# The American Journal of Sociology/Volume 06/Number 5/Municipal Art

​MUNICIPAL ART.
IN the midst of conditions which cry aloud for betterment in all that pertains to a city's life, what place can there be for a consideration of art ? Very forcibly does this idea present itself to those familiar with the aspects of existence in that portion of a great city where the results of neglect and bad management on the part of the public are most apparent, and the need for improvement most pressing. It would seem, as one of our apostles of art for the people, Miss Starr, of Hull House, sug- gests, when looking at a related question from the same side, that we "should devote every energy to the 'purification of the nation's heart and the chastisement of its life.' " Yet, in so far as municipal art has to do with that betterment, so imperatively demanded, we must deem it worthy of consideration. And that it has much to do with such betterment no one who knows the history of art can fail to recognize.
Public art is as old as the pyramids ; and in any broad sur- vey of the past its varied forms will be seen to take pyramidal proportions. In Egypt they stand boldly forth, revealing more of the inner life of the people than any hieroglyphs have ever done. Turn the gaze toward ancient Babylon, and behold its hanging gardens ! In Greece see how this art towers ever above the mount of the gods. Italy has height after height of art production, reaching in real significance far above all work of battle, conquest, and kingly rule. In the cities of northern and western Europe the public works are so great that these cities can never be accused of being "great through largeness only." It is only in our own day and spot of the earth that civic art dwindles to nothingness, and art has become, as someone describes it, "a frivolous art for the gilded classes, without des- tiny, without aim, subject to the caprice of speculation and fashion, scattered by chance in private salons." All great art, it seems generally agreed, is, or has been, distinctively an art of cities. But, someone Will say, this art has been the work of
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tyrants, kings, monks, aristocrats not of the people. Is this the case in any real sense ? Whose, let us ask ourselves, was the creative thought that worked out the wonderful design and each marvelous feature of temple and cathedral, mausoleum and monument, statue, arch, and aqueduct ? Whose money con- tributed largely to the making of these ? And whose was the greatest pleasure and pride in them ? William Morris suggests whose this art in reality was when he says : " History (so-called) has remembered the kings and warriors because they destroyed ; art has remembered the people because they created. And Miss Starr shows how art has grown : " If art has reached higher than the common life, it has done so only by rising through it, never by springing up outside and apart from it." The classic story of the making of the statue of Pallas Athene how, when the people were asked whether it should be of bronze and silver or ivory and gold, they cried with one voice, " Ivory and gold" shows whose was the art in Athens ; and what was so striking a feature of the life there was true to a great degree in many less democratic times and places.
Do we need to have stated in specific terms what such art is good for ? What to those who produce it, and what to all who have shared its beauty ? Can it be summed up in words what to the peoples of the past has been the embodying and the embodi- ment, in forms of beauty, of some of their highest hopes, joys, and aspirations ? That the expression and the interpretation of such expression of the inner life shown through these art-forms constituted much of the real living of these people, who can doubt ? Then what has all of this been to the rest of the world ? The mind cannot form a picture of the earth without the beauty, aside from the utility, of these creations of man. The charm of foreign travel, and the general satisfaction and enjoyment of life can we think how different these would be without such beauty and our varied inheritances from it ? Then, besides the delight, how much of what is of value in our knowledge of a people is found in the manifestations of their real life and their ideal conceptions through sculpture, architecture, painting, music, even leaving out poetry and eloquence ; and what has been ​MUNICIPAL ART 67$
enduring in these has been an expression of the life of the people. So much a part of our consciousness has this beauty become, this beauty and its revelations, that we cannot in our thought divest the world of it.
Someone has truly said that the question whether we shall have art in education is a question whether we shall be barbarian or civilized. And art in education means more than talks in the schools of things not seen ; more than pictures, as essential as books ; more than anything connected with day school or art school. It means the appeal of beauty, whether consciously or unconsciously felt, and the expression of beauty, since all true education comes both from the influence of environment and from activity of the self, in the everyday surroundings and work ; without as well as within the school ; for adult as well as for child. "The school," says George Kriehn, one of our leading workers for municipal art, "is only the begin- ning of that greater education which begins when school ends" he would better have said, begins with existence "and ends only with life itself." It is unquestionably true, as someone says, that "only by re-creation of the sources of art can it be restored as a living force." But how can the sources of art within the mind and soul of man be re-created ? We know, certainly, some things which do not tend to such development filth, disorder, ugliness. Man needs to have restored to him his birthright of beauty, of which he, as an inhabitant of this fine old earth of ours, should never have been dispossessed. " Humanity has a feeling soul," is a truth we should do well not to forget in the matter of education of young and old. Culture involves more than the mere getting of knowledge. Back of this truth is a philosophy which, correcting our worship of the intellect, will make us recognize art as one of the greatest sources accessible to man of the purification of the emotions, and of stimulation and guidance of the will. Art in its message to us, and as expression, holds much of the joy and solace of the elevation and inspiration of life. This surely for art were excuse enough for being and for becoming a necessity of life and education; "unless," to quote Morris again, "the progress ​676 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
of civilization is to be as causeless as the turning of a wheel that makes nothing." For, what is civilization good for if its end is not character, if it aims not at a destiny for man higher than that to which the satisfaction of his animal desires, or of his mere love of acquisition, whether material or intellectual, will lift him ? Art in its broad, its true sense, including all pro- duction which involves creative thought and beauty, if a rough- hewn definition may be ventured, should become a positive necessity of life and work. It is not the end of education to make people content with whatever costs the least effort, to cultivate what Lassalle calls " the cursed habit of not wanting anything." It is to make us all want the things really worth having, and to enable us to get them through activity, that is itself life and joy to us; "if we are to live as nature meant us to, that is, unless we are content to be less than men." The second function of art, its influence in education, in life, in civilization, as expression through some part of the everyday work of man, involves a great change in our industrial, as well as our strictly educational, system. This, however, does not do away with the fact that, if beauty be provided for the people by the public, it may immeasurably hasten the time when we may have an art by the people, ultimately, truly, an art 0/the people.
Art as a factor in education, to the specific end of citizenship, is surely a matter with which the public should be concerned. What may be the effect of a great public work of art is sug- gested by that often referred to, of Michael Angelo's David, its effect upon every citizen and every citizen-to-be of Florence, representing, as it did, the release of the city from the tyranny of Cesare Borgia, a grandly impressive symbol of the love of, and the struggle for, political freedom. Here in America, particularly needed because of our vast foreign population, how great may be the effect of this symbolic, impressive way of teaching some of the great facts of our land, its institutions, and its men !
With all of this truth before us, of the great value of art as a factor in education of young and old, and of the pleasure of ​MUNICIPAL ART 677
living, still the question forces itself into our minds how it may, or by any possibility can, as a development from existing con- ditions, be made to take any real hold upon the life of the people in general. With our present squalor and vulgarity in the surroundings of the poor, and luxury and shall we say with others? vulgarity in those of many of the rich, any vital growth would seem well-nigh hopeless. Who can conceive of art taking root in the pain and ugliness of the lives of many people in our great cities? They scarcely have a glimmering of what real beauty and harmony are. Then we meet the dis- couraging fact that, owing to one cause or another, the rampant sway of the so-called practical, of so-called utility, of machine methods of production, man-machine and others, so large a num- ber of the better-educated, better-cultured, "lack part of the human senses," and are "anti-artistic."
Yet, let us consider, what if some of the lost beauty, or even decency, of the earth be found again ? What if we should have a city free from smoke and filth ; with well-made streets ; with houses at least not ugly and dilapidated ; with no hideous posters, and with trees abounding on every hand ? Surely these conditions would at least prepare a soil in which con- ceptions of beauty could grow. Then if, further, public build- ings, squares, river banks, bridges, be made genuinely beautiful ; and if the works of art be so widely distributed that every inhabitant of a city shall find at least one within his daily range, can anyone doubt that all must be educated to some degree ; that higher standards of beauty in man's productions, and conduct as well will become general; that the effect will be seen in the improvement of private dwellings, and their sur- roundings, and all they contain ; and what is far more important, that of which the first is a means to an end that with the ugliness will depart much of the pain and the gloom in the lives of the one class, and the selfishness and insipidity in the lives of the others ?
There is another argument for civic art its pecuniary value ; and, doubtless, this will prove a stronger one with many than its lofty mission as a source of high ideals and enjoyment and of ​678 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
general betterment of humanity. At least most writers upon the subject seem to deem it necessary to set forth its advantages in terms of commercialism. 1 It surely is not hard to see that beautiful and picturesque features of a city will raise the value of real estate, make higher rents, and increase business prosperity in general ; attracting desirable visitors, and drawing to it and keeping residents who have the means to go where they will. It is said that even such radical changes as the cutting off of corners of houses to make them face upon a circular or octagonal beautified street corner pay well. It should also be easily seen that enduring public works will far outrank in the financial returns they bring any flashy, temporary display in the way of festival or other public entertainment.
Certainly something should arouse American cities to their need in this line. They are, even in their best portions, far too often monotonous stretches of square-cornered, almost treeless streets, with houses crowded together and pushed against the sidewalk ; while in their worst portions they are indescribably ugly and miserable the latter condition pronounced very emphatically, by the National Sculpture Society, as "neither good business nor good politics," making the lives of these people so wretched, "since," it argues, "unrest and revolution are born of their unendurable miseries and neglect." These considerations, however, are not widely taken into account by our politicians and business-men. Yet, as familiarity with the beauty of foreign cities increases with travel, dissatisfaction with the state of things here grows, even among our so-called practical citizens. Very little has yet been done, but there certainly is a great awakening interest. Municipal action has as yet done nothing, aside from the making of parks and boule- vards whose primary purpose is not that of beauty, of art. Private enterprise, largely that of organizations, has been back of almost all that has been accomplished. And these organiza- tions have had to contend against great difficulties opposition of many kinds and legislation in the interest of corporations.
1 Those who would know facts and figures in regard to this will find ample material in Municipal Affairs. ​MUNICIPAL ART 679
Someone thinks it "a most stinging criticism of free institutions that civic action should have failed, and individual action per- force be appealed to." The cause is surely not hard to find : political bossism and the greed of corporations are the dominant powers in our large cities, and the political machinery is so constructed as to leave without representation, almost without influence, what might otherwise be a "saving remnant" of American society, and, indeed such is the power of good leadership might soon become the ruling majority. If these best citizens would study the municipal problem, instead of in the main giving up hopelessly to the present condition of things, or occasionally making an excited dash at some reform legisla- tion in a blind sort of way, and feeling that it is all so bad it cannot be made much worse anyway; if they would work out the municipal problem in the light of the experience and the evolved wisdom of countries older in large municipalities than our own the countries of Europe, particularly Great Britain, which has institutions much like ours, and which was a little time back where we are now, but in which the prob- lem is now "practically solved" and then would join forces understandingly, might we not presently have a civic beauty in our public works, and, as well, in far more than our public works !*
That we are almost at the beginning here has the compensat- ing feature of great possibilities ahead ! If we will take hold in time to prevent great expenditures in undoing mistakes, already too late in some instances, that will be an advantage. Almost all of our cities have some preliminary steps to take before they can come, or should come, to art proper : clearing away the filth and smoke, making good streets, disposing of the bill-board nuisance or securing artistic posters, providing playgrounds and small parks, and improving tenement-houses and small lodging- houses in congested districts. This work is fundamentally important. Beyond this there are many inviting possibilities : trees everywhere, streets free from railroads and telegraph and
1 So says DORMAN B. EATON in his masterly work, The Government of Munici- palities. ​680 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
telephone, all finely disposed of underground in a tunnel in such a way as to be easily inspected and repaired ; lamp-posts and electric lighting poles, signs and all announcements made so artistic as to add to, instead of detract from, the harmony and beauty of the streets ; boulevards extended, or at least good, pleasant routes to the country; beautified river banks and lake front, squares, and enlarged street corners ; statuary, artistic seats, flowers, fountains, electric or other; facades in appropriate and telling places, ornamented with historic and other repre- sentations ; arcades, giving light, air, and moving space, through large buildings and blocks ; fine school buildings with play- grounds, plats for landscape gardening, reading-rooms, lecture halls, art galleries, and mural decoration, the people's house indeed ; other public buildings, great architecturally, and deco- rated with mural painting and statuary ; and neither last nor least, for it contains wonderful suggestions, the reaching out beyond the cities' present boundaries, as the courts have decided may be done, and while not yet too late enriching them- selves and posterity ever afterward with country parks and aesthetically planned residence districts. Most of these things have been actualized in some instance or instances, but as yet in far too limited a way.
Is there not for America one truth to which it should cling very closely : that in all art development it should follow its own laws of growth, and thus come to have a truly national style? And may not this best come about through its use of all the inheritance from other ages and lands which rightly belongs to it, classic models, with modifications to suit the spirit of the time and place ? A national style, or a municipal style which should personify "the energy of a municipality," will not con- flict with a truly great cosmopolitan spirit ; for the more true to itself is the life of a nation, as the life of an individual, the more does it reach out toward and touch the life of other persons and peoples. There is some discouragement in finding an exact repro- duction of a Roman triumphal arch as a permanent public work of a land which should belong to freedom and arbitration and uni- versal brotherhood; and particularly when over 2,000 years ago ​MUNICIPAL ART 68 1
a people existed which regarded the perpetuation of high ideals through forms of beauty as greater than conquest, attaching a penalty to the use for purposes of war of any money appropriated to the making of their goddess of wisdom. But one feature in the production of the arch is encouraging ; as someone has said, it shows what can be done when the people's interest is aroused. And right here is surely a leading for America ; for through the people must come any greatness it may attain. It has been "through the appreciation of this divine truth," through a belief in the people, so points out Mr. Frederick S. Lamb, that Belgium has won her great distinction and made herself the "leader of the world at this time in matters aesthetic." Her famous sign contest illustrates her method and its results. Any person could try designing. Her free schools of design became "more attractive to the common people than vaudeville or tumbling show." The work of a large number of designers was utilized ; and growing out of this came such a demand for artistic signs that the merchants could not draw trade without them. This is an art of the people ; this is the way to develop an art worth having. As Mr. Lamb says: "Art as a charity is not wanted ; art as an aristocratic adjunct is not needed ; art as an educator will be welcomed on all sides, and no longer regarded with suspicion by the 'lower half ;'" and, he might have said, by many of the upper half, for a certain ungenuine- ness and valuelessness in much of it now is felt by all.
Shall not America, partly through the people being followed, partly led, by the art-seers, develop an art like that of the past, which, "by the very fact that it must speak to the soul of multi- tudes in a language prescribed by precise relations," thus having "its technical merits exalted, reached the lofty expression which reveals itself in fragments, the immortal footprints of bygone civilizations"? Shall she not by being true to her traditions and her destiny, her "manifest destiny," a democracy grand and great, develop an art such as the world has not yet seen ?
ELMA GRAVES. THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. ​THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL NIETZSCHEISM.
PROBABLY no sound thinker entertains the faintest fear of the spread of Friedrich Nietzsche's amazing gospel. The aristocratic and ultra-egoistic elements which distinguish it condemn it to defeat and theoretical oblivion. The policy of "blood and iron" is, alas! too dominant and seemingly successful in inter- national relations to warrant strong hopes of an early triumph of the principles which received lip-homage at The Hague ; but murder, devastation, and burglary between nations are one thing, and the elimination of all moral restraints within a given body politic is, even under our ethical standards, quite a different thing. To justify unnecessary, and consequently criminal, wars appeals are made to "the survival of the fittest," to the inevitable struggle for supremacy, and even to manifest destiny. The world-concert has just demonstrated anew that contemporary diplomacy is still following the rules laid down by Machiavelli for his Prince. In the settlement of the far-eastern problem nothing has been clearer than the ready assumption of most of the powers that truth, good faith, and consistency are "words, words, words," rather than realities to be relied upon. The most solemn promise, the most explicit assurance, did not pre- vent suspicions of double dealing and arriere penste. Honesty and obedience to the moral law in international intercourse to say nothing of altruism and brotherhood may still be consid- ered an iridescent dream.
But the modern mind revolts against the suggestion of applying the blood-and-iron policy in internal, national rela- tions. Nietzscheism is neither more nor less than Bismarckism universalized. It may be summed up in a few phrases : There is no morality ; consequently no evil to be avoided or repro- bated. There is no duty of justice, humanity, or charity toward one's fellow-men. Why should we refrain from doing that unto others which we would not have done unto us ? Why, to take Kant's expression of the "universal law of right," should you
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"act externally in such a manner that the free exercise of thy will maybe able to coexist with the freedom of all others"? Finally, what reason is there for observing the formula of social justice as framed by Herbert Spencer namely, "Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man"? Why should not the weak suffer and be driven to the wall, and the strong or cunning "divide the earth"? Why should mankind set up a process different from the cosmic process, and recognize a moral and legal equality where there is no physical equality ? The real obstacle to the steady improvement of the race is found in the "slave ethics" of modern codes and practice, in the practice of benevolence. Charity is not a virtue, but a blunder and a handi- cap. Might alone is right, and instead of the greatest good of all, or even of the greatest number, the guiding principle of the enlightened "blonde beast" should be the greatest freedom, pleasure, and welfare of the most vigorous and intelligent.
This is Nietzscheism in a nutshell. It is the code of the over-man, who has gone "beyond good and evil," and to whom the civilization founded on Hebraic and Christian ideals seems one long series of perversions of nature. Nietzsche did not contemplate the dissolution of civil society ; he did not desire or expect perpetual internecine strife and confusion. He simply declined to admit that what we call justice and generosity are natural, spontaneous products essential to the preservation of society. He believed that, while it was perfectly expedient and proper for men really tqual and intelligent to cooperate instead of fighting one another, it was sentimental folly to surrender anything to the mentally or physically inferior who lacked the power to assert their claims. Egoism untrammeled, and not altruism, was to him the indispensable condition of gradual ascent of the race.
Now, as already remarked above, there is no danger what- ever of the open acceptance of the Nietzsche philosophy by any considerable number of persons. It is too extreme, too para- doxical, too violent. It is based on a radically defective defini- tion of human nature, and, though claiming to be strictly ​684 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
Darwinian, it is essentially anti-evolutional. Nothing is more fallacious than the distinction between natural sentiments and corresponding actions, and unnatural sentiments and resultant conduct, upon which Nietzsche's quarrel with modern civilization is based. The doctrine of evolution does not justify the assump- tion that egoistic feelings alone are natural, while the altruistic feelings are unnatural, due to false precepts and the sanctions of religion and morality. No one has insisted more strenuously than Mr. Herbert Spencer on the antagonism between individu- ation and genesis ; yet is there anything unnatural about the subordination of the former to the latter ? Is parental affection unnatural ? Is sympathy alien to the naturally developed man ? In his Principles of Psychology consideration of an extensive class of facts of 'the sub-human and human worlds leads Mr. Spencer to the conclusion that there are "three causes of sym- pathy, due respectively to the three relations between members of a species, between male and female, and between parent and offspring." These causes, Mr. Spencer points out, cooperate in various ways and degrees, and "it is inferable that, where the circumstances allow cooperation of all the causes, the effects are likely to be the greatest." Mr. Spencer continues :
Among inferior animals cooperation of all the causes is not frequent ; rooks supplying us with one of the few instances easily observable. And even where all the causes cooperate the effects producible depend on the accompanying degree of intelligence ; since the capacity for being sympa- thetically affected implies the capacity for having an ideal feeling of some kind aroused by perception of the sounds and emotions implying a real feeling of the same kind in another.
It is only when we come to the highest races of creatures that this last con- dition is largely fulfilled. Merely noting that among the lower primates, where considerable intelligence goes along with sociality and prolonged care of offspring by the females, sympathy is shown in various ways, we may now limit our attention to the human race. Here we have all three direct causes of sympathy in action, along with the coessential condition elevated intelli- gence.
As none of these propositions can be disputed, how absurd it is to allege that sympathy is "unnatural" to the "blonde beast"! It is true that excessive sympathy sentimentality is injurious a fact which those who would practice beneficence ​THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL NIETZSCHEISM 685
where rigorous justice is demanded too often overlook. But humanity is far from being in any immediate danger of erring on the side of altruism and carrying the exercise of sympathy to the point where social discipline is imperiled. To quote from another chapter of Mr. Spencer's Psychology:
.... It was pointed out that during the struggle for existence among societies, originally very intense and even now by no means ended, the con- ditions have been such as to make imperative the readiness to inflict pain, and have correspondingly repressed fellow-feeling. It may here be added that, beyond this checking of the sympathies which the antagonisms of societies have necessitated and still necessitate, there has been a checking of them consequent on the struggle for existence within each society. Not only does this struggle for existence involve the necessity that personal ends must be pursued with little regard to the evils entailed on unsuccessful competitors ; but it also involves the necessity that there shall be not too keen a sympathy with that diffused suffering inevitably accompanying this industrial battle. Clearly, if there were so quick a sympathy for this suffering as to make it felt in anything like its real greatness and intensity, life would be rendered intolerable to all. Familiarity with the marks of misery necessarily produces (or rather maintains) a proportionate indifference ; and this is as inevitable a concomitant of the bloodless competition among members of a society as it is an inevitable concomitant of the bloody competition between societies.
It is hardly necessary to preach to modern societies the strenuous life. Verily, the danger of enervation, impairment of physical and mental vigor from prolonged peace, and the cultivation of charity and mercy, is rather remote. The appre- hension of the few conscious and many unconscious disciples of Nietzsche on this score would be inexpressibly comical if it did not excite a feeling of bitterness and disgust. We do not love one another too much ; personal, national, and social egoism needs no artificial stimulation. An altrurian looking down and seeing the militarism of Europe and even America, the wars and preparations for war, the furious rivalry, the aggressive self- assertion, the struggle for markets and colonies, would never imagine that civilization was threatened by too literal an applica- tion of the religious and ethical doctrines of the Bible.
In truth, if what is best in modern civilization is in jeopardy ; if the advance of humanity is seriously called in question by earnest thinkers ; if the twentieth century opens in gloom and ​686 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
doubt, the cause for all this is to be sought and found in what may be termed practical Nietzscheism. The gulf between the ideal and the real, between profession and practice, is apparently growing wider, though not many will acknowledge it. The general moral tone in literature is distinctly lower today than it was in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Bishop Potter, of New York ; Mr. Abram S. Hewitt (no vision- ary or sentimentalist), Mr. Frederic Harrison, Professor Goldwin Smith, are among those who have recently sounded a note of warning and rebuked the shallow optimism of the poet-laureates of commercialism and sham nationalism. Is it not true that, as an American correspondent of the London Times has expressed it, "the rising spirit of virile, uncompromising egotism is observable in all civilized nations, but nowhere has it gained vigor of late so swiftly as in the United States" ? Is it not true that, as this correspondent further says, "an unconscious discipleship to Friedrich Nietzsche is common in business, social, and military circles in America, where deeds of a type once denounced as criminal are now applauded as clever, and where Christianity, the golden rule of ethics, is for slaves" ?
It will not do to dismiss this language as extravagant and irrationally pessimistic. No American thinker is more just, fair- minded, and careful in his statements than Bishop Potter, pre- eminently an exemplar of "sweetness and light." Yet here is what he deliberately said in a recent lecture on " Wealth and Commonwealth" at a gathering of the Episcopal Church Club of the diocese of Connecticut :
The subject of this evening is my own choice. I choose it because of its paramount importance. Divorce, drunkenness, crime, corruption in cities, all have one root the lust of money. Our American disease, do I say ? Nay, an American madness.
For what is the one eager, dominant hunger which, in one form or another, is expressing itself through combination, conspiracy, or other ways from end to end of this broad land ? It is the passion, the hunger, the greed of gain. That it is that more than any other single influence determines our policies, shapes our manners, inspires our maxims
Is it any wonder, under such circumstances, that the average man in America turns to the business of accumulation and makes wealth the final ​THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL NIETZSCHEISM 687
standard of achievement, since he finds that everybody else does ? If mate- rial wealth be the end of being, if the buying of legislatures be the highest distinction possible to modern manhood, then we must needs look in the face the perils that in our time and our land are increasing.
For one I have no smallest hope that any mechanism of legislation will in the remotest degree remove these perils. The church of God must go up, must stay up, on a much higher plane. The prominent danger to our social order in this day is first the growth of wealth and then the abuse of it.
Abram S. Hewitt, " captain of industry " and ex-mayor of New York, is neither a pessimist nor an agitator. Yet so opprersed is he by contemporary developments that, like Bishop Potter, he warns the nation that only the wide and systematic exercise of altruism will save it from such a catastrophe as overwhelmed France at the end of the eighteenth century. Mr. Hewitt uses different terms, but it is plain that he, too, conceives the supreme danger to lie in the advance of unconscious, practical Nietzsche- ism. " If the spirit of commercialism and greed continues to grow stronger," he said in an impressive address before the Edu- cational Alliance, "then the twentieth century will witness a social cataclysm unparalleled in history." If the rich neglect to perform their duties, " barbarism, anarchy, and plunder will be the inevitable result." 1 But Mr. Hewitt has faith in humanity. He believes that the twentieth century will witness the decline of the spirit of aggressive and reckless commercialism, and the growth of the spirit of altruism ; " that the rule, ' Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,' will more generally pre- vail than in all the centuries which have gone before." The last sentences indicate what Mr. Hewitt regards as the remedy or the
1 Here are two more significant expressions. Ex-Senator Edmunds, asked what he regarded as the chief danger of the twentieth century, answered in a newspaper contribution that it was to be found in "ignorance, greed, centralization of wealth and of social and political power, and the consequent inequality of position and oppor- tunity, without which liberty and justice cannot exist." Mr. Edmunds knows whereof he speaks he is the chief attorney of the shipping subsidy grabbers, the gentlemen who expect the poor taxpayer to assure them 7 or 8 per cent, interest on capital in an industry which, conducted fairly, only yields about 3 or 4 per cent. The subsidy gentlemen may consider themselves "over-men." President Hadley of Yale also points with apprehension to "legislation based on the self-interest of individuals or classes, instead of on public sentiment and public spirit." Were he required to give instances, his only difficulty would be that known as "the embarrassment of riches." ​688 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
preventive of revolution and social discord. But "altruism" is a vague term, and the application of the golden rule is not as simple a matter in a complex industrial society as men like Count Tolstoy imagine.
Whether the hopes and expectations placed in the twentieth century with reference to the solution of our social and economic problems are altogether reasonable we do not need to consider. A strong case can be made out against the cheerful assumption that, the nineteenth century having attended to the questions of production, exchange, rapid locomotion and communication, markets for surplus goods, and the opening of vast tracts of territory, the twentieth will be free and willing to turn its atten- tion to the question of fair distribution of wealth, and the removal of unnecessary and unjust poverty. But that may be left on one side. Admitting the danger and the disposition to arrest or ward it off, what are the best means of combating practical Nietszche- ism ? Just as it is idle to cry peace when there is no peace, so it is vain to preach altruism to a society living and toiling under conditions which would bankrupt any individual or any class that tried to live up literally to the golden rule.
There is an old, but ever new, question which has divided reformers, namely: whether moral advance, moral education character, in a word must precede the improvement in social conditions, or whether it is useless to expect moral conduct in an environment unfavorable to it, and therefore the proper business of reformers should be the modification of the condi- tions of life, the eradication of social wrongs and abuses. But the practice of the century has certainly proceeded under the tacit acceptance of the second theory. Not only extra-legal reformatory movements, but even the attempts of legislators, or seekers of legislation, have aimed at amelioration by means of institutional changes and modified treatment of property and person. It is but needful to allude to the anti-corn law agita- tion in England, to the improved treatment of criminals, to the old-age pensions plans and experiments, the question of proper housing of the poor, recognized as vital and even " burning" alike by the Tories and Liberals of Great Britain, and the admitted ​THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL NIETZSCHEISM 689
necessity of fairer tax laws. Of the more radical programs of the single-taxers, land nationalizationists, socialists, and philosophi- cal anarchists it is hardly necessary to speak, for the point to be emphasized is that even the so-called conservative groups of society which have bestowed any thought upon social-economic problems adopt the theory that moral and intellectual progress depends upon betterments of conditions.
Neither exhortation nor example will have any perceptible influence in checking the spread of practical Nietzscheism, and Bishop Potter's recent suggestion that the mad scramble for wealth (and the power conferred by wealth) should be counter- acted by an organization of thoughtful men for the exemplifica- tion of "plain living and high thinking" cannot be deemed a happy one. Even in the earlier days of the nation the Brook Farm experiment was foredoomed to failure. In our own day of storm and stress, intense struggle for existence, sensational- ism, and hurry, Brook Farms or settlements, or even cooperative action of scattered individuals animated by a common purpose, would command neither influence nor sympathetic attention. Perhaps it is necessary to qualify the aphorism that small reforms are the enemies of great ones ; for, while small reforms do not attack the roots, the sources, of social wrong, they serve to popularize the idea of reform and prepare the public mind for radical programs. We all know that many things which ten or fifteen years ago were deemed almost revolutionary are now regarded as quite safe, and as within the limited vision of the ordinary citizen. This has been brought about by small reforms. To be a single-taxer or a socialist is no longer to be a member of the dangerous and criminal classes. In England the Fabians have made socialism respectable and interesting. In the United States we have plenty of unconscious Fabians of men who are in a position similar to that of Moliere's hero, who did not know that he had spoken prose for forty years. Municipal operation and ownership of "public utilities" (an elastic term) even can- didates for high office fearlessly embrace, and the philistine is not shocked. In fact, we are living in an era of small reforms of which little good and but little harm can be predicated. ​Can it not be made the eve of an era of reforms really great and far-reaching? If, as was indicated above, there is a general and profound realization of the threatening evils, is it not possible to evolve an agreement with regard to the irreducible minimum of social reform?
For example, can there be anything more nearly axiomatic than the proposition that to the inevitable natural inequalities of men there shall not be added artificial inequalities—monopolies and privileges created and supported by the state? On the subject of competition there is an irrepressible conflict between the individualists and the socialists; but is it not clear that competition in a "fair field and no favors" is entirely different from competition between men who are heavily handicapped and men who are free and untrammeled? Inequality of faculty may imply inequality of rewards in a society governed by individualistic principles, but society never yet has tried equality of opportunity. There certainly was no equality of opportunity in Greece or Rome, and there was none under feudalism. Has there been any since the industrial revolution, the rise of capitalism, and the wage system? Shallow economists like Bastiat and his contemporary disciples (whose number, fortunately, is not legion) may assert that there has been; but who takes them seriously? No school is more thoroughly discredited than that which accepts existing iniquities and meets all demands for reform with the laissez-faire mockery. Nothing will be "let alone" which is not in accordance with the requirements of social justice. The law may have its time limits, but morality is not bound by any statute of limitations. Vested wrongs, however ancient, do not become rights. Laissez-faire did not prevent the abolition of the institution of slavery, and it cannot prevent the rectification of other firmly established institutions. True, consistent, honest individualism presupposes two conditions: equal opportunities, and equal liberty to utilize them and develop one's faculties. Any defense of privilege, artificial monopoly, and law-created inequality is necessarily a repudiation of the essence of the individualistic philosophy.
Now, equality of opportunity and of liberty is but another ​THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL NIETZSCHEISM 69 1
name for justice, and the sentiment of justice is purely altruistic. By establishing justice we shall check and resist practical Nietz- scheism, but we shall obtain no aid from the unconscious disci- ples of Nietzsche in our struggle for justice. We shall even encounter the resolute hostility of the honest but misguided element which justifies wrongful privilege in the name of the general welfare, just as slavery was defended on ethical and reli- gious grounds. It is necessary, therefore, to have the clearest and most conclusive demonstration of the equity and indispen- sableness of each of the demands put forward in the interest and under the high sanction of justice. We must have precise defi- nitions of the terms of the law and formula of justice, and rigorously logical deductions of the applications of the law to the concrete relations of men.
If justice means equality of opportunity and of liberty, what do we mean by equality of opportunity or of liberty ? What is, and what is not, consonant with the enjoined equality? For example, with reference to land and other natural resources, what is the logical implication of equal freedom ? Is private property in land compatible with justice ? If not, what principle should govern the tenure of land ? If the answer be affirmative, does private property justify the monopolization of large areas by individuals while tens of thousands go landless ? Are enor- mous accumulations of wealth permissible under the law of jus- tice ? Dr. Alfred A. Wallace, in one of his social essays just republished, asserts that the privilege of unlimited bequest and inheritance is a violation of equality of opportunity. In his opinion, the right of a man to enjoy the fruits of his honest labor does not include the unlimited right of directing the dis- position of his property after his death, and society may claim a share, if not the whole, of his surplus wealth. This deduction is vigorously contested by other advocates of equal opportunity. Who is right? What, in a word, are the limitations to be imposed on the individual in the interest of his fellow-members of society?
Professor Giddings, in his collection of essays entitled Democracy and Empire, attempts a reconciliation of those two ​692 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
extremes Tolstoyism, with its gospel of non-resistance and Christian anarchism, with Nietzscheism. It is hardly necessary to say that Professor Giddings is wholly out of sympathy with what has been called in this article " practical Nietzscheism," though one may object strenuously to his defense of empire. Nor is he inclined to subscribe to the philosophy of the late German poet-" reformer." He discerns half a truth in Nietzscheism, however, and points out that under a certain social condition the fullest exercise of altruism and the conscious furtherance of Nietzsche's ideal may coincide. The soul of good in Nietzscheism is alleged to be its insistence upon the preservation of the vigor of the race. "Beyond any doubt," writes Professor Giddings, "physiological power, physiological vigor, is the only enduring basis of human excellence. Any contrary doctrine is a form of the self-destructive philosophy that existence itself is an evil." But Professor Giddings can find absolutely no basis for the assumption underlying Nietzsche's repudiation of altruism," that, in point of mere physiological power, the animals and savages whose struggle for existence is carried on entirely by crude means of self-assertion and combat are superior to men whose struggle for existence is a vastly more complicated process, and includes auxiliary or antagonistic elements, if you please the factors of compassion and cooperation." Charity is not a weakness, but one of the advanced manifestations of power, and non-aggression, as well as non-resistance even, can be established without entailing race-deterioration. Only, according to Pro- fessor Giddings, the condition precedent to such relations among men is the expansion of democracy, the absorption of small states in larger political aggregates, and the spread of knowledge and mutual comprehension.
The right of small and weak nations to enjoy independence and the opportunity of working out their own salvation is a great question, but it does not necessarily enter into a consideration of the soundness of Nietzscheism. It may be that war and extra-group competition of the "crude" and savage kind will not cease until the empires have absorbed all the small states. There can be no peace and justice within, perhaps, when there ​THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL N1ETZSCHEISM 693
is war without. Upon this truth Mr. Spencer has never ceased to insist, and Professor Giddings evidently accepts that view without qualification. He evidently believes, in addition, that war and international burglary will go on so long as there is anything to grab and benevolently assimilate, and that exhorting so-called civilized nations to keep the peace, mind their own business, and respect the rights of others is sheer waste of breath. Empire first, and then, when there are no worlds left to conquer, democracy within these empires, is his forecast of the course of evolution. But, after all, the essential thing is not the extension of the democratic republic, but the establishment of justice within that republic. Within the limits of equality of freedom and opportunity there is plenty of room for competi- tion, for inequality of rewards, for victories and defeats vic- tories without injury to the moral or physical nature of the victors, and defeats without absolute ruin to the vanquished. The struggle, not indeed for existence, but for comfort, superior position, distinction, is sufficient to maintain the vigor of the society, though it does not require the suppression of sympathy and generosity.
The fundamental trouble with our most civilized societies is not that we tolerate struggle at all, as Tolstoy believes, nor that the struggle is not severe and ruthless enough, as Nietzsche held, but that we allow the practical disciples of the metaphysi- cal exponent of "blood and iron" to disregard the rules of the contest. Non-resistance may be possible at some future time ; non-aggression by society ought to be possible here and now. Our natures are not perfect enough to dispense with " sanctions" to moral conduct, and punishment of crime and evil may be a necessary means of improvement, part of the social discipline molding individuals for the social state. But the non-invasive individual ought to be safe from interference, and the sham individualism which steals the livery of freedom and equality rigidly kept within the bounds of fair play. We cannot compel the highest altruistic conduct by force and penalties, but equality of rights can, and therefore should, be enforced. If all who seek social amelioration would but recognize that preaching on ​694 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
the duties of wealth is not likely to bear fruit while wealth can be dishonestly acquired ; that the abuse of legitimately earned riches is insignificant beside the evils flowing from the legaliza- tion of dishonest sources of wealth, and that the great task before us is the removal of the causes of oppressive, artificial inequalities, the prospect of curbing the unconscious " over- men" riding roughshod over the rights of their fellows would be much brighter. The social problem is not to be solved by enlightened philanthropy, by regarding surplus wealth as a "trust "and using it (as Mr. Carnegie believes it should be used) in providing free libraries, schools, museums, music halls, and picture galleries. It will be solved by reverting to first principles and adopting equality of opportunities and of freedom as the foundations of the social structure.
VICTOR S. YARROS. CHICAGO, ILL.