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.