Second, it is grounded none too well in information and principles. The ordinary mortal is busied with his own affairs. He lacks the time, the patience, and the equipment necessary to get at the facts about the material welfare of the nation. In the most casual way he makes up his mind, using for the purpose a few superficial facts, a number of prejudices, and a bit of experience. He has little idea of where we are in the course of social development, of the forces which have brought us here, or of where we ought to be going. Since the opinions of groups and of the nation are aggregates of individual opinion, the ideas of those who have an intellectual right to speak are not a large part of the compound.
Third, despite its crudeness and variety, it possesses elements of real value. Its very volume creates at least a statistical probability that some of it is of high quality. The waste of much of it gives the rest a real chance of expression in social policy. The common features of industrialism are giving to men something of a common experience out of which there will come a more or less common-sense appreciation of problems and of ideals. This will dictate the larger features of a future social policy. The particularized opinion which finds expression in the detailed formulation of programmes must be left to the experts. The great masses of men must learn that these problems are technical and must trust the judgment of those who know. Despite the record of halting development and of confused statement, the pages above indicate that the economic opinion in America is coming slowly to an appreciation of the factors upon which “the good life for all” really rests.
But enough. Opinion by being economic does not cease to be opinion, and an essay about it is only more opinion.
Walton H. Hamilton
RADICALISM
The first obstacle to an assessment of radicalism in America is the difficulty of discovering precisely what American radicalism is. According to his enemies, a radical is a person whose opinions need not be considered and whose rights need not be respected. As a people we do not wish to understand him, or to deal with what he represents, but only to get him out of sight. We deport him and imprison him. If he writes a book, we keep it out of the schools and libraries. If he publishes a paper, we debar it from the mails. If he makes a speech, we drive him out of the hall and shoo him away from the street-corner. If by hook or crook he multiplies himself to considerable numbers, we expel his representatives from legislative chambers, break up his parades, and disperse his strikes with well-armed soldiery.
These being the associations which cluster about the word, it has naturally become less a definition than a weapon. Statisticians in the Federal Trade Commission publish certain figures dealing with the business of the packing-houses—a Senator loudly calls these devoted civil servants “radicals,” and they are allowed to resign. A labour leader, following the precedent of federal law established for over a half a century, espouses the eight-hour day, but because he has the bad taste to do so in connection with the steel industry, he becomes a “radical,” and is soundly berated in the press. If one were to ask the typical American Legion member how he would describe a radical—aside from the fact that a radical is a person to be suppressed—he would probably answer that a radical is (a) a pro-German, (b) a Russian or other foreigner, (c) a person who sends bombs through the mail, (d) a believer in free love, (e) a writer of free verse, (f) a painter of cubist pictures, (g) a member of the I.W.W., (h) a Socialist, (i) a Bolshevist, (j) a believer in labour unions and an opponent of the open shop, and (k) any one who would be looked upon with disapproval by a committee consisting of Judge Gary, Archibald Stevenson, and Brander Matthews.
There is scarcely more light to be had from the radicals themselves. Any one who feels a natural distaste for the censorious crowd of suppressors is likely to class himself with the free spirits whom they oppose. To call oneself a radical is in such circumstances a necessary accompaniment of self-respect. The content of the radicalism is of minor importance. There is an adventurous tendency to espouse anything that is forbidden, and so to include among one’s affirmations the most contradictory systems—such as Nietzscheanism and Communism, Christianity of the mystical sort and rebellion. And when these rebels really begin to think, the confusion is increased. Each pours his whole ardour into some exclusive creed, which makes him scorn other earnest souls who happen to disagree about abstruse technical points. Among economic radicals, terms like “counter-revolutionary” and “bourgeois” are bandied about in a most unpleasant fashion. If, for instance, you happen to believe that Socialism may be brought about through the ballot rather than through the general strike, numbers of radicals will believe you more dangerous than the Czar himself; it is certain that when the time comes you will be found fighting on the wrong side of the barricade. Creeds have innumerable subdivisions, and on the exact acceptance of the creed depends your eternal salvation. Calvinists, Wesleyans, Lutherans, and the rest in their most exigent days could not rival the logical hair-splitting which has lately taken place among the sectarian economic dissenters, nor has any religious quarrel ever surpassed in bitterness the dogmatic dissidence with which the numerous schools of authoritarian rebellion rebel against authority.
There is a brilliant magazine published in New York which takes pride in edging a little to the left of the leftmost radical, wherever for the moment that may be. Its editor is a poet, and he writes eloquently of the proletariat and the worker. Not long ago I was speaking of this editor to an actual leader of labour—a man who is a radical, and who also takes a daily part in the workers’ struggles. “Yes,” he said, “he certainly can write. He is one of the best writers living.” And he went on wistfully, “If the labour movement only had a writer like that!”
There is another brilliant magazine published in New York which takes exquisite pains to inform the reader that it is radical. In precise columns of elegant type, Puritan in its scorn of passion or sensation, it weekly derides the sentimental liberal for ignorance of “fundamental economics.” Not long ago it made the startling discovery that Socialists favour taking natural resources out of private ownership. And its “fundamental economics,” whenever they appear in language simple enough for the common reader to understand, turn out to be nothing more dangerous than that respectable and ancient heresy, the single tax.