EDITORIAL GRIST

THE GUARANTEE OF SECURITY

JOHN HAYNES HOLMES Church of the Messiah, New York

Amid such a confusion of “chance and change” as seems to be characteristic of our age in the various phases of its social life, it is not surprising perhaps to find that many persons, not over—given to timidity on ordinary occasions, are genuinely disturbed at the course which events are taking; and are asking of the agitators and reformers of the time, in terms more and more insistent, what guarantee they have to offer that their words and works do not spell destruction for the whole existing fabric of civilization.

Those of us who feel the thrill of the new movement of social transformation, and hail the advent of the new day with an exultation which leaves little place in our hearts for any regrets for the passing of the old, do not always realize, I imagine, how numerous are the revolutions of ancient custom which are involved in the demands which are being pressed upon every hand, and therefore fail to recognize the fears for the security of the nation, which are latent in many noble and devoted hearts. What with the indefinite extension of the machinery of our democracy by such devices as the initiative, the referendum and the recall, which may well seem subversive of that whole form of representative government which is at the bottom of our constitutional system; the multiplying assaults upon the integrity and authority of our courts, which have so long been regarded as the very bulwark of our institutions; the call for the active interference of the state with the administration of industry in such matters as workmen’s compensation, the eight-hour day for women and children, the minimum wage, etc.; the rapidly growing sentiment of our people in favor of the socialization of the resources of nature and of the public; regulation, if not ownership, of all means of production and distribution—the whole great movement, in a word, for an unfettered democracy upon the one hand and an unlimited social control upon the other—what with all these startling innovations sweeping down upon us at once, it is not surprising that many an earnest soul is wondering as to what the outcome of it all is to be and is seeking rather vainly for any evidence that these cures, which are being offered for our ills, do not mean the dissolution rather than the healing of the patient.

What guarantee can you give us, amid the utter chaos in which we are involved, that there is any real security for the future?

What assurance can you offer that this flood of reform, which is certainly destined to “bear [us] far,” will not break its bonds and thus sweep us to destruction?

What reasons can you present for believing that we may safely try these untested schemes of political and industrial revolution, and still have anything left of this great republic, which was founded in the blood and tears of the fathers, and was strengthened and extended by the undaunted labors of four generations of valiant sons? Is there anything which may even partially persuade us that this new movement really involves “the strength and stability of the times?”

These are the questions which are being asked today by many a restless heart, and they are questions which challenge a respectful answer.

There are some of us (of whom I beg to be counted one!) who find our all sufficient reply to these inquiries in our abounding faith in humanity. We believe that in a country where illiteracy is at a minimum, general education on the increase, caste barriers unknown, freedom of speech, press and assembly granted and practiced, religious liberty everywhere enjoyed, the people can be trusted to control their own affairs. This does not mean that the voice of the people is necessarily the voice of God in all places and under all conditions. But it does mean that the people, if given the privilege of responsibility and a due opportunity for self-knowledge and self-instruction, will quite as often decide for the right as for the wrong; and that in the latter case will learn from their experience of error the certain way of avoiding similar blunders in the future. Thus, by the very practice of their freedom do the people grow in wisdom and virtue. Thus, by the very fact of its operation does democracy perfect itself, as water purifies itself. Thus does the voice of the people become in course of time as if it were the voice of God. Which is all we mean by the ancient maxim that the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy! It is such a faith in the people that gives to many of us, amid the political and industrial transformations of the time, the guarantee of security which must be had, and for any guarantee beyond this pledge of faith, we see no need.

It is obvious, however, that, to many minds, moral faith of any kind can give no guarantee of things material. Blind trust in human nature means nothing when we are talking about such matters as governments and economic systems. We must have something more tangible than this is the cry, if we are to believe that the new social movements of the age are anything more than so many heedless attacks upon the integrity of our civilization.

To this demand I am confident that a satisfactory answer can be given; and I find this answer, not in the field of ideals, but in the field of method. The guarantee of security, amid the chaos about us, is to be found in the method of action characteristic of the true social reformer of the times, which is nothing less than the method of exact science. Visionaries, dreamers, agitators, blind propagandists, there are a-plenty in the social field today, and many are they who follow whithersoever they lead. But the reformer who really counts as an influence at this moment, and therefore may be regarded as typical of effective social progress, is nothing more, and certainly is nothing less, than a scientist who makes society his laboratory and who follows therein the expert’s well-approved methods of observation and experiment. The social leader of this new age is primarily an investigator, and only secondarily a reformer. His first demand is for facts; and only when these are gathered in sufficient numbers, are classified and tabulated and compared, and then at last made to tell their tale, does he draw his inferences, formulate his doctrines and lay down his program of reform. There is much of the prophet in the true sociologist—much of the poet, much of the humanitarian and lover of mankind. These qualities must never disappear, if the social movement is to remain wholesome, idealistic and thus genuinely beneficent. But at bottom, at least for the present, must be the scientist as the perpetual guarantee of sanity and safety.

What Darwin did with his barnacles and earth-worms; what De Vries did with his evening-primroses; what Professor Loeb is doing with his sea-urchins, and Dr. Carrel with his transplanted organs and revivified tissues; all this is the true social worker doing more and more with his tenement dwellers, child laborers, factory women, tuberculosis victims, immigrants, white slaves, and so on indefinitely through the social groups. More and more we have work which is primarily scientific, and which may fittingly be ranked, from the standpoint of scientific method, with any of the researches of the biologists, zoologists or astronomers of modern times. Well does a recent writer declare, “In recent years, this [altruistic] spirit, which began in a humanistic sentiment and hardly developed beyond the limits of kindliness, has become so infused with exact knowledge of social conditions ... that it has assumed the dignity of a scientific pursuit.”

Here now is the guarantee of security for which so many cautious persons of our time are vainly seeking. So long as we look upon the new moral and political movements, which are so characteristic of our age, as mere agitations, we may feel alarm for the future. It is when we look closer, and see that, behind the agitation for change, there is the accuracy, precision, and certainty of the scientific method, that we may feel that “all is well.”

TEACHING SOCIOLOGY IN NORTH DAKOTA

ALEXANDER JOHNSON

The Quarterly Journal of the University of North Dakota has recently published a reprint of an article by Professor Gillette of the Department of Sociology which is an extremely useful and interesting document.

The state has a board of control which administers its state institutions, but like most such boards, pays little or no attention to the county and municipal charities and correction nor to the voluntary philanthropic agencies. To remedy this defect of the state government, the Department of Sociology of the university compiled a most valuable report on Poor Relief and Jails, and that report was spread broadcast in the form of a reprint.

Professor Gillette describes his experience on beginning as follows:

“The first endeavors to obtain information in a new state relative to such subjects as this paper treats are likely to prove far from satisfactory because of the non-existence of published information. Two years ago, after vainly endeavoring to obtain information on the state as a whole relative to the general subjects of poor-relief and conditions of jails, I began a personal investigation into those matters.

“Whenever I found myself in a county seat, I collected such facts as the county offices held, inspected the jails, visited the poor farms where they were accessible, and inquired into the workings of the poor-relief system. In this manner, seventeen counties were investigated. Eight counties were visited in connection with the occasional lectures I was called on to give in the state. Information from the other nine counties was obtained by means of field work which very meager departmental funds enabled me to make. It is one of the traditional conditions, which still persists in educational institutions that are supposed to foster research, that departments which use mechanical instruments to carry on experiment are given thousands of dollars, while departments whose field of research lies in the world outside are denied any investigative funds or given a mere pittance. I expected, therefore, to be able to report on conditions in those seventeen counties only.

“As an illustration of the inchoate conditions which may obtain in a civilized society it may be well to recount that while investigating the sixteenth county I fairly stumbled into evidence that, filed in the archives of the statehouse at Bismarck, lay unpublished data on the cost of poor-relief and to a less extent the cost of supporting the state insane and feeble-minded for all the counties of the state. For it appeared that county auditors and treasurers are required to file what is called Auditor and Treasurer’s Annual Report to the State Examiner of North Dakota. Correspondence with the state examiner’s office caused the compilation of such data as existed relative to the other thirty-one counties of the state. I give this experience to illustrate the need there is for gathering and publishing state-wide information on matters pertaining to the backward classes we know as paupers, criminals, and defectives.”

The report shows many facts that needed airing, especially as to the conditions of the jails, and the rapid increase (for such a young and progressive state) of the amount of pauper relief.

“The cost of poor-relief in the state almost doubled in the five-year period, increasing from $128,917.15 in 1907 to $240,469.80 in 1911. The total population of the state in 1905 was 437,070; in 1910 it was 557,056. These figures approximately represent the years ending June 30, 1906 and 1911. That is, while the population was gaining 32 per cent the cost of maintaining the poor in the state enlarged 86.5 per cent. In that time the expenditure for that purpose grew 2.7 times as fast as the population.”

This it must be remembered is in a prohibition state, one in which probably one-half of the prisoners in the jail are “piggers,” which is the picturesque vernacular for people convicted of violating the prohibition law, or “running a blind pig.” In one jail, of twenty-four prisoners nineteen were “piggers.”

Most of the poor relief is “outdoor.” Only a few counties have poor farms, some of these being far from satisfactory. The county aids all poor and indigent who are in need according to laws of settlement, and the county commissioners levy a tax to this end. The overseers “allow and pay relief to needy persons of sound mind; also to poor parents of idiots and helpless children an amount common in such cases.”

The provision to pay relief to parents of idiots and helpless children reminds one of the celebrated relief by the state to the parents of idiots in Kentucky, which has been described as an act “to promote the propagation of idiots and imbeciles.” Since the report was issued, the Legislature of North Dakota has been in session. Among the new laws is one creating a state supervisory board to regulate the public relief of the poor. This is based on Professor Gillette’s findings and is a copy of the Indiana law on the subject, which Professor Gillette recommended as being the best code of the kind in this country.

Next year the Department of Sociology will present a similar report on the insane and feeble-minded. The University of North Dakota is only one of several—Wisconsin, Minnesota and Texas might be mentioned—in which the department of sociology is becoming an extremely practical and useful thing for the state.

CRIMINAL TRAFFIC IN COCAINE

LOUIS C. AGER, M. D. Brooklyn, N. Y.

We always have with us a considerable number of inhuman beings who are willing to make capital out of the weaknesses and sins of their neighbors. The illicit sale of cocaine is only one example of this fact. Similar conditions have always existed in the abuse of opium products, and the sale of alcohol to irresponsible persons has become so much a part of our vaunted civilization that we find it difficult to realize that this drug abuse dwarfs into insignificance all others combined.

We hear periodically of the “ether jag,” the “cologne drunk” and the “coke fiend.” It is the novelty of these habits that makes them good newspaper copy. The actual number of individuals addicted to these habits is exceedingly small, and their economic value to the community is practically nil. Normal, well balanced people do not acquire drug habits of any kind and it is only those of extreme mental instability who take to the more unusual practices.

Cocaine is at present receiving a large amount of advertising and its sale is therefore being boosted. Unfortunately there are always a number of people whose mental instability takes the form of having ready at a moment’s notice a sure remedy for any social evil that may be under discussion. Such people are fully as harmful to the community as the drug users, and sooner or later a society will learn to ignore them.

What are the facts about the abuse of cocaine in this country, and what ought to be done to eradicate the evil? Users of this drug are not perhaps numerous, but the number has undoubtedly increased during the past five years. It is generally accepted as a fact that the proportion of mental deficients in our population is also on the increase and the two naturally go hand in hand. It is also true that debased individuals have lately made efforts to encourage the use of this drug habit for their own financial benefit, and as a result cocaine has become more widely known than ever before.

All this ought to be corrected, but legislation alone will not accomplish it. Numerous bills were introduced into the recent New York Legislature and at one time it looked as though the Walker bill would become a law—in spite of the opposition of all reputable physicians and the fact that its complicated provisions violated professional privilege.

The proposed federal law is a simple, sane regulation based upon the internal revenue system. It provides graded licenses for the sale of the habit-forming drugs, with a complete supervision of their distribution. The purchase of a large amount by one individual would at once be noticed and his disposal of it followed up. If his explanation were not satisfactory his license could be revoked. It is to be hoped that Congress will enact this law.