Democracy and Society

WE plead for effort to promote, between the classes spiritually severed, a common life of mind, heart, and desire. But this does not mean that we desire men to abandon their natural vocations and devote themselves to philanthropy at large. Experiments with benevolence as an occupation are rarely a success, and general sociability, even with the poor, can never constitute a worthy existence. So abnormal is our situation, indeed, that different means of helping or handling our less fortunate brethren are, almost against their will, running into a formal mould, and becoming professions in which the amateur is helpless. But these developed social agencies, — organized charities, working girls’ clubs, college settlements, and the like, — necessary though they be, can never furnish in full measure the unifying force we need. They can but point the way; more, their very professionalism prevents. The history of each of these movements is the same: they begin with a human passion, they end with a crystallized system. As the process goes on, they slough off to a greater or less degree the theories that initiated them, and become increasingly efficient, but also increasingly limited in scope. Their representatives, imbued with horror at the idea of applying mere untrained sentiment to the complex problems of our society, often speak as if the perfecting of these agencies were the chief thing needful. This is not so. Perfected they must indeed be; but as they become more and more useful factors in the existing machinery, more and more competent means to retrieve certain phases of social disaster, the spirit that yearns toward full social regeneration, the spirit of the amateur, the lover, leaves them and passes on.

But if neither benevolence at large nor benevolence focused can furnish the lead to the closer fellowship we desire, where may we look for it ? The world clamors for brotherhood and finds it not; a whole literature grows on our hands, taxing for its absence church, state, the business system, what you will. Constructive efforts, often radical enough, are not wanting. To glance at one type only, during the last decade of the nineteenth century, several groups of Americans withdrew from a world dedicated to enmity, and in a spirit of impassioned consecration shaped their community life into socialistic forms. The gradual failure of one after another of these heroic little communities saddens and almost perplexes; yet brooding over it, surely one comes to feel that the ideal of unity can never be enshrined in an experiment which begins by cutting itself off from the common life, imperfect and even evil as this life may be. Unconsciously to themselves, these communities, like the old monastic orders, were separatist at heart. Seeking to escape the burden of the common guilt, to them it was not given to redeem.

It is surely well for us to realize that Nature is not in the habit of making fresh starts. She brings no new matter into existence; rather, by that action of law which forever makes for fuller life, she consecrates the old to new and higher uses. In our ceaseless impatience to get a clean sweep and begin over again, we need to remember that Resurrection is a process in which we have more share than in Creation, — even though we also remember that the life of the resurrection is not attained save through anguish. Schemes abound, large and little, for establishing new enterprises to express new ideas. Were it not more to the point to consider how the agencies that we already possess may be sacrificed that they may arise ? Democracy is no external form,but a transforming force. The eighteenth century gave birth to it; the nineteenth saw its long struggle to achieve recognition in the spheres of theory and fact. It remains for the twentieth century, in the gray dawn of which we move, to discover by experiment and reflection in detail the spiritual transformation that it is to achieve. For re-creation, not destruction, is its watchword. Slowly the democratic idea pervades life at every point, and transfigures the abiding, normal activities of men into a new likeness. In these activities, inspired by democratic passion and shaped to a democratic type, is it not possible that we may find, in large measure, the unifying agents that we seek ?

Faint and scattered glimpses of this transforming process are all that can be vouchsafed to-day to any thinker; but to chronicle such glimpses may be to help the process on. Glance, for instance, at the opportunities to help the cause of social unification possessed, did they but realize it, by the professional classes. Allied to the manual workers by their status as wage-earners, to the children of privilege by their mental conditions, these classes form a natural link between the two; moreover, although we have as yet no “intellectual proletariat ” such as is found in Europe, the state of things economically in professional life is becoming more and more like that which obtains in the trades. The fact, whether we rejoice in it or lament it, throws open a door: labor becomes predisposed to sympathy with the professions, and professional men might, on the other hand, bring a singularly close comprehension to the problems of labor. Fairminded professional men, claiming, as they have logical right to do, a place within the ranks of organized labor, would have rare power as interpreters, if not as peacemakers, in times of stress. Such a suggestion, to be sure, makes demands on the imagination, and draws a smile to the lips; yet at least one Federal Labor Union exists, open, by constitution approved by the American Federation of Labor, to “members of otherwise unorganized trades, ” — a title under which certain college professors, authors, and clergymen are pleased to rank themselves.

But before such an impulse can be widespread, it is obvious that the professions, one by one, must be socialized. If we cannot with impunity transmute our attitude into a profession, we can at least transform our profession by our attitude. Through almost any profession, even through the most unlikely, the great work of social unification may be advanced. To the individualistic mood of the central nineteenth century, who seemed farther from “the commons ^ than did the artist ? “ La haine du bourgeois,” so entertainingly voiced by Théophile Gautier, had not yet been supplemented by devotion to the proletariat, and the lover of art gathered his cloak about him to avoid the touch of vulgarity, cast off the dust of democracy from his feet, and mused upon the Beautiful. “All art,” wrote a disciple of Gautier, “is entirely useless.” To-day art is returning to the people, and seeks to revive her old alliance with the crafts; for she realizes that until the instinct for beauty in use reawakens through a quickening of the creative power in the workman, the higher beauty that is beyond use can never flourish among us. Artists turn socialists, like Crane, Morris, Brush; like Watts, they dedicate their noblest powers to the service of the many instead of to the select appreciation of the few. The time draws near — it is almost here already — when art will be more affected than any other profession by the democratic ideal.

The transformation advances; yet there are still professions in which it is hardly guessed. How splendid, and how seldom realized, the chance of the journalist to serve as social interpreter! Without accusing the press of a partisan spirit, still less of venal devotion to the interests of capital and privilege, any one who knows must admit that, except when some histrionic effect is to be obtained, it is strangely blank to the inner realities of working-class life. But the social profession par excellence 舒 that which offers greatest opportunity for truly social action — is that storm-centre of the modern world, the profession of the employer of labor. This profession above all others needs to be socialized, but in the nature of the case it will probably be the last to yield to the ethical transformation that is going on in the professional world at large. More than forty years ago, Ruskin pointed out that to the Christian merchant, no less than to clergyman or doctor, the first object should be, not personal success, but the service of the community, and that the merchant has his “occasion of death ” in the duty to suffer financial ruin rather than to put dishonest goods on the market or to pay his workmen less than a “living wage.” We touch on burning ground. From all quarters arise protests and objections: the time-worn argument, which might as well be adduced against laying down the life in battle, that a man has no right to make his family suffer; the more specious objection that in the intricate network of commercial relations the ruin of one falling firm causes misery more widespread than the underpayment of a few hundred employees. However these things may be, it is evident that nowhere in the great struggle to realize social justice is there a post so charged with opportunity, perplexity, and spiritual danger, as that of the employer impassioned for human brotherhood. Industry has already, and in high places, its martyrs as well as its victims; it counts in every state of the Union more than one employer who has the martyr spirit, and only waits for the blow to fall. In view of the moral tension that pervades the industrial world, and of the vast and involved questions to be decided there, one feels that a business life may well attract young men of heroic temper and keen desire for moral adventure: one is also inclined to feel that only entire readiness for sacrifice can justify a young man in whom the social conscience is fully awake in venturing upon it.

But, indeed, readiness for social sacrifice in the name of democracy is the need of the hour. The profession of employer is that which to-day most directly calls for its martyrs; yet it is obvious that the social transformation, like all great changes, can in no case be fully accomplished without heavy cost. Times will arise when the social conscience will keep one poor where one might be rich, or, what is more grievous far, prevent one from reaching the highest point of professional activity. Is the sacrifice worth while ? The answer comes without hesitation from men and women who make it quietly every day. Looking at the situation of our people to-day with the eyes of a patriot, one must surely say that a strong determining influence in the choice of a profession should be found in the opportunities for social activity of the higher type which it offers. Naturally, no such statement can be made without reserve. There are clear vocations not to be withstood ; though the inward call summon the young man to a region far from human fellowship, he can but rise and follow. But such calls are rare. The average person is helped to decision by no irresistible summons of temperament; he is simply aware of a certain modicum of inward force, which within limits he may direct as he will. In this our time of class alienation and civic stress, the professions that make for social unity and peace should as naturally draw the flower of our patriotic youth, as the profession that defends the nation from enemies without draws them in time of war.

But the transforming power of the democratic ideal must affect society at large as well as special functions in society. Before democracy can do its perfect work, men must be in democratic relations to one another, not only politically, not only professionally, but socially, — a short sentence that looks forward to a long evolution. Despite our faint theories to the contrary, class rules in America all hut as rigidly as in the Old World. True, it is almost a rarity among us to find people on the same social level as their fathers; but a society is not democratic because it accepts the aristocrat of intellect or money, whatever his antecedents: it is only democratic when the natural instinct of selection in fellowship, according to the mysterious harmonies of temperament, can have free play, irrespective of class distinction. It is to he feared that the feeling of some people is not unlike that of a French general who remarked to the writer, “I am a democrat, in a sense a socialist. I am always severe, to he sure, with my servants, — why not ? I am the master. But I am always cordial, unless angry. ” The public applauds a President of the United States who in his hospitality ignores the color line; to ignore the class line were a different matter. Perhaps our attitude is right, or at all events inevitable ; only in this case let us “ clear our minds of cant, ” and put some clear and vigorous thinking on the rational limits of democracy. A theory which does not translate itself into act is a sentimental delusion. Seldom, indeed, at least in the great cities, does one find sons or daughters of privilege who have formed with working men or women the sort of relation that might naturally lead to an invitation to dinner. A trivial fact, certainly ; yet it is mournfully true that if this one relation — the sign and seal of social equality — be tabooed, no other will in the long run avail to create fellowship beyond suspicion. For between fellowship and benevolence the working people draw the line unerringly. So long as there are large sections of the private life of the privileged classes which no outsider is invited to enter, the workers will never believe that our desire for social unity is real. Most of them, indeed, take the present state of things for granted ; but let us beware of assuming that they hold it satisfactory or righteous. The shrinking suspicion displayed by the more self-respecting in the presence of our best-intentioned philanthropies is the measure of the sensitive pride with which they realize and resent their social ostracism. This may be a false attitude on their part; in order to dissipate it, however, we must remove American air from their nostrils, and import an entire atmosphere from the Old World.

To seek personal relations, free from any philanthropic flavor, with those who are doing the practical work of the world is the most direct means possessed by most people of helping to create the new society. This we are learning to recognize ; although, as many an enthusiastic young person has found to his sorrow, fellowship cannot be attained by sudden means. One cannot pounce upon a fellow mortal, demand his friendship, and seek to penetrate the citadel of his soul, simply because he is a laboring man. A community of interests must exist before relations of a personal kind can arise in a natural and simple way; and the difficulty of discovering any such community is as striking comment as could be found on the alienation of classes. Nevertheless, tact, wisdom, above all, patience without limits and entire indifference to conventions, can establish or create it. Herein lies the chief value of settlements, and also of certain other agencies, less democratic, more philanthropic in cast, — they furnish a method of approach between members of the separated classes.

Yet just here one must signal a danger that besets even the settlement movement, — nearest approach that we have evolved to a true expression of democracy, but imperiled by its very success. Our end of social unity will never be reached by establishing special centres wherein the arts of brotherhood shall be practiced. It is easy for any one to pass a few months, or even years, comfortably enough, as a rule, in a house dedicated to a pleasant theory, — to dance and talk and entertain, and find keen satisfaction in the play. But the test comes afterward. Settlements are means, not ends; they fail unless they foster in the children of their spirit an attitude which will cause each and all to exercise ceaseless, loving, democratic activity in the normal and permanent life. The true centre of social unification, the strategic point where the battle of the spiritual democracy will be lost or won, is the ordinary home. If this be Utopian, then will democracy remain forever located in Utopia.

It is obvious that the average American home is otiose, so far as distinctive service to the democratic cause is concerned. And it is probably often impracticable to make any new demands on homes of the older generation. The contretemps and discomforts attendant in such cases on any attempt to extend social relations on unconventional lines defeat the aim, and witness to the distance which we have traveled de facto from our American assumptions. But new homes are forming every day: many of them are founded by young men and women trained in colleges where the theory of social equality is edging its way, and in settlements where the practice of social equality is attempted. Is it too much to hope that every such home might become a centre of brotherly love practiced deliberately beyond the bounds of class distinction ? In no arbitrary nor sudden manner can be overcome the prejudices and the indolence of generations : nor can we wonder if incredulity, reluctance, and perhaps rudeness, meet our efforts to know our poorer brethren without reserve. But the invincible power of a high conception can put to flight the evil phantoms of timidity, distrust, distaste, and create fellowship unhampered. In the familiar interchange of thought and feeling that results, the common life we seek is born at last.

“Cabined, cribbed, confined,” as we are within the limits of class-consciousness, the life of untrammeled fellowship is yet nearer than we often think. The attitude which we desire lies behind us as well as before, and we have a tradition to which we may return, as well as an ideal toward which we may strive. A large degree of democratic feeling and practice still exists in America, — more, to be sure, in the West than in the East, more in country than in city. The simpler New England of our forefathers, for instance, represented a social ideal which may well rebuke us of these later days; here, there was no need consciously to seek what existed as a matter of course. Many of us probably still know, in our summer wanderings, innocent and lovely regions where the relation between servants, hosts, and guests is happily unformulated, and a gentle simplicity of manners produces hospitality without limits of convention; and most people who are fortunate enough to share for a season the life of such pleasant valleys or mountain nooks find in them an image of abiding freedom and peace. The very fluidity and freedom of American life, moreover, the easy escape of the individual from barriers once impassable, may introduce, though it do not in itself constitute, a democratic society; for the majority of Americans who have arrived within the pale of what for lack of a better term we call the privileged classes can find, if they will, natural ties with the manual workers. Best of all, greatest and strongest help toward the achievement of the new society, is the indubitable fact that the democratic life, when once attained, is the natural home of the human spirit.

Three things hold us apart: the mere physical distance which, especially in cities, separates the homes of rich and poor; the tension of American life, keeping us all as busy as we can possibly be, whether the heavy flails we wield thresh wheat or chaff; and our own sense that the psychical distance is insuperable, supplemented by the curious instinct to limit our relations to people who like the same books, or art, or manners, as ourselves. Obstacles real and great; but overcome the first two, and the last mysteriously vanishes. When the socializing impulses of democracy are vitally at work within us, we become aware, to our own surprise, that the desire to consort with people better endowed than ourselves with wealth or intelligence is an impulse less profoundly natural than the yearning, for our soul’s health, to know a wider fellowship with those by whose labor we live. True, so abnormal is our situation that artificial means must often be sought in order to get into normal relations with our fellowcitizens. But once initiate these relations, and difficulties are over; one discovers in one’s self, with amazed delight, a sense of social ease and pleasure, of enlargement and peace, such as he has probably never known before. This is a strange experience, but it is known to many of us. Will not fellowship between the educated and the uneducated be a make-believe after all ? asks some bland inquirer with a choice enunciation. Let us whisper in reply: he of whom you ask has found true and nourishing intercourse more possible with some hard-working man or woman who knew no grammar, and could converse on neither art nor letters, than with the cultured questioner. For friendship rests on nothing so simple as the inheritance of the same class tradition. Knowledge of similar books, use of similar speech, a kindred taste in jokes or art, — these things are the basis of agreeable acquaintance. From deeper mysteries of temperament and character flashes that light whereby soul recognizes soul; a light potent to dissipate all mists that rise from alien race, class, or circumstance. It is only the first step that costs, — a rude step, it may be. Those who have taken it — their number is goodly and increasing — awaken as it were suddenly in the fair and joyous country of brotherhood, where all that divides us is forgotten illusion, and we find ourselves united in the primal realities of experience and desire.

Slowly, surely, beneath its surface failures, democracy is transforming civilization, but its most vital transformation is the most inward, for it is wrought in the hearts and minds of men. The need of our society lies deep. A mere sense of social responsibility, in professions or in daily life, such as one constantly meets in England, is an excellent thing, but it is of limited value. We in America must go beyond that. The motive impelling to wider fellowship must be quite different from the subtle impulse toward the disbursal of spiritual alms, or even from the uneasy sense of a debt to be paid, a justice unfulfilled. It must be borne to us from a future as yet unrealized. In any movement toward social unity which shall be acceptable and effective, two influences must rule: the conviction of the mind that only by breaking down the social barriers that isolate the classes can our higher national aims be secured, and the desire of the heart to draw near, for our own sakes, to those meek of the earth, who, if Christian ethics speak true, are the possessors of the highest wisdom.

Granted this transformation of our inward and outward life in the likeness of the humanity to he, and all we long for will follow. There is no need of radical theory, no need of violent subversions of the existing order, to overcome the bitterness that holds our producing classes in isolation. Great changes, indeed, industrial and social, are essential before social justice can be seen, — are for the matter of that on the way whether we will or no. To help them forward, when they make for righteousness, with what vigor and consecration he may, is the duty of every man. But such changes come slowly. If we would have them also come wisely, come securely, come without endangering the unity and loyalty of our national life, the power is in our hands. Not one of us needs to be simply a passive spectator of the sad social pageant. To help onward the cause of the civilization we desire, we have only, as individuals, in our professional and in our private activities, to live out, without delay, cordially, thoughtfully, in readiness to dedicate energetic effort to the deed, the conception of our function and our attitude demanded by the democratic state. “Thou wast in my house while I sought for thee afar, ” exclaims a restless hero of an Italian novel to the wife in whom he finally recognizes a long - desired ideal. Close at hand, in the conditions of our daily living, not far away in some impossible land, are to be found the means that shall create harmony out of discord, and begin at least to bring those most distant from one another into that common national consciousness which democracy demands.

Vida D. Scudder.