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starting of the fund, was required to pay into this fund annually for thirtythree years three per cent. of their estimated value after deducting unpaid bonds. In some cases the prices of the products had to be increased slightly to meet this requirement. This plan was not unfair to the consumer of the product as the general public built the works in the first instance, so it was not wrong that the consumer was required to repay, in small annual installments, the remaining value of the works. The fund was designed solely to build additional public industries on a cash basis. For a time much money had to be added to this fund by direct taxation; now, however, the four per cent. installments required from new works meet all demands for further construction.

"The public also reserved the right, on due notice, to alter the rate of charges, always, however, making good any shortage below the fixed minimum of profit. The minimum annual profit was commonly fixed at two per cent, and the maximum at fifteen per cent., interest on capital invested was not allowed. As the conditions in any public industry changed, the rate of charges was changed as nearly as possible to correspond. The aim ordinarily was to allow eight per cent. net profit for average ability in the operation of public utility enterprises. The rule providing a minimum profit of two per cent. annually was intended as a protection to private owners against possible losses that might accrue as the result of the introduction of new inventions which would throw established manufacturing plants into disuse. This rule of a minimum profit, together with the extensive public supervision and control, fairly protected the public against the possibility of private owners building plants which were uncertain as to permanency.

"This public supervision of privatelyowned public utilities was not wholly satisfactory. The matter of fixing the amount of profit often had to be carried

to the courts, and the decision was frequently unfair because graft still existed to a certain extent and influenced the testimony. About 1925 many states passed laws requiring that each publiclyowned enterprise must establish such prices for its product as would make the business entirely self-supporting. These laws also required that all money for the construction of municipal works must in gradually increasing proportion come from the Public Utilities Fund,' and that all construction money must be returned to the 'Public Utilities Fund' without interest in annual installments of four per cent. of the original cost of the works.

"Opposition to public-ownership gave way by degrees. It was believed by many that municipal-ownership weakened the character of the average man employed in the works. Gradually it became apparent that those works in which self-supporting students were employed, succeeded well. The works came to be regarded as means for instructing these students in business methods, and as a place for them to establish their reputations for later life, so in time municipal works were regarded as builders of character.

"In the year 1920 it became the general practice to employ only students in the works, except in the limited number of permanent positions. In 1925, owing to the increase in the number of municipal works, graduates were allowed to fill twenty per cent. of the positions in municipal service and this percentage was increased until in 1940 seventy per cent. of graduates were employed, but in no case were they employed where student labor was available. This restriction was deemed as a wise check to the too rapid establishing of municipal works. A limited number of men like 'A' who had left the school before graduating, but who succeeded in passing the required municipal service examinations, were employed in the more common positions, whenever neither

students nor graduates could be secured. "As experience grew, the municipal service examinations became more exacting and more practical, so that the standing made by the individual was a fair index of his ability and of his common sense. All graduate employés were then as now considered out of employment every five years and were obliged to take additional examinations. These quintennial examinations could then as now be taken by any public works high school graduate whether or not he had been employed in the works giving the examination. Those standing highest were given the positions. The workers who were superseded by the ones making a better standing, readily found other work through the 'State Employment Office.' The general public was imbued with the idea that progress depended upon every man's filling the place to which he was best suited.

"Now, as you know, every law and every practice is established with a view to encourage individuality, ambition, and efficiency. The more equitable adjustment of wages and the increased opportunity for secondary education have been important factors in the social and economic progress of this century."

Some may fear, that under general municipal-ownership the majority of voters may decide to fix wages too nearly alike for all, just as "A's" and "B's" wages were made to approximate rather closely considering the nature of the services rendered by each. If such a wage system for municipal workers should be inaugurated, we could console ourselves with the fact that, with public works high schools, the shirker would be quickly discovered and summarily but fairly dealt with by the "Operating Committee." Through the agency of a thorough secondary education, intellectual and industrial worth will be more general, and the average individual earnings will be larger. What would perhaps tend toward equalization of

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wages more than any other one thing is the desire of most men to do the work that requires all their training, knowledge, and reasoning powers. For instance, the capable carpenter would rather do the work in a fine public structure at $4.00 per day than to build barns at the same wages. The capable manager would prefer to manage a large municipal electric-light plant at $20.00 per day rather than, at equal wages, to spend all his working hours reading the consumer's meters. It is apparent that a more general education through which a larger number of men and women are trained to do the finer and more difficult work tends to lessen the difference between the wages received for the common and coarser work and those received for the finer and more difficult work. The greater desirability of any certain employment will largely constitute the greater reward. Men and women will choose occupations to which they are by nature adapted, as there will be few positions with abnormal wages to allure those prompted by greed; efficiency will thus be increased.

It is highly improbable that wages will ever be arbitrarily equalized, but even in the event of such equalization, "B," for example, would not be discouraged, though he might be a trifle handicapped, if he does not receive so much wages as he deserves when compared with the wages "A" receives for less valuable services. "A's" and "B's" regular work day, as before stated, would be five hours each; this would leave nineteen free hours for each to use as he sees fit. As previously stated, “B” requires seven hours of sleep while "A” requires ten hours. The remaining hours each could spend in such activity as he pleased, and out of these hours each would reap according to what he sowed, and would reap the entire product. Because of the difference in the characters of the men, "B" would obtain many times more good out of his twelve free waking hours than "A" would

obtain out of his nine corresponding regardless of the question of earnings.

hours. Out of these free hours each man would receive all he creates; he could use his individuality without limit, and no one, as a matter of law or of custom, would receive a part of the reward due another. What one could do for himself in each free hour is quite as valuable as the best he could do for himself in each regular work hour, and much more valuable than that done in any work hour spent in the mere accumulation of unnecessary wealth. General municipal-ownership might possibly result in five hours daily of partial industrial coöperation and would leave the remaining hours free. If in the course of time, the fixing of wages should become a public office, a public as intelligent as the public works high school would make it, would undoubtedly fix a varying renumeration for its different classes of work, and the remuneration would be on a just and practical basis which would encourage healthy ambition. Should there develop a social and economic condition under which a most capable man could not reasonably expect to accumulate an abnormal fortune as is possible to-day, the incentive to accumulate the maximum fortune that the economic conditions would permit would still be quite as effective a stimulant to ambition as exists to-day when conditions permit of vast accumulation of wealth.

Under general municipal-ownership and general secondary education, two lives of municipal workers as different as the lives of "A" and "B," would be easily possible. So great a difference, however would be less common than at present and most lives would be nearer like that of "B." These differing people would, as now, be living examples of what can be avoided and what gained by the right kind of effort. The probable result of such effort would be incentive enough to improve in character and to be ambitious in the finest sense quite

We have even more extreme examples before us now, but we are too deficient in true secondary education and corresponding character to profit adequately by these examples.

When privately-owned industries grow large and powerful and partake of the nature of monopolies, the responsible positions are sometimes given to friends and relatives of the owners, regardless of the fitness of these persons to fill such positions. This nepotism takes away from many better minds the opportunity to develop individuality in industrial fields, and thus creates a condition in these particular instances which is fully as bad if not worse for the development of individuality in both managers and laborers than is claimed to exist under municipal-ownership at the present time. Taking these several points into consideration, it does not seem probable that even the keenest minds in the field of public utilities would be retarded by a gradual introduction of municipal-ownership. The field of private industry will still exist for those who prefer it; but to insure success, private industry will require higher efficiency than at present.

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Again we wish to say that with

thorough system of high school education, the national character will be strengthened. This stronger national character will not lead to an undersirable uniformity of thought; on the contrary it will give freer play to individual talents, and will lead to a fuller expression of individuality.

By the middle of this century our struggle for wealth will no longer be a matter of life consuming battles, and the questionable development which results solely from such battles may have largely disappeared. The hard and unfair battles of industrial and commercial competition will be of less and less value as thorough secondary education becomes more universal. These battles will be displaced by a finer but

no less difficult effort, the effort to deserve and to receive the confidence and respect of one's fellow men. Under these new conditions we shall have time to give more attention to our health; time for a broader and more even devel

opment of our minds; time for the better training of our children, and time to spare for the happiness of others. These unquestioned gains will result in a stronger individuality. WILLIAM THUM.

THE GROWTH OF A SOCIAL NERVOUS SYSTEM.

BY ALLAN L. BENSON.

RUTH has been defined as that which will fit every other truth in the world. The tenon of a lie may fit the mortises of many truths, but it will not fit them all. So it is with the lie of innocent ignorance that we call error. However plausible such error may be, it will sometime be tried in a mortise in which it will not fit, and thus will its real nature become known.

It is just as certainly true that all truth tends to confirm itself. Geology tends to confirm chemistry, mathematics tends to confirm astronomy, and the falling apple proclaims again and again that all bodies have a mutual attraction for each other. When dissimilar assertions repeatedly testify in behalf of each other, the best of reasons is afforded for believing that all of the allegations are true.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Darwin and Marx evolved radical theories regarding two dissimilar subjects of world-wide concern. Darwin found the most civilized part of the earth peopled with human beings who claimed a clay-man as their common ancestor. He shattered this man of mud, and, when he left the world, the protozoa sat enthroned upon the remains of Adam.

Marx found the world committed to individualism. No man conceived that his interest lay in looking after anybody but himself. It was regarded as entirely proper for one individual to profit from

the misfortune of another. The accepted method of improving the mental, moral, and material welfare of the mass of individuals was to set each individual to fighting for himself, on the theory that the status of the mass could not fail to be satisfactory, if the condition of each of its members was the object of governmental solicitude. In short, the theory of social development took little cognizance of society as a whole, except in so far as the penal laws were concerned. Everywhere it was taught that society should work together to punish its foes; nowhere was it taught that it should work together for itself. Much less had it ever been suggested that the greatest permanent welfare of the individual could be brought about, not by aiming beneficent laws at the individual himself, but by directing them at the great mass of human beings of whom he was but one. It was the day of extreme individualism. "Let every man have the greatest opportunity to do for himself," was the cry. 'Each man for himselfthe devil take the hindmost," was the echo.

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Marx challenged this view-challenged it as boldly as Darwin challenged the belief that Adam was our first ancestor, and that God had made him in His own image out of mud. Precisely as Darwin had declared that the physical body is made up of cells, Marx declared that the social body is composed of individuals.

He declared that these individuals are as inter-dependent as are the cells that compose the physical body, and, in effect, that it was as absurd to expect health and symmetrical development in the social body by setting each of its individuals to fighting each other in competitive warfare as it would be to expect such conditions to arise in the physical body by setting the lungs to fighting the liver, the heart to fighting the brain, and the stomach to fighting the eyes. If he had wished to use an anatomical illustration to show what the physical body would be if it were operated on the plan laid down for the social body, he might have suggested that a heart that chanced to be stronger than the other organs in the same body might, in the competitive warfare over the food taken into the stomach, secure such an undue proportion of the nutriment that it would become gorged with fat, and of monstrous size. And, if he had wished to extend the illustration, he might have said that fatty degeneration of the heart produces death-death not only to all the other organs, but death to the whole body, including the heart itself.

Marx's theory was, in short, that the social body is as real in the realm of economics as is the physical body in the sphere of fact with which Darwin dealt, and that the greatest permanent welfare of each of its cells-its individuals can be subserved only by aiming to subserve the welfare of the body as a whole. And. in so saying, he only marked out a sociological path that ran parallel with the biological route that Darwin blazed.

The intelligent part of the world knows what has been the result of the Darwinian theory of evolution and the Marxian theory of social development. The Darwinian theory had to combat little except ignorance, and, has already found all but universal acceptance. The Marxian theory has had to combat both ignorance and greed. It has not yet

found universal acceptance, but it is steadily pushing its way. Already we have some slight conception of what is meant by such phrases as: "All for one and one for all"; "from each according to his ability; to each according to his needs."

It is the purpose of the present writer to suggest, if not to demonstrate in this article, that the Darwinian theory of evolution and the Marxian theory of social progress have confirmed and corroborated each other in one way to which attention has not been called, so far as he knows, up to this time. We all know the belief of Darwin that, in the beginning, all life resided in a single cell; that this cell had no nervous system and was therefore insensible both to pleasure and to pain; that it became, by innumerable sub-divisions and a long line of evolutionary processes, a human being who had a nervous system and could feel. And, having in mind the Darwinian theory of the survival of the fittest, we can readily understand how it came about that all human beings now have nerves. Somewhere in the line between the one-celled organism and the modern man came an animal that developed the germ of a nervous system. When its body was attacked, and its existence perhaps imperiled, it was able to feel the pain caused by the attack, and perhaps to save its life by moving away. Of the millions of one-celled or, at least fewcelled animals that existed at that time. probably a number developed, practically simultaneously, a slight capacity for feeling. The animals that possessed this faculty, even to a small degree, instantly had an advantage, in the struggle for existence, over all animals that had no nerves to warn them when their bodies were in danger from exterior sources. And, thus it came about in the long run, that the organisms without nerves were born down by their superiors, and to-day no child is born without these tingling fibers in his body.

Now come the facts which, as the

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