Evening star., 1933-11-12
BY REXFORD GUY TUGWELL.

II mOmeDt, luIIEol bAAC OSSooASAA
for war. There seems to be
nothing definite to which this fear may
be pinned, no situation in which COM
promise is impossible. There Is no
doubt. of course, that at the end OF
these long years of depression there is
Cisillusionment and discomfort. 1t may
be true also that gradual relief from
distress will bring disorder. Rising lev
els of living gradually free people from
utter dependency, revive their vision OF
better things, arouse new hope and
courage. When they gain a renewed
sense of personal worth and integrity,
of being some use in the world instead
of merely dependent in it, old grudges
begin to be paid off and new sources
of expression begin to be explored.
In such situations a call to arms is
difficult TO resist. The seductive music
of military drums can loose forces
which cannot be touched by any appeal
in the midst of depression. Something
like this occurred in Italy in the early
days of Fascism, something OF the sort
always occurs in great revolutionary
movements.
The masses move out of slovenly
past, out of submergence in misery TO-
ward the prospect of new discipline
and new outlet for the irrepreSsible
human spirit. The ardor and tmaglna-
ton of the American people make It
ridiculous to say that nothing of the
sort could happen here. There need
only be a cause and leader with clas-
sical notions concerning power and
force. We could have men marching in
the streets to the same music which has
always called them out. 1t is tampering
70 l.
bility.
moral Equivalents"
Suppose the present epidemic of
strikes should suddenly become focused
on some one great industry whose rela-
tionshipS ramified into many others;
and suppose the paths to compromise
should be closed by vindictive employ
ers; suppose, also, leader of the proper
ruthless sort, with an understanding OF
the mechanics of power and the uses OF
force, should undertake the organiza-
tion. There might be mass movement
here the end Of which would be wholly
unpredictable.
1t is important, therefore. as we
emerge from depression, that We should
again explore the possibilities of what
William James called the moral equiv
alents" of war. This conception i'm
plies that the recovery of the human
spirit can find an outlet for its renewed
energies quite as well in a discipline
which may count for construction as in
one which may lead us all over the
cliffs of destruction.
On going back and reading this essay.
which was written in 1910, l find some
of the reasons why war could happen a
few years later, and why also it might
happen again now. The occasion for
that war seemed trivial; the occasion for
another need be no more momentous
provided we are ready for it. The advo-
Gates of peace are no wiser; the military
mysticism is just as prevalent; the dead
hand Of misery has lain even more heav-
lily on the world. There is a sense of
black injustice abroad, also, which can
add itself to the monotony and the con-
fining Of spirit which characterize the
long years Of unadventurous industrial
ism.
Needed at This Time.
We never need the moral equivalents
more, If war Is to be avoided. than we
need them in this hour The gallant
spirit smothered, pent up within mems
souls, requires to be let loose. We need
new causes of action, a marching toward
understood goals, shoulder to shoulder
with our fellows.
James put it this way:
IF noW-and this is my idea-there
were. instead of military conscription,
conscription Of the whole youthful
population to form for a certain num-
ber of years part of the Army enlisted
against Nature, the injustice would tend
to be evened out, and numerous other
goods to the commonwealth would fol-
low. The military ideals of hardihood
and discipline would be wrought into
the growing fiber of the people; no
one would remain blind as the luxurious
classes now are blind, to mans rela-
tions to the globe he lives on, and to
the permanently sour and hard founda-
tions of his higher life. To coal and
iron mines, to freight trains. to fishing
fleets in December, to dishwaShing,
clothes washing and window washing
to road building and tunnel making, to
foundries and stokeholes and to the
frames of skyScrapers, would our gilded
youths be drafted of, according to their
choice, to get the childishness knocked
out of them, and to come back into So
ciety with healthier sympathies and
soberer ideas They would have paid
their blood tax. done their own part
in the immemorial human warfare
against Nature; they would tread the
earth more proudly, the women would
value them more highly. they would be
better fathers and teachers of the fol-
lowing generation"
Projects in the Air.
Not all of James conception can be
10 fad of IS
just his terms. Organized labor pre-
vents the competition of drafted men
still on the fallacious theory that there
is limited amount of work to be done
and that in what is done they have
a vested interest. And James speaks of
'gilded youths; but our concern is not
with him in this crisis, but with the
more genuinely disaffected, the unem-
ployed workers. Still the thought is
sound. 1t has worked like a leaven
these two decades: and it is
surprising to total up the phenomena of
the new deal which might answer to his
tests.
There is first the c. C. c., in which
$4,000 youths are for the first time
learning what it is to do a job which
looks beyond their generation into a
better future. They are having those
CAPSA AClASCo VI Cdulp lllc anu campaign
ing which the militarists value so highly
and they are under discipline of a sort
and good sort, I should say. less
rigorous than war would impose, but
more suited to return to civil pursuits.
But there are a number of other
projects in the air which may shortly
come to reality. Disease, for instance,
can be exterminated; filth can be
cleaned up noxious plants can be eradi-
Gated. Already they are at work on
The white pine blister rust and the black
stem rust of wheat. And they are work
ing in thousands on country roads. Just
on the horizon is a campaign against
typhus and spotted fever, all
diseases which can be stamped out
1ne by the same means which made
heroes OF the Americans who conquered
yellow fever in Cuba and Panama. an
other by the determination of rats. still
another by killing ticks. Less dramatic,
perhaps, but useful for the purpose of
equivalents. are such things as the war
AGAINST the gypsy moths, the completion
1f our survey of the collntrv's nhvsjcal