PROBLEMS OF MUNICIPAL ADMINISTRATION 449 



too highly, but by too exclusive a valuation, that which they had 

 secured through the shedding of blood? 



Man has ever overestimated the spoils of war and tended to lose 

 his sense of proportion in regard to their value. He has ever sur- 

 rounded them with a glamour beyond their deserts. This is quite 

 harmless when the booty is an enemy's sword hung over a household 

 fire, or a battered flag decorating a city hall; but when the spoil of 

 war is an idea which is bound on the forehead of the victor till it 

 cramps his growth, a theory which he cherishes in his bosom until 

 it grows so large and so near that it afflicts its possessor with a sort 

 of disease of responsibility for its preservation, it may easily over- 

 shadow the very people for whose cause the warrior issued forth. 



We have not yet apprehended what the scientists call " the doc- 

 trine of the unspecialized," what the religious man calls " the counsel 

 of imperfection," and the wise educator calls " the wisdom of the 

 little child." If successful struggle ends in survival, in blatant 

 and tangible success, and, as it is popularly supposed to do, in a 

 certain hardness of heart, with an invincible desire to cling fast to 

 the booty which has been thus hardly acquired, government will 

 also have to reckon with the many who have been beaten in this 

 struggle, with the effect upon them of the contest and the defeat; 

 for, after all, they will always represent the majority of citizens, 

 and it is with its large majority that self-government must event- 

 ually deal, whatever else other governments may determine for 

 themselves. 



We are told that mere successful struggle breeds emotion, not 

 strength; that the hard-pressed races are the emotional races; and 

 that wherever struggle has long prevailed emotion is the domin- 

 ant force in fixing social relations. Because of this emotional 

 necessity all the more does it seem a pity that American municipal 

 administration has so long confined itself to cold and emotionless 

 areas, dealing as it must with the immigrants who come to us in 

 largest numbers from the lands of oppression, and who vote quite 

 simply for the man who is kind to them. We do much loose talking 

 in regard to American immigration; we use the phrase " the scu-m 

 of Europe," and other unwarranted words, without realizing that 

 the underdeveloped peasant mav be much more valuable to us here 

 than the more highly developed, but also more highly specialized 

 town-dweller, who may much less readily develop the acquired char- 

 acteristics which the new environment demands. 



To demand protection from these so-called barbarians in our 

 midst, who are supposed to issue forth from the shallows of the 

 city and to seize upon the life and treasure of the citizens, as bar- 

 barians of old came from outside the city walls, is, of course, not to 

 have read the first lessons of self-government in the light of evolu- 



