nature extremely capricious and extremely suggestible mental phenomena. Let the individual man alone, and he will feel antipathies for certain other human beings very much as any young child does — namely, quite capriciously just as he will also feel all kinds of capricious likings for people. But train a man first to give names to his antipathies, and then to learn to regard the antipathies thus learned as sacred merely because they have a name, and then you get the phenomena of racial hatred, or class hatred, and so on indefinitely. Such trained hatreds are peculiarly pathetic and peculiarly deceitful, because they combine in such a subtle way the elemental vehemence of the hatred that a child may feel for a stranger, or a cat, or a dog, with the appearance of dignity and sobriety and sense of duty which a name gives. (Royce, Race Prejudice and Other American Questions, page 47.) 2. A second error is the assumption that backwardness and inferiority are synonymous. "Backward," says Ratzel, “does not necessarily mean inferior." The conception of child races is a familiar conception. We have worked with it as a pretext in politics in relation to "subject peoples" and to the questions involved, "of responsibility to weaker races, of the relations of the governing power to great systems of native jurisprudence and religion, which take us back to the very childhood of the world, and in which the first principle of successful policy is that we are dealing, as it were, with children.”1 But we have not accepted this conception in its full application to race relationships. It is time that we should do so. A so-called inferior race is simply a race which has not yet enjoyed the education and felt the influences that would lift it to the level of its potential happiness and serviceableness. And in this sense all races are still inferior. 3. A third error is the idea that the apparent inferiority of a race is due to its race-character and destiny and not, as is the fact, to its lack of motive and opportunity and inspiration, although this lack is an effect as well as a cause of race-character. And it is of equal importance that the race which needs these should receive them. In dealing with the question of African character and the problem of labor in South Africa, the South African Native Races Committee declared in its report in 1908: 1 Kidd, The Control of the Tropics, pages 33 ff. It is often said that the native is indolent and must be taught the "dignity of labor." Gradually, however, it is being recognized that the true character of the difficulty is to be found, not in any inherent defect in the character of the natives, but in the absence of a sufficient motive to engage in continuous work. Uneducated natives can satisfy their primitive needs with little exertion; and if they are content with their present earnings, the difficulty of obtaining labor is not likely to disappear. But the progress of education tends inevitably to raise the standard of living, and by creating fresh needs supplies a powerful incentive to labor. And from the point of view of the white colonists there are other reasons of still greater weight for educating the natives. Nothing could be more unworthy, or in the long run more disastrous, than that the whites in South Africa should regard the natives as a mere "labor asset." If this view prevailed - and it is to be feared that it still has some advocates - it would inevitably result in the demoralization of the white communities. "We have to bear in mind," writes Sir Marshall Clarke, "that where two races on different planes of civilization come into such close contact as do the whites and blacks in South Africa, they act and react on each other, and where the higher race neglects its duty to the lower it will itself suffer." Neglect of this duty has many serious consequences, but perhaps none more disastrous than its effect on the white children. As Mr. Barnett justly says, "The mental and moral development of the white children is inextricably involved in that of the black." (The South African Natives, pages 186 ff.) A superior race that does not seek to share its superiority with an inferior will inevitably be dragged down to share the lower race's inferiority. 4. A more radical error is the idea of the fixedness of race character, of the fiat of unalterable race status. (Townsend's Asia and Europe sets forth this view persuasively.) On the other hand, the truth is that there is no static, inherent, abiding status of race superiority or inferiority. No race is assured of continued ascendency. . This truth of race growth and change is indeed a warning to all race vanity and privilege, but it is also the hope of all races, superior or inferior. None of them is doomed to a fixed 5. It is an error also to identify races and civilizations and to condemn as inferior the peoples of inferior or backward culture. In the first place, our Western civilization is itself none too superior. To the extent that it embodies the truth which God has written upon nature and conforms to the mind of Christ it is true civiliza tion. But in neither of these respects has it advanced far enough, and it is seamed with evils which are now so patent to the world that in condemning them there is danger that we may lose the essential values to which they are clinging. In the second place, so far as it is good it is not ours. It is or is meant to be all men's universal possession. ... 6. We err also in our sweeping race judgments when we fasten all individuals of a race within a racial inheritance as though the generalized character which we give to the race holds each member of the race in its determinism. Thank God, it does nothing of the kind. Men of the so-called inferior races, not in exceptional cases but by the thousand, can be cited who transcend in character, culture, power, influence, usefulness, and humanity members of the so-called superior races. Furthermore, as Professor H. A. Miller says: “Instead of drawing a line between races, psychological comparison demonstrates by the overlapping, similarity instead of difference. Divergences between the extremes of 'superior' and 'inferior' groups are almost exactly equal. It is manifestly absurd for the great mass of a race whom the lists classify as being of 'C' grade, to claim, because there are one or two per cent more of the 'A' grade in this race, that therefore these 'C's' have a God-given right to rule the other race which has also 'A's' and 'B's' in it." (The World Tomorrow (March, 1922), page 68.) QUESTIONS 1. Compare the foreign-born and the native-born elements of our population as to age. What conclusions can we draw from this? 2. Do the evidences of outward Americanization cited by Steiner indicate an inward Americanization? 3. What is Americanization? 4. Outline the goal of Americanization work as given by Albert E. Jenks. 5. Show instances where the immigrant has not been treated justly by our officials. 6. Enumerate and explain the many sources of our race prejudice. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR THE LABOR-CAPITAL STRUGGLE 134. THE CAUSES OF INDUSTRIAL UNREST 1 It needs no argument to show that there is unrest in industry. There is evidence of it in any newspaper you may happen to pick up. Stray snatches of conversation borne to the ears in hotel lobbies and in public conveyances bear witness to its importance. In the quarter century 1881-1906 there were 36,757 2 strikes and lockouts in the United States, an average of 1470 a year. In the two years 1917 and 1918 the number of strikes was 7572, and in the period 1916 to 1921, inclusive, there were 20,062 strikes, an average of 3343 strikes each year.3 Another evidence of unrest lies in the shifting from job to job that has come to be characteristic of modern industry. Labor turnover is the term used to describe this movement. It is measured by the ratio existing between men hired in a year and jobs available. Unrest has its origin in all sorts of factors and conditions, near and remote. Among these are the following: ... 1. The Work Period. Protest is made against a working day that is considered unduly long. 2. Inadequacy and Uncertainty of Income. To a peculiar degree the wage earner is a victim of economic insecurity, and the labor struggle is to a very large extent a groping about for certainty of income. Of all strikes and lockouts occurring in the period 18811906, 52 per cent involved demands for higher wages or protests against reduction. 3. Industrial Hazards. Anything that makes it impossible to work, whether inability to find a job or inability to perform labor on account of accident, illness, or old age, adds tremendously to the wage earners' economic problem. 1 From John A. Fitch, The Causes of Industrial Unrest, pages 4-8. Harper & Brothers, New York; 1924. Reprinted by special arrangement with the publishers. 2 Twenty-first Annual Report, United States Commissioner of Labor. 8 Monthly Labor Review, May, 1922; page 181. 4. Struggle and Repression. The unrest developed by these economic handicaps leads naturally to struggle. This struggle represents a conflict in objectives. The wage earners, instead of finding an easy road to the goal of their desires, find themselves opposed, thwarted, repressed. 5. Attitude of the Government. Another factor tending further to develop unrest and class consciousness is the fact that in their struggle for economic advance the workers feel that they cannot count on the assistance of any outside agency. Engaged in a movement which the workers believe to be in line with the higher purposes of society as a whole that is, the progressive advancement in well-being and ideals of a large proportion of the race they often find organized society- the state-indifferent or hostile. Legislation for their protection is meager; the legal status of their organizations is uncertain; the courts frequently interfere to hamper and restrict. . . It was pointed out above that in the last few years there have been in the United States an average of nine to ten strikes a day, and that a majority have been fought, directly or indirectly, over wages. This is impressive, but at the same time there has been another demonstration less spectacular in form, but possibly of greater real significance. A student of employment relations has recently estimated that in normal times 2 per cent of the working force of any factory is unnecessarily absent every day. Indifference when at work is a marked characteristic of wage earners everywhere. Individual soldiering and concerted restriction of output are widespread. 1 Labor turnover is a phenomenon the importance of which has been recognized only within the last few years. With the keeping of employment records we are now beginning to recognize its significance. Magnus W. Alexander, one of the first to make an intelligent study of turnover records, reported that 42,500 men were hired in 1913 by a group of factories in order to keep up an average force of 40,600 workers. Boyd Fisher, then secretary of the Executives' Club of Detroit, found in 1915 in fifty-seven Detroit factories 1 J. D. Hackett, "Absenteeism: A Quantitative Study," in Management Engineering; February, 1922. |