Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/238

 226 be safe, because it is not a speculative progress, but one which is guided in its line of movement by precedent changes of environment.

Regarding, then, this conscious organized endeavor, enlightened and stimulated by a fuller understanding of industrial forces in their relation to human life, as a determinant of growing value in the industrial evolution of the future, it may properly belong to a scientific study of modern industry to seek to discover how the forces of conscious reform can reasonably work in relation to the economic forces whose operations have been already investigated.

"In other words, what are the chief lines of economic change required to bring about a readjustment between modern methods of production and social welfare? The answer to this question requires us to amplify our interpretation of the industrial evolution of the past century by producing into the future the same lines of development that they may be justified by the appearance of consisting with some rational social end. The most convenient, and perhaps the safest way to meet this demand is to indicate, with that modesty which rightly belongs to prophecy, some of the main reforms which seem to lie upon the road of industrial progress, rendered subordinate to larger human social ends."

The proposition made above with reference to Hobson's idealism is equally true of Von Halle (vide p. 141.). "No definite judgment about the trust question is possible as yet. It is too recent, and its phases undergo rapid and constant changes. But one thing is certain, the mere form of organization is irrelevant—possibly effect, surely not cause. Armour, or Chicago gas companies, or sugar trust; Carnegie, or the separated Standard Oil Conipanies under uniform management, or the American Cotton Oil Company—the form of ownership is of a secondary importance economically. The issue proper is, and will be for the near future, shall it be small or large undertakings, or to what extent shall there be compromises between them?

In the United States, public opinion has to decide finally about the meaning and nature of things. It will not be able, in the long run, to lean upon mere theories and maxims; it will be forced by the actual development to undergo changes, to reform and to remodel itself in correspondence with the great laws of historical progress. The old ideas about the infallibility and exclusive desirability of individual and unrestricted activity have begun to fade. The masses still adhere to them, and are supported therein by the newspapers and politicians