Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/36

 22 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

It may be truly said that, with few exceptions, pride of home, of family, of ancestral honor and hopeful anticipation of regard by posterity, except as the founder and preserver of a fortune, has been eradicated as a silly, unprofitable and unpractical senti- ment. If it can be restored or re-awakened, it will bring employment to thousands and eventually millions of the best class of agricultural laborers. The permanent beautifying of homes and country estates, and the preservation of woods, is not only a debt we owe to the future but one we owe to the past as well. We have been spendthrift robbers, who have filched jew- els from nature's bosom, and for her flowers and fruits, her shady hillsides and bosky dells have returned only aridness and bram- bles, decay, neglect and desolation. In paying back this debt, we shall give employment to a constantly increasing volume of labor, which will thereby be diverted to the manifest advantage of all from the field of immediate production.

In all candor it must be admitted that there is little if any indication that such a tendency will prevail. Nothing in our American life shows the existence of belief that the individual owes anything to family, vicinage or country, in the way of per- manent betterment of the material environment. There are a few "show places" here and there. Suburbs are built up with amazing rapidity and, in some cases, with substantial beauty. But they are mainly the work of corporate "improvement com- panies," and made to rent, to be sold, and re-sold. They are houses, habitations, some of them brides' nests, but few of them homes, having anything of the flavor and sacredness of individ- ual care and effort bestowed for the sake of making them family shrines consecrated to happiness.

It would be difficult to predict, however, the effects of a long continued epoch of low profits. Next to his worship of wealth the intelligent American loves his country and the good opinion of his fellows. A man who would be utterly unable to forego the temptation of twenty, ten or even six per cent, interest, find- ing it difficult to obtain three, and having already more than enough, might find an investment in present comfort, the perma-