Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/703

 THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL NIETZSCHEISM 689

necessity of fairer tax laws. Of the more radical programs of the single-taxers, land nationalizationists, socialists, and philosophi- cal anarchists it is hardly necessary to speak, for the point to be emphasized is that even the so-called conservative groups of society which have bestowed any thought upon social-economic problems adopt the theory that moral and intellectual progress depends upon betterments of conditions.

Neither exhortation nor example will have any perceptible influence in checking the spread of practical Nietzscheism, and Bishop Potter's recent suggestion that the mad scramble for wealth (and the power conferred by wealth) should be counter- acted by an organization of thoughtful men for the exemplifica- tion of "plain living and high thinking" cannot be deemed a happy one. Even in the earlier days of the nation the Brook Farm experiment was foredoomed to failure. In our own day of storm and stress, intense struggle for existence, sensational- ism, and hurry, Brook Farms or settlements, or even cooperative action of scattered individuals animated by a common purpose, would command neither influence nor sympathetic attention. Perhaps it is necessary to qualify the aphorism that small reforms are the enemies of great ones ; for, while small reforms do not attack the roots, the sources, of social wrong, they serve to popularize the idea of reform and prepare the public mind for radical programs. We all know that many things which ten or fifteen years ago were deemed almost revolutionary are now regarded as quite safe, and as within the limited vision of the ordinary citizen. This has been brought about by small reforms. To be a single-taxer or a socialist is no longer to be a member of the dangerous and criminal classes. In England the Fabians have made socialism respectable and interesting. In the United States we have plenty of unconscious Fabians of men who are in a position similar to that of Moliere's hero, who did not know that he had spoken prose for forty years. Municipal operation and ownership of "public utilities" (an elastic term) even can- didates for high office fearlessly embrace, and the philistine is not shocked. In fact, we are living in an era of small reforms of which little good and but little harm can be predicated.