The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-04-06
NATIONAL IDEALS.

that the country Is going to war for dirty dollars, and here is Scott Nearing saying that the nation IS interested in only two things: Wall Street and the movies. Occasionally there is a national stock taking. but not often, and the country has simply got to understand its posi- ton.
 In America money is certainly the main incentive of activities. But it is the sa me thing in every other country. In England it may have become alloyed with little extra caste and snobbishness; ill Germany also and in France with a lust for power. But throughout the world We are not likely to dis cover that money is very far from being the national incentive. and it's acouirement the national ideal.
 That there are more art devotees in other lands, that pure scientlhc research finds more adopts, that cul- ture in the educational sense may be more generally disseminated among the richer classes in other countries. may be all very true, but these are not on that account the national ideals.
 Usually il will be found that there is a collection of national shibbo- leths and phrases and theories of life and living which are the subject of oratorial effort upon national feast days when the nations of the world fiatter themselves upon their supremacy in prowess and prin- ciple and progress But when We get down to an analysis of the si- tuation We discover that the same economic system has everywhere generated the same ideals. although those identical offsprings will be clothed in certain national garbs which may lead to the inference that they are distinct species.
 Usually men excuse their scramble for the spoil as merely the ma terial effort to better their condl- tion. but say what we may, the main end of almost all human activities have reduced themselves to this, that is the requirement of wealth and power.
 H. actual like Scott Nearing in revolt against the tremendous rush for the spoil that he sees around him. and many sensitive minds develop a horror of the mercilessness O. our civilization and the death, disease and the destruction which it scatters even in the peaceful pathway Of it's advance: the poverty the Restitution and the sordid misery of the mil lions is disgusting. and they de- nounce the national and information al lust for money and for power.
 These are inclined then to believe that one is worse than the other in this respect and that the cruelty of the system varies with the con ~Gnent. But that is not so. The success that is held out before the yo,Tths of the different nations is the same. They may be measured off in different national units of meas .urcmetn, but the idealism is ident- ieal.
 The triumph of Krupp is the German commercial ideal ideal, just as in America the success of a Carnegie is heralded as "typically American" Intrinsically the sue cess of the Laird of Skibo or the ruler of Essen are the same.
 An American Morgan, an Eng Nish Cromer an American Hearst. a British Northcliffe are human phases of our civilization which are interchangeably the same, de- grees of same successfully achieve ments without any regard for the collective happiness or the col lective veal of the people of the world The great trouble is that most who survey conditions Gener' ally have but one perspective and that their own. All their view points center upon themselves and they reflect the views that arc Vi- stoned in a surrounding mental hori- zon of which they are themselves he center. They are first, second