The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit Part 12

It was during those long, weary years coupled with the horrible crimes of the Thirty Years' War that the science of International Law began to take form, the result of that notable work, "De Jure Belli ac Pacis," by Grotius. It is ours to see that out of this more intense and thereby even more horrible conflict a new epoch in human and international relations be born.

As the higher powers of mind and spirit are realised and used, great primal instincts impelling men to expression and action that find their outlet many times in war, will be trans.m.u.ted and turned from destruction into powerful engines of construction. When a moral equivalent for war of sufficient impelling power is placed before men, those same virile qualities and powers that are now marshalled so easily for purposes of fighting, will, under the guidance and in the service of the spirit, be used for the conserving of human life, and for the advancement and the increase of everything that administers to life, that makes it more abundant, more mutual, and more happy. And G.o.d knows that the call for such service is very great.

And even now comes the significant word that the long, the too long awaited world's Bill of Rights has taken form. The intelligence and the will of righteous men, duly appointed as the representatives of fourteen sovereign nations, has a.s.serted itself, and the beginning has been made, without which there can be neither growth nor advancement. The Const.i.tution of the World League has taken form. It is not a perfect instrument; but it will grow into as perfect an instrument as need be for its purpose. Changes and additions to it will be made as times and conditions indicate. Partisanship even with us may seek to defeat it.

There is no question, however, but that the sober sense of the American people is behind it.

One of the most fundamental results, we might say purposes of the great world war, was to end war. It means now that the world's unity and mutuality and its community of interests must be realised and that we build accordingly. It means that the world's peace must be fostered and preserved by the use of brains and guided by the heart; or that every brute force made ghastly and deadly to the n_th_ degree that modern science can devise, be periodically called in to settle the disputes or curb the ambitions that will disrupt the peace of the world.

The common people the world over are desiring as near as can be arrived at, some surety as to the preservation of the world's peace; and they will brook no interference with a plan that seems the most feasible way to that end. The whole world is in that temper that gives significance to the words of President Wilson when a day or two ago he said: "Any man who resists the present tides that run in the world will find himself thrown upon a sh.o.r.e so high and barren that it will seem as if he had been separated from his human kind forever." Unless, he might have added--he has and can demonstrate a better plan. The two chief arguments against it, that it will take away from our individual rights and that it will lead us into entangling alliances, no longer hold--for we are entangled already. We are a part of the great world force and it were futile longer to seek to escape our duties as such. They are as essential as "our rights."

It is with us now as a nation as it was with that immortal group that gathered to sign our Declaration of Independence, to whom Franklin said: "We must all hang together, or a.s.suredly we shall all hang separately."

It is well for Americans to recall that the first League of Nations was when thirteen distinct nationalities one day awoke to the fact that it were better to forget their differences and to a great extent their boundaries, and come together in a common union. They had their thirteen distinct armies to keep up, in order to defend themselves each against the other or against any combination of the others, to say nothing of any outside power that might move against them. Jealousies arose and misunderstandings were frequent. So zealous was each of its own rights that when the Const.i.tutional Convention had completed its work, and the Const.i.tution was ready for adoption, there were those who actually left the hall rather than sign it. They were good men but they were looking at stern facts and they wanted no idealism in theirs. Good men, some animated by the partisan spirit, it is true, earnest in their beliefs--but unequipped with the long vision. Their names are now recalled only through the search of the antiquarian.

Infinitely better it has been found for the thirteen and eventually the forty-eight to stand together than to stand separately. The thirteen separate states were farther separated so far as means of communication and actual knowledge of one another were concerned, than are the nations of the world today.

It took men of great insight as well as vision to formulate our own Const.i.tution which made thirteen distinct and sovereign states the United States of America. The formulation of the Const.i.tution of the World League has required such men. As a nation we may be proud that two representative Americans have had so large a share in its accomplishment--President Wilson, good Democrat, and Ex-President Taft, good Republican.

The greatest international and therefore world doc.u.ment ever produced has been forged--it awaits the coming days, years, and even generations for its completion. And we accord great honour also to those statesmen of other nations who have combined keen insight born of experience, with a lofty idealism; for out of these in any realm of human activities and relations, whatever eventually becomes the practical, is born.

XIV

THE WORLD'S BALANCE-WHEEL

It was Lincoln who gave us a wonderful summary when he said: "After all the one meaning of life is to be kind."

Love, sympathy, fellowship is the very foundation of all civilised, happy, ideal life. It is the very balance-wheel of life itself. It gives that genuineness and simplicity in voice, in look, in spirit that is so instinctively felt by all, and to which all so universally respond. It is like the fragrance of the flower--the emanation of its soul.

Interesting and containing a most vital truth is this little memoir by Christine Rossetti: "One whom I knew intimately, and whose memory I revere, once in my hearing remarked that, 'unless we love people, we cannot understand them.' This was a new light to me." It contains indeed a profound truth.

Love, sympathy, fellowship, is what makes human life truly human.

Cooperation, mutual service, is its fruitage. A clear-cut realisation of this and a resolute acting upon it would remove much of the cloudiness and the barrenness from many a life; and its mutual recognition--and action based upon it--would bring order and sweetness and mutual gain in vast numbers of instances in family, in business, in community life. It would solve many of the knotty problems in all lines of human relations and human endeavour, whose solution heretofore has seemed well-nigh impossible. It is the telling oil that will start to running smoothly and effectively many an otherwise clogged and grating system of human machinery.

When men on both sides are long-headed enough, are sensible enough to see its practical element and make it the fundamental basis of all relationships, of all negotiations, and all following activities in the relations between capital and labour, employer and employee, literally a new era in the industrial world will spring into being. Both sides will be the gainer--the dividends flowing to each will be even surprising.

There is really no labour problem outside of sympathy, mutuality, good-will, cooperation, brotherhood.

Injustice always has been and always will be the cause of all labour troubles. But we must not forget that it is sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other. Misunderstanding is not infrequently its accompaniment. Imagination, sympathy, mutuality, cooperation, brotherhood are the hand-maidens of justice. No man is intelligent enough, is big enough to be the representative or the manager of capital, who is not intelligent enough to realise this. No man is fit to be the representative of, or fit to have anything to do with the councils of labour who has not brains, intelligence enough to realise this. These qualities are not synonyms of or in any way related to sentimentality or any weak-kneed ethics. They underlie the soundest business sense. In this day and age they are synonyms of the word practical. There was a time and it was not so many years ago, when heads and executives of large enterprises did not realise this as fully as they realise it today. A great change has already taken place. A new era has already begun, and the greater the ability and the genius the more eager is its possessor to make these his guiding principles, and to hasten the time when they will be universally recognised and built upon.

The same is true of the more intelligent in the rank and file of labour, as also of the more intelligent and those who are bringing the best results as leaders of labour. There is no intelligent man or woman today who does not believe in organised labour. There is no intelligent employer who does not believe in it and who does not welcome it.

The bane of organised labour in the past has too often been the unscrupulous, the self-seeking, or the bull-headed labour leader.

Organised labour must be constantly diligent to purge itself of these its worst enemies. Labour is ent.i.tled to the very highest wage, or to the best returns in cooperative management that it can get, and that are consistent with sound business management, as also to the best labour conditions that a sympathetic and wise management can bring about. It must not, however, be unreasonable in its demands, neither bull-headed, nor seek to travel too fast--otherwise it may lose more than it will gain.

It must not allow itself to act as a shield for the ineffective worker, or the one without a sense of mutuality, whose aim is to get all he can get without any thought as to what he gives in return, or even with the deliberate purpose of giving the least that he can give and get away with it. Where there is a good and a full return, there should be not only the desire but an eagerness to give a full and honest service. Less than this is indicative of a lack of honest and staunch manhood or womanhood.

It is inc.u.mbent upon organised labour also to remember that it represents but eight per cent of the actual working people of this nation. Whether one works with his brains, or his hands, or both, is immaterial. Nor does organised labour represent the great farming interests of the country--even more fundamentally the backbone of the nation.

The desirable citizen of any nation is he or she who does not seek to prosper at the expense of his fellows, who does not seek the advancement of his group to the detriment of all other groups--who realises that none are independent, that all are interdependent.

He who is a teacher or a preacher of cla.s.s-consciousness, is either consciously or unconsciously--generally consciously and intentionally--a preacher of cla.s.s-hatred. There is no more undesirable citizen in any nation than he. "Do you know why money is so scarce, brothers?" the soap box orator demanded, and a fair-sized section of the backbone of the nation waited in leisurely patience for the answer. A tired-looking woman had paused for a moment on the edge of the crowd. She spoke shortly. "It's because so many of you men spend your time telling each other why, 'stead of hustling to see that it ain't!" He is a fair representative of the cla.s.s-consciousness, cla.s.s-hatred type. Again he is represented by the theorist const.i.tutionally and chronically too lazy to do honest and constructive work either physically or mentally. Again by the one who has the big-head affliction. Or again by the one afflicted with a species of insanity or criminality manifesting of late under the name of Bolshevism--a self-seeking tyranny infinitely worse than Czarism itself.

Its representatives have proved themselves moral perverts, determined to carry out their theories and gain their own ends by treachery, theft, coersion, murder, and every foul method that will aid them in reducing order to chaos--through the slogan of rule or ruin. Through brigandage, coersion, murder, it gets the funds to send its agents into those countries whose governments are fully in the hands of the people, and where if at any time injustice prevails it is solely the fault of the people in not using in an intelligent and determined manner the possessions they already have. Or putting it in another way, on account of shirking the duties it is morally inc.u.mbent upon them as citizens of free governments to perform.

In America, whose inst.i.tutions have been built and maintained solely by the people, our duty is plain, for orderly procedure has been and ever must be our watch-word. Vigilance is moreover nowhere required more than in representative government. Whenever the red hand of anarchy, Bolshevism, terrorism raises itself it should be struck so instantly and so powerfully that it has not only no time to gain adherents, but has no time to make its escape. It should be the Federal prison for any American who allows himself to become so misguided as to seek to subst.i.tute terrorism and destruction for our orderly and lawful methods of procedure, or quick deportation for any foreigner who seeks our sh.o.r.es to carry out these purposes, or comes as an agent for those who would do the same.

Organised labour has never occupied so high a position as it occupies today. That the rank and file will for an instant have commerce with these agencies, whatever any designing leader here and there may seek to do, is inconceivable. That its organisations will be sought to be used by them is just as probable. Its duty as to vigilance and determination is p.r.o.nounced. And unless vigilant and determined the set-backs it may get and the losses it may suffer are just as p.r.o.nounced. The spirit and temper of the American people is such that it will not stand for coersion, lawlessness, or any unfair demands. Public opinion is after all the court of last resort. No strike or no lockout can succeed with us that hasn't that tremendous weapon, public opinion, behind it. The necessity therefore of being fair in all demands and orderly in all procedure, and in view of this it is also well to remember that organised labour represents but eight per cent of the actual working people of this nation.

The gains of organised labour in the past have been very great. It is also true that the demands of organised labour even today are very great. In true candor it must also be said that not only the impulse but the sincere desire of the great bulk of employers is in a conciliatory way to grant all demands of labour that are at all consistent with sound economic management, even in many cases to a great lessening of their own profits, as well as to maintain working conditions as befits their workers as valuable and honoured members of our body politic, as they naturally are and as they so richly deserve.

For their own welfare, however, to say nothing of the welfare of the nation, labour unions must purge themselves of all anarchistic and destructive elements. Force is a two-edged sword, and the force of this nation when once its sense of justice and right is outraged and its temper is aroused, will be found to be infinitely superior to any particular cla.s.s, whether it be capital or whether it be labour.

Organised labour stands in the way to gain much by intelligent and honest work and orderly procedure. And to a degree perhaps never before equalled, does it stand in a position to lose much if through self-deception on its own part or through unworthy leadership, it deceives itself in believing itself superior to the forces of law and order.

In a nation where the people through their chosen representatives and by established systems of procedure determine their own inst.i.tutions, when agitators get beyond law and reason and lose sight too completely of the law of mutuality, there is a power backed by a force that it is mere madness to defy. The rights as well as the power of all the people will be found to be infinitely superior to those of any one particular group or cla.s.s--clear-seeing men and women in any democratic form of government realise that the words mutuality and self-interest bear a very close relationship.

The greatest gains in the relations between capital and labour during the coming few years will undoubtedly be along the lines of profit-sharing. Some splendid beginnings are already in successful operation. There is the recognition that capital is ent.i.tled initially to a fair return; again that labour is ent.i.tled to a good and full living wage--when both these conditions are met then that there be an equal division of the profits that remain, between the capital and the skill and management back of the capital invested on the one hand, and labour on the other. Without the former labour would have no employment in the particular enterprise; without the workers the former could not carry on. Each is essential to the other.

Labour being not a commodity, as some material thing merely to be bought and sold, but the human element, is ent.i.tled to more than a living wage.

It has human aspirations, and desires and needs. It has not only its present but its own and its children's future to safeguard. When it is thus made a partner in the business it becomes more earnest and reliable and effective in its work, less inclined to condone the shiftless, the incompetent, the slacker; more eager and resolute in withstanding the ill-founded, reckless or sinister suggestions or efforts of an ill-advised leadership.

Capital or employer is the gainer also, because it is insured that loyal and more intelligent cooperation in its enterprise that is as essential to its success as is the genius and skill of management.

Taking a different form but proving most valuable alike for management and capital on the one hand, and its workers on the other, is the case of one of our great industrial plants, the largest of its kind in the world and employing many thousands of workers, where already a trifle over forty per cent. of its stock is in the hands of the workers. Their thrift and their good judgment have enabled them to take advantage of attractive prices and easy methods of payment made them by the company's management. There are already many other concerns where this is true in greater or less proportion.

These are facts that certain types of labour agitators or even leaders as well as special pleaders for labour, find it convenient to forget, or at least not to mention. The same is true also of the millions that are every year being paid out to make all working conditions and surroundings cheerful, healthful, safe; in various forms of insurance, in retiring pensions. Through the initiative of this larger type of employer, or manager of capital, many hundreds of thousands both men and women and in continually increasing numbers, are being thus benefited--outside and above their yearly wage or salary.

A new era in connection with capital and labour has for some time been coming into being; the era of democracy in industry has arrived. The day of the autocratic sway on the part of capital has pa.s.sed; nor will we as a nation take kindly to the autocratic sway of labour. It is obtaining a continually fuller recognition; and cooperation leading in many lines to profit-sharing is the new era we are now pa.s.sing into.

Though there are very large numbers of men of great wealth, employers and heads of industrial enterprises, who have caught the spirit of the new industrial age upon which we have already begun to enter, and who are glad to see labour getting its fairer share of the profits of industry and a larger recognition as partners in industry, there are those who, lacking both imagination and vision, attempt to resist the tide that, already turned, is running in volume. They are our American Bourbons, our American Junkers. They are, considering the ominous undercurrents of change, unrest and discontent that are so apparent in the entire industrial and economic world today, our worst breeders and feeders of Bolshevism and lawlessness.

If they had their way and their numbers were sufficiently large, the flames of Bolshevism and anarchy would be so fed that even in America we would have little hope of escaping a great conflagration. They are the ones who are determined to see that their immense profits are uncurtailled, whose homes must have ten bathrooms each; while great numbers of their workers without whom they would have to close up the industry--hence their essential partners in the industry though not in name--haven't even a single bath-room and with families as large and in many cases larger.

They are they who must have three or four homes each, aggregating in the millions to build and to maintain. They are they who cannot see why workmen should discuss such things among themselves, or even question them, though in many cases they are scarcely able to make ends meet in the face of continually advancing or even soaring prices, who never enjoy a holiday, and are unable to lay up for the years to come, when they will no longer be "required" in industry. They are they therefore who have but little if any interest or care for even the physical well-being of their workers, say nothing of their mental and spiritual well-being and enjoyments--beyond the fact that they are well enough fed and housed for the next day's work.

They are they who when it is suggested that, recognizing the change and the run of the tide, they be keen-minded enough to antic.i.p.ate changing conditions and organize their business so that their workers have some joint share in its conditions and conduct, and some share in its profits beyond a mere living wage, reply--"I'll be d.a.m.ned if I do." It doesn't require much of a prophetic sense now however, to be able to tell them--they'll be d.a.m.ned if they don't.

There is reason to rejoice also that for the welfare of American inst.i.tutions, the number of this cla.s.s is continually decreasing. Did they predominate, with the unmistakable undercurrents of unrest, born of a sense of injustice, there would be in time, and in a shorter time than we perhaps realize, but one outcome. Steeped in selfishness, making themselves impervious to all the higher leadings and impulses of the soul--less than men--they are not only enemies of their own better selves, but enemies of the nation itself.

Bolshevism in Russia was born, or rather was able to get its hold, only through the long generations of Czarism and the almost universal state of ignorance in which its people were held, that preceded it. The great preponderance and the continually growing numbers of men with imagination, with a sense of care, mutuality, cooperation, brotherhood, in our various large enterprises is a force that will save this and other nations from a similar experience.

I have great confidence in the Russian people. Its soul is sound; and after the forces of treachery, incompetence and terrorism have spent themselves, and the better elements are able to organize in sufficient force to drive the beasts from its borders, it will arise and a.s.sert itself. There will be builded a new Russia that will be one of the great and commanding nations of the world. In the meantime it affords a most concrete and valuable lesson to us and to all other nations--to strike on the one hand, the forces of treachery and lawlessness the moment they show themselves, and on the other hand, to see that the soil is made fertile for neither their entrance nor growth.

The strong nation is that in which under the leadership of universal free education and equal opportunities, a due watch is maintained to see that the rights of all individuals and all cla.s.ses are nurtured and carefully guarded. In such a government the nation and its interests is and must be supreme. Then if built upon high ethical and moral standards where mutuality is the watch-word and the governing principle of its life, its motto might through right, power through justice, it becomes a fit and effective member of the Society of Nations.