Address, “Social, Industrial and Civic Progress”
Mr. Easley—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: In view of the fact that the work of the Committee on Civics was not outlined at the time it was organized, and as it was the desire of the national officers of the Conservation Congress that its work should not duplicate nor overlap the work of other organizations, the mapping out of a practical program for the committee was deferred until this meeting of the Congress.
Recognizing this situation, the officers of the Congress suggested that, as Chairman of the Committee on Civics, I should briefly review the progress that has been made by others in this country along industrial, social and civic lines. This seemed to me wise because at a gathering of this kind, which has discussed conditions that call for improvements, it might be helpful to note what progress our country has already made along these lines. To look back adown the slopes we have so painfully and undauntedly climbed in advancing to our present plane of material and moral welfare, far from inspiring us with a smug complacency, should heighten our resolves and give renewed energy and freshness of spirit.
Another reason for accepting the suggestion is that I had just read in an English newspaper a sweeping and vitrolic criticism of our social and civic conditions. Our unkind critic spoke of us as a people so utterly bound up in the worship of the “almighty dollar” that we had lost whatever social vision might have illumined the minds of our fathers. To all sense of social righteousness we were as a people pitiably indifferent. In mill, factory and mine our working people slaved; in tenement and farmhouse our poor lived, little if any better than the poorest of Europe’s poor; our sick and otherwise helpless were scarcely given a thought. Politically we were rotten to the core, statesmanship and graft going hand in hand.
That, in short, ours was a dog-eat-dog civilization, and that the only direction in which light might be seen breaking was in the “fact that making headway among the wisest and most far-seeing Americans was the conviction that American institutions were a failure!”
The editorial concluded with the statement that if any one considered that view a biased one, all such skeptical readers need do was to acquaint themselves with the writings and speeches of American sociologists and magazine writers or to converse with any of that “dwindling proportion” of our well-informed citizens to whom human values are not a mere academic phrase or an abstraction.
It is unnecessary to point out that our English critic might have used his columns to better advantage if he had differentiated between the sociologists and magazine writers who seek our country’s good and those who seek only its destruction—a very important differentiation to make at this time.
In fact, our critic may be a Socialist, who is only passing along to England the general cry of the pessimists of this country, that “whatever is, is wrong”; and that there is a great unrest in the industrial world which will, sooner or later, burst out in volcanic force and engulf us in a terrible cataclysm—all of which is unspeakable rot.
I think I am in a position through the organization with which I am connected (composed as it is of the representatives of the great labor, agricultural, manufacturing, banking, commercial, educational and professional organizations) to know something about this “great unrest” upon which the Socialists and other radical writers and speakers declaim so much, and I can assure you that the only unrest in the industrial and social fields that I can discern is that wholesome, normal unrest which comes through the education of the people, and therefore a better understanding of their rights as workers and the translation of that knowledge through the labor unions and other social and economic organizations into concrete demands for better living conditions.
But let us take a birdseye view of the situation and see whether we are advancing or going backward. I think you will agree with me that the following bare outline of a few of the important achievements and the work now being done by organizations and movements of public-spirited citizens is inspiring and encouraging.
Let us start with the industrial gains.
The American Federation of Labor and the railway brotherhoods have in the past twenty-five years secured better wages and working conditions for millions of wage-earners and the eight-hour day for hundreds of thousands, and they have developed a system of collective bargaining and methods of conciliation and arbitration that are reducing the number of industrial disturbances. To get a clear idea of what this means in terms of progress, let us consider that while in the past six months 500,000 coal miners and their employers have made contracts covering wages, hours and conditions of employment for a term of four years; all the railroads east of Chicago are arbitrating their differences with their thousands and thousands of engineers, trainmen, conductors and so on; the hundreds of thousands of carpenters, bricklayers, painters, plasterers and others of the thirty-five crafts involved in the building industry have made contracts with associations of builders all over the land from Maine to California; while the publishers of the great daily newspapers throughout the United States have made a five-year contract with their printers, pressmen, stereotypers, etc.; and the street railway employes in many great cities and many others of the 135 crafts belonging to the American Federation of Labor have made satisfactory contracts with their employers—I say, let us consider that while this is what is going on today in this country, we shall not have to go very far back into history to find the time when it was a penal offense for a man to join a labor organization, or for workers to ask collectively for an increase in wages, and to find that, while we are now legislating in the interest of the employe for a minimum wage, at that time the effort of legislation was for a maximum wage in the interest of the employer.
In the meantime, the State factory legislation has revolutionized the methods of sanitation in the workshops of the country and is safeguarding better and better the lives and limbs of the workers.
Employers are making increased provision for the welfare of their employes through sanitary and safe work places, opportunities for recreation and education, model homes rented or sold, and relief funds for sickness, accident and death benefits, as well as old age pensions, all affecting millions of railroad, factory, mine and department store workers.
The National Child Labor Committee has led a campaign that in ten years has secured wholesome legislation in practically every State in the Union, reducing hours of labor, prohibiting children under fourteen years of age from working in factories, mines and mills, and preventing night work for women and children in many places.
The tenement house reform movement in New York alone, where the problems are greatest, has made seventy-five per cent. improvement in fifteen years; and as an example of the growing recognition of big business of its social responsibility, it may be pointed out that when the Supreme Court upset the Tenement House Law, and by a decision wiped out all that had been accomplished in twelve years through the tenement house agitation, the allied real estate interests in New York joined with the tenement house reformers in securing the passage of a State law and a city ordinance correcting the defects.
Amazing in magnitude and usefulness are the health organizations, public and private, devoted to securing more efficient methods of sanitation and the prevention of disease, recent statistics in New York City showing as a result of such work that the mortality rate has decreased fifty per cent. in fifty years.
There are various national and local organizations devoted to the protection and education of the millions of immigrants from all parts of the world who have landed on these shores in the past ten years, and whose assimilation and adaptation to American standards and conditions have constituted one of the problems of the age.
There are thousands of non-sectarian hospitals and institutions for the scientific care of dependents, defectives and delinquents.
Splendid work is being done by the great charity organization movement which is teaching independence and thrift through its penny provident societies, and which has organized some of the most important preventive and remedial agencies.
The National Federation of Remedial Loan Societies covers twenty-eight cities, where societies lend money to the poor at reasonable rates to protect them from the loan sharks, the New York organization alone having a fund of millions for this purpose. A rapidly increasing number of large employers have changed their attitude towards their employes, in that they now aid instead of discharging those who incur debt—the latter policy having played directly into the hands of the loan sharks.
The National Association for the Promotion of Industrial Education has brought the manufacturers’ associations and the labor organizations into harmonious support of the measure providing a federal appropriation of $5,000,000 for industrial education of the young workers in towns and cities, whether in factories, stores or offices, and including domestic science for the girls. The measure also provides an equal amount for the sons and daughters of the farmers.
The tremendous program of constructive work undertaken by the United States Bureau of Labor and the Bureau of Mines in the interest of the workingmen and by the Department of Agriculture for the farmers should alone silence our English scoffer. The recent establishment of the Children’s Bureau is an achievement of which humanitarians may well be proud.
The public school system and other free educational institutions enable the children in this country today to receive twelve times as much schooling as their grandparents—a tremendous factor in our advancement of itself and one that readily accounts for much of the unrest without which no progress could come.
The universities, especially the State institutions, have in the past ten years enlarged the scope of their work to such an extent that many of them can be classed as leaders in what are termed the “uplift movements” of the day. A complete catalogue of the public work done by the University of Wisconsin alone would be a revelation.
The Playground and Recreation Society of America and other recreation movements are assisting in the development of children’s playgrounds in parks and schools and are bringing health and good cheer to congested centers.
The Association for Labor Legislation is working jointly with the American Medical Association to safeguard wage-earners against occupational diseases.
The American Bankers’ Association is organizing a movement to help the farmers of the country develop idle land in the effort to decrease the cost of living.
One of the most encouraging signs to those who are alarmed over the high cost of living, and that is about all of us, is the recognition by the farmers, State agricultural colleges and railroads, of the necessity of introducing up-to-date methods for raising and marketing grain, live stock, fruit, dairy produce, etc. Only last week I read the announcement of a convention called in Kansas, where three thousand delegates will meet to consider this very question of improving the methods of farming. These delegates will represent not only farmers but also the bankers, merchants, wage-earners and all divisions of society.
It would take a volume to describe even in outline the great social and economic reforms being promoted by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Mrs. Edward H. Harriman, Mrs. Russell Sage and Mr. John D. Rockefeller, whose $60,000,000 gift covers the promotion and development of the high school system in the Southern States and the promotion of higher education throughout the United States, while his Sanitary Commission has discovered and is eradicating the hookworm disease in the South. The Carnegie Institute of Washington, with an endowment of $22,000,000, was founded to encourage in the broadest and most liberal manner investigation, research and discovery, and the application of knowledge to the improvement of mankind, while the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, with its $15,000,000 endowment, provides retiring pensions for the teachers of universities, colleges and technical schools. The Russell Sage Foundation, endowed by Mrs. Sage with $10,000,000, has, for its purpose the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States of America.
There are the tremendous achievements through the institutional work of the churches of all denominations. Three-fourths of the efforts in the live churches of today are devoted to material welfare, as is evidenced by the especial care of the orphan, the sick and the poor on the part of the Catholic Church; the great Hebrew philanthropic and educational agencies; and such single illustrations as the social work outlined in the handbooks just issued by Trinity and St. George’s parishes in New York—the former being a revelation to those who believed that the millions of Trinity Church were being used only for commercial profits.
The Young Men’s Christian Association, with its tremendous energy and enthusiasm, while organized primarily to promote the spiritual growth of young men, has lately, under its “physical and social well-being” clause, gone into the field of industrial betterment with conspicuous success.
The Men and Religion Forward Movement and the Federation of Churches, representing many million members of Protestant denominations, have recently adopted broad programs of industrial and social reform.
There are the movement to suppress the social evil, known as the Federation of Sex Hygiene; the Anti-Tuberculosis Society, with its wonderfully comprehensive and successful efforts in fighting the great white plague; the Red Cross Society which, in addition to relieving distress in great disasters, has fostered with marked success annual competitive drills of “first-aid” crews from the mines; the Boy Scouts of America, inculcating patriotism and good citizenship; the National Consumers’ League; the New York Museum of Safety and Sanitation; the Prison Labor Reform Association, and hundreds of other organizations and movements devoted to human betterment too numerous even to mention by title.
And last, but not least, there is the educational work being done by the National Civic Federation through its Departments on Conciliation, Compensation for Injured Workmen, Industrial Welfare, Pure Food and Drugs, Reform in Legal Procedure, Regulation of Interstate and Municipal Utilities, Regulation of Industrial Corporations and Uniform State Legislation.
As much of the work of the various departments of the National Civic Federation called for uniform State legislation, a special department was organized to co-operate with the Commissioners on Uniform State Laws.
The importance of uniformity to all business and commercial institutions is clearly recognized, when we consider that our larger corporations—such as the railroads, telegraph, insurance, banking and trust companies and, in fact, so far as taxation is concerned, all manufacturing concerns whose plants are in different States—are subject to forty-eight masters, each with a mind quite different from that of the others. The “interminable” law’s delay, the clashing of the States upon the question of regulation of corporations and combinations, the diversity of State laws on ordinary commercial matters, such as warehouse receipts, bills of lading and negotiable notes, the urgent need for a uniform bill on compensation for industrial accidents, all give emphasis to the need for uniformity. But even this chaotic legislative situation shows encouraging signs of clearing up.
So much for progress along industrial and social lines; but we have made and are making just as great progress in this country along other lines that affect the general welfare of the people. And also our ethical standards and our aspirations are conspicuously higher. For instance:
Within the past twenty years there has been a most remarkable gain in the popular concept of the relation of industrial, railway and municipal utility corporations to the public. The large corporations called trusts have been taught even in the past five years that they must recognize certain “rules of the game” that give their competitors a chance, and what is wholesome about this from the ethical standpoint is that they now admit the justice of these changed conditions.
The abolition of rebates and free passes and the placing of railroad, telegraph, telephone and express companies absolutely under the regulatory power of the Interstate Commerce Commission are so far-reaching that the benefits to the people are impossible to measure. From federal regulation of railroads, it was only a step to State regulation of street railway, gas and electric light companies.
The idea that railways or big corporations are masters of the people has been dissipated.
Today, through insistent demand of the people for publicity, it can be said that the big business of the country is being done behind glass doors. The improved methods of doing business adopted by banks, trust companies and insurance companies during the past five years would alone justify this statement.
In practically five years, thanks to the great educational work of the National Conservation Congress, there has been a complete transformation of the public mind in the matter of proper control of our natural resources, such as our public lands, timber and water power. It was not many years ago, when I was living in the West, that it was considered a smart thing to “grab off” all public land that one could get hold of. This was generally accomplished by taking land in the name of your mother and father and all your children, past, present and future, and it was not bad form even to use your neighbor’s name in taking up claims. I found my own name had been used in three or four different counties by some of my ambitious neighbors.
Politically speaking, we have progressed from the state where our elections were great public scandals and where primary elections were “free-for-alls,” with no legal status whatever, to a day when, thanks to the Australian ballot law, ballot-box stuffing is practically unknown and primaries are generally so conducted that the voters control.
Campaign contributions that were largely responsible for corruption in politics and legislation are now by law made public to the world.
The initiative, referendum and direct primary have been adopted in some form in two-thirds of the States and in over two hundred cities the commission form of government, often with a recall attachment, has been adopted. These measures, whether they prove to be practical reforms or not—and there are many who doubt that—undeniably testify to the paramount power of those agitating for a so-called “progressive program,” they all being opposed by what are termed the “reactionaries.”
The civil service, from being a thing detested by nearly everybody twenty years ago, is so popular today that political parties are vying with each other to see which can include the largest number of civil employes. The President has just ordered the 35,000 fourth-class post-masters be taken from under the political brokerage offices of the Congressmen and placed under the civil service law.
The government of cities, which has been the burning shame of this country, as it was in the early days of every other country, is slowly but surely becoming more decent and effective. The work of the National Municipal League, the hundreds of local municipal reform associations, and the National Bureau of Municipal Research with its local bureaus, furnish abundant evidence of the truth of this statement. The Bureau of Municipal Research is not only making an exhaustive and painstaking analysis of administrative methods in many large cities, and installing more up-to-date and efficient systems, but it also has prevailed upon the Federal Government to have a similar investigation made in its various departments. It has, in addition, organized a training school to meet the demand for municipal experts.
The administration of justice and the influence of wealth upon the decisions of the courts have been revolutionized in the past ten years. It used to be charged that the criminal courts convicted only the poor and released the rich, whereas today the penitentiary that has not a half dozen or more bankers or rich malefactors within its walls is the exception. There is no man or corporation so powerful today as to be immune from attack by the government when violating the law.
The American Bar Association and the National Civic Federation are jointly working to bring about a reform in legal procedure which will wipe out unnecessary delays and cost in litigation, thereby opening the courts more freely to the wage-earner.
Five years ago there was no such thing as a Pure Food and Drug Law. Today there is a federal act which has been made the basis of legislation in thirty-five States, and in another five years it is likely to be practically impossible for misbranders or adulterators of food and drugs to live outside of our penal institutions.
The rural free delivery, the postal savings bank and the parcel post are all great advances from which the farmers largely benefit.
The building and loan associations and savings banks, unknown in early days, are great aids to wage-earners.
In other words, reform is writ large over all sections of the country and all classes of society. There are:
Over two thousand boards of trade and chambers of commerce, at least half of whose efforts are directed towards municipal and industrial reforms, and the other half to commercial reforms;
Thousands of church societies and committees aiding in the improvement of industrial, social and political conditions in their respective localities;
Thousands of women’s clubs, representing over two million of the brightest and most energetic women of our nation, devoted to securing civic improvement, factory legislation and reforms in public schools, to spreading information upon social hygiene and domestic science and working for the protection of women and the redemption of unfortunate ones;
Thirty thousand labor organizations, whose purpose is not only to secure better working conditions, better wages and a shorter workday for wage-earners, but also to lift them to a higher plane of citizenship, and
Millions of farmers who, through granges, alliances and institutes, are working not only to improve the home life on the farm, but to educate their children in the use of better and more scientific methods of production.
Pretty fair, is it not, for a people whom our English critics and our American Socialists say are bereft, or almost so, of a social sense?
And it must also be kept in mind that this resumé does not refer to progress in science, invention and the arts, nor is attention called to the fact that never before in the history of this country were the basic conditions better than they are now, despite the fact that a national political campaign is supposed to be on.
But while the progress made has been so tremendous that we do not realize it, on none of these lines is it contended that anything near the ideal has been reached. There are yet very many black places and perplexing problems demanding attention on the part of those who love their fellow-men. But the same courage, intelligence and humanitarianism that have accomplished so much will not now falter, but will press forward.
Many in this audience may conclude that I am unduly optimistic and that I am able only to see the good, but I can assure you that I know something as well about the ills of society; for instance, I could cite from the records of the Welfare Department of the National Civic Federation alone a catalogue of industrial horrors showing where greedy and thoughtless, if not unfeeling and criminal, employers are grossly and outrageously mistreating the wage-earners in their employ, paying them atrociously low wages, working them excessively long hours and giving no consideration to the comforts or decencies that a humane employer would furnish. But also from that same record I could show that all such evils are being met by other employers, justifying the belief that, through education and proper agitation, the remaining sore spots can be removed. Last year one great corporation alone spent five millions of dollars in betterment work, including a gradual shortening of the working time in its plans for improving conditions, and several large corporations, operating night and day, have gone from two twelve-hour shifts to three eight-hour shifts without decrease of pay.
As a concrete and striking example of the power of agitation and education, there can be no better illustration than the present widespread sentiment in favor of legal enactments requiring compensation to injured wage-earners in lieu of the old employers’ liability system. Through the work of the National Civic Federation and co-operating bodies, this complete reversal of policy has been brought about in four years, fourteen States having already passed workmen’s compensation laws. The legislation, both Federal and State, which is now being secured, makes the industry bear the burden, while before the wage-earner took all the chances, did all the suffering and, if, after long-drawn-out litigation, he finally got anything in the way of damages, he had to give up fifty per cent. of it to the “ambulance chaser.”
I am happy to state that a movement is now on foot to make a painstaking inquiry into the progress made during the past fifty years in the directions indicated, with a view not only to discovering the good, but also to ascertaining what social and economic ills remain to be eradicated, and to propose, as far as possible, practical remedies therefor.
It is believed that a movement which will recognize the good and sincerely seek to remedy the wrong would be more effective in accomplishing reform than one designed only to tear down and destroy.
It were well, and with this suggestion I conclude, if at all future gatherings of this great organization some such counting of the milestones passed were to be made a feature. There is good reason for this. There are among our ninety millions of people many who, strange as it may seem, interpret such occasions as this as diagnostic of a body-social sick nigh unto death as the result of neglect. They do not know—and the fault is not wholly theirs—that the patient, far from being in extremis, is in better condition than ever before, that what to them is a death chamber consultation is merely an evidence of periodical stock taking in terms of social health and welfare. (Applause.)
President White—This is certainly a truthful resumé. It is well for us all sometimes to stop and “count our blessings.” (Applause.)
We will now listen to Dr. Burton J. Ashley, of Morgan Park, Illinois. His subject is “Disposition of Sewage,” a very interesting aspect of Conservation.