emain a promise and
constructive ideal rather than a finished performance. The social
problem must, as long as societies continue to endure, be solved afresh
by almost every generation; and the one chance of progress depends both
upon an invincible loyalty to a constructive social ideal and upon a
current understanding by the new generation of the actual experience of
its predecessors.

CHAPTER VI

I

REFORM AND THE REFORMERS

Sensible and patriotic Americans have not, of course, tamely and ignobly
submitted to the obvious evils of their political and economic
condition. There was, indeed, a season when the average good American
refused to take these evils seriously. He was possessed by the idea that
American life was a stream, which purified itself in the running, and
that reformers and critics were merely men who prevented the stream from
running free. He looked upon the first spasmodic and ineffective
protests with something like contempt. Reformers he appraised as
busybodies, who were protesting against the conditions of success in
business and politics. He nicknamed them "mugwumps" and continued to
vote the regular tickets of his party. There succeeded to this phase of
contemptuous dislike a few years, in which he was somewhat bewildered by
the increasing evidences of corruption in American politics and
lawlessness in American business methods, and during which he
occasionally supported some favorite among the several reforming
movements. Then a habit of criticism and reform increased with the sense
that the evils were both more flagrant and more stubborn than he
imagined, until at the present time average well-intentioned Americans
are likely to be reformers of one kind or another, while the more
intelligent and disinterested of them are pretty sure to vote a "reform"
ticket. To stand for a programme of reform has become one of the
recognized roads to popularity. The political leaders with the largest
personal followings are some kind of reformers. They sit in presidential
chairs; they occupy executive mansions; they extort legislation from
unwilling politicians; they regulate and abuse the erring corporations;
they are coming to control the press; and they are the most aggressive
force in American public opinion. The supporters and beneficiaries of
existing abuses still control much of the official and practically all
the unofficial political and business machinery; but they are less
domineering and