ers' associations, the trade-unions, an association of college-graduates, etc. These columns must be uncensored by the newspaper owner or editor. In this way facts and opinions that seem important to any respectable group could be got fairly before the public, and every newspaper would become, instead of a more or less unrecognized organ of private opinion and selected news, a real open forum for discussion of contemporary affairs, a way by which the members of a democracy may talk to one another and learn of everything important that is being done and said.

There are various ways in which the impartiality of the Press could be secured; there is no space here to discuss their relative advantages. Every reform, however, must recognize that the Press is an institution of public service. Its potentialities for the education of the people are almost limitless. It could be used to create an intelligent democracy, by voicing the various existing opinions upon every problem and noting accurately all relevant facts. If this ideal can be attained under the individualistic system of private ownership, well and good. But if the owners of the Press and of the great newsgathering agencies persist in using their power irresponsibly, for the furthering of their own particular views and interests, the public will find a way to limit or end that power. A "free press" must be taken to mean not a press that any one who can afford to can buy and run as he chooses, but a press free from dictation at the hands of any interest, free to serve the people as a whole. Nothing short of that will realize our ideal of Democracy in journalism.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Theodore Roosevelt, The New Nationalism: The Public Press. Henry Holt, Commercialism and Journalism.

W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, Chap. IX.

Walter Lippmann, Liberty and the News.

O. G. Villard, Press Tendencies and Dangers.
Upton Sinclair, The Brass Check.

D. Dibblee, The Newspaper.

J. E. Rogers, The American Newspaper.

E. A. Ross, Changing America, Chap. VII.

Henry George, Jr., The Menace of Privilege, Book VII.

G. H. Payne, History of Journalism in the United States.

"Lysis", in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 121, p. 815.

C. H. Grasty, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 124, p. 577.

CHAPTER XIX

DEMOCRACY IN INDUSTRY

THE ideal of Democracy demands that every adult human being should have a voice in every decision that directly affects his welfare. Toward this ideal the impulses that we may group together under the term "The American spirit" have been pushing us. But powerful forces have been blocking the way. The discovery that politics can be made to yield a substantial livelihood to the "insiders" has gone far toward thwarting the popular will and nullifying the achievement of political democracy. The discovery that the Press can be bought up by a few people and used to push their personal and class interests, and the causes in which they believe, has gone far toward robbing the people of a Press really free to tell the whole truth and to express all shades of opinion.

But the Ballot and the Press are, after all, primarily means to an end-the control by the people, for the people's good, of the conditions of their life. And there is a discovery that has done more to thwart democracy than either of the two we have mentioned the discovery that industry and commerce can be largely bought up and controlled, in their own interest, by a comparatively few rich men. So Big Business has arisen, feudal in its conception; a great mechanism whereby a small class of men have, within certain legal limits, complete dictation over the main activities of the country and the conditions amid

which the masses of men and women must work and live. These conditions are, as we saw in earlier chapters, often such as to take the heart out of the workers, and to wear out their lives. They may be remedied, one by one, by piecemeal legislation forced upon the owners of industry. But the fundamental reason for their existence is that the big industries are autocratically controlled. If those who suffer from these evils were to have direct voice with regard to them, they would quickly be mended.

When the great economists of an earlier day advocated the laissez-faire policy in business, they saw in that policy an opportunity of escape from a tyrannous state. They did not realize that it would result in "the exploitation of the economically weak by the economically strong, and the increase among the masses of that hopeless form of poverty which we call industrial poverty." But this has been the actual result of a system based upon the principle

"Let him take who hath the power,
And let him keep who can."

There are many employers who treat their employees kindly; there are some classes of employees better off in the conditions and rewards of their work than some employers. But because the despotism is at times a benevolent one, it is none the less a despotic system, far from the ideal of a true democracy.

Our working life is, for most of us, far the most important part of our life. And yet the tardiness of our application of the democratic principle to industry is easily explicable when we remember the very recent growth of the power of capitalism. The founders of our republic were independent farmers and artisans, or professional men, or in business on such a small

scale that they could know their hired helpers personally. The rise of the great soulless corporations is a matter almost of yesterday; the power of organized wealth is a new power in America. We have hardly had time to realize the momentous change that has quietly been taking place in our institutions, and making Democracy for masses of people little more than a name.

A large proportion of our people are still independent workers, controlling their own hours and conditions of work. But an increasing proportion have become simply "hands"-a labor commodity, to be bought as cheaply as possible, and used for the making of profits for the owners of the mine or factory or mill or business house. The impersonal nature of the corporation tends to make it heartless. It exists to "get results"; in many cases the owners know little of the conditions under which the laborers work or the scale upon which they are paid. The result is that it takes years of effort and the bitterest struggles to win for many of the workers even the minimum decencies of life.

The rest of us suffer too, not only indirectly, as from the danger of the disease- and vice-breeding slums in which underpaid laborers are forced to live, but directly, through the indifference of powerful money-making corporations to the public interest. It took many years of struggle to get our pure food laws, our meat inspection laws, our safety device laws, and the like. We still find ourselves helpless when some corporation or group of corporations decide to stop production in order to create a relative scarcity and raise the price of their product. If the move is skillfully executed, a few owners may make a considerable profit. In the meantime thousands