the latter the marketing of a ware. Now, constantly the share of the newspaper's receipts from advertising grows, while the receipts from readers and subscribers dwindle. Speaking broadly, their advertisers yield the newspapers three times as much financial support as their readers. There are numerous indications that the advertisers are waking up to the fact that they hold the whip hand and are exercising an increasing censorship over the newspapers-a censorship which is secret, of course, for a journal known to be controlled loses its readers and therewith its value to the advertiser. Most significant is the way in which, during the war, the newspapers, in order to please their advertisers, preached "Business as usual," when, for the sake of the Liberty loans, they should have preached "Nothing as usual." Thus it happens that, although the social mission of the newspaper was never so widely recognized as now, although nearly forty schools and courses for journalism have been established within fifteen years, the clandestine prostitution of the newspaper to the business interests has never been so general. With the proportion of receipts from advertising creeping up each year, the newspaper is coming to be an advertising circular carrying reading matter, rather than a news medium carrying advertising. The situation will get worse until society treats the newspaper as a public utility in need of regulation and restricts its role as seller of publicity. If newspapers were not allowed to derive more than a modest proportion of their total income from advertising, they would cost us more but they would tell more truth. THE "CORPORATION COLLAR" CHAP. XXXVIII Selling Wholesale When a lawyer sits in his office and causes are brought to him, Legal he can choose which to undertake. But a large business finds Services itself in need of a continuous supply of legal services and therefore retains a lawyer to look after its interests in all cases which may involve it. Such a relation saps his moral independence, for, even if his client's cause is unjust, he is obliged to stand for it under penalty of losing his employment. Against his conscience he may be required to defend all suits brought by injured workmen or for violation of the child-labor laws, and to prosecute malicious eviction suits against striking tenants. XXXVIII CHAP. of company houses. Thus the practice of law becomes a mere tool of business and the lawyer's work is cut out for him by the business man. As the proportion of lawyers who accept corporation service grows, the chances are poorer for the independent attorneys who take only the cases they believe in. Statuary Factories Decline of Homely Amusements Catered THE PROFITS MOTIVE IN ART It is said that half or more of the statuary made in the United States is not carved by the man who signs it. Sculptors of repu tation sign the product of young unknown men, reaping for themselves the proceeds and the honor. "Monument associations" interpose themselves between sculptor and public. They have agents in the field soliciting contributions for the erection of a statue for some famous man or event. An open competition will be announced, with a prize for the best model submitted, but the association sees to it that the prize goes to the model submitted by some young sculptor in its employ. THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF AMUSEMENT AND RECREATION Formerly young folks' fun was not catered, but was self-made, home-made, church-made, or school-made. In the home there was the inevitable chaperonage of the old folks amiably looking on. Entertainments held in the school house ordinarily were supervised by the teacher and, in any case, the school trustees were in the background as board of censors. Other social gatherings were sponsored by the church, or by some daughter organization. Now, the habit of contenting one's self with amateur amusement is dying out. Thanks to good roads and automobiles, the country young people are turning from their home-bred fun to the professional amusement-makers to be enjoyed in the town. Since the art of entertainment has become specialized, the church no longer exercises in matters of recreation the initiative and supervision she once had. Less and less is she able to compete with the regular places of amusement, while her ban on dancing and theater-going has become a dead-letter. In a word, as never before, recreation is being supplied for money. The danger of this is that commercial recreation tends to become a means for the economic and moral exploitation of the young. It is in the nature of play and amusement to tend upward or tend downward. In case they are catered and with out regulation, they tend downward, because more money can be extracted from young people by offering them the highflavored, the risqué, the sensational, than by offering them the pure and elevating. The conscience of the individual amusement-caterer is well-nigh a negligible factor, for if he is restrained by scruples he will be forced out of business by a less scrupulous rival. In this field the man without conscience is "* fittest." CHAP. XXXVIII Means of Some benefit, no doubt, is to be had from the regulation of commercial amusements, e.g., the censoring of shows and motion Recreation films and the supervision of public dance halls. The only policy, however, which holds much promise is the communal provision of recreation. This is why, in the last twenty years, there has been a wonderful expansion of the facilities provided by institutional churches, the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian Association, the social settlements, the social centers, the recreation centers, the public playgrounds and the public libraries. Society has resolved not to abandon this field to Mammon. Were there space one might go on to show the commercialization of the saloon (which was the real cause of the adoption of national prohibition); of prostitution; of sport and inter-collegiate athletics (save where a strong barrier has been raised); of immigration from Europe by the transport companies; and of war scares and military preparedness by the munitionmakers. While, however, the profits motive has made these encroachments in our time, let no one suppose that this motive has always had a career of triumphant aggression. The fact is, the path of man's advance is strewn with discarded commercialisms. One might almost sum up the moral side of social progress as the expulsion of the profits motive from those parts of the social order in which it has no business to be. Other En croach ments of Mammon DE-COMMERCIALIZED MATING Take the family. There was a time when the father, without consulting his daughter, disposed of her hand to the highest bidder. Sometimes, as among the Tekke Turcomans to-day, when the daughter's services are very remunerative to the father he names a bride-price so high that she goes through life with CHAP. Love Religions of Sacri Ace Handi cap the Poor The Priest as Attor ney out a mate. A century ago in Servia, what with purchase price and presents to members of the bride's family, a wife became so dear that many a poor fellow was unable to marry at all." Finally a price-fixing law was passed restricting payment for a bride to one ducat. A common result of wife purchase has been that the rich old men monopolize youth and beauty, while the younger and poorer men have only hags. On the other hand, in some societies a "marriage portion" has been expected with the bride, so that the portionless girls go husbandless. In olden times an approved philanthropy was to provide poor girls with marriage portions. In the folk tales the crowning proof of romantic love was the lover's willingness to take his sweetheart without a portion. It is but a quarter of a century since Westermarck wrote, "In our days a woman without a marriage portion, unless she has some great natural attraction, runs the risk of being a spinster forever." How remote all such huckstering seems! Probably at no stage of civilization has mating been so free from the taint of avarice as in America to-day. DE-COMMERCIALIZED RELIGION When the religion of sacrifice prevailed a man won divine favor in proportion to his contributions to the god. The petitioner who offered the richer sacrifice believed that the god would surely be on his side. The unseen powers were supposed to bestir themselves more for the rich man who could offer a hecatomb than for the poor wight who could offer only a dove. This type of religion, however, was displaced by faiths like those of Jesus and Mahomet, which make God's favor depend on the heart of the worshipper rather than on his sacrifice. Jesus's parable of the widow's mite is a landmark in the humanizing of religion. With the contention that the petitioner does well to have his sacrifice and request offered by an expert, a wide door was opened to making money out of religion. Originally the priest was a pray-er. He knew just what formulas, postures, and gestures to use under the given conditions. By such means he could compel the god to do his will. Naturally he would not ex 2 For the effect of the great demand for "Bokhara" rugs in handicapping Turcoman maids in the matrimonial market see Ross, "Russia in Upheaval," end of chapter V, "The Rug Market at Merv." ercise this mystic power on behalf of the worshipper without pay, any more than an attorney will plead his client's cause without fee. So the priest charged a stiff price for his services and grew wealthy. In Homer's time the priest drank the finest dark wine of which he knew. It is a far cry from this to the Christian priest exercising his functions under responsibility and bound to serve the poor without fee-farther yet to the Protestant and Mohammedan conception of a clergy who are pastors and edifiers, but not intermediaries between the soul and God. About the close of the second century Tertullian declared that in heathenism the very gods are for sale, that no one is admitted free of charge to the knowledge of the gods. A fee is exacted for room in the temple, for even admittance thereto. Among Christians on the contrary, "no market value is set on anything in our religion. We have indeed boxes for offerings... contributions, however, are not compulsory, but spontaneous." CHAP. XXXVIII DE-COMMERCIALIZED GOVERNMENT Publicans It was customary for the Roman state to farm out its taxes Roman rather than collect them by the hand of its own servants. Syndicates bid against one another for the right to collect a particular tax in a certain province for a term of years. The contract with the censor fixed the rate at which the publican or tax gatherer could collect, but there was little to restrain the practice of extortion. Only the powerful could profit by the subject's right to appeal to the governor. "Wherever the tax gatherers penetrate," says Livy, "there is no justice or liberty for anyone." "Imagine," writes Cicero, "what is the fate of our allies in the remoter provinces when even in Italy I hear the complaints of Roman citizens." Among the Jews the publicans could not enter a court of law to give testimony, nor fill offices of judicature, nor engage in public prayers. No money was to be changed at their treasury, their contributions to charity were not accepted, and they were ranked with thieves and murderers. About the close of the seventeenth century the French Crown began to sell to sixty "farmers-general" the right to collect the indirect taxes. Adam Smith describes their profits as bitant" and the collection as "wasteful and expensive." Commenting on the fact that their cruel methods often led to bloody French Farmers |