might be raised to that designated as American, and that this mass of unskilled men might secure an education for their children. Of course, no other appeal could have been so strong as this purely human one, which united for weeks thousands of men of a score of nationalities into that solidarity which comes only through a self-sacrificing devotion to an absorbing cause.

The strike involved much suffering and many unforeseen complications. At the end of eight weeks the union leaders made the best terms possible, which, though the skilled workers were guaranteed against reduction in wages, made no provision for the unskilled, in whose behalf the strike had been at first undertaken. Although the hard-pressed union leaders were willing to make this concession, the local politicians in the meanwhile had seen the great value of the human sentiment, which bases its appeal on the need of the “under dog," and which had successfully united this mass of skilled men into a new comradeship with those whom they had lately learned to call compatriots. It was infinitely more valuable than any merely political cry, and the fact that the final terms of settlement were submitted to a referendum vote at once gave the local politicians a chance to avail themselves of this big, loosely defined sympathy. They did this in so dramatic a manner that they almost succeeded, solely upon that appeal, in taking the strike out of the hands of the legitimate officers and using it to further their own political ends.

The situation would have been a typical one, exemplifying the real aim of popular government, with its concern for primitive needs, forced to seek expression outside of the organized channels of government, if the militia could have been called in to support the situation, and thus have placed government even more dramatically on the side of the opposition. The comparative lack of violence on the part of the striking workmen gave no chance for the bringing in of the militia, much to the disappointment of the politicians, who, of course, would have been glad to have put the odium of this traditional opposition of government to the wishes of the people, which has always been dramatically embodied in the soldier, upon the political party dominating the state, but not the city. It would have given the city politician an excellent

opportunity to show the concern of himself and his party for the real people, as over against the attitude of the party dominating the state. But because the militia was not called his scheme fell through, and the legitimate strike leaders, although they passed through much tribulation because of the political interference, did not eventually lose control.

The situation in the Chicago Stock Yards is an excellent epitome of the fact that government so often finds itself, not only in opposition to the expressed will of the people making the demand at the moment, but apparently against the best instincts of the mass of the citizens as a whole.

For years the city administrations, one after another, have protected the money interests invested in the Stock Yards, so that none of the sanitary ordinances have ever been properly enforced, until the sickening stench and the scum on the branch of the river known as "Bubbly Creek" at times make that section of the city unendurable. The smoke ordinances are openly ignored; nor did the city meat inspector ever seriously interfere with business, as a recent civil-service investigation has demonstrated; while the water-steals for which the Stock Yards finally became notorious must have been more or less known to certain officials. But all of this merely corrupted a limited number of inspectors, and although their corruption was complete and involved the entire administration, it did not actually touch large numbers of people. During the recent strike, however, twelve hundred policemen were called upon to patrol the yards inside and out-actual men possessed of human sensibilities. There is no doubt that the police inspector of the district thoroughly represented the alliance of the City Hall and the business interests, and that he did not mean to discover anything which was derogatory to the packers, nor to embarrass them in any way during the conduct of the strike. But these twelve hundred men themselves were called upon to face a very peculiar situation because of the type of men and women who formed the bulk of the strike-breakers, and because in the first weeks of the strike these men and women were kept constantly inside the yards during day and night. In order to hold them there at all, discipline outside the working hours was

thoroughly relaxed, and the policemen in charge of the yards, while there ostensibly to enforce law and order, were obliged every night to connive at prize-fighting, at open gambling, and at the most flagrant disregard of decency. They were there, not to enforce law and order as it defines itself in the minds of the bulk of healthy-minded citizens, but only to keep the strikers from molesting the nonunion workers, which was certainly commendable, but after all only part of their real duty. They were shocked by the law-breaking which they were ordered to protect, and much drawn in sympathy to those whom they were supposed to regard as public enemies. An investigator who interviewed one hundred policemen found only one who did not frankly extol the restraint of the strikers as over against the laxity of the imported men. This, of course, was an extreme case, brought about by the unusual and peculiar type of the imported strike-breakers, of which there is much trustworthy evidence, incorporated in affidavits submitted to the mayor of Chicago.

It was hard for a patriot not to feel jealous of the trades unions and of the enthusiasm of those newly arrived citizens. They poured out their gratitude and affection upon this first big, friendly force which had offered them help in their desperate struggle in a new world. This devotion, this comradeship and fine esprit de corps, should have been won by the government itself from these scared and untrained citizens. The union was that which had concerned itself with real life, shelter, a chance to work, and bread for their children. It had come to them in a language they could understand, and through men with interests akin to their own, and it gave them their first chance to express themselves through a democratic vote, to register by a ballot their real opinion upon a very important matter.

They used the referendum vote, the latest and perhaps most clever device of democratic government, and yet they were using it to decide a question which the government presupposed to be quite outside its realm. When they left the old country, the government of America held their deepest hopes and represented that which they believed would obtain for them an opportunity for

that fulness of life which had been denied them in the lands of oppressive government.

It is a curious commentary on the fact that we have not yet attained self-government, when the real and legitimate objects of men's desires must still be incorporated in those voluntary groups, for which the government, when it does its best, can afford only protection from interference. As the religious revivalist looks with longing upon the fervor of a single-tax meeting, and as the orthodox Jew sees his son ignoring the Yom Kippur, and pouring all his religious fervor, his precious zeal for righteousness which has been gathered through the centuries, into the Socialist Labor Party, so a patriot finds himself exclaiming, like Browning's Andrea del Sarto: "Ah, but what do they, what do they, to please you more?"

So timid are American cities in dealing with this perfectly reasonable subject of wages in its relation to municipal employees that when they do prescribe a minimum wage for city contract work, they allow it to fall into the hands of the petty politician and to become part of a political game, making no effort to give it a dignified treatment in relation to cost of living and to margin of leisure. In this the English cities have anticipated us, both as to time and legitimate procedure. Have Americans formed a sort of "imperialism of virtue," holding on to the preconceived ideas of self-government, and insisting that they must fit all the people who come to our shores, even although we crush the most promising bits of self-government and self-expression in the process? Is the American's attitude toward self-government like that of his British cousin toward Anglo-Saxon civilization, save that he goes forth to rule all the nations of the earth by one pattern, whether it fits or not, while we sit at home and bid them to rule themselves by one set pattern? Both of us many times ruining the most precious experiments which embody ages of travail and experience.

In the midst of the city, which at moments seems to stand only for the triumph of the strongest, the successful exploitation of the weak, the ruthlessness and hidden crime which follow in the wake of the struggle for mere existence on its lowest terms, there

come daily accretions of simple people, who carry in their hearts the desire for mere goodness, who regularly deplete their scanty livelihood in response to a primitive pity, and who, independently of the religions which they have professed, of the wrongs which they have suffered, or of the fixed morality which they have been taught, have an unquenchable desire that charity and simple justice shall regulate men's relations.

This disinterestedness, although as yet an intangible ideal, is taking hold of men's hopes and imaginations in every direction. Even now we only dimly comprehend the strength and irresistible power of those "universal and imperious ideals which are formed in the depths of anonymous life," and which the people insist shall come to realization, not because they have been tested by logic or history, but because the mass of men are eager that they should be tried, should be made a living experience in time and in reality.

In this country it seems to be only the politician at the bottom, the man nearest the people, who understands this. He often plays upon it and betrays it, but he at least knows it is there.

This is perhaps easily explained, for, after all, the man in this century who realizes human equality is not he who repeats the formula of the eighteenth century, but he who has learned, if I may quote again from Mr. Wilcox, that the "idea of equality is an outgrowth of man's primary relations in nature. Birth, growth, nutrition, reproduction, death, are the great levelers that remind us of the essential equality of human life. It is with the guarantee of equal opportunities to play our parts well in these primary processes, that government is actually concerned," and not merely in the repression of the vicious nor in guarding the rights of property. There is no doubt that the rapid growth of the Socialist party in all crowded centers is largely due to their recognition of those primary needs and experiences which the well-established governments so stupidly ignore, and also to the fact that they are preaching industrial government to an industrial age which recognizes it as vital and adapted to its needs. All of that devotion, all of that speculative philosophy concerning the real issues of life, could, of course, easily be turned into a passion for self-government and the development of the national life, if