In our
previous posting on this subject — the failure of the progressive movement of
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to address the issue of
widespread ownership of capital — we noted that because of a quarrel between
Roosevelt and one of his “trust busters,” Judge Peter S. Grosscup, the
ownership issue was sidelined during Roosevelt’s administration. It never became a part of the progressive
platform, despite ongoing efforts by Grosscup to focus people’s attention on
the critical need to spread out ownership of America’s productive capacity.
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| Archbishop John Ireland |
The fact was,
what with the rise of capitalism and socialism, combined with revolution in politics,
organized religion, and even Academia, the United States and the rest of the
world were in very serious trouble.
Unfortunately, very few voices were raised expressing concern about the
need to address the problem of concentrating capital ownership and the effect
this change was having in all aspects of life, even to the invention of a new
religion under the name of Christianity.
Grosscup, Archbishop John Ireland, G.K. Chesterton, and a few others
made the growing propertylessness of ordinary people a focus of their efforts
but were not taken seriously by the very people they were trying to help.
Consequently,
while Roosevelt made strenuous efforts to implement the progressive program
during his tenure as president, progressivism was ultimately built on an
unstable foundation and inadequate assumptions. Without widespread capital
ownership, ordinary people would continue to lose power, while State
bureaucrats and the wealthy would continue to gain power at the expense of the
people.
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| Gilbert Keith Chesterton |
The spirit and
direction of the country seemed different. As G.K. Chesterton observed at this
time,
In the case of America, indeed, a warning to this effect is
instant and essential. America, of course, like every other human thing, can in
spiritual sense live or die as much as it chooses. But at the present moment
the matter which America has very seriously to consider is not how near it is
to its birth and beginning, but how near it may be to its end. It is only a
verbal question whether the American civilization is young; it may become a
very practical and urgent question whether it is dying. (G.K. Chesterton, Heretics.
Hollywood, Florida: Simon and Brown, Publishers, 2011, 177.)
There will always
be an ongoing temptation in every time and place to replace the true power with
which private property naturally vests an owner, with the ephemeral pseudo
power that comes from State protection of the propertyless. The only choice
facing the American Republic, therefore, seemed to be between capitalism, with
its concentration of ownership in the hands of a private sector elite, and
socialism, with its concentration of ownership or control in the hands of the
State. The only question was whether the vested interests of the private sector
control the government that controlled the economy, or would the people control
the government?
In neither case
was the possibility of power subsisting directly in the people through
broad-based capital ownership addressed. The obvious threat of uncontrolled
growth of State power, or that of a private sector elite, made for an extremely
unstable social situation. As Herbert Knox Smith (1869-1931), Roosevelt’s
Commissioner of Corporations, described it,
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| Herbert Knox Smith |
In 1900 the surface of American life was, as it were,
hardening, was growing less plastic. Dangerous division lines were opening from
the pressures beneath, splitting the unity of the nation. The great trust
movement was in full force, sweeping into a few hands special industrial
privileges, the control of natural resources, and decisive advantages in
transportation. Individual opportunity and the open highways of commerce were
narrowing. Great corporations were considering themselves above the law, with
the cynical but increasing concurrence of the public. A sinister atmosphere was
gathering, menacing to American initiative and American ideals.
These recognized inequalities, with the twisted standards
which they implied, were moving strongly toward national disunity — that
profound disunity which in a democratic people must result from confessed
differences in privilege and opportunity. (Herbert Knox Smith, “The Great
Progressive,” Foreword to Social Justice and Popular Rule. New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926, xi.)
In short, the
divide between the propertied and the propertyless was growing. If something
were not done, the stage would be set for much greater problems in the future.
A decision had to be made.
Unfortunately,
Roosevelt made the wrong decision, at least in part. He may have been stymied
(as he evidently believed) by the presumed necessity of past savings to finance
new capital formation, a monopoly by definition controlled by the rich, and
thus the presumed inevitability of concentrated ownership. Roosevelt may also
have been somewhat diverted by his seeming exclusive focus on breaking up
monopolies by direct legal action by the State, rather than by indirect
financial and economic action by the people.
Whatever the
reason, Roosevelt believed that economic democracy could best be attained and
sustained by reining in the vested interests and returning control of the
government to the man in the street, before the man in the street had the
economic power to attain and sustain that political power. This was where
Grosscup’s input might have influenced Roosevelt’s program, at least had the
two men been on speaking terms at the time. Grosscup’s insights on the
necessity of widespread capital ownership would have been invaluable while
Roosevelt was president and had the power to do something.
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| Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. |
The forces
against which Roosevelt struggled, of course, were locked into the same
economic paradigm, and were prepared to meet him on his own ground.
Whether they
could beat him on it was another matter. As H.K. Smith put it,
The great interests were already familiar with Colonel
Roosevelt’s powers and purposes when he was President and earnestly feared and
hated them. He told them plainly: “Our intention is to extend the genuine
principles of democracy into our industrial and economic, as into our political
life.” They also saw, just as he did, that the old conflict was moving to a new
battle-ground — the political arena. They prepared for that struggle with the
intensity and short-sightedness of those who hope actually to hand down unfair
advantage to their children, not foreseeing the harvest those children would
reap. The original question, “Shall the Government control business?” gave
place to the ultimate question: “Shall the citizen control his Government?” (Ibid.,
xiii.)
But is the
ultimate question “Shall the citizen control his Government?” . . . or “How shall the citizen control his Government?”
By putting the cart before the horse, that is, putting the demand that the
citizen control his government before he can
control his government through widespread capital ownership, Roosevelt
virtually ensured that the progressive cause would come to nothing.
Does that mean,
however, that what Roosevelt did was completely useless? That would be as great
a mistake as to assume that the specifics Roosevelt proposed constituted a
complete solution to the problems facing the country.
The fact is, what
Roosevelt proposed was the right
thing to do. It just was not sufficient. There were just too many assumptions
implicit in the progressive program. Should government restrict itself to
providing a level playing field and equality of opportunity, enforcing
contracts, and policing abuses, and serving as the succor of the individual
citizen when all other recourse has been exhausted?
Of course it
should. That is what governments were instituted to do, and what progressives
demanded. It is just not enough when the country is in a state of crisis, and
most people are cut off from private property, the chief means by which they
participate in the common good.
The only thing
worse is to assume that the State can fill all
needs and directly make up what is
lacking when the institutions of society are flawed and prove inadequate. As Pope Pius XI would point out in the next
generation,
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| Pope Pius XI |
When we speak of the reform of institutions, the State comes
chiefly to mind, not as if universal well-being were to be expected from its
activity, but because things have come to such a pass through the evil of what
we have termed “individualism” that, following upon the overthrow and near
extinction of that rich social life which was once highly developed through
associations of various kinds, there remain virtually only individuals and the
State. This is to the great harm of the State itself; for, with a structure of
social governance lost, and with the taking over of all the burdens which the
wrecked associations once bore, the State has been overwhelmed and crushed by
almost infinite tasks and duties. (Quadragesimo Anno, § 78.)
Unfortunately, the
populist orientation had come around to the belief that the State should have
the ultimate responsibility to take care of people directly. By this time, the
populist position differed from that of the socialists only in degree.
Not to keep
making this point, but most people then and now could not see much or even any
difference between the respective positions of the progressives and the
populists. This meant that the decision would be made not on the issues, but on
personalities, and which side could muster the most effective rhetoric.
And that was a
problem.
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