CONTENTS

Introduction

Page xv

Democracy is a way of life, not simply a revolt against tyrants—Rock of Ages blasted for us—Rebel program is stated—Chaos of a new freedom—Need for a vision of what is to come out of unrest—but not an inclusive utopia—on being practical—Aim of the book.

PART I

Chapter I

THE THEMES OF MUCKRAKING

Page 1

American prejudice to-day in favor of accusation—Myths of muckraking—why did people believe?—Honeymoon period over—Acts called corrupt—German pedant required to classify them—but picture would be false—New necessities and new expectations—Themes of muckraking—why were politicians attacked?—Graft defined—Conservative or corrupt—Rising price of corruption—Public standards applied to business—the Persimmon family—developing criticism of private business.

Chapter II

NEW INCENTIVES

Page 27

Profiteering and the professions—Falling prestige of the Economic Man—Fencing off profit—Are new motives appearing?—General change of social scale—The Great Industry requires unheard of equipment—Brandeis against big business—How big?—Science of administration—Federal business—Little monarchs—Salaried men—The revolution in business incentives—Professional business men—Civilizing the Economic Man.

Chapter III

THE MAGIC OF PROPERTY

Page 50

An empty shrine—The feebleness of shareholding—Absentee and transient—Investing a profession—The “money power”—The rugged virtues of private property—Qualifications for shareholding—Impotence—Divorce from management—Private property in trusts an uncertain form of money lending—Public ownership not a question of private property—but of administration—The fight for the control of industry.

Chapter IV

CAVEAT EMPTOR

Page 66

Consumer ignorant and helpless—Advertising—Buying an intricate task—Competition makes it no easier—Government aid—“All the people”—Votes for women—Consumers’ controls—Business anarchy—Focussing attention—Revolutionary standards.

Chapter V

A KEY TO THE LABOR MOVEMENT

Page 77

Employers not worried about labor’s freedom—Richesse oblige—Organized obstruction—Unions and a servile class—Encroachment of democracy upon business—Pioneering—The scab—Preliminaries of civilization—When harmony can begin—Power vs. insurrection—I. W. W.—Revolt rather than solidarity—“Conscious minority”—Power and peace—The unorganizable—Being interested in efficiency—Having an interest—A struggle for power—Share of control—Others who must share—Unions as experiments in government—The politics of industry—Present realities.

Chapter VI

THE FUNDS OF PROGRESS

Page 101

How to finance the costs of progress—What is unearned income?—Latent panic—The unproductive—Inefficient—Antiquated—Landlords—Capitalists—No blanket case—The criterion is use—Destroying incentive—Misapplied incentives to-day—Pressure to improve business—Commercial adventurers—Necessity and invention—Opportunity of professional business man—Industrial waste—Wealth exists to pay for democracy.

Chapter VII

“A NATION OF VILLAGERS” —Bernard Shaw.

Page 121

Hieroglyphics and the Sherman Act—Systematic enforcement, not desultory pecking—Anti-trust agitation to preserve commercialism—High value of lawbreaking—Whipping the trusts—Revolution in American village life—Bryan as conservative—Wilson—Conflict of head and heart—His new formula—His old ideal—“The man on the make”—A halo for small business—What isn’t mentioned in the New Freedom—Amending the New Freedom—A task for Solomon—The appearance of magic—Democratic Party and village culture—Accepting the new scale of endeavor—The untried—Need for a collective mind—Really a deus ex machina—A problem for human beings alone.

PART II

Chapter VIII

A BIG WORLD AND LITTLE MEN

Page 149

The uprooted person—Hunting up the peasants—Slang—Fashions—Real novelty—Unsettled relations—Precedent made for a different environment—Out-of-kilter—Breakdown of loyalties—Organized gossip—Institutions made inconsistent—Schools must educate for novelty—Churches expected to produce interpretations of novelty—Courts expected to deal with social change—Political structure not fitted to modern functions—Decline of geographical influences—Embryonic governments—International affairs elude democracy—Can there be a “solution” of the industrial question?—No better order by decree—Complexity of democratic undertaking—Disruption in the soul of man.

Chapter IX

DRIFT

Page 172

Evil as a lapse from grace—“Oblivescence of the disagreeable”—A Golden Age—The created past—Thought unnecessary and happiness inevitable—The salt of the earth—Paradise ahead—Wild dreams and unimportant deeds—Darlings of evolution—Progressivism by the calendar—Fatalism in the socialist movement—Panaceas—So much good in everything—The aliases of drift—Chronic rebellion—Cutting off from central authority—Protestantism, Romanticism, Democracy—The modern artist—Loss of certainty—The classicist dream—A diagnosis—Liberty the beginning of real tasks.

Chapter X

THE ROCK OF AGES

Page 198

Opposite conclusions from the same principle—Absolutism as a practical force—Efficiency of mystics—The search for assurance—Constructive psychology of the Catholic Church—Spiritual exercises that create dependence—Decay of authority—We have more responsibility than capacity—Authority cannot survive—Small comfort in liberalism—The immigrant as type of the modern man—Our inner chaos.

PART III

Chapter XI

A NOTE ON THE WOMAN’S MOVEMENT

Page 213

Liberty not an unmixed blessing—Rights—Women as routineers—Inventing a new life—Academic dispute about inferiority—Women fight more than tradition—They fight their own bewilderment—“Single standard” with two meanings—The amateur male—Economic independence—Upper class women—The expanding home—Specializing—Earning money—Marrying to function—Women as enemies of co-operation—Influence of parents—Aggravating the property instinct—Sense of public property—About separating parent and child—The superstitious nursery—Monogamy and the sexual anarchists—The family and the spread of intelligence—Promiscuity—The “lunatic fringe”—Sexual sincerity—The promise of women’s awakening.

Chapter XII

BOGEYS

Page 240

Waiting for the heavens to fall—Laying a ghost—Where phantoms live—Terror calls for authority—The regiment of bogeys—Sense of sin—Purity—Class feeling—Unconventionality—Losing one’s job—Death—Reputation—Exorcising bogeys and disciplining love of reality.

Chapter XIII

POVERTY, CHASTITY, OBEDIENCE

Page 251

Not the ideals of self government—The democratic substitutes—Surplus of Wealth—A social minimum—Chastity and lust of the spirit—Realism about sex—Modern intellect pragmatic—Difficulty of judging by results—The necessary effort.

Chapter XIV

MASTERY

Page 264

Reverence for tradition and social cohesion—Conflicting traditions—Loyalty to “children’s land”—Common purpose instead of common tradition—The dreaming quality of life—Reflection—Conscious living—The return to the unconscious—Intention—Clumsy meddling—Criticizing the scientific mind—Inner sanctuary of human power—Emotion of futurity—Science the discipline of democracy.

Chapter XV

MODERN COMMUNION

Page 277

What binds together the modern effort?—Need of communion—Focussing interest—Example of the scientific world—Beginnings of common method—Spiritual values—Santayana quoted—Discipline and coöperation—Morality—“State-making” dream—Signs.

Chapter XVI

FACT AND FANCY

Page 289

A chilly existence—Hard-headed people may be fantastic—Trying to generalize—William James’s rule—Science as enemy of life’s variety—Science and religious dogma—Science in the Catholic Church—Blindness of young science—New value of tradition—Fear of the past—The past as emancipator—History as cure for barren hopes—Vision has an instrument—Science not a passionless pursuit—The rôle of fantasy—In political economy: Adam Smith, Marx; in leaders: Wilson, Haywood—The source of ideas—Criticism of desire—The utopias—Dream of the actual—Visionary and philistine—Creative imagination—Its severity—Mastery a new turn in human culture—Reaction into fantasy or routine—The end of rebellion—Our vision far from adequate.