The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1927-08-26

Ills dllICIOs al hoaO1
the whole has become an indiy
From a society whose units were
independent of each other we have
become a society in which, If one
member fails to function at his
best, the immediate result is in
convenience and injury to many
others.
Millions of people in the great
cities cannot live a week unless
those engaged in transportation
keep at their special work of direct
ing the machines which bring in
food.
Millions engaged in transpor-
tation and manufacturing must go
cold and hungry unless. those en-
gagged in taking from the earth the
raw materials from which machines
are made and with which they are
operated, keep at their special
work.
Millions engaged in the product
ion of food must go without the
furniture, clothing, automobiles,
telephones, radios and toys which
make life and living SO full and
rich today, unless the makers of
those things, and those who trans
port the products of both, keep at
their work.
Under the old order people
generally were working for them.
selves, conducting their own bust
ness, handling and dealing with
and in their own property. La such
a state of society it made but little
difference to one family what the
habits, the practices, of its neigh
bors, SO long as they kept within
their own boundaries. Then prac-
tically everything was done and
accomplished by individual hand
labor. There was little utilization
of the forces of nature. Men could
work alone, produce alone, harvest
alone, and transport what little
surplus products they had alone.
Now, all that is reversed. We
know now that water falling over
Niagara, rushing down some
mountain stream or pouring
an inlet from the tides of the
ocean, applied to a water-wheei
turning a bunch of wires arranged
in certain ways between magnets,
can be made to heat great furnaces,
turn the lathes and spindles, throw
the shuttles in shops and factories,
wash the clothes, sweep the floors,
milk the COWS, skim the cream,
cook the food, and keep the refriger-
ator colder than ice on farms and
in homes, hundreds of miles away
from the falling water.
Then, if one wanted nails to build
a house or a box, he pounded them
out by hand at forge and anvil.
Now, he sits besides a machine
which, without the exertion of any
muscular effort, pours them out by
the busheL the carload, the ship
load, without limit.
Then, if cloth was to be had to
keep the children warm, mother
carded, spun and wove the wool into
the cloth by the hardest of physical
labor. Now, it is all carded, spun
and woven by the mill, by machines
which require only attention, no
muscular effort. -
But, with all the wealth, the
emancipated from toll, the ease
with which we live, has come some.
thing which did not exist then. In
the complicated relations individ-
uals now bear to the community
and to each other, the burden OF
dependence on and duty towards
one another has increased.
That burden must be borne, that
duty must be discharged, by each
one for himself; no n can do
it for him.
But when comforts and
Injuries come easily, when the
necessity for long and steady
application to toll yields to i'm
proved methods and machinery,
bringing shorter hours and free.
dom from exertion and WEAKNESS,
there is a tendency to forget the
serious side Of the shield; to turn
liberty under law into indulgence
regardless of the law. 1t then be-