New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-08-13

as best il can under the war pressure
the spirit and tradition Of its unsocial
snte-bellum days-resolved to break
loose from its social bondage at the
moment when peace shall come again.
And everywhere the gathering forces
of radical socialism are determined that
it shall never break loose. Thus we
are preparing not only for an inter-
national commercial war after the war,
but for civil wars as well.
Riddle of the Age
For u. S. to Solve
Because our European Allies have
failed to solve the Sphinx riddle of the
age-have failed to find synthesis of
the truth for which socialism contends
and the truth that is embodied in the
business system-it has come to pass
that the whole weight of the worlds
perplexity has been cast upon the
United States. And 1t is with this
problem that the Administration here
is now bravely wrestling.
The fateful auestion-perhaps al
ways to be associated in history with
the heat and nerve-strain of these OPP
pressive Washington summer days
poses itself in way that seems drear-
ily undramatic. 1t comes down to
matter of price fixing.
The radical defect of the food con-
troll bill, which has at last got through
Congress-, and Of the other measures
that give the government emergency
powers over the business system, is
that they follow the false lead of Eng
land and France. They proceed upon
the assumption that the ante-bellum
order of business must of course sur
yiye the war and needs only to sub
nit to temporary construction.
This is all wrong-fatally wrong.
II is not possible to win the war by
following the lines of European fail
ure. 1t is necessary to address our
selves to a definitive solution or the
historical contradiction between busi-
ness and politics. 1t is necessary to
socialize the business system on per-
manent basis.
We must break the spell of the delu-
sion that this war is a mere episode
in human history; that ii will leave the
old order of business and politics in
tact. We must understand that we have
come to the end Of an era and TO the
threshold of a new age. With that un-
derstanding it should be plain to intel
ligent men that the war cannot be won
by those who cling TO the past. 1t will
be won by new methods, by the prac-
tical application Of ideas that are
strange and foreign to the past, but ma
tive TO the future.
Men of excellent understanding, who
do not fail to perceive that the business
system must before long be thoroughly
regenerated (I have in mind such men
as Franklin X. Lane, John Moody and
Herbert c. Hoover) are yet Of the opin-
ion that the great change cannot take
place until after the war. | marvel that
men of that quality should fail to per-
ceive that Transforming change In the
spirit and method of business cannot
be postponed; that il Is not a question
Of ideal aims and social justice, but of
the need of force to fight with. To say
that we must wait until after the war
for the socialization of business and
the scientific rectifcation Of our was
tral working system is a council of
confusion that can lead only to hu-
initiation and defeat.
II may be European TO muddle and
temporize in this manner. but | pro-
test it is not American. There is deep