The Spell of Prosperity
THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Literature, The...
...It was antedated by years of desperate struging public opinion has not always attended satisfac- gling-years during which men and women, who lived torily to details, but it has insisted upon one important close to the border-line of slavery, studied economic thing-it has not permitted the pendulum to swing too theory, grasped the purposes and methods of organifar either toward private initiative or toward commun- zation, and frequently fought for the right to live...
...but no one can say that their really working hard-as in Italy and England just followers, in a possible era of dissociated and chanow-they cling pretty firmly to their notions...
...Business pessimists have, in fact, to conjure up from them an adequate vision of this adopted an adventistic practice of projecting the day tide of plenty we call prosperity...
...The really ironical thing its holdings, no longer exists...
...As an adventure, the Eighteenth sion and poor wages, of soup kitchens and unemployAmendment has thrilled thousands...
...But only the enthusiastic hearing...
...One tecture...
...proud of 1925, and unreservedly optimistic about the These facts speak for themselves, but it is difficult sum-total of 1926...
...And so of turning into marbles rolled about on the playground...
...every private individual, regardless of economic status...
...The federal Department of Commerce is posited over $40,000,000 during the past year...
...The berless errors in theory and tactics, they were the unnormal action of government has been merely to curb forgettable facts which guided the national conscience dangerous excrescences like trust-formations on the in its attitude toward the rights of the poor and the one hand, and radical communistic societies on the curtailment of selfish economic power...
...Volume IV New York, Wednesday, September 15, 1926 Number ig CONTENTS The Spell of Prosperity 435 Communications 446 Week by Week 437 Poems Leo Markun, Marie Blake, The World's Conscience 440 Mavis McIntosh, Dorothy Haight, Clement Wood, Ruth E. Hopkins 447 From Dadaism to Aquinas...
...In spite of numprise of capital or to the development of labor...
...and States marveled at the "order" of American living-most striking circumstance of all-the average well- the safety of crowded streets, the dependableness of paid workingman of 1824 turned out 25 percent more schedules, the courtesy of industrial servants-and than did the comparatively poorly paid workingman sought the explanation partly in the fact that there of 1913...
...Sooner or later, new-and sometimes very raw-suburban residential a city with enough money to spend, can create parks cities have been erected during short periods of time, and boulevards, establish cultural centres, wipe out so that throngs of salaried and wage-earning citizens flagrant crime, establish traffic order, and guarantee may satisfy their craving and purchase homes...
...Does it alluring...
...Where men are in the American ideal...
...It may do much when actuated by altruAfter all, there may be ideas which should remain ism or enlightened self-interest...
...ideas," and content to haunt a philosophical groove...
...It is true that there has very likely been some- Now, under the spell of prosperity, it becomes easy thing like too great a concentration of wealth, and to neglect the lessons of the past...
...He then acted not so employing companies, and ornamented with welfare much reasonably, as instinctively, to preserve the deli- tendencies...
...But the mean between these extremes has by a widespread feeling of security-of confidence in clearly and obviously prevailed, so that the result is the sources of easy money...
...Getting ideas" is a fetish to which broken clean with the efforts and principle of the past even the most hardened Rotarian succumbs...
...of labor...
...Now, if the financial balance of the year 1924 cannot tamper with the basic social truth, even in times is so prepossessing, it is obviously because it is a bal- of prosperous play...
...was right to a considerable extent...
...The circumstance is not merely fortuily operating effect a definite national cause...
...THE COMMONWEAL A Weekly Review of Literature, The Arts, and Public Affairs...
...The delectable leisure is not a ance of prosperity rather than of wealth...
...Why bear the burden of visible in an unparalleled distribution of wealth...
...Sanely levied bond-issues make possible automotive industry is stabilized to an extent which civic improvements which are shared by each and sends its better stocks soaring to unprecedented levels...
...the sanitation...
...American civic purpose...
...Wealth and service Deposits in savings banks exceed $23,000,000...
...Comfort- -if the antithesis between labor, legally organized able complacency is forever seeking to perch itself in its own defense, and capital, legally protected in above exploding dynamite...
...He buoyed up commerce seem to have dispelled thrift...
...Henry Longan Stuart 444 Innes Center, H. L. S., T. C. 449 Monks and Monks Thomas Walsh 444 The Quiet Corner 453 THE SPELL OF PROSPERITY INDUSTRY has put in the biggest year of its his- of life-insurance, veterans of the United States detory...
...Nor does the tremendous buying which has was abundant money to pay for all these things...
...how consistently they trusted No dictatorial limit has been set either to the enter- the ideal of distributed contentment...
...There is all the difference in take one example of the sums amassed under the cover the world between an organization which is driven, 436 THE COMMONWEAL September i S, 1926 and an organization which is eager, or willing, to go...
...but in times of stress as the stones in the fundament of our dwelling, instead it does the natural thing-it protects itself...
...If prosperity were a stable not produce a type frightened to death of "radical and certain thing, there would probably be no reason...
...and, to do go hand in hand...
...Why cling to the old, darkling, militant cate compromise between law and liberty which had atmosphere of the federation with a grievance, when been constituted his ideal of government...
...Even the devotees of national naive will trust industry to the extent of believing it cynicism have banded and grown strong...
...other...
...G. R. Garrett 441 The Play R. Dana Skinner 448 Nathan Hale-the Beloved Spy Edythe H. Browne 442 Books Landon M. Robinson, Muriel Kent, Walter V. Anderson, Robert The Leaven (verse...
...Who pher" is that so many well nourished people are in- can guarantee that during another cycle of depresterested in him...
...general welfare," is, of course, a constitutional pledge...
...Despite a grim and continuous debate, On the whole, it is remarkable how firmly these groups labor organizations have grown numerous and strong of laborers and their leaders maintained their faith in while property rights have been scrupulously respected...
...Well, why...
...To promote the of doom into the vague future...
...In short, if there ment, the development of the consciousness of labor be a routine American type, nothing is so well cal- will be as sane and constructive as it has been...
...istic profit...
...It is widely the keen, bright air of the successful company is so believed that this conservatism is malignant...
...Labor-unionism something like too complete a monopoly of skilled complains that its grip seems to have been weakened trades...
...The culated to upset it as the prosperity which allows old unionists and their present successors share a faith flirtation with ideas and institutions...
...Govern- tous...
...Working- mere gift of the gods...
...men, this time, were Oliver Twists who really got Nevertheless, there is behind this facade of smooth- some more...
...we feel that any aggressive attack upon the structure Hypothetically, at least, Emerson's brave old phrase of labor-unionism is calamitous because it undermines about the world having been built on ideas, is still a compromise secured by long years of effort in conworth considering as a principle in the national archi- sonance with a firmly rooted national principle...
...It might then be imperative to relegate into the disWell, we doubt very much if there is another country card economic and social factors once useful to the in the world where "causes" are so sure to get an life of the race, but now outgrown...
...the Baltimore and Ohio plan of labor management A recent distinguished French visitor to the United has been in successful operation for three years...
...large, both in principle and practice...
...about the "savage novelist" or the "volcanic philoso- The danger is as great one way as another...
...When evil days come-as they extraordinary violence are expounded with gusto and surely will-what shall be our defense if we have applauded wildly...
...Facts like the following are most impressive: build- Distributed contentment is one of the objects of ing permits, for all types of structures, are more num- American life...
...and obviously the efforts made by erous than ever before, in spite of the astonishing municipal and federal rule in its behalf have been amount of construction rushed through since the war...
...defensive organization when it is easier and more The American citizen has often maintained his con- lucrative to join cooperative unions established by the servatism in the face of odds...
...Theories of impervious to assault...
...Cin- otic labor, would do as much...
...Obviously, it is not cinnatus would probably not have been interested in part of the business of capital to protect the privileges Ezra Pound...
Vol. 4 • September 1926 • No. 19
