СНАР. LIV Matters which should Shun Publicity Matters which should Court Publicity criminal. The parole of convicts who have "made good" is not likely to encourage lawbreaking. Substituting reformatory for penal institution does not lower the hedge against crime; for if there is one thing the evil-disposed regard with horror it is refor mation, especially after they learn of the regimen by which reformation is brought about. The policy of deterring the ill-intentioned by the relentless punishment of all caught lawbreakers assumes that foresight is universal. We now know that there exist born criminals too strong of impulse or too weak in self-control or foresight to be deterred from crime by even the smart of punishment, let alone the example of it. To set aside such offenders for cure rather than punishment is not to embolden the evil-disposed. Publicity feeds anticipation; hence we should shun publicity for things we do not wish people to anticipate. Pardon, save of those exonerated, should be kept quiet, mercy should work under cover, charity should be furtive. "When thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth." The secret help that passes between kinsfolk, friends, comrades, neighbors, fellowworkers, and fellow-members of the same church or lodge or union does little harm. At the other extreme are endowments or fixed funds or special taxes set aside for the relief of the poor. Because they become well known they are sure to be reckoned on. Such provision, therefore, is more likely to breed poverty than the fluctuating relief flowing from the current contributions of the charitable. On the other hand, we should court publicity for things we wish people to anticipate - rewards or benefits held forth for desirable kinds of conduct or character. There cannot well be too much publicity for conditions of security of life and property, protection of contracts, low taxes, bounties, tax exemptions, military or civil pensions, thrift agencies, government aid to industry, honorary titles, scholarships, hero medals, and monuments, or honors to public men. Recurrence breeds anticipation. "In seizing a state," says Machiavelli in The Prince," the usurper ought to examine closely into all those injuries which it is necessary for him to inflict, and to do them all at one stroke so as not to have to repeat them daily; and thus by not unsettling men he will be able to reassure them, and win them to himself by benefits." The sage quite misses, however, the principle of anticipation underlying his sound counsel and offers the fanciful reason: "For injuries ought to be done all at one time, so that being tasted less, they offend less; benefits ought to be given little by litle, so that the flavor of them. may last longer." СНАР. May LIV Energy It is in the contrasted effects it produces in consequence of Charity being anticipated that social reform is so much superior to charity Damp in dealing with widespread or chronic misery. Think of the competition which determines the distribution of income in society as a race in which all who run receive, according to their speed and endurance, prizes varying in value from a trifle to a fortune. Charity now comes in to relieve the distress of those who from lameness, or having stumbled, or being tripped, are unable to win even the trifle. But since running is not easy and the petty prizes for the slowest runners leave them worse off than those succored by charity, many resort to the trick of stumbling or giving up when they are really able to run. And the more charity does, the more malingerers there are. Whereas Social Stimulates Altogether different are the methods of social reform. It removes from the course the stones and pitfalls by which runners Reform are thrown down. It punishes tricky runners who trip up or "spike "those who are just ahead of them and in their way. By a little forethought it greatly lessens the number of halt and ailing who cannot even enter the race. By providing all with a little instruction and training in the art of breathing, running, taking hurdles, etc., the number of those who can manage their feet well is greatly increased. Then, since there is much that is arbitrary in the relative magnitude of the prizes for swiftness, social reform aims to cut down the big prizes and add to the size of the prizes for ordinary running. Since it notices among the great throng of competitors some who without exertion are able to capture fine prizes in motorcycles or automobiles won in some previous race or left them by their fathers, it endeavors to handicap these contestants in the interest of those who rely on their legs. To be sure, this image is faulty in that the running does not create the prize, while in the real world there would be no prizes were there no running. But for the purpose of contrasting the methods of charity and social reform the image is fair enough. Charity in caring for the crippled or unlucky unwittingly tempts CHAP. Only does An- its Characteristic Results Early Lawgivers, in order to take Advantage of An ticipation, the Prin Sacrificed ciple of Individual Responsibility others to drop out of the race. Social reform fits more persons to run, shows them how to develop their speed, clears their course, encourages the slow with bigger prizes, and altogether incites a much larger proportion to get into the race and do their best. Only slowly do habits, standards, and social customs change in response to a changed outlook. Not only does it take time for a policy or practice to become sufficiently well known and understood for people habitually to reckon on it, but a process like pauperization is a gradual one. Very slow likewise is the substitution of the ease-loving for the spiritual type in a religious order which has become wealthy. The same is true of the processes of regeneration. With a population like certain subject peoples in the Turkish empire, whose bad economic habits are due to the long-continued influence of arbitrary and rapacious government, the introduction of justice and security does not at once make the people industrious, thrifty, and enterpris ing. It may be that the adults will never form better habits and that a new generation must appear upon the scene before the expected fruits appear. The sage lawgivers of antiquity understood very well the principle of anticipation, although they did not formulate it. In their eagerness to take advantage of it they often drifted too far from the principle of individual responsibility. Bills of attainder, punishing the blood kin of the law-breaker, branding with ig nominy the child of illegitimate amours, letting the child of the unworthy suffer with its parents-all these harsh policies shock our sense of justice and have been renounced, although there is no doubt that they aided in repressing undesirable conduct. In the same way hereditary offices and hereditary titles and privileges rewarding signal public service are no longer granted, while society is more and more inclined to restrict the inheritance of large wealth, despite the consideration that the privilege of transmission to one's heirs undoubtedly supplies a motive to accumulation. CHAPTER LV TH THE PRINCIPLE OF SIMULATION СНАР. Acquisi HE "tricks of the trade," business "shrewdness," lying by advertisement, newspaper prevarication, the wiles of the bar and the ruses of diplomacy are serious enough in their way, but tive they do not greatly hamper the honest functional people who are striving to render genuine service. What most hurts them is the tendency of the unworthy to simulate every type or trait which has won social approval, in order to steal prestige from it. This taking on the popular hue is like that coloration and mimicry one finds among the lower forms of life, save that it is acquisitive rather than protective. The simulator usually aims to traffic on the prestige he filches from the simulated. In the Middle Ages piety was the best cloak for self-seekers to The Reassume. Satirizing the prelates, Erasmus writes: To work miracles is old and antiquated and not in fashion now; to instruct the people, troublesome; to interpret the Scripture, Pedantick; to pray, a sign one has little to do; to shed tears, silly and womanish; to be poor, base; to be vanquisht, dishonourable . . . and lastly to dye, uncouth; and to be stretcht on a Cross, infamous. With the rise of the centralized monarchy bloomed a new type, the courtier. Thanks to Richelieu's work, Louis XIV could have proud feudal nobles as pliant ornaments of his court. La Bruyère says: Whoever considers that the king's countenance is the courtier's supreme felicity, that he passes his life looking on it and within sight of it, will comprehend to some extent how to see God constitutes the glory and happiness of the saints. Taine cites a letter from a duke to Madame de Maintenon: "Pardon me, Madame, the great liberty I take in presuming to send you the letter which I have written to the king, begging him on my knees that he will occasionally allow me to pay my court to him at Ruel, for I would rather die than pass two months without seeing him." ligious Hypocrite The Courtier CHAP. LV Deceptive Rise of Commercial Simulation Good Preyed How a monarch who had become "the fountain of honor" was able to trade upon the passion of his ambitious subjects to share in the prestige of the feudal nobility is indicated in one of Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes: The King of France is the most powerful prince in Europe. He has no gold mines, like his neighbour the King of Spain — but he has greater riches than he, because he draws them from the vanity of his subjects, more inexhaustible than any mine. He has undertaken and maintained great wars, having no other funds than titles of honour for sale, and by a prodigy of human vanity and pride, his troops are paid, his places filled, and his fleets equipped. From the courtier example there spread quickly through society a deceptive glaze of manner. In one of his sermons Bos suet declares: Never have people lived so much on caresses, on kisses, on words chosen to bear witness to a perfect cordiality, yet if we could pierce to the bottom of all hearts, if a divine light could disclose suddenly all that conventionality and good taste, interest and fear hold so well hidden, then what a strange spectacle! COMMERCIAL SIMULATION There is no reason to suppose that modern society is so corroded with hypocrisy as was seventeenth-century France. The brushing aside of glittering parasites by the rise of the roughand-ready, plain-dealing, functional people has brought sham into bad odor. Polite society is probably as sincere as it ever has been, while religion is now of little use as a cloak. Conmercial simulation, however, waxes apace. Layer after layer of people have come to buy other people's products instead of consuming their own, so that the total purchasing power exciting the cupidity of traders is nearly equal to the entire volume of production. The possible buyers of nostrums, gold bricks, beauty recipes, "salted" mines, and town lots under water are legion. The fraud orders of our Post-Office Department in a single year bar the mails to schemes which have robbed the public of $60.000,000 annually. The rivalry to unearth new strata of customers and to sell new kinds of goods results in an ear-splitting overproduction of publicity and hence a resort to every trick of falsehood, sensa |