Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/359

 THE MEANING OF T^HE SOCIAL MOVEMENT 345

relation which these may bear to remoter abstract goods. The social movement is a demand for shorter working hours ; for more sanitary working space ; for better tenements ; for higher wages ; for less breadwinning by women and children ; for shifting of the burden of taxation so that the load will bear more equally on all backs ; for expenditure of public moneys in ways that will give all classes a rightful share of benefits ; for the use of govern- mental machinery so that it will help most those who can do least for themselves, and not artifically increase the advantage of those who can do most for themselves. The social movement is in spirit a very sincere attempt of people who are sure they want certain things to secure those things. People are reaching for goods that they understand, or think they do, without bother- ing their heads much about goods that they do not understand.

All this however is very near the surface of the social move- ment, and we are after the deeper meaning. Without doubt the vast majority of those who make up the social movement would say that I have already told all there is to it. I should be sorry if I felt obliged to believe them. There are undercurrents that these hints have not sounded. There are reasons for the social movement that have not yet been stated. Quite likely most of the people in the movement would not acknowledge the under- current. Very probably they would not accept the statement of reasons that I shall offer. The baby in the cradle cries, for reasons that he does not understand, and would not admit if they were explained to him. The instinct of mother and nurse finds out what kind of pain produces the cry. The social movement is to a considerable extent a spontaneous cry of pain and a spas- modic clutching for pleasure ; the sources of the pain and pleas- ure are not known by the majority who make the demonstration. They are not altogether beyond analysis and explanation.

My interpretation of the social movement then makes it, with all its faults, a proof that the natural force of humanity is not abated, that social virility is not exhausted. The social move- ment is today's form of the same vital facts which have always been the impulse of human advancement.