The herald., 1898-01-02
THE SOCIAL MOVEMENT

What is termed the social movement is
one of the most significant features of
modern times. Men are everywhere en-
deavoring to guard themselves against
it as if it We're an impending calamity.
They are asking themselves what is the
supreme purpose of life? Is it enjoy
ment or is it suffering? They are en-
deavoring to get more satisfaction out
of life thar < las ever yielded. They
fear their present right to the pursuit of
happiness is crippled and that it's limi-
tations are daily narrowed. The idea
that men are fools not to be happy and
comfortable in this world is every day
receiving wider and wider acceptance.
Hence they are organizing, maneuver-
ing and planning to improve their condi-
tion. The social movement is along this
line. Have the people-the common peo
pie, who eat the bread of industry
for their alarm, foundation for their
fears?
In we'll considered article touching
this subject, published in the American
Journal of Sociology, Prof Albion Smith
descants upon the supreme purpose of
life The purpose has sometimes been,
he says, to escape the wrath to come,
but the purpose now is to escape the
wrath that has come. 1t is to mitigate
this wrath and neutralize the dangers
Of the situation that the people are ev-
erywhere organizing and planning. And
he claims that this way of looking at
things is not necessarily opposed to the
teaching of religion, though it is in fact,
opposed to all conceptions of religion
which make it a matter of greater i'm
portance to dead men than to living
ones.
This is a bold assertion but it's logic
seems rooted in essential facts. There
was a time, even in the memory of many
men now living, when there was vert
able condition of democracy, social as
we'll as political, in these United States.
There was a time when there were not
class distinctions, worthy the name, no
assumption Ol SOcldl superiority poSVi
upon property qualifications, costly
mansions, fine and fashionable apparel
and all the other fripperies in which
modern society" lnasquerades and by
which it is attempting to institute new
order-save the mark.-of American
aristocracy.
The tangible potentiality of this in
choative condition of affairs is evidenced
in the inference, the overmastering in
fluence exercised by our wealthy fellow
citizens touching all matters, whether of
business, politics. social Functions" and
what not 1t has grown into an axiom
that the golden key unlocks all the doors
Of political office-getting, and that "a
poor man has not even the ghost of a
winning chance in such matters. The
same is largely true of the prizes to be
won in private life We all know how
subservient to the wave of the golden
wand have become Cupid and Hymen.
In business affairs the brand new idea
of government by injunction'-the pro-
lection by the courts of powerful and
wealthy corporations against the rea-
sonable claims and "pretentions'' OF
wage -earners-has induced the people
to suspect that even our learned and
much respected judiciary has not es-
capped the all-pervading influence of the
hour.
Hence we can but recognize in Prof.
Smiths reasoning a reflex of public SEN
timent born of the facts in the case He
insists that things-political rights ami
privileges-that We're supposed to be
assured to all Americans a hundred
years ago, today seem to many to be in
jeopardy. When our fathers framed the
Declaration of Independence they
thought all men were endowed with the
right of life. liberty and the pursuit of