of this tendency will probably be found, not in legislative attempts to turn back the tide, but in a corresponding coördination of consumers' demands in the future, perhaps no very distant future in some cases. Such co

ordination will probably be piece-meal, and by no means nation-wide, at any rate to begin with. The example of what has been done in England in this connection. was introduced as a proof that the tendency exists, and is not merely an academic possibility.

It was also noticed that the principle of coöperation has passed in the case of agriculture into three streams of influence - common purchase; common manufacture, as in creameries and bacon factories; and common marketing. The progress made in some cases can only be described as truly revolutionary. It has also been introduced into that most tangled of all modern problems finance. Mutual credit, as yet largely, though not wholly, confined to agricultural operations, is the germ of a force that cannot fail to transform industrial relations also when the time arrives for its application in that direction.

Finally, the relations between the higher organization of industry, and the mass of workers as producers were considered. The difference between opportunity to rise and opportunity to develop is an important one. The latter is the crucial question at the present time. The desire to preserve solidarity of interests within the ranks of the workers was noted as a phenomenon that must be reckoned with and allowed for in any attempt to develop higher forms of industrial organization. The organized workers feel no interest in, but sometimes considerable jealousy of, the work of their more skilful members, in the fear that a dividing line of interests will thus be brought about in their own ranks. Thus we have organized labor arrayed in more or less active opposition to efficiency, and the dividing line between its ranks and the higher industrial organization is to some extent widened instead of closed. It asks for opportunity to

develop as a class, rather than for opportunity to become differentiated within the class, and thus disintegrate its present solidarity.

In the past twenty years, during which the present writer has been closely in touch with the higher organization of divers industries, a great change in the spirit of the piece has become manifest. The more progressive employers are awake to the fact that the basic relation on which factory production was originally founded during the so-called industrial revolution, needs alteration. It is unfortunately true that the Trade Unions have not advanced in equal degree. They have very little constructive theory there is even a tendency in some quarters to revert to earlier types of obstruction, not merely by strikes, but by sabotage and wilful damage. No progress can be made that way: for the theory on which such action is based is an anti-social one, and therefore foredoomed to failure.

The true line of development is therefore seen to be some form of organization capable of being applied to existing productive units since the form of organization obviously controls the direction of development that will not merely allow, but foster, an increasing solidarity of interest between the workers as workers and the higher organization of industry. In this way alone can the eventual democratization of the economic relation be brought about. Such organization can only be developed by experiment, and in its experimental working out, it is important that both organized labor and the higher organization of industry shall be more mutually helpful and less mutually suspicious. That such a development can be successfully attained only by mutual coöperation, and not by paternalism, seems essentially

true.

MODEST MODERNIST PAPERS

II. Civics, Morals, and Religion

3

HE Modest Modernist in civic life, O Polycles, is

TH

cheerful. He is a good hoper. The worst thing he can think of to call you, and the easiest, besides "behind the times," is "pessimist." He himself is an optimist. If you call him an "incorrigible" optimist, his cup runs over. He will tell you that he is an optimist on principle. He will say it loud enough for all the neighbors to hear.

This is why the Modest Modernist never has doubts. He can not afford to have doubts. Doubts would undermine his optimism, and Modest Modernism without optimism is nothing. If the facts will not justify his theories, the facts must take the consequences. With him, theories are stubborn things.

The Modest Modernist considers the present an infinite improvement upon the past. At times, however, he is unable to look upon the present with that perfect satisfaction which is the bliss of Modest Modernism. That is because the web of the present has, inextricably woven into it, so many rotten threads of the past. With the tendency of the present, however, and with the promise of the future, it is different. In them he has the most unquestioning faith. Whatever is going to be, is going to be right. We are on the way, he will tell you, we are on the way as never before. He knows now that we shall really arrive at the foot of the rainbow. He knows beyond all doubt that the pot of gold is there in reality. In a generation or two, in a decade or two, in a year or two, we shall be dividing the treasure. The golden age

heretofore has always been in the remote past. Now, the golden age is in the near future. He says we are moving rapidly, and will soon be there.

The Modest Modernist says, Why should we not soon arrive, with all the appliances and means this greatest of all ages affords? He will tell you of the wonderful abundance of twentieth century devices. He will talk of steam, of electricity, of radium. He will ask you to think of the precision of modern machinery, of the aeroplane, of wireless, and of the marvels of medicine and surgery. He kindles. He glows. He will ask you to think of the intellectual advances of the age — of college and university, of library and museum and special foundation, of the availability and universality, as well as the range, of modern knowledge. He will ask you to consider especially the possibilities of the social sciences. He tells you of eugenics, hygienics, humanics, euthenics, agonistics, dietetics, economics, agronomics, scientific management. He says that the poor ignorant past had none of these things. He asks what may not come of wireless? He says some day we shall all have pocket wireless. He asks what may not come of postum or peanut flour or educator crackers, or fletcherism? He says once do away with dyspepsia, and we shall all be optimists. He asks what may not come of mental therapeutics? He asks what may not come of scientific management? He says some day we shall be able to measure the professor and the minister, and know at last whether we are really getting our money's worth of culture and religion. He asks what may not come of eugenics? He says we breed twelve-thousand-dollar cows and hogs now, and some day shall have a race of men and women who will not be ashamed to stand before a Guernsey or a Poland China.

The Modest Modernist foresees universal health, universal enlightenment. He foresees universal brotherhood, universal justice. The means are abundant. And the

method is simple. He says, Get together! Organize! He says the past is the old grandfather's clock: "Ke-e-ep a-part! Ke-e-ep a-part!" but the present is the lively little clock that cheerfully clicks away: "Get-to-gether, get-to-gether, get-to-gether!" So he says, Get together! Organize a movement. Call it by some alliterative title, like the Civic Center, or the Clean-up and Lift-up. Have meetings every two weeks, every week. Have a center in every ward. Make use of every schoolhouse. Get together! Talk things over. Appoint committees. Discover abuses. Discuss them. Correct them! Become universally intelligent, universally patriotic. Have city and county organizations, with city and county secretaries. Have the county organizations organized into a state organization with a state secretary. Have the state organizations organized into a national organization with a national secretary. Have meetings every week in every schoolhouse in the land. Have city, county, and state conventions. Have publications. Have travelling secretaries. Have missionaries. Organize all North America. Organize South America. Organize Europe. Organize the world! Have an international organization, international secretaries, international publications. Agitate. Petition. Get laws onto the statute books. Make it a criminal offense for a man not to be patriotic, for a man not to cast his vote, not to be temperate, not to be progressive, not to be eugenic, not to be optimistic. Organize! Agitate! Exert pressure. Use the God-given opportunity. Use the God-given instrumentalities of the greatest age of history!

Use the movie, for example. The dynamic present has the movie, where the criminal, static past had only Raphael and his crowd of church illustrators. The Modest Modernist addresses "scenario writers, producers, photoplay actors, endowers of exquisite films, sects using special motion pictures for a predetermined end, all you who are taking the work as a sacred trust." He says: "Consider