channels of
national activity.
12m: pp.224. Cloth. Net, Si.00postpaid.
BOLSHEVISM AND SOCIAL REVOLT
By Daniel Dorchester, Jr.
A keen analysis and just appraisal of the social up-
risings of today. Clear, concise, discriminating, and
constructive, this little book will be of great value to
all who would understand the danger and the value of
modern social movements.
12m». pp. 122. Cloth. Net, 75cpostpaid.
GEORGE WASHINGTON THE CHRISTIAN
By William J. Johnson
A companion volume to Abraham Lincoln the Christian.
The wide interest in Dr. Johnson's first volume created
a demand for a similar book about George Washington,
and here it is. This compilation of documents from
original sources sheds new light on the sterling charac-
ter of our first President. It will be welcomed by all
students of biography and history.
12mo. Illustrated, pp.300. Cloth. Net,Si-50postpaid.
HOW TO TEACH RELIGION
Principles and Methods
By George Herbert Betts
Religious Education Texts—Teacher Training Series
From the first to the last page of this new volume the
spiritual growth and development of the child is set
forth as the great objective. The purpose has been to
define the aim of religious instruction so definitely and
concretely that every teacher may have a goal set before
him. What religious knowledge is of most worth to
the child, what religious attitudes to cultivate, what
applications to make to the daily life and conduct are
problems clearly set forth. What subject-matter we
shall teach at different ages, and what we shall omit is
discussed with full illustration. How we shall make
the lessons carry over to Christian character and church
loyalty are problems fully discussed and exemplified.
Crown 8vo. pp. 224. Cloth. Net, by mail, Si. 10.
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1919 THE DIAL 36
, \<
THE LABOR SITUATION IN
GREAT BRITAIN and FRANCE
Report of the Commission on Foreign Inquiry of the
NATIONAL CIVIC FEDERATION, 1919
THIS is the report of a Commission of seven members appointed in December, 1918, by the
Industrial Economies Department of the National Civic Federation to make a first hand
investigation of the labor situation. The members of the Commission consisted of Charles
Mayer, a shipping expert; Charles S. Barrett, a farmer; Albert F. Bemis, a textile manufacturer;
J. Grant Forbes, a contracting engineer; James W. Sullivan, a typographical trade unionist; An-
drew Parker Nevin, an attorney-at-law; E. A. Quarles, the Secretary.
The Commission remained abroad for four months, February to June, 1919, paying especial
attention te the methods of adjustment of relations between employers and employees, the shop
committee system, the outcome of the Whitley recommendations concerning joint industrial
councils, and the housing problem. The conclusions of this representative committee, based on
observations of conditions which obtain all over the world today, and pointed by specific refer-
ence to the situation in the United States, should be studied by every one interested in the
peaceful settlement of our present labor troubles. $2,50
Labor in the Changing World By R. M. MACIVER
T'-f author discusses the new element! introduced into labor during the past few years and their probable effect on the attitude
of labor toward* the whole tocial body. His conclusion is sanely optimistic, and his suggestions as to the permanent status of labor
are most fruitful. $2.00
International Commerce and Reconstruction By ELISHA M. FRIEDMAN
After some introductory chapters on the economic development of nations, the history of American Commerce, and the effects
upon it of the war, the author diasussea clearly the immediate needs of the situation, the reorganisation of international credit
and America's foreign trade policy. It is an exceedingly timely and vary valuable work. In press
Labor and the Common Welfare By SAMUEL GOMPERS
Compiled and edited by HAYES ROBBINS from addresses and writings.
The Philosophy of Trade Unionism; Labor's Relation to the Community. Government and Law; Labor's Viewpoint on National
and Civic Issues; Political Policy of Organized Labor; Organized Labor's Challenge to Socialism, the I. W. W., and Bolshevism,
are among its subject headings. In press
Germanism from Within By A. D. McLAREN
(New Edition Revised)
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psychology of the average German citizen, in peace, and in war, showing his reactions to the events concerning which the outside
world has wondered. Particularly valuable is the final chapter added in thia edition on "The Mind and Mood of Germany To-
day." Net, $5.00
Modern Germany: Its Rise. Growth, Downfall and Future By J. ELLIS BARKER
In this, the sixth edition of his standard history of Germany, the author has rewritten and enlarged one of the most penetrating
and accurate studies of the growth of modern Prusaianism that In the days before the war warned the world of what was to come.
He has now added seven new chapters on Republican Germany and the future of the German race, concluding with a chapter on
"The Problem of Austria."'
"In this new volume, adapted to the new situation, the backward and the forward look are again in evidence, and the plain
lessons of history seem to justify bath."—Boston Herald. Net, 96.00
Labor and Reconstruction in Europe By ELISHA M. FRIEDMAN
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seurces, together with numerous references and a well-selected bibliography . . . abhors verbiage and padding, advocates no
policy, sponsors no scheme, and offers to the reader the delicate flattery of presenting only the facts."— The Review. Net, $2.50
New School* for Old By EVELYN DEWEY
The story of the regeneration of the Perter School.
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should read the book for the lessons which it contains for them in the line of their professional duties. Every rural teacher will
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or less decree."—The American School. 12.00
Towards Racial Health By NORAH H. MARCH
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Comparative Education Edited by PETER SANDIFORD
A Survey of the Educational System in Each of Six Representative Countries.
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64
November 1
THE DIAL
John Masefield's New Narrative Poem
"Never, not even in Chancer/was there any-
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THE DIAL
A FORTNIGHTLY
The New Psychology and the Social Order
A HE REVOLUTION IN psychology at the end of the
nineteenth century, associated with the name of
Freud, has resulted during the past twenty-five
years in a great volume of literature in which the
point of view of the new psychology has been car-
ried into medicine, philosophy, esthetics, and ethics,
and some fruitful applications made of it also in cer-
tain aspects of anthropology and history. It is true
that the name of Freud has often been taken in vain,
but such over-enthusiasm has rather emphasized the
suggestiveness of the new point of view than de-
tracted from the value of his method or of the in-
sight it affords into sundry aspects of life. It was
evident from the first that the significance of the
new psychological point of view which he estab-
lished could not be limited to the field of individual
physical and mental therapeutics where it was first
developed and applied. Though Freud himself
has touched only a part of the vast field he opened,
and his work has since been pushed farther than
he himself would perhaps have ventured, his name
has become such a talisman to conjure with because
he put into our hands a key to certain chambers of
the modern spirit which no injunction or caution
could restrain us from opening.
Psychology is of central importance in numerous
departments of thought, but this revolution has af-
fected them so greatly, and will affect them still
more deeply, for a special reason. It was the first
clear expression in definite human terms of the'
fundamental change in conception of life which
has grown out of the revolution in the natural
sciences during the sixteenth century, and out
of the industrial revolution which was the first
child of the scientific revolution and which has since
set for us the form and mold of our whole lives.
It furnished the first clear focus to the general
movement of thought upon life that characterized
the past five hundred years, and that first began to
reflect itself distinctly in the deep-seated spiritual
faithlessness and bewilderment of the nineteenth
century—reaching at length a world climax in the
political and economic chaos of this century-long
struggle we call reconstruction.
That movement—to indicate it briefly and rough-
ly in general terms—from the static, Platonic, dog-
matic, idealistic, and deductive point of view of
existence to the dynamic, Baconian, pragmatic, re-
alistic, inductive, and creative view has touched
all the sciences and arts and all aspects of thought
and action in varying degrees in the past four hun-
dred years, beginning with the physical sciences and
extending through the biological sciences much
later to the more speculative fields of thought. So
far as any period of human history can be com-
pressed into one meaning, the development of the
creative point of view is the heart of the past four
centuries. And so far as the upheaval in which
they culminated has any single meaning and pur-
pose it is the expression of the creative point of
view in the social values and institutions of the race.
Through the industrial system and the modern
business organization, which are expressions of the
creative impulse, no matter how they violate or
obscure it practically at present, this renovation in
thought has completely altered the conditions of
our daily life and work and the bases of our thought
without our being to any great degree conscious of
it. Though most of our individual and group con-
duct and our political, economic, and social insti-
tutions either ignore or are directly opposed to it,
the character of our modern life is shaped by the
creative point of view. The machines which sprang
from the pragmatic application of the physical
sciences to the practical purposes of life have given
us a point of view and a set of values we do not yet
consciously understand, much less accept and ap-
ply. They have opened up for us new outlooks,
but we still fumble at them and try to run them with
ideas that were hoary before the first machine was
made, and that are fundamentally incompatible
with the view of life out of which the machine has
grown, for which it stands, and by which alone it
can be effectively worked. We have, as yet, no
consciousness, no point of view of life which fits
the machine and yet dominates it. Instead it still
masters us through the senility of the ideas we bring
to it.
It is in the psychological relation between man
and the machine, or in the widest sense between the
race, with its mental equipment of ancient philo-


366
November 1
THE DIAL
sophies, ethics, politics, economics, and religions,
and the modern organization for work, that the
heart of our modern problem lies. What we have
here is a conflict of whole systems of impulses and
ideas, racial, national, class, deeply ingrained in
every individual, with a point of view and a new
system of values and a new conception of life which
the whole organization and daily conditions of
modern life have enforced upon him.
When we consider that this is a conflict that has
arisen, broadly speaking, within the limits of a cen-
tury, and has become acute really within a genera-
tion, the intensity of the psychic strain involved in it
is evident. Men can adjust themselves and their ideas
to changes in the conditions of their work and ac-
tivity in a few centuries without much psychic dis-
turbance; but if a man is called upon to make a
revision of his values and faiths and bases of judg-
ment, such as was involved in the change from the
medieval indoctrination to the creative view of life,
in the span of his own working years, it is inevit-
able that the mental upheaval will show itself in
anomalies and abnormalities of conduct and psychic
v traits in himself and to a greater degree, perhaps,
in the group to which he belongs. According to
his strength, an individual may successfully make
the mental revision, but in the group mind are col-
lected and intensified all the strains and disturb-
ances that take place in the less adaptable individ-
uals. The resultant psychic disturbances are us-
ually a magnification of the psychic traits which
show themselves in an individual compelled to make
some severe readjustment to reality, or to recognize
some fact or take some view of life which he has
ignored or opposed.
When we examine these traits of group thought
and conduct from this point of view it is clear how
the valuations and realities upon which the creative
view of life is based have acted like a repressed
or ignored unconscious force in the consciousness of
various social groups and molded their political
and economic conduct.
How deeply the thought of the common man has
been colored by the creative point of view we shall
probably not know until there is found some form
of expression for it which he can understand and
which brings it clearly to his consciousness. To put
that point of view into terras whereby the common
man can recognize it and accept it as his own Ls
the object of the modern political and economic
radical movements, and the heart of the reconstruc-
tion agitation. Likewise the inadequacy of most
of the attempts made thus far to embody the crea-
tive point of view in such terms as will unite the
common man for political and economic action is
the main reason for the failure of these movements
and for the chaos into which the reconstruction
movement has dissolved. The new social leaders
are confronted with a task somewhat similar to that
of the psychoanalytic practitioner in the case of
the individual, and they are obliged to have similar
qualifications. They must show the group mind
what it really wants, what deep forces lie beneath
its immediate impulses and goals, what it really
thinks about life, and lead it to accept openly the
point of view which the new conditions and neces-
sities of life impose, as well as the obligations that
go with it, carrying them out with clear conscious-
ness of their meaning. This applies especially to
the so-called radical movements because it is these
that the unconscious development of the creative
valuation of life has stirred most profoundly. It
is possible that some of the opposing conservative
movements are in some degree also victims of the
same unconscious pressure though they clothe it in
opposing ancient ideologies and dogmatisms; we
can never be sure what eommon impulse may be
discovered at the root of the widest divergences of
conduct and systems of ideas. This is a work that
requires stripping away as gently as possible the
incrustations of old impulses and ideas and values
in which the new creative valuation of life is con-
cealed and clothed, and it is evident that no one can
do this work for a social group who does not him-
self stand above or outside of the group and it-
system of ideas and valuations, or who himself is
under the power and suffering under the strain of
the psychic conflict which he is to try to interpret
For such social leaders to reveal to the group its
underlying creative point of view and impulse and
to interpret it with any psychoanalytic subtlety
they must have in their hands a philosophy, an
ethics, an art, a religious conception—and of course
a politics and an economics and a sociology—which
have been built upon or at least strongly touched
by that new point of view. The lack of this has
been in this social revolution as in most others the
great handicap of the leaders. Though the crea-
tive point of view has found so clear and effective
an expression in the natural sciences and in biology
and in the whole underlying process of our com-
mon life, and had vaguely touched philosophy,
ethics, art, religion, and the sociological sciences
here and there during the last part of the nineteenth
century, it has found practically no clear and defin-
ite expression in politics and economics until now.
For the most part their structure and approach re-
mained pre-Baconian—dogmatic. In trying to ex-
press the modern creative point of view in material
drawn from this contemporary philosophy, ethics,
esthetics, religion, politics, and economics, the


1919
367
THE DIAL
modern radical social movements have been built
on a quicksand and the whole structure of their
thought has been warped and weakened.
i The elear expression of that point of view in the
cornerstone of these several fields of thought—
psychology—has opened new doors in each of them,
given every branch of thought a new impetus and
direction, and, most of all, equipped the movements
for social reorganization with a weapon that will
give them new strength.
The new psychology brought the creative point
of view definitely into philosophy and ethics,
through the study of problems of the individual.
It is possible that it may bring the creative point
of view clearly into economics, politics, and sociol-
ogy through a similar application of its method to
the social problems which this reconstruction per-
iod has brought to a head.
The sociological sciences have as yet been least
affected by that psychological revolution and the
new point of view which it expresses, possibly be-
cause economics, politics, and sociology are in
turn dependent upon the natural sciences, medicine,
philosophy, ethics, religion, art, as these are de-
pendent upon psychology. Any change in the view
of the human mind reflects itself in them largely
at second hand, and after a long time. A change in
economic methods and political structure does not
mean an immediate corresponding change in eco-
nomic and political science, for the sciences are
governed more by tradition than by practical neces-
sity. Though the structure of our political and
economic life has changed many times in the past
five hundred years, nevertheless our political ethics,
economic philosophy, and social psychology are
still largely dogmatic, deductive, and static.
Up to the Peace Treaty we might have been for-
given for thinking that we were seeing the begin-
nings of a creative politics, but the outcome of the
Conspiracy of Paris shows how greatly political
thought is still paralyzed by the absolutist point of
view.
Social psychology in general is still marked al-
most entirely by the old mechanical conception of
the group mind and of the individual mind, and
has scarcely outgrown the influence of Tarde and
the nineteenth century psychologic anatomists'.
There are still traces in it of the Platonic psycho-
logical conception that social ideas have an abso-
lute, eternal, somewhat divine significance and
origin.
You have only to look at any textbook of eco-
nomics written before 1910 to realize how little its
approach has changed since The Wealth of Na-
tions, and what a scholastic thing most of the
economics taught today still is, especially in its
psychologic content, where it indeed has any. The
preoccupation of all modern economic theory, since
its beginning in the dawn of the industrial revolu-
tion, has been with the same Platonic concepts and
absolute ideas with which the schoolmen of the
middle ages and the philosophers of the Academy
of Athens disputatioiisly concerned themselves.
Economic laws and processes still have in the mind
of the academic professor and the textbook student
of the science, as well as in the mind of the average
business man, an aura of the absolute and the divine,
and to all of them except possibly the modern busi-
ness man economic life can be stuffed into certain
rigid Platonic pigeonholes. And, more than all
this, every sort of man, especially the common man
when he is a patriot, is blithely willing to believe
that all economics and economic laws are to such
a degree abstract that they can all be abolished or
ignored completely for the sake of some "big" ab-
stract idea—such as "making the world safe," and
all that sort of thing.
The interest of classical economics in psycho-
logical motives was practically confined to the study
of the concepts of value, interest, and so forth, and
for the most part even the Austrian schools have
gone little further than this, using still the old psy-
chologic approach. Recently there has been more
attention to the psychological factors in economics
and in directions that lead away from the old psy-
chological point of view. Veblen, Marot, and Tead,
in analyzing the psychological factors in industry
and in the business system, have come nearer the
new point of view and have begun an application t
of the new psychology to social problems that
promises a revolution in economics. In practical
business men and industrial leaders there is already
a clear realization of the ineffectiveness of mechan-
ical readjustments of industry which do not touch
the worker's psychological reaction. It might not
be very inaccurate to call Veblen the Freud of
economics, for though his work is, like Freud's,
one-sided in its emphasis and far from comprehen-
sive, it was the first to point out the influence of
certain psychological forces in the maladjustments
of industry and in the economic attitudes of certain
classes, and to glimpse the influence of what might
be called an economic libido. His analysis of the
economic system has revealed more clearly than
any other had done before the existence and work-
ings of certain repressed or ignored forces in the
functioning of the economic organism, and the part
these play in group psychology. To judge how far
such a tendency in economic thought has gone you
have only to look for some evidence of its popular-
ity in the classical academic circles and in the
upper level of business Platonists. The new eco-


368
November 1
THE DIAL
nomics is being made outside of university circles,
the new politics outside of government offices, the
new sociology comes out of Butte and Bethlehem
and Baxter Street, where the new creative point of
view presses hard and relentless against old ab-
stractions.
The essential difference between the creative view
of life and what may be roughly called the mediev-
al is that whereas the latter explained natural and
human phenomena and human institutions by cer-
tain preconceptions and as embodying certain dog-
matic absolute principles or abstract ideas, the
former looks upon life as a creative process in
which all forms and modes and functions of exist-
ence are relative to the creative discharge of power
in maintaining and increasing life, which is a fun-
damental, final thing, unanalyzable, and independ-
ent of human preconceptions, constituting the ulti-
mate basis of human judgment and action if they
have any ultimate basis at all. If there be any
divinity in the modern point of view it attaches only
to the creative process and the creative impulse,
which we identify with life itself as inviolable and
sacred. The creative point of view is turned to-
ward life, not away from it; looks to the earth.
not to heaven; it embraces reality and does not
flee from it; it knows only one prayer and that is
work. "Its gods dwell in temples builded with the
hands, and within the circle of actual experience is
its creed made perfect and complete."
The difference between the new psychology in
which this view of life is so clearly expressed and
the old is that the new clearly regards the organ-
ism as not only an adaptive but much more as a
creative unity, and consciousness as an adaptive and
creative instrument whose phenomena are relative
to the creative process of life. This "new psycho-
logy" includes, of course, all those sterile, bleakly
evolutionary points of view which look upon the
phenomena of mind and conduct as more or less
mechanical adaptive reactions and reduce life to
minutely analyzed function or "behavior." The
approach of this functional or behavioristic psy-
chology is modern, but they represent only the raw
transitional links between the whole of modern
natural science and psychology, and without the
insight of Freud they are a barren futility. In
their fetishism of the evolution hypothesis, their
evasion of the pragmatic facts of consciousness and
their anatomizing of conduct they "obscure the su-
preme and essential fact of the indomitable creative
flow of life and reveal clearly the drag of their
roots in the old medieval soil of categories and dis-
sections. The old psychology, nothwithstanding
all the refinements of post-Kantian criticism and
(he scraping and delving of the nineteenth century
physiological psychologists with their ropes and
pulleys, did not succeed in breaking away from the
medieval or Platonic conception of the organism as
a static composite of fixed, distinct parts—body and
mind and spirit and the mental faculties—whose
structure and functions were based on a priori prin-
ciples or ideas. It is inevitable that such a psy-
chology should come to a standstill, as it did by the
end of the nineteenth century, and reflect itself in,
among other things, an equally unprogressive soci-
ology, economics, and politics. On the basis of
the old psychology society—and social, economic,
and political institutions—are more or less absolute
things, representing permanent ideas, composed of
distinct parts whose structure and functions are
founded on certain fundamental abstract prin-
ciples or ideals and proceed according to certain
immutable laws.
Once, however, whether by the influence of the
natural sciences since 1500 or by the force of daily
thought and action in the modern working world,
life is seen as a creative process, and the organism
in its growth and functions a vehicle of that process,
the relativity and instrumentality of psychic phe-
nomena are apparent and the whole view of social
problems is changed. This results in a nsw ap-
proach to the study of economic, political, and so-
cial phases of group conduct, and means the be-
ginnings of a creative economics, a creative poli-
tics, a creative sociology, as well as a new kind of
historical study in all these fields.
It is not possible to set down here the bases and
justification of the creative point of view nor of
its historical evolution so far as we understand
them. We are too close to the crest of the wave, and
too much immersed in the movement of life of
which it is an expression, to estimate its origin and
meaning in any degree of fulness. The new valua-
tions which that point of view must bring in philo-
sophy, ethics, art, religion, and in our social, eco-
nomic and political life and the expressions of these
new valuations in our institutions—this is the real
subject of reconstruction thought and agitation.
We can do nothing else than fairly accept it as the
more or less consciously realized point of view of
the age, an ineluctable movement of the human
spirit, the natural fruition, if the evolution of
thought has any meaning, of the last five hundred
years, a thing that by its place in this century gives
it something of the quality of a fin de millennium
and makes the year 2000 of uncanny fitness as a
turning point of human history.
Virgil Jordan.


1919
369
THE DIAL
Liberalism in Japan
III. The Chief Foe
Vjomparisons of Japan with Germany have be-
come common, perhaps too common. At all events,
they usually fail in my judgment to point out where-
in the actual and undeniable likeness lies. The
similarity is not so much intrinsic and indigenous
as it is imitative and acquired. In the seventies and
eighties Japan was busy studying the Western
world for models, as one thousand years before she
had studied Korea and China. From Great Britain
she borrowed the idea of navalism, merchant ma-
rine, sea commerce and sea power. From France she
took the idea of centralized administration as a cure
for the remaining ills of her centrifugal feudalism.
From Germany she learned a technique for family
law (a most important thing in transition from
family organization to an individualistic basis);
borrowed the aims and methods of an educational
system, and the way of setting up an apparently
Western or representative government which should
not actually infringe in any way upon the autocratic
oligarchy of the Choshu and Satsuma clan-leaders.
Nor were the latter actuated wholly, nor possibly
even chiefly, by personal ambitions. They were
sure that only a high degree of centralized power
would permit that development of army, navy, and
a strong foreign policy which would save Japan
from undergoing the same fate at the hands of
Western powers that the rest of Asia was under-
going. And in the face, of the imperial Europe of
the last generation, it would demand a boldness of
idealism not possessed by the present writer to de-
clare they were wholly wrong.
Moreover the unification of Japan was only a
recently accomplished fact. The foreigner is so
used to hearing of the unity and community of the
life of the Far East, especially Japan, that he is
likely to overlook the socially devisive force exer-
cised by the family principle. In Japan, isolations
and animosities had been acute all through the still
recent feudal period. Japan had been held together
only by the force of the Tokugawas, and by their
skill in playing one clan off against another. In
connection with the restoration of Imperial unity
and the opening of Japan to the outside world,
Japan needed some internal and more spiritual
bond of union. This she found in going Germany
one better. In her past she had had a theocratic
tradition which could be revived and put at the
service of centralization. Japan has now had over
a generation of education in a religion of state and
emperor worship. Hence a new moral and intel-
lectual flux can never be as eager, as open to new
methods and institutions, as was the Japan of fifty
years ago. There is a story told in Japan which
does not sound authentic but which has a certain
symbolic truth about it. It is said that when Mar-
quis Ito and his commission on a constitution were
on their way back to Japan—fresh from Germany
and Bismarck—they stopped in London. Ito visit-
ed Herbert Spencer, whose advice (and this is auth-
entic enough) to Japan to keep foreign nations at
arm's (and armed) length had given him great
influence. And Ito, so goes the story, told the philo-
sopher that he was taking home with him plans for
a constitution, an educational system, economic de-
velopment, and so forth—in fact for everything
except religion; and that he was depending upon
Spencer to supply Japan with plans for that neces-
sity. In reply, Spencer is said to have stated that
since Japan had had ancestor worship and since the
Emperor had been for ages a religious rather than
a secular figure, she did not need to look abroad
for plans to construct a national religion.
This particular account of the calculated use of
Shintoism as political support of militaristic auto-
cracy may be doubted. But no student can doubt
that the Elder Statesmen who in the later eighties
set Japan upon its present track deliberately sur-
rounded the Imperial dynasty will all the mystic
emotional haloes and sanctions that accompany
divinity and divine origin. It is not many centur-
ies since Europe had states based on the divine
right of kings; but we have to go back to Imperial
Rome to find emperors who are themselves divine
and the sons of gods. A Japanese scholar told me
that till the publication of the Constitution in 1889
the title Son of Heaven had been reserved for dead
emperors, and that the deliberate use of religious
myth for preventing the growth of democratic
ideas was evident in the fact that in this document
the title was for the first time applied to the living
ruler. Of course I do not know whether his state-
ment is correct, but there can be no doubt of the
completeness of the fusion in the popular mind of
political with religious and theocratic ideas, nor
of the support the fusion gives to Japanese nation-
alistic sentiment as against other nations, and to
the prestige and power of the ruling dynasty. And
since as matter of fact the Emperor is still almost
as much of a figure-head as when he was in seclu-
sion in Kyoto, this permeating religious sanction
accrues to the benefit of the bureaucracy that actual-
ly runs things. And it is interesting to note that
one wing at least of the new liberal group is en-


370
November 1
THE DIAL
deavoring to give the religious status of the Im-
perial dynasty a democratic turn. They do not ,
attack the imperial idea; the attack would not only
throw them personally into prison but would render
them so odious as to discredit their cause. They
claim that traditionally the emperor has been the
Father of the People, supremely interested in their
welfare; that in the sense of government for the
people Japan is historically a democracy; and then
they attack the oligarchy which has turned Japan
aside from its true basis, and which has for its own
aggrandizement come between the emperor and his
people.
Westerners naturally have not taken Shintoism
seriously as a political instrument. They have not
taken the theocratic idea seriously. They could
not; it is too alien to their ways of thinking. Hence
they imagine that it is not taken seriously in Japan
itself. They think of it as a kind of poetic em-
bellishment, an additional romantic touch in a
romantic land. And of course it is true fliat edu-
cated men in Japan do not believe the political
myths in any literal sense. But it is also true that
the theocratic point of view governs the consider-
ation of all questions, and that emotions connected
with it are so pervasive and intense that Japan is
a unique country, one whose aims and methods are
baffling to any foreigner. Perhaps only the foreigner
who makes a study of elementary education, es-
pecially of the teaching of history and "ethics,"
realizes how systematic is the emperor-cult and
how completely it becomes a part of the sub-con-
scious mental apparatus of all the pupils. Those
who throw it off may be compared to the few who
in Western countries in earlier days threw off, as
they grew up, the theological teachings of child-
hood. The emotional after-effect can hardly be
thrown off even then without a simultaneous casting
off of patriotism and nationalistic feeling, so inti-
mately religious has the dynastic sentiment become.
Three myths compose the larger myth. First is
the motion of complete racial homogeneity, of
common blood, common descent, of common re-
lationship to the gods who established civilization
in Japan and whose descendants still rule the coun-
try. This is the doctrine which practically has the
most truth in it in spite of its ethnological falsity,
for in the course of time the various ethnic ele-
ments have got wonderfully fused together i Japan
has not b:en an island and an isolated ore for
nothing. This is also the myth which it is safest
to question, foi all educated people are well aware
of the different types that are found in the popu-
lation. But it would hardly be safe to draw any
political implications or conclusions from the denial
of racial unity and common relationship to the
emperor. The texts in "ethics" used in the schools
teach that citizens of other countries have patriot-
ism and that they also have filial and paternal af-
fection, but that Japan is the only country in the
world where the two things absolutely coincide.
And a scientific ethnology which was punctilious
enough to deny an objective literal basis for this
statement would find itself in trouble.
The second myth is that of the unbroken con-
tinuity of the imperial dynasty for over twenty-
five hundred years—since the first imperial God
settled in Japan. As a basis for this statement,
children in school are gravely taught a lot of myths
about the formation of Japan and its earliest his-
tory which intellectually and esthetically are not
on a level with the legends of the North American
Indians. Then the actual facts of history which
prove anything but continuity of blood and unity
of dynasty are systematically falsified. The myth
of single and pure descent of the imperial house
which has existed from time immemorial and which
will continue to exist for ages eternal is proclaimed
in the very beginning of the German-borrowed
constitution of Japan and remains the cornerstone
of the Japanese state. The third myth is the con-
summation of the other two. All that Japan is and
can become she owes to the original virtues of the
divine founders and to those of their divine des-
cendants. The moral as to what the citizen of Japan
owes the imperial dynasty is obvious, and the teach-
ing of ethics and history in the common schools
takes no chances that it will not be made plain. It
is not surprising that the fanatical apostles of these
doctrines have more than once allowed their little
charges to perish in flame and smoke while they
saved the portrait of the divine emperor.
University teachers in their classrooms tell the
historic truth. They fulfill orally the obligations
of historic scholarship. But such higher criticism
is confined to the confidence of the classroom.
Martyrdom is not wooed by setting forth the facts
in printed form for general consumption. Some-
times I think that the surest sign of the approach
of democracy will be given when we read that a
group of intellectuals have braved prison or death
by setting forth to the public the truth about such
matters.
I am afraid I may seem to have got completely
away from my subject. I seem to be speaking not
of liberalism in Japan but of the most insidious
and influential type of reactionarism. But it is
worth while to know the difficulties with which the
growth of liberalism has to contend. The know-
ledge will make us more sympathetic and more pa-
tient. The liberalism is there, and it is coming to
possess the present generation of university-taught
men. Since I began writing, a delegation of Jap-


1919
371
THE DIAL
anese University students has been in Peking to
express to the Chinese their entire lack of sympathy
with the policy of Japan towards China, and to
say that their enemy is a common one—Japanese
militaristic autocracy. It is impossible for Japan
to engage in trade, to exchange commodities and
technical science with all the world, to take a part
in world politics, and still to remain isolated from
the world situation and world currents. The signi-
ficance of this fact has been brought home to Japan
with increasing acceleration and momentum by the
war and its conclusion, and the outcome is the
present spread of democracy and liberalism. The
imperialistic settlement at Paris has undeniably
effected a setback. Every reaction from democracy
all over the world will retard the movement in
Japan. But unless the world overtly and on a large
scale goes back on democracy, Japan will move
steadily in that direction. And my own confidence
in the resilience, adaptability, and practical intel-
ligence of the Japanese people, as well as in a kind
of social democracy which is embodied in the man-
ners and customs of the people, makes me think
the change will come without a bloody and catastro-
phic upheaval.
John Dewey.
R
Mr. Masefield Chases a Fox
eynard the fox, or The Ghost Heath Run
iMacmrllan)—or, as Oscar Wilde would have
called it, a tale ef the Unspeakable in pursuit of
the Uneatable—is as brilliant a study in rhyme as
any that Mr. Masefield has yet done. With a hand
long since grown sure and steady in his craft, he
has passed across the somewhat faded colors of the
Fourteenth Century Dutch fable a cloth dipped in
an astonishingly glowing and fluid technique. The
result is a picture as vivid as a mirror set in the
sunshine. Though the external handling of the
poem appears slightly monotonous upon a close
examination (the work is entirely in couplets),
that monotony is apparent only to those pundits
who fletcherize their poetry with their eyes; for
beneath the mechanical tramp of the poem ring out
always the sharp hoof-beats of high-strung horses
sniffing the chase, and across the drab background
of a seemingly monotonous verse-form dash con-
tinually the bright red coats of country gentlemen,
lean hounds with their noses set hungrily to the
ground, and a whole army of hunters—men, dogs,
and horses—galloping pell-mell over the heaths
and hills of North England. The picture is both
vigorous and nervous. And barring a lengthy pre-
amble to the actual hunt—a preamble whose weight
and length entirely overbalance the rest of the
canvas—he has conceived an able portrait of Rey-
nard the Fox, and executed a lupine epic that is
really notable.
But the question arises: Is a fox worth so much
attention? There is a theory which regularly goes
the rounds of ateliers to the effect that the portrait
of a boil can be as great as the portrait of Beetho-
ven. Certainly manner is esthetically as important
as matter. Occasionally it may be more important.
To portray the terrors of a harried fox with Mr.
Masefield's skill cannot but win the technical ad-
miration of both his advocates and his detractors.
But beneath the admiration will rankle resentment
that a man who can write The Widow in The Bye
Street now spends his energies in writing so long
and so elaborate a tale about the plucky endurance
of a frightened animal—that an artist who is able
to hunt down souls in cadences of poignant beauty
has wasted probably the best part of a year, in
the full ripeness of his powers, chasing a fox
around a shire.
Some of this same disappointment and resent-
ment is raised by his play The Faithful fMac-
millan), recently and courageously presented at
the Garrick Theatre in New York by the Theatre
Guild. According to a note on the program there
have already been given to the world no less than
104 dramatic treatments of the ancient Japanese
legend on which Mr. Masefield based his play. It
is easy to be captious with a man of Mr. Mase-
field's ability, because his achievement to date has
set a very stiff standard for him to live up to, and
success carries its own penalties as well as its
own rewards. But, again, is it over-critical to ask:
Why the one hundred and fifth? There is a place
on our stage for the dramatization of customs and
taboos alien to our own; but the Caucasian who
can put an authentic note of tragic renunciation
into a stage representation of hara-kiri is a rara
avis. Mr. Masefield's wings scarcely hold him up in
Japanese air.
Less pretentious a flight, however, and undoubt-
edly more compelling for that very reason, is the
collection of his short stories and miniatures of the
sea, now grouped under the title A Tarpaulin Muster
(Dodd, Mead). So far Mr. Masefield has built
his reputation chiefly on land and poetry. A poet
he always will be, wherever he walks. But A Tar-
paulin Muster generally corroborates the miracu-
lous testimony offered some years ago by A Round


372
November 1
THE DIAL
House and Salt Water Ballads—to wit, that he
can walk as successfully on sea as on land; more
than that, that he can walk as vigorously and com-
fortably on prose as on poetry. The prose of most
poets is so notoriously bad that it does not even
call for censure; so if this slightly random col-
lection of Mr. Masefield's were flat, stale, and
stylistically unprofitable, or if the author had
drowned himself in syntax, no one could have
been especially surprised. The surprise—Unless
you have read Gallipoli Shambles, for example—
is distinctly on the other side of your brain. The
truth is, Mr. Masefield's prose style is not only very
good for a poet—it promises to be very good for
his reputation. Slight as most of these sketches are
—several of them are merely dashes of salt water—
they have, by and large, a quality which can be
quickly named only by calling rather tiresomely, if
rather inevitably, on Joseph Conrad. Now that Mr.
Masefield has rounded the Cape of War, it does not
seem too much to expect that the winds of ht
imagination will steady and grow, and that ulti-
mately we may expect a Typhoon from his quarter.
Whether that Typhoon will be in prose or in
verse will not matter. For, in either case, unless
Mr. Masefield fails both land and sea, and himself,
it will be in poetry.
WlNTHROP PARKHURST.
0,
A Procrustean Possibility
"f the New Decameron (McBride) the worst
should be admitted at once. The integrating idea
is pure diamond, but it is still locked in its matrix.
Certainly the clay should have been chubbed off
and the idea cut to a form suitable to its weight.
The facets are all there in posse; but they are with-
out refractive power, and many hunters of the good
will step over without dreaming the radiance
buried in this book.
It would appear useless to expostulate such an
inexcusable waste if there were not the promise
of more out of the same diggings. The publishers
imply a second day of tales, a third, a fourth, and
still others. It is time to call a stop. Second nor
third nor any more must be issued in the careless
phlegm of the first. An idea of unguessed ampli-
tude was degraded there. It would be better to
kill the idea than to mutilate it like that.
The country has long lacked an adequate con-
veyance for the better "unavailable" short fiction
that goes begging for a home in type. Many thou-
sands of short-stories are called by the magazines;
but few are chosen, and these only in conformity
with a bird's-eye policy which can tell you within
one inch what the readers want! The rest—the
stories that lack punch in the first ten lines—the
love-labors of our great professionals before they
sold their birthright of excellence—in what pigeon-
hole, in what oubliette or garbage can are they
concealed during this long night of best-sellers?
At present the editors of our magazines determine
precisely what stories the world shall read; and
whatever unknown masterpieces have been con-
demned by their policies must repose and rot.in
the mortuary trunk.
If a writer, in ghastly compliance with the edi-
torial hunch, should slog a selling idea out of his
skull, he must let the editor create a demand for
this new commodity by advertising it in the street-
cars like cough syrup or depilatory powders. In
the first instance it is often as not a work of in-
spiration, but in the second, in the third—or soon
—it is only a dulled and oxidized repetition of one
good idea. In time, too, the reader acquires the
taste and expects to get what he pays for. There
is no stopping then. The writer is committed to
a fashion—a commercial product He is a slave
at his type-mill. He cannot escape. Sometimes
he would like to jib away and explode a provoca-
tive idea he carries at heart; but the law is that he
must doll his children in the one and only style
of his initial success.
Here, then, both for the unsold obliquely-beauti-
ful brain-waifs and for the insurgent flashes of the
best-selling, was—and, is, and will be—the oppor-
tunity of the New Decameron. McBride & Co., in
this procrustean series, have conceived an outlet
for short-stories that would otherwise never be
seen. Only—the sad thing is—they have missed
the high privileges of their conception. It was
possible to select fine tales instead of these inchoate
permutations. It was possible to take the project
seriously enough to be above such persiflage as
that flip prologue, of doubtful mood and direction.
Two courses were open at the outset. One—and
incomparably the better—was to salvage material
that is frankly unmarketable because its error is on
the side of genius. The other was to enter with
the magazines and buy popular stuff. The pub-
lishers ignored both, and the result is a pathetic
abortion. If they continue-—as they should in all
conscience, for here is a noble chance—it will be
necessary to choose between these two courses.
As it stands, the New Decameron is like any-


1919
3?3
THE DIAL
thing but its original. No one should take this
divergence unkindly, after six hundred years.
Anglo-Saxon folk, being sincere hypocrites, invari-
ably except against Boccaccio's gusty glee of sex,
and that is accordingly left out. Prurient youth
will search in vain for the "good ones!" Boccaccio
devised a hundred tales—ten apiece for his ten
narrators. In this New Decameron the tales are
collaborated by different authors in something bet-
ter than the ancient monotony of style.
The book begins with a gawking prologue and
takes a few short, experimental flops in narrative.
A diversified group of the humanary appears in
a train rushing down through the hop cbuntry of
England. It is a tour that they are about, and they
reach the coast in panoply. The engine which
should propel their yacht across the channel-chops
declines the office with a callithumpian jolt. In
this dilemma the facile leader of the tour suggests
to pass the time by telling tales. Each member of
the party has his turn. Boccaccio's merry ladies,
sitting by a fountain on the lawn, "untroubled of
any fly," concluded their daily sessions with a love-
ditty by any one of the company while the others
responded. In sort the leader of the modern story-
tellers executes a little song, and the first day is
done.
One tale is as bad as another. All betray stig-
mata that would arouse such editorial cholers as
to preclude publication in the magazines. Also
they lack integration, clarity, salt. Of course the
best story a man tells is about himself; and these
men and women, as characters in a work of fiction,
succeed—without trying, it seems—in getting some-
thing intensely personal across, like old Chaucer's
pilgrims. On the last page it comes to you—the
possibility of strangers in the world, a segregation
of human souls, voyaging together in the way men
love; and their story-telling b<lt the natural and
spontaneous effort to learn what each and other
makes out the riddle of life. Incorrigible optim-
ism welcomes the New Decameron, in spite of its
present fault, to a rich fulfillment of its dazzling
possibilities. In days to come these same voices
will ravel more tales out of other experiences in
other places while the hours blow in the crazy winds.
Let them ravel rarely!
A. Wilson.
Bolshevism and the Vested Interests in America
III. A Memorandum on a Practicable Soviet of Technicians i
Jt is the purpose of this memorandum to show,
in an objective way, that under existing circum-
stances there need be no fear, and no hope, of
an effectual revolutionary overturn in America,
such as would unsettle the established order and
unseat those Vested Interests that now control the
country's industrial system. In an earlier paper
(The Dial, October 4) it has been argued that
no effectual move in the direction of such an over-
turn can be made except on the initiative and under
the direction of the country's technicians, taking
action in common and on a concerted plan. Notor-
iously, no move of this nature has been made
hitherto, nor is there evidence that anything of the
kind has been contemplated by the technicians.
They still are consistently loyal, with something
more than a hired-man's loyalty, to the established
order of commercial profit and absentee ownership.
And any adequate plan of concerted action, such
as would be required for the enterprise in question,
is not a small matter that can be arranged between
two days.
Any plan of action that shall hope to meet the
requirements of the case in any passable fashion
must necessarily have the benefit of mature delib-
eration among the technicians who are competent
to initiate such an enterprise; it must engage the
intelligent co-operation of several thousand tech-
nically trained men scattered over the face of the
country, in one industry and another; must carry
out a passably complete cadastration of the coun-
try's industrial forces; must set up practicable
organization tables covering the country's industry
in some detail,—energy-resources, materials, and
man power; and it must also engage the aggressive
support of the trained men at work in transporta-
tion, mining, and the greater mechanical industries.
These are initial requirements, indispensable to
the initiation of any enterprise of the kind in such
an industrial country as America; and so soon as
this is called to mind it will be realised that any
fear of an effectual move in this direction at
present is quite chimerical. So that, in fact, it
may be set .down without a touch of ambiguity that
absentee ownership is secure, just yet.
Therefore, to show conclusively and in an objec-
tive way how remote any contingency of this nature
still is, it is here proposed to set out in a summary
fashion the main lines which any such concerted
plan of action would have to follow, and what
will of necessity be the manner of organization
which alone can hope to take over the industrial
system, following the eventual abdication or dis-
posession of the Vested Interests and their abf


374
November 1
THE DIAL
owners. And, by way of parenthesis, it is always
the self-made though reluctant abdication of the
Vested Interests and their absentee owners, rather
than their forcible dispossession, that is to be look-
ed for as a reasonably probable event in the cal-
culable future. It should, in effect, cause no sur-
prise to find that they will, in a sense, eliminate
themselves, by letting go quite involuntarily after
the industrial situation gets quite beyond their
control. In fact, they have, in the present difficult
juncture, already sufficiently shown their unfitness
to take care of the country's material welfare,—
which is after all the only ground on which they
can set up a colorable claim to their vested rights.
At the same time something like an opening bid
for a bargain of abdication has already come in
from more than one quarter. So that a discon-
tinuance of the existing system of absentee owner-
ship, on one plan or another, is no longer to be
considered a purely speculative novelty; and an
objective canvass of the manner of organization that
is to be looked to to take the place of the control
now exercised by the Vested Interests—in the event
of their prospective abdication—should according-
ly have some present interest, even apart from its
bearing on the moot question of any forcible disrup-
tion of the established system of absentee ownership.
As a matter of course, the powers and duties of
the incoming directorate will be of a technological
nature, in the main if not altogether; inasmuch
as the purpose of its coming into control is the
care of the community's material welfare by a more
competent management of the country's industrial
system. It may be added that even in the unexpect-
ed event that the contemplated overturn should,
in the beginning, meet with armed opposition from
the partisans of the old order, it will still be true
that the duties of the incoming directorate will be
of a technological character, in the main; inasmuch
as warlike operations are also now substantially
a matter of technology, both in the immediate con-
duct of hostilities and in the still more urgent work
of material support and supply.
The incoming industrial order is designed to
correct the shortcomings of the old. The duties
and powers of the incoming directorate will accord-
ingly converge on those points in the administra-
tion of industry where the old order has most
signally fallen short; that is to say, on the due
allocation of resources and a consequent full and
reasonably proportioned employment of the avail-
'e equipment and man power; on the avoidance
aste and duplication of work; and on an equit-
and sufficient supply of goods and services
to consumers. Evidently the most immediate and
most urgent work to be taken over by the incom-
ing directorate is that for want of which under
the old order the industrial system has been work-
ing slack and at cross purposes; that is to say the
due allocation of available resources, in power,
equipment, and materials, among the greater prim-
ary industries. For this necessary work of alloca-
tion there has been substantially no provision under
the old order.
To carry on this allocation, the country's trans-
portation system must be placed at the disposal of
the same staff that has the work of allocation to
do; since, under modern conditions, any such allo-
cation will take effect only by use of the transporta-
tion system. But, by the same token, the effectual
control of the distribution of goods to consumers
will also necessarily fall into the same hands;
since the traffic in consumable goods is also a mat-
ter of transportation, in the main.
On these considerations, which would only be
reenforced by a more detailed inquiry into the
work to be done, the central directorate will ap-
parently take the shape of a loosely tripartite execu-
tive council, with power to act in matters of indus-
trial administration; the council to include tech-
nicians whose qualifications enable them to be call-
ed Resource Engineers, together with similarly com-
petent spokesmen of the transportation system and
of the distributive traffic in finished products and
services. With a view to efficiency and expedition,
this executive council will presumably not be a
numerous body; although its staff of intelligence
and advice may be expected to be fairly large, and
it will be guided by current consultation with the
accredited spokesmen (deputies, commissioners,
executives, or whatever they may be called) of the
several main subdivisions of productive industry,
transportation, and distributive traffic. ■
Armed with these powers and working in due
consultation with a sufficient ramification of sub-
centers and local councils, this industrial director-
ate should be in a position to avoid virtually all
unemployment of serviceable equipment and man
power on the one hand, and all local or seasonal
scarcity on the other hand. The main line of duties
indicated by the character of the work incumbent
on the directorate, as well as the main line of quali-
fications in its personnel, both executive and ad-
visory, is such as will call for the services of Pro-
duction Engineers, to use a term which is coming
into use. But it is also evident that in its continued
work of planning and advisement the directorate
will require the services of an appreciable number
of consulting economists; men who are qualified to
be called Production Economists.


1919
375
THE DIAL
The profession now includes men with the requi-
site qualifications, although it cannot be said that
the gild of economists is made up of such men in the
main. Quite blamelessly, the economists have, by
, tradition and by force of commercial pressure,
habitually gone in for a theoretical inquiry into
the ways and means of salesmanship, financial
traffic, and the distribution of income and property,
rather than a study of the industrial system con-
sidered as a ways and means of producing goods
and services. Yet there now are, after all, especial-
ly among the younger generation, an appreciable
number, perhaps an adequate number, of econom-
ists who have learned that "business" is not "in-
dustry" and that investment is not production. And,
here as always, the best is good enough, perforce.
"Consulting economists" of this order are a
necessary adjunct to the personnel of the central
directorate, because the technical training that
goes to make a resource engineer, or a production
engineer, or indeed a competent industrial expert
in any line of specialization, is not of a kind to
give him the requisite sure and facile insight into
the play of economic forces at large; and as a
matter of notorious fact, very few of the technicians
have gone at all far afield to acquaint themselves
with anything more to the point in this connection
than the half-forgotten commonplaces of the old
order. The "consulting economist" is accordingly
necessary to cover an otherwise uncovered joint in
the new articulation of things. His place in the
scheme is analogous to the part which legal counsel
now plays in the manoeuvers of diplomatists and
statesmen; and the discretionary personnel of the
incoming directorate are to be, in effect, something
in the way of industrial statesmen under the new
order.
There is also a certain general reservation to be
made with regard to personnel, which may conveni-
ently be spoken of at this point. To avoid persist-
ent confusion and prospective defeat, it will be
necessary to exclude from all positions of trust
and executive responsibility all persons who have
been trained for business or who have had experi-
ence in business undertakings of the larger sort.
This will apply generally, throughout the adminis-
trative scheme, ajthough it will apply more im-
peratively as regards the responsible personnel of
the directorate, central and subordinate, together
with their staff of intelligence and advice, where-
ever judgment and insight are essential. What is
wanted is training in the ways and means of pro-
ductive industry, not in the ways and means of
salesmanship and profitable investment.
By force of habit, men trained to a businesslike
view of what is right and real will be irretrievably
biassed against any plan of production and dis-
tribution that is not drawn in terms of commercial
profit and loss and does not provide a margin of
free income to go to absentee owners. The per-
sonal exceptions to the rule are apparently very
few. But this one point is after all of relatively
minor consequence. What is more to the point in
the same connection is that the commercial bias
induced by their training in businesslike ways of
thinking leaves them incapable of anything like
an effectual insight into the use of resources or
the needs and aims of productive industry, in any
other terms than those of commercial profit and
loss. Their units and standards of valuation and
accountancy are units and standards of price, and
of private gain in terms of price; whereas for any
scheme of productive industry which runs, not on
salesmanship and earnings, but on tangible per-
formance and tangible benefit to the community at
large, the valuations and accountancy of salesman-
ship and earnings are misleading. With the best
and,mo8t benevolent intentions, men so trained will
unavoidably make their appraisals of production
and their disposition of productive forces in the
only practical terms with which they are familiar,
the terms of commercial accountancy; which is the
same as saying, the accountancy of absentee own-
ership and free income; all of which it is the abid-
ing purpose of the projected plan to displace. For
the purposes of this projected new order of produc-
tion, therefore, the experienced and capable busi-
ness men are at the best to be rated as well-inten-
tioned deaf-mute blind men. Their wisest judg-
ment and sincerest endeavors become meaningless
and misguided so soon as the controlling purpose
of industry shifts from the footing of profits on
absentee investment to that of a serviceable output
of goods.
All this abjuration of business principles and
businesslike sagacity may appear to be a taking
of precautions about a vacant formality; but it
is as well to recall that by trained propensity and
tradition the business men, great and small, are
after all, each in their degree, lieutenants of those
Vested Interests which the projected organization
of industry is designed to displace,—schooled in
their tactics and marching under their banners.
The experience of the war administration and its
management of industry by help of the business
men during the past few years goes to show what
manner of industrial wisdom is to be looked for
where capable and well-intentioned business men
are called in to direct industry with a view to
maximum production and economy. For its re-


376
November 1
THE DIAL
sponsible personnel the administration has uni-
formly drawn on experienced business men, pre-
ferably men of successful experience in Big Busi-
ness; that is to say, trained men with a shrewd eye
to the main chance. And the tale of its adventures,
so far as a businesslike reticence has allowed them
to become known, is an amazing comedy of errors;
which runs to substantially the same issue whether
it is told of one or another of the many depart-
ments, boards, councils, commissions, and adminis-
trations, that have had this work to do.
Notoriously, this choice of personnel has with
singular uniformity proved to be of doubtful ad-
visability, not to choose a harsher epithet. The
policies pursued, doubtless with the best and most
sagacious intentions of which this businesslike per-
sonnel have been capable, have uniformly resulted
in the safeguarding of investments and the alloca-
tion of commercial profits; all the while that the.
avowed aim of it all, and doubtless the conscien-
tious purpose of the businesslike administrators,
has been quantity production of essential goods.
The more that comes to light, the more visible be-
comes the difference between the avowed purpose
and the tangible performance. Tangible perform-
ance in the way of productive industry is precisely
what the business men do not know how to pro-
pose, but it is also that on which the possible suc-
cess of any projected plan of overturn will always
rest. Yet it is also to be remarked that even the
reluctant and blindfold endeavors of these business-
like administrators to break away from their life-
long rule of reasonable earnings, appear to have
resulted in a very appreciably increased industrial
output per unit of man power and equipment em-
ployed. That such was the outcome under the war
administration is presumably due in great part to
the fact that the business men in charge were unable
to exercise so strict a control over the working
force of technicians and skilled operatives during
that period of stress.
And here the argument comes in touch with one
of the substantial reasons why there need be no
present fear of a revolutionary overturn. By set-
tled habit, the American population are quite unable
to see their way to entrust any appreciable respon-
sibility to any other than business men; at the
same time that such a move of overturn can hope
to succeed only if it excludes the business men
from all postions of responsibility. This senti-
mental deference of the American people to the
sagacity of its business men is massive, profound,
and alert. So much so that it will take harsh and
protracted experience to remove it, or to divert it
sufficiently for the purposes of any revolutionary
diversion. And more particularly, popular senti-
ment in this country will not tolerate the assump-
tion of responsibility by the technicians, who are
in the popular apprehension conceived to be a
somewhat fantastic brotherhood of over-specializ-
ed cranks, not to be trusted out of sight except
under the restraining hand of safe and sane busi-
ness men. Nor are the technicians themselves in
the habit of taking a greatly different view of their
own case. They still feel themselves, in the nature
of things, to fall into place as employes of those
enterprising business men who are, in the nature
of things, elected to get something for nothing.
Absentee ownership is secure, just yet In time,
with sufficient provocation, this popular frame of
mind may change, of course; but it is in any case
a matter of an appreciable lapse of time.
Even such a scant and bare outline of generalities
as has been hastily sketched above will serve to
show that any effectual overturn of the established
order is not a matter to be undertaken out of hand,
or to be manoeuvred into shape by makeshifts after
the initial move has been made. There is no chance
without deliberate preparations from beforehand.
There are two main lines of preparations that will
have to be taken care of by any body of men who
may contemplate such a move: (a) An inquiry
into existing conditions and into the available ways
and means; and (b) the setting up of practicable
organization tables and a survey of the available
personnel. And bound up with this work of prep-
aration, and conditioning it, provision must also
be made for the growth of such a spirit of team-
work as wiil be ready to undertake and undergo
this critical adventure. All of which will take time.
It will be necessary to investigate and to set
out in a convincing way what are the various kinds
and lines of waste that are necessarily involved in
the present businesslike control of industry; what
are the abiding causes of these wasteful and ob-
structive practices; and what economies of man-
agement and production will become practicable
on the elimination of the present businesslike con-
trol. This will call for diligent team-work on the
part of a suitable group of economists and engin-
eers, who will have to be drawn together by self-
selection on the basis of a common interest in pro-
ductive efficiency, economical use of resources, and
an equitable distribution of the consumable output.
Hitherto no such self-selection of competent per-
sons has visibly taken place, and the beginnings
of a plan for team-work in carrying on such an
inquiry are yet to be made.
In the course of this contemplated inquiry and
on the basis afforded by its findings there is no


1919
377
THE DIAL
less serious work to be done in the way of delibera-
tion and advisement, among the members of the
group in question and in consultation with out-
side technological men ■ who know what can best
be done with the means in hand, and whose interest
in things drives them to dip into the same gain-
less adventure. This will involve the setting up
of organization tables to cover the efficient use of
the available resources and equipment, as well as
to re-organize the traffic involved in the distribu-
tion of the output.
By way of an illustrative instance, to show by
an example something of what the scope and
method of this inquiry and advisement will pre-
sumably be like, it may be remarked that under
the new order the existing competitive commercial
traffic engaged in the distribution of goods to con-
sumers will presumably fall away, in the main,
for want of a commercial incentive. It is well
known, in a general way, that the present organiza-
tion of this traffic, by wholesale and retail mer-
chandising, involves a very large and very costly
duplication of work, equipment, stock, and per-
sonnel,—several hundred per cent more than
would be required by an economically efficient man-
agement of the traffic on a reasonable plan. In
looking for a way out of the present extremely
wasteful merchandising traffic, and in working out
organization tables for an equitable and efficient
distribution of goods to consumers, the experts in
the case will, it is believed, be greatly helped out
by detailed information on such existing organiza-
tions as, e.g., the distributing system of the Chicago
Packers, the chain stores, and the mail-order
houses. These are commercial organizations, of
course, and as such they are managed with a view
to the commercial gain of their owners and man-
agers; but they are at the same time designed to
avoid the ordinary wastes of the ordinary retail
distribution, for the benefit of their absentee own-
ers. There are not a few object-lessons of economy
of this practical character to be found among the
Vested Interests; so much so that the economies
which result from them are among the valuable
capitalized assets of these business concerns.
This contemplated inquiry will, of course, also
be useful in the way of publicity; to show, con-
cretely and convincingly, what are the inherent de-
fects of the present businesslike control of industry,
why these defects are inseparable from a business-
like control under existing circumstances, and
what may fairly be expected of an industrial man-
agement which takes no account of absentee owner-
ship. The ways and means of publicity to be em-
ployed is a question that plainly cannot profitably
be discussed beforehand, so long as the whole ques-
tion of the contemplated inquiry itself has little
more than a speculative interest; and much the same
will have to be said as to the scope and detail of
the inquiry, which will have to be determined in
great part by the interest and qualifications of the
men who are to carry it on. Nothing but provision-
al generalities could at all confidently be sketched
into its program until the work is in hand.
The contemplated eventual shift to a new and
more practicable system of industrial production
and distribution has been here spoken of as a
"revolutionary overturn" of the established order.
This flagitious form of words is here used chiefly
because the Guardians of the established order are
plainly apprehensive of something sinister that can
be called by no gentler name, rather than with the
intention of suggesting that extreme and subversive
measures alone can now save the life of the under-
lying population from the increasingly disservice-
able rule of the Vested Interests. The move which
is here discussed in a speculative way under this
sinister form of words, as a contingency to be
guarded against by fair means and foul, need, in
effect, be nothing spectacular; assuredly it need
involve no clash of arms or fluttering of banners,
unless, as is beginning to seem likely, the Guardians
of the old order should find that sort of thing ex-
pedient. In its elements, the move will be of the
simplest and most matter-of-fact character; al-
though there will doubtless be many intricate ad-
justments to be made in detail. In principle, all
that is necessarily involved is a disallowance of
absentee ownership; that is to say, the disestablish-
ment of an institution which has, in the course of
time and change, proved to be noxious to the com-
mon good. The rest will follow quite simply from
the cancelment of this outworn and footless vested
right.
By absentee ownership, as the term applies in
this connection, is here to be understood the owner-
ship of an industrially useful article by any person
or persons who are not habitually employed in the
industrial use of it. In this connection, office work
of a commercial nature is not rated as industrial
employment. A corollary of some breadth follows
immediately, although it is so obvious an implica-
tion of the main proposition that it should scarcely
need explicit statement: An owner who is employed
in the industrial use of a given parcel of property
owned by him, will still be an "absentee owner,"
within the meaning of the term, in case he is not
the only person habitually employed in its use. A
further corollary follows, perhaps less obvious at
first sight, but no less convincing on closer atten-


378
November 1
THE DIAL
tion to the sense of the terms employed: Collective
ownership, of the corporate form, that is to say
ownership by a collectivity instituted ad hoc, also
falls away as being unavoidably absentee owner-
ship, within the meaning of the term. It will be
noted that all this does not touch joint ownership
of property held in undivided interest by a house-
hold group and made use of by the members of the
household indiscriminately. It is only in so far
as the household is possessed of useful property
not made use of by its members, or not made use
of without hired help, that its ownership of such
property falls within the meaning of the term, ab-
sentee ownership. To be sufficiently explicit, it
may be added that the cancelment of absentee own-
ership as here understood will apply indiscrimin-
ately to all industrially useful objects, whether
realty or personalty, whether natural resources,
equipment, banking capital, or wrought goods in
stock.
As an immediate consequence of this cancelment
of absentee ownership it should seem to be alto-
gether probable that industrially useful articles
will presently oease to be used for purposes of
ownership, that is to say for purposes of private
gain; although there might be no administrative
interference with such use. Under the existing
state of the industrial arts, neither the natural re-
sources drawn on for power and materials nor
the equipment employed in the great and con-
trolling industries are of a nature to lend them-
selves to any other than absentee ownership;
and these industries control the situation, so
that private enterprise for gain on a small
scale would scarcely find a suitable market.
At the same time the inducement to private ac-
cumulation of wealth at the cost of the community
would virtually fall away, inasmuch as the induce-
ment to such accumulation now is in nearly all
cases an ambition to come in for something in the
way of absentee ownership. In effect, other incen-
tives are a negligible quantity. Evidently, the
secondary effects of such cancelment will go far,
in more than one direction, but evidently, too, there
could be little profit in endeavoring to follow up
these ulterior contingencies in extended specula-
tions here.
As to the formalities, of a legal complexion, that
would be involved in such a disallowance of absen-
tee ownership, they need also be neither large nor
intricate; at least not in their main incidence. It
will in all probability take the shape of a cancel-
ment of all corporation securities, as an initial
love. Articles of partnership, evidences of debt,
d other legal instruments which now give title
to property not in hand or not in use by the owner,
will be voided by the same act. In all probability
this will be sufficient for the purpose.
This act of disallowance may be called subversive
and revolutionary; but while there is no intention
here to offer anything in the way of exculpation,
it is necessary to an objective appraisal of the con-
templated move to note that the effect of such dis-
allowance would be subversive or revolutionary
only in a figurative sense of the words. It would
all of it neither subvert nor derange any substantial
mechanical contrivance or relation, nor need it ma-
terially disturb the relations, either as workman or
as consumer of goods and services, of ,any appre-
ciable number of persons now engaged in produc-
tive industry. In fact, the disallowance will touch
nothing more substantial than a legal make-believe.
This would, of course, be' serious enough in its
consequences to those classes—called the kept
classes—whose livelihood hangs on the mainten-
ance of this legal make-believe. So, likewise, it
would vacate the occupation of the "middleman,"
which likewise turns on the maintenance of this
legal make-believe; which gives "title" to that to
which one stands in no material relation.
Doubtless, hardship will follow thick and fast,
among those classes who are least inured to priva-
tion; and doubtless all men will agree that it is a
great pity. But this evil is, after all, a side issue,
as regards the present argument, which has to do
with nothing else than the practicability of the
scheme. So it is necessary to note that, however
detrimental to the special interests of the absentee
owners this move may be, yet it will not in any
degree derange or diminish those material facts
that constitute the ways and means of productive
industry; nor will it in any degree enfeeble or
mutilate that joint stock of technical knowledge
and practice that constitutes the intellectual work-
ing force of the industrial system. It does not di-
rectly touch the material facts of industry, for bet-
ter or worse. In this sense it is a completely idle
matter, in its immediate incidence, whatever its
secondary consequences may be believed to be.
But there is no doubt that a proposal to disallow
absentee ownership will shock the moral sensi-
bilities of many persons; more particularly the
sensibilities of the absentee owners. To avoid the
appearance of willful neglect, therefore, it is neces-
sary to speak also of the "moral aspect." There
is no intention here to argue the moral merits of
this contemplated disallowance of absentee owner-
ship; or to argue for or against such a move, on
moral or other grounds. Absentee ownership is
legally sound today. Indeed, as is well known, the


1919
379
THE DIAL
Constitution includes a clause which specially safe-
guards its security. If, and when, the law is chang-
ed, in this respect, what so is legal today will of
course cease to be legal. There is, in fact, not
much more to be said about it; except that, in the
last resort, the economic moralities wait on the
economic necessities. The economic-moral sense
of the American community today runs unequivo-
cally to the effect that absentee ownership is funda-
mentally and eternally right and good; and it should
seem reasonable to believe that it will continue to
run to that effect for some time yet.
There has lately been some irritation and fault-
finding with what is called "profiteering" and there
may be more or less uneasy discontent with what
is felt to be an unduly disproportionate inequality
in the present distribution of income; but appre-
hensive persons should not lose sight of the main
fact that absentee ownership after all is the idol of
every true American heart. It is the substance of
things hoped for and the reality of things not seen.
To achieve (or to inherit) a competency, that is to
say to accumulate such wealth as will assure a
"decent" livelihood in industrial absentia, is the
universal, and universally laudable, ambition of
all who have reached years of discretion; but it all
means the same thing—to get something for noth-
ing, at any cost. Similarly universal is the awe-
struck deference with which the larger absentee
owners are looked up to for guidance and example.
These substantial citizens are the ones who have
"made good," in the popular apprehension. They
are the great and good men whose lives "all remind
us we can make our lives sublime, etc."
This commercialized frame of mind is a sturdy
outgrowth of many generations of consistent train-
ing in the pursuit of the main chance; it is second
nature, and there need be no fear that it will allow
the Americans to see workday facts in any other than
its own perspective, just yet. The most tenacious
factor in any civilization is a settled popular
frame of mind, and to this abiding American frame
of mind absentee ownership is the controlling cen-
ter of all the economic realties.
So, having made plain that all this argument on
a practicable overturn of the established order has
none but a speculative interest, the argument can
go on to consider what will be the nature of the
initial move of overturn which is to break with the
old order of absentee ownership and set up a regime
of workmanship governed by the country's tech-
nicians.
As has already been called to mind, repeatedly,
the effective management of the industrial system
at large is already in the hands of the technicians,
so far as regards the work actually done; but it is
all under the control of the Vested Interests, repre-
senting absentee owners, so far as regards its failure
to work. And the failure is, quite reasonably,
attracting much attention lately. In this two-cleft,
or bi-cameral, administration of industry, the tech-
nicians may be said to represent the community at
large in its industrial capacity, or in other words
the industrial system as a going concern; whereas
the business men speak for the commercial interest
of the absentee owners, as a body which holds the
industrial community in usufruct. It is the part
of the technicians, between them, to know the
country's available resources, in mechanical power,
and equipment; to know and put in practice the
joint stock of technological knowledge which is
indispensable to industrial production; as well as
to know and take care of the community's habitual
need and use of consumable goods. They are, in
effect, the general staff of production engineers,
under whose surveillance the required output of
goods and services is produced and distributed to
the consumers. Whereas it is the part of the busi-
ness men to know what rate and volume of pro-
duction and distribution will best serve the com-
mercial interest of the absentee owners, and to put
this commercial knowledge in practice by nicely
limiting production and distribution of the output
to such a rate and volume as their commercial
traffic "will bear—that is to say, what will yield the
largest net income' to the absentee owners in terms
of price. In this work of sagaciously retarding
industry the captains of industry necessarily work
at cross purposes, among themselves, since the traf-
fic is of a competitive nature.
Accordingly, in this two-cleft arrangement of
administrative functions, it is the duty of the
technicians to plan the work and to carry it on; and
it is the duty of the captains of industry to see that
the work will benefit none but the captains and
their associated absentee owners, and that it is not
pushed beyond the salutary minimum which their
commercial traffic will bear. In all that concerns
the planning and execution of the work done, the
technicians necessarily take the initiative and exer-
cise the necessary creative surveillance and direc-
tion; that being what they, and they alone, are good
for; whereas the businesslike deputies of the ab-
sentee owners sagaciously exercise a running veto
power over the technicians and their productive in-
dustry. They are able effectually to exercise this
commercially sagacious veto power by the fact that
the technicians are, in effect, their employes, hired
to do their bidding and fired if they do not; and
perhaps no less by this other fact, that the techni-
cians have hitherto been working piecemeal, as


380
November 1
THE DIAL
scattered individuals under their master's eye; they
have hitherto not drawn together on their own
ground and taken counsel together as a general
staff of industry, to determine what had best he
done and what not. So that they have hitherto
figured in the conduct of the country's industrial
enterprise only as a technological extension of the
business men's grasp on the commercial main
chance. -
Yet, immediately and unremittingly, the tech-
nicians and their advice and surveillance are es-
sential to any work whatever in those great primary
industries on which the country's productive sys-
tems turns, and which set the pace for all the rest.
And it is obvious that so soon as they shall draw
together, in a reasonably inclusive way, and take
common counsel as to what had best be done, they
are in a position to say what work shall be done
and to fix the terms on which it is to be done. In
short, so far as regards the technical requirements
of the case, the situation is ready for a self-selected,
but inclusive, Soviet of technicians to take over
the economic affairs of the country and to allow
and disallow what they may agree on; provided al-
ways that they live within the requirements of that
state of the industrial arts whose keepers they are,
and provided that their pretensions continue to have
the support of the industrial rank and file; which
comes near saying that their Soviet must consist-
ently and effectually take care of the material wel-
fare of the underlying population.
Now, this revolutionary posture of the present
state of the industrial arts may be undesirable, in
some respects, but there is nothing to be gained by
denying the fact. So soon—but only so soon—as
the engineers draw together, take common counsel,
work out a plan of action, and decide to disallow
absentee ownership out of hand, that move will
have been made. The obvious and simple means
of doing it is a conscientious withdrawal of efficien-
cy; that is to say the general strike, to include so
much of the country's staff of technicians as will
suffice to incapacitate the industrial system at large
J-y their withdrawal, for suoh time as may be re-
quired to enforce their argument.
In its elements, the project is simple and obvious,
but its working out will require much painstaking
preparation, much more than appears on the face
of this bald statement; for it also follows from the
present state of the industrial arts and from the
character of the industrial system in which modern
technology works out, that even a transient failure
to make good in the conduct of productive indus-
try will result in a precipitate collapse of the en-
rprise.
By themselves alone, the technicians can, in a
few weeks, effectually incapacitate the country's
productive industry sufficiently for the purpose. No
one who will dispassionately consider the technical
character of this industrial system will fail to rec-
ognize that fact. But so long as they have not, at
least, the tolerant consent of the population at large,
backed by the aggressive support of the trained
working force engaged in transportation and in
the greater primary industries, they will be sub-
stantially helpless to set up a practicable working
organization on the new footing; which is the same
as saying that they will in that case accomplish
nothing more to the purpose than a transient period
of hardship and dissension.
Accordingly, if it be presumed that the produc-
tion engineers are of a mind to play their part,
there will be at least two main lines of subsidiary
preparation to be taken care of before any overt
move can reasonably be undertaken: (a) An ex-
tensive campaign of inquiry and publicity, such as
will bring the underlying population to a reason-
able understanding of what it is all about; and
(b) the working-out of a common understanding
and a solidarity of sentiment between the techni-
cians and the working force engaged in transporta-
tion and in the greater underlying industries of the
system: to which is to be added as being nearly
indispensable from the outset,* an active adherence
to this plan on the part of the trained workmen in
the great generality of the mechanical industries.
Until these prerequisites are taken care of, any
project for the overturn of the established order of
absentee ownership will be nugatory.
By way of conclusion it may be recalled again
that, just yet, the production engineers are a scat-
tering lot of fairly contented subalterns, working
piecemeal under orders from the deputies of the
absentee owners; the working force of the great
mechanical industries, including transportation, are
still nearly out of touch and out of sympathy with
the technical men, and are bound in rival trade
organizations whose sole and self-seeking interest
converges on the full dinner-pail; while the under-
lying population are as nearly uninformed on the
state of things as the Guardians of the Vested In-
terests, including the commercialized newspapers,
can manage to keep them, and they are consequently
still in a frame of mind to tolerate no substantia!
abatement of absentee ownership; and the consti-
tuted authorities are competently occupied with
maintaining the status quo There is nothing in the
situation that should reasonably .flutter the sensi-
bilities of the Guardians or of that massive body
of well-to-do citizens who make up the rank and
file of absentee owners, just yet.
Thorstein Veblen.


THE DIAL
A FORTNIGHTLY
The Old Order and die New
Perhaps the most notable achievement of the
peacemakers of Paris is a new method of making
war. Throughout the century and a half that pre-
ceded the recent conflict, the framers of constitu-
tions were busy with the imposition of legislative
checks upon the diplomatic and war-making powers
of national executives. These constitutionalists, no
less than President Wilson, were the enemies of
secret diplomacy and of "every arbitrary power any-
where than can separately, secretly, and of its single
choice disturb the peace of the world." Although
the restrictions imposed in these years of laborious
reform were by no means rigorous, yet foreign af-
fairs, and matters of war and peace in particular,
did **>me to fall somewhat under the influence of
public opinion and legislative debate, and in cer-
tain instances even became in a measure subject
to legislative control. The influence of public opin-
ion in these matters actually became so strong that
any executive who attempted to organize a nation
for war felt compelled to provide the people with
war aims that became more and more idealistic as
the burden of the war itself became more and more
diflkut to bear. Slight as these restrictions are,
they still carry us a step in advance of the time
when the military force of the nation, like its other
powers, was at the disposition of a wholly irre-
sponsible executive. This much then had been ac-
complished before the dawn of Armistice Day.
But from the days of the Bolshevist coup d' etat
in Petrograd it had been apparent to the more or
less responsible executives of the Allied nations that
victory over Germany would leave a more insidious
enemy still undefeated—an enemy not of the Allied
nations but of their privileged classes. The diplo-
mats dared not ask the legislatures and the peoples
to essay another passage at arms. In fact it had
become necessary to invent a type of warfare that
could be entered upon and conducted by executives,
without legislative sanction, without the conscrip-
tion of soldiers, without money grants or heavy
taxation or the wide sale of government securities
—in short, without the support of the manhood
and money, of the constitutional governments of
the Allied countries. Necessity spawned its inven-
tion—the "peaceful blockade." Even when the
peoples of the Allied countries were most ardent in
their desire to crush the Central Powers, the block-
ade was regarded in some quarters as an inhuman
method of warfare. But now the diplomatic agents
of France and England, with the compliance of our
own State Department, have turned this weapon
against a land with which we are at peace. Mow
than this, the Supreme Council is attempting to
persuade or intimidate the executives of neutral
governments into joining the new alliance, and
has threatened Germany with economic *li angula
tion, at the hands of the Repartition* Commission,
if she refuses to become a party to this crime, If
the Senate of the United States and the parliament*
of the countries addressed by the Council are con-
cerned for the safety of representative government,
let them take immediately from the diplomat* the
power that enables them, "separately, secretly, anil
of their single choice," to declare a war of exterm-
ination against any nation that has displeased them.
Ihe German Constitution, now ihiiiuhiikii in
complete translation, has been praised as a progres-
sive document. It is so difficult to find anything In
Central Europe today cxecepl anemic mothers and
tuberculous children that it is hard to withhold
recognition of life and movement where It is even
faintly discernible. But the German Constitution
is not the place to look for it. Undoubtedly It is
a modern constitution in the sense that it was made
yesterday: it is not modern however in the sense
that it embodies the best political practice adduced
from criticism of the actual constitution of the Unit-
ed States or the constitutional law* of France. Fur
from being progressive, the Cerman Constitution is
one of the most static of state document*. Instead
of providing simply a mechanism for formulating
policies and enacting legislation, and an additional
mechanism for replacing its own machinery a* soon
as it becomes obsolete, the Constitution lays down
specifically the line of legislation which must, ac-
cording to organic mandate, be followed. Obvi-
ously no constitution can escape the limitations of
its period: what is wrong with the German Consti-
tution is that it attempts to project its limitation*
into the future. The German* have recognized and
thoroughly provided in their basic law for evtsry
phase of existing society. Unfortunately the very
act of definition will crystallize the forms of present
day society into a more or less rigid mold, and the
inflexibility of the written word is bound to hinder
the task of modifying the mold sufficiently to pro*
vide for the succeeding staj^e of civilization. The
very fact that the f/erman Const ilut'u/n rtftftM faith-
fully the facts and ideals of present A»f (iwm*ny
is its prime defect For the future will show # dif-
ferent image, and the present mirror will distort n.


382
November 1
THE DIAL
The breakdown of statesmanship during the
past year has had some of the terrific, impersonal
grandeur of an earthquake. The catastrophic war
which nobody could prevent had its fitting sequel
in the catastrophic peace which nobody dared to im-
prove. Those of us who are committed to the im-
passive role of spectators have been a little slow in
sensing the play of these august events upon the
personalities chiefly concerned in them. The states-
men and labor leaders themselves may have been
slow in realizing their ambiguous positions. It
seems that they have been the victims of a dilemma
which nothing short of a physical breakdown could
make manifest. In this sense the plight of President
Wilson, on the assumption that it is a functional as
well as an organic disturbance, has a universal
significance. It throws perhaps a light upon the
illnesses of Colonel House and Samuel Gompers,
and by reflection upon the amazing health of Mr.
Lloyd George. It is with no failing of due
respect that we select the case of the President
as exemplary. A recapitulation of his history
during the past two years discloses evidence of a
basic failure of adjustment which was bound to
disclose itself eventually in .either a mental or
a physical reaction. His was the difficulty of the
idealist who had not learned to master his materials,
and who in the course of prosecuting a vigorous
bellicose action was able to keep his ideal self
only by keeping it apart. As a result two Mr. Wil-
sons gradually came into existence, and as they de-
veloped there arose a dissociation between the
world of General Staffs, diplomats, and espionage
organizations in which Mr. Wilson had to work,
and that private world of hope, faith, and infinite
charity into which he retired to think. So far from
letting the war change the disciple of pacifism into
the legionary of Mars, as in Shaw's fable of Ferro-
vius in Androcles and the Lion, Mr. Wilson per-
fected himself in each of the parts separately, and
in each of them created an apparently firm and con-
sistent character. The two Mr. Wilsoas went to
Paris: one bowing to the crowds, and the other
dining with the diplomats. One made speeches
against secret diplomacy, the use of arbitrary power,
and the disregard of faith and humanity in dealing
with those whose sins increased the difficulty of dis-
pensing justice. The other was the "realist" Mr.
Wilson who sat in secret conferences, bartered
friendly peoples' territories for a scrap of paper,
ignored his pledges both to friend and enemy, and
transformed the war to make the world safe for
democracy into a peace to make the world profit-
able for secret treaties. The idealist Mr. Wilson
returned from Paris to campaign with sabbatical
seriousness for the League and Treaty that the prac-
tical Mr. Wilson had all too astutely assisted in
-iting. Between these two characters was a sharply
wn conflict. On a less urgent and less important
ision Mr. Wilson might have found some simple
defense mechanism, such as the jest or the trans-
fered reproach, to reconcile these opposites in a
higher synthesis. But by the time his work was
challenged in America these defenses had been
insidiously weakened: and the revelations of Lan-
sing, Bullitt, and Colcord, backed by the criticisms
of Knox, Borah, and Johnson, doubtless jolted to
the foundations the hitherto self sufficient com-
placencies and assurances. The practical Mr. Wil-
son found it more and more difficult to appeal to
the idealist for moral sustenance. And at length
the contest between the two personalities could not
be concealed: it was a public spectacle. For this
reason it had either openly to be proclaimed or
transferred to other grounds. An integrated
character would have renounced in humiliation the
League, the Treaty, and all their works, or it would
have blown away the nauseous vapors of justice,
humanity, and fair play that enveloped its declara-
tions, and have proclaimed the folly of its hopes
and the futility of its promises. Unfortunately
the President could not decide any better than Mr.
Gompers whether he was for the old world that
had not yet broken up or the new one that was
yet to be born. The realist and the idealist were
each too mature and resolute to submit to the
domination of the other. The President's lament-
able illness is possibly a sign that neither of them
will give in, and that the difference is being settled,
not by the simple mechanism of rationalization
and compromomise, but by the deeper and more
ultimate mechanism of disease. It is to be regretted
that Mr. Wilson has not had the sanguine flexibility
of Mr. Lloyd George; for the English Premier has
trimphantly demonstrated how stable the constitu-
tion and mental equipment of a statesman may
remain as long as he does not work deliberately
against an automatic adjustment by clinging to a
cumbersome body of principles and moral con-
victions. If government is to be effected by majori-
ties the statesman who leads his constituents by fol-
lowing the popular nose is the ideal statesman.
The idealist, who can neither master his course of
action nor warp his principles, will find that in the
art of government all is vanity and vexation of
spirit—and that finally the brain lags and the
flesh itself is as grass.
EDITORS
Martyn Johnson
Oswald W. Knauth
Robert Morss Lovett
Helen Marot
Thorstein Veblen
Associates
Clarence Britten
Lewis Mumford"
Geroid Robtnson


1919
383
THE DIAL
Notes on New Books
The Happy End. By Joseph Hergesheimer.
315 pages. Knopf.
In these studies Hergesheimer discloses a flexibil-
ity seldom realized in the short-story. Where most
writers are content to give this narrative form a
circumscribed burden of emotion—circumscribed,
that is, in direction though not in intensity—Herge-
sheimer shows it capable of as many facets as a
finely cut jewel—each one a contribution to an
underlying unity. It is this characteristic of the
stories in The Happy End which clothes them with
the seeming richness and suggested complexity of
full-length novels. Hergesheimer develops his
stories with such vivifying technique that they be-
come surcharged, and the reader is made tinglingly
conscious of a reserve voltage, constantly generated
and yet always controlled. There is scant consid-
eration for action apart from conflict in these tales;
the theme to which he returns again and again is
that of a character saddled with an obligation, hew-
ing a pathway through the brambles of existence.
Hergesheimer's men and women are pivoted upon
destiny—not piloted to a destination: the dedica-
tion to the volume, in which he affirms his responsi-
bility to his grocer, evidently was composed with
his tongue in his cheek. The seven stories which
comprise this book touch life at many angles.
There is, in Rosemary Roselle, a fine study of op-
posing temperaments, thrown against a Civil War
background. Bread, a story of exquisite artistry,
infuses a fresh significance into the war as an ele-
ment of fiction. Each tale has some peculiar grace,
and a quickening appeal to the imagination. The
collection is a real addition to the work of a writer
whose utterances grow increasingly significant.
A Servant of Reality. By Phyllis Bottome.
454 pages. Century.
Those whose function it is to commit literature
to the card index may have no space in the cata-
logue for a type of novel bearing the designation,
"light tragedy," and yet there is occasional need
for just this classification. It seems to us that Miss
Bottome's newest story is of that type, for it clothes
an essentially tragic theme in the gay garments of
a style which is continually, sparkling, and not in-
frequently heady with epigram. We suspect that
the technique of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Do-
rian Gray was not far remote from the conscious-
ness of this novelist in the fashioning of the ma-
terials of A Servant of Reality. The form is a
dangerous one to handle, for only a hair line sepa-
rates it from a breach of esthetic good taste, but
it may be set down to the credit of Miss Bottome
that at no point does the mood clash with method.
It is a daring thing, for example, right at the tragic
peak of the story, to drop back into the deft, slightly
ironic, tone of the earlier part of the book, but the
transition is accomplished in a manner to heighten
rather than to jeopardiie the effect Moreover, A
Servant of Reality is one of those rare novels into
which the war has been fused—not injected. The
war explains the emotions of the central characters,
without explaining them out of existence. It is pos-
sible to understand the actions of the overwrought
surgeon, returning from two years in a German
prison camp, and his sudden absorption in the
light, frivolous, but basically tragic figure of the
story's heroine. These people are made real, not
puppets of military necessity.
Miss Bottome seems to have an instinctive sense
of situation. In the handling of minor incidents
there is no overcrowding, no straining for a desired
effect. The incidents unfold naturally, and then are
re-absorbed in the main current of the narrative.
Minor characters—some of them real creations—are
so skilfully employed as to contribute measurably
to the impression of artistic totality which the book
leaves. The dialogue is just remote enough from
reality to give it fragrance; it is too sparkling to be
spontaneous, but the loss in illusion is compensated
for by the polish. After all, what Wells calls "the
splash and glitter" of a genuine prose style has its
place in novel writing, despite the preponderance
of those who blunder through without H.
The Secrets of Animal Life. By J. Arthur
Thomson. 325 pages. Holt.
Professor Thomson always suggests more than
he says, and the charm of his style appears no-
where better than in these forty papers, collected
from a series that appeared over several years in
The New Statesman. There is nothing since Ray
Lankester's Easy Chair that is so characteristic of
the modern scientific "natural history," in distinc-
tion from the older writing about the mysteries of *
living things. There is the appreciation of the mys-
teries joined to a thorough familiarity with the
scientific attitude as well as with the scientific rev-
elations of our own time. Most of the chanters are
really review articles on topics suggested by scien-
tific monographs that have appeared in the course
of the past ten years, many of them from American
laboratories. They summarize significant facts,
present outstanding problems, and indicate leading
hypotheses and lines of approach to the notations,
and frequently the practical bearings or applica-
tions. Four main groups of tonics are discussed—
the adaptation of the individual animal to his sur-
roundings, the interrelations of organisms, develop-
ment and behavior, and problems of evolution and
heredity. Taken together these collected papers
give an excellent survey of the present outlook in
the biological sciences, of especial value to the lay-
man and to the young student who has not yet ori-
ented himself in the bewildering maze of technical
literature.


384
November 1
THE DIAL
The Book of a Naturalist. W. H. Hudson.
360 pages. Doran.
In The Book of a Naturalist Mr. Hudson sur-
rounds some of the familiar animals of Great Brit-
ain with a volume of humane and edifying gossip,
given out in a spirit of admirably benevolent in-
telligence. The book glows with that certain gen-
tlemanly provincialism that doth hedge about a
certified Briton. The tales, or anecdotes, are told
with a mannerly reserve, not to say forbearance,
which however does not go the length of anywise
hampering that abundant run of graceful speech
which makes their substance. There is, now and
again, a remote promise of whimsicality, and at
times also an apparently advised approach to hu-
mor. And with all, it is pleasant reading for a
dull afternoon, and it shows, or hints at, a much
larger and more intimate acquaintance among the
commonplace British fauna than the writer has
thought best to disclose. A person not familiar
with Mr. Hudson's earlier and more artful tales
from lower latitudes might even find that this
book lives up to the promise of its title page.
Fields of Victory. By Mrs. Humphry
Ward. 274 pages. Scribner.
My "Little Bit." By Marie Corelli. 318
pages. Doran.
If it were wise—or even discreet—to attempt a
facile classification of all the war books from non-
combatant pens, we suspect that the whole harvest
might be garnered into two shelves—one to be la-
beled The War and the World, the other The War
and I. According to the temperament of the
writer, all the volumes tend to drift one way or the
other; their aura is either international or per-
sonal. We find some carrying a flavor of both, of
course; but in the main, the reaction is fairly defi-
• nite in one direction. These opposed channels are
rather strikingly emphasized in two late comers to
the martial shelf—Fields of Victory and My
Little Bit. It is perhaps characteristic that Mrs.
Ward's book, being the third which she has writ-
ten dealing with England's part in the war, should
be gleaned from sources of high command, and
should subtly convey the impression of rubbing
shoulders with those personages who held the des-
tinies of armies like chessmen on a board. It is
equally characteristic that Miss Corelli, eddying
about in little gusts of controversy in England,
should appear to be far more hotly in the thick of
battle than Mrs. Ward, touring the Western front
with military escort. While Mrs. Ward is weighing
the comparative value of this or that strategic move,
and gravely seeking to compute and apportion mili-
tary honors among the Allied armies, we find Miss
Corelli lashing herself into sarcastic fury over the
domestic policy of the Empire regarding food re-
strictions and hoarding. Mrs. Ward converses with
generals; Miss Corelli flays the cabinet. Mrs. Ward
meets President -Wilson, in whose "instinctive and
accomplished choice of words and phrases, some-
thing reminded me of the talk of George Eliot as
I heard it fifty years ago." Miss Corelli is accused
of sugar hoarding and writes saucy parodies "cor-
dially inscribed" to Sir Thomas Lipton, "the prince
o' pickles and o' jam." In this instance, it is the
writer with the international point of view who
writes the better book. Mrs. Ward's resume of the
last year of the war is clear-visioned, scholarly, and
concise. Miss Corelli's contribution is merely a
scrapbook—possibly in more than one sense of the
word. It became a book by the grace of a clipping
bureau.
Folklore in the Old Testament. By Sir
James George Frazer. 3 Vols., 1706 pages.
Macmillan.
These three tomes contain, in a style of un-
usual lucidity, comparative studies of folklore em-
bedded in the Old Testament. The -justly famed
author of The Golden Bough has again displayed
his peculiar genius for exploring the crannies of
habit and custom in all human races. Such sub-
jects as The Creation of Man, The Great Flood,
Cuttings for the Dead, and The Ox that Gored
come in for comprehensive studies. In each
case he presents the Biblical material and then
proceeds to show that the beliefs and practices
therein revealed are found embedded in world-wide
traditions. For instance, hundreds of races and
tribes scattered in Asia, Africa, North and South
America, and in the Islands of the seas, have flood
.stories in terms indicative of their own environ-
ment. These studies abundantly demonstrate that
many of the Biblical customs and traditions are sur-
vivals of a stage of barbarism through which Israel
passed in its journey to a high level of religious
development; and that Israel, like other civilized
races, emerged from a savage state similar to that
in which many present-day backward races still
linger. The zeal for heaping up illustrative ma-
terial, however, leads the author so far afield as to
justify the suspicion that he is more interested in
folklore per se than in Biblical folklore. This is
especially in evidence in the study of the Heirship
of Jacob and Ultimogeniture, wherein he turns
aside to prove at considerable length that the no-
tion of jus primae noctis in Europe was not a right
claimed by the feudal lord or ecclesiastical digni-
tary. Near the close of the work Dr. Frazer deftly
indicates what will undoubtedly be the next ad-
vance in the science of Primitivity, now being
forced upon us by the rapidly developing science of
Social Psychology: that is, the study of the emo'
tional basis of loklore.


1919
385
THE DIAL
m
ROOSEVELT
"was so active a person—not to say so noisy and conspicuous; he so occupied the centre of every stage, that,
when he died, it was as though a wind had faflen, a light had gone out, a military band had stopped playing.
It was not so much the death of an individual as a general lowering in the vitality of the nation. America was
less America, because he was no longer here. He should have lived twenty years more had he been willing to
go slow, to loaf and invite his soul, to feed that mind of his in a wise passiveness. But there was no repose
about him, and his pleasures were as strenuous as his toils."
From
FOUR AMERICANS
(Just Published)
By Henry Augustin Beers, M. A., Professor of English Literature, Yale College
Essays on Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson and Whitman, written in a keen, frank,
instructive and peculiarly readable style by a well known author and essayist.
Decorated Paperboards. 90 pages. $1.00
POLICEMAN AND PUBLIC
By Arthur Woods
Today the policeman ia a much diacuaaed figure. Thie
new book deala with hie relatione to atrikee, atreet meetings,
promotion, graft and leaderahip, with incidenta from the
author'a personal experience.
SVi*7V4. Cloth. ISO pagea. 11.35.
AUTHORITY IN THE MODERN
STATE
By Harold J. Laski
"The book it a. admirable ai it la uninaai.—Mr. Laski
doe* not repeat what others hare said.—His manner is aca-
demic and learned, his appeal very sober and scholarly.'*
—Bert ran d Russell in The London Nation.
5*4x8%. Cloth. 398 pages. Appendix, index. $3.00.
SOCIETY AND PRISONS
By Thomas Mott Osborne
"Affords an exposition of an epoch-making experiment in
prison management, by the man who brought it about."
—New York Times.
(Fourth Printing.) 5%x8. Cloth. 246 pages. Index. 11.50.
INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP
By H. L. Gantt
"An Important contribution toward the solution of one of
the pressing problems of the age."—Boston Transcript.
A number of large industrial concerns have distributed
this book throughout their factories with marked effect.
(Third Printing.) 5x7%. Cloth. 128 pages. 9 charts. 11.25.
RURAL RECONSTRUCTION IN
IRELAND
By Lionel Smith-Gordon and Laurence C.
Staples
Two vital questions discussed,—Ireland and Co-operative
Reconstruction.
"For America no book can be more valuable a* a close
study of the Irish subject than this one."
—Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
6x8%. Cloth. 301 pagea. Appendices. 83.00.
WORLD-POWER AND EVOLUTION
By Ellsworth Huntincton
A convincing statement of the relation between climatic
conditions and the health, social oonditions, eventual power
and business of a nation.
Tremendously significant in the tight of the war and the
years which are to follow.
6x9. Cloth. 287 pages. 30 illustrations. Appendices,
bibliography, index. $2.50.
BOOKS WHICH TOUCH THE QUICK OF PRESENT-DAY PROBLEMS
The Hindrances to Good Citizenship ($1.25) James Bryce
Ethics in Service ($1.50) William Howard Taft
The Citizen's Part in Government ($1.25) Elihu Root
The Liberty of Citizenship ($1.25) Samuel W. McCall
Undercurrents in American Politics ($1.50) Arthur Twining Hadley
(Write for complete catalogue)
*
YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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280 Madison Avenue, New York City
When writing to advertiaera pleaae mention The Dial.


386
November 1
THE DIAL
Books of the Fortnight
The Relation of Executive Power to Legislation, by
Henry Campbell Black (191 pages; Princeton Uni-
versity Press), examines the increasing subservience
of the national legislature since 1865 and calls atten-
tion not merely to the domination of the President
but to the encroachment of executive departments. It
is an attempt to do away with the sham of constitu-
tional equality between the several branches of gov-
ernment now that the old equilibrium has been upset.
The author is editor of The Constitutional Review.
Organized Efforts for the Improvement of Methods
of Administration in the United States, by Gus-
tavus A. Wever (391 pages; Appleton). Students of
public affairs who are willing to detour this elephan-
tine title will find much valuable material hidden be-
hind it. Mr. Wever's volume, published under the
auspices of the Institute for Government Research,
deals with the history, organization, and activities of
agencies for governmental research and control, and
supplies the reader with long bibliographies of the
material published by these agencies. Review later.
The Belgian Congo and the Berlin Act, by Arthur
Berriedale Keith (344 pages; Oxford University
Press), is concerned chiefly with the political history
of the Congo and with an analysis of the international
compact which regulates the government of the Free
State. The work is elaborately annotated, and the
Berlin Act and other state papers of importance are
reprinted in the appendix. Review later.
League of Nations: Its Principles Examined, VoL II,
by Theodore Marburg (149 pages; Macmillan), goes
into its third edition, "revised after the triumph of
the Allies," without taking into account the consider-
able reconstruction of the pure theory of an inter-
national league necessitated by contact'with the sullied
practices of the Supreme Council. A war book with-
out a peace background.
Labor in the Changing World, by R. M. Maclver (229
pages; Dutton), examines industrial conditions and
outlooks in an effort to appraise the current programs
for reconstruction and to formulate at least the mini-
mum requirements indicated. Review later.
Approaches Toward Church Unity, edited by New-
man Smyth and Williston Walker (170 pages; Yale
University Press), opens with the announcement that
the end of the war leaves the reunion of the churches
as the next Christian thing to be done. A World Con-
ference on Faith and Order is in preparation, and a
League of Churches may grow out of it. With the
New State comes now the New Church.
Have Faith in Massachusetts, by Governor Coolidge
(224 pages; Houghton Mifflin)—addresses, proclama-
tions, and obiter dicta from 1914 to the Boston Police
Strike of 1919—will give hope and comfert only to
those that believe that the daylight of common experi-
ence is brightened by the candle of the obvious.
The Girl and the Job, by Helene Christene Hoerle and
Florence B. Saltzberg (266 pages; Holt), contributes
to the literature of vocational guidance a compendious
but all too brief summary of business opportunities
for women. The range of topics only partially makes
up for the sketchiness of the individual description.
Should not each industry have its own guidebook?
The present sample may point to a "job," but it is
hardly the comprehensive treatment that should open
up a life's vocation.
The Health of the Teacher, by William Estabrook
Chancellor (307 pages; Forbes, Chicago), first dis-
cusses various aspects of the teacher's physical dis-
abilities in chapters that are each illustrated by specif-
ic cases, and goes on to outline the upbuilding meas-
ures and habits which are indicated. There are of
course occupational diseases, and while Dr. Chan
cellor's positive advice might well apply to any indi-
vidual, this little treatise does well to remind us
that there is also room for manuals in occupational
adjustment.
Danger Signals for Teachers, by A. E. Winship (204
pages; Forbes, Chicago), is a series of vigorous, hor-
tatory, up-to-date platitudes addressed to teachers by
the editor of the Journal of Education. In an ergani-
zation whose rolling stock of ideas is so light the
costliness of acquiring this signal system need not
alarm the intellectually timid teacher.
Yale Talks, by Charles Reynolds Brown (156 pages; Yale
University Press), is subdued sermonizing, carrying a
burden of uplift neither greater nor less than one ex-
pects in a book of that sort. The group of "talks" is
not indigenous to Yale; it might just as accurately
be called What Every Dean Says.
My Generation, by William Jewett Tucker (464 pages;
Houghton Mifflin), is a documentation not merely si
post-Darwinian America but of pest-Emersonian New
England. Following the career of the author from
his New York pastorate through his Andever period
to his Presidency of Dartmouth, one arrives at Ran-
dolph Bourne's conclusion—that there is something
wrong with a civilization that "could apparently fiad
no other use for such a mind than to put it for the
best years of its life into the routine of a New England
college." My Generation might in a more bitter mood
be called Our Unregeneration. Review later.
The Correspondence of Nicholas Biddle, edited by
Reginald C. McGrane (359 pages; Houghton Mifflin),
deals with national affairs from 1807 to 1844. While
many of the letters concern themselves with the
United States Bank, of which Biddle was Director and
President, there are interesting sidelights in letters
to Clay and Webster on the conditions leading up to
the Mexican War.
Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt, by Lawrence F.
Abbott (315 pages; Doubleday, Page), does no more
than add to a long list of photographs the occasional
literary snapshots which the author, through his as-
sociation with The Outlook, was able to make. Neither
the lighting nor the composition have that excellence
which might place the present work above its equally
amateur competitors.
The Poet of Science and Other Addresses by Wil-
liam North Rice (225 pages; Abingdon Press), would
have been a dangerously liberal collection in 1870.
At present its only appeal will be to those who think
that the conflict between religion and science is tufi-
ciently genuine to merit the intercession of a Wesleyan
geologist.
The Book of a Naturalist, by W. H. Hudson (360
pages; Doran), is reviewed on page 384.
Strearacraft, by Dr. George Parker Holden (264 pages;
Stewart & Kidd; Cincinnati), is so compact and read-
able that it should do more than serve the notice; it
should make converts. It treats such topics as the
care of the rod, the art of casting, the habits of trout,
and the use of flies.


1919
387
THE DIAL
The Open Court Series of Philosophical Classics
A collection of well-made books in paper bindings. Selected
with reference to the needs of students.
Primer of Philosophy.
Br Paul Can. 30c.
Philosophy of Ancient India.
By Richard Garbe. 30c.
Discourse on the Method of Rightly Con-
ducting the Reason and Seeking Truth
in the Sciences.
By Rene Descartes. Translated by John Witch. Auth.
orized reprint. 30c.
Enquiry Concerning the Human Under-
standing and Selections from a Treatise
of Human Nature.
Br David Hume, with Home's Autobiography and a
letter from Adam Smith. Edited by T. J. McCormack
and Mary Whiton Calkins. Paper, 40c.
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of
Morals.
By David Hume. Reprinted from the edition of 1777.
30c.
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of
Human Knowledge.
By George Berkeley. Reprint edition. 30c.
Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Phil-
onous.
By George Berkeley. Reprint edition. 30c.
The Meditations and Selections from the
Principles of Rene Descartes.
Translated by John Veitch. With a Preface. Copies ol
the Original Title Pages, a Bibliography and an Essay
«u Descarte's Philosophy by L. Levy-Brulil. 40c.
Leibniz's Discourse of Metaphysics.
Correspondence with Aroauld. and Monadology; with an
Introduction by Paul Janet. Translated by George R.
Montgomery. 60c.
Kant's Prolegomena.
To any Future Metaphysics. Edited in English by Paul
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St. Anselm: Proslogium, Monologium, an
Appendix in Behalf of the Fool by
Gaunilon; and Cur Deus Homo.
Translated from the Latin by Sidney Norton Drane. with
an Introduction. Bibliography and reprints of lb. opln.
ions of Leading Philosophers and Writers on the Onto,
logical Argument. 60c.
Canon of Reason and Virtue (Lao-Txe's
Tao Teh King).
Translated from the Chinese by Paul Carus. 30c.
The Metaphysical System of Hobbes.
As contained in twelve chapters from hie "Elements of
Philosophy Concerning Body." and in briefer extracts
from his "Human Nature" and "Leviathan." selected by
Mary Whiton Calkins. 50c.
Locke's Essay Concerning Human Un-
derstanding.
Books II and IV (with omissions). Selected by Msry
Whiton Calkins. 60c.
The Principles of Descartes' Philosophy.
By Benedictus Do Spinosa. Translated from the Latin
with an Introduction by Halbert Hains Britan. 40e.
The Vocation of Man.
By Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Translated by William
Smith, with biographical introduction by E. Ritchie. 30c.
Aristotle on His Predecessors.
Being the First Book of the Metaphysics.
A. E. Taylor, 40e.
Clavis Universalis.
Translated by
By Arthur Collier. An exact and verified copy of ths
essay as it appears la Dr. Parr's Metaphyseal Traota of
the Eighteenth Century. Edited with introduction and
notes by Ethel Bowman, M. A. 50c.
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388
November 1
THE DIAL
Homing With the Bird*, by Gene Stratton-Porter (381
pages; Doubleday, Page), is a narrative of field work
based on a "lifetime of personal contact with the
birds." The author's method of observation has been
to "insinuate herself into positions of "close inti-
macy," and in order to do this she has faced "tramps,
vicious domestic animals, and cross dogs," and the
"torture of chills, fever, and delirium from incipient
sunstroke." There are numerous illustrations and
much interesting material; but one wishes that Mrs.
Porter were more the naturalist and less the martyr.
The Secrets of Animal Life, by J. Arthur Thomson (324
pages; Holt), is reviewed on page 383.
Reynard the Fox, or The Ghost Heath Run, by John
Masefield (166 pages, Macmillan), is reviewed on
page 371.
The Army Behind the Army, by Major E. Alexander
Powell (469 pages; Scribner), is not very accurately
captioned. Services like the Ordnance Department
and the Quartermaster Corps, which busied themselves
with the preparation of material for the use of the
artillery and the infantry, are grouped with other
services, like the Engineers, the Signal Corps, and the
Air Service, which manufactured their own appliances
and used them too—oftener in front of the army than
"behind" it.
Books in the War, by Theodore Wesley Koch (388
pages; Houghton Mifflin), describes the work of the
American Library Association in maintaining, through
camp and hospital libraries, the soldier's tenuous con-
nection with civilization. Many youthful "veterans"
will vouch for it that the Association exhibited less
of the Lady Bountiful spirit, and did more solid work,
than many other organizations better known to fame.
Gun Fodder, by Major A. Hamilton Gibbs (313 pages;
Little, Brown; Boston), is fraternally introduced—as
a good book by a good soldier—by Philip Gibbs, war
correspondent and senior brother of the author. The
volume does in fact recount in an extraordinarily
pleasing manner the sort of tale that has become
familiar through a thousand repetitions in personal
narratives of the war.
Square Peggy, by Josephine Daskam Bacon (illustrated,
340 pages; Appleton). Ten well-to-do girls regarded
as queer fish by the social swim find themselves—and
their well-to-do mates—through situations arising from
the war.
The Bishop and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov (302
pages; Macmillan), is the seventh volume in Con-
stance Garnett's complete translation of the Russian
author. Previous volumes were reviewed by Louis S.
Friedland in The Dial for January 3, 1918. This vol-
ume will be reviewed soon.
A Tarpaulin Muster, by John Masefield (217 pages;
Dodd, Mead), is reviewed on page 371.
The Happy End, by Joseph Hergesheimer (315 pages;
Knopf), is reviewed on page 383.
The New Decameron, by various hands (225 pages;
McBride), is reviewed on page 372.
A Servant of Reality, by Phyllis Bottome (454 pages;
Century), is reviewed on page 383.
The Sea Bride, by Ben Ames Williams (305 pages; Mac-
millan), is a narrative of marriage and seafaring which
captures interest in the first sentence and holds it
consistently throughout a convincing interplay of char-
acter and event.
A Woman's Man, by Marjorie Pattprson (336 pages;
Doran), draws a skilful picture of Parisian life; the
materials are handled with vigor and a confident
grasp of character. The story traces the sordid ad-
ventures of a self-conscious, selfish artist, whose as-
pirations never carry him beyond the feverish fringe
of creative work; but it had been a better job had the
author catered less to the sensation-seeker.
Hunkins, by Samuel G. Blythe (365 pages; Doran), mixes
its politics and its tenses, evolving—amid a great deal
of conversation—a none too robust story of municipal
campaigns and corruption. It's all about an altruistic
boss, whose favorite philosopher happens to be Hor-
War in the Garden of Eden, by Captain Kermit Roose-
velt (253 pages; Scribner), is an account of personal
experiences in the campaigns that annexed the Gar-
den of Eden to John Bull's back yard.
The Test of Scarlet, by Coningsby Dawson (313 pages;
Lane), is a readable war story that "follows through"
to Armistice Day, when Paris and London went mad,
while the marching men whose triumph was being so
ecstatically celebrated "pulled in to the side of the
road, felt cold, and limped back to the nearest town
in search of billets."
The House of Courage, by Mrs. Victor Rickard (394
pages; Dodd, Mead), is mainly about the experiences
of a young Irish officer held a prisoner in Germany
during the early days of the/war. A novel garnished
with the familiar post-war anamorphosis of German
character.
When I Come Back, by Henry Sydnor Harrison (69
pages; Houghton Mifflin), describes the work of the
unassuming man, over-age for compulsory service,
whose war ambition it was "to become an indistin-
guishable unit in the fighting army"—an ambition
gratified at last, and altogether, in the flame of a
German shell.
The Sinister Revel, by Lillian Barrett (363 pages;
Knopf), beggars fancy and vocabulary in assisting a
sensitive and weak heir to spend fifty millions. After
the lurid depths and ethereal heights through which
the author unfalteringly conducts you, you will feel
more reconciled to your humble estate under H. C
L.—which is no doubt the author's intention for you.
Free Air, by Sinclair Lewis (370 pages; Harcourt, Brace
& Howe), defends the new, unconventional Americt
against that old America which still holds to family
trees and class distinctions. It is a racy tale of a
young mechanic and a Brooklyn Heights girl in an
automobile trip through the Northwest.
Contributors
In college Lieut. A. Wilson was an editor of
The Harvard Monthly. Since then he has done
newspaper work, written fiction, and served in the
aviation arm of the A. E. F.
The other contributors to this issue have previ-
ously written for The Dial.


1919
389
THE DIAL
Self Determination for All Peoples
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390
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THE DIAL
Issued by Sanction of
N. Y. Printing Trades Unions
INDUSTRIAL SECTION
Coal
VOL. LXVII
TWO SECTIONS—SECTION II
NO. 802
NOVEMBER 1, 1919
Editorial: The Labor Crisis 393
Coal: A Mismanaged Industry
I. Editorial Summary 394
D. Engineer's Report ....... Walter N. Polakov 395
The Coal Issue in Great Britain W.N. Ewer 404
The British Coal Nationalization Bill 407
The Labor Crisis
A HE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING RESOLUTION WHICH
broke up the President's Industrial Conference for
industrial peace, was the first section of what may
become the final chapter of the American Federa-
tion of Labor's unremitting effort to preserve the
relation between employers and workers by which
the industrial system now operates. The second
section in that chapter is the miners' submission
to the operators, in accordance with their estab-
lished practice of preserving this industrial rela-
tion, certain terms of work as a basis for negotia-
tion and the refusal of the operators to consider
the terms. The third and possibly the last section
of the chapter is the action of the Federal gov-
ernment in the issuance of the order restraining
national trade union officials from strike acton.
The accumulated opposition of the employers, the
Federal administration, the Federal Courts, Con-
gress, State officials and legislatures leaves the
Executive Council of the Federation and its na-
tional unions without alternatives. It denies
them the opportunity to uphold as they con-
sistently have in the past a respect for business,
for current "law-and-order" with its clear-cut policy
of protecting private and disregarding public in-
terest. The Federation, being forced to adopt
another policy just as the Brotherhoods were forced
to bring forward a program of responsibility
for transportation, may seek to substitute the
policy of agreement with the public to render work-
manlike service for the old policy of bargaining
with employers for a division of die spoils. This
transfer of policy may occur overnight. Literally,
this is what occurred when the Brotherhoods
adopted the Plumb Plan. And as the policy of
the Brotherhoods thereupon changed from one of
gain to one of service, so the present opposition
to the old policy of the Federation may force the
Federation to shift the status of the workers from
one of higglers in the wage market to that of men
concerned with facts of industrial enterprise and
economy.
Walter N. Polakov in this supplement opens up
the problem of coal production from the point of
view of an engineer concerned with the economy
of production, conservation of wealth, and its use.
He presents the facts of waste and leaves it to the
public and the miners to decide whether or not the
management of the nation's coal resources shall
be left to privateers or pass to technicians and
workmen equipped to render service and to con-
serve coal. Neither Mr. Polakov nor the miners
raise the question of ownership. We understand
that the Constitutional provisions would be invoked
and that under the provisions of the Constitution
the fuel resources would be held as the private
property of the exploiters. Such sacred provisions
n the past have been overcome; witness the con-
fiscation by prohibition. But the immediate mat-
ter of importance for public decision is whether
or not the present administration of the coal fields
shall end; whether or not the alternative shall be
adopted of transferring the administration of the
coal resources to an organization of men compe-
tent to mine coal, together with technicians expert
in problems of industrial engineering, chartered
for the purpose of operating the mines in the
interest of the present and future generations.


394
November 1
THE DIAL
Coal: A Mismanaged Industry
I
I. Editorial Summary
n its most superficial aspect the coal ques-
tion is one of hour's and wages, amenable to ad-
justment by collective bargaining. But the funda-
mental issues involved are beyond the compass of
the diplomats of capital and labor; they demand for
their solution the best efforts of the technicians
of production—scientists, engineers, laborers; and
every year that leaves these questions unsolved
involves the country in losses compared with which
the waste involved in a coal strike is as nothing.
Everyone is astonished to learn what the miners
want because no one knows what they have got.
To begin with, they want to rest two days in seven,
but they also want to work the other five. This
represents a demand for 250 working days a year
—3% to 21% more days per year than miners
have ever worked in the history of the American
coal industry!
The miners want a six-hour day. In 1917, when
maximum production was essential, and when the
mine-labor force had been considerably diluted
by the substitution of unskilled men for experi-
enced workers withdrawn for military or war-
industry service, the length of the working day was
reduced 4.8%, the number of days increased 5.6%
and the total output of the mines increased 9.8%.
The total coal production for the country was actu-
ally 12,000,000 tons in excess of what it would
have been if the individual workers had produced
no more coal per hour than the more experienced
force produced in 1916. Within reasonable lim-
its, productivity per man per day is inversely pro-
portional to the length of the day. The "reason-
able limit" for the mining industry is fully discussed
in the engineer's report which follows.
The miners want a 60% raise in wages. Before
the war, in the Pennsylvania field, labor got 66c. of
every dollar paid for coal, 28c. went for supplies
and general expenses, and 6c. remained as the
operator's margin. During the war, labor's share
shrank to 84.8% of the pre-war figure, general ex-
penses fell off somewhat, and the operator's share
increased 400fo. If the operators would be con-
tent with only double their pre-war margin, they
•could make a 30% raise in wages without trans-"
ferring one cent of this burden to the public in the
form of an increase in coal prices.
But suppose the miners' day, week, and wage
demands are granted; and suppose that the opera-
tors actually succeed in holding onto their huge
profits, and in shifting the new charges to the
public—is this threatened price change the first
or the greatest burden that the profiteering mis-
management of the coal industry has imposed upon
the country? The answer of expert testimony is
^at this threatened loss, like the loss incident to
a strike, is negligible by comparison with the losses
involved in the routine mismanagement of the-
coal-business-as-usual.
Under the present regime of businesslike bun-
gling, it is more profitable to waste nearly 50% of
all the coal that is mined than to save it by care-
fully standardized methods of operation. If the
miners go on digging nearly two tons of coal for
every ton made available for consumption, it is
probable that the fuel supply of the country will
be exhausted in 100 years. By abandoning partly
exploited mines, by leaving unreclaimed coal in
the mines that are being worked, by failing to
utilize coal dust, low-grade coal, and the various
by-products of coal, the managers impose upon the
resources of the country a loss that amounts to
500,000,000 tons per year. This waste cannot
be completely eliminated otherwise than by a thor-
ough reformation of mining methods, and by the
"manufacture" of coal into its various products—
electric power, benzol, tar, and the like—at the pit
mouth.
A problem more easily controlled, but beyond
the reach of the mine operators themselves, is that
involved in the wastage of the coal now consumed
in scattered industrial plants and in railway loco-
motives. Eighty per cent of the annual product
of the country is consumed in this way—and one-
fourth of this amount—one-fifth of all tonnage
delivered to consumers, is wasted because of faulty
methods of firing.
As business is now organized, the only way to
enforce economy in consumption is by raising
prices—to the further profit of the prodigals who
control the coal resources of the country, and the
further exasperation of a hard-driven public.
The miners see only the first elements of this
problem—they want to work more regularly than
they have worked before, and they want more of
the necessities and comforts of life than they have
been receiving. The public wants coal produced
with the minimum expenditure of energy and the
minimum waste of material, and it wants this pro-
duct used with the maximum of economy in order
that it may finally yield the maximum of consump-
tion goods.
If the operator is interested neither in the econ-
omies of production nor in those of consumption,
the engineer is interested in both, and a master of
both. The workers may find temporary relief in
dividing the spoils with the operators. But for
labor there is no permanent relief, and for the
public no relief at all, except in a permanent alli-
ance of knowledge and interest—of technicians and
workers—for the production of goods. A careful
reading of the expert's report that follows can
lead to no other conclusion.


1919
395
THE DIAL
II. Engineer's Report
H
LAVING BEEN COMMISSIONED BY THE DlAL PUB-
LISHING Company to report on the outstanding
causes of the present grave situation developed in
the industry of mining soft coal in the United
States, I have the pleasure to submit the following
findings:
The data upon which the conclusions were based
were secured chiefly from the Department of the
Interior, the Bureau of Mines, the United States
Geological Survey, and the Federal Trade Com-
mission.
The method pursued in the investigation was
principally that successfully employed by a large
number of progressive manufacturers of this coun-
try, and broadly practiced during the war by the
United States Shipping Board, by the Ordnance
Department in some of their arsenals and in plac-
ing outside contracts, and by the Aircraft Produc-
tion.
Upon the conclusion of this research the convic-
tion was formed that the oustanding cause of the
present situation, using Cardinal Bourne's expres-
sion, is "that the men are subject to irritating mis-
management."
In the strict sense of the term it cannot be said
that the coal operators ever managed their mines.
Selling of product: "A substantial portion of
the soft coal produced is sold through jobbers"
(U. S. Geological Survey 11:4, page 19) so that
the operators do not manage this substantial por-
tion of the business. The Federal Trade Commis-
sion reports that "a very large part of the output
of the operator who reported no selling expenses
(45%) reached the consumer through the jobbers
or sales agencies. Probably also a considerable
fraction of the output of the remaining 55% of
the operators went through such channels." Also,
"marketing has presented to the producer, big or
little, no serious problems . . . operators had
no direct connection with consumers." (U. S. Geo-
logical Survey 11:4, page 17.)
Accounting and cost keeping: The Federal
Trade Commission and the United States Geologi-
cal Survey agree in their references to the fact
that often there is "ignorance of the cost" of pro-
duction on the part of the operators. Such igno-
rance was amply illustrated at the time when prices
were first fixed.
It wag predicted that the output of the mines would be
materially cut down if such prices prevailed, since . . .
the operator (was) afforded no incentive to production.
As a matter of fact there was actually no decrease in
the production . . . Had it been possible for the mines
in the Central Field to have been worked . . . ordinary
full time with their then existing force, their actual pro-
duction would have been increased 21 per cent. (Cost
Report, Federal Trade Commission.)
Methods of work and training of employees:
These functions of management are chiefly left,
contrary to the practice in many more advanced
industries, to the judgment of workmen—men work-
ing on contract, fixing their own tools, keeping
their own records. Machine operation is poorly
developed; only 56.4% of coal was mined in this
way in 1916, while in 1917 the machine-mined out-
put dropped to 55.5%. Wastefulness of time, of ma-
terials, and of possible output is notorious. "Un-
der the present wasteful methods of mining . . . ,"
says the United States Geological Survey, (11:4,)
"the cost of opening the mines is not large." The
United Mine Workers of America are aware of
the fact that "from 33% to 50% of coal resources
. . . are being despoiled under (such) a system
of production." (United Mine Workers'Resolution.)
The U. S. Geological Survey also figures out
the waste in prevailing management of mines to
be 50%. As an inevitable consequence of this
general ignorance on the part of the mine operators,
a desire to safeguard their interests led them to:
(a) insist on longer hours in underground work
than the conditions and requirements warrant, and
(b) limit the wage rate.
As opposed to this arbitrary exercise of power
by the operators, the miners demand that (a) work-
ing time be limited to five days of six hours dura-
tion per week, and (b) wages be advanced 60%.
Whether or not these demands are likewise ar-
bitrary will be discussed later in this report, al-
though of necessity in a brief and non-technical
manner.
Coal Requirements
Unlike food, coal, this most fundamental com-
modity, is not stored, cornered, or hoarded in
any large quantities. Substantially it is produced
in the quantities required for immediate ^consump-
tion, since its bulk, the danger of spontaneous
combustion, deterioration due to weathering, and
expensive re-handling have always made unprofit-
able the practice of accumulation. Insignificant ex-
ceptions occur when coal is kept in cars or when
distributors or consumers pile coal in their yards;
but this does not apply to the coal operators, who
have never solved the problem of storage. The prac-
tice at the mines is to keep men idle whenever
there are not enough cars to load the day's output.
In view of these facts, barring occasions like
the collapse of the railroads just before they were
taken over by the government, the mines' output
may be regarded as equal to the country's consump-
tion. The amount of coal produced and consumed
(the export was then less than 4%) before and
during the war was as follows:
Bituminous coal,
short tons
1913 478,435,297
1914 422,703,970
1915 442,624,426
1916 502,519,682
1917 551,790,563 I


396
November 1
THE DIAL
Figure 1. Why the Mines are Idle
Occasionally there ia a shortage
of
abor, but more
of
en
be
whole plant is tied up
the day's product.
because
the managemen
has failed to provide can to more
DETAILSOF IDLENENESS DUE TO
Mines of Central Competitive Field ©17
STATE
MONTH
PERCENT OFCAPACITY
USEDON SECOND HALL YEAR
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
LACK OF
WORK
(CARS)
LACK OF
HELP
LACK OF
AND POOR
MATERIAL
REPAIRS
POOR
REMARKS
PLANNING
1
June
15
%
2
%
3
•/.
7
%
^HEDAYSA MINE IS IDLE NPTONLY
MEANS HO REVENUE SUTANDINOfEASr
1
July
I'd
%
4
%
2
•/.
6
%
JNAVtRASE CBSTOr product;)*"
rnou us. Seol. survey ji-*, pac£is.
Auq.
5
%
22
'A
4
V.
5
%
§
Sept
9
%
5
%
6
7.
1
\
1
Oct
8
'/„
13
%
S
V.
7
%
NEARL Y 40. OOO, 000 TOSS PKOXT
ITEfft LOiTDUE TO ALL CAUSESAtB
5L
Nov.
12
*/.
3
7.
7
V.
2
%
13,300, OOO DUE TO ALL TRANSPORT.
ALONE.
Dec.
II
'A
4
'/.
9
•/.
2
%
31 PERCENT OF ILLINOIS COAL
PRODUCTION LOST
Aver.il/inois
10
%
=F
June.
18
7,
3
'/.
7
7.
July.
19.5
'/.
3.5
•/.
9.5
%
Auq
20
%
3
'/•
8
%
Sept.
19
%
2
%
9
%
ALMOST10,000,000 TONS
PRODUCTION LOST IN INDIANA DUE
TO ALL CAUSES AND S,600,003
TONS DUE TO TRANSPORTATION
5
Oct
15
V.
4
7.
10
%
Nov.
"
%
2
%
10
%
ALONE.
1
Dec.
IB
•/.
2
7.
II
%
Aver Illinois
18
7.
-f
July
20
%
2
V.
5
%
Auq.
19
7.
3
7.
6
%
MINE MISMANASEME.YTAHLXUSA0L-
1TY CAUSED PRODUCT/ON LOSS OF
Sept.
18
%
5
7.
5
%
ABOUT3.600,000 TONS.
TRA NSPORTATlQH CAUSED EO
Oct.
22
'/.
4
7.
5
%
PERCENT LOSS, EQUIVALENT TO
12, OOO, OOO TONS L OST
1-
Nov.
25
%
4
7.
6
%
PRODUCTION.
o
Dec
21
7.
55
7.
4.5
%
Aver. Ohio
20
%
4
%
6
•/.
1
AllBituminous
\
IDLENESS CHART

The industrial crisis into which we were rushing
headlong in 1914 was reflected in the drop of coal
consumption, but the war orders of the following
years inflated coal consumption. A safe estimate
of 1920 consumption (providing industrial de-
pression does not continue) may be placed at 550,-
000,000 tons of bituminous coal and at 130,000,000
tops of anthracite.
Labor Supply
During these years the number of men employed
to produce these quantities of bituminous coal was
reported by the government as follows:
1913 571,882
1914 583,506
1915 557,456
1916 561,102
1917 603,0001
From these figures it becomes at once apparent
that there is an inconsistency between the numbers
of men employed and the amount of coal produced
per individual. The lowest production (1914)
coincides with the largest number of men; hence
we must inquire into the number of days the men
were employed.
Number of Working Days2
The Department of the Interior published the
following data on the number of days work was
conducted in the mines:
1913 232
1914 195'
1915 203
1916 230
1917 2433
1 Page 930. Coal in 1917, U. S. Geological Survey, II32. The moat recent
estimate, that publiahed in the United Mine Workers' Journal. Novem-
ber 1. 1919, givea the number of employees at present employed in
bituminous coal mines as 655,000 men.
2 U. S. Geological Survey 11:4, pace 17.
3 Computed on basis of 5.7% increases over preceding year.


1919
397
THE DIAL
During the peak year, 1918, the average number
of working days, by districts, was as follows:
Pittsburgh district 260
Ohio , 224
Indiana 249
Illinois 228
Average number of days per year 242%
These conditions do not represent the average
pre-war experience, as in the same districts the
average number of days worked for the six years
(1913-1918) was as follows:
Pittsburgh district 233
Ohio .1 181
Indiana 199
Illinois 201
Average number of days per year 206^2
In other words, out of a possible 304 working
days per year, productive work was carried on only
two-thirds of the time, and even during the greatest
rush for maximum production, in the second half
of 1917, 30% of the time was wasted at the mines.
The reasons for this idleness were analyzed for
the fhree representative states and are shown on
Figure 1. Almost one-fifth of the production
was lost on account of lack of work; that is, the
men were not permitted to work because the man-
agement did not provide either cars to move coal
or storage to hold it. About 6% of the time was-
last because of one or another of managerial
causes, and about 4% due to "lack of help." It
does not seem reasonable to complain of lack of
help when the help available is idle under compul-
sion one-quarter of the time; yet it is just this unsys-
tematic, sporadic management of mines that breeds
unsteady industrial habits among the employees.
In other words, over 200,000,000 tons are yearly
left unmined on account of time lost through the
fault of operators and railroads. However, no
serious of objections are being made to this state of
affairs, for the obvious reason that the country
is not using any more coal than is being mined
in the remaining 70% of available time. The
miners' demand of five working days per week
represents, with the omission of two weeks for
holidays and vacations, 250 working days during
the year. As the governmental statistics show,
there was never a call for so large a number of
working days in the history of the United States.
The highest number of days the work was going
on was in the peak year of 1918, when it was
242% days in the central competitive district,
while the average for six years was 206*4 days
in that district and 221 days for the entire country.
It means, therefore, that the miners offer to work
from 13% to 21% more days than they were ever
called upon to work.
Length of Working Day
For seven years, from 1910 to 1916 inclusive,
the percentage of miners working eight hours per
day was steadily decreasing, averaging about
60%. Those working -nine hours had a tendency
to increase, rising from 15.5% to 17.5%, while
the proportion of men working ten hours per day
remained stationary at about 25%. In 1917,
when the war industries . demanded increased
productivity of labor, when some 80,000 miners
went to the colors and some 35,000 men found
more attractive and safe employment in munition
factories, and so left the mines, a wise move was
made which proved to be highly successful in
increasing the productivity of labor: The length
of the working day was materially reduced.
Figure 2 illustrates how the percentage of
10-hour men was reduced from 25% to 8.5%;
9-hour men from 7.5% to 12..5%; and the 8-hour
men increased their proportion from 60% to 79%.
Figure 2. More Work in Less Time
In 1917 the proportion of miners working on ■ short-day schedule was
much greater than in 1916. If the average output per man per hour had
remained at the 1916 level, the country's cosl production for 1917 would
have been about 539,000,000 tons. Actually it was 551,790,563 tons.
PER CENT OF MEM WORKIH6 IN BITUMINOUS MINES o.SMO HOURS.
Per Cent
0 25 SO TS 100
1 I I I I
'ft'ftieiiitiii
X^s^^xwS^
In plain figures it means that in 1917 all the men
together worked 46,648,700 hours less than they
would have worked with the longer hours the year
before. In 1915 and 1916, the country's average
coal production per employee per hour was 0.48
ton; other things being equal, the reduction of work-
ing hours should have reduced the coal production
if working hours were in direct relation to the pro-
ductivity. In fact, reduced fatigue, more uniform
work, and better pay stimulated the productivity of
labor, and the year's production was 42,270,881
tons more than for the previous year, and some
12,000,000 tons in excess of what it would have
been if the output per man per hour had not
increased.
Productivity of Labor
Thus the reduction of the length of the working
day in this case, as well as in the experience of
Lord Leverhulme and others, increased the produc-
tivity of labor. In the case of the miners this
increase over the straight arithmetical proportion


398
November 1
THE DIAL
was very considerable. Taking the total number of
tons of bituminous coal produced per year and div-
iding it by the number of hours all mine employ-
ees worked per year, we get an output ratio per
man-hour. It appears thus:
1913 - - - -^1 *on9
1914:::::::::: «;;
1915 ■** „
1916 f „
1917 Al
1918 •48
A serious error into which the statisticians of
the United States Geological Survey fell was that
they adopted "day" as a measure for comparison
of man's productivity instead of an hour, and fig-
ured out that in 1917 the men's efficiency dropped
3%. The misconception is obvious. It we accept the
United Mine Workers' figures of 655,000 * as the
number of mine workers in bituminous mines
to-day, the output of 550,000,000 tons with a
six-hour day and a five-day week will require
a productivity per man-hour of .56 tons; that is,
there is no question that the country's needs can
in that case be supplied without any considerable
change in mining methods. Care must however be
exercised to move cars on the new production sched-
We can not close our analysis here, however,
as during 1917 a number of other influential
changes took place. First, 11% of experienced
mine workers were withdrawn (4% to military
service and 7% to other lines of industry), and
the industry was thus of necessity diluted by the
101,000 newcomers, whose comparative weakness
in skill, training, technical habits, and so forth
somewhat reduced the high productive efficiency of
the old miners. Second, the total increase in the
number of men employed in the bituminous mines
was 7.5%.
While the correction in the first cause may not
be made precisely, the effect of the second cause
can be accounted for. Productive labor in the coal
industry is that employed underground, and in
1917 it represented 79% of the total. This por-
tion was increased only 5%, whereas the surface
labor, which only handles the coal already mined,
was increased 21%. Now, with the help of simple
arithmetic, we may hope to ascertain the average
production per underground man per hour.
1917
Total number of employees 2£*X
79% underground 476,370
Average number of hours per day «
Total number of days work MB,,™
Total number of man-hours per year 960,81^3
Total tonnage mined 551,7W,bM
Tons per man-hour •*'*
Now let us compare it with the year before, when
longer hours prevailed.
4 See Note 1, p»je 396.
1916
Total number of employees — 561,102
Total number of underground men (about
81%) r ^'™
Average number of hours per day <«
Total number of days work ^
Total number of man-hours per year— 907,853, AW
Total tonnage mined 502,519,682
Tons per man per hour -553
In other words, with the reduction of the average
length of the day, the average man's productivity
per hour increased in the same ratio. While the
length of the working day was reduced 4.8%,
and the number of days increased 5.6%, the total
output of the mines increased 9.8%.
Factors Increasing Producttvitt
It thus appears that with a five-day week instead
of a six-day, the management of the mines will
have two days per week time to arrange the busi-
ness so that the loss of time and idleness due to
repairs, car shortage, and so forth may be reduced
and a full time of 250 days devoted to work. This
means an addition of 44 to 49 days of mining
work per year over the past six years' average.
With a six-hour net working day (eight hours actu-
ally underground, including descent and walking
"to face coal" and return) the miners propose
1500 working hours yer year. To meet the esti-
mated future demand of 550,000,000 tons of bitu-
minous coal, hourly productivity of each of the
502,000 underground miners must be .735 tons
as against the past average of .575 tons. In order
that the error may be on the side of caution,
these computations are based on the latest avail-
able government figures, and not on the more recent
statistics of the United Mine Workers, which indi-
cate that a much smaller increase would be requir-
ed. The question now, therefore, is whether a 28fr
increase of productivity may be expected.
The productivity of labor depends upon four
major conditions apart from a score of minor
ones: (a) mode of management; (b) fatigue;
(c) standard of living; (d) equipment and tech-
nique.'
(a) The present mode of management in a pre-
dominating majority of mines is very primitive,
and such as was long ago abandoned in more pro-
gressive industries. The men are working on con-
tract; that is, they are paid per ton mined a stipu-
lated amount, varying from the basic rate of
84 cents, and depending upon the size of the vein
an<T other conditions. Men are not trained in the
best way of performing the Work; there is no
tool room; they take care of their tools themselves;
there are no planning departments with their varied
and important functions, and the work generally
proceeds much as the vim and mood of the indi-


1919
399
THE DIAL
vidual miner dictates, acting with greater or less
skill.
It has been the experience of every industrial
engineer that by proper attention on the part of
the management to those functions that are beyond
the control of individual workers, the productivity
of his time and labor can be more than doubled.
Longer hours are usually prevalent in industries
where the management lets the men attend to vari-
ous minor managerial duties, naturally requiring
a considerable portion of their time which is thus
unavailable for production. When the manage-
ment assumes its proper share of responsibility,
the men, even with the existing degree of skill
and efficiency, produce vastly more per hour.
While such practice has not been applied, to my
knowledge, to any coal mines, there is no reason
to doubt that results similar to those attained in
other industries could be secured.
To illustrate the typical case of mismanagement
of the mines it is enough to quote from the United
States Geological Survey Report on Coal in 1917
the following passage:
The most certain way to increase capacity is to put
on more men, and, as experienced inside men (the only
productive men) were more difficult to obtain than day
laborers, the outside force was augmented more rapidly
(21% against 5%), and out of. proportion to the normal
requirements. Under the pressure for increased output,
the operators, apparently without regard to its effect in
costs, added labor of any description. (Page 931.)
(b) Fatigue produced by industrial occupations
has been carefully studied lately among other in-
dustrial workers, and while, unfortunately, we have
no data covering mine work, it is entirely reason-
able to admit that work underground, in a hot,
damp atmosphere, with poor artificial light, with in-
halation of coal dust and injurious gases, and under
the great nervous strain created by ever-present dan-
ger to life and limb, causes a greater, degree of
fatigue than in the more sanitary surroundings of
factories, mills, or power plants. Moreover, it
must be noted here that the so-called eight-hour
day in reality averages ten hours or more, as the
miners spend nearly an hour at each end in going
down, waiting for elevators or trains, in walking
underground to the work place, and so forth, all
of this time being outside of the nominal eight
hours. Incidentally, one hour for dinner is of neces-
sity also spent at work, as the perspiring man does
not dare to rest underground at the risk of severe
damage to his health. The experiments conducted
for years by Lord Leverhulme in his Port Sun-
light and other factories in England proved to
him the advantage of a six-hour working day. Again,
Professor Charles S. Myers, of Cambridge Univer-
sity, after a large number of observations on the
effect of industrial fatigue on efficiency, number
of accidents, and output, shows that productivity
rises in proportion as sufficient rest is provided.
Dr. Fred W. Taylor, Mr. Babcock of the Frank-
lin Motor Company, and a number of other in-
dustrial managers, have proved beyond any doubt
that production increases with the reduction of
working hours.
The writer's experience with the effect of shorter
hours on stationary firemen (see, Industrial Man-
agement, November 1919), similarly indicates that
a reduction of hours from twelve to eight and fur-
ther to six per day increases attentiveness, quality
of work, and efficiency to such an extent as to make
possible the employment of an additional shift of
men, the raising of hour-wages 33 1/3% to main-
tain the weekly wage at the old level, and the pay-
ment of a bonus.
(c) While the first two factors—mode of man-
agement and reduction of fatigue—alone are more
than sufficient to offset the proposed reduction
of time, the effect of better living conditions' can-
not be overlooked. With two more hours to him-
self and to his family, a higher type of man can-
not fail to develop.
(d) Lastly, the equipment used in a large por-
tion of mines is not of the character permitting
to-day a maximum output and the best conserva-
tion of human energy.
From the foregoing the conclusion is unescap-
able that, with the interest and goodwill of the
miners secured, so moderate an increase in produc-
tivity as 28% is an assured possibility. Its real-
ization requires, however, proper cooperation of
the management, as evinced in a willingness to
study the conditions of work and to remove such
obstacles as stand in the way of securing a full
ouput.
It might be of interest in connection with the
proposal for arbitration to mention that with six
days per week and a six-hour day the productivity
per man-hour should be only 0.61 tons; that is,
6.3% higher than the present average in'order to
secure with the present number of miners the out-
put of 550,000,000 tons annually. Again, with
a five-day week but a seven-hour day the produc-
tivity per inside-man per hour ought to be 0.625
tons, or 8.9% higher than the present. The pos-
sibility of achieving either increase is a positive
certainty even without any help and co-operation
on the part of the management.
W'astage at Mines
The above analysis is based on the assumption
that we need to mine as much coal during the next
years as has been consumed during the peak years
of feverish war production. It provides also at the
same rate for lavish losses incurred under the
excuse that "cost is no object" in "making the world


400
November 1
THE DIAL
safe for Democracy" and "a better place to live in."
Having shown that a reduction of working hours
per day tends to increase the coal production, con-
serve our human resources, and satisfy our huge
demands, we must now inquire whether it is con-
sistent with national economy to continue the same
mode of production at the rate indicated.
It is an established fact that nearly 50% of
the coal mined is wasted under the present form
of management. It means that a mine must yield
almost two tons before one ton is made available
for consumption.5
The causes of this wanton destruction of our
natural resources are many, but the most glaring
and the least excusable are these:
1. A system of mining which leaves a large
quantity of coal inside the mines, unreclaimed.
2. Wastage of a considerable amount of coal
dust or inferior (impure) fuel.
3. Abandoning partially exploited mines.
4. Neglecting to utilize by-products and mul-
tiple products of mines.
To visualize the extent of the losses falling under
the first three heads, as incurred since 1844, we
must picture to ourselves a pile of coal 1540 feet
wide, 1540 feet long, and 770 feet high, containing
7,541,550,000 tons of coal that never reached the
consumers.
Estimates have been made that if our consump-
tion of coal and the proportion of its waste con-
tinue at the same rapidly increasing rate, the
supply will probably not last 100 years. This
means it will not outlast even our own grand-
children. The toleration of this appalling rate of
destruction cannot be justified on technical
grounds, for the difficulties of recovery are negli-
gible. Indeed, the means are well known and quite
simple: mines can be completely scraped of coal,
and projects have even been brought forward to
burn out the last remains of fuel and transform
it locally into electricity without bringing it to
the surface. Coal dust, anthracite "culm," and
so forth, could be flushed by water through pipes
into nearby power plants, or briqueted. The
reason why these things are not being done—
why mines are abandoned if ash content is
found to be high, why various by-products are
not derived—are that under the existing mode
of financing the mines it is more profitable to the
private owners to throw the life and prosperity
of our grandchildren away than to incur the ex-
penses for reclamation of waste. Indeed, no coal
operator can be blamed for not mining coal at a
cost of $4 per ton to sell it at a price of $2, or for
refusing to clean excessive amount of ash, slate,
and bone at a cost exceeding his possible margin.
5 See Professional Paper 100-A, Department of Interior, 1917.
Neither can it be expected under the existing econ-
omic relations that mine operators will supply
the territory, say 300 miles in radius, with electric
power made at the mouth of their mines, in
addition to such by-products of coal as ammonium
sulphate, tar, benzol, and other derivates. True
enough, such a scheme at present market prices
would realize them on sale from eight to ten times
more revenue than does the marketing of the
raw coal. Numerous difficulties of a financial,
legal, and political nature, however, would stand
in the way, and Federal legislation should be in-
voked to remove the obstacles and realize for the
nation the unappreciable values that our coal re-
sources contain. The United States Fuel Adminis-
tration has estimated that today coal suitable
for coke production is being mined at a rate
of 175,000,000 tons annually, yet only a small
portion of this amount is thus converted into mul-
tiple products. During this process, again, enor-
mous losses are tolerated for the sake of imme-
diate return at a sacrifice of our future welfare.
Not to mention the inefficiency of common coke
ovens, the "breeze"—or the by-prodnct of coke,
which in itself is a fairly good fuel—is largely
thrown away.
If 500,000,000 tons of bituminous coal mined
yearly was manufactured even crudely at the mines
instead of being sold and shipped in its raw state,
we would get available the following:
1. 5,000,000 tons ammonium sulphate; the nitro
gen available in this quantity is capable of increas
ing wheat production by 453,165,000 bushels
based on 115 pounds of nitrogen to fertilize one
acre.
2. 1,000,000,000 gallons of benzol, which is con-
sidered superior to gasoline as motor fuel. The
value of this by-product by itself would be over
$200,000,000 per year, and would be sufficient to
transport 10,000,000 tons an average distance of
10 miles.
3. 4,000,000,000 gallons of tar would be of im-
measurable value for the extension and improve-
ment of rural highways.
The total value of these cumulative products
manufactured from raw coal is, in rough figures,
about $8,000,000,000. Since tie crude products
of the mine is being sold at a probable average of
$5 per ton, the loss of value due to the present
state of the coal industry is about $5,500,000,000
per year.
Losses in the Use of Coal
Fully 80% of the coal mined is used as fuel in
industries and transportation. Of the remaining
20%, 6% is consumed as domestic fuel, which
is chiefly anthracite, and 4% exported. The United
States Fuel Administration, as well as all private
investigators, agree that not less than 25% of in-


1919
401
THE DIAL
Figures 3 and 4. Reducing Consumption Waste
These charts represent actual experience in one plant. The vertical lines at the right of each day-column represent a reasonable standard of coal
utilisation for the day; the light horizontal lines represent utilisation by shifts, and the heavy lines represent the average for the day; under the old
method of firing, the lines are all short of the standard, indicating heavy losses; Figure 4 shows that after the reformation of firing methods, utiliza-
tion in almost every case surpassed the standard set. If a similar practice were extended to ail caul-consuming plants, the country's annual saving
would approach 100,000,000 tons.


dusirial coal is wasted, and this loss can be pre-
vented by more careful method of firing, without
any investment in improved generating equip-
ment.
Preventable loss of bituminous coal in the coun-
try therefore amounts to at least 100,000,000 tons.
Assuming now, together with the expert engineer
of the U. S. Fuel Administration, that we have
not enough experts to teach all firemen at once
how to save coal, we place the amount of immedi-
ately preventable coal waste at 50,000,000 tons
per year. This amount represents 9% of the total
soft coal production.
Figures 3 and 4 represent a typical industrial
power plant's coal records before and after
the management inaugurated systematic training
of firemen and the payment of a secondary rate for
accomplishing a desired saving in coal. Each day
the record for each shift of firemen is figured
out and is shown graphically; the length by which
the bar is short of the daily space represents the
loss that occurred. It will be noted that in the
beginning the waste of coal averaged 25% or
more—amounting to nearly 150 tons lost every
week. On Figure 4 such loss is no longer pres-
ent; in fact, more power than was expected is pro-
duced by the coal used. This is indicated by the
extra length of bar extending over the daily space.
The average yearly saving of coal in this actual
case was over 7,500 tons.
The significance of this typical case is this:
Seventy-five hundred tons of coal is equivalent
to:
(a) 15,000 hours of miners' work saved,
(b) 60,000 cars miles' travel saved.
(c) $40,000 made available for other purposes.
By extending improvements of this nature over a
large number of carbo-electric and other steam-


402
November 1
THE DIAL
FlCURE 5. HOW THE COAL OPERATORS WON THE WAR
During the war, labor's share of the dollar paid for coal shrank to 84.8% of the pre-war figure, while the operator's share increased 460%. If the
operators would be content with only double their pre-war margin, they could make a 30% raise in wages without transferring one cent of this bordea
to the public in the form of an increase in coal prices.
DIVISIONS OF k DOLL&R PAID BY CONSUMER FOR C0A.L

Ouring
1916
Apr - Aug
1917
Aj/r-Dec 2
1918 tw„
1 From entry into War, till price-King.
2 March 31, 1918, most of the old high-priced contracts expire.
power plants and railroads of the country, we
can readily accomplish a tremendous and far-
reaching national economy. A great deal of our
car-shortage, long working day at mines, and so
forth, is undoubtedly caused by reckless, unscien-
tific or merely indifferent methods of plant opera-
tion. Yet only the most far-sighted coal mine
operators realize that their own interest coincides
with the national welfare in fostering and promul-
gating the campaign for increased efficiency of
power plants, as thereby their own coal, in pro-
ducing better economic results, will fetch a higher
market price.
Coal Prices
The average pre-war realized price of coal, as
calculated by government agencies, appears to be
$1.17 per net ton. It was gradually declining from
1913 to the end of 1915. In the winter of 1916-
17 the prices were about 25% above that average.
After our entry into the war, the coal prices in-
creased by leaps and bounds, and reached the high-
est point in June, 1917 (210%), when the average
spot price was $3.77. At that time the margin
realized on the sale of coal was 600% higher than
in 1916.
The Government fixing of prices brought prices
temporarily down, but the lowest figure, in October
1917, was still 180% of the pre-war prices.
The wage advance in November 1917 was re-
flected on the advance of coal prices to an extent
of less than 4%, but the Fuel Administration au-
thorized a gradual raise of selling prices until
a maximum was reached in May 1918, when the
average was 235% above pre-war level; in May
1918 a general reduction of ten cents was ordered.
From April to December 1918 the division of
every dollar paid by the consumer was such that
the margin of profit was nearly 400% of the pre-
Block Portion represents Margin
on Each Dollar realized onSaK
of bituminous Coal from Contra:
Field, P-a.
Authority: Federal TradtCom.
Report on Cost of Producing
Bituminous Coal in Pennsylvania.
war average, while labor's share shrank to 84.8%
of its former part.
In February 1919 governmental regulation of
coal prices was discontinued by executive order,
presumably because the war conditions have ceased
to exist.
Since November 1917, that is, for two years,
no wage advance has been allowed.
Division of Realized Dollar
Our diagram No. 5 illustrates the division of a
dollar paid by consumers for coal as reported by
the Federal Trade Commission for the Central Field
of Pennsylvania. The condensed figures are of
interest:
Period
Before War (1916)
From Beginning of War until
price-fixing (Apr.-Aug., 1917)
From expiration of old contracts
till end of Wsr (Apr.-Dec.,
1918)
It thus appears that should labor be granted
a 60% raise, with the same amount for margin and
the same expenses, the price of coal is likely to
increase 33%. Inasmuch as this increase affects
all classes of labor and all rates, still another way
of computing the effect may be used to present the
possible consequences.
If labor, representing about 75% of the total
production cost and averaging in typical cases
$1.60 per ton, receives an increase of 96c.; if sup-
plies and expenses decrease slightly in relative cost,
because of increased productivity; and if the margin
remains at the 1918 figure—85c.; we get:
Labor
Increase 60%
Supply and Exp.
Margin
Supplies
& Gen.
Labor
66c
Expenses
Margin
6c
Total
11.00
28o
43c
21c
30c
1.00
56c
21c
23c
1.00
$1.60
$1.60
.96
—
.54
.60
.85
.85
$3.95
$3.05


1919
403
THE DIAL
In this case the increase will be about 29.5%.
Should the arbitration of the miners' demands
accept an equal splitting of the men's demand and
the present 400%-increased operator's margin, the
figures would appear thus:
Labor $1.60 $L60
Increase (30%) .48
Supply and Exp. .54 .60
Margin .43 .85
$3.05 $3.05
showing that no increase in the price of coal to the
consumer will be necessary.
Effect of Coal Prices
The coal in the United States even to-day is ma-
terially cheaper than elsewhere in the world. The
immediate effects of this fact are important and
significant:
(a) It is wasted in a far greater degree than
elsewhere, inefficiency of power generation in this
country being notorious.
(b) II creates a new and dangerous tendency
of export to South America, England, Italy, and
other countries.
(c) It represents nearly one-third of our rail-
road freight.
(d) It retards our development of water power.
Higher coal prices will therefore result in:
(a) conservation of our national resources;
(b) discouragement of foreign industrial com-
petition carried on with the help our own coal;
(c) relief of railway congestion, better freight
service, cheaper railroad maintenance;
(d) stimulation of development of water power
resources;
(e) promotion of remanufacture of coal into
multiple by-products;
(d) adoption of a plan for development of
super-power stations at colleries with a net of elec-
tric transmission;
(g) extension of electrification of railways espe-
cially by hydro-electric power in non-industrial
communities;
(h) generally increasing abundance of cheap
power with corresponding industrial prosperity.
The popular belief that low-priced industrial
fuel (such as bituminous coal) is a contributing
factor in the manufacture of low-priced commodi-
ties does not stand the test of facts. During the
early stage of our industrial development the abund-
ance of coal, its location in proximity to iron ores,
thick and exposed veins, and other factors stimu-
lated the growth of American industrial activities
to an unparalleled extent. The natural resources of
the country were almost free for the taking, and the
savage sacking of the very foundation of our future
national prosperity became customary. Economy
in consumption, efficiency in the utilization of ap-
parently inexhaustible resources, received no atten-
tion. Today, with the end of our coal deposits
in sight, the old reckless and wanton destruction
becomes a crime against society; yet no other
stimuli outside of moral considerations are at work
to promote conservation, and by that we mean not
limitation of results, but limitation of useless
waste.
Countries blessed with older civilization and
with smaller fuel deposits were forced to develop
a notable degree of engineering perfection, and the
high cost of fuel was by no means a secondary
motive in the thoroughness with which they avoid-
ed all non-productive uses. The use of mine
refuse, briquetted coal-dust, powdered coal, lig-
nite, turf, and so forth, received the fullest atten-
tion in Europe, in addition to the development of
internal combustion engines with their nearly
double fuel economy. Moreover, higher-priced
fuel, as in England, made possible the conservation
of human resources, and the introduction of the
seven-hour day for miners; it stimulated the use
of mechanical stokers, and, finally, caused the Re-
construction Committee to recommend a compre-
hensive plan of interconnected super-power sta-
tions nationally operated.
Review
In concluding this survey we may sum up the
characteristics of the coal industry as follows:
1. Abundance of rich veins of high-grade coal
caused mining methods to remain primitive and
inexpensive.
2. It further resulted in neglect to exploit less
profitable coal and other fuel deposits, thus creat-
ing congestion of centralized coal traffic.
3. Desire to place on the market low-priced high-
grade coal doomed to waste up to 50% of the
potential supply of coal in mines.
4. Unscientific mode of management causes
30% lost time, with consequent tendency to keep
workers long hours during the remaining time.
5. Quasi-public spirit assumes that increase of
fuel price injures industry.
6. Individual operation of coal mines detached
from public service prevents utilization of mul-
tiple products of coal.
The situation therefore resolves itself into an
unprecedented conflict of various social forces in
two distinct planes.
The welfare of our great commonwealth makes
it imperative that the natural resources be placed
at the service of the society to the fullest extent
known to science and engineering; that the plun-
dering of our mineral and human resources shall
cease and that undeveloped possibilities shall
be realized for the benefit of the country.
As opposed to this, the present organization for
operating our coal mines is unable to render this


404
November 1
THE DIAL
enlarged service; for it is equipped merely to do
what it does; that is, sell to the public such service
as it can at a price. Since this service is inade-
quate, perpetuation of this regime means ruin of
the country. Satisfaction of the new economic prob-
lems of the country means a modification of the
present regime.
Out of this fundamental conflict between private
advantage and public necessity grows a significant
contest between the parties engaged in the industry.
This conflict is merely a symptom, but at the same
time it is a symbol.
Labor's demand for regulated employment in-
stead of disorganized convulsions between 195 and
260 days per year points to the necessity of organ-
ized production for satisfaction of the country's
needs—instead of the present muddle.
Labor's demand for a higher standard of living
signifies the manifest importance of achieving
higher standards" in utilizing the fruits of toil and
the gifts of nature.
We come at last to a vicious circle. If the
wages are raised, profits go down or the prices of
commodities go up. When the cost of living gets
high, those of insufficient income limit consumption.
Reduced consumption piles up idle charges and pre-
vents reduction of prices. On the other hand, if
wages are not raised the acute disproportion be-
tween the purchasing capacity of the people and
productive capacity of industry breeds revolutions.
The answer must be sought on another plane—
in organization of production for consumption,
not for sale and the subsequent division of revenues
between those who had and those who did.
The embryo of such a mechanism was tested
during the war. We ascertained the needs of our
army and of the Allies. We gave the authority
to those who, we thought, knew what to do and
how to do it. Capable men were selected, not
elected. The criterion was not the cost, neither the
profit, but service in the promotion of our com-
mon aim.
This mechanism won the War. Let us use it to
win the Peace.
Walter N. Polakov.
The Coal Issue in Great Britain
Within twelve months of the armistice the
question of the ownership and the control of
the coal mines has become the dominant issue in
British industrial politics, and it has been made
dominant by the industrial power of the organized
miners.
That is the really significant fact. It is the in-
dustrial not the political pressure that has told.
The Labor Party in the House of Commons is far
too small in numbers to be able to force an issue
upon the unwilling majority; and there are few
subjects which the coalition battalions are less
anxious to approach than this of nationalization;
but if the Labor Party is weak inside Parliament,
the labor movement is strong outside, and the Min-
ers' Federation of Great Britain is probably the
most powerful trade union in the world.
Therefore, when once the Federation took the
decisive step of including the transference of the
mines to public ownership as an essential item
in a program of demands which it was prepared
to support if necessary by industrial action, na-
tionalization—long regarded as a merely academic
question—came immediately into the forefront of
immediate practical politics. The Government
could ignore sixty parliamentary votes; but it
dared not ignore 800,000 strike notices.
That first step was taken last January at the
Southport conference. The executive of the Fed-
eration had put in a demand for a 30% increase
in wages. The delegates decided to ask in addi-
tion for:
(a) Full maintenance for demobilized miners
while unemployed.
(b) The reduction of the statutory eight-hour
day to six hours—which would give a real working
day of seven hours.
(c) The nationalization of all mines and min-
erals.
The issue was joined. The miners, by their rep-
resentative body, had determined on the use of
their industrial power for the securing of nationali-
zation, and by earlier resolutions they had declared
that nationalization must include control by the
workers.
The Government's reaction was characteristic.
Ministers failed entirely to realize that the
miners were in earnest. It is their habit never
to face economic issues while there seems a pos-
sibility of evading or postponing them. They of-
fered a wage increase of a shilling a day and a
vague Committee of Enquiry.
They were brought sharply back to realities.
Another miners' conference met and decided to
ballot the rank and file upon the question of a
strike to enforce the demands. That brought Mr.
Lloyd George on the scene with a request for delay
and promise of a Royal Commission pledged to re-
port by March 3.
The ballot was taken. The result was startling.


1919
405
THE DIAL
In favor of striking 615,164 votes were cast—only
105,082 against.
But even then the miners held their hand. They
insisted that the commission should report by
March 20, and they laid down strict conditions
as to its constitution. Four of the thirteen mem-
bers were to be nominated by the Federation; two
others by the Government, with the approval of
the Federation.
That was the genesis of the "Sankey Commis-
sion," which carried out that devastating enquiry
into the workings of the coal industry and set all
England wondering, now at the forensic skill of
the miners, now at the revealed administrative in-
competence of the owners and controllers of
industry.
The miners, it is worth noting, chose as their
own representatives Robert Smillie and Frank
Hodges (their president and secretary), Herbert
Smith of the Yorkshire Miners' Association and
Sir Leo Chiozza Money. They agreed with the
Government upon the appointment of Sidney Webb
and R. H. Tawney. This combination of experi-
enced miners and sympathetic intellectuals proved
a brilliant success. They dominated the whole con-
ference and made of it a relentless exposure of
the inefficiencies and brutalities of the capitalist sys-
tem. They showed how the present organization of
the trade brought waste and confusion. They ex-
posed the whole system of profiteering. They
drew attention to the scandal of royalties.
Every day brought its new quota of startling
facts. The public realized with a shock that the
colliery owners' profits had trebled during the
years of war, and that thjs had been rectified only
partially by the excess profits tax. It realized that
even the Coal Controller had been unable to check
profiteering; that he had been compelled, in order
to secure for a few weak companies the pre-war
profits, to agree to an increase of price that put
§125,000,000 into the pockets of the wealthy own-
ers. It realized the heavy toll taken by the middle-
man, the absurdities of a system which combines
all the wastefulness of competition with all the
plunder-possibilities of combination, and it real-
ized more keenly than ever before the hard lot
of the average miner, the risks of his life, the in-
adequacy of his remuneration, the scandal of his
housing. Two weeks' examination and cross ex-
amination left the coal trade a discredited organi-
zation plainly inadequate to the country's economic
needs. Incidentally it fully vindicated the miners'
recourse to direct action to compel an unwilling
government to give some consideration to urgent
national needs even at the risk of incommoding
powerful vested interests.
The first report, issued, in accordance with prom-
ise, on March 22, clinched the matter. The coal
owners' three representatives sought refuge in
silence and reported only on hours and wages.
But the chairman and mine members agreed that
"the present system of ownership and working in
the coal industry stands condemned."
The miners' three representatives, Mr. Webb, and
Mr. Tawney reported that more efficient organiza-
tion was essential, that the only alternatives were
nationalization and trustification and that, since the
latter would be clearly intolerable, "nationaliza-
tion" ought to be, in principle, at once decided on.
The chairman and the three other Government
nominees were a little more cautious. They de-
clared a change essential; they laid it down that
the workers must have an effective voice in the
direction of the mines. But they proposed to take
further evidence in order to decide whether the
new system should be "nationalization- or a method
of unification by national purchase or by joint
control."
In the matter of hours and wages Mr. Justice
Sankey and his colleagues suggested a compromise
which gave roughly half what the miners demanded.
The same day Mr. Bonar Law announced that
the Government would adopt the Sankey report in
spirit and in letter.
Accepting this statement as a definite pledge
of the Government's intention, the miners agreed
to accept the Sankey report. Everybody took it
that the first big issue was decided; that the ex-
isting system would be abolished and that it re-
mained only for the Commission to discuss the
precise form of the change by which unification,
effective public control, and the worker's partici-
pation in management could be secured
The Commission sat again and examined various
proposed schemes for effecting nationalization. It
reported on June 20.
This second report was a curious document. The
coal owners' representatives and two of the Govern-
ment nominees put themselves clean out of court.
They merely declared "nationalization in any
form detrimental to the development of the in-
dustry and to the economic life of the country."
They recommended a few unimportant reforms, but
apparently contemplated the continuance of the
existing system virtually without change. In view
of the fact that the Government had already com-
mitted itself to the Sankey declaration for total
reforms, this made their report merely irrelevant.
Eight members had seriously devoted themselves
to the real issue. And of these seven (The Chair-
man, Mr. Webb, Mr. Tawney, and the miners'
representatives) declared in favor of nationaliza-
tion. One (Sir Arthur Duckham) submitted, in-
stead, a scheme for the creation of publicly con-
trolled corporations.


406
November 1
THE DIAL
AH the commissioners favored the state acquisi-
tion (either by purchase or by confiscation) of min-
ing royalties, and the placing of the retail dis-
tributing trade in the hands of public bodies.
It seemed that the contest was won. The Gov-
ernment had agreed to carry out the revolutionary
changes declared necessary by the interim Sankey
report. Of eight commissioners who had given
their minds to the problem, seven had declared
that such changes were best effected by nationaliza-
tion. The miners looked to the Government for
the logical next step.
But the coal interest is powerful in England,
and Mr. Lloyd George has no strong predisposi-
tion either to logic or to fidelity. The big capi-
talists began to issue warnings. A large number
of the Government's followers in the House of
Commons declared that they would oppose any
nationalization bill.
Then the Government made its first move. The
disclosures at the Commission had swung public
sympathy against the coal owners and in favor of
the miners. If nationalization was to be turned
down and the Sankey pledge violated in spirit, it
was essential to create an atmosphere of preju-
dice, to turn opinion once more against the miners.
Dramatically Sir Auckland Geddes announced
on July 9 that the wage and hour provisions of the
Sankey award made it necessary to increase the
price of coal by six shillings.
The Government press took the cue promptly
and burst into violent denunciation of the miners
for "profiteering" at the expense of the com-
munity.
The Miners' Federation replied by a destructive
criticism of the calculations on which the six-
shilling rise was based. The Government's arith-
metic was shown to be faulty, its data inaccurate.
It was shown conclusively that, making full allow-
ance for the diminution in production, an increase
of two shillings and six pence a ton would have
been ample. And the Government was forced to ad-
mit that the diminution in production was due not
to any slackness on the part of the miners—as the
capitalist press had freely asserted—but to bad
organization of transport.
The Government tried another device. They of-
fered to withhold the six-shilling rise if the miners
would give up the right to strike for three months.
Had this been accepted no doubt at the end of
the three months the proposal would have been re-
peated. But the miners in conference at Keswick
declined to bargain away their basic right, repu-
diated the suggestion that they were in any way
responsible for the fall in output, demanded an
inquiry into its causes, and promised full co-opera-
tion in increasing production and effecting econ-
omies if the Sankey report were carried out.
The Government ignored the Keswick resolutions
and the press campaign redoubled in violence.
The miners and their leaders were virulently at-
tacked. Even Mr. Justice Sankey became the tar-
get of evidently organized abuse.
And then, when it was believed that the ground
had been sufficiently prepared by the press, Mr.
Lloyd George launched his offensive. In a speech
on August 18 he declared definitely against na-
tionalization. His plan was to "promote union
by amalgamation in defined areas"—in other
words, to set up a system of gigantic capitalist
combines subject only to the vaguest supervision
by the Government It was Sir Arthur Duckham's
plans without the safeguards Sir Arthur had pro-
posed. The Sankey report had become a scrap of
paper.
The miners were angry at the betrayal. They
had been led by statement after statement to be-
lieve that the Government meant to carry out the
policy recommended by the Commission. They had
been assured that if the "competent and highly
expert tribunal" found that nationalization was a
good business proposition, its recommendation
would be accepted.
It was on this assurance that the miners had
voted to accept the interim report and to call off
the strike. Now they found—a not unusual expe-
rience in dealing with governments—that, as Mr.
Vernon Hartshorn put it, "it was all a huge game
of bluff," and that, for all the influence it had had
on the Government's policy, the Commission might
as well have made no investigation and no report
at all
The miners were angry; but they showed a re-
straint under intense provocation which contrasted
rather strikingly with the Government's reckless
and flamboyant methods. A full delegate confer-
ence was called at the beginning of September.
It regretted that "the Government had no better
scheme than the creation of great trusts," and re-
iterated its conviction that nationalization was the
only solution. But it declined to take immediate
industrial action, and instead referred the whole
question to the Trade Union Congress at Glasgow.
That Congress met on September 10. The
miners submitted a resolution pledging the Con-
gress to "co-operate to the fullest extent" with the
Miners' Federation "with a view to compelling the
Government to adopt the scheme of national owner-
ship and joint control recommended by the ma-
jority of the Sankey Commission."
The resolution instructed the Parliamentary
Committee to interview the Prime Minister, and
decided that in the event of a continued Govern-
ment refusal a special congress should be called
"to decide the form of action to be taken to com-
pel the Government."
That resolution, moved by Robert Smillie, the
Miners' Federation president, and seconded by J-
H. Thomas, the Railwaymen's secretary, was car-
ried by 4,478,000 to 77,000.


1919
407
THE DIAL
By an almost unanimous vote the trade unions
had taken up the challenge thrown down by Mr.
Lloyd George to the miners.
The interview with the Prime Minister took
place on October 9. Mr. Lloyd George was in
a characteristic mood. He delivered an oration
which lasted an hour. He denied that any pledge
had ever been given. Suddenly he discovered that
this Parliament had no mandate to deal with
nationalization. He declared that in some myste-
rious fashion the railway strike made the moment
most inopportune for pressing the question. He
delivered a little lecture on guild socialism which
showed that he had not the slightest knowledge of
the subject. Accurate knowledge is not Mr.
George's forte, and he made it plain that he knows
as little of the miners' problem as he knows about
Teschen. "What we were struck with more than
anything else," said Mr. Smillie afterwards to a
Daily Herald representative, "was that Mr. Lloyd
George seemed to be absolutely ignorant with re-
gard to the whole principle and importance of
nationalization."
But the Prime Minister has also the obstinacy
which often goes with ignorance. Once his mind
has been made up for him, he is tenacious of the
view which has been given him and wh'ch he is
ill equipped to criticize for himself. And the net
result of it all was a flat refusal to consider na-
tionalization and a repetition of the trustification
proposals. Mr. George's arguments were unimpor-
tant; they were merely drawn from a not very clev-
erly prepared brief. The essential thing is that the
interests of which he is the mouthpiece have deter-
mined on an obstinate resistance.
There for the moment the matter lies. The call-
ing of the special congress has been postponed
until the return of the British delegation from
Washington. But the issue has been clearly de-
fined. Organized labor has declared its solid sup-
port of the miners, and is considering ways and
means of forcing the Government to carry nation-
alization. Organized capital is equally determined
to resist it .
For the first time in British history the ground
is cleared for a straight fight on a clear-cut issue
of principle. It is no question of hours and wages
but one of the whole structure of industry. It is
the first big revolt against the wage-system itself;
the first organized and concerted attempt to
substitute industrial democracy for industrial
oligarchy.
For the miners' demand, let me repeat, is not
merely for nationalization. It is for national own-
ership and for joint control by the workers and
the community. The details of the proposal are
set out in the draft bill of which the complete text
is printed below. They differ in detail from
Mr. Justice Sankey's own proposal. They en-
visage a more democratic form of organiza-
tion. But the basic principle is the same. It is
the principle of the Plumb Plan. It is at bottom
the principle of Guild Socialism—that industry'
should be carried on by democratically organized
bodies of workers in co-operation, with, and for
the benefit of, the community.
It would be foolish to prophecy the events of
the next few months—to attempt to predict on what
action the special Congress will decide or to fore-
tell the immediate result of that action.
But this, at any rate, is certain. That British
labor has definitely passed from its period of pre-
occupation with questions of wages and hours;
it has decided to use its economic power for the
construction of a new model of industry. This
is a fight which, once begun, must inevitably go
forward to a decision.
W. N. Ewer.
The Nationalization of Mines and Minerals
A Bill to Nationalise the Mines and Minerals of Great Britain and to Provide for the National
Winning, Distribution, and Sale of Coal and Other Minerals, (1919).
(2) It shall be lawful for His Majesty, from time to time,
to appoint any member of the Privy Council to be President
of the Mining Council, under the name of the. Minister of
Mines, to hold office during His Majesty's pleasure.
(3) The Members of the Mining Council, other than the
President, shall be appointed for five years, but shall be
eligible for reappointment. Provided that His Majesty or
the Association known as the Miners' Federation of Great
Britain respectively shall have power to remove any person
appointed by them and appoint some other person in his
place. On a casual vacancy occurring by reason of the
death, resignation, or otherwise of any of such members
or otherwise, His Majesty or the Miners' Federation of
Great Britain, as the case may be, shall appoint some other
person to fill the vacancy, who shall continue in office
until the member in whose place he was appointed should
have retired, and shall then retire. The members of the
Whereas it is expedient that mines and minerals should
be taken into the possession of the State.
Be it enacted by the King's Most Excellent Majesty, by
and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and
Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament as-
sembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
I.
Establishment of Mininc Council
(1) For the purpose of winning, distributing, selling, and
searching for coal and other minerals, there shall be estab-
lished by His Majesty by Warrant under the sign manual,
a Mining Council, consisting of a President and 20 mem-
bers, ten of whom shall be appointed by His Majesty and
ten by the Association known as the Miners' Federation of
Great Britain.


408
November 1
THE DIAL
Mining Council shall devote the whole of their time to the
business of the Mining Council.
n.
Minister of Mines and Parliamentary Secretary
(1) The Minister of Mines and one of the Secretaries of
the Mining Council (to be known as the Parliamentary
Secretary and to be appointed by His Majesty) shall at
the same time be capable of being elected to and of sitting
in the Commons House of Parliament.
(2) The Minister of Mines shall take the oath of allegi-
ance and official oath, and shall be deemed to be included
in the First Part of the Schedule to the Promissory Oaths
Act, 1868.
(3) There shall be paid out of money provided by Parlia-
ment to the Minister of Mines a salary at the rate of £2,000
a year, and to the Parliamentary Secretary a salary at the
rate of £1,500 a year.
(4) The Minister of Mines and the Parliamentary Secre-
tary shall be responsible to Parliament for the acts of the
Mining Council.
III.
Officers, etc.
(1) The Mining Council shall appoint a Secretary (to
be known as the Permanent Secretary), and such assistant
secretaries and officers and servants as the Mining Council
may, with the sanction of the Treasury, determine.
(2) Subject to the provisions of Section 11 (2) of this
Act, there shall be paid to the Permanent Secretary, As-
sistant Secretaries and ether officers and servants such salar-
ies or remuneration as the Treasury shall from time to time
determine.
(3) There shall be transferred and attached to the Min-
ing Council such of the persons employed under any Gov-
ernment Department or local authority in or about the exe-
cution of the powers and duties transferred by or in pur-
suance of this Act to the Mining Council as the Mining
Council and the Government Department or local authority
may with the sanction of the Treasury determine.
(4) Notwithstanding anything in any Act, order or
regulation, any society of workers, all or some of whose
members are wholly or partly employed in or about mines,
or in any other manner employed by the Minister of Mines,
or the Mining Council, or a District Mining Council, or
Pit Council, or otherwise under this Act, may be registered
or constitute themselves to be a Trade Union, and may do
anything individually or in combination which the members
of a Trade Union or a Trade Union may lawfully do. Pro-
vided further that nothwithstanding any Act, order, or regu-
lation to the contrary, it shall be lawful for any person em-
ployed under this Act to participate in any civil or political
action in like manner as if such person were not employed
by His Majesty, or by any authority on his behalf.
Provided, further, that no such person shall suffer dis-
missal or any deprivation of any kind as a consequence
of any political or industrial action, not directly forbidden
by the terms of his employment, or as a consequence of
participation in a strike or trade dispute.
IV.
Constitution of Mininc Council
(1) The Mining Council shall be a'Corporation to be
known by the name of the Mining Council and by that
name shall have perpetual succession, and may acquire and
hold land without licence in mortmain.
(2) The Mining Council shall have an official seal, which
shall be officially and publicly noticed, and such seal shall
be authenticated by the Mining Council or a secretary or
->ne of the assistant secretaries, or some person authorised
<"-t on their behalf.
(3) The Mining Council may sue and be sued without
further description under that title.
(4) Every document purporting to be an order, licence,
or other instrument issued by the Mining Council, and to
be sealed with their seal, authenticated in manner pro-
vided by this Act, or to be signed by a secretary or by one
of the assistant secretaries, or any person authorised to
act, shall be received,in evidence and be deemed to be
such order, licence, or other instrument without further
proof unless the contrary is shown.
(5) Any person having authority in that behalf, either
general or special, under the seal of the Mining Council
may, on behalf of the Mining Council, give any notice or
make any claim, demand, entry, or distress, which the Min-
ing Council in its corporate capacity or otherwise might give
or make, and every such notice, claim, demand, entry, and
distress shall be deemed to have been given and made by
the Mining Council.
(6) Every deed, instrument, bill, cheque, receipt or other
document, made or executed for the purpose of the Mining
Council by, to, or with the Mining Council, or any officer
of the Mining Council, shall be exempt from any stamp duty-
imposed by any Act, past or future, except where that duty
is declared by the document, or by some memorandum en-
dorsed thereon, to be payable by some person other than
the Mining Council, and except so far as any future Act
specifically charges the duty.
Transference of Mines and Minerals to Mininc Council
(1) On and after the appointed day, save as in Sub-
Section 3 of this Section, provided—
(a) Every colliery and mine (including all mines,
quarries and open workings of ironstone, shale, fire-
clay and limestone, and every other mine regulated
under the Metalliferous Mines Regulation Acts, 1872
and 1875, but not including mines, quarries, or open
workings of minerals specified in the First Schedule to
this Act), whether in actual work, or discontinued, or
exhausted, or abandoned, and every shaft, pit, borehole,
level, or inclined plane, whether in course of being
made or driven for commencing or opening any such
colliery or mine, or otherwise, and all associated prop-
erties (including .vessels, lighters, railway rolling stock,
and all works, including works for the manufacture of
bye-products, in the opinion of the Mining Council
belonging to any mine undertaking or connected with
any colliery or mine, and every house belonging to
the owners of any such colliery or mine, which, in the
opinion of the Mining Council, is usually occupied by
workmen employed at such colliery or mine), (all of
which are herein included in the expression "mine");
and
(b) all coal, anthracite, lignite, ironstone, shale,
fireclay, limestone, or other mineral, excepting the min-
erals specified in the First Schedule to this Act, wheth-
er at present being worked or not worked, or connected
or not connected with any mine, beneath the surface
of the ground (all of which are herein included in the
expression "minerals"); and
(c) all rights and easements arising out of or neces-
sary to the working of any mine or the winning of
any mineral, including all mineral way-leaves, whether
air-leaves or water leaves, or rights to use a shaft, or
ventilation or drainage or other royalties, lordships,
or rights in connection therewith, whether above or be-
low the ground (all of which are herein included in
the expression "rights")
shall be transferred to, vested in and held by the Mining
Council in their corporate capacity in perpetuity, and
shall for all purposes be deemed to be royal mines, and the
minerals and rights thereof respectively.


1919
409
THE DIAL
(2) The Acts contained in the Second Schedule to this
Act are hereby repealed.
(3) Provided that the Mining Council may at any time
before the appointed day give notice in writing to the
owner of, or person interested in, any mine or minerals or
rights, disclaiming, during the period of such disclaimer,
all or part of the property in such mine or minerals or rights
to the extent specified in the notice, and thereafter such
mine or minerals or right9 shall, until such time as the
Mining Council shall otherwise determine, to the extent
specified in such notice, not vest in the Mining Council as
provided by Sub-Section (1) of this section. Provided that
in such case it shall not be lawful for any person other
than the Mining Council, without the permission of the
Mining Council, to work such mine or minerals in any way.
Provided further that on the termination of such dis-
claimer by the Mining Council, such mine or minerals or
rights shall, to the extent of such notice, as from such
date as the notice may prescribe, vest in the Mining Council
as if such notice of disclaimer had not been given.
VI. ,'
Purchase of Mines
The Mining Council shall purchase the mines of Great
Britain in them vested by this Act (other than those which
are the property of the Crown at the time of the passing
ef this Act or which have been disclaimed in whole or in
part in accordance with Section V (3) of this Act) at
the price and in the manner provided by this Act. Provided
always that the value of any rights as defined by Section
V (1) (c) of this Act shall not be taken into account in
computing such price, for all of which no compensation
shall be paid.
VII.
Mines Commissioners
) (1) For the purpose of assessing the purchase price of
mines it shall be lawful for His Majesty, by warrants under
the sign manual, to appoint ten Commissioners, to be styled
the Mines Purchase Commissioners (herein called the Com-
missioners) of whom one, appointed by His Majesty, shall
be chairman.
(2) Three of the said Commissioners shall be nominated
by the Association' known as the Miners'. Federation of
Great Britain, and three by the Association known as the
Mining Association of Great Britain.
(3) At the expiration of twelve months from the passing
of this Act, in the event of a majority of the Commissioners
failing to agree as to the purchase price of a particular
mine or of its associated properties, it shall be lawful for
the Chairman himself to fix the purchase price of such
mine, which price shall then be deemed to be the price
fixed by the Commissioners, but, save as herein expressly
. provided, the finding of a majority of the Commissioners
voting on any question or as to the purchase price of mines
shall be final and conclusive and binding on all parties.
(4)" It shall be lawful for His Majesty to remove any
Commissioner for inability or misbehavior. Every order
of removal shall state the reasons for which it is made,
and no such order shall come into operation until it has
lain before the Houses of Parliament for not less than thirty
days while Parliament is sitting.
(5) The Commissioners may appoint and employ such
assessors, accountants, surveyors, valuers, clerks, messen-
gers, and other persons required for the due performance
of their duties as the Treasury on the recommendation of
the Commissioners may sanction.
(6) There shall be paid to the Commissioners and to
each of the persons appointed or employed under this sec-
tion such salary or remuneration as the Treasury may sanc-
tion; and all such salaries and remuneration and the ex-
penses of the Commission incurred in the execution of their
duties, to such amount as may be sanctioned by the Treas-
ury, shall be paid out of moneys provided by Parliament.
VHI.
Valuation of Mines
(1) The Commissioners shall, as soon as may be after
the passing «f this Act, cause a valuation to be made
of all mines other than those disclaimed, whether or not
developed or working or abandoned or exhausted, in Great
Britain, showing what on August 4th, 1914, and what at
the date of the passing of this Act was respectively the"
total ascertained value of each mine and its associated
properties and the rights, as defined by Section V (1) (c)
of this Act, therein, and the total ascertained value of such
mine and its associated properties respectively exclusive
of such rights; and the owner of every mine and any per-
son receiving any rents, interest, or profit from any mine
or possessed of any rights therein or connected therewith,
on being required by notice by the Commissioners, shall
furnish to the Commissioners a return containing such
particulars as the Commissioners may require as to his
property, rent, interest, profits, or rights in such mine. .
(2) The Commissioners may likewise cause any mine to
be inspected, require the production of documents, or do
any other thing which may, in their opinion, be necessary
to fix the purchase price of the mine or its associated prop-
erties.
(3) The Commissioners in making such valuation shall
have regard to returns made under any statute imposing
duties or taxes or other obligations in respect of mines, or
minerals or rights, and to any information given before or
to any Commission or Government Department, including
the Coal Industry Commission constituted under the Coal
Industry Commission Act, 1919.
DC.
Ascertainment of Purchase Price
(1) The purchase price of mines exclusive of associated
properties (other than mines in the possession of the Crown
at the time of the passing of this Act) shall be computed
subject to the provisions of sub-sections (2) and (3) of
this section by ascertaining the average annual number of
tons of minerals actually raised during the five years pre-
ceding August 4th, 1914:
Provided that as regards coal-mines in no case shall the
maximum purchase price, exclusive of associated properties,
be taken to be more than the following:
When 100,000 tons or less have been raised s. d.
per annum on the average during such
five preceding years, a capital sum
equal to one such year's output at 12 0 per ton
When more than 100,000 tons have been
raised per annum on the average dur-
ing such five preceding years, a capital
sum equal to one such year's output at 10 0 per ton
(2) The Commissioners in arriving at such computation
shall also have regard to the actual gross and net profits
which have been made in the mine during such years or
thereafter and to the amounts which may have been set
aside from time to time for depreciation, renewals, or de-
velopment, and to the probable duration of the life of the
mine, and to the nature and condition of such mine, and to
the state of repairs thereof, and to the assets and liabilities
of any mine undertaking existing at the time of purchase
which are transferable to the Mining Council under section
XVI of this Act.
(3) Provided further that where a coal-mine, in the
opinion of the Commissioners, has not been fully developed,
the amount which would be raised under full development
without any increase of capital expenditure shall be taken
as the average annual number of tons raised, and the maxi-


410
November 1
THE DIAL
mum purchase price in such case shall be taken to be a
capital sum equal to the product of such number of tons
and 12s. or 10s. per ton respectively, for the purpose of
ascertaining the maximum value per ton under sub-section
(1) of this section.
X.
Issue of State Mines Stock
(1) The purchase price of any mine and such of its
associated properties as have been purchased, as ascertain-
ed under the provisions of this Act, shall be paid by the
Mining Council in mines purchase stock to the persons who,
in the opinion of the Mining Council, have established their
title to such stock. Provided that an appeal shall lie to the
High Court under rules to be framed by the High Court
from the decision of the Mining Council as to the title
of any such persons, but for no other purpose.
(2) For the purpose of paying such purchase price the
Treasury shall, on the request of the Mining Council, by
warrant addressed to the Bank of England, direct the crea-
tion of a new capital stock (to be called "Guaranteed State
Mines Stock"), and in this Act referred to as "the stock,"
yielding interest at the rate on the nominal amount of capi-
tal equal to that payable at the date on which this Act
received Royal Assent on what, in the opinion of the Treas-
ury, is the nearest equivalent Government Loan Stock.
(3) Interest shall be payable by equal half yearly or
quarterly dividends at such times in each year as may be
fixed by the warrant first creating the stock.
(4) The stock shall be redeemed at the rate of one hun-
dred pounds sterling for e