Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/295

NOTES AND ABSTRACTS rural conditions. He said: "This whole program is based on the idea that there is room in rural life, and not only room, but imperative need, for the religious factor as represented by the church, for the educational factor as represented by the school, and for the business factor as represented by the farmers' organization. And not only that, but this meeting is based on the further idea that co-operation and mutual aid among all these forces are extremely desirable. This is the correct view. If the church cannot become the center for all rural activities, it can at least become the center for those activities that are more directly religious, and a center for many other activities. If the school cannot become the center of country life, it can at least take the leadership in all educational work, and no doubt can enlarge its social interests. If the farmers' organization cannot do the work of church and school, it can at least supplement them, besides doing a distinctive work relating to the practical questions of farming, of business, of legislation. Moreover, will it not be better if all will admit the necessity for the work of others, and will seek to co-operate? That is the magic word, Co-operate. We hear about the necessity of co-operation among the churches, between teachers and school patrons, among farmers as farmers. But there is need of a still higher form of co-operation between church and school and farmers' organization. This meeting has not attempted to show just how this co-operation can be brought about; it will have done its work if it has convinced a few farmers and a few educators and a few country clergymen that 'co-operation between all rural forces' is one of the twentieth-century watchwords for rural progress."

"The Dependence of Agriculture upon Transportation," by Hon. E. A. Prouty, of the Interstate Commerce Commission.—A significant point in this paper is that of the relation between the over-capitalization of railway corporations and the legal regulation of railway charges. Mr. Prouty maintained that the remedy for monopoly in transportation is the control by public agencies of transportation charges, and that over capitalization of railway corporations interferes with such control. The great evil arising out of railway combinations lies in over-capitalization. " Ten years ago the state of Texas, believing its railway rates were unreasonable, created a commission and instructed that commission to formulate a schedule of rates which the railroads of Texas were ordered to observe. They did so, and the Supreme Court of the United States enjoined the state of Texas from enforcing those rates because they did not permit a return upon the capitalization of the Texas roads. A little bit later the state of Nebraska, smarting under what it thought unfair freight rates, made a schedule of freight rates which the roads should not exceed. The Supreme Court of the United States held that that law could not be enforced because the rates did not suffer those railroad companies to earn a fair return upon their capitalization. The experience of the state of South Dakota was exactly the same. In finding a reasonable rate, whether that question is decided by the railroad or whether it is decided by the government in revising the rate, the only thing to be considered is the capitalization of the railroad. If in time to come I am asked to fix a rate on the Great Northern Railroad, must I not take into account the fact that those $200,000,000 of ofof [sic] bonds with interest have got to be paid? One of the great faults in our present financial condition is over-capitalization, not only of steam railroads, but of every quasi public service."

The Evolutionary Method as Applied to Morality.—In much recent discussion about validity or objective value, writers have taken up indiscriminately two different standpoints. One question is this: What is the validity of the moral point of view as such? A distinct question is the following: How is the validity of a given moral point of view or judgment determined? Now ethical science is primarily concerned with problems of validity in the latter sense.

The historic method is a method, first, for determining how specific moral values (whether in the way of customs, expectations, conceived ends, or rules) came to be; and, second, for determining their significance as indicated in their career. Its assumptions are that norms and ideals, as well as unreflective customs, arose out of certain situations in response to the demands of those situations; and that once in existence they operated with a less or greater meed of success (to be determined by study of the concrete case). We are still engaged in forming norms, in setting