You would not believe how, from the very commencement of my activity, that horrible censor question has tormented me. I wanted to write what I felt, but at the same time it occurred to me that what I wrote would not be permitted, and involuntarily I had to abandon the work. I abandoned, and went on abandoning, and meanwhile the years passed away. So blighting is censorship that our unlicensed press is considered a "free" press, although it is certainly subject to legal prosecution for defamatory or seditious utterances. The national motion-film board of censors has been subjected to great pressure to formulate the principles of its discriminations, so that manufacturers may know in advance of production which films are likely to find favor. CHAP. LIV Blighting Effect of a Censor ship of In solvent Debtors Does Not It is owing to the principle of anticipation that law may often Protection be adjusted to social needs without damage to private rights. Some strongly denounce a bankruptcy law, not perceiving that its action will be anticipated by creditors, who will protect themselves by including in the selling price of their goods an insurance premium for the risk they run. In like manner, a homestead-exemption act need not wrong creditors, for they will reckon on it when they lend. In the ancient world the law's recognition of the right of the borrower to pledge himself as security for the repayment of his loan wrought terrible evil by reducing great numbers to servitude. The prohibition of slavery for debt caused little loss to creditors, for they discounted their weaker legal situation by exercising greater care in lending. In tropical South America I have heard peonage justified on the ground that the peons are so destitute that they need the right to pledge their labor after a bad season in order to procure from the planter the food necessary to keep them from starving. The true policy is to abolish the contract of peonage and let the laborer develop the capacity to look out for his future himself. Anticipating his plight without a master to fall back on, the laborer will be stimulated to save and to make himself a reputation for reliability. Thus he will rise in the moral scale. it is Dis counted Laws are Potent in Accumula Thanks to the principle of anticipation wise laws may be very potent in influencing economic life. Let the law provide adequate protection for some kind of property that does not exist tion and -say artificial oyster beds on the bottom of Chesapeake Bay-ment Invest ОНАР. LIV The of "Vested Rights Gave Capitalists ulators & Power ful In terest in and if the state of the oyster market justifies it capital will be invested. Since capitalists are likely to have both foresight and far-sight, nothing is so shrewdly discounted as laws and conditions affecting invested capital. A general attack upon the institution of property or random condemnation of the rich without discrimination will discourage saving or investment. On the other hand, a discriminating agitation to curb a certain kind of property or to convert it to public uses need not check accumulation or investment. This is why, after a reform movement affecting some species of property has been worked up by radicals, it will succeed better if carried out by a conservative statesman who is not suspected of having other anti-property reforms "up his sleeve." It is not well always to give property the benefit of the doubt. The historic decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Fletcher vs. Peck, validating a huge grant of public land so fraudulent that every member but one of the legislative and Spec- majority which voted it was interested and a party to the transaction, was a great encouragement to capitalists to engage in the corruption of legislatures. The decision made every grant of Corrupting special privilege, every act bestowing property or creating new property, even if obtained by grossest bribery, a vested right which no subsequent legislative act could rescind. The Dartmouth College decision declaring all corporate charters and franchises irrepealable contracts was a standing invitation to commercial companies to bend every effort to control the law-making body long enough to obtain a franchise after its own heart. the Leg islature Endow- Religion ANTICIPATION IN THE SPHERE OF RELIGION Nothing seems more likely than that the endowment of a religious order will promote the cause of true religion. At a given moment the monks are observed to be devoting their spare time to the propagation of religion. If they were free from the burden of self-support and there were more of them, surely the cause of religion would be advanced. It is fallacious, however, to assume that after the order controls rich endowments the quality and spirit of the brethren will be the same as it now is. The present members joined themselves to poverty and are spiritual men. But after an order is known to control wealth a different type crowds in, the prevailing tone changes, the spirit of СНАР. LIV Hunting Tends to an Emas culated Clergy I enjoyment and ease spreads, and the ideal of service fades out. In time society wakes up to the fact that instead of a brotherhood of apostles it is harboring a nest of dissolute parasites." Heresy-hunting seems defensible until one looks ahead and Heresy. notes how the practice will affect the composition of the clergy. No matter how fixed in the doctrines of his church a man may feel himself to be at the time of his entering the ministry, he should allow for the possibility of growth and change. The greater his intellectual vigor and the more independent his mind, the more this possibility becomes a probability. Hence, the prospect of being unfrocked for heresy after one is committed to one's calling and well on in life will repel from the ministry virile young men likely to make the pulpit a power; but it will not deter those weaker in intellect or character. The church that is jealous for the dignity and leadership of its clergy will satisfy itself as to the orthodoxy of those whom it ordains, but, save in extreme cases, it will not pursue with a heresy trial the clergyman who has come into disagreement with its creeds. It will leave the question of his continuance in its pulpit to his conscience and sense of propriety. DEDUCTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS It is recognition of the workings of this principle that makes the chief difference between the attitude of the intellectual and that of the emotionalist in matters of policy. The emotionalist says: "This couple are unhappy together. Why not let them. go their separate ways?" The intellectual replies: "Make divorce too much a matter of course and instead of having fewer unhappy marriages you will have more. For people will form risky and unstable unions because they know they can obtain a divorce if the union does not turn out well. Lessen the amount of caution and seriousness in marriage and the number of unions. calling for divorce surgery will grow." The emotionalist says: "What is the good of hanging this murderer and orphaning his children? Have pity and let him go." The intellectual replies: "A too-free use of the pardoning power encourages the evildisposed to yield to their criminal impulses, and thereby augments the amount of suffering among the innocent." The emo See the confidential report of Ulloa and Juan to the King of Spain regarding the state of missions and religious houses in Ecuador and Peru about 1740. "Secret History," pp. 142-145. The Emo tionalist is Blind to the Principle of Anticipation CHAP. LIV The Emo tionalist Defeats His Pur pose Calamitous Distress May be Relieved Freely tionalist urges: "How cruel to ostracize this girl for giving herself outside the marriage relation!" The intellectual queries: "Is there any other way to keep girls from yielding to their tempters?" A few seasons back an emotionalist in the United States Post-Office Department directed postmasters to turn over "Santa Claus" letters to local philanthropic societies. It was not long before the number of moving and apparently naive petitions to Santa Claus from artful children for sleds, skates, and other objects of juvenile desire greatly multiplied, and the local societies came to realize that they were being "worked." The order had to be rescinded. The emotionalist set up a revolving cradle in front of the foundling asylum so that foundlings might be deposited secretly. The theory was that this facility of disposal would do away with the murder of undesired infants. It certainly resulted in an alarming growth of illegitimacy and an irresponsible dumping of children upon the foundling asylums. A perfect case of short-sighted emotionalism is that of the late Empress Dowager of China, who, when she felt a tender impulse, would buy caged birds in the market and release them in the open. Aside from the fact that the courtiers just over Coal Hill snared these same birds and returned them to the dealers, it is obvious that the greater the demand for these birds in Pekin the more active would be the bird-catchers in the provinces; so that the Empress releasing birds on Coal Hill was unconsciously setting the snarers to work in Shantung. Had she freed the caged birds in the market instead of buying them her action would have been more to the purpose. The tearing of aigret feathers out of ladies' hats by our customs inspectors, although ruthless, has been effective for the end in view. The principle of anticipation does not tell against the relieving of distress which has not been brought about, nor could have been averted, by any act of the sufferer. Widowhood, orphanhood, loss of health, and distress arising from such unforeseeable calamities as fire, flood, war, earthquake, or epidemic may be relieved without fear of pauperizing the unfortunates. Again, if only the lesser part of a particular kind of distress can be relieved, the prospect of relief will not tend to augment the volume of such distress. Thus well-guarded accident or sickness insurance need not increase the number of cases of accident or sickness. Free medical clinics or hospitals or dispensaries will not weaken the health of a people, although they may slacken the endeavor to lay by sums to provide medical attendance. By the policy of "matching dollars" our multi-millionaire givers have avoided drying up the natural support of the institutions or causes they wish to aid. СНАР. LIV Discrimi Charity Mercy The more the relief of the destitute and the pardon of the nation wrongdoer are discriminating and based on a knowledge of merit Prevents in the individual case, the less will such action be presumed on and by the unworthy. Carried away by their discovery that help Being and mercy, by being reckoned on encourage idleness and crime, Abused the early social scientists seemed to bring under suspicion all charity and pity beyond one's own circle. We now deem it safe to give rein to these nobler impulses provided that their action waits on thorough investigation. Wise relief or leniency implies. not only discrimination, but discrimination based on a sound principle. This principle is that anti-social types of conduct and character should not be encouraged. It is not enough that help be withheld when it will foster laziness. No such consideration enters into the question of relieving the aged poor; yet in the administration of an old-age pension system the problem must be faced whether pensions shall be granted to habitual drinkers and persons who have gained their livelihood by vice, such as gamblers, tipsters, liquor dealers, panderers, and streetwalkers. is that izes It is now clear that good things made gratuitous do not pauperize. Getting something for nothing does not pauperize. Only Pauperthose gifts pauperize which, being anticipated, encourage undesirable types of behavior and character. Thirty years ago Herbert Spencer declared that public libraries and reading-rooms pauperize, overlooking the fact that the pursuit of knowledge makes men better, not worse. The sneer of "free soup for the mind" is quite pointless. Free schools and universities, free lectures and libraries, free museums and art galleries, free social centers and churches, free entertainments and band concerts, free playgrounds, athletic fields, swimming-pools, and baths do not pauperize, seeing that they make people stronger and better and wiser, not more lazy, self-indulgent, or vicious. The pioneers in social science also went too far in condemning mercy. A discriminating treatment of offenders is justifiable. The probation of first offenders holds no cheer for the professional |