Evening star., 1933-06-02
The Fetish of Progress.

Apparently It Is mistake to make
o fetish OF progress. To the philos-
opher the gains which commonly GO
by that name are not ends in them
selves. Rather. they are mere steps IN
q general advance toward q goal as
yet only dimly discerned. They are not
static points, rigid and fixed. immutable
in their nature. sacrosanct, beyond crit
ieism. Like rungs on q ladder, they
may help the climbing multitudes to
rise, but that is practically all the
function they have.
The written history of the race, as 1t
happens, affords numerous proofs Of
the hazards involved in forcing an ac-
celeration of peoples ordinary pace.
Civilization cannot be imposed upon ma
tions On the contrary, 1t is funda-
mentally a product of evolution. 1t
must develop gradually. Arbitrary
coercion theoretically may be defensible
as q policy of conquest. superior
population may protect Its own stand
ards by the employment Of such meth
DDS. But a dictated culture, established
by violence, cannot be considered q nor
NAL development. Actually, 1t Is only
a veneer. That is the explanation OF
many of the failures Of European en-
dsevors to control the inhabitants OF
certain backward areas Of the earth.
1t likewise is the explanation OF the
lack of success encountered by Amer
lean efforts to assimilate disgenic ele-
ments received from certain almost
equally primitive communities in Eu-
rope and the Orient.
An excellent example Of the mixed
values Of an imported cultural I'M
provement, an unnatural progress, Is
to be found In the instance OF the
horse as made available to the Ameri-
can Indian by the early settlers OF the
western world. Flora Warren Seymour,
In her STORY of the Red Man." says:
The horse was at once an inestim-
able blessing and the presage OF oe-
struction. 1t held the possibility OF
distance that could never otherwise
have been traversed; accumulatlonS OF
goods that without this aid could never
have been amaSsed or transported from
one place to another. SO 1ar, IL was
Justly regarded as the symbol OF wealth.
the most priced OF possessions.
But ease In travel meant more ana
liyelier warfare. 1t widened the circle
of enemies. 1t diminished the length
and breadth of the continent even more
surely, and much more fatally, than
the Iron Horse did centuries later.
Horse and gun together changed the
location of many tribe in these days.
We get glimpses, here and there, OF
tense drama-the Chippewa driving
the Sioux beyond the headwaterS OF
the Mississippi, agriculture deserted Tor
the chase and the warpath; the Indlos
salvajos becoming ever and ever a
more fearful menace to the trembling
village folk of the desert. And, under
the influence Of such greatly increased
powers of destruction, the range OF the
buffalo shrinks to its concentration on
the rolling central plains.
So these great gifts Of the white man
brought their greater dangers.
OF course, to the white man the fact
so stated meant nothing particularly
mournful 1t was only to the Indians
that the kind of progress indicated by
the appearance of the horse, with its
concomitants Of shotguns and fire.
water, meant disaster The two races
met, and the culture of the one de-
stroyed the other. The net result is
called progress by white historians. By
Indian historians, If any there were, 1t
doubtless would be called something
quite different.
The present generation faces similar
problem. Vast material development,
vast scientific expansion. vast produc-
ton, vast credit-and then, like bolt
from the blue, depression! Perhaps the
world ran ahead at too rapid pace.
Perhaps it made too great fetish OF
material gain. Otherwise, how is 1t
possible to account for the unnatural
poverty, the misery and the anarchy
which are SO conspicuous on every
hand and so deplorable?
1t may be just as we'll If the race
learns to be content for q while to
climb at less hectic gait.