ness conduct once in perfectly good standing is being called in question. Are sweatshop conditions just and right? is a question asked on every hand. The American people are waking up to the fact that an abundance of free land rather than the excellence of their institutions has been the secret of much of the success which they have achieved, and that the disappearance of the former renders reliance upon a happy-go-lucky system of dispensing justice no longer prudent. Moreover, justice has ceased to dwell among the clouds and a larger measure of it is within the grasp of the ordinary man if he but asks for it. People are demanding justice here and now and can no longer be put off with promises of bliss in the hereafter.
Modern civilization is imposing heavier burdens upon the courts in still another way. The growing complexity of the environment has greatly increased the sum total of human relations and changed the character of many old ones. The relations between employer and employee when the two worked side by side bore little resemblance to what they are to-day in connection with a trunk-line railway or gigantic trust. The staple necessaries of life which every community once produced for itself are now supplied through the portals of the world market. Producer and consumer have ceased to be neighbors and the personal relations which once obtained between them have ceased to exist. The problem of regulating the relations which exist between the public on the one hand and the railways, trusts and labor organizations on the other baffles the keenest minds.
Again, we have become less exultant as a people, less confident of our future, less disposed to leave our destiny as a nation to drift without a guiding hand and purpose. There is a growing sense that a
better future, just in so far as it is better, will have to be planned and constructed rather than fulfilled of its own momentum. . . . The way to realize a purpose is, not to leave it to chance, but to keep it loyally in mind, and adopt means proper to the importance and the difficulty of the task.[1]
The suspicion is growing that the self-interest of the individual is not at one with the public welfare. There is misgiving lest barriers arise to obstruct the process whereby men of ability, no matter how humbly born, have hitherto risen to positions of trust and leadership in the community. There is fear lest a system of caste get such a foothold that young men of promise will cease to aspire and rest content with the stations in life in which they happen to be born. There is a keener sense of social responsibility and less of a disposition to hold the individual responsible for human failure. Poverty is not regarded as a condition to which large numbers of men are hopelessly condemned. In short, an atmosphere of seriousness has swept over the nation and imposed more difficult tasks upon the courts.
- ↑ Herbert Croly, "The Promise of American Life," pp. 6 and 24.
