World Unity/Volume 11/Issue 4/Text

[Page 217]

WORLD UNITY

INTERPRETING THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE

JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, Editor Horace HOLtey, Managing Editor

CONTENTS

Vol. XI January, 1933 No. 4 A World Union of Good Will Frontispiece World Outlook Editorial Grace Hoadley Dodge: Apostle of World Unity Helen Thoburn The Engineer and the Social Structure C. E. Grunsky China’s Changing Culture Frank Rawlinson Industrial Civilization Donald Richberg War and Douglas’ New Economics Gorham Munson Man Discovers Divinity Hugh McCurdy Woodward Why War? D. D. Droba Assayers of War Evelyn Newman Whither Bound Religion? Paul Russell Anderson

Book Notes

Round Table

(eee:

Wortp UNITY MAGAZINE is published by Wortp UNrty PuBLIsHING CORPORA- TION, 4 East 12th Street, New York City: Mary Rumsey Movius, president; Horace HOLLEY, vice-president; FLORENCE MORTON, treasurer; JOHN HERMAN RANDALL, secretary. Published monthly, 25 cents a copy, $2.50 a year in the United States and in all other countries (postage included). THE Wortp UNITY UBLISHING CORPORATION and its editors welcome correspondence on articles elated to the aims and purposes of the magazine. Printed in U. S. A. Contents lopyrighted 1933 by Wortp UNITY PUBLISHING CORPORATION. �[Page 218]tis 22

we

3 oa “v4

1. 4

>, *

e

A WORLD UNION OF GOOD WILL �[Page 219]WORLD OUTLOOK CaN

EDITORIAL

O generation has ever faced so many and difficult problems as those which burden the men and women now living

upon earth. The following summary indicates their intricacy, range and crucial character: —

The Versailles Treaty, which gives the highest legal sanction to a number of arrangements perpetuating, in a new form, the injustices and hostilities culminating in the European War.

Reparations and War Debts, which make parties to an eco- nomic issue the very nations compelled to act unanimously if peace is to be achieved.

Taxes, which, in addition to the immediate hardship they work upon a large majority of people in all countries, have the eventually greater result of intensifying the strife of domestic political parties, of making government the prey of dubious ex- periment and of stimulating the influence of radical. movements among the masses.

Disarmament, which can only come about as the result of the solution of many other political and economic problems, but as long as it is unattained makes a destructive world war the penalty tor political or economic failure.

Unemployment (of money and equipment as well as of men and women), which continually augments the very nationalism con- stituting the root of the whole world problem.

Tariffs, which extend into the economic relations of society the spirit and intentions of military conflict.

Japan, which stands as the present symbol of the apparently irreconcilable conflict between local and world interests destroying

219 �[Page 220]220 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

the possibility of effective action on any vital international matter, and releasing a new-wave of, war psychology which tends to under- mine the feeble advances toward world accord taken since the European War.

Each of these problems has been expounded by responsible leaders representing every possible source of opinion. The chict point to be emphasized is, first, that not one problem can be iso- lated from the others, but all are parts of the same general con- dition; and second, that this general condition cannot be remedied by any or all the social organizations which now exist.

The world problems are, in fact, unsolvable by the world in which we now live. To defer action in the hope that “things will change” for the better is to instigate radical and irresponsible ac- tion by those who will not sit quietly by while trouble reigns. To expect a solution by existing legislative bodies, or by conferences between representatives of national states, is to invite cruel and supremely bitter disappointment. Civilization has become a self. destroying instrument.

But pessimism and optimism alike are meaningless attitudes when the vital interests of humanity are at stake. The world atti- tude upon this general world condition is that these now unsolv: able problems, arising as they have as direct and unescapable te- sults of human will, human thought and human action, stand as warnings that the era of conflict has ended, that a new era of co- operation and unity has dawned. Only by a true world order can these problems be eliminated, for they are inherent in the present condition of a society divided against itself.

The life that flows into man is inexhaustible and incorruptible. Obedience to its evolving possibility will reveal a path leading to a far higher civilization than any man has yet attained; but per- sistence in disobedience will crush our world to fragments and leave but a remnant of humanity upon earth. The path of human development is not marked merely by political or economic doc trine: it is the path to God.

H. H. �[Page 221]GRACE HOADLEY DODGE Apostle of World Unity by

HELEN THOBURN Late Divectov of Inicrnational Education, Y.W.C.A.

T is said that the new bridge across the Hudson River has been

left to swing from New York to New Jersey in the beautiful

tension of plain steel and without the customary veneer of

stone facing and ornament because this generation of Amer- icans likes to see structure and form unadorned.

This paper is about a woman who dealt in structure, who sometimes liked to stand watching great foundations being laid in this or that part of New York City because she herself dealt in foundations. Often these enterprises of hers were bridges, too, bridges on which the peoples of the world might later pass freely to and fro. For this reason, Grace Hoadley Dodge takes her place among those other great Victorians who were the apostles of world unity.

Even Americans who hitherto have had so little sense of his- tory, are beginning to be aware of the fact that this is the opening of “the International Age.” We are too close to this unique epoch to appraise or understand it, not to speak of mastering it. But per- haps that same flair for architectural form and construction, which is characteristic of our present culture, will give us a keener appre- ciation than we might otherwise have of the pioneer builders of our present era, most of whom finished their work before 1914.

One morning, early in September 1914, the national staff of the Young Women’s Christian Association of this country gath- cred for its annual conference at the home of Miss Grace Dodge in Riverdale, just outside of New York City. Miss Dodge was president of the National Board of the Y.W.C.A. The busses which had met Miss Dodge’s guests at the Riverdale station drew up before the wide porch of ‘“Greyston,” which looked out over �[Page 222]222 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

the lawns of the Dodge estate down to the Hudson and over to the Palisades. Across the porch, with her hands outstretched in wel- come, came the tall figure of a plain but distinguished-lookin, woman of middle age, unmistakably a personage.

This was a reunion after the interruptions of summer time. There must have been much Lappy excitement and the zest which arises in such a group as it faces a new year of work. It is told that there were those present that day who, although the war was then several weeks under way, had not in the least sensed it until they got one look at Miss Dodge’s face as she stood there on the Greyston porch.

Doubtless she said very little about the war that day but it was whispered that she far better than anyone present, knew already what it was to mean. This staff, trained by the nature of their work to a degree of identification with the lives of women and girls around the world, must even then, although their country was thus far so detached, have been feeling something of what the war was to mean in human suffering. But to tha: kind ot response, which is characteristic of women in general, Miss Dodge added the fur- ther understanding of one who had specific world connections such as few American women possessed at that time. Like her forebears, whose copper trade reached far overseas and who had seen down the years into the spectacular future of America’s for- eign trade, she had stakes in all parts of the world. But hers, al- though made possible by that same copper and those same clocks were of a different sort: they reached, for example, to the World's Y.W.C.A. headquarters then in London and through its affiliations into all of the countries thus far involved in the war; to nation.l leaders in all lands whom she had personally helped to educate; to international organizations of many kinds. Cables and letters were also pouring into her desk from many other countries reflect: ing the immediate impact of the war. She saw the bridges closing everywhere and this pre-vision stamped itself already on her face. Four months later at Christmas time when her death took place. many of her friends traced it directly to the war. �[Page 223]GRACE HOADLEY DODGE 223

The great struggle between the institutions of war and peace was as yet scarcely comprehended in this country. In those early months of 1914 the pioneer pacitists played their courageous part. A fairly large number of men and women were already definitely - at work in behalf of the peace movement which has since grown to such significant proportions. Miss Dodge was not one of these by label, although her lines frequently crossed theirs in other ways.

Just one hundred years earlicr her great grandfather, David Low Dodge, had founded the New York Peace Society, referred to as “the first peace society in the world.” “A Tolstoi one hun- dred years ahead of his time,” writes Edwin Mead, “he gave the first influence in America, if we except the uniform influence of the Friends, to inquiry by Christians into the lawfulness of war.” Her grandfather, William Earl Dodge, one of the conspicuous merchants and civic leaders of New York City, was a member of the Peace Commission which tried to avert the Civil War. Her father, William Earl Dodge, Jr., ‘was pre-eminently a patriot and an international man,” writes Mr. Mead (note the sequence). “The logic of his life and heritage placed him naturally at the head of the National Arbitration Commission” which was ap- pointed during the Venezuelan difficulty. Miss Dodge herself was a member of the American Committee of the Thirtcenth Inter- national Peace Congress which met in Boston in 1904.

The “logic of her life and heritage” made Grace Dodge, too, a patriot and an internationalist, but her characteristic approach to the international realm was that of the builder of bridges. Two of her favorite words were “building” and “cooperation.” All of her interests were staked in the establishment of friendly groups in ali parts of the world, groups who could cross the bridges between classes, races and nations and whose mutual understanding would be strong enough to stand even the strain of war.

It is interesting to speculate as to what Miss Dodge’s attitude would have been toward the problems of peace and war had she lived beyond 1914. Although her whole background was steeped in social conservatism of the finest sort, there was a quality of di- �[Page 224]224 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

rectness in her that eventually led her into the midst of most ot the outstanding social issues of her own time. Just before the close of her life she, who was by inheritance committed to the philos. ophy of the “stewardship of wealth,” had become aware of the economic teachings of Walter Rauschenbusch and had planned to investigate them further. By the same token, her plain and rigor. ous sense of duty could not but have carried her straight into this other one of the social issues of this century had she lived longer. As it was, her life closed with the closing of an epoch and an epoch in which the peace movement in the wider sense of the word was not born. But this apostle of world unity worked throughout her life “to make possible” (another of her characteristic phrases) the spreading of liberating ideas which had continued to grow ever since her death. In the organization to which she gave most of her last years, the Y.W.C.A., both the ideal and the practice of international goodwill and world peace have grown steadily more vigorous and more pervasive throughout its membership until they are among the strongest factors in its program.

At the 1931 annual meeting of the National Council for the Prevention of War in Washington, at an evening gathering in the home of Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, Mrs. Lucia Ames Mead spoke about the early days of the peace movement, ‘the pre-war period.” Miss Elizabeth Eastman, a Washington member of the National Board of the Y.W.C.A., followed with a talk on the “post-war peace movement,” and in contrast to Mrs. Mead’s delightful rem- iniscences about personages, analyzed how the peace movement has now widened out to comprise thousands of “just garden va: riety people.” In illustration, she read a disarmament petition which Girl Reserves, the younger members of the Y.W.C.A., al: though they were excluded by the age limit from signing one of the adult petitions had insisted upon drawing up and sending to Presi. dent Hoover with thousands of signatures. Back of that simple story stood the Grace Dodge who had laid the foundations tor that particular bridge across which great numbers of American girls were crossing from isolationism into world citizenship.

�[Page 225]GRACE HOADLEY DODGE. 225

A contributing reason why Miss Dodge worked through groups instead of pioneering in more individual ways was her great and almost unreasonable dread of publicity. For that reason she was so little known that it may be well to give here a brief statement of the circumstances of her life.

Grace Dodge lived from 1856 to 1914, always in or near New York City, with which the civic interests of her illustrious family have been connected for five generations. Her education, follow- ing a brief experience in a girls’ school, was in the practical circles of her father’s and grandfather’s vast business interests. She “had in,her the best qualities of the Puritan temper,” and in her young womanhood these sterner attributes were kindled by the evangelist Dwight L. Moody. Saying that her ‘wages were earned in ad- vance” and assuming that she must work for them all of her life, she poured out time, money, and constructive faith for the estab- lishment or strengthening of the following institutions: the first working girls’ clubs in this country; the New York City educa- tional system (she was one of the first two women appointed to New York City’s Board of Education) ; Teachers College, for the founding and development of which she carried especially heavy responsibility; the American Social Hygiene Association; the Na- tional Travelers Aid; the American College for Women near Con- stantinople; the World’s Student Christian Federation (particu- larly its work for women students); and the Young Women’s Christian Association. When two earlier forms of Y.W.C.A. existed side by side in this country, she alone was able to effect a union of the two into one strong national movement, of which she inevitably became the head.

“She felt the compulsion to build big.” Note how her interest widened, from the working girls of New York City, to a whole world. But when taking on a new responsibility she never let go of an earlier one. There was an extraordinary ability to see small details and universal ends in a true and even proportion. In her last years when her enterprises were world-wide, when her “fifty vear look ahead” was so often spoken of, she was still keeping up �[Page 226]226 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

a personal correspondence with the women who had been girls in her first clubs. “She was a sheltering person,” said one of her friends; “‘one felt oneself taken care of.” Yet those who worked in committees where her large plans unfolded used to say, “One could almost feel the roof lift. She was able to look far into the coming age, and she saw a new New York, a new near East, a new world.”

The more one ponders on the life of Miss Dodge the more one comes to believe that beneath the conventional outer setting she was completely original,—saltily different. How was this to be accounted for?

Her religious experience was orthodox, yet something massive and almost elemental in its strength broke through the evangelical layer rather like a gray boulder breaking up through the soil.

She was bound to be interested in world missions. She was a delegate to the Edinburgh Ecumenical Conference of 1910. She was utterly, thorough-goingly Christian, and yet she could not brook any ecclesiastical limits. In the friendly mixture of Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Roman Catholics, of the Travelers Aid, she was thoroughly at home. There are deposits of that spirit in Y.W.C.A. thinking today.

She was concerned for world peace, yet not technically allied with the world peace movement. She gave much of her life to forwarding the progress of women, yet never could have been called a feminist.

Perhaps it was that she was too universal for any sort of cults. A phrase once used about her—“‘her attitude was always one of disillusioned hopefulness”—is revealing. She dealt in great foun- dations, but not out on the surface where there were illusions and “causes.”

Perhaps, too, it is that she was so far ahead of her time that she actually belonged in an age that is not yet here,—an age ot genuine unity. That made her slightly uneasy in the conditions o! life in her own time. Incarnating an era of genuine brotherhood. she was neither expressive nor analytical enough to proclaim tt �[Page 227]GRACE HOADLEY DODGE LLy

Rather she laid foundations for the kind of institutions which will help to make it possible. *

Oswald Garrison Villard, speaking at a memorial service after Miss Dodge’s death, described how the passing scene appears to a city editor, en camera—and how now and then a solitary figure appears, in but not quite of the crowd, yet building the life of the city. Thus had Grace Dodge appeared to him for many years, he said. It was a memorable picture of this builder and forerunner of world unity.

There seems a peculiar need in this deflated period, of her “dis- illusioned hopefulness.” For our destructive chaos, we need her qualities of the builder. For our analytic self-consciousness we need her calm unconsciousness of self, her sense of walking, and building, with God. We, too, in these reactionary days of national- ism, need her universalism. Again we need to “feel the roof lift over our heads,” and to look down the years to ‘‘a new New York and a new world.”

The thirty-fifth article in the series ““Aposties of World Unity” begun in October, 1927. �[Page 228]THE ENGINEER AND THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE by C. E. GRUNSKY Enginecr

HERE ate those still living who will recall the exceptional ] courtesy and consideration with which the American women of some fifty and more years ago were everywhere treated. I refer to the period before they had succeeded in obtaining equal suffrage rights and before they had so generally, as at pres- ent, availed themselves of opportunities to go into business. Take as an illustration of the earlier picture a small town in California with whose history the writer is intimately familiar. There was then in this place of about 15,000 inhabitants not a single woman

clerk or employe in a drygoods house, in a bank, or in an office. Married women had their time fully occupied in attending to the requirements of the family and to house work generally, in planning and supervising the vegetable garden, and in exchanging calls of friendship and good will with neighbors and others with whom intimate social contact was desirable. The young woman out of school filled in her time with the study of music or painting and had plenty left over for social events and recreation. The head of the family was the family bread winner. Earnings may not have been high, but they were sufficient. It was out of the question for young women of families, of so-called social standing, to take up an ordinary bread winning vocation. Teaching was about all that was open to women of the upper classes, or, perhaps some inde:

pendence could be secured by giving lessons in music or art. _ For the most part, at any rate, the women were provided for out of the earnings of husband, father, or brothers. Moreover, taken by and large, they fitted into their environment with prov:

228 �[Page 229]THE ENGINEER AND THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE 229

ably no less of enjoyments and appreciation of the fullness of life than is open to the women of this more modern age. Times have completely changed. Social and economic life has had to adjust itself to entirely new conditions. Responsibility for this really tre- mendous change falls in no small degree upon the scientist and the engineer. The former has wormed from nature many of her secrets, discovering hidden properties of materials and of forces, and piling up a great store of information which the latter has turned and is turning to useful purposes.

A brief review of progress in the last half century will give some idea of the magnitude of the changes which have resulted from scientific discoveries and their application to meet the ever growing needs and desires of man.

Inventive genius has produced, as every one knows, machines and devices of manifold variety which supplant and displace man- ual labor. Fewer and ever fewer individuals are required to pro- duce the multiplicity of things which the home demands to provide the needs of life and the comfort and recreation which are incident to modern civilization.

Turning back in time to about the year 1880 we find the American living in a house heated either with wood or coal, with rarcly a central heating plant. Houses were lighted with candles, oil lamps, or gas. Practically all housework was done by hand. Streets were poorly lighted. Travel for short distances was by horse drawn transportation though already a few railways provided fa- cilities for long distance transportation. The street cars of the Lirger cities, too, were still horse drawn, but the electric railway had made its appearance and was beginning to be tried out. The lack of transportation facilities and the lack of opportunity for cold storage made the preservation of vegetables and perishable toods impossible and they in consequence disappeared from the markets in winter. Measured in material comfort and economy of human labor and in quantity production per man the good old days of 1880 were decidedly inferior to those of the present day.

Two-thirds of all the homes of the United States are now wired for electricity. Electric energy is used on the farm and in �[Page 230]230 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

the home for a great variety of purposes not only displacing much hand labor, but simplifying in many ways the work on the farm and in the home. Electric lighting has become general. The elcc- tric iron, electric vacuum cleaner, washing machine, the gas or electric range are commonplace appliances of the American home today. Ice and the electric refrigerator have added their share to home comforts. Hot water is now available in almost every home at any hour of the day in summer or winter. The bath room and running hot and cold water have become essential requirements.

Going back in time only 30 years we find city streets cluttered with horse drawn vehicles of every description. The streets of out- lying districts and the roads leading into the country were well paved if they had a surface of broken rock or gravel. Now the horse has been displaced by the automobile. It has almost entirely disappeared from the city. The strects and country roads have hard surfaces. Travel has been speeded up so that the average mon of today travels five or six times faster, in much greater com- fort, in an automobile than did a generation ago on poor roads in horse drawn vehicles. More progress has been made in providing facilities for transportation both in the type of vehicle and the plexus of roads which cover the entire country within the last 30 years than in the preceding century.

The 93,670 miles of railroad of fifty years ago which carried yearly 350,000,000 tons of freight and 495,000,000 passengers have been extended in the United States to 262,000 miles of rail- road which, before this current business depression, carried over 5:504,000,000 tons of freight and transported over 798,000,000 passengers per year. Population has, of course, increased materi. ally. It grew from 50,000,000 a half century ago to more than 122,000,000 at the present time.

Air transportation too is beginning to exert a profound in fluence upon present day civilization. Enormous progress has been made in recent years in the operation, technical equipment, and commerical aspects of air transportation. Inquiry made two years ago developed the fact that there were then over 10,000 air pilot licensees. The daily number of scheduled airplane miles exceeded �[Page 231]THE ENGINEER AND THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE 231

8),000. The aggregate miles of flight in a year exceeded 22,- 000,000. About 150,000 passengers were carried per year. The average Cost per passenger mile at that time was about 12 cents. No other phase of transportation so challenges the imagination as the possibilities inherent in the future development of civil aeronautics.

Again looking back fifty years it is found that ‘at that time the typewriter had barely come into use. Quadruplex telegraphy, water gas, the mowing machine, the telephone, the talking ma- chine, the incandescent lamp, the arc lamp, and the gasoline motor were awaiting further development and general appreciation.

Soon after 1880, however, came such great inventions as the automatic knot-tying harvester, chrome tanning, the electrically operated street car, the lino-type, the split-phase induction motor, the single type composing machine, the rotary converter, the add- ing machine, the flexible transparent photographic film, calcium carbide, electric welding, electrolytic alkali production, carborun- dum, harveyized armor plate, the alternate electric current motor, the motion picture, the blast furnace, the modern type disk plough, high speed steel, the aeroplane, the hydro-aeroplane, the gas en- gine, and many more industrial machines. These great inventions have contributed in no small degree to the material prosperity which was particularly apparent in this country after the war, cul- minating several years ago.

How generally the people of the United States have taken ad- vantage of what the progress in science and in the arts has made available is shown by a few comparative figures. Above one-six- teenth of the population of the world is in the United States, yet three-fourths of the world’s raw silk is here used. The United States consumes five-eighths of the world’s coffee; four-fifths of the world’s petroleum supply; three-fourths of its rubber; one- tourth of its sugar production and there are in this country five- cighths of all the telephones of the world; four-fifths of the auto- mobiles; and three eighths of the world’s railroad track.

Furthermore the United States produces five-eighths of the pig iron; five-eighths of the steel; more than half the cotton sup- �[Page 232]232 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

ply; one-fourth of the wheat; more than three-eighths of the coal; three-fourths of the petroleum; one-half of the electric energy; and almost five-eighths of the copper supply of the world. Further to emphasize the material well-being which has come to this country it should be noted that there is one automobile for every five per. sons; one telephone to every seven; and one radio set to every eighteen.

The introduction of machinery, the adoption of standardized and mass production coupled with the feeling that after the World War prosperity had come to stay brought about some marvelous changes in the rate of production In this connection a few com: parative figures cited by Dr. Julius Klein, Assistant Secretary of Commerce will be illuminating. He says:—

“At the beginning of the World War one factory operative in the American razor-blade industry was turning out, in a given period of time, only 500 blades; now, in the same time, he turns out 32,000. The hourly output of 4-ounce bottles used to be 77; now it is at least 3,000. In 1925, 100 men produced as many auto: mobiles as were produced by 272 men in 1914; refined as much petroleum as was refined by 183; produced as much cement as 161; as much iron and steel as 159—and so on down the line.”

Until a few generations ago much of the work which is now done in factories was done in the home. But a growing demand for greater efficiency, for better supervision, for uniformity of output and for greater use of machinery making for mass produc- tion, at length forced the workers into the factory. This brought many changes into the family life of the workman. Not only this, but he was quick to realize the advantage of close association with fellow workers resulting in collective bargaining when the suff. ciency of his wage came into question. The relation of capital to labor took on a new aspect. In one respect, however, there was no change. Periodical prolonged business depressions have con- tinued to recur at intervals of about 20 years even as they had in the past under less efficient methods of operation. The success ot any concern in any line of business industry encourages the estab: lishment of others so long as the market is good and will take all �[Page 233]THE ENGINEER AND THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE 233

the output. Factories and business establishments multiply. Facil- ities for production are expanded.

Presently, however, as has repeatedly been the case in the past, the market is overstocked. The output of farms and of factories has to be curtailed. Panic seizes the banker and the business man. Prices begin to drop and distress and unemployment spread over the world. Private capital is no longer available for large enter- prises. The volume of retail business shrinks in consequence and then from all over the country comes an insistent demand that the city, the county, the state, and the federal government cut down expenditures. People forget at such times that reduction of gov- ernment activities throws many out of employment, thereby still further slowing up the rate at which money flows and reducing the ability of the nation to consume’ the output of farm and factory. It would certainly be better to do a larger amount of business and be able to bear higher taxes than to have business shrink and pay out in consequence in doles what ought to be paid out through government activities in wages and salaries.

It is not merely the cutting out of 100,000,000 dollars of ex- penditures that should be considered, but particularly in times of business depression the fact that this money, if left in private hands, would not be required in business enterprises and that if government fails to expend it, the circulation of money is propor- tionately slowed up. It should be assumed that when government expends such a sum for any purpose it would start out at a rate of th’-ty or more transfers from hand to hand in a year, thus giving a prospect of some 3,000,000,000 dollars worth of retail business though of course decreasing as time runs on.

Furthermore when government expenditures are reduced those who are turned out of positions either crowd others out of jobs ot are themselves forced into the list of the unemployed. Being denied the opportunity to earn and spend the funds which the tax payer contributes toward the cost of government, they thus become public charges, generally supported by charity funds contributed by citizens who would be much better off if their taxes were a little higher. This would enable government to expend more and �[Page 234]234 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

not less on desirable activities such as public works which add to the permanent wealth of the country, or make for cultural pro- gress and the advancement of civilization.

Neither the scientist nor the engineer is to blame for the in- evitable repetition of this major business cycle, but they can and should help in finding means of mitigating distress when business is at low ebb. Why, it is natural to ask, should not a beginning be made by long time budgeting? Custom has made a year the unit of time within which governments desire to have their income balance their expenditures. Knowing, as the world now knows, that periods of prosperity alternate with periods of business de- pression why not take this fact into account and plan to accumulate funds when times are good as an aid in stimulating human activ- ities when times are bad. It would even be logical to increase the public debt so as to undertake and carry on more public work and more enterprises for cultural advancement and for promoting te- ' creation during the hard times, rather than to spend less. Repay- ment of such debts could be so timed that the main demand to meet sinking fund requirements would fall into the prospective periods of prosperity when the public is best able to meet the call for additional taxes.

Returning now to the tremendous changes which have re- sulted in the life of civilized countries from scientific discoveries and engineering ingenuity it should be noted that the wants of the individual have multiplied manifold. He seeks new types of re- creation and relaxation. The automobile takes him into the open, the movie brings him rest and relaxation, the radio provides amuse- ment, entertainment, information, and instruction, in all of which the economist sees a restoration of the balance between production and consumption which has been so sorely threatened by the ma- chine age.

Withal he is selfish and takes little account of the future. The awakening to a new point of view involving careful consideration of posterity’s requirements is slow. Our city planners confront this civic inertia whenever they propose something that is big, that 1s really worth while. They are met by the general demand to holc �[Page 235]THE ENGINEER AND THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE 235

down their program to immediate requirements. Let future gen- erations solve their own problems.

It is not necessary to go far afield to illustrate this thought. The great cities of the world with few exceptions, (such as out own capital, Washington,) were laid out without a clear vision of inevitable growth and ultimate destiny. Congested streets in down-town districts are now the general rule. The remedy, be- cause conditions as they are must now be made the starting point, clearly points to programs involving 30 to 50 year forecasts. Here and there some street stands out as one which within some such period must be widened. Recognizing this fact why not legalize the acquisition of property for future use? Laws, at least in this country, do not permit the taking of private property for public use until the necessity for the step can be made clearly apparent. Why not then let our laws be so modified that when the combined judgment of city planning commissions, city managers, and city councils favors some such improvement as the widening of a ve- hicular street surface either by placing the sidewalks back of the building line or by securing more land for the street by the pur- chase of adjacent frontage, the owner can at once be compensated although possession be not taken for many years in the future.

Other examples of the need of vision could be cited, but it will hardly be necessary to show that the engineer, to be of greatest service to the community, must give thought to social and economic problems as well as to those relating to the forces of nature. We are not at the end of scientific discovery and engineering progress. Half a century ago the people of the world had as much right to assume that all the important attributes of matter and of forces had been discovered as we have to take a similar position today and yet as above pointed out what tremendous progress has becn made in these fifty years. What then may not the next half century bring forth?

The third a:ticle in a Symposium on THE SUBSTANCE OF WORLD COOPERATION—the ntribution of the scientist and engineer to international unity and peace. �[Page 236]CHINA’S CHANGING CULTURE by

FRANK RAWLINSON Editor, The Chinese Recorder, Shanghai

Ill. The Specific Relation of Christianity to Some Transitional Cultural Problems

(c) Christianity and Education

The first Christian school was started by Morrison in Macao in 1818: it was moved to Hongkong in 1844. Other chronological leads in education have also been taken by Christians. It was a member of the staff of the Morrison school who took abroad the first three Chinese students seeking a western education; one of these was Yung Wing. The first school for girls—they were never entirely deprived of education even under the old regime—was established in Ningpo in 1825. In 1920 Shanghai College (Bap: tist) adopted formally the principle of coeducation, an act which made articulate the previous sporadic moves in that direction.

In 1922 Christian schools and colleges numbered 7382 with 214,254 students.’ A few years later these had increased to about 300,000; to these should be added about 145,000 then in Roman Catholic schools. Christian educational effort has developed more rapidly, since shortly after 1900, than that of any other branch. About the same time students in Christian schools comprised about five percent of those in China’s modern schools.

The chief aim of these Christian schools was to promote Chris- tianity. Their general custom until quite recently was to require attendance on religious instruction and services. As indicated above the present tendency in China is to do away with this prac: tice, though, beyond requiring that such exercises and instruction

1.—Christian Education in China, page 372. 236 �[Page 237]CHINAS CHANGING CULTURE 237

be voluntary, existing laws are inconclusive as to the actual rela- tion of religious instruction and worship to education. Further- more the position of the private school is at present quite unsettled. It is fundamentally a problem arising out of China’s modern efforts to secularize education, which affects other religions as well as Christianity. This is due mainly to another aspect of the cultural fusion mentioned above, that of Chinese and western rationalism in the minds of China's modern intelligentsia mingled with the in- fluence of western educational practice. Perhaps the chief Chinese objection is to making any school a propagandic agent for any re- ligion, though this objection to propaganda in schools does not hold in the case of party propaganda—almost religious—under the Nationalistic regime. This tendency towards the secularization of education marks all political and governmental parties: com: munistic influence has been most marked in this regard.

The effect of Christian education on the general cultural situ- ation may be partially analyzed as follows. By separating the stu- dent from family life and emphasizing individualism it has helped forward that partial disintegration of the family already noted. It has also helped spread democratic ideas which have, in the demand for Chinese control of Christian schools and education in general, been turned against the dominance of missionaries in the conduct of their schools. Within the last few years the control of Ciiristian schools has in the main passed into Chinese hands. This dominance of Chinese influence in Christian institutions is, indeed, an out- standing feature c‘ the present situation. These schools have been a strong factor in promoting the knowledge of and interest in cxtra-Chinese cultures. Up till quite recently the schools run by the missionaries of any particular nation have followed the edu- cational and social ideals of that nation. The teaching of religion under the old regime accompanied that of philosophy in so far as religion was normally a part of the classical text-books. Christian insistence on the right to teach religion as such has sharpened the issue between religion and education. While the tendency is to- wards the separation of the two the issue is by no means settled. some quite prominent non-Christian Chinese have advocated that �[Page 238]238 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

the two must be related. Their relation is one aspect of the struggle over religious liberty. Christian schools have transmitted western educational theories and practice to China. For a time Christian schools were the norm for modern education. Now they are faced with the problem of adapting themselves to a rapidly evolving in- digenous system of which more later. They have also done much to promote the knowledge of and desire for modern scientific knowledge. Indirectly in common with all institutions, particu- larly through the practice of missionaries, they have increased the desire for foreign made goods and appliances. To this extent Christianity has promoted foreign commerical interests in China.

Since the publication of the reports of the China Educational Commission and the National Christian Conference, 1921-22, the real strength of Christian education has become better known. It has thus come to be regarded as a rival to the governmental sys- tem. Its westernizing influence has beclouded its real advantages. On these points it has been criticized and attacked. Christian schools have been a constant stimulus to indigenous educational effort. They have taken the lead in providing educational oppor- ‘tunities for China’s less favored groups. The number of schools and students under Christian auspices has recently been consider: ably reduced. This partial reduction may be adopted as « polic; for the future. Christian education, however, will continue to have a place in China though that place is only vaguely defined at present. Christian educationists are, for the moment, thinking more in terms of quality than quantity. That the quantitative strength of Christian schools will, however, still further develop is evident in two ways. First, as the Christian Church grows in strength and clarity of aim it will increase its educational effort though it is likely that elementary education will pass more and more into governmental hands. Second, so long as the present political and economic chaos continues in China the comparative stability of Christian schools will enhance their value in the eyes of those seeking educational advantages under reasonably quiet conditions. Their main hope for the future, however, lies in their qualitative rather than their quantitative aspects. �[Page 239]INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION by

DONALD RICHBERG Attorney

C ARLYLE was undoubtedly wrong in defining ‘the three

great elements of modern civilization” as ‘gunpowder,

printing and the Protestant religion.” But, encouraged

by this precedent of error, one might define the three great elements of our industrial civilization as scientific knowledge, unscientific management and the modern art of statistical bunk. (If a more refined term is desired we may describe this third ele- ment as a ‘‘statistical hypnotism.”) A little reflection will demon- strate thesessential character of each element.

Our industrial civilization has not been founded upon the Protestant religion or the Catholic religion, but upon the religion of truth seekers, that idealism unfettered by creed, which is the only universal, unconquerable religion which the world has ever known. For centuries patient men of inveterate curiosity, born free from the curse of a commercial mind, have been laying the foundations of industrial civilization. It is the only part of the structure that may be everlasting. It is probably the only part which ought to last.

On this foundation commercial-minded men have erected what we are pleased to call a civilization. This construction has been a bungled, unscientific job from the beginning. There has never been a plan or a blue print prepared by the master builders. They have not delayed their “‘great constructive enterprises” long enough to consider what they are trying to build or why it should be built. The master minds of our industries have been content with one purpose and one achievement, the production and acquisition of wealth.

The production of wealth may be a social service. To harness

the mountain torrent so that light and heat may flow into a million 239 �[Page 240]240 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

homes is truly a public service. To develop the mineral resources of the world, to produce steel and oil in vast quantities for common use is a public service. There can be no question that to organize the production and distribution of the things that men can use so as to increase the comfort and security of life, is a service tc mankind. But between the production and the acquisition of wealth lies the twilight that deepens from daylight into darkness.

The production of wealth brings an increase of human power to pursue human happiness; and the diffusion of this wealth and power may well appear, in our dim, finite vision, to be the surest means to promote the general welfare. But the acquisition of wealth, beyond what may be described as the individual power of consumption, is the acquisition of power to control the lives of others. This raises at once the ancient issue of human liberty. Even if some of the strong men of earth desire to serve their weaker brethren, the question is presented: Should they accumulate and concentrate the power of wealth and exercise a benevolent guid ance over the lives of others, or should they develop and diffuse this power so that the masses of the people may have, perhaps !ess civic opera, but more and better radios—even if no better pro- grams? Or, to put this in another way: Should more people be enabled to buy the clothes that suit them, or should more people be constrained to wear the better made and better looking uni- forms that are designed and provided for them by self-chosen ad- ministrators of the common wealth?

We cannot escape taking sides upen this issue if we are to consider intelligently the future course of our industrial civiliza- tion and, according to our standards of value, appraise its value to the present and future generations. So it becomes necessary for us to examine the methods whereby modern industries are organ- ized and operated and to determine their effect upon social and political standards and objectives. We observe immediately that the present tendency of concentration and mass production is to develop an apparent need for the centralization of authority some- where to control and coordinate production, distribution and con- �[Page 241]INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION 241

sumption—an authority which would be entirely incompatible with our previous concepts of competitive individualism.

But the American people as a whole still cherish the ideal of individual freedom. Practically every class interest in its political effort to promote a selfish interest still appeals to the idealism of liberty. Unhappily the freedom of one is based upon the restraint of others; so that in political matters most of us are hotly engaged in some project to restrain the liberty of some one else. The suc- cessful monopolist indignantly demands that he be free to exercise the power which he has shown himself able to acquire; and the defeated consumer or worker with equal indignation demands that he be freed from any autocratic control of his habits and standards of daily living.

In the brief space of the present discussion let me confine my- self to considering whether the development of our industrial civilization along present lines will be inevitably destructive of our historic American ideal of individual freedom to pursue hap- piness, and of our faith in democratic institutions as the means of realizing this ideal. If this be the conclusion, can we chart another course for industry, or must we find a new idealism and a new political faith?

There is ample evidence that the issue which is here presented has not arisen out of the mere increased production of wealth. But the acquisition and control of more and more wealth by fewer and ~ fewer persons (in proportion to the total population) calls for an examination of the devices by which this is accomplished. Are these devices essential to wealth production, or could we, without them, produce as much and spread it more evenly?

All wealth is produced by the cooperative labor of many men. In the fair division of the just rewards of common effort there is little opportunity for the acquisition of great wealth. When his co-workers permit a man to profit hugely at their expense, or when buyers pay sellers far more than production cost, either fraud or force usually plays a part in the transaction. And since, in the long run, small minorities cannot rule large majorities by force, it fol- �[Page 242]242 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

lows that some form of mass deception is an essential means for the acquisition of great wealth.

So it has come about that in our industrial civilization, founded on scientific knowledge and erected by unscientific man- agement, we- find a vast and complex mechanism for the produc. tion of wealth through industrial and financial corporations which are organized and operated for the primary purpose of diverting as much wealth as possible into as few hands as possible by means of this very modern art of statistical bunk.

' Let it be understood that these words are not used in any small, mean sense. Some years ago the whole country was chuckling over the horse trades of David Harum. There is graven deep in the tablets of the law the phrase caveat emptor. The wise buyer has never relied upon the seller’s representations. And in this day of slogans the promise of “‘truth in advertising” has only emphasized that ancient warning: “Let the buyer beware!” But in the com- plexities of modern business it has been in fact necessary that the petty lies and tricks of the old time traders should be discarded. Men dealing in millions must trust each other in little things. They can not cheat like horse traders; or swindle each other like card sharps. They are expected ordinarily to tell the truth—even though very rarely the whole truth.

The art of statistical bunk, which has developed in, the build- ing of our industrial civilization, is as modern as cubism and fu- turism. It is highly impressionistic, full of imagery, and psychic appeal. The great money-makers of today do not promote funda- mentally unsound enterprises. They organize the production of goods and services to satisfy the great common needs. They or- ganize enterprises that furnish employment to millions of men and furnish employment to billions of dollars. They exhibit organiz- ing and directing skill of a very high order. But they have devised methods of accounting for, and reporting upon, their accomplish- ments which, while making it possible for a few men for a brict time to make huge fortunes, will, in the end, destroy the political economic system upon which Western civilization has relied. �[Page 243]INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION 243

In order to test at once the accuracy of this observation, it is only necessary to point out that, despite all the reams of statistics annually gathered, there is no substantial basis for an intelligent opinion from day to day as to whether our great industrial enter- prises are succeeding or failing, or even as to whether they are financially sound. It should be apparent that in an ultimate ap- praisal the success of any industry will depend upon the benefits conferred upon those who engage in it. This is wholly contrary to the common assumption that the profit of the investor is the sole test of success. It is contrary to the less common assumption that the satisfaction of consumers is the test. Therefore, let us discuss this carefully. In the days of handicraft a man worked for himself. He might obtain food and shelter and other material gains as the reward of labor and also the satisfaction of being regarded as a good workman and a useful member of society. But, whatever he gained, he was working for himself. He did not balance up his books to find how much wealth he had made for someone else.

Unless a commercial enterprise is organized to exploit slave labor its dominating purpose should be to benefit those who en- gage in it. Those who invest capital do so for personal gain, but they can not expect to get an income unless it is paid as a by- product of the labor of men who ate working for themselves. In other words, unless a modern industry is operated primarily for the benefit of those who do its work, it can not be justified as an agency of progress.

But as modern industries have developed we have come grad- ually to appraise the success of an enterprise, first, by the benefits received by the owners; second, by the benefits received by the consumers and, third, and almost incidentally, by the benefits re- ceived by the workers. This has largely resulted from the fact that the owners were principally concerned with their profits, which was natural, and they wanted the accounts kept accordingly. The lower the labor cost, the better the showing: Either the owners made more money, or the consumers paid lower prices.

In older days a cobbler might charge the interest on money �[Page 244]244 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINB

borrowed to buy leather, as a cost. It was not, however, the object of his labor to pay interest on capital. The more he made out of his labor the greater the success of his industry. But until recently it has seemed to be assumed that the purpose of modern industry is not to provide the largest possible reward for labor, but that, in truth, the less paid for labor the greater the success of the enter- prise. Is this not a strange perversion of the fundamental idea that an industry is a combination of men working for a livelihood whose success or failure would naturally be measured by the qual- ity of the livelihoods which the workers obtain from their industry?

Recently there has been a slight shift in common opinion. We have not yet returned to the point of view of the individual crafts- man, but we have begun to see that at least a balance of interests must be preserved. We have learned that it is useless to produce what can not be bought. We have learned that productive power and selling power must be balanced by consuming power and buying power. We are beginning to recover from the delusion that we can sell more, even in other countries, than we can buy. Some of us have learned that when gold is shipped to us to pay for what we have sold in excess of what we have bought, we can not eat it and we can not even put it to work earning interest unless we can give employment to men out of whose labor the interest can be paid.

Yes, we are slowly and painfully learning that the purpose of industry is to provide work for men, out of which they must profit before any one else can make a real profit. Of course, the man- agers of a business can cheat the investors and the workers for a time by operating at a loss and selling below the really necessary cost of production. They can fool the investors for a time by show- ing apparent profits and by paying dividends out of wages earned by, but withheld from, the employe. But gradually they will help other bad managers to destroy their market. Then in the day of reckoning, when capital values decline 50 per cent in a year, possibly some investors will realize that their previous dividends were really paid out of their capital. �[Page 245]INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION 245

However, the managers of our great industries are still fairly safe. They will probably be named receivers and continue to draw pay; and only a few investors will understand that bad manage- ment has ruined their business. Only a few investors will under- stand that when industrial managers generally pay workers an av- erage wage of $25 a week and sell goods to them on credit and by high pressure methods on the basis of a $35 wage they are sure to ruin the country.

In six years from 1923 to 1929 the claimed “value” of manu- factured products increased nearly 9 billion dollars and total wages of manufacturing labor increased only $414,000,000. Where was the purchasing power to be found to absorb the excess of $8,500,000,000? Not among the deflated farming population. Not among the starving coal miners. Who were expected to produce 8% billion dollars to make good the claim of the manufacturers that they had added this amount of value to their products? Value is power to command a price. Who were to pay the price? Per- haps the workers mortgaged their futures for installment buying. Perhaps other nations went in debt. In some way future purchas- ing power seems to have been mortgaged to pay the price. And apparently many of our financial geniuses became obsessed with the idea that we could consume the seed corn of next year’s pur- chasing power and raise more purchasing power next year by bor- rowing seed corn from the year after that! But the day of reckon- ing was inevitable and it came at the end of 1929.

Another well devised plan for creating an illusion of wealth which has been very popular with the unscientific managers of modern industry has been the wholesale substitution of machine power for man power. A machine which puts men out of work and thereby reduces buying power, also reduces selling power and, therefore, does not immediately add to the total wealth of the world, but in fact reduces it.

It may be true that in time any machine reducing the need for human labor will enrich life by releasing more persons from the work of merely sustaining human physical life, so that their ener-

& . �[Page 246]246 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

gies may be devoted to expanding and beautifying the world of material existence and to enlarging the frontiers of mental expe- rience. But in our appetite-guided pursuit of happiness, in our urgent desire to free ourselves from drudgery, we can not safely ignore the revolutionary social upheavals that rapid improvements of industrial machinery produce. We can not permit the gifts of science and invention, the enormous social contributions of a Michelson and an Edison, to be ruthlessly transformed by men of acquisitive genius into so-called “wealth” which is nothing but the name for a claim against the workers which probably they can not be compelled to pay and which certainly they ought not to pay.

It is just as unreasonable to impoverish one’s own generation upon the promise that future generations wiil be made prosperous as to impoverish one’s own life upon the promise of happiness in an unknown future life. Industrial leadership has unfortunately copied too much of its technique from an antiquated religious leadership. Its economic notions are frequently as out of date as the Puritan sabbath. Despite the prophecies of its banquet orators, future gencrations will never know the impossible combination of a satisfied plutocracy and a contented democracy. Those who have eyes capable of seeing should at least point out the economic absurdity of this anticipated social order and the political certainty that any population not composed of anzmic imbeciles will event- ually destroy a ruling class that becomes obviously insane.

It seems necessary in this time of economic depression to lay the foundation for a discussion of the future upon a consideration of the demonstrated incapacity of the social leadership whose day is passing. But, from Pharaoh to Bourbon to date, there is no record of a ruling class which filed a petition of voluntary bank- ruptcy without at least asking to be named receiver of the estate. Self-confidence in his capacity to rule others in the face of utter failure is to be expected in any masterful man.

So today we observe a world equipped with the facilities for abolishing poverty, for guaranteeing, at least to all citizens of Western civilization, a tolerable security of food, clothing and �[Page 247]INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION 247

shelter, and a genuine equality of opportunity to realize their in- dividual possibilities of enjoyable living—and we observe it in fact to be a world floundering in uncoordinated efforts to recover from the greatest, most insane war in history, wobbling along on the brink of new wars, with millions of its trained and competent workers unable to find work, with food for millions stored or not reaped, while millions seek food as a charity instead of as a recom- pense for labor.

We are offered any number of explanations, but seldom the only comprehensive explanation, which is that the political eco- nomic system according to which the present ruling classes have prospered and governed is fundamentally unsound and that those who really believe in it are mentally incompetent to rule the world. Only an incorrigible optimist or a cruel pessimist could enjoy painting a vision of the future of any industry or any people strug- gling to conform to such a system under such direction.

In what has been said there is no contention that a capitalistic cconomy and democratic institutions of government have been proved unsound or that an experiment with a socialistic dictator- ship is in order. Our underlying political and economic theories might work very well if given a trial. We cannot be assured, for example, that the precepts of the Christian religion are impractical until we really try to follow them. We can not well condemn an economic program for making wealth until, as a people, we devote ourselves primarily to making wealth and cease devoting ourselves primarily to acquiring and controlling wealth. We can not expect to arrive at any worthy goal except accidentally until we conscious- ly select a worthy goal and then try to reach it. We can not plan intelligently, work intelligently, or live intelligently until we dis- catd statistical bunk and plan and work and appraise our labors according to estimates and statements of profit and loss that have intelligent meaning.

It would be difficult to point out all the false accounting and statistical bunk which produces alternately the intoxication of ap- parent prosperity and the cold grey dawn of a very real depres- �[Page 248]248 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

sion. But one example may suffice. A piece of gold has substance and so has a bushel of wheat or a pound of copper. A dollar based on gold or wheat or copper may have different meanings at dif. ferent times. But it always has some meaning. But when the prop. erty of the average corporation is given a ‘‘value” in a balance sheet, or its inventories are priced, the figures have very little meaning, except so far as they represent cash investment, and not very much meaning then. And when the “values” of stocks and bonds are quoted on the exchanges and are estimated on the basis of “property values” and “earning power” the figures have prac- tically no meaning at all.

All these values are, in varying degrees of accuracy, merely estimates of selling power. The shortest safe definition of “value” is “power to command a price.” So all pecuniary values depend on the existence somewhere in the world of a purchasing power. If you cannot use a thing yourself, it has no pecuniary value unless someone will give you something for it. Thus it happens that all these values of corporate properties, of stocks and bonds, of real estate, all the commercial values which may be regarded as the columns and beams of the financial structure of our industrial civil: ization—all these values integrate or disintegrate as the purchas- ing power of the workers of the world rises and falls.

So it should be recognized that the primary purpose of every industry is to furnish profitable employment to human beings—not as an ethical obligation, but in wise conformity with an economic law. Unless every human being employed can subsist out of his labor (and maintain his dependents) an industry has no justifiable purpose. Unless the industry is parasitic, the capital invested will be depleted until it disappears. Unless all industries distribute the largest possible amount of their products to their workers so that they can exchange as much as possible with other workers, the maximum purchasing power will be reduced and the maximum selling power will be reduced accordingly. When individuals in: vest or hoard because they have more income than they consume, excessive saving and insufficient spending is inevitable. �[Page 249]INDUSTRIAL CIVILIZATION 249

Any increase in the amount of capital which can be profitably employed in all business to increase productive power should de- pend naturally on increase in purchasing power. The way to in- crease the reai wealth of the world is plainly to increase the total purchasing power of those who can consume their income and cautiously to withdraw from this consumptive power what can be safely spared to invest in new productive power. The savings of the workers provide a reasonably safe means for this withdrawal. But the surplus earnings of the investors, accumulated in corporate surpluses, provide a very unsafe means because they are subtrac- tions from the purchasing power of the workers which must be relied upon to support the new investments.

There is much talk today of economic planning, and the need is cleat. But how can we plan an industrial machinery in which production and consumption will be balanced, with any hope that the financial integrity of the business structure can be maintained, if our financial statistics are wholly unreliable? How can money be safely invested in corporations whose present financial obliga- tions can not be met without bleeding dangerously the purchasing power of their workers? How can an investor with a new dollar be induced to share equally with an old dollar of alleged invest- ment that represents perhaps ten cents worth of present value?

If there can be brought about a slight change in the public habit of mind, such as has been suggested, it should be evident that instead of having less labor organization we need a practically universal effective organization of labor so that the worker con- sumer interest may have complete expression and must be reckoned with at every stage in the development of industry. The result would be that the labor organizations of the future would not be like certain militant, wholly self-interested organizations ot the past, or, like certain futile, fraudulent organizations of the present which many large employers love to cultivate to serve their selfish ends, but would be (as many are today) in the highest sense repre- sentative institutions, representing the great majority interests in society. (I have expanded the views here indicated in a somewhat �[Page 250]250 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

satirical address on the subject of ‘‘Mutualism” at the semi-annual meeting of the Academy of Political Science, April 11, 1928.)

There is a further idea, which it may be worth while to seek to inject into popular thinking, and that is that the size of industrial operations is not a standard either of efficiency or success. Indeed, the long held and oft repeated views of Mr. Justice Brandeis should be given more public attention and approval than they have yet received. As I have written elsewhere (Columbia Law Review, November, 1931): “The huge vertical and horizontal ‘trusts’ of the present day must have great directors to survive. They require double Napoleons, who as yet have not been found. The dinosaur perished not from lack of power, but from lack of brain. Perhaps the already demonstrated incapacity of human beings to adminis. ter wisely their superhuman organizations may bring about decen- tralization and revive democracy. Or, without disintegration, a redistribution of the control of vast enterprises may be achieved as the product of industrial-social engineering. Man, who survived the monstrosities of the pre-historic era, may survive the monstrosi- ties of his own creation in the era of megalomania.”

Finally, let me again point out that we must have real facts upon which to plan intelligently our industrial operations. The illusions regarding wealth and value which are fostered by our present accounting and statistical methods have done us much harm. We have hypnotized ourselves and our leaders have constantly hypnotized their followers by massing figures to show the value of industrial operations, which, in fact, prove nothing. Set down with what Justice Holmes ¢.lied “delusive exactness,” they have served not to guide us right, but to lead us astray. We need new standards and measures of industrial success and failure, in re- liance upon which we can safely plan industrial progress so that it may bring about a real increase of the common wealth and an advance of the general welfare. �[Page 251]WAR AND DOUGLAS’ NEW ECONOMICS by GORHAM MUNSON

ORKERS for peace have, of course, thought about com- petition for foreign markets as a principal cause of modern wars but there is little evidence that the pop- ulace have. Wars used to be fought to relieve actual scarcity at home. Now they are waged for an opposite reason, to dispose of a nation’s wares abroad. That is a simple truth which ought to be on the lips of practically everybody. If it were, there might occur a general perception of the fact that what we fight to export is not, as yet, a surplus of goods produced after the needs of the home community have been satisfied. No, what we resort to force in order to secure a foreign market for is no surfeit of home-produced goods but—and the distinction is important—sim- ply those goods which the nation cannot buy. This is the modern paradox: we go to war to force on foreigners the goods we need but can’t consume—because we haven't the money to buy them. In all industrial nations there is under-consumption (masked as over- production) and this state of affairs compels competition among them for diminishing export markets. On the face of it, nothing could be stranger or more absurd. 3 It would be a great step toward the realization of their hopes if the propaganda of peace-workers could make the public realize just this paradox alone, even if there were no scientific account of the necessity of struggle for export trade and even if there were no convincing remedy propounded. As it happens, there is a scien- tific analysis and a proposed economic cure which ought to engage the enthusiastic attention of all peace propagandists. The reference is to the “New Economics” first published to the world in 1918 by Major C. H. Douglas of Great Britain.

251 �[Page 252]252 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

But who is Major Douglas? It is my considered opinion that he is an economist of far greater insight than Karl Marx, but un- fortunately in America the question, ‘“Who is Douglas?” is not one betraying an ignorance for which the average asker should blush. It is a fact that the spread of Douglas’ name and ideas have been cleverly obstructed; yet in time, I am confident, it will be recog. nized that Douglas is of the lineage of great economists. His trenchant books reveal that he is an enthusiast who keeps cool, a balanced thinker with a love of liberty and a humane heart. By birth, a Scotsman and cousin to Lord Weir, by education, a Cam- bridge man, by profession, a civil engineer, Major Douglas has lived in India, served as assistant director of the British Govern- ment’s aircraft factory during the war of 1914-1918, and manufac- tured yachts, and thus he has encountered financial problems in practice as well as in theory. He has testified before the Canadian House of Commons and last year before the Macmillan Commit- tee. He is cultured, he is scientifically trained, he is a man of affairs, all highly desirable qualifications for an economist—who ought never to be a closeted and narrow person.

It should be added that Douglas’ ideas have attracted in Eng: land and Australia not the lunatic fringe but a rather distinguished following, recruited from all parties of the mind. The appeal, it is true, has been made chiefly to the Left where it enlisted fur the Douglas Proposals so foremost an intelligence as A. R. Orage, for years editor of the New Age and once a famous advocate of Na- tional Guilds, but there is a following from the Right also, as witness W. Allen Young's recently published Ordeal by Banking which is an appeal to Conservatives to study the New Economics, and there have been several efforts to identify Major Douglas’ ideology with Christian social policy by both Catholic and Protes- tant thinkers. This suggests the possibility that the Just-Price-and- National-Dividends economy of Douglas may come to command the assent of intelligent men of all groups, a possibility not inher- ent in any other economic theory so far put forward. I need not stress the mortance of that possibility for the Peace Movement. �[Page 253]WAR AND DOUGLAS’ NEW ECONOMICS 253

To return, after this necessary informative sketch, to the con- siderations of the opening paragraphs, what is the scientific ex- planation of the economic necessity for war which Major Douglas advances? He notices first that up to the Industrial Revolution it took a very high proportion of the energy human beings gained from food to maintain themselves; in other words, mankind was up against actual scarcity and fought it with only manual labor. But, he says, ‘‘from the moment that the first crude steam engine pumped the first gallon of water, if not before, the metabolic cycle contained a factor, a new method of entrance for solar energy, which was bound to result in a much steeper spiral of ascent.” We ate all familiar with that steeper spiral of ascent which involves the displacement of man-power by machines and which has ush- ered in the age of plenty, only, alas, it is still only potential plenty. Nevertheless, the problem of production has been definitely solved, and the proof of it is the answer anyone can made to two questions of Major Douglas: “Is there a manufacturer in this country, or tor that matter in any other, who is not clamoring to turn out more goods if someone will give him orders for them? Is there a farmer who is complaining that his land and his stock are unable to cope with the demands for agricultural produce which pour in upon him?”

But this rosy fact of potential plenty (have we not a bountiful planet, the science to apply, the machines and the men?) is over- shadowed by the black fact that something interferes with the solution of our distribution problem. We have progressed only in production: in distribution we are benighted; and economics, let us remind ourselves, is the science of producing and distrib- uting goods. It is in the location of the mechanical defect in our distributive arrangements that Douglas’ originality comes out. Meanwhile, thanks to this defect, we continually face two horrible alternatives: unemployment and war. Thanks to this mechanical defect, the epigram, war is a time of economic peace and peace is a time of economic war, is appallingly true.

Where is the defect located? Our common experience should �[Page 254]254 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

tell us at once, yet we dare not trust our common experience. We all know that what we are short of is purchasing power; we haven't enough dollars or pounds or francs to satisfy our needs and de- sires. And this is just what Major Douglas reiterates. Between us as consumers and a truly marvelous productive system stands an obsolete money system, a banking system operating in accord with a pre-machine age psychology. In Finance lies the defect which makes our society work so badly, and worse yet, which perverts our psychology.

I will quote the official Douglas summary of this state of af. fairs printed each week on the back cover of the New Age of London. “Supporters of the Social Credit Movement contend that under present conditions the purchasing power in the hands of the community is chronically insufficient to buy the whole product of industry. This is because the money required to finance capital production, and created by the banks for that purpose, is regarded as borrowed from them, and, therefore, in order that it may be repaid, is charged into the price of consumers’ goods. It is a vital fallacy to treat new money thus created by the banks as a repayable loan, without crediting the community, on the strength of whose resources the money was created, with the value of the resulting new capital resources. This has given rise to a defective system of national loan accountancy, resulting in the reduction of the com- munity to a condition of perpetual scarcity, and bringing them face to face with the alternatives of widespread unemployment of men and machines, as at present, or of international complications aris- ing from the struggle for foreign markets.”

That is a compressed statement: the questions it naturally gives rise to are answered at length in Social Credit literature. Wishing in this article to concentrate attention on the second al- ternative, international complications ending in military struggle for export trade, I shall not dwell on the dire alternative of un- employment except to say this: the aim of production is the max- imum goods with the minimum expenditure of effort: progress in industry lies in the progressive displacement of men and a symptom �[Page 255]WAR AND DOUGLAS NEW ECONOMICS 255

of this progress is growing unemployment: there is no moral obli- gation on the part of industry to provide employment but only the obligation to produce goods with maximum efficiency: but the dis- placed men are entitled to enjoy the fruits of Man’s triumph in producing goods and to this end should receive a National Divi- dend. Most of us, in fact, should be members of a leisure class if we so wish. This is one of Major Douglas’ most startling con- clusions, but space limits here preclude the setting forth of the steps by which he reaches it. What I have to do is to indicate the A plus B theorem which in a way recapitulates the official sum- mary just quoted from the New Age.

ff we think of a factory, we shall see that money, which in- cidentally may be regarded as sociological blood, flows out of the factory and back into it. The outflowing stream is called Costs. and the incoming Prices. The factory costs are A plus B, where A represents all payments to individuals and B all other payments. The price of the goods made by the factory therefore includes A plus B and in addition a profit; that is what the consumer's pocket- book must meet. But a little more in detail, what are these pay- ments to individuals which are denoted by A in the theorem? They ate wages, salaries and dividends, and these constitute the purchasing power of a community. There is nothing else with which to buy the goods, and, as we have seen, the wages, salaries and dividends disbursed in production are included in the price of the product. B, that is all other payments in the course of pro- duction, are Capital Costs, such as payments for raw materials, for the erection, enlargement and upkeep of plant, interest on bank loans, taxes, and so forth. B also enters into price, and so we have the spectacle of a community with A in its pockets trying to absorb gouds priced at A plus B, with a profit besides. For, not only does the theorem hold for a givefi factory, but it holds for all factories, for the whole productive mechanism of a society wherein costs must be recovered by prices.

Into this simple theorem a great deal of complexity enters, as the reader who goes to the source, Major Douglas’ texts, will �[Page 256]256 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

realize. He neglects nothing in formulating it. The time element, for instance, is allowed for, and bank loans are thoroughly discussed. But the final simplicity of the theorem has never been refuted. And now I may list some of the palliatives for the chronic shortage of money which the A plus B theorem reveals. Bankruptcy is one, sabo- tage (all forms of restricting output) is another, a third is install. ment buying, another is export trade, and still another is war. War, from the bankers’ standpoint, is probably the best of these.

Consider the state of affairs which the operation of the A plus B theorem inevitably produces, just as a certain kind of wrong diet will produce a disease. First of all, it puts sellers into a frenzy. There is inadequate purchasing power for which they are desper- ately angling, and the sign of their desperation is advertising. But still the gap is too great between effective demand and outpouring supply, and hence export markets are anxiously sought out. Other countries are also after such markets and interests clash. War looms up, and war proves to be an economic boon for our insane system. This is so because war consumes goods at so high a rate. Produc- tion, one can say, in war time is for the sake of throwing away the goods produced. But not only that: war draws off from production millions of men, who are not needed in modern production any way, and destroys them. Wholesale destruction of men and goods —that is the ghastly periodic outcome of a society which accepts blindly the A plus B theorem as the basis of its price system.

If this is accepted, then the peace propagandist has two power- ful weapons. With one,—the forceful demonstration of the para- dox whereby a nation of under-consumers fights for a foreign market to sell the goods in excess of its purchasing power,—the pseudo-moral props to war can be knocked down. And war is a form of insanity which depends on its props. War is too hideous to stand nakedly before man and be endured. It needs supports as almost nothing else does. So it must be emphasized that it is the props that must be destroyed before a campaign directly against the evil can hope for success. But in addition, the peace propa- gandist is equipped with an analysis that coolly explains why un- �[Page 257]WAR AND DOUGLAS NEW ECONOMICS 257

der the present system foreign markets are of supreme importance. The analysis takes him one step farther, because it defines the eco- nomic problem to be solved in the interests of peace.

Here I will submit the Douglas solution of the problem, quot- ing a second time from the New Age’s summary. “The Douglas Social Credit Proposals would remedy this defect by increasing the purchasing power in the hands of the community to an amount sufficient to provide effective demand for the whole product of in- dustry. This, of course, cannot be done by the orthodox method of creating new money, prevalent during the war, which necessarily gives rise to the ‘vicious spiral’ of increased currency, higher prices, higher wages, higher costs, still higher prices, and so on. The essentials of the scheme are the simultaneous creation of new money and the regulation of the price of consumers’ goods at the teal cost of production (as distinct from their apparent financial cost under the present system) .”

I do not fancy that the statement above is clear to the reader encountering the Douglas suggestions for the first time, but it ought to pique his curiosity. Into it are condensed the ideas of the Just Price (that old preoccupation of Catholic theologians) and the National Dividend which all citizens of our country, were we to adopt the Douglas scheme, would draw as shareholders of the U. S. A., Incorporated. The scheme involves scientific price regu- lation and increased volume of money, price being regulated, not to demand, but to supply, and volume of money being based on real credit. Real credit as distinct from financial credit—the vitals of the matter lie there, and the Douglas argument about the nature ot real credit is not to be won by the running reader but only by hard brain-work. But it should be readily seen that if a community has the purchasing power to absorb its total industrial product, then foreign trade is of little importance, and one enormous pres- sure making for periodic slaughtering is removed. Major Douglas offers a detailed plan for an economic reconstruction which no baf- fled worker for peace can neglect to study. )

To that end, since an exposition of the more complex points �[Page 258]258 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

in the Douglas theory is not feasible within this article, the most useful thing I can do is to append a very short bibliography, trust. ing that both the novelty and the profundity of Douglas’ ideas commend themselves at a glance as worthy of serious investigation It is grievously unfortunate that only one of the books listed 1 published by an American firm. But in all economic literature no baoks, I am convinced, can be so valuable to those laboring for the cause of peace as the treatises listed below. For the Douglas Plan requires neither the mobilization of class or national hatred for its spreading, nor is a bloody revolution necessary to put it into effcct.. It involves only a change in financial policy evidenced by a change in book-keeping. As Douglas puts it, “We have shifted the pivot round which the industrial system revolves. Instead of running the industrial system to prduce a rigid financial result, which involves the subordination, to it, of the true aim of industry, we are now de- manding that the financial system shall be adjusted to produce a desired distributive result. That is all there is to it.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

momec Democracy. By C. H. Douglas. Published by Cecil Palmer, London. U-ed

© as a textbook at Harvard University.

( redit-Power and Democracy. By C. H. Douglas. Published by Cecil Palmer, Lond»

Control ip Distribution of Production, By C. H. Louglas. Published by Cecil Palmer, zondon.

Necial Credit. By C. H. Douglas. Published by Cecil Palmer, London,

The Mi pare of Credit. By C. H. Douglas. Published by Chapman and Hall, 11). -ondon,

H'arning Democracy. By C, H. Douglas. Published by C. M. Grieve, London.

Unemployment or War. By Maurice Colbourne. Published by Coward-McCann, Inc A popular but reliable account of the Social Credit Proposals.

The New Age. A weekly review of politics, literature and art, published in London and specializing in propaganda for the Douglas theory. Brilliantly edited by Arthur Brenton.

? �[Page 259]THE COMMON MESSAGE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT TEACHERS

by HuGH McCurpy WoopwarD Department of Philosophy of Education. Brigham Young University

MAN Discovers Divinity WITHIN His OWN SOUL (Continued)

OT even Jesus or Buddha seems to be more conscious of N:: divinity within his own nature than does the venerable

Chinese philosopher, Lao Tze. On one occasion he said:

“He who, conscious of his own light, is content to be ob- scure shall be the whole world’s model; his virtues will never fail. He reverts to the absolute.” Zoroaster expressed the idea in the following statement: “That one wish which Ahura Mazda, the Lord, contemplates as regatds man, is this, that ye shall fully under- stand me; for everyone who fully understands me comes after me and strives for my satisfaction.”

In the Great Master of Galilee this consciousness of the divine within himself is so pronounced that it becomes articulate in all his speech. In John 17:22-24 he is recorded as saying: “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one. I in them, and thou in me, that:they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and_hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” An inter- esting conversation occurs between Jesus and the doubting dis- uple: “Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but »v me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also; ind from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith into him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Phillip? he that hath seen me hath seen my Father; ind how sayest thou ¢4en, Show us the Father? Believest thou not

259 �[Page 260]260 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that | speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.”

It is a fact, observed by many students of anthropology and of human nature in general, that the lower you go in the scale of human development the more man adjusts on the plane of his physical senses. His satisfactions are shifting, temporary, and many times disappointing. As he rises gradually in his growth and unfoldment toward the higher developed man, he responds more and more to things intellectual, aesthetic, spiritual, and moral. He becomes conscious of the enduring nature of these higher responses. As his personality develops he becomes keenly conscious that he is a representation of the highest, most enduring element in all nature.

Man’s consciousness of his own divinity seems to come simul- taneously with his greater understanding of the finer elements of his own nature. “Man, know thyself” would seem to be good ad- vice to those who desire to know their true relationship to God. Can we think of any characteristics which we attribute to God which are not in embryo in man? Can we see any limit to man's power and capacity to develop the attributes which we attribute to God—intelligence, control, love, wisdom, sympathetic understand: ing, justice, mercy and happiness? \f we try to think where the limit of human intelligence would be, we are forced to stop short of the possibilities of imagination. Is there an end to man’s ability to control the elements of his own life and the forces outside his life? Is there a limit to human power and capacity to enjoy things physical, things spiritual, things moral, and things intellectual ?

“What a piece of work is man, how noble in reason; how in- finite in faculty; in form and moving how express and admirable; in action how like an angel; in apprehension how like a god.” Think of the possibilities expressed in these words of Shakespeare. How true they are and what an echo they find in the soul of our better selves. “How noble in reason.” Man reasons upon every: thing. ‘He reasons upon his physical body, his appetites, passions, �[Page 261]THE WORLD'S GREAT TBACHERS 261

impulses, desires, and functions. He reasons upon the spirit and likewise upon the soul. He reasons upon what he is and what he has been, and what he may become. He reasons upon himself as an individual intelligence and as a part of the great Universal In- telligence. He reasons upon things finite and things which appear to him to be infinite. He reasons upon God and nature, finite in- telligence, and infinite intelligence. He reasons upon reason itself, and in all his reasoning he is seldom content to stop short of the ultimate.” Surely this is Godlike.

“How infinite in faculty.” Take a few minutes time now and then to think of the great personalities who have lived. From their lives make a list of the marvelous capacities, powers and character- istics found in these great souls. Nothing will stimulate one so much as to scrutinize and penetrate one’s own nature for the golden cords which link man up with God. In the story of the king who asked his artists to paint a picture of a perfect man, the king was surprised to find that the picture resembled many people of all stations in life. In response to the king’s question as to how such a thing could be, the artist answered with the following verse:

“Then learn, O King, said the artist,

The truth that the picture tells

That in every form of the human Some part of the Highest dwells; That scanning each living temple

For the place that the veil is thin

We may gather by beautiful glimpses The form of the God within.”

“In form and moving how express and admirable!” This calls to our minds the limitless possibilities in our aesthetic natures. The achievements in every field of art, speech, music, painting, bodily expression in dance, grace and pose. Every new discovery in color, light, sound, harmony, and beauty reveals to us that even the: best are mere infants in all of these worlds of art.

“In action how like an angel!” Hold this thought in mind as vou contemplate the ministering angels of the world, the millions �[Page 262]262 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

of mothers who never tire of helping, the nurses who labor beside the sick and suffering, the missionaries in every clime and in every circumstance who honestly and sincerely carry to all peoples the message “Peace on earth and good will toward all men.” This list of real angels could be added to indefinitely as they minister to our physical spiritual and intellectual needs. Why not think of them as angels here and now?

“In apprehension how like a god!” This prophetic utterance is a crystallization of all the striving of the intellect and of the soul of man in the fields of art, science, religion, and philosophy. How can we explain this fact that all the great spiritual teachers of the world have become conscious of their own divinity? It may not be unreasonable to assume that man at his best represents the very essence of the creative forces in nature. It may be that Jesus is right when he declares: “When you have seen me you have seen my Fa- ther.” Likewise it may be that the Nirvana of Buddhism is a fact of nature, that the soul at its best becomes identified with the Great Universal Intelligence. May it not be that Lao Tze when he talks of the Tao represented in human soul—the Tao which is its own spon- taneity—has discovered the very essence of divinity made manifest in man? Confucius coming at a time when many puppet gods were worshipped was called upon to meet the same problem which con- fronted Socrates. When asked concerning these many Gods, he said: “Why worry about the Gods when everything you desire is possible in your own developed self?”

Regardless of our answers to these questions the possibilities lead man ever onward and upward toward the greater light. Per- haps in the life of every normal individual there are moments, while feeling the higher and finer possibilities of life, when he is inclined to take Jesus at His word when He said: “If you do the works that I do, the things [ do you can do.” Every man or woman who lifts his or her face toward heaven and contemplates the pos: sibilities for a rich, beautiful, and abundant life, must sometime be led to exclaim with the Psalmist: “What is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him? For �[Page 263]THE WORLD'S GREATEST TEACHERS 263

thou hast made him little lower than the angels, and crownest him with thy glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.” In all these philosophies man is considered a microcosm of the great macrocosm. He represents a world in miniature. In him is combined the elements of the entire universe. It follows from this that to know one’s self is to know God. "Man know thyself” and" master thyself” has been the chief admonition of these teachers of men. This discovery of divinity within the soul of man con- stitutes one of the greatest religious achievements of the race. It furnishes a motivation sufficient to make possible sustained self- effort in the direction of self-realization. It results in a self-respect adequate for continuous spiritual growth, unfoldment, and devel- opment. It identifies man with the purposes, motives, and works of the constructive powers of all nature and with God, the great Universal Intelligence. Indeed, it is the very essence of that deep and genuine self-respect which makes one hopeful, industrious and bumble at the same time and which constitutes the principle of motivation into which all other constructive motives merge.

(To be continued) �[Page 264]WHY WAR? by D. D. DroBa

Department of Sociology, Ohio State University

UCH has been written about war. Unquestionably, the

greatest impetus to such writings has been the World

War. The blaze of the nations ignited an interest which

compelled the attention of scholars and commentators. Nearly every topic has been touched: cripples, crimes, meals, med- als, poetry, and songs; education, religion, and business; memo- rials, laws, intelligence, and peace. But the literature on the “why?” of war itself is disproportionately small.

Amateur and scientist alike have written about the origins of war. Some have been successful. A few apparent roots have been brought to light. Economic gain, overpopulation, armaments, pa- triotism, self-protection, democracy have been proclaimed to be the originators of military conflicts. And most of the writers stopped here.

Let us note the contention of these writers. They say in es: sence: a nation attempts to gain economic advantages in another country. Such an action is naturally resented by the mistreated country, and a conflict between the two nations is the result. Event: ually war is used to solve the problem of conflict. Patriotism in its extreme degree, that is, the glorification of one’s own country at the expense of another, is a second cause of war. Extreme patri- otism means the domination of other nations. Again a conflict re- sults and war is chosen to solve the conflict. The third cause 1s overpopulation. When the population of a country becomes too dense, some are likely to emigrate and to crowd another country. This may bring about a state of misunderstanding, tension, be: tween the two countries. Finally war is resorted to to iron out the difficulty, while indirectly population is reduced on the battlefields. 264 �[Page 265]WHY war? 265

Such are the apparent roots. However, in order to understand the cardinal origin of wat, we must dig deeper. These apparent causes explain states of misunderstanding, tension, conflict be- tween two countries, but they do not explain why war is used for the solution of such conflicts brought about by economic gain, patriotism, and overpopulation.

Some psychologists, or psychologically inclined people have said, whether directly or indirectly, that the explanation is to be found in such basic tendencies as the “fighting instinct” or “fear.” These men were on the right track but a false stamp was given to their contentions. Such tendencies were considered to be innate and there was little room left for any possible change.

There is an increasing recognition among psychologists that environment is more important than heredity in shaping a per- sonality. In a cooperative study of race attitudes in children re- cently made under the direction of Bruno Lasker evidence points in that direction. A child hears another child speak disparagingly of somebody as a “Nigger” or as a ‘“Dago,” and he learns simul- taneously that it is shameful to belong to the class of such people. Francisca Baumgarten, a Polish psychologist, in an experiment performed in 1918 during the German occupation of Polish terti- tory shows similar evidence. She ascertained by written questions two facts: the most significant events in the lives of Polish children during the war, and the attitude of the children toward the Ger- mans. The most significant events were such incidents as the blow- ing up of the bridges, taking away horses, cows, the flight of the peasants. The attitude of the Polish children toward the Germans was indicated by their desire that the Germans would break their German necks and never see their families again. Evidently the spectacular destructive forces of Germany affected the children to the core. Those children were born with a capacity to love or to hate, but the outside influences came in to develop a terrific hate for the Germans.

The dispositions of peoples developed through outside in- fluences for or against some object are called attitudes. And here �[Page 266]266 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

we come to the crux of the whole problem. Man’s attitude is the basic cause of the type of action with reference to an object. To take a very simple example in the physical field, consider target shooting. To start shooting you pull the trigger. As soon as the hammer hits the charge the bullet flies out. The direction the bullet will take in its course will not depend on the discharge but on the bodily posture of the shooter. The bodily posture is anal. ogous to a mental attitude.

The great war of 1914-18 was flashed to the scene of the world panorama soon after the dawn of the Serb-Austrio-Hun- garian conflict. The problem of conflict had risen because of shoot: ing of the Austrian prince and his wife by a Serbian youth. War was chosen as a method of solution because the countries coming into conflict had an attitude of hate toward each other.

The Bolivia-Paraguay dispute came about because of a frontier incident. Public indignation, clashes, mobilization followed. The attitudes of the two countries were evidently attitudes of hate. War would result unless attitudes were changed. Fortunately the League of Nations Council opened in Lugano and the Pan-American con- ference in Washington on the very day of conflict. Stern cables were sent from Lugano and Washington. The attitudes of Bolivia and Paraguay were changed: the mediation of the Pan-American conference was accepted, and the problem of conflict was solved by a peaceful means.

Attitudes are the fundamental causes of international wars. Upon the attitudes of peoples depends the eventual method chosen for solving a conflict. The apparent or surface causes of wars are the ones mentioned above such as overpopulation, economic gain, and extreme patriotism. Here a clear distinction should be made between conflict and war. By “conflict” I mean a state of tension, misunderstanding, a dispute between nations. Conflicts are orig: inated by the apparent causes. A “war” is a method of solving the conflict. The cause of war is an attitude.

Psychological attitudes are highly complex phenomena of the, mental constitution of man. Their development and integration �[Page 267]WHY WAR? 267

into the balanced system of a personality, their origins, effects, flexibility, and duration make a long story. A great many influ- ences come in to shape, develop, and modify the attitudes. A par- tial contribution to the explanation of the development of attitudes was made by the writer in an experiment performed by him in the psychological laboratory of the University of Chicago.

A new method—never applied before—was used to measure attitudes toward war. The advantage of the new method is that the attitudes represented by the test were scaled from an extremely favorable attitude toward war, through neutral, to an extremely unfavorable attitude toward war. It is a measuring instrument in the sense that a thermometer is. The reliability of the test was statistically determined on the basis of results obtained from four hundred students and found to be high.

Three hundred students cooperated in the construction of the test. Each student was asked to classify one hundred and thirty brief statements into eleven groups according to the degree of attitude toward war expressed by the statements. Statements ex- pressing the most extremely favorable attitude toward war were placed in group one. Statements representing the most extremely unfavorable attitude toward war were placed in group eleven. The other statements were placed in the intermediate groups according to the degree of favorable and unfavorable attitudes toward war revealed in the statements.

As a result three hundred judgments were obtained for each of the one hundred and thirty statements. The median, or the middle judgment, of these three hundred judgments about a state- ment was taken as the scale value of that statement. These median values placed the statements along a scale from an extremely favor- able to an extremely unfavorable attitude toward war. Out of the hundred thirty statements forty-four were selected that were the most evenly arranged along the scale and were the least ambiguous statements as measured by a statistical devise.

When ready for use, the test consisted of forty-four statements about war such as: “Wars are justifiable only when waged in de- �[Page 268]268 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

fense of weaker nations,” and “Economic interdependence is rap- idly diminishing the benefits to be derived from wars.” Each pair of statements expressed a different attitude. Altogether twenty-two types of attitudes were represented by the statements. These atti- tudes ranged from an extremely favorable attitude toward war by _ a O, to an extremely unfavorable attitude toward war designated by 21.

The test was then given to 1400 students attending the Uni- versity of Chicago. The task consisted of reading each of the forty-four statements and of marking each according to agreement, disagreement, or doubt. If the student agreed with the statement, he was asked to put a plus sign in front of the statement. If he disagreed with the statement he was to put a minus sign in front of the statement. If he could not decide either way he was in- structed to mark the statement with a question mark. An indi- vidual score was the average scale values of all the statements marked plus.

Several facts were determined about each student whose atti- tude toward war was revealed by the test, as the education of his parents, the degree of his scholarship, the nationality of his pa- rents, the type of church he is affiliated with. The purpose of this was to find if students whose parents are highly educated are more warlike or peace loving than students whose parents had but little education. Or, whether Congregationalists are more pacifistic than Episcopalians, or Protestants more militaristic than the Catholics. Altogether fifteen such facts were known about the students who participated in the experiment.

It was found that six factors have no direct effect on the war attitudes of students. The education of his parents does not play any part in affecting the student in either the pacifistic or the mil- itaristic direction. It makes no difference in the war attitudes of students whether their fathers’ occupation is trade, business, or some profession. The amount of money spent monthly by the stu- dent is not related in any way to his attitude. In other words, the economic status of the student has nothing to do with his attitudes �[Page 269]WHY WAR? 269

toward war. Degree of intelligence as measured by a psychological test is not related to attitudes. The more intelligent student is not necessarily the more in favor or against war. There are just as many highly intelligent pacifists as there are highly intelligent militarists. The degree of nervousness the entering freshmen stu- dents had was ascertained by a psychological test. This condition, however, does not affect the war attitudes of students. The atti- tudes of employed students were also compared with the attitudes of the unemployed students, but no difference was noticeable.

Three factors showed a slight effect upon the war attitudes of students. Age is one. Older people tend to be less favorable to war than the younger ones. A group of ex-service men was com- pared with a group of non-service men. The world war veterans were found to be, on the average, somewhat more in favor of the war method than those who have never been in a war-service. Scholarship, as measured by the quality of work done, has also a slight influence on the attitudes of students. Those standing higher in scholarship tend to be more favorable to a peaceful way of solving international problems than students standing lower in scholarship.

Six conditions were found that showed a definite influence on the war attitudes of students as follows: education of students, sex, church affiliation, nationality of parents, interests, and political party. Education makes for an unfavorable attitude toward war. The more the student becomes educated, as he ascends the scale from freshman to graduate status, the more favorable he will be- come toward pacifism, as the scores 11.23, 11.32, 11.56, 11.93, 12.82 indicate for freshmen, sophomores, juniors, seniors, and graduates respectively. In his educational career his contacts with different types of students and peoples become more and more numerous, his outlook upon life broadens, he gets away from tra- dition and builds views of his own. That makes him more tolerant toward peoples other than the group of which he is a member.

Women are more opposed, on the average, to war than men, the average for women being 12.30 and 11.54 for men. �[Page 270]270 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINB

Ten denominations, such as Congregationalists, Baptists, and Disciples of Christ, were compared as to their attitudes. Lutherans and Catholics were found to be the most militaristic churches of them all. Catholics obtained a score of 11.17 and Lutherans a score of 10.89, while the Methodists and the Christian Scientists received scores of 11.87 and 11.92 respectively. Protestant denominations taken together are more inclined to support pacifism than the Roman Catholics (11.60 to 11.17). Evidently the more conserva- tive churches are more faithful to the old system of militarism. Lutherans and Catholics also appear to be less tolerant toward other churches than most of the other denominations tested. The most peace loving were students who did not specify any denomi- nation but simply said they were “Protestants.” This marks a dis. tinctly tolerant attitude toward the various Protestant denomina. tions.

Students both of whose parents were of non-Am .ican birth objected to war more strongly than students of American parent- age. The average attitude of non-Americans was 11.86 points and the average attitude of Americans 11.45 points. Another finding was that the combination of two nationalities in the institution of marriage makes for pacifistic attitudes in their children. Sons and daughters, one of whose parents was an American, an Englishman, or a German, and the other parent of another nationality, were definitely more strongly in favor of the peaceful way of solving international problems than students both of whose parents were either American, English, or German. This fact is numerically ex: pressed as follows. Students one of whose parents was American scored 11.92, but students both of whose parents were American scored only 11.45 points. Students only one of whose parents was English received 12.06 points, while students both of whose par- ents were English obtained a score of 11.46. Students one of whose parents was German made a score of 11.80 and students both of whose parents were German made a score of only 11.54 points. A combination of different national cultures through marriage or by �[Page 271]WHY WAR? 271

transplantation from Europe to America apparently makes for a more tolerant attitude of children toward cultures other than their own.

The Republican students (11.29) deviate little from the Dem- ocrats (11.49) in attitudes. The Socialists, however, (13.83) proved to be much more strongly opposed to war than either the Republicans or the Democrats, a fact which is to be explained by the international character of socialism.

Interest in study subjects is positively related to war attitudes. Students interested in social sciences such as sociology, economics, business, education, and psychology, were compared with students interested in natural sciences such as anatomy, botany, physics, and chemistry. The natural scientists were discovered to be more mil- itaristic than the social scientists, the average score being for the first group 11.30 and for the second 11.85 points. The natural scientists deal with mechanical and physical data and are evidently less likely to appreciate human life. Social scientists are dealing with human beings as a whole and with humanity in general and are more inclined to be against forces that would tend to destroy the best that there is in humanity.

Evidently, attitudes toward war are dependent among othet things upon education, sex, church affiliation, nationality of par- ents, interests, and political party. By these influences war attitudes are modified and developed from early childhood on until they take a more stable form in the adult age. Our institutions such as education, marriage, churches, are the great molders of attitudes of peoples and at present are producing favorable attitudes toward the greatest destructive institution in the world.

That is why war is recognized as a lawful institution today. Its universality and justification are acknowledged by the majority of peoples on earth as a method of solving international problems of conflict. The attitudes are favorable, that is “why.” It will stay with us with all its misery, destruction, and demoralization, until attitudes are changed. It is up to our powerful institutions to change the attitudes. But who will change the institutions? �[Page 272]ASSAYERS OF WAR

by EVELYN NEWMAN Professor of English, Rollins College

I. ARNOLD ZWEIG

writing short stories and plays for some years before the

war. He was twenty-seven when it came. He served from

1915 to its end in a labor corps and spent thirteen months before Verdun. His transfer from that front to those of Serbia and Macedonia gave him opportunity to study the machinery of war in its varied aspects. He says in an author's note at the end of his book that the plot of Sergeant Grischa is founded on fact and was conceived in the year 1917, composed and written as a play in 1921, and as a novel in 1926-27. He plans a trilogy of which Ser- geant Grischa is the central book. Education before Verdun will tell the story of Bertin, who appears as the clerk of Lawyer Pos- nanski in the tale of Grischa and the third volume will be The Crowning of a King. Its hero will be Lieutenant Winfried, the attractive and generous minded young nephew of General von Lychow.

The Case of Sergeant Grischa has a spaciousness in concep: tion and design approaching, in limited measure, to that of Tol- stoi’s War and Peace. The war, like a persistent bass in a vast orchestra, ever forces itself upon the attention while the story ot Sergeant Grischa is the sustaining motif, recurring in manifold aspects as it is given by the different groups in army and civilian life and is presented from their varying points of view. Thus Grischa’s fate is the central theme and unifying power. His des tiny gains a wider and wider sweep, until it is made to involve not

272

A RNOLD ZWEIG was educated to be a teacher. He had been �[Page 273]ASSAYERS OF WAR 273

only divisional generals like von Lychow and commandets-in-chief like Schieffenzhan, but the entire German Empire. With his death, its imminent fall is prophesied. It is this foreshadowing of events, this prophetic strain as it is interwoven with the relation of seem- ingly unimportant details, which nevertheless decide the actions of the great and thus move the course of destiny, that give the book its transcendental quality. We feel the sway of a divinity that shapes the ends of pigmy men. Yet we are never allowed to lose tor a moment the connection between cause and effect for indi- vidual and state, as we are never allowed to lose the impression of the war. The result of men’s actions and the vast and devastating result of the war as the cause of these actions constantly beat upon tne mind of the reader.

We are introduced to Grischa in a German lumber camp of a war-burned Russian forest, surrounded by his own prisoner friends ot whom he is leader, and by a scarcely less friendly group of older German soldiers in charge of the timber work: “In the whole company of prisoners two hundred and fifty men, who for the last nine months had been employed on sawing timber at the prison camp at Navarischkij, there were not two who would refuse any request Or disobey any order of Sergeant Grischa. .

“He had a jest for every man, and above all he had won the St. George’s Cross as far back as the siege of Przemysl; and every one of them knew that, for his part Grischa Iljitch would, and often did, help them in any way he could.”

The time of the story’s beginning is in the middle of March in the year 1917. The coming of spring was felt even in “black pillars of this corpse of a forest,” and Grischa’s strangely powerful grey-blue eyes showed that he felt its urge upon him. He had de- termined to escape by building up within the truckload of wood, upon which he was working, a coflin-shaped opening in which he could hide till the truck would reach the nearest point to the Russian line. Then he would slip away into the forest and finally teach his home in Vologda, far in northwestern Russia. The Rus- sian Revolution had caused great excitement, and deserters from the Xussian Army on every side were returning to their native villages. �[Page 274]274 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

Grischa had been a prisoner for sixteen months. He could no longer endure his captivity. He was a tall, powerful man in the prime of life. The military rule and the inevitable insolence of some of the corporals had begun to wear upon him till he feared an outbreak of passion in assault. He must go. The dull pain of homesickness was with all the men: “The most passionate soul o: them all was at work in Grischa, and thus it was that what many millions of men, dressed in all manner of different clothes, and all at that moment caught in the machinery of war, only longed to do, he did.”

Revolutionary thought is expressed at the very outset. The German soldiers on guard duty declared to each other that the, should do “like the Russkies, chuck down their rifles” and 0 home.

The German Army of the Eastern Front controlled a vast ex- tent of Russian, Lithuanian, and Northern Poland territory. The German like “a great helmeted land crab” took more and more power in all towns and villages. “Only the rivers moved in their usual course.” Every movement of the inhabitants was watched. The “Higher Powers” considered all this land as ultimately to be under German rule. Of this vast section Commander-in-Chuct Schieffenzahn was highest in control. Into the Division headquar- ters of General von Lvchow at Mervinsk, a small village in this section, Sergeant Grischa was brought at last, caught in the net: work of Military Police stretched over the whole domain. The most memorable incident of Grischa’s last period of struggle tor freedom is his standing before a notice-board in the village, ‘the notice board on which were printed in seven languages the procla: mation of the German High Command.” Herr Zweig scems to make an indictment upon society everywhere, when he so quictly states: “It is a weird feeling for a man who cannot read, to stand in the moonlight staring at a printed paper. A look of longing came into his eyes and he shook his head at the board with its edicts and decrees in seven languages. If he had been to schoo! this board would have told him where he was. He could not even tell the name of the village, still less how far it was from the Front, �[Page 275]ASSAYERS OF WAR 275

ot glean any other useful information from those columns of let- ters. What a sea of strange new knowledge would open out before him, had he but learnt to distinguish those black and white specks from one another! A soldier like Grischa can just recognize the several styles of characters, the crabbed German script, the grace- ful Polish and Lithuanian letters, the scrolled letters of the Rus- sians, and the square and dotted Jewish alphabet. ...

What a fine thing it would have been if a man could read at least one of these seven languages! It might be that one or other of these regulations affected him, although he would not have thought it likely.”

With Grischa’s capture, we are introduced to one of the most attractive military groups presented in the war literature—the members of General von Lychow’s staff. The General himself is a mellow old gentleman of seventy, who stands for the best in cul- ture and humanity of the old Junker type of the high officer class of the landed gentry. The death of his son in the war had madehim xo sympathetic and thoughtful towards his soldiers’ welfare that his men called him “Daddy,” and members of the controlling Army Staff behind the lines, represented by Chief Schieffenzahn, regarded him as an object of contempt and ridicule. Lieutenant Winfried, his nephew and aid, is twenty-two, has great affection tor his uncle whose ideals of justice and humanity excite his youth- tul enthusiasm. The General tells his sympathetic nephew about tus difficulties with “‘the fellows at Headquarters” who “think you can treat an army like a herd of cattle.” He relates the horrors of the western front where he received ‘‘the Iron Cross (1st Class) — which felt like the touch of a dead finger” to the gracious, anxious old man as he recalls the ‘blood and horror of Poziéres Cemetery.’” The losses had been “at least eleven hundred thousand. ‘Good God---—if we'd had eleven hundred thousand men in ’70 we'd have put France in our pocket.” _

From this sad topic of conversation they pass to the discussion ot a death sentence on a spy Bjuscheff, clearly proved as such. But the General refuses to sign it with a ‘No, thank you, no more dead men so early in the morning” and arranges to talk later in �[Page 276]276 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

the day with his divisional lawyer, Dr. Posnanski, who has had the case in hand. Young Winfried thinks: ‘Thank God, at least there’s one man with a heart among all these ancient butchers,” and resolves to make his uncle's morning as pleasant as possible with detail inspection which the Director of Medical Service had increased by taking over numbers of typhus hospitals, “hoping thereby to complete his collection of war medals.”

In the meantime, Grischa had been detailed to help the Jew coffin-maker Tawje in his necessary labors. As they worked, planing and fitting the boards together, they talked of Grischa’s case. Tawje assured him that justice to even one man was a very gteat matter indeed, and that whatever happened to Grischa would be for the best. Grischa saw again his comrades dying in the battle. “He beheld whole regiments, divisions, fields black with the heads of marching men. With strange exaltation he saw, and saw clearly, the empires and peoples of earth.”

Captain Brettschneider was the commandant of the village of Mervinsk and, as such, stood under the command of Chief Schief- fenzahn, not of the divisional commander General von Lychow. By General Schieffenzahn’s orders, the captain had taken charge of Grischa, who through the long months of anxiety,—first re- prieved from death, then re-sentenced to it,—had slowly grown by suffering and meditation: “...now he was dimly aware of the man on the other side, not only as of one who could fire a bullet at him, but also as of one who could be hit, whose flesh could be gashed and pierced, and who could feel the blow and the agony in every fibre of him.”

His mind was ‘‘free from the snares of language,” and so he understood all the more clearly. As he worked on some of the old Russian records, tearing out the fine parchment-like sheets for the use of the clerk Bertin, he thought of how he might have saved his life had he been able to read “the trap which the Germans had set with their printed notices in seven languages.”

Now all those experiences were over, and his bitter anger and grief wer: assuaged. He held nothing against his prison guard. “Upon their necks were the heels of those above them.” He re: �[Page 277]ASSAYERS OF WAR 277

flected upon his own murders, recalling to his mental vision the pictures of the men he had shot or stabbed, of one group of four among whom he had thrown a hand grenade, which burst and killed every one of them: ‘“Tawje had been sure of one thing. ‘Whoso sheddeth man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed.’ And he saw it: it had nothing to do with good or bad. The case of Grischa Paprotkin no longer seemed to him a thing foul and unnatural; it was quite in order.... This whole generation had shed man’s blood; and now this whole generation was to be poured forth in vats or buckets or drops of blood, no matter how. Justice must be served.”

By his request, Grischa digs his own grave with the help of two of his guards. At the end, “pride, sad, splendid liar, forced him to preserve his honor” and he died bravely, with what the oficial medical man, Dr. Lubbersch, who was compelled by army rulings, as was the chaplain, to be present, pronounced the “Hip- pocrates smile.” The Bavarian sergeant-major had had much ex- perience in such matters, and all the details were handled expe- ditiously and well. Soon his fifteen men were marching back to the village singing, and Grischa’s body, in a coffin made and se- lected by himself, was taken on a sleigh by two of a Hamburger regiment, to the Russian graveyard. As they were burying him, one of them remarked: ‘They say the fellow was innocent.”

Said the other: “I daresay he was, but what’s the good of that, we're all innocent.”

One reaches to universals of emotion, pity, love, by a thought- tul reading of Sergeant Grischa. The quality of the descriptions ot the seasons and their changes as corresponding to the changes in affairs of men brings it near to Ladislas Reymont’s epic The Peasants. The character of Grischa in his love of outdoor life, cnergy in work, and intuitive wisdom is like that of Isaac, the hero ot Knut Hamsun’s Growth of the Soil, Both these books give the atmosphere of peasant strength that we feel in Grischa. His reply to the final reading of his death sentence has a simple dignity like that made by Sacco and Vanzetti to the Governor of Massachusetts. �[Page 278]WHITHER BOUND RELIGION? A SYMPOSIUM

Collected and Edited by

PAUL RUSSELL ANDERSON Columbia University

SHOGHI EFFENDI Guardian of the Bahd't Faith

D: BENJAMIN JOWETT speaks of the Baha'i Faith as the

most important religious movement since the coming ot Christianity. Still in its childhood in the family of <eli gions, it has grown in one century from a small group ot eighteen followers to become a vital religious force in countries as far distant as the United States and Burma, among religious believers as theoretically distant as the Hindu and the Christian, among racial groups as widely diverse as those represented by the Scandanavian and South African. One of the chief merits of the Baha'i Faith lies in its universality, a universality of motive, pur pose, thought, and action as well as of geographical extent. The unusual tolerance and understanding of all other reli: gions, religious scriptures, and prophets which has been the Baha heritage to profess and practise shows a great breadth of vision. As Shoghi Effendi very correctly points out, a Christian, Muslim. or any other religious follower can become a Baha'i without relin quishing allegiance to his historic faith. The Baha'i Faith aims not at contradicting or opposing older faiths but rather at “modern. izing” and fulfilling them. The idea of evolution is very prominent in Baha’ism. Born in a century whose dominant scientific idea was that of evolution it seems quite natural that such a concept should be incorporated in

278 �[Page 279]WHITHER BOUND RELIGION! 279

the Baha’i world-view, but oddly enough the founders of the faith were uneducated and unschooled in the current thought-channels of the western world; thus the acceptance of evolution seems con- current with but not causally connected to other movements of the time.

The Baha'i not only accepts the idea of change, growth, and development on the plane of physical nature but evolution is ex- tended to the institution of religion itself. The founders of the grcat historic religions are all recognized as prophets, and they revere the Muhammads, Christs, and Buddhas of all religions. All religious truth is one in spirit and object and is known to humanity through progressive revelation. Thus Buddha revealed truth for his age, Jesus spoke for an era of Jewish legalism, Muhammad for the passive Arab world of the seventh century, and Baha'u'llah for our own.

Originally the Faith gathered followers as a reaction against a static, dull, insensitive faith which Islam in Persia had regressively become. The Bab, the ‘door,’ met the specifications for the new Imam, or religious ruler. His humanitarianism was unus- ually appealing. Following the Bab, who consistently spoke of him- self as merely opening the way for one greater, Baha’u'llah became the spokesman and prophet of the Faith. Imprisoned and exiled, he spent forty years of his life in confinement, but faithful believers tollowed him to Bagdad and later on to Acre where he died. ‘Abdu’l- Baha, his son, was named as the spiritual successor, and he, in turn, motivated the spread of the Faith to various parts of the globe until today, under Shoghi Effendi, there are, speaking conservatively, two million adherents.

The great ethical ardor inspired by the belief in the oneness ot humanity has challenged Baha'is to give unstintingly to social ser- vice, elimination of race hatred, international welfare, and other humanitarian projects. Baha’ism is distinctly a religion of love, love tor the Master, love for neighbors, love for aliens, love for human- itv. love for life, love for God. “Ye are all the leaves of one tree and the drops of one ocean.” �[Page 280]280 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

The oneness of God is quite as important as the unity of man. kind. ‘Abdu’l-Baha said, “All things are involved in all things. For every single phenomenon has enjoyed the postulates of God and in every form of these infinite electrons it has had its characteristics of perfection.” In other places the greatness of God is emphasized just as strongly as His oneness. Baha'u'llah said in the Iqan, ‘The Unseen Divinity and Essence of Oneness is beyond ascent and de- scent, ingress and egress; is exalted above the praise of every ptaiser and the comprehension of every comprehender. . . . Nore lation, connection, separation, union, nearness, remoteness, posi- tion, or reference is possible between Him and contingent things.”

The Baha'i Faith accepts science and admits of no controversy between science and religion. The historic conflict between these forces has been solved by two methods of procedure. Spinoza, who made a religion out of science, is the classic representative of one. Kant, who limited the realm of scientific investigation, represents the other. It is this latter procedure which Baha’fs follow. Man is gifted with spiritual as well as intellectual power. By intellectual prowess man becomes the governor of nature, but by spiritual reality in himself he transcends material relationships and touches reality in the divine, supernatural kingdom. ‘Abdu’l-Bahé says: “That celestial reality, the third reality of the microcosm, delivers man from the material world. Its power causes man to escape from nature’s world. Escaping, he will find an illuminating reality, transcending the limited reality of man and causing him to attain to the infinitude of God.”

The spirit of the Baha’i Faith is opposed to the static, set. formal, and rigid. It fervently believes in growth and progressive development in the natural world. It has faith in man’s emergence from the natural into the spiritual world, although in no sense does it serve as an escape from the active redirecting of forces on the natural plane. :

The superstructure for a vast world organization to carry out these ideals was formed by ‘Abdu’l-Baha. He planned for a Guard ian of the cause to serve as the official guide in the spread of Baha'i �[Page 281]WHITHER BOUND RELIGION? 281

ideals, Just before his death he chose his eldest SenEe Shoghi Effendi, for this task.

Shoghi lives in Haifa, Palestine, at the foot of the great Baha’i shrine where the Bab and ‘Abdu’l-Baha are buried. Fluent in numerous languages, cognizant of world trends, hopeful in the great international vision of his faith, Shoghi writes briefly but suggestively of what the underlying principle of future social relations must be.

“Baha'u'llah, the founder of the Baha'i Faith, has expressly revealed in His writings that the foundation of the Palace of Peace is the consciousness of the Oneness of Humanity. Baha'is the world over are actively engaged in inculcating this cardinal principle of their Faith in the minds and hearts of the peoples of the world and heartily welcome every association that desires to cooperate with them along these lines.”

(To be continued) �[Page 282]BOOK NOTES

A Planned Society, by George Soule. Macmillan: New Y ork. $2.50. No one can altogether welcome depressions. The suffering is too widespread and intense. But like adversities in the lives of individuals, depressions can be useful. They can have their stimu- lating effects. It has been so with the discussion of the systematiza- tion of industry in America, and the effects have really been notable.

In the first place, it was not long ago that Carrie Chapman Catt was complaining: ‘Patriotism, which formerly meant love of country, now means a constant preparation for war. A pacifist formerly was a person who believed in peace. Now he is a traitor who would not oppose the overthrow of our government, a person who holds with the Communists.” This was said in 1925. It was true then and it continued to be true until the stock market crash in 1929. Even more severe things were said of those struggling with the idea of national planning. They not only were not op- posing the overthrow of our Government, they were planning tt. They were not only holding with the Communists, they were Communists.

Anyone can say what he wants about this fall’s election and a great deal has already been said about it. But one thing that could be said has not been said of it: that it is the only election since the War not an clection of fright and fear. For the first time since 1918 Communism did not seem on the point of swallowing out institutions; the Pope seemed content to remain indefinitely in Rome; and not even Japan, whose military group had at last done what many people has feared it would when given the chance, could be made a national scare. The splinters of our falling struc: ture of prosperity drove home many a truth. The shock of depres: sion, of want, of stalking hunger and unemployed hordes filling and milling in the channels of our streets, had brought us to a few of our senses. This was one effect: we became impatient with ter

282 �[Page 283]BOOK NOTES 283

rorization and the last minute effort of a fading Administration to create a panic we instantly rebuked: we wanted to hear something that sounded hopeful and sensible.

There was still another effect. Throughout the past decade there has been a great deal of discontent. One great feature of our age is that nobody likes it. Yet few people in the hey-day of prosperity knew why or ventured to criticize it in very specific language. Such criticism as was made was half-formed, vague, indefinite.

With the depression, however, appeared concrete suggestions of a way out. From Stuart Chase came the suggestion of a Peace In- dustries Board paralleling the War Industries Board; from Charles A. Beard, the recommendation of a National Economic Council, regulating large industrial syndicates simply on the theory on which we now regulate public utilities, and supplemented by plan- ning agencies for agriculture, public works, foreign trade and ur- ban life; and from Gerard Swope, still another concrete recom- mendation.

All this was distinctly advantageous. National planning, in the first stages of national disillusion, like disarmament, had be- come a subject of great and popular conversation, and like dis- armament, no one had taken the trouble to think it through. I don’t know how most people feel about books on national plan- ning. No one of them has yet impressed me with having thought the thing through. But my feeling is that, apart from any intrinsic merit they may lack or possess, all the books are thoroughly worth reading. We are still in the early stages: we still need to hear what everyone has to say. None can be so presumptuous as to think he has the whole truth or be confident he has even a small part of it. It only for this reason I can cheerfully recommend Mr. Soule’s book.

But Mr. Soule’s discussion is an uncommonly good one, all things considered. He states the case of planning in a clear way, one might say in a scientific way, with the support of a dispassion- ate yet practical philosophy. It is systematic, which few treatments �[Page 284]284 WORLD UNITY MAGAZINE

have been. It starts with the philosophic basis of liberalism, traces its historical development, slows its dilemma now. He analyzes revolutionary doctrines and rejects them for reasons which sccm to me worth while. He describes our own planning in war time and Russia’s in peace time. He indicates one way in which he thinks we might begin to plan in this country. His book is read. able and useful, and one cannot speak too highly and encourag- ingly of these formative efforts to clarify a great international, as well as a great national, problem. If this is not such a book as Sidney and Beatrice Webb might have written, and indeed have written for England, one can point out that many books had to be written before the Webbs’ was possible and Mr. Soule’s will, I am sure, take a definite place in this country’s development of thought along this line. SMITH SIMPSON

Japanese In the United States, by Yamato Ichihashi. Stanford University Press, 1932. Pp. vii, 426. $4.00. This “critical study of the problems of the Japanese immigrants and their children,” written by the professor of Japanese History and Government in Stanford University, is the fruit of painstaking research of the greatest value. It is altogether a sad story which is told here, which must interest everybody who looks for the human background to world understanding and cooperation. Just remember the reactions to the “Exclusion Act of 1924.” Of truly poignant interest are the remarks and findings of the author regarding the second gencru:- tion Japanese, born in this country (and hence American citizens). who however, retain their foreign physical characteristics. “While very young they react barbarously against Japan and things Japan- ese, but as they grow older and face the reality of their peculiar status they react violently against America and things American. (p. 398). It is indeed very evident from Professor Ichihashi’s con- clusions that most of them, in spite of being American citizens with American training, are unable to obtain employment in their lines in the United States—their foreign physiognomy being against them. From another viewpoint the book brings out most �[Page 285]BOOK NOTES 285

forcefully many popular misunderstandings and misconceptions of out Japanese problem. It is indeed a volume which is indispens- able for the understanding of racial problems as they influence international relations. It should bring out great heart-searching among those who are willing to face the truth.

JOSEPH S. ROUCEK

The Background of International Relations, by Charles Hodges. John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1932. Pp. xvi, 743, $4.00. Professor Hodges of New York University approaches the study of international relations from a novel viewpoint. He sees the functioning of the major phases of international life of today in fundamental terms, which range from the physical setting of the struggles of nations to their political organization and conflicts of interests i: every sphere. Thus the author examines the geo- graphic influences, race formations and attitudes, the population pressures, economic imperialism and economic organizations of in- ternational life, the influence of communications on world unity, the forces making for world news, migrations of nations, search tor food and resources, the structure of the society of nations, the background of nationalism and internationalism, the formation of public opinion, the causes of wars, and international justice. The underlying idea of the author is quite prominent: all the present torces are making for the eventual formation of world unity, which, however, is being handicapped by tremendous forces, most- iv ot a social nature. Undoubtedly the author has been confronted with a tremendous task, demanding wide reading and the most ex- tensive knowledge of the general field of social sciences. In this Professor Hodges has been eminently successful. The reader will nnd here a volume which is full of diagrams, pertinent charts, maps and other illustrative material. The reading of the work uives new possibilities to the use of current events as the raw ma- terial of the study of world politics. �[Page 286]ROUND TABLE

Oscar Newfang’s article on World Federation in the Decem ber issue has been brought to the attention of more than two hundred and fifty organizations concerned with peace. Already « number of significant comments have been received, some endors ing and others rejecting that principle of world order. In February this correspondence will, as far as possible, be published, with comments by Mr. Newfang. Our exposition of this topic will be enriched by several articles now under preparation by Carl A Ross, whose “World Citizenship” series appeared in World Unit; two ycars ago.

In ‘Assayers of War’ we have the first of two articles con cluding the series by Dr. Evelyn Newman on the novel of the war years. We feel certain that no other scholar has so thorough); examined the literature of war in this period, nor brought to his research a more intense conviction of the human values of peace

Donald Richberg and Gorham Munson, from different prem ises, make valuable contributions to the problem of adjusting in: dustry to the needs of the new age. For permission to use Mr. Richberg’s article we are grateful to the editors of The American Federationist. It is interesting to contrast the difference between the American and European approach to the same fundamenta! problem. In Europe, where feudalism still exists to some degree in the political and social orders, economic readjustment seems to involve more radical change than in America.

The “Apostles of World Unity” series pays tribute this mont): to the woman whose vision of united womanhood led to the rapid extension of the Y.W.C.A. to all parts of the world. A photograp!: ot Miss Dodge is unattainable, but the symbol reproduced as out Frontispiece this month can be regarded as an illustration of her universal spirit.

Current interest in Technocracy emphasizes the importance o! our symposium by scientists and engineers on “The Substance ot

280 �[Page 287]ROUND TABLE 287

\orld Cooperation.” It is in the combination of a truly humane spirit and technical p#oficiency that the new age will organize it- cif so as to eliminate war, poverty, ignorance and disease. But the tusk of transferring the constructive instruments of civilization ‘rom selfish to unselfish agencies will, before its completion, throw society into the melting pot of universal change.

“The Common Message of the World’s Great Teachers,” we are very happy to announce, is to be published soon by Putnam’s, and is under consideration by the Religious Book Club. A more detailed statement will be made next month. Meanwhile, the fact that such a work can appear and attract the attention of responsible religious leaders as well as thoughtful laymen indicates a tremen- Jous degree of progress in a single life time. A letter received trom Mr. Edward Berwick of Pacific Grove, California, proves how far we have advanced: “In my early years, which began in i843, children were taught that to think was damnation, and the one essential to personal salvation was to be credulous. ‘Only be- ueve!’ was the slogan of all churches.” Since our existing social collapse has this definite cause in spiritual ignorance, World Unity must be pardoned if it gives such predominance to the spiritual ciement in the formation of the new world society. The fatal lack in all exclusively political or economic plans for improvement is chat they either imply that the world can be transformed but hu- manity left in its present condition, or that humanity will imme- diately become perfect when its environment perniits.

It cannot be insisted too often that civilization is nothing but the projection of man’s inner self—his desires and purposes—as the moving picture is the faithful transcript of what is printed on the film. If we object to the picture, we must make a better film. To demand a larger screen or a stronger projector is not mercly isufficient—it inevitably magnifies all that is wrong on the film. The modern world is nothing but a tremendous screen and a mighty projector, used to run off the same picture of conflict the savage knew on a smaller scale. �[Page 288]AMERICAN FLOATING UNIVERSITY

The primary purpose of the American Floating University to provide opportunities for students to make first-hand studies World conditions and World affairs, to meet the leaders of Sta Business, Education and Religion in practically every country « the Globe, through personal conferences to obtain their point view and thus to further a more complete international understan ing and appreciation of those particular problems and conditio . affecting each individual country.

In addition to the College Courses, each student actual experiences many practical demonstrations of Domestic and F eign business methods and International Relationships. More th 150 American Colleges and Universities grant full Academic Cr to their students taking approved courses on the World Stud Tours of the American Floating University.

The minimum cost of the World Tour is $1,500. All stud enjoy the same advantages and the same social, political and ed cational contacts.

The American Floating University is conducted on a passen liner especially equipped for students. It is a Floating Camp which provides library, assembly hall, classrooms, Laboratori chapel and gymnasium.

Courses offered conform fully to American academic st ards. A student who is registered in one of the cooperating c leges or universities may thus complete a full year of college wo on the world tour and graduate from his own college and with own class without loss of time.

The Adult Division provides exceptional opportunities alo many lines for those who wish to participate in the educatio advantages of the World Tour, but who are not seeking colle credits.

Next sailing date February 4, 1933. Write for catalog and application blank.

AMERICAN FLOATING UNIVERSITY

Ik. STANLEY P. Wooparp, Dr. James E. Loven, Presiden Chairman, Board of Trustees, 66 Fifth Ave., New York City 37 Wall St., New York City �