THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT

I. SOCIAL JUSTICE

The Outlook proposes, in a series of editorial articles, to interpret to its readers the Progressive Movement-a movement which has created one of our political parties and modified the platforms and principles of the other two, a movement which is more than political and more than National, a movement which is transforming the religious, the educational, and the industrial as well as the political creeds and institutions of the world. These articles will be primarily interpretation, not advocacy, but will frankly, though incidentally, indicate the reasons why The Outlook gives its support to the Progressive party in the present political campaign.

How to prevent the concentrat of wealth and the widespread extent of poverty has been the theme of political students for centuries. The social injustice which this wealth concentration causes has for centuries created in the oppressed classes a discontent varying in degree from a dull despair to a furious outburst of wrath, and has aroused in humane souls a fiery indignation, expressed sometimes in fierce invective, sometimes in open war.

It

It is eloquent in the pages of the Hebrew prophets-Isaiah, Micah, Amos, Hosea. is expressed in the writings of the Christian Fathers in language radical even for the radical democracy of our time. It inspired the ministry of Francis of Assisi. It sharpened the sword of Oliver Cromwell. It kindled and fed the devastating fires of the French Revolution. It gave our fathers the audacity to declare their independence of Great Britain. It was the creator of the emancipation movement in America, the West Indies, Russia.

It has in these latter days inspired efforts to discover some quick and easy panaceain Anarchism, because government has fostered injustice; in Socialism, because capitalists have been often callous and sometimes unjust; in the Single Tax, because land tenure has promoted monopoly. The Progressive Movement of our time is one phase of this world-wide demand for an order of society which will give to all God's children a fair opportunity to live a life worth living.

This discontent is not due to "sensational journalism and unjust and unprincipled muck

raking." Were Isaiah and Micah and Amos and Hosea muck-rakers or unprincipled journalists ?

It cannot be cured by the successive failures of some rich men and the successive deaths of all rich men and a consequent distribution of their property. Rich men have been failing and dying ever since the days of Solomon and Croesus, and still there are the two classes in society-some with incomes so great that they cannot spend them, and others with incomes so small that they cannot live on them.

Charity has done much to relieve the more distressing conditions of the intolerably poor; but it has done nothing to abolish the twofold social evil of hungry poverty and irresponsible wealth.

The tariff has not caused the evil, and the abolition of the tariff cannot cure it. For the poverty is more abject, the discontent deeper, the social injustice greater, in free-trade England than in tariff-protected America.

The Christian churches cannot cure the evil. They can inspire the will to cure it, and wherever there's a will there's a way. But the will, once inspired, must find the way. Christianity inspires the spirit of human brotherhood. But how to realize human brotherhood in a reorganized society humanity must learn by study and experiment.

To realize this human brotherhood-a brotherhood in which every child will have a fair opportunity to grow to a noble manhood, and every man will have a fair opportunity to live a rich, free, useful, happy life, is the object of the Progressive Movement, in whatever country and under whatever form it appears. It is more, far more, than a cry for bread or work or rent or houses or employment; it is a cry of growing humanity for fullness of life. Take off these swaddling-clothes and give me liberty, is the demand of the twentieth century.

The Outlook supports the Progressive party, primarily because it is the one party which clearly sees and frankly recognizes the social injustice in democratic America, and courageously sets itself the task of studying and removing the causes which produce it. This the new party does with the intelligence of men and women of wide culture and with the enthusiasm of men and women unselfishly devoted to the welfare of their fellows. That its understanding of causes and its prescription of remedies may in some

respects be mistaken is immaterial. ity of purpose and courage of conviction, coupled with intelligence and an open mind, will correct such errors if they exist.

The remedies which the Progressive party proposes are, for the most part, those which The Outlook has been urging on the American public for over thirty years. Of course we welcome the party which is created for the purpose of making those remedies efficient.. With most of the purposes of the Progressive party as they are outlined in its platform, and with its entire spirit as manifested in its National Convention, we are in hearty accord.

We wish to see an educational system which will educate our boys and girls for life, not merely for college, which will give as much honor and as much attention to industrial as to academic education, which will give a fair opportunity for development to every boy and girl in America, and which will do this by educating them for their life, not away from it.

We wish to see an industrial system which will give to those who carry on our organized industries some share in the profits and some share in the control of the industry; incomes so far equalized that every willing worker can earn a livelihood adequate for the comfortable support of himself and his family, and no healthy man living on an unearned income for which he renders no equivalent to society; hours of labor so adjusted that every workingman, whether he works with his hands or his head, can have a reasonable time for rest, recreation, and his home life; eight hours made the normal working day and six days the normal working week in all organized industries; laws enacted which shall make the consequences of ordinary accidents fall automatically on the industry, not, as now, on the workingmen, and which shall protect the children in their right to childhood and the mothers in their right to motherhood; and the government of the Nation and of the State equipped to protect and promote the health of the people.

We wish to see the problem of promoting our agricultural interests studied with the same care with which the Nation has studied the promotion of our mining and manufacturing interests, and more of the profits left to the farmer and less paid to the transportation systems and the middlemen.

We wish to see the railways fully recognized as highways of the Nation, and so carried on as to be of equal benefit to the

smallest and the biggest shipper; our great industrial organizations, whether of capitalists or workingmen, not disorganized or discouraged, nor made illegal, but recognized by law, encouraged by public opinion, and brought under such legal regulation and control as will make them beneficial, not prejudicial, to the public.

We wish to see a thorough reorganization of our tax methods, State, municipal, and National, so that what is now a chaos shall become a system, and so that the taxes shall be proportioned to the extent and value of the property protected by the Government.

We wish to see the past and present alliance between special interests and corrupt politicians destroyed, and government in all its phases administered for the equal benefit of the many, not for the special benefit of the few.

We wish to see the courts of justice so officered and organized that the poor man shall have an equal chance with the rich man, Ahab no advantage over Naboth, the rich criminal no immunity from punishment and no delay in receiving it.

We wish to see an end put to grants of the people's property to private owners; the mineral and forest lands and the great water powers now belonging to the people kept in their control; and measures studied for the purpose of regaining for the people the control of the public property of which they have been deprived, partly by their own carelessness.

We wish to see the people unmanacled; free to nominate as well as to elect their representatives; free to re-elect them as long as they are satisfied with the service rendered; free, either by long terms with recall or short terms without recall, to dismiss them when the service is not satisfactory; and free, when the Legislature and the Courts disagree respecting the authority of the Legislature, to decide between the two.

This is not Anarchism. The Anarchists wish for a weak government or none at all. The Progressives wish for a strong govern

cal ambition or the political skill of a single man. It is not due to any recent stirring up of discontent, either by individuals or by It is a stage in the development of democracy: its inspiration, an enthusiasm for humanity; its aim, social justice for the less fortunate of mankind; its guiding principle, faith in the capacity of the people to direct safely the destiny of the Nation if the hindrances to their free control are taken away.

LETTERS TO UNKNOWN. FRIENDS

Early evening. A young mother sitting before an open fire in the parlor, day-dreaming of love. Upstairs the little girl whom she has just tucked in bed. A little stirring in the room overhead, the mother's ear alert to listen. Then a patter of little feet upon the stairs and along the hall, and the mother, through the portière which separates the parlor from the dining-room, sees this childish Eve climb on a chair, take a big, rosy apple from the fruit dish in the center of the table, and patter back through the hall and slowly climb the stairs again.

It would have been so easy to stop the theft before it was completed, or detect the culprit with her booty in her hand. But this is a wise mother. She does not care to stop' the uncompleted theft or to detect the culprit and compel her to a shamefaced but reluctant confession. She wishes, not to stop the child from committing a sin, but to prevent her from becoming a sinner. She wishes, not to control her daughter, but to create in her daughter a power of self-control. She wishes any confession to be not compelled but voluntary, not reluctant but spontaneous. She waits and thinks. She is accustomed to think first and act afterward. Wise mother!

And as she waits, still all alert, she hears a stirring again in the room overhead, and again the patter of little feet upon the stair and along the hall. What? Is the child going to take another apple? No! she climbs into the chair, puts the purloined apple back into the fruit dish, and through the curtained doorway the gladdened mother hears the childish voice say softly, with what was half a sigh and half a chuckle, "That's one on you, Satan." And then the feet patter along the hall and climb the stairway, and all is still. And the mother is thankful in her

heart that she did not follow her first impulse and interfere.

This true story, as it has been told to me, suggests the answer to certain questions which some of my Unknown Friends have lately put to me. For it contains four of the elements of life's continuous drama-temptation, sin, repentance, victory. The fifth element is not there-redemption. For the mother did not save the child; the child saved herself.

Temptation is not sin. The childish desire for the apple was a perfectly innocent desire. Temptation involves no sin. Gluttony is sin, but appetite is not. Stealing is sin, but the desire to acquire property is not. The child desired the apple-that was quite right. She also desired to be an honest little girl and to be worthy of her mother's approbation. That was of course quite right. She sinned when the desire for the apple mastered the desire to be an honest little girl and to be worthy of her mother's approbation.

If

Taking the apple was not the sin; it was a consequence of the sin. The sin began when she began to indulge in the wish to get the apple which was not hers, and which she knew her mother would disapprove her taking. It was consummated when she resolved to disobey her conscience and disregard her mother's wish and take the apple. In this resolve, this act of the will, the sin was committed. If when she got downstairs she had found that the maid had locked the apples up in the closet and there was no apple there, still she would have sinned. she had resolved to wait until her mother went out to make an evening call and then go down without fear of detection, and instead had fallen asleep and had wakened in the morning disappointed that she had not been able to complete her purpose, still she would have sinned. A sin is completed when the resolve to complete it is made. "Sin is lawlessness." It is the conscious disregard of a higher law for the gratification of a desire which in itself may be entirely innocent. It is entirely innocent for the little child to wish the apple. It is not innocent for her to desire the apple more than she wished to obey the voice of her conscience telling her not to take it.

Being sorry for having done wrong is not repentance, though repentance involves being sorry for the wrong done. If the little girl had taken the apple and carried it upstairs, and then had begun to be afraid

that the apple would be missed and she herself detected, or, without that fear, had begun to feel ashamed of herself and had even wished that she had not taken the apple, that would not have been repentance. She repented when she resolved to take the apple back and put it in its place in the fruit basket. Repentance is not feeling, though it involves feeling; it is not action, though it generally involves action. Repentance is the resolve not to repeat the wrong done, and to do all that one can do to repair its effects. No repentance is genuine which does not involve an earnest desire, and, when repair is possible, a serious endeavor, to undo the wrong committed. Peter's repentance was not completed when he went out and wept bitterly. It never would have been completed had he not accepted from his Master his recommission and gone out to acknowledge his Lord and confess his faith in him, always at the peril and eventually at the cost of his life. Judas Iscariot was sorry that he had betrayed his Master-so sorry that he committed suicide. But Judas Iscariot did not repent.

When undoing the wrong which we have done involves confession, repentance involves confession. When undoing the wrong we have done does not involve confession, repentance does not involve confession. The little girl completed her repentance when she put the apple back. She might never tell her mother of her temptation, her sin, her repentance, her victory; she might even think that to do so would seem more like boasting than confessing.

The child was a better child for her experience, and better equipped for life because she had passed through it. The mother might well feel a new pride in her little girl because her little girl had won such a victory; and the child herself might well experience a feeling of exultation in that she had won so hard a battle.

This incident may not, probably will not, suffice to answer the questions of several of my Unknown Friends respecting the nature of temptation, sin, and repentance. But it may suggest to them trains of thought which will lead them to some light on their questions.

And some light also on another question which in different forms several of them ask : Why does God allow this terrible drama of sin to go on unchecked when he might so easily stop it? Perhaps for the same reason

eagerly seeking matinée tickets! In such surroundings the great talker would have burst into profanity or sunk into despairing silence. In a great modern hotel personality is dissolved in a vast pool of promiscuous humanity, as in certain Oriental religions it is lost in a tideless sea of life.

The inn has individuality, and not only makes room for personality, but sets a little stage and provides an audience for it. Poets and novelists have not been slow to see its uses for literary purposes, and before the Canterbury Pilgrims set out from the Tabard Inn the ease of companionship offered by the inn had been often celebrated. Romance and crime have found lodgings at the inn, and many bold stratagems and stirring fights have made inns memorable and dear to those who love the atmosphere of adventure.

Mr. F. Hopkinson Smith had ample precedent for laying the scene of his latest book in one of the most fascinating inns in the world. There are famous inns in Normandy, but none so captivating at first sight as the inn at Dives which bears the name of William the Conqueror. From this little town that vigorous Norman set sail for England, and made himself responsible for an immense number of pedigrees, real and fictitious.

If the Barons and Knights who acquired England without the vexatious and dilatory processes of law had had lodgings in the inn which now bears the name of their daring and predatory leader, they never would have left France. Mr. Smith emphasizes the delights of the noble dining-room and the great hearth at the "William the Conqueror" in the title of his book, "The Arm-Chair at the Inn;" but he does not fail to celebrate the court around which the old inn wanders and in which one can never drink his coffee without feeling that the curtain has lifted on the most captivating stage he has ever seen and that the opera is about to begin. Spread out before you," writes this painterromancer, "lies a flower-choked yard flanked about on three sides by a chain of mossincrusted, red-tiled, seesaw roofs, all out of plumb. Below, snug under the eaves, runs a long go-as-you-please corridor, dodging into a dozen or more bedrooms. Below this again, as if tired out with the weight, staggers a basement from which peer out windows of stained glass protected by Span

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The Arm-Chair at the Inn. By F. Hopkinson Smith. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.