The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1930-01-23
THURSDAY, JANUARY %, 1880
REVOLUTION VS.. EVOLUTION

An OrSdulIdClOl W Is iAAo""AAA6 40
neya. Switzerland, dispatches an
nounce, has established its headquar-
tiers at Yellow Springs, O., with the
announced purpose of effecting so
cial reconstruction" An impressive
list of names of educators, economists
and sociologists is attached to the
plan.
Grandiose schemes of social re-
construction" while you wait are the
most serious barriers to social prog
ress. They are based ON superstitious
beliefs in the omnipotence of politi-
cal machinery in the field of human
betterment.
The extent to which defects in the
operation of existing machinery, due
to the failure of the human element,
are responsible for failure to accom-
plish the purposes of this machinery,
seems to be lost sight of. The philos-
ophy of individual responsibility
seems to be widely accepted. Emer-
sons doctrine that politics and gov
eminent cannot turn ounce into a
peach over night cuts no figure with
the sociological pole valuters. Give
them machinery from their designs
and they can turn out any sort OF
human they like.
History proves, however, that per-
manent human progress is crawling,
and not leaping, an evolutionary
and not a suddenly creative develop
ment. Mohammed might change the
religious beliefs of a nation by an
edict, but the only Simon-pure
MARKHAM state-Soviet Russia-has
not yet created an order of being that
adjusts itself to a rigid revolutionary
political mechanism, even under an
unlimited autocracy.
It is a trite but nevertheless true
statement that you can regenerate
human beings only one at time. 1t
is equally true that such regeneration
is slow process. Revolutionary
changes can be effected suddenly only
by the application of state force. And
that state force may prove to be a
menace rather than a blessing, be-
cause there is no assurance that it
will be controlled by altruism. Once
created such machinery may become
an instrument of tyranny, of corrup-
ton, and of enslavement. The fact
that it is beneficial up to a certain
point, does not prove that it may not
be harmful beyond that point. And
the machine may be broken into frag-
ments by putting it to uses beyond its
powers.
Human nature is not satisfactory
subject for laboratory examination. 1t
is the most complex and battling
thing we know anything about. HUI
man beings cannot be regimented and
classified, with any certainty of cor
rect conclusions. Congratulations
based on social surveys present facts
of significance, but most of the truth
about human beings is like an iceberg
two thirds out of sight. a..
The schools, churches and homes
are the three agencies most effective
for human Improvement. They are
incapable of mass production. This
is the field in which the old system of
individual handiwork is, and ever will
remain, supreme. When near-at-hand
duties are abandoned for visionary
schemes of regeneration by mass
methods, human betterment stops en-
tirely. 1t is for this reason that mass
production schemes of virtue and wis
dom are obstacles to progress.
One instinct to human nature in
this country at least, is that for indi-
vidual liberty and personal self-de-
termination. Anyone can exchange
that for assured bed and board IN the
county infrmary; yet few do it ex-
cept under the most extreme ne
cessity. Jl ,...s;.e =.
Human happiness and human prog
ress would be impossible in a state
which had become gigantic
eleemosynary institution, even though
it were well conducted. But in the
conversion of government into such
an institution, there i, no guarantee
that it would be well managed. The
eminent academicals who patronize
the people with their plans for MAX
ing them wards Of a paternalism they
assume may be benevolent, but which
would more probably be tyrinnical,