This integrated industry of which the mining of coal, the projected superpower systems, the pumping of oil, the development of water power, and the organization and training of those who produce or consume power are essential parts, is the inevitable result of the development that has gone before. Just as the industrial revolution had its beginnings in the coordination of the steam engine, the coal mines, and the factory machinery, and its incentive in the drive of the acquisitive instinct to make existence possible; so this new industrial advance, the integration of the power that drives industry, is the logical result of the development of long-distance electric transmission, the intense utilization of the fuel supply, and the invention of the internal-combustion engine, and it may result not only in making existence possible but in making life good.
CHAPTER X
The Strait Gate
Since the days when the cosmic energy of coal was first harnessed to the looms of England, mechanical contrivances of almost miraculous ingenuity have followed one another in such rapid succession that men have come to place undue reliance upon machinery for the solution of the difficult human problems that impede progress toward the good life and a worthy civilization. Just as the earlier generations failed in the spiritual preparedness necessary to the conversion of the technical triumphs of Newcomen and Watt, Fulton and Stephenson, and a host of others to the higher ends of civilization, so our generation shows a similar disposition to rely upon the wonder workers of mechanical science to save us from the disastrous consequences of muddling along in the field of human relations whether in industry, in the nation, or among the nations. But the good life is not to be won by mechanical invention alone. One of the outstanding lessons of the World War was that great inventions in the realm of the physical and chemical sciences may be destructive of the very civilization which it is their higher mission to serve. Unless we have the spiritual capacity to make the technique of science obedient to the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves, superpower systems, high-voltage transmission, the internal-combustion engine, may again intensify the exploitation of man by man, the clash of groups for power, the brutality of international wars for possession.
We men and women of the twentieth century have developed a complacent habit of priding ourselves upon our scientific open-mindedness, our respect for facts, our eagerness to accept the revelations of authentic scientific investigation and experiment. As we mount into the clouds on the wings of the aeroplane or catch the voice of the radio operator out of ethereal space, we have a tremendous sense of intellectual emancipation, a thrill of escape from ancient bigotries and superstitions. There is some warrant for this self-congratulatory attitude in so far as it relates to the physical sciences. We have reason to be proud that we have banished the primitive fears that led an earlier age to persecute men like Galileo for telling the truth with respect to the place of the earth in the stellar universe. We are sufficiently emancipated to know that the inventors of the dynamo, the turbine engine, the spectroscope, wireless telegraphy, and high-voltage electrical transmission are not guilty of heresy. When Steinmetz forges a thunderbolt and sends it crashing across his laboratory, we do not burn him for witchcraft. The inquirers into the nature of the atom, the structure of the cerebral ganglia, or the chemical composition of the nebulae in the Milky Way are free from medieval taboos.
But unfortunately we have not developed an equally enlightened attitude toward the inquirers into the nature of human relations in politics or industry, or toward those who would apply the experimental method to the development and scientific reconstruction of industrial or political government. Terms like trusts, the money power, trade unions, industrial autocracy, collective bargaining, socialism, bolshevism, private monopoly, public ownership, stir all our ancient fears, resentments, and hates. Men may be unorthodox in the physical sciences; we are growing tolerant of unorthodoxy in religious opinion. But unorthodoxy in the realm of politics is still frowned upon. We still imprison men for their political and economic opinions when they challenge the finality of accepted institutions and especially when they advocate the fundamental reconstruction of accepted forms of political and economic government. Yet it is quite as true in the realm of human relations, as in that of the physical sciences, that the truth and the truth only can make us free. Human brotherhood can be achieved only through human understanding.
It is a commonplace to say that the vigorous growth of democracy depends upon education. But much repetition has dulled the vital implications of the assertion. We tend to forget that a democracy that permits essential knowledge to be withheld from general circulation digs its own grave; that while men talk of emancipation and freedom, ignorance may forge chains for their enslavement. When any group within the community is permitted to treat facts essential to the development of right human relations as “trade secrets,” education itself becomes stereotyped and sterile. Text-books and “lessons” become spiritually and intellectually empty, like the prayers which certain Eastern cults pin to wheels that spin idly in the wind.
The authentic prophets of democracy have constantly striven to keep the channels of popular education free from the clogging muck of selfishness, superstition, and prejudice. They have had faith in the essential justice and ultimate wisdom of informed public opinion. Such men have appeared in government, among the coal owners, among the miners, who are the commoners of the coal industry.