Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/546

542 have opposed the spirit of progress for the same reason that the silversmiths dependent upon the votaries of Diana for their living and prosperity arrayed themselves against the preaching of Paul. Nor is this surprising. Those whose pockets are threatened by any proposed reform naturally try to get off with as little loss as possible. In addition to the opposition offered by vested interests, that due to the inertia of society and to impracticable reformers has had to be met and overcome. The indifference of many of the intelligent and respectable is one of the greatest barriers to progress. The obstacles that have been successfully encountered and overcome inspire the hope that the spirit of the age is moving in the right direction.

The world-wide character of the present era of discontent strengthens and confirms this hope. In England, Germany, France and other nations there is a forward movement that has much in common. In many of the more backward countries, the suffrage is being broadened and the people are playing a more influential part in governmental affairs. The fact that personal liberty calls for more interference on the part of the state is quite generally recognized. It is not the old-time marauder who waylays his victim with a club against whom protection is needed so much as the superior cunning and unscrupulousness of a certain type of the modern man of affairs. In every progressive country, the community is now doing things which the common man once attended to himself. The individual is becoming more dependent upon the state to safeguard him against monopoly, foul air, impure milk, adulterated food and unsanitary plumbing, and to insure him against the contingencies of sickness, unemployment, accident and old age. The duty of protecting the individual against unduly long hours of labor and unwholesome conditions while at work, of preserving him from improper amusements in his leisure moments, and of supplying him with the educational facilities necessary to start him properly in life and to meet his mental and esthetic needs in his mature years is devolving more and more upon the state. There is a concerted movement to give the man who has been worsted in life a chance to get upon his feet and regain his self-respect. The growing density of population and its concentration in cities are socializing the production of certain things with which the individual has commonly supplied himself. Many European cities have municipalized the supply of water, light and local transportation. The Cincinnati board of health took over the ice plants of the city during the strike last summer. The federal government has established postal savings banks and a parcels-post, and government ownership and operation of the telephone, telegraph and railway are spreading throughout the world.

Another evidence that the present trend of affairs is not far amiss is that men seldom break things as they are without just cause. The