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is no law they will not refrain therefrom. This is partly because the law will restrict the other fellow too; and the harmfulness of his practices is more apparent to us than that of our own. But it is also because each of us has two selves; and the more public-minded self, which votes, is often willing to erect barriers to restrain the more individualistic self which the stress of business fosters. Such barriers to selfishness, when imposed not by an autocratic government upon its subjects but by free men upon themselves, are absolutely necessary steps in social progress. By this blocking of the pathways to anti-social activity, many a man whose impulses would have seized upon opportunities for exploitation will find perforce other channels for his activity that will lead him into a more useful and actually happier life.

The cry of "hands off" is raised, to be sure, by many business men; and not wholly for selfish reasons. They remind us of our national ideal of Liberty, and point to the proud record of our individualistic tradition. But they forget that the ideal of Liberty exists to protect the weak, and must not be used to justify the strong in so acting as to impair the common good. Liberty means the right not to be exploited, not the right to exploit others. And individualism must mean the right of every citizen to have his share in determining what is for the public good, not the right of a single class of people to run the country's business in their private interest.

From another angle, individualism is seen to be always a half-truth; our great achievements have been accomplished quite as truly through our power of organization and mutual adjustment as through our high degree of individual energy. What is needed now

is to increase the span of organization and mutual adjustment until it includes the whole nation, instead of leaving it a mere organization of business men for purely private ends.

True, legislation has often been ill-considered and blundering. Resentment at the selfishness of many of the trusts has crystallized in laws which have sometimes needlessly hampered the organization and efficiency of industry. Loosely-devised statutes, construed this way and that by different judges, have given opportunity for subterfuge and chicane. Nevertheless, the work must go on. If laws are harmful, they must be improved. Ways must be found to encourage industrial progress while restricting unscrupulous and anti-social practices-whatever is obviously unfair to business rivals, to employees, or to the public. It is inevitable that the devising of the new controls over industry should be experimental and sometimes unfortunate in their results. Political democracy will require perhaps centuries yet to grope its way toward the best attainable forms of public control. But the only way out is through. And opposition to the great movement only creates friction and retards its achievement.

The principle of public control in the interest of the common good extends, of course, far beyond the field of industry, though that is its most important sphere of application. We have recently seen the successful consummation of the Prohibition Movement, which has interfered with the personal habits of millions. There can be no doubt in the mind of anyone who has studied the physiological and psychological effects of alcohol that our people are vastly better off, and on the whole and in the end far happier, to do without that narcotic. This voluntary self-abnegation on the part of

a great nation is almost unexampled in history, and an event of which we may well be proud. There is no more reason to declaim against the prohibition of alcohol than against the prohibition of the opium and cocaine derivatives. Any drug that seriously undermines the health and efficiency of our people must be banished as rigidly as possible, however pleasant its use may be to many.

But the precedent established by the Eighteenth Amendment has its dangerous side. The majorityeven the sweeping majorities needed to pass an amendment to the Constitution-should beware of interfering more than is absolutely necessary with the personal morals of individuals. For not only does such interference awaken resentment and excite against itself the passion for liberty, but there is also the danger of ignoring individual needs, repressing desirable variations in conduct, and producing a stereotyped and conventional conformity instead of the variety of experiments and variations which is the fertile seed-bed of progress. In general, it may be said that in the spheres wherein success and happiness depend largely upon organization and mutual adaptation, as notably in industry, a great deal of restriction upon individual rights is necessary; whereas in the field of personal habits and morals, religious beliefs and worship, artistic activity, and intellectual research and discussion, only the practices universally recognized as vicious, or shown by scientific investigation to be seriously harmful, should be forbidden.

The problem of individualism vs. social control is an intricate one, to which no glib solution is possible. Every case must be decided upon its merits. In some cases the joys and potentialities of unrestricted

liberty are more precious, in other cases the public need must weigh the heavier in the balance. Hitherto, in America, we have worshipped individualism, and-according to the judgment of nearly all foreign observers lacked "statemindedness," the willingness to subordinate ourselves to the general welfare. But the Great War, with its conscription of men and money, and its steam-rollering of minority opinions, revealed a hitherto unrealized willingness to exercise compulsion in what the overwhelming majority deems the public interest. That this new sense of the moral and legal precedence of public over private interests may be used for good rather than unfortunate ends needs our utmost vigilance.

Washington, in a letter to the Constitutional Convention, pointed out that "individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest." To learn to subordinate sectional to national interests has taken us many years; the lesson was driven home by the crushing defeat of the Secession movement, but it has not yet been thoroughly learned. Bills are constantly introduced into Congress that favor one section of the country at the expense of the country as a whole. Projects of obvious benefit to the nation are blocked because of the opposition of certain States or cities that fear the diversion of. their trade or the diminution of their prestige. We still lack such a sense of solidarity as would ensure us against this geographical selfishness.

A century or so ago the several States were practically self-sufficing; comparatively few undertakings crossed their boundaries. Now State lines mean almost nothing. Our railways, telegraphs, telephones, have bound us together in one industrial and political unit. It remains for us to work out a

greater harmony between State laws. As it is, to quote a recent writer, "In one State you may do business for which in another State you would go to jail; in one you may be married and crazy, in another single and sane." This variety in codes is of great educative value; but in the cases mentioned, and in other respects, it is high time for us to seek a greater national uniformity. The American of today seldom thinks of himself as first a citizen of New York, or Illinois; he is first and foremost a citizen of the United States, and only secondarily a citizen of the particular State in which he happens to reside. It is an anomaly, then, that the disparities in State laws should ever produce such confusion and injustice as that to which the sentence above quoted alludes.

Geographical sectionalism is probably waning. But we must beware lest a class or occupational sectionalism take its place. There are powerful divisive forces at work. The development of Big Business has pushed the employer class and the wage-earners farther apart; they live differently, have different interests, read different newspapers, think differently, and perhaps in an increasing degree fail to understand one another and to work together as complementary elements in one harmonious industrial scheme.

Thus America, at first so homogeneous in her social order, now faces the old-world problem of classstratification. Fifth Avenue is far from Second Avenue, Beacon Street from the North End. If this nation ever loses its unity it will be through a horizontal split between the property-owning classes and propertyless labor. To avert such a calamity must be our constant aim and prayer. We should remember Roosevelt's solemn words: "Other republics have

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